Q&A: Online Harassment of Female Gamers with Stephanie "Sushilulu" Greene

Casual gamer Stephanie Greene was thrust into the online spotlight when ABC America aired a segment about the harassment of women associated with the online movement, GamerGate in Mid-January, 2015. The segment featured a short clip of the in-game harassment that she received while playing an online match of first person shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

After the segment aired, she became inspired to do more to raise awareness about online harassment, and now writes for online games blogging website Ship2Block20.com.
She shares her experiences with NowUC:

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Q: Why do you write about online harassment?
A: I write articles about some of the issues the community faces by breaking down current situations with facts to help digest what is going on around them. I take harassment very seriously as it is something I’ve faced for years with the online gaming community and it needs to be more heavily deterred.
Q: You have also faced harassment yourself in the online gaming community? Is this specifically because you are female, or is this the regular angry raging that we often experience with online gaming? 
A: I have faced harassment in the online community. I’ve had people message me after I mic muted them, have their friends contact me after blocking them, and almost every time I play with the voice chat someone says something horrific because of my gender. I feel personally as if it is based on gender although most would argue that the reason why that is because the “trolls” are looking for a weak spot to throw you off.
When almost every game that I log into, that allows for community chat, has someone treating me that way I don’t see it as just someone trying to get under my skin. I see it as more of an attack because of my gender, not because they want to throw me off my game.
Q: Feminist critic, Anita Sarkeesian spoke about the harassment problem she believes gamers have at the #AllAboutWomen conference in March. Do you agree with this statement? Why?
A: Gaming does have a problem. Actually, it has multiple problems. One of the main problems with harassment is the struggle happening online about it right now. Harassment itself is a huge issue but it is not being made better by those who are not only profiting off [it], but also getting large mainstream media attention for it. A great example was the video of mine ABC Nightline news had used.
I was playing a casual round of Counterstrike Global Offensive and five guys were harassing me, I was streaming at the time so I recorded the whole thing and put it on YouTube. I was contacted by ABC (America) and told that they would like to use my video to talk about harassment in the gaming community and GamerGate. They spun my video to look as if GamerGate supporters were harassing me for being a woman on nation wide news.
I spent weeks answering questions because many people had already seen the full video. It did much more damage initially than good and gamers showed their outrage on many different platforms. These people are defending a hobby that they love and the mainstream media has been painting all gamers as monsters.
All I’m saying is that yes, gaming has a problem, but the biggest problem right now are the people profiting off of harassment and game developers not offering evolved systems to further combat in-game harassment.
Q: The ABC Nightline segment was a story about GamerGate, did you receive any harassment after it was aired, and was it from GamerGate?
A: GamerGate was never responsible for my harassment. After the segment aired I didn’t really receive harassment where you would think I would have. I was shocked actually. I didn’t know what GamerGate was except for what the media had shown me. I was asked to post in KotakuInAction on reddit by someone who had contacted me through Facebook saying a lot of people were curious as to who I was and what really happened.
I was super nervous to post there because all I had heard was that GamerGate threatened to rape and kill women. I sucked it up though after reading several of their threads and seeing that women had been posting there too without a problem! After posting there I posted in an Anti-GamerGate [subreddit] called GamerGhazi and they were understanding too. I was so taken aback by how many people watched the full video of the harassment I received and said “Yeah that sucked and we are trying to change this”.
The worst comments I received were actually on YouTube where I was brigaded a few times by people just wanting to put me down. They made a lot of sexual references and tried to make me feel bad for posting the video in the first place, but that was actually the worst of it related to the ABC segment.
Q: The in-game harassment you received in that segment was also sexual in nature. Is it usually sexual harassment?
A: It is always sexual harassment. I don’t get harassed for the way I play, for the sound of my voice, for the gun I chose. It is always some sort of graphic or nasty collection of targeted comments coming my way specifically for my gender.
I believe harassment is bad for everyone, but I know within my personal gaming experience my gender has been the cause of most harassment directed towards me. I feel that it is mainly within the gaming community when in-game that I experience the most gender-ed based issues. I don’t run into that kind of aggressive and blatant sexism anywhere else online.
Q: Do you think these people are just trolling for a reaction, or some of them are genuinely misogynistic, or would you say both?
A:  I think at times it is a collection of both. A lot of young men who play games everyday are being raised in a culture that allows this behavior to flourish and is almost encouraged by their fellow team mates. The in-game tools work for temporary quick relief but it doesn’t teach these people to stop the behaviors they are doing because there is no real effective deterrent. Suspending them allows them to jump onto a throw away account and continue, there is no liability for their actions.
Q: How can we combat online harassment?  What can game developers do?
A: I feel as if developers can promote the tools they already have in place by creating mandatory tutorials on how to report individuals upon first game for every player. I also think it would help if there was a separate moderated server as an option for those of us who want to play in a more rule enforced environment.