Video Games: Do Girls Play Differently Than Boys During Adolescence?

[Un article de The Conversation écrit par Barbara Fontar – Maîtresse de conférences en sciences de l”éducation, Université Rennes 2 – & Mickaël Le Mentec – Maitre de conférences en sciences de l’éducation et de la formation, Université Rennes 2]

Digital social networks, music listening, video games and series are sociability, entertainment and information for young people. Through these activities, adolescents and adolescents develop a common culture.

But we would be wrong to think of this culture as homogeneous insofar as digital and media practices vary according to the social conditions of existence of individuals and their way of appropriating technologies. They depend on the social environment, age, space in siblings and are also the subject of sexual marking.

The sexual marking of cultural practices is explained by gender injunctions embodied in cultural products, among which video games hold first place in the cultural industries market. While half of video game players today are girls, in the collective imagination the video game is male culture. However, feminization does not mean lack of differentiation.

Girls games, boys' games

Between 13 and 15 years old, whatever their social environment, there are strong differences between girls and boys in terms of frequency, supports and types of games. During their free time, boys play more often and longer than girls. They favor game consoles and computers to indulge in shooting and combat games (Call of Duty,, Fortnite), sport and competition (mainly football like Fifa), or their phone to play Brawl Starstrategy and shooting game.

Girls turn to mobile phone games and movement detector consoles, which correspond more to leisure practices associated with female through simulation and dance games (Just dance).

The types of game partners also differ: boys play mainly alone in online multiplayer mode, when girls more often share this activity with a family member – a consequence of their gender socialization – or with friends.

The weight of gender stereotypes thus largely weighs on this polarized practice where everyone, each seems to conform to the gendered role that society assigns to them. The preferences of girls and boys are reinforced by the marketing strategies of video game publishers, which explicitly target their products according to gender standards.

Stigmatized gender transgressions

However, girls also play so -called boys' games. Three reasons can explain it. First, the presence of female symbolic dimensions (avatar, female characters) in certain particularly masculinized games of games that allows you to identify and embody characters of its kind.

Then, girls are commonly numerous to practice activities considered to be male. Indeed, due to gender asymmetry, it is less dangerous (in terms of risk of stigma, for example) for a girl to invest a male territory than the reverse.

“There are more girls who go to boys than boys who go to girls' stuff,” notes a teenager.

This remark reflects the asymmetry and hierarchy of video game practices, where the male universe remains dominant and legitimate. The boys therefore refrain from advertising a video game practice that would come under the female genre, socially devalued.

Finally, the presence of a brother, a father or even a friend video game player strongly promotes the foray of girls in the world of male video games, as evokes Ophélie, 13 years old:

“What I like is when I play with my brother. »»

However, this gender transgression is not without consequences for these girls. They undergo stigmatizing remarks, especially from boys: “Okay, you are guys. Whether they play so -called girls or boys' games, their practices are most often disqualified by boys.

During an investigation during which teenagers and teenagers were gathered to talk about their video game practice, that of the former is particularly disparaged by the latter: they monopolize and cut off, take the posture of the subject, ridicule the games associated with girls by reducing them with a few shots: “Games for wise children”, says one, not very interesting for boys to clean the babies and to milk the cows ”.

Girls justify their practice by devaluing it

For their part, the girls do not easily evoke playing video games: saying and assuming their practice is conditioned on its devaluation. They underestimate the quality of the game (“it's small games”), their level of skills (“I'm zero”) or their commitment to games (“it's just to laugh”).

In addition, the presence of a masculine third in the nearby environment also makes it possible to justify his practice. Louisa, for example, declares playing only when she goes to her older brother, clearing herself from a daily personal practice. She justifies her practice of Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto By specifying that these games do not belong to him.

The devaluation of the practice thus makes it possible to publicize through this permanent duty of justification which is explained by an incorporation of sex hierarchies and unequal symbolic valuations associated with it.

Ultimately, the analysis of the video game practices of adolescents aged 13 to 15 highlights persistence: that of gender differentiations in leisure practices (sports, cultural, etc.), that of the symbolic construction of the spaces of the feminine and the masculine and that of the hierarchy of social relations of sex.