"You Play Like a Girl!”

What deters females from engaging in the technologically-complex digital games that males do?  Elena Bertozzi’s article "You Play Like a Girl!" offered insights into the cultural conditioning that prohibits females from participating with males in cross gender competition.  Bertozzi’s interest in this topic stems from what she regarded as a vital connection between involvement in “mental rotation games” – complex PC games – and competence with digital technology.  Because digital game players are predominately male, and since females who choose to participate in these complex games will have to play against them, gender norms surface.  Since players bring their preconceptions to the digital game room, Bertozzi explained that both genders must supersede traditionally held cultural beliefs in order to interact in digital gaming. Both females and males have to challenge norms in order to interact productively. 

What are these traditional, cultural play lines that need to be crossed in order for females to enter the male-dominated digital arena?  Bertozzi described them as their belief systems regarding male-and-female interactions which stems from cultural conditioning.  For example, women in society are supposed to be weaker and in need to protection from men.  Females are not considered the equals of males, especially in areas of physical duress or conflict.  So, female avatars and participants in gaming situations are expected to follow feminine norms of passivity whereas male avatars can be aggressive with other males, yet protective of females.  Thus, when females enter the gaming arena, they bring with them the social order of the lives they know outside of gaming.  In order for females to compete with males in cross gender challenges, there are rules to be broken and new rules to be overlaid.  Specifically to entice females to embrace technology, Bertozzi suggested that game designers need to acknowledge the nuances of cross-gender play, creating more female characters and new non-stereotypical avatars (i.e., aggressive and strong as well as sexually attractive).  These will remove barriers to female participation.

It is not surprising that both men and women bring their preconceived notions of gender into their digital game play nor is it a revelation that women need to embrace technology if they want to realize expanded career opportunities.  Since we have not done so as a society, it is difficult for males and females to overlay a new set of rules just for their interactions in digital gaming.  Bertozzi made salient points as to why females are disconnected from digital gaming, however, her conclusions on how to proceed were anemic.  The digital gaming industry needs to grasp the untapped market that female gamers represent so that the industry will work on related product design, marketing, and packaging.  Female gamers need to compete against other women in “mental rotation games”, learning to express their aggression through competition, to view their self-worth through skill attainment, and to work productively with other females in a hierarchy – all female shortfalls according to Bertozzi’s article – prior to and in preparation for addressing cross gender competition in digital gaming.  By doing so, females will be readied to express, view and work in ways that are more cohesive with the competitive environment.  This will serve to ‘level the playing field’ so that both males and females can compete with a common understanding of the process, goals, rules, and outcomes of productive competition.