Cybercafes and Gender

Brandon Nguyen, Calvin Cheung, Kim Maniego, Samantha Chan
Anthropology 128C - Group Paper

Cybercafes and Gender

Introduction

One defining characteristic of humanity is our capacity to communicate and exchange ideals. For as long as there have been people, they have engaged in the trading of goods and ideas. Although human communication begins with the capacity for language, it looms far greater than any geographical or cultural boundary. Throughout history, there have been many technological advances that have facilitated such communication and exchange, principally those in transportation. Geographical boundaries have greatly limited human contact. In this sense, the advancements in transportation go hand in hand with the spread of ideals. One exception to this notion is the invention and proliferation of the Internet.
The Internet is arguably the most vital tool of human communication in modern times. Its capacities and possibilities are seemingly limitless. However, its conception is not new, and has, in actuality, evolved from a previous breakthrough invention.
“Although it has now faded from view, the telegraph lives on within the communications technologies that have subsequently built upon its foundations: the telephone, the fax machine, and, more recently, the Internet. And, ironically, it is the Internet—despite being regarded as a quintessentially modern means of communication—that has the most in common with its telegraphic predecessor” [Standage 1998:205].
The postal service, telegraph, telephone and their predecessors have all been prerequisites to what we now know as the Internet. With slight deviations, their goals have all been to facilitate the ease of communication. Despite this, there exists much novelty in the Internet.
The Internet resides in a space that transcends the limitations of geography and culture. “Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere.” In this sense, the Internet not only transmits and transforms existing cultures, but also provides a medium by which completely novel cultures and ideas are created. It is precisely this characteristic that relieves the internet of so many traditional boundaries. Despite this, the proliferation of the internet ultimately depends on the ambitions and motivations of mankind. It is merely a tool by which ideas are spread. To this end, it remains bound by certain norms and hegemonic discourses.
We chose to study cyber cafés because of the interesting environment, fusing the community of what we refer to as cyberspace with that of the real world. One of the earliest and most well documented “cyber cafés” was SFnet Coffee House Network, which debuted in July of 1991. SFnet was a computer network that attempted to “use simple communications technology to bring together two very different social milieus” in the San Francisco Bay Area by “creat[ing] a [computer] network that allowed the well-heeled home user to connect with the young hipster crowd that populated much of the cafe scene” (SFnet.org). Intel had begun production of the AT 486 processor with capabilities of up to 33 megahertz and 128 megabytes of ram in 1990. However, in order to keep the cost of the SFnet project low, its creator, Wayne Gregori, relied on the earlier XT technology. With this, they could assemble a computer with a floppy drive, keyboard, mouse, and monitor for roughly 350 dollars each as opposed to the 1500 to 2000 dollar price range of the more modern AT technology chipsets. Twenty-five coin operated computers were inserted at various coffee houses in the Bay Area with available home subscriptions. Users on the network were allowed to access a text base chat containing visual cues in order to identify each other. In addition, a self-governing community was encouraged with rewards in participation.
The term and concept “cyber café,” however, was credited to a man named Ivan Pope according, to the renowned .Net magazine of the United Kingdom. On his blog, Pope states: “In 1994 I created the world’s first Cybercafe for the Institute of Contemporary Art in London.” Pope is a contemporary artist whose art focuses on technology and SFnet was no doubt an inspiration to Pope when he was commissioned to create an internet event for the ICA. Pope’s cyber café concept was realized by the opening of the Cyberia in London. Cyberia fused the traditional croissant and coffee café with the capability of internet access on computers (Mulvey 1994). Other early Popian cyber cafes included The Binary Café, the first internet café in Canada, which opened June 1994 in Toronto (Cambell 1994) and the High Tech Café, the first public cyber café, in the USA which opened in August 1994 in Dallas, Texas (Lewis, 1994).
Another evolution to the cyber café occurred circa 1997 with the release of Blizzard’s Starcraft. The multiplayer capabilities created the backdrop for the creation of the PC-bang, an internet café specially designed to facilitate the needs of gamers. The PC-bang was popularized in South Korea but persisted to spread globally and remains popular today. The gender performance and dynamics in a PC-bang is the topic of our research.
One persisting theme in any cultural space is gender performances, something that has been dominated by hegemonic discourses in every culture and society. In this paper, we explored the gender performances in a local PC-bang styled cyber cafe called CGCenter Computer Gaming, located in Irvine, California. The immediate goal of this study was to observe noticeable differences in the way male and female customers interacted and performed in a local cyber café. The broader, overlying goal was to observe whether traditional hegemonic domains of gender persisted in the activities of cyberspace.
SFnet:
London’s Cyberia:
Toronto’s Binary Café:
Methods
Since the topic of research our group decided upon involved gender differences in virtual worlds, a question that comes up is whether gender and identity transcend the physical world and transfer over into the virtual world. For example, do people who play online games in virtual worlds notice the same stereotypes about gender as they would in the physical world. Additionally, to add onto the topic of just research involving identity and gender in virtual worlds, we narrowed the focus to people who participate in online gaming at cyber cafes. CGC, located in Lakeforest, California, is one such cyber café. We also tried to do participant observation and conduct quick interviews with a local cyber café called Cyber Deck, however, the owner commented that he was too busy and did not give us a chance to ask him a few questions. We lost interest in Cyber Deck and focused on CGC instead. In addition, another way that we decided to do our research was to talk to friends who are avid players of online virtual worlds or online games. We chose to do this because of the experience of each individual differs slightly as well as the context in which they may or may not see gendered differences in the virtual world.
Our plan was to conduct structured interviews involving gamers at CGC and with friends who play online games or participate in online virtual worlds. Prior to going to CGC, a list of interview questions had to be devised. The questions were straightforward and mainly aimed towards those who attend cyber cafes, but could be modified a little to accommodate a different interviewee. Questions included asking whether they were an avid gamer, and if so, are they are regular attendee at that particular cyber café, in our case, CGC. Based off that first question, the following questions inquired about the types of games they played and if they felt that life was gendered (i.e., Do they feel that the workplace, school, or politics are gendered?). To clarify, by “gendered,” we mean that there are biases or differences based on a person’s gender. Do males get treated more fairly than females in the workplace? Are females more likely to do better in school than males? Questions like these would apply to our idea of a “gendered” life. Depending on their answer of whether they believe that life was gendered or not, we ask the follow-up of whether they think virtual worlds are gendered. Similarly, this idea of a gendered virtual world relates to the idea that female avatars may be treated differently by male avatars than by female avatars. For example, players may decide they want to help a female avatar (but not a male avatar) because of the simple reason that the avatar is female. The goal of this question is to find out if people transcend from reality and take their notion of gendered differences into the virtual world.
We are also interested in finding out whether individuals believe that cyber cafes are also (or alternatively) gendered, as well as finding out some of the gendered differences among people who attend cyber cafes or play online games and virtual worlds. We hope to answer the question of whether cyber cafes are attended by more males than females or vice versa. Also, in addition to finding out some of the demographics, we would also like to investigate gendered differences of the males and females that are at the cyber café. For example, do males tend go to cyber cafes to play games that are aggressive as opposed to females who may tend to use cyber cafes as a place to check their email or go on social networking sites such as MySpace or Facebook?
We chose to do interviews because of the open-ended nature of the method and it gives the interviewee plenty of room to make their response. Rather than using a more simple method like conducting a survey, we chose personal interviews because it allows more freedom of opinion and ideas to flow. Additionally, we can also ask for verification or explanations of ideas that we may find interesting and unexpected. In order to do an interview, we first must go to a cyber café and find individuals willing to give an interview. This can sometimes prove to be a problem, as in the case of Cyber Deck, in which customers and owner alike rejected our request to do interviews. However, despite the slight setback, interviews are still an ideal way to find out the opinions of the masses, and especially of the participants who indulge in cyber cafés to enter virtual worlds or online games like World of Warcraft or Left 4 Dead, as well as social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. We rely on this ethnographic approach because it utilizes qualitative methods of interviewing, observation, and from that we can take analyses and form a conclusion from the data or findings (Mizuko Ito et al. 2008:6). Ito’s article also states that ethnographic approaches are strong because they enable documentation and understanding of the participants. This differs from other forms of research because it is more interactive and we can obtain firsthand accounts of events and thoughts rather than having to rely on less dependable informants.

Data - Description of CGC

Located in the city of Irvine, Orange County, California is CGCenter Computer Gaming [CGC], a local Cyber/Internet/Gaming Center and a place with a prime location to suit a variety of needs. CGC is a division of Kinetisys, Inc., a computer service provider established in 1992, therefore, selling computer appliances and providing computer repair services as well as LAN/Internet/Cyber/Gaming time. With more than 50 titles, in 5 different categories: Action, Stimulation, MMORPG, Strategy, and Arcade, of the latest games on the market, such as World of Warcraft, Defense of the Ancients, Call of Duty 4, Left 4 Dead, and Counterstrike, over 50 machines equipped with head phones and microphones as well as comfortable office chairs to play on, an always replenished snack bar (supplied with junk food, energy drinks, and microwavable dinners), spacious eating and computer areas, security camera surveillance and recording of interior and exterior locations, black light utility fixtures to set the gaming mood and tone, CGC combines both Cyber/Internet Café characteristics with Gaming Center characteristics to create the ideal place for gamers and internet users of all ages (CG Centre Computer Gaming).

Data - Description of stereotypes & how cyber cafés cater to them

Cross-culturally, every aspect of human life is gendered, from politics to education to the workplace. These gendered identity stereotypes usually stem off of sexual stereotyping –socially shared beliefs that certain qualities can be assigned to men and women based upon their sex. Stereotypes often relate to rigid polarized ideas of masculinity and femininity. Dominant groups use gender stereotypes to support the status quo and keep patriarchy in place—women should be nice, good looking, soft, nurturing, and men should be powerful, competent, responsible, and potent. For example, the workplace is still gendered. The nineteenth-century traditional gender ideology of “separate spheres”—breadwinner husband and the homemaker wife— and “doing gender”—the idea that gender is fundamentally about social interaction and relationship not individual set of traits— was slowly evaporating. However, despite the collapse of separate spheres—work and home—the workplace remains a dramatically divided and unequal world. Males tend to be seen in positions of higher power in business, while females are seen to be in more nurturing positions in medicine.
With that being said, Cyber/Internet/gaming Centers usually tend to be gendered, catering to the male sex rather than females. According to "Survey of China Internet Café Industry" by the Ministry of Culture, in 2005, China has 110,000 Internet cafés, with more than 1,000,000 people working in this area, contributing 18,500,000,000 Yuan to China's GDP. More than 70% Internet café visitors are from 18 to 30 years old. 90% are male, 65% unmarried, and 54% hold a college degree. More than 70% of visitors play computer games. 20% of China's Internet users go to InternetCafe (Ministry of Culture). In the United States cyber cafes are also quite gender-segregated as dichotomous. For example, the ratio of males to females at CGC is 50:3 and they only have one restroom specialized for males (that is, with a urinal stall), and no separate restroom catering to females. Furthermore, males are generally stereotyped to be more aggressive, playing more interactive, violent, high-energy/intensity games, while females are generally stereotyped to be more passive, using the center for social purposes such as Facebooking, chatting on America Online Instant Messenger (AIM), and watching their boyfriends play at a LAN center with their friends. Specifically at CGC, their business is aimed at the younger generation rather than those who are older, at males rather than females, and at hardcore avid gamers rather than social internet users/browsers.
Because our study is catered to studying whether gender and identity transcend through to the virtual world, we believed that interviewing and observing real-world people that congregate at LAN centers and their personal accounts, viewpoints, and experiences in the virtual world would suffice to answer whether or not stereotypes of males and females transcend.

Data - Interviews

Ideally, we wanted to get as much input from the gaming world as possible, specifically Cyber Gaming Center users. Our group interviewed 3 avid gamers, 2 of the 3 used to attend CyberCafe’s regularly, and 1 of which is still a regular attendee. (For Interview questions: see Appendix A.)
The first interview, “A”, was conducted with a 21 year old male Asian ( ½ Korean, ½ Japanese) college graduate, a “hardcore” gamer for all his life, and a “regular” at CGC—averaging 25-40 hours a week and 100-160 hours a month. During “A”’s interview, he expressed that he is a “regular” at CGC and plays massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) like World of Warcraft (WOW), strategy games like Defense Against the Ancient’s (DOTA), and action games like Call of Duty 4 (COD4) and Left 4 Dead. “A” felt that life is gendered, that “it’s stereotyped that men are always usually better at games, but females usually get the most attention, as soon as a female starts talking, everyone just shuts up.” Furthermore, “A” also thinks that gender is stereotyped, he expressed that “usually in a game you can tell when a girl is playing because they are usually more passive and men are usually more aggressive and they definitely do most of the yelling at LAN centers like CGC.” Additionally, “A” believes that the virtual world is gendered, he confessed that “he plays all female characters in WOW,” and plays along with “pretending to be a girl on WOW because they are the attention whores of gaming and usually get helped out more.” He expressed that “you just assume that everyone is a guy, until you see excessive use of happy faces and capital letters.” Moreover, “A” expressed that cyber-café’s are usually gendered, that “girls usually don’t go to LAN centers to play games, they’re usually on AIM and on the internet. Usually their boyfriends are on the computers playing games, completely ignoring the girlfriends/girls.” “A” expressed some of the stereotypes of gamers as being portrayed as “nerdy.” Therefore, male gamers are portrayed to be “sluggish” and “nerdy,” while female gamers are “called G.I.R.L (Guy In Real Life) because they’re usually fat and ugly.” In relation to the virtual world being closely related to the actual world and that society is gendered, he felt that in “WOW during raids, organizing 40 people to do something, usually it’s all males, and it’s rare to find female guild masters.” Lastly, “A” believes that one’s gender & identity does transcend through to the virtual world, he feels like “girls usually always pick the human characters and try to make them look as pretty as possible, 90% of the girls in WOW play alliance, which is the good side, and usually pick the elves or the humans and try and make them look as pretty as possible, spending an hour or two trying to customize and make their character look good, buying random clothes to make them look good, girl’s always make the time to make their characters look good, while guys don’t.”
The second interview, “B” was conducted with a 27 year old female Asian (Chinese/Taiwanese American) college graduate, an “avid” gamer, and a former Internet/Cyber Café attendee but currently plays at home and has several friends that are “regulars” at Cyber Café’s—averaging 40-50 hours a week and 160-200 hours a month. During “B”’s interview, she expressed that she plays WOW and DOTA only. “B” felt that life is gendered, that “there are a lot of gendered stereotypes, that guys I play games with joke around about, such as doing the dishes and laundry is women’s work. That it’s a woman’s job to take care of the home. That there’s a lot of crimes against women. A lot of trends that show that life is gendered, for example, child custody cases tend to favor the mother over the father.” Furthermore, “B” also thinks that gender is stereotyped, she expressed that “it’s more acceptable for men to be aggressive and women to be passive, I think that if it’s the over way around, men would be seen more as feminine, and if women are more aggressive, they are seen more as bitchy. For example, if there’s a female boss people can say stuff about her and would sympathize with them, but if it’s a male boss it’s more understandable and more hard on them.” Moreover, “B” expressed that the virtual world is usually gendered, that “guys just play games, even though names would be really girly, people just assume that you’re a guy and that girls don’t play video games and are just on in the internet.” “B” also expressed that cyber-cafes are gendered, that “cyber cafes cater to men because there are way more guys that go than girls because it’s a ‘guy’ place because one of the cyber cafes I went to only had a urinal.” In relation to the virtual world being closely related to the actual world and that society is gendered, she felt that in “WOW, girls are treated better for sure, people are more likely to give you stuff just because you’re a female character. Like in real life, guys give pretty girls things.” Lastly, “B” believes that one’s gender & identity does transcend through to the virtual world, she feels like “girls usually do try to pick pretty characters and names and stuff, guys tend to make their characters more masculine. People’s personalities and views usually transcend through to the virtual world. If someone’s really responsible, they usually work really hard during RAIDS. If someone’s really lazy, they usually don’t do much on WOW and hire people to play for them. I’m actually a guild leader and I witnessed a lot of stereotyping because people thought because I was female that I should be nicer and not so aggressive so I was always called bitchy that it wasn’t acceptable. I feel like if I was a guy, I wouldn’t get as much crap.”The third interview, “C” was conducted with a 21 year old female Asian (Chinese) college student, an “avid” gamer, and a former Internet/Cyber Café attendee, but currently a home gamer— averaging 56 hours a week and 224 hours a month. During “C”’s interview, she revealed that she played Maple Story and Chrono Trigger. “C” felt that life is gendered, that “To an extent yes, like people aren’t suppose to be sexist and discriminate but it is true women get paid less than men, and are under-looked of their abilities a lot of the time. It’s mostly men in power because they see women as being too emotional and not able to separate feelings from their work. That’s why we don’t have a woman president.” Furthermore, “C” also thinks that gender is stereotyped, that “obviously there are passive men and aggressive women too so maybe not that. But we do stereotype gender, like babies, we use the color blue for boys and pink for girls. We stereotype material things like girls drive VW bugs and guys drive trucks, but I think we're starting to break stereotypes like you see a lot of girls with really short hair like they almost look like guys, I guess u would call them tomboys...then there’s really feminine guys that the masculine type of guy would consider gay.” Moreover, “C” expressed that cyber café’s are gendered, that “you don’t really expect to see many girls there. It’s mostly guys.” “C” expressed that people just “assume girls don’t play like FPS [First-Person Shooter] and those types of games that are really violent, but some girls do. But in the actual game itself like maybe WOW or Maple, guys and girls can be whatever gender character or monster thing they want so gender isn’t really an issue. Maybe only for the younger nubs (noobs) that try to use gender has an insult ‘oh you’re a dumb girl.’” “C” believes that cyber cafés are gendered, although the gender and identity of a person does not transcend to virtual worlds.

Results/Conclusion

From these findings, the conclusion is that cyberspace is gendered. There was no dispute over the question of whether stereotypes existed in game. All interviewees had agreed that there were basic differences between genders in terms of attitudes and actions in real life—as well as in virtual worlds. The fact that there were only urinals available at a café that “B” had attended testifies to the deficiency of female presence in cyber cafés, and perhaps an allusion to the lack of real life females in game. In accordance with the interviews, female avatars or characters are seen as weaker, but strong female avatars are assumed to be male in real life. In Weihua Wu, et al.’s article, they study online marriage on Chinese gaming servers. An intriguing point is that there are many players that opt to get married due to the fact that in China, marriage comes with a heavy responsibility that the younger generation does not want to deal with yet; however, in game, they can choose to get married to other players and do what they are afraid to do without bearing any of the real life burdens. In a similar way, a person that feels the need to become uninhibited can do so within the confines of virtual reality, rather than be ostracized in actual reality; for instance, choosing to detach oneself from your real life gender and playing an avatar of the opposing sex. Wagner James Au interviewed a male player of Second Life who plays a female avatar: “In real life, I'm clearly attracted to women. In Second Life, it gets shady. I see my avatar, Jade, and I'm compelled to play a female role.... because it's what she's supposed to do, I guess. I dunno.” (2005). This gamer’s experience playing a gender not his own shows how the boundaries of gender are blurred once the “line” is crossed.
In contrast, rather than be the opposite gender, there are a number of female players who take pride in playing a avatar of their “true” gender. Previously, “A” stated that he believed the general opinion of female gamers could be described as “G.I.R.L”s. Perhaps this judgment is true, however, the following quote from Wu’s article describes one type of female gamer:
“[The ‘superwoman’] is good at fighting, hence, rich and attractive in the virtual world. The ‘superwoman’ in the Chinese context is often called iron lady (tie niangzi), who is powerful, aggressive, and assertive and therefore competent enough to compete with men. The Iron Lady invites criticism for her lack of femininity in real life, whereas the “superwoman” in the game space is challenged by whether her gender is true or not.” [2007:81; emphasis added]
Our interviewee, “B” had declared that in the real world, it is “more acceptable for men to be aggressive and women to be passive” but “if it’s the other way around, men would be seen more as feminine, and if women are more aggressive, they are seen more as bitchy.” But due to the common attitude that most avatars are men in disguise, per se, the gender selection process for women is less burdening since they could play any character they wish without the limitations of her “true gender.” They can choose to have the manliest or the most girlish of avatars with no real life liability or social restraints. As “C” asserted, “In games it’s more about being strong and having skills in whatever game you're playing. So if you suck at it, that’s what you get looked down upon, not necessarily for your gender.” But perhaps it is a question of whether it is the aforementioned social restraints (based on gender stereotypes) that account for the evident lack of women from cyber cafés.
In line with her in-game views of gender, Interviewee “C” conveys that she does perceive cyber cafés to be gendered, in the respect that males are the dominant gender present; in spite of that, she maintains that everyone is there for the same reason, whether it be to check Facebook or play games. There is a slight discrepancy with her logic, as she points out that “guys go check their emails and chat too, but spend more time on gaming? And like girls have Facebook and they play mini games there…” Clearly, there is an indication of difference in regards to what the two sexes do in these cafés. However, we did not clarify if there was a distinction between females playing mini-games and males playing games.
In this study of gender in cyber spaces (both real world and virtual world versions), we have found that traditional hegemony does still stand in the virtual world, albeit, in a slightly twisted manner, due to the ability to “gender swap,” or go beyond one’s physical gender. Surprisingly, the dominant gender seems to be males playing females, according to the articles read in class, as well as the interviews conducted. The question remains, though, whether it be in a virtual space, or the real world, why these gender cultures persist.

References Cited

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Appendix A

Anthropology 128C: Interview Questions
Can you briefly tell us about your background? [Your name, Age, Ethnicity, Gender, College you attend, What you’re studying, etc.]
Are you an avid gamer? If so, are you a regular here at [insert cyber café name here]?
Going off of the last question, how often do you come to [insert cyber café name here]? How many hours do you spend on average a week? How much do you say you spend on hours here per month?
What type of games do you play? [Left 4 Dead, COD4, WOW, DOTA, etc]
Do you feel that life is gendered? [if they don’t get it, ask them if they feel the workplace is gendered, if the school is gendered, if politics is gendered, etc.] make them explain why they feel that way as well.
Do you feel that gender is stereotyped? [if they don’t get it, elaborate ie. men are aggressive, women are passive] make them explain why they feel that way as well.
Going off the last two questions, do they feel that the virtual world is gendered? If yes, ask them if they feel if gender is stereotyped in the virtual world. If no, ask them why.
Are cyber-café’s gendered? [if they don’t get it, elaborate, do more males attend or females? elaborate further]
What are the similarities of behavior/activities of women and men at cybercafés? Are they any things that they do differently? [for example, men tend to play more aggressive games such as WOW, while women tend to go to cybercafés for social aspects of talking on AIM]
Are there any instances in the virtual world that you feel is closely related to the actual world and that society is gendered. [if they don’t get it, give them an example. In the real world, politics is gendered, in the workplace, jobs are gendered where males tend to get more high-paying aggressive jobs, while women are associated with more low-paying passive/nurturing jobs, does this apply to online vitual worlds/games?] if they still don’t get it, ask them about WOW characters, why do males choose females, are people more likely to help females than males, etc.
Do you believe that gender & identity of a person transcend to the virtual world?