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Full text release has been delayed at the author's request until December 14, 2026

ETD Abstract Container

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The Gendered Play Gap: How Gendered Labor Shapes Choice and Constraint in Video Games

Brenner-Levoy, Jeremy
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0332-7936
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1733834053119476

Abstract Details

2024, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences: Sociology.
Sociologists have dedicated considerable attention to studying occupational inequality. However, they focus predominantly on the external causes and neglect to look in-depth at how socialized differences in preferences contribute. Further, the sociological attention to leisure inequality has mostly dropped off. In this dissertation, I argue that sociological understanding of occupational inequality can inform research on video games, a relatively new form of leisure and that this field can present multiple unique insights into occupational inequality. This research uses a mixed-method dataset collected in 2023, consisting of 4,271 survey participants and 53 interviews to illustrate the overlap between these two seemingly unrelated fields by using occupational inequality frameworks to explore video game inequity. In Chapter 2, I use occupational prestige and the gendered pay gap to understand how video games are differentially prestigious and how gamers are afforded disparate social capital. I find that video games have a relatively stable prestige hierarchy that seems to be shaped by gender. Games associated with women, queer people, and children are viewed as lesser than their masculine counterparts. In Chapter 3, I use pink-collar careers and college major selection to understand whether the same forces that shape women’s participation in work also shape their selection into certain video game genres. I find that the same factors that structure women’s preferences for certain types of work also explain some of the women’s preferences for genres. Finally, in Chapter 4, using gendered carework expectations and the second shift, I illustrate that gender not only shapes selection into game genres but also into individual work roles within video games. I find that women, feminine, and feminized groups disproportionately select into roles that are characterized by carework and subordinated as being less difficult than their masculinized counterparts. These three separate findings, each at different levels of video game preference, reflect occupational inequality and can be used to inform future research on the workplace.
Jeffrey Timberlake, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Kishonna Gray, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Katherine Jones, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Erynn Casanova, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
144 p.
Sociology
Gender; Sexuality; Prestige; labor; Carework; Play

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Brenner-Levoy, J. (2024). The Gendered Play Gap: How Gendered Labor Shapes Choice and Constraint in Video Games [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1733834053119476

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Brenner-Levoy, Jeremy. The Gendered Play Gap: How Gendered Labor Shapes Choice and Constraint in Video Games. 2024. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1733834053119476.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Brenner-Levoy, Jeremy. "The Gendered Play Gap: How Gendered Labor Shapes Choice and Constraint in Video Games." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2024. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1733834053119476

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1733834053119476
© 2024, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.