Review Of Article Doing Gender In Cyberspace Essay

Review Of Article Doing Gender In Cyberspace - Essay Example It is easy to understand why Eklund would be interested in understanding the driving forces behind the sexual development of these female or male avatars (as the case may be). The internet and these online games have long been viewed by society as an escape from the real world. It is an alternate universe where they can be the exact opposite of who they are in real life. Ergo, women can be men, men can be women, and queer online relationships can exist where it would be frowned upon in the real world. All of that existing because gender is not one of the foremost concerns when playing the game.Through this study, Eklund was able to prove that gender, sexuality, and identity covers a wider context and meaning in the online gaming world. There are no gender issues here because gender does not exist. The gender of the person is instead determined by the actions that the player takes during gameplay. By doing these movements repeatedly, the natural being is created and-and congealed to m imic the appearance of substance within the avatar. In understanding the context of this belief, it becomes obvious that the writer is insinuating that gender and role development is something that becomes normal for people due to the repetition of various actions and social expectations.These social expectations are carried over by the female players of the game into the virtual reality world of WoW where they create avatar versions of themselves based upon what they believe would be considered as normal in the online world. However, the online world leaves them with certain leeway to experience gender and sexual freedom because of the way that the player can control the avatar movement and interactions. These women players choose to create avatars that they can identify with or in effect, use avatars that best represent who they wish they could be in the real world. [329] It appears that women who play online games using female avatars do so because they feel a sense of empowerment while playing the game. Since nobody is really assured of the actual gender of the person they are playing with or against in WOW women feel that the playing field is leveled and that they are able to play to the best of their abilities and in the process, power up their avatars. [328] Being a gamer myself, I have experienced gender swapping my avatars just to see if I would play any better as a male or female representation of myself. Contrary to what the author's interviews revealed, I realized that using a