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Despite its image as a bastion of liberal thinking and its unusually high percentage of female workers, the publishing industry still has a significant sexual harassment problem.

As colleges and universities increasingly award video gaming scholarships, field competitive esports teams, construct esports arenas in the centers of campuses, and promote student interaction through gaming, schools should anticipate the sexual cyberviolence, harassment, and technology-enabled abuse that commonly occur through gaming.

As of 2019, there are an estimated 2.5 billion garners globally. Roughly half of all garners are female. Despite the figures, there is a serious underrepresentation of female gainers in the professional gaming and game development community. It is thus important to examine the underlying causes hindering equally capable female gainers and game developers from pursuing a serious career in gaming, at par with their male counterparts.In this article, the authorexamines the impact of the culturalassociationof games with the male demography, stereotypes andstructuralbarrierslimiting women from realizing theirfullpotential, female representation in video games and workplace, pervasive misogyny and sexual harassment of women across all levels in the industry, and lastly, the steps that can be taken to better the status quo in favour of women.

Competitive video gaming or esports has captured the attention of hundredsof millions ofpeople acrossthe globe. With that attentionhas come billions of dollars' worth of investment and promotion. But, it has also exposed an underlying toxic environment that features widespreadsexual andgender harassment. This pervasive culture of harassment threatens to derailthe esports industry and mars the promise of gender equity in one of the few competitive "sports"where physical strength, agility and body size do not dictate success. In this Article, we examine the rise of competitive gaming, and provide an in-depth analysis of the pervasive issue of harassment that permeates esports. We then propose a series of tangible reforms that would hold harassers and their corporate accomplices accountablefor their harassingbehavior.

Since the 1990s, conversations about the dearth of women working in the video game industry have centered on three topics: (1) ways to draw more women into the field, (2) the experiences of women working in the industry, and (3) the experiences of those who once worked in the industry but left. Although there has been considerable research on the conditions and occupational identities of video game developers, less scholarly attention has been devoted to women in gameswork, the barriers/obstacles and challenges/opportunities they face, and how they talk about their experiences. This article offers a feminist approach that demonstrates how discourse focused on affect can be reread as intimately related to silences about power and how the rhetorical constraints that public speech imposes upon what can be said about “women in games” aid us in understanding what might remain unspoken, and why.

Review: Cooperative Gaming: Diversity in the Games Industry and How to Cultivate Inclusion, by Alayna Cole and Jessica Zammit. 2020. CRC Press. xv + 95 pp.

The esports, or competitive video gaming, industry is an exciting area of economic and cultural growth. Gaming can facilitate interpersonal connection, shared problem-solving, and creativity. Players may purchase a game, watch a streamer play it online, join an online gaming community, attend a tournament, compete professionally, or find employment in game development or a related field. The gaming industry generates enormous economic value and employs tens of thousands of people in the UK alone. However, the esports sector does not extend its benefits equally. Women are regularly verbally harassed in video games, countless women have been groped at esports events, women have been raped by professional players, underage fans have been groomed. Abuse is endemic to online gaming communities.

This article interrogates the localized experiences of present-day workers who identify as women in Australian postproduction sectors, including editing, visual effects (VFX), and animation, exploring sex­ ism and perceptions of change in the age of #MeToo. Considering the significant numbers of women working in these sectors, and the scant research into their experiences undertaken in an Australian context, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews with ten women in various roles and in various geographical locations in Australia. This qualitative approach to data collection aims to explore inequalities that may not be captured in industry surveys, providing fine-grain details of the ways that individuals in postproduction experience sexism. The resulting data suggests that while there is continuity between the gendered experiences of these workers and that of women in industry sectors that have already been documen­ ted, there are, however, new observations about changes in work­ place behavior in the sector, brought about by growing public awareness of industry discrimination and harassment and of shifts in Australian industry policy. The authors isolated recurring themes within women’s gendered experiences in relation to how they per­ ceived the impact of the gender-equity initiatives on the attitudes of their co-workers, their workplace opportunities, and their experi­ ences as workers.

In India, the 2012 Delhi gang rape case catalyzed protests for women’s rights, particularly in regard to their safety. These demands were rekindled with vigor anew with the eruption of the #MeToo movement. In the Indian film industry, the most visible change appeared in the gradual increase of films with womenleads. But behind the scenes, there has been comparatively less change in female representation. Currently, approximately less than 10% of film directors in India are women. Considering the impor­ tance of having stories about women being made by women, in this article I examine the factors that hinder women’s entrance and tenure in the Mumbai film industry. I argue that a composite of concerns, including but not limited to reputability and personal security, thwarts women’s progress in the industry. I base my con­ clusions on interviews with women and men working in the film industry, conducted in Mumbai in 2017. I use the framework of the Ambivalent Sexism Index developed by psychologists Glick and Fiske in 1996, and revised in 2013, (1996, 2001, 2013) to examine my interviewees’ encounters with hostile and benevolent sexism. This article complicates our understanding of the reasons that limit the work of women beyond explanations of overt discrimination.

Gone are the days where only men were the breadwinners of a family. With opportunities expanding and people moving forward into a contemporary world, gender disparity regardingemployment has become a thin line. We are in an era where both men and women workfor a living and contribute to theirfamily. Women are now coming forward and stepping into powerful positions and leaving their marks in various industries. However, there are many issues that demotivate women from coming forward. One such major issue is the absence of a healthy and safe working environment. Sexual Harassmentat Workplace is a violation of a woman's fundamental rights under Article 15, 19 and 21. It makes a woman insecure and causes severe mental trauma which in turn makes her quit the job or affects her self-confidence. Women are not sex toys for pleasure or the weak vulnerable section of humankind, but years of the patriarchalsystem that silenced women have resultedin women being subject to such exploitation.

I start this discussion in this chapter with an outline of the key points within the #metoo debate, looking at what, according to various scholars, has and has not been achieved since the hashtag went viral in 2017. This overview constitutes the context for the subsequent analysis and critical evaluation, which will look at how the press conceptualised #metoo, and how it shaped some of the wider discussions about the hashtag. In Chapter 11, it will focus on whether (and how) the widespread use of #metoo after 2017 affected the representation of violence against women in the British press compared to the previous years.

In 2019 the video games industry was rocked by a slew of high-profile sexual harassment and assault allegations that some called the #MeToo movement of the games world, but to many these revelations came as no surprise. From the 2004 EA Spouse controversy to the 2014 #Gamergate harassment campaign the games industry has long been known for harboring an at times toxic atmosphere of exploitation and discrimination. This project looks at a handful of Women-In-Games organizations that set out to change the experience of women in the industry by helping newcomers to gain high tech skills and to supporting early career professionals through mentorship and community building. Along the way, it combines the study of these Women-In-Games organizations with a years-long collaboration bringing video games to the US' oldest feminist bookstore, Charis Books & More in Atlanta, GA. Through examining the work and values of two types of organizations devoted to women's equality, one a historic feminist movement-building space and the others, contemporary interventions into the professional games and tech industry, this study asks the questions "What can the Women-In-Games movement learn from the rich history of feminist organizing at spaces like Charis?" "Can games play a part in feminist movement building?" and "What does the future of feminist organizing look like in the games industry?”

Description Cooperative Gaming provides context and practical advice regarding diversity in the games industry. The book begins with a deep dive into research literature and the history of diversity in the games industry to provide context around what diversity is and why it is a topic worth considering. The book looks at the different facets of diversity and games, exploring the issues and solutions within game development, studio management, event planning, and more. It provides people with practical advice about being a marginalized person in the games industry and how to be heard, how studios can support inclusive practices, and events can actively become more accessible to a diverse audience. Key Features • Explores the history of diversity in games • Provides important information around what it is like to be a marginalized person in the industry • Gives practical steps to improve the inclusivity of the industry that are designed to aid in contextualizing and upskilling new developers Author Bios Alayna Cole is the managing director of Queerly Represent Me, a not-for-profit championing queer representation in games. Alayna is also a producer at Sledgehammer Games, co-chair of the IGDA LGBTQ+ special interest group, and an award-winning games journalist and game developer. She was featured on the 2016 and 2017 Develop Pacific 30 Under 30 lists and the 2017 and 2019 Develop Pacific Women in Games lists, and she has received several other accolades in the industry. Jessica Zammit started writing in 2013 for Start Select Media, and for the next five years she followed her interest in writing about representations of mental health, diversity, and particularly, sexuality in video games. Jessica has been speaking about diversity in games at conventions such as PAX Australia since 2016 and has been featured on several other discussions in and around the topic of representation in games and games criticism. Along with her co-author, she is co-chair of the IGDA LGBTQ+ special interest group, and she was featured on the 2018 Develop Pacific 30 Under 30 and Women in Games lists.

Globally, video games are a $152 billion industry, and approximately 3.1 billion people, or 40% of the population, are players (Ingersoll & Anti-Defamation League, 2019, Price, 2020). Gaming is a huge industry, and it’s only getting bigger. Unfortunately, women and other historically marginalized groups often face staggering levels of harassment and violence in these communities. This report aims to explore the issue of gender-based violence in video games by analyzing contributing factors and proposing gaming company interventions.

Since 2017, increased sexual harassment incidents have been reported in Hollywood; yet, little guidance has been offered on how organizations, which are informally governed by their network members, can effectively reduce sexual harassment. Building upon the theory of network governance, this paper suggests social mechanisms, which are used to coordinate and safeguard exchanges between Hollywood organizations, are more effective at reducing incidents of workplace sexual harassment than traditional strategies. These social mechanisms direct change to the macroculture through collective sanctions that damage the perpetrators reputation and restrict access to network opportunities. In essence, perpetrators become toxic assets that Hollywood avoids and this avoidance is similar to economic sanctions that can deter sexual harassment.

This chapter provides a contextual account of the rise of #MeToo as an global gender-equality campaign supporting those affected by sexual transgressions. Originally articulated by African-American civil rights activist Tarana Burke in 2006, the slogan ‘me too’ was meant as a rallying cry to support young minority ethic survivors of sexual abuse. Years later, social media would turn Burke’s motto into a byword for the global #MeToo movement. The chapter chronicles the events surrounding #MeToo’s inception, including Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s sexual exploitation scandal in 2017, and The New York Times and The New Yorker exposés of his serial offending within the film industry. It also examines the narratives of countless survivors and #MeToo campaigners, including high-profile cases such as those of Rose McGowan, Alyssa Milano, Mimi Haleyi, Jessica Mann and Zelda Perkins. The chapter then critically considers the growth and international significance of #MeToo as well as its inherent shortcomings.