![]() They look like sexed-up dolls on steroids. ![]() “Since the demographic of gamers is predominantly male, female characters are drawn up to cater their fancy,” says Patil. World of dirt-craft: What adds to the chauvinism of the gaming world are the sexualised female characters. He says that once, while playing Clash of Clans, he changed his username from Shantanu to ‘Sheetal’ and “the results were astounding”. Shantanu Chatterjee, a gamer based in Delhi, acknowledges and condemns the harassment, but confesses to feeling envious of women gamers for getting all the free gifts. They shower them with gifts and in return may demand personal favours - a go at sexting or dating, or, creepily enough, ask her character to strike a suggestive pose. Male players see this as a way to get fresh with female players. Playing dirty: The nature of MMOs is such that players need donations, new clothes and gear to advance through the levels, which they can either buy at high prices or receive as gifts. And when they return, all their previous achievements are lost and they have to start from scratch. Continued harassment often forces women to go offline for months. At times, a player may approach a visible female player by pointing out a glitch in her game, get pally and then start harassing. “Women players stand out because they use fewer cuss words, have a softer vocabulary,” adds Anjali. Even if women don’t reveal their gender, male players sniff them out through online chat. You will be asked if you are available, what’s your phone number, will you sext,” says Anjali, a Hyderabad-based gamer. If you reveal your gender, suddenly there’ll be just too much attention on you. “In India, female gamer is kind of a unicorn. “They ask you to flash, they don’t treat women players as human,” says Patil who plays on Twitch, a live streaming platform for games. A professional cosplayer, Patil says she has been routinely subjected to “mental and emotional assaults” by male players. ![]() “The only way to escape is to hide your identity,” says Niharika Patil, also known as Niha Novacaine in cosplay and gaming communities. The toxic atmosphere of online multiplayer games doesn’t allow women to play as themselves but they have to hide behind gender neutral or male usernames. “You are playing well, getting better and then suddenly someone will ask you ‘are you naked’ or ‘is your sister available’? It’s so creepy and disgusting,” says Kakodkar, 22, from Bengaluru. His floating hand approached my body, and he started to virtually rub my chest.” Lakshmi Kakodkar, a gamer, says that such rotten behaviour spoils the gaming experience for women. Suddenly, BigBro442’s disembodied helmet faced me dead-on. In a first person account shared on Medium recently, Jordan Belamire described being groped while playing QuiVR, a virtual reality game: “In between a wave of zombies and demons to shoot down, I was hanging out next to BigBro442, waiting for our next attack. Alongside chasing enemies, shooting targets and blowing up dungeons, women players dodge misogynists and serial harassers who call them c*** or wh***, ask for their breast size, and use every possible insult to tell them they shouldn’t be gaming. This is especially true of massively multiplayer online (MMO) games where players, both men and women, form teams or guilds and play. Although women make up a very small percentage of India’s gaming community, about 20% according to some estimates, they say sexual harassment is rampant and inevitable in a community dominated by men. And the virtual world is no safer for women. In the virtual world, as in the real, women gamers face sexual harassment, and are asked mid-game if they’ll sext or strike a pose Sexual harassment is a reality millions of women of women face every day at home, work, in the market, at a cinema hall or while riding a cab.
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