Digital social media, listening to music, video games, and TV series are all means of socializing, entertaining, and gathering information for young people. Through these activities, adolescents develop a shared culture.

But we would be wrong to think of this culture as homogeneous, given that digital and media practices vary according to individuals’ social conditions and their way of appropriating technologies. They depend on social background, age, and place in the family, and are also subject to gender-based marking.

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

Girls’ games, boys’ games

Between the ages of 13 and 15, regardless of their social background, there are significant differences between girls and boys in terms of frequency, media and types of games . In their free time, boys play more often and for longer than girls. They prefer game consoles and computers to play shooting and fighting games ( Call of Duty , Fortnite ), sports and competitive games (mainly football like Fifa ), or their phones to play Brawl Star , a strategy and shooting game.

Girls are turning to mobile phone games and motion-activated consoles, which are more in line with leisure practices associated with the feminine through simulation and dance games ( Just Dance ).

The types of gaming partners also differ: boys mainly play online multiplayer games alone, while girls more often share this activity with a family member – a consequence of their gendered socialization  – or with friends.

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

Gender transgressions stigmatized

However, girls also play so-called boys’ games. There are three possible reasons for this. First, the presence of symbolic feminine dimensions (avatars, female characters) in certain particularly masculinized game worlds, which allows girls to identify with and embody characters of their own gender.

Second, girls are more likely to engage in activities considered masculine. Indeed, due to gender asymmetry , it is less dangerous (in terms of the risk of stigmatization, for example) for a girl to invest in masculine territory than the other way around.

“There are more girls who go for boy stuff than boys who go for girl stuff,” notes one teenager.

This remark reflects the asymmetry and hierarchical nature of video game practices, where the male universe remains dominant and legitimate. Boys therefore refrain from advertising a video game practice that would be related to the female gender, which is socially devalued.

Finally, the presence of a brother, a father or even a friend who plays video games strongly encourages girls’ incursion into the world of male video games, as Ophélie, 13, explains:

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

However, this gender transgression is not without consequences for these girls. They are subjected to stigmatizing remarks, particularly from boys: “Okay, you’re guys.” Whether they play so-called girl or boy games, their practices are most often discredited by boys.

During a survey in which teenage girls and boys were brought together to talk about their video game habits, the former’s was particularly denigrated by the latter: they monopolized and interrupted the conversation, took on the role of experts on the subject, ridiculed games associated with girls by reducing them to a few clichés: “Games for good children,” said one, while another considered that “it’s not very interesting for boys to clean babies and milk cows.”

Girls justify their practice by devaluing it

For their part, girls do not readily talk about playing video games: talking about and accepting their practice is conditional on its devaluation. They underestimate the quality of the game (“They’re small games”), their skill level (“I’m useless”) or their commitment to the games (“It’s just for fun”).

Furthermore, the presence of a male third party in the immediate environment also helps justify her practice. Louisa, for example, says she only plays when she goes to her older brother’s house, thus exonerating herself from a personal daily practice. She justifies her practice of Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto by specifying that these games do not belong to her.

The devaluation of the practice thus makes its publicization possible through this permanent duty of justification which is explained by an incorporation of gender hierarchies and the unequal symbolic valuations associated with them.

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

Author Bios: Barbara Fontar is a Lecturer in educational sciences and Mickaël Le Mentec is a Lecturer in educational and training sciences both at the University of Rennes 2