Black Women and Games
The Exigency
I have chosen to focus my study on the lack of Black female opinions in academic gaming research. I chose this topic because various research articles on female video gaming failed to interview African American women. For example, Women and games: technologies of the gendered self lists its demographics as mostly Caucasian with a few Asians, ages ranging from 18-37 (Consalvo, Hopson, Lee, Royse, and Undrahbuyan 562). In this article African American women were left out. Yet, the word Women, implies all women not just two female ethnic groups. These studies group all women together with the predominant race being the main pool of response answers. This oversight causes researchers and readers to miss out on learning about minority women and how they form identities as a race and as a gender. Michelle Wright argues that the marginalization of black women that started during the civil rights movement still continues today, both in discourse and practice (54). The failure to include black female voices when discussing women in gaming reiterates this marginalization. Researchers should remember that all the men are not Black; all the women are not white, Black women exist as Black women (Taylor 236). Consalvo, Hopson, Lee, Royse, and Undrahbuyan have argued that the omission of certain content could also create distorted views of reality. In contrast, when diverse groups are not included in media content, there is a message that the missing groups are unimportant and powerless (99). When opportunities for direct contact with racial group members are lacking, the media serves as important agents in the formation and reinforcement of racial stereotypes (Dalisay and Tan 8). Narissra Punyanunt-Carter believes that the cultivation hypothesis offers an explanation for the way individuals organize social reality and make social judgments of the world, which is, our perceptions of reality are cultivated or developed by what we view in the media. It is also the basis for the expectation that media exposure is linked to perceptions of African Americans (245).
Tanner Higgens argued that given the White dominance of the technologized public sphere and tools of media, the visibility of Blacks remains at the mercy of dominant culture and its disciplinary mechanisms. The result is that “Black women remain visible yet silenced; their bodies become written by other texts, yet they remain powerless to speak for themselves (17). Black women utilize digital writing in cyberspace because they are able to exist and forge their own presence. They do not have to rely on someone else to create a space for them. Michelle Wright argues that the fantasy of skin color divorced from politics, oppression or racism seems to also celebrate it as infinitely changeable, customizable; as entirely elective as well as political. All of these identities, of course, exist in and are constantly reconstructed through language, a medium that, even in the age of Java, still rules as the central means of signification on the Web (48). Cyberspace is a malleable place to invent and express one’s self. African American women construct cyber worlds that allow them to resist being silenced. African American women (AAW) are the number one users of new media. Jackson, Zhao, Kolenic III, Fitzgerald, Renald, and Eye wrote that AAW text message, peruse the internet, download music and photo shop more than any other race or gender (440). Carla Stokes wrote that Black women participate in a wide range of online social activities including using email and instant messaging, participating in and moderating bulletin board discussions and chat rooms, offering help with web design and hanging out in social networking sites. They also create online cultural productions by producing home pages, e-zines and blogs (Stokes 172). Black women have used digital writing as a way to document their presence and explore their identities. Alice Walker’s classic essay, “In Search of Our Mothers Garden,” explains the necessity of Black women’s creativity, even if in very limited spheres, in resisting objectification and asserting Black women’s subjectivity as full human beings (Collins 165). The limited spheres that Black women currently inhabit needs to be widened beginning with video games. Video games are quickly becoming the number one form of mass consumed media. The exclusion of Black women in video games feeds into the patriarchal stranglehold that tries to keep minority women unseen and unheard in order to maintain the dominant ideology of femininity. Consalvo, Ivory, Martins, and Williams wrote that Whites and Asians are over-represented and all other groups are under represented (824). I want to discover if Black women participate in video gaming or do they see their exclusion as a deterrent. Are Black women excluded from video gaming academic research because they do not play video games or is the research mirroring what Harwood and Anderson have suggested that representation on television is at heart a proxy for other social forces-that is, groups who appear more often in the media are more vital and enjoy more status and power in daily life (Consalvo, Ivory, Martins, and Williams 818).
Methodology
I chose to do a digital questionnaire because I needed to reach a specific demographic; Black /African American woman. I did not come across a significant amount of “Black women” in offline face to face situations. Utilizing a digital survey allowed me to gain a wide range of “Black female” participants from different locations. I used two social networking sites to deploy my survey. Facebook and Blackplanet gave me the ability to message, and chat with future participants. Blair and Christine Tulley wrote that unlike the more traditional academic presses and their singular, print-oriented, linear approach to research, electronic projects are more fluid, with fewer discrete boundaries (306). Social networking sites allowed me to reach an audience otherwise inaccessible offline. I also decided to do an online survey because as the authors in Playing the Sims 2 wrote one advantage of online research is that the immediate interactive question-and-answer procedure, the chances of the participants actually submitting the completed questionnaire are far greater than completing a paper survey. Secondly approaching participants online guarantees their privacy. Finally, an online survey is a cost-efficient way of questioning large groups of respondents (Jansz, Avis, and Vosmeer 240). Another reason I chose the online method is because the authors of Race, Gender and Information Technology Use: The New Digital Divide wrote that African American females led the way in intensity of Internet use, using the internet more often than did any other group (Jackson, Zhao, Kolenic III, Fitzgerald, Renald, and Eye 439). The questions used in this study are questions asked of white and Asian women in previous gaming studies. The authors of Women and Games: technologies of the gendered self researched the intensity of play and genre preferences of women, but did not gather racial information. In light of that oversight several multiple choice questions ask Black/African American women about their frequency of video game play. Several questions ask participants to choose from several different game screen photos while other questions consist of pictures of game covers along with brief descriptions of the video game in order to determine which genre of games the participants prefer. The participants are also asked to view three short video trailers of three different video games. The video game trailer Halo 3- Reach a Spartan Will Rise, stars a white female. This video was chosen to observe if women would play a male dominated genre if a woman avatar was available. The second video game trailer is Resident Evil 5. This video game features Sheva an African woman. This video is showcased in order to discover if Black women would be more interested in playing a typically male dominated genre if the game featured an African avatar. I also want to discover how Black women feel about the character being fare skinned. I also want to know how they feel about Sheva’s body. The authors of A Content Analysis of Female Body Imagery in Video Games researches the imagery of female video game characters and the impact the “thin ideal” may have on women. I want to discover if Black women are affected by the visual rhetoric of video games that try to promote the “thin ideal.” I also seek to discover if African American women are affected by the Eurocentric ideals of beauty. Playing the Sims 2: an Exploration of Gender Differences in Players Motivations and Patterns of Play, sought to discover the female gamers motivation for playing The Sims games. The third video game trailer Sims 3 seeks to discover if the motivation for playing this game is based on the participant’s ability to construct an environment. Gareth Schott and Kristy Horrell’s study discovered that from the range and variety of games available to players, girl gamers were extremely consistent in their selection of a small number of games noted for their cross-gendered appeal (42). Lastly, there are several multiple choice questions that feature pictures of different video game characters in order to see who the participants would identify with the most; an African avatar or a non-gendered animal character.
Method
The demographics tested will be African American women (These women are from Africa or claim African decent), Black American women (these women no longer claim African decent, instead they claim American ancestry), Black bi racial women (Black and one other race) and black multi racial (Black and more than one other race) women aged 18-65. I will utilize an internet questionnaire that was constructed on Kwiksurveys.com. I chose Kwik surveys because they allow unlimited questions, multiple answer/question formats and the ability to insert media. To gain survey participants digitally I plan on sending the link to eligible candidates through Facebook and Black Planet. I will take the time to message each person individually because mass messages may scream internet scams or advertisements. I will also ask eligible participants who aren’t accessible via social networks for their email address in order to send them the survey link. I felt limited in the amount of questions I could expect a participant to answer. I had 33 questions on my survey. I received several complaints about the length of the survey. If I was doing a study that offered some sort of monetary incentive I would have asked more questions in order to discover how Black women perceive video games.
Participants
Seventy five women participated in the survey. Fifty two percent (n=39) were African Americans, 32% (n=24) were Black Americans, 6% (n=4) were bi racial and 10% (n=8) were multi racial black women. The ages ranged from 18-65. The median age was 27. In the future I would include the ethnic choice of African or Caribbean. Not all African’s or Caribbean’s consider themselves apart of America or desire to be American.
Research Question 1
Do black women play video games? How often? How long?
Results 1
Sixty five percent (n=49) of the participants play video games. Thirty eight percent (n=28) play every now and then. Eighty four percent (n=53) play 1-2 hours while 14% (n=9) play 3-6 hours.
Discussion 1
More than half of the participants play video games. Jansz, Avis, and Vosmeer wrote that the number of female players has increased significantly, but females still play fewer games and spend less time doing so than their male counterparts (235). Jillian Winn and Carrie Hetter wrote that males play an average of an hour and 34 min per day and girls less than half as long (2). Eighty four percent play 1-2 hours while 14% play 3-6 hours. Winn and Heeter wrote that the findings suggest one reason women play fewer games than men is because they are required to fulfill more obligatory activities, leaving them less available leisure time, which in turn makes them less likely to “make” time for games (1). The results of this study correspond with Schott and Horrell’s conclusion that for adult gamers, it would seem that male gaming habits compete with other activities while girl gamers’ gaming is often consigned to second place following housework (49). If I were to do this survey section again, I would include questions that ask the participants what kept them from playing games. I would also ask the participants what they did in their free time.
Research Question 2
What genres of games do Black women prefer?
Results 2
Fifty eight percent (n=43) of the participants preferred online games such as solitaire. When asked to choose between racing, war, fighting, simulation, or music games; 36% (n=27) chose Sims. When given the choice between a role playing game, fighting game, or a simulation game; 57% (n=41) chose Sims animal. When asked to choose between Prince of Persia (adventure), Def Jam Rapstar (music), Create (Puzzle and cards), and Tomb Raider (adventure); 38% (n=28) chose Def Jam Rapster.
Discussion 2
Research has shown that the gaming arena is not exclusively male: women and girls play videogames too, although their practices and preferences differ from their male counterparts. For example, in the area of the so-called ‘casual games’ (the fast paced mini-games that are very popular on the Internet) the majority of players are female (Jansz, Avis, Vosmeer 233). Fifty eight percent of the participants preferred online games over other game genres. The participants also preferred games that allowed them to create their own situations. Simulation games, online puzzle/create games, and music games allow female video gamers the ability to create their own space, instead of relying on premade patriarchal spaces. If I were to redo this section I would include sporting games as a genre choice. I wish I had tried to discover if Black/African American women would play sport games if they starred a Black/African American male. I could have juxtaposed the same game with a non black male player and a black player in different ways to discover if the ethnicity of the player made a difference in video game play.
Research Question 3
Will the presence of a female character make Black women want to play video games such as horror or shooter games?
Results 3
When asked if they would play Halo 3 Reach (shooter) 67% (n=50) said no. When asked if they would play Resident Evil 5 (Horror) 56 %( n=42) of the participants said no. When asked if the ability to play as a female character would make them want to play Halo Reach 61% (n=46) said no. Seventy three percent of the participants said the presence of a Black female character in Resident Evil 5 did not make them want to play horror games.
Discussion 3
It is reasonable to ask if the discrepancy between the number of male and females exhibited in video games was simply a result of the number of games in which it was unreasonable to include women. Specifically, games simulating experiences in which most women do not participate, like combat (Burgess, Stermer, and Burgess 424). Will Black women become interested in violent games if they are able to choose women avatar? Sixty seven percent of the participants would not play the combat game Halo Reach despite the presence of a female avatar. This could be due to the fact that the game is violent and geared more towards male gamers. The authors of Playing the Sims2: an exploration of gender differences in players’ motivations and patterns of play wrote that gender differences in gaming exist because the content and context of most games affirm stereotypical male gender roles which do not appeal at all to the majority of girls. The dominance of stereotypical male gender roles in games may also explain why many adolescent girls end their participation in gaming. In early adolescence, girls tend to be very sensitive about gender issues and as a consequence may renounce activities that are stereotypically portrayed as belonging to the opposite sex (Jansz, Avis, and Vosmeer 237) The Black women of this study agreed with the opinions of the Asian and White women tested in previous studies when it came to disliking violent games.
Seventy two percent of the participants still refused to play a horror game despite the presence of a woman of color. This could be due to the fact that even with a primary female character, the presence of a primary male implied that the female was only allowed to be an important part of the game because the male was there with her. The male could serve as protector, guide, or actually perform most of the action while the female serves as a sidekick (425). Black women may view this as an extension of real life instead of an escape from it. Black women already have real life experience with being doubly oppressed by not only white men, but Black men as well. Michelle Wright argues that with the exception of W.E.B. Du Bois all of the black male writers on the black nation failed to consider black women as human beings worth mentioning, except as the humiliated symbols of white male lust and black male disempowerment (54). The matriarchy myth effectively split the racial discourse of Black Nationalism along gender lines, aligning black men with white men in their common commitment to a patriarchal family system (55).
I wish I had included questions about what type of console the players use. I also wish I had tried to discover if manual dexterity issues kept participants from playing violent games. I also wish I had asked the participants if they thought gaming was a male endeavor.
Research Question 4
Are Black women interested in games like The Sims because it gives players the ability to construct environments that reflect their identity or games that are already constructed?
Results 4
When asked if The Sims 3 game was the type of game they liked to play 60% (n=50) said yes. Seventy two percent (n=54) of the participants liked the ability to construct an environment within The Sims. Sixty four percent (n=48) of the participants liked the ability to construct their avatars appearance to look like them.
Discussion 4
Playing the Sims 2 describes the game as a place where the players have to create a life for one or more game characters, The Sims, by designing their houses, furniture and clothing and generally controlling them. This tinkering with characters and social relationships coincides with game features already mentioned as being attractive to girls (Jansz, Avis, and Vosmeer 238). Would the same features be attractive to Black women? When participants were asked to choose from a list of six popular titles 33% of the participants had never played any of the titles, but 30% had played The Sims (any version). Thirty seven percent of the participants preferred The Sims to other genres such as racing, war, fighting, and music. The authors of Girl gamers: the controversy of girl games and the relevance of female-oriented game design for instructional design argue that digital games were first introduced to mainstream public in spaces such as arcades, pubs and bars. Female participation in these environments has been traditionally limited. Likely issues of safety and the cultural construction of these spaces impacted female participation in these spaces (Dickey 786). The Sims is not defined by patriarchal boundaries. The Black women in this survey found The Sims interesting because the game gave them the ability to construct an environment that represents their cultural identity. Seventy two percent of the participants found the ability to construct their own environment appealing. Other genres of games rarely offer Black women the opportunity to choose a black woman as an avatar. In The Sims, game players have the option to choose their living space, skin tone, clothing style, and body type. Sixty four percent of the participants felt the ability to construct the avatars body to match their appearance was a big selling point of the game.
Research Question 5
Will Black females choose animal characters that are gender neutral or will they choose an African avatar?
Results 5
Fifty six percent (n=41) of the participants chose Sheva as the avatar they most identified with in the first prompt. Thirty percent (n=22) of the participants chose the animal character. In the second prompt Fifty eight percent (n=42) of the participants chose Sheva while 17% (n=12) chose the female animal character.
Discussion 5
The authors of Girl Gamers and their Relationship with the Gaming culture wrote that female gamers showed a preference for role playing games (RPG’s) in which players adopt the role of protagonist in a quest. More specifically, girl gamers selected RPG’s that contain an animal or creature as its principle character, rather than a highly gendered male or female character (Schott and Horrell 42). Which will Black women prefer? The participants were asked to choose an avatar from two different prompts. In prompt one 56% of the participants chose Sheva the gun wielding Black agent of Resident Evil and 30% chose Sonic the hedgehog an animal character. In prompt two there were seven choices; a non-racially marked avatar, Sheva, a sexy female raccoon, a white female, an Asian female, a black male, and a white male. Fifty eight percent of the participants chose Sheva while 17% chose the sexy female raccoon. The Black women of this survey preferred a Black female avatar to a non gendered animal character. When given the first prompt 30% of the participants chose Crash bandicoot as an option while the second prompt only yielded 17%. This could be due to the fact that Crash Bandicoot is a recognizable character and the animal character in the second prompt is not. It could also be due to the hyper sexualized image of the female animal character. Burgess, Stermer, and Burgess wrote that the blatant hyper sexuality of female characters was so prevalent that it even spread to small rodents (423). The participants in the previous studies who preferred animal characters were White and Asian. Their choice of an animal character could be a way to resist the hypersexualized representations of white and Asian female characters in video games. One of the main reasons Black women preferred Sheva over an animal character, was because Black women have been likened to animals, since the beginning of slavery. In order to justify their enslavement and incessant sexual violation, the role of primitive sex object was ascribed to women of African descent; resulting in images of African American women as animal-like, savage, and highly sexual beings (Townsend, Thomas, Neilands, and Jackson 274).
Research Question 6
Are Black women affected by the visual rhetoric in video games that promotes Eurocentric ideals of beauty?
Results 6
Sixty five percent (n=49) of the participants felt that fair skin, small noses and lips, and long flowing hair are not the ideal Black female video game avatar. Forty six percent (n=33) of the participants did not know that Sheva was black. Eighteen percent of the participants (n=13) thought that fair-skin was the only color society wanted to see.
Discussion 6
Maxine Craig wrote that dominant beauty standards that idealized fair skin, small noses and lips, and long flowing hair defined black women’s dark skin colour, facial features, and tightly curled, short hair as ugly (163). The visual absence of African American women implies that these thoughts are still believed by video game media. African American (AA) women are not given the option to choose their race as a character. The only video game character available to represent Black women is an African woman in Resident Evil 5. Her skin tone is fare. Forty six percent of the participants did not know that Sheva was black when they watched the video. The authors of Double Burden wrote that the rule of beauty is still consistent with the ideology of white superiority: the fairer, the better. Thus, black women who depart from this standard and occupy inferior positions in the beauty hierarchy are penalized by means of fewer rewards (St. Jean and Feagin 75). Dark skinned women are penalized by a lack of visual representation in video games. Stevie Watson wrote that when European settlers transported persons of African descent to America, they established a caste system that placed dark-skinned persons at the bottom, light-skinned persons in the middle and Caucasians at the top (186). When I searched for examples of darker skinned women to use for image choices I was unable to find a darker skinned model. The only models available were fair skinned or light brown women with long hair. Eighteen percent of the participants felt that fair skin was the only skin shade society wanted to see. The constant portrayal of light to white skinned women has the ability to eek away at the cultural identity of African American women. Despite the visual rhetoric used to perpetuate Eurocentric standards of beauty, Black women do not buy into the Westernized views of beauty. Sixty five percent of the participants felt that fair skin, small noses and lips, and long flowing hair are not the ideal Black female video game avatar.
I was limited by the available images of Black women. It was also hard to find images of Black/African women with short hair. It would have been nice to have images of various shades of Black women in order to discover what the participants visual preferences were regarding a female Black/African American avatar.
Research Question 7
Are Black women affected by the visual rhetoric in video games that promotes Eurocentric ideals of thinness?
Results 7
Fifty one percent (n=37) of the participants thought Sheva’s body was just right and 18% (n=13) thought her body was normal.
Discussion 7
Thirty seven percent of the participants thought Sheva’s body was ideal while another 18% thought her body was normal. Since, the majority of the participants approved of Sheva’s slim physique they have been affected by the visual rhetoric that promotes the “thin ideal”. They felt a slimmer body was ideal or normal. The authors of A Content Analysis of Female Body Imagery in Video Games wrote that cultivation theory provides one explanation for how the thin ideal propagated by the media becomes viewed as a normal and desirable attribute (Martins, Williams, Harrison, and Ratan 825). Fifty five percent of the participants have become receptive to the “thin ideal” perpetuated by old and new Media. Sheva’s visual appearance has the potential to shape how women and men perceive the ideal image of Black women.
I noticed that in the demographic section some of the female participants had a skewed opinion about their body. For example, a Black woman with curvy hips or a medium buttocks would label herself as overweight or having a few extra pounds, when in reality she was slim or average. I wish I had included pictures of different body sizes in order to discover the participants’ ideal body type. I also wish I had tried to discover if the participants would have negative views about their bodies after looking at the female avatars. I also wish I had posted pictures of Sheva in regular clothing juxtaposed with her tribal wear in order to see which image Black women identified with the most or which image they felt were offensive, stereotypical, ideal etc…
Conclusion
Overall most of the answers in this study had the same outcomes as previous studies. The only disagreement I discovered was that Black females preferred the African avatar not a non gendered animal character. Black women do participate in playing video games. They prefer online games, music games, and simulation games. The participants only play once and while. They are not avid players like male gamers. Black women also felt that Sheva’s slim physique was ideal or normal. The idea of a thicker body frame appears to be less desirable for a majority of the Black women in this study. The absence of Black women in video games reveals that new media is not a place of neutrality. The ideologies that exist outside of the digital world are brought into cyberspace by its creators. Janell Hobson wrote that the contemporary examples of raced and gendered subjects, constructed in the realm of digital media and technology, suggest that the power dynamics that exist offline get reproduced online and in dominant media in disturbing and retrogressive ways. What we witness, then, are new media perpetuating old ideologies, thus undermining previous narratives, which posit cyberspace and digital technologies as progressive sites that allow for our transcendence from race, class, gender, and other markers of difference (112). The lack of women of color in video games reiterates the fact that Black women are not seen as women. When they are portrayed in video games they are light or fair skinned. This practice perpetuates the same racist ideologies of old media. In order for women of color to be recognized within new media spaces academic researchers need to include Black women in their research studies. Hobson feels that only by exposing the racial and colonialist roots in contemporary discourse and representation of cyberspace and other digital media, can we begin to unmask these power structures that position marginal people as either “outside technology” or as “passive subject of the technological gaze. In revealing the power differentials, we may begin to re-imagine marginal groups’ existence within the technological narrative even as they reconstitute it for their own identity (114).
References
Blair, Kris, and Christine Tulley. "Whose Research Is It Anyway?" Digital Writing Research: Technologies, Methodologies, and Ethical Issues. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton, 2007. 299-315. Print.
Burgess, Melinda, Steven Stermer, and Stephen Burgess. "Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Portrayal of Male and Female Characters on Video Game Covers." Sex Roles 57 (2007): 419-33. Print.
Collins,Patricia. "Learning from the Outsider Within." Feminist Approaches to Theory and Methodology: an Interdisciplinary Reader. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. 155-78. Print.
Consalvo, Mia, James D. Ivory, Nicole Martins, and Dmitri Williams. "The Virtual Census: Representations of Gender, Race and Age in Video Games — New Media Society." New Media & Society. Sage, 13 Sept. 2010. Web. 24 Sept. 2010. <http://nms.sagepub.com/content/11/5/815.abstract>.
Consalvo, Mia, Mark Hopson, Joon Lee, Pam Royse, and Baasamjav Undrahbuyan. "Women and Games: Technologies of the Gendered Self." New Media & Society 9.4 (2007): 555-76. Sage. Web. 9 Sept. 2010. <http://nms.sagepub.com/content/9/4/555>.
Craig, Maxine Leeds. "Race, Beauty, and the Tangled Knot of a Guilty Pleasure." Feminist Theory 7.2 (2006): 159-77. Feminist Theory. Sage Publishing. Web. 13 Sept. 2010. <http://fty.sagepub.com/content/7/2/159.full.pdf>.
Dickey, Michele D. "Girl Gamers: the Controversy of Girl Games and the Relevance of Female-oriented Game Design for Instructional Design." British Journal of Educational Technology 37.5 (2006): 785-93. Print.
Dalisay, Francis. and Tan, Alex. "Assimilation and Contrast Effects in the Priming of Asian American and African American Stereotypes Through TV Exposure." Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 86.1 (2009): 7-22. Print.
Fujioka, Yuki, Erin Ryan, Mark Agle, Melissa Legaspi, and Raiza Toohey. "The Role of Racial Identity in Response to Thin Media Ideals: Differences Between White and Black College Women." Communication Research 36.4 (2009): 451-74. Communication Research. Sage, 10 Apr. 2009. Web. 14 Sept. 2010. <http://crx.sagepub.com/content/36/4/451>.J&MC Quarterly 86.1 (2009): 7-22. Print.
Higgin, Tanner. "Blackless Fantasy: The Disappearance of Race in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games." Games and Cultures 4.1 (2009): 3-26. Games and Culture. Sage, 1 Dec. 2008. Web. 18 Sept. 2010. <http://gac.sagepub.com/content/4/1/3>.
Hobson, Janell. "Digital Whiteness, Primitive Blackness." Feminist Media Studies 8.2 (2008): 111-26. Print.
Hooks, Bell. "Eating The Other." Feminist Approaches to Theory and Methodology: an Interdisciplinary Reader. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. 179-94. Print.
Jackson, Linda A., Yong Zhao, Anthony Kolenic III, Hiram E. Fitzgerald, Harold Renald, and Alexander V. Eye. "Race, Gender and Information Technology Use: The New Digital Divide." CyberPsychology & Behavior 11.4 (2008): 437-42. Print.
Jansz, Joon, Corinne Avis, and Mirjam Vosmeer. "Playing The Sims 2: an Exploration of Gender Differences in Players Motivations and Patterns of Play." New Media & Society 12.2 (2010): 235-51. New Media & Society. Sage, 19 Jan. 2010. Web. 8 Sept. 2010. <http://nms.sagepub.com/content/12/2/235>.
Jefferson, Deana, and Jayne Stake. "Appearance Self Attitudes of African American And European American Women: Media Comparisons and Internalization of Beauty Ideals." Psychology of Women Quarterly 33 (2009): 396-409. Print.
Lee, Moon J., Shannon L. Bichard, Megan S. Irey, Heather M. Walt, and Alana J. Carlson. "Television Viewing and Ethnic Stereotypes: Do College Students Form Stereotypical Perceptions of Ethnic Groups as a Result of Heavy Television Consumption?" The Howard Journal of Communications 110th ser. 20.95 (2009): 95-110. Print.
Martins, Nicole, Dmitri Williams, Kristen Harrison, and Rabindra Ratan. "A Content Analysis of Female Body Imagery in Video Games." Sex Roles 61 (2009): 824-36. Print.
Maylor, Uvanney. "Is It Because I'm Black? A Black Female Research Experience." Race Ethnicity and Education 12.1 (2009): 53-64. Print.
Morawitz, Elizabeth, and Dana Mastro. "The Effects of Sexualization of Female Video Game Characters on Gender Stereotyping and Female Self-Concept." Sex Roles 61 (2009): 808-23. Print.
Mupotsa, Danai S. "A Radical Black Feminist Standpoint? A Very Preliminary Discussion of Methods and Methodology." Postamble 2.2 (2006): I-Viii. Print.
Punyanunt-Carter, Narissra M. "The Perceived Realism of African American Portrayals on Television." The Howard Journal of Communications 19 (2008): 241-57. Print.
St, Jean Yanick, and Joe R. Feagin. Double Burden: Black Women and Everyday Racism. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1998. Print.
Taylor, Ula. "The Historical Evolution of Black Feminist Theory and Praxis." Journal of Black Studies 29 (1998): 234-253.
Townsend, Tiffany, Anita Thomas, Torsten Neilands, and Tiffany Jackson. "I'M No Jezabel; I Am Young, Gifted, and Black; Identity, Sexuality, and Black Girls." Psychology of Women Quarterly 34 (2010): 273-85. Print.
Schott, Gareth, and Kristy Horrell. "Girl Gamers and their Relationship with the Gaming Culture." Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 6 (2000): 36-53.
Stokes, Carla E. "Representin' in Cyberspace: Sexual Scripts, Self-definition, and Hip Hop Culture in Black American Adolescent Girls Home Pages." Culture, Health & Sexuality 9.2 (2007): 169-84. Print.
Watson, Stevie. "Skin Color Shades in Advertising to Ethnic Audiences; The Case of African Americans." Journal of Marketing Communications 16.4 (210): 185-201. Print.
Winn, Jillian, and Carrie Heeter. "Gaming, Gender, and Time: Who Makes Time To Play." Sex Roles61: 1-13. Print.
Wright, Michelle. "Finding a Place in Cyberspace: Black Women, Technology, and Identity." Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 26.1 (2005): 48-59. Project MUSE. Web. 15 Sept. 2010. <http://use.jhu.edu/journals/fro/summary/v026/26.1wright.html>.
