Gatekeeping the “Gamer” Identity: Vicarious Consumption and the Exclusion of Women from American Video Game Subcultures

The exclusion of women from American video game subcultures reflects deep-seated patriarchal ideologies of consumption that trace back to 19th-century notions of femininity and vicarious labour. Analyzing the Gamergate controversy as a pivotal case study, this article demonstrates how gaming—a self-indulgent, immersive medium—has been culturally coded as a masculine domain, mirroring historical prohibitions against women consuming intoxicants or other "selfish" luxuries. Just as Victorian-era women were confined to vicarious consumption (purchasing goods solely to elevate their husbands' status), contemporary female gamers and developers face hostility for encroaching on a subculture built around masculine identity formation through play. Video games, with their addictive dopamine-driven rewards and role-playing of hypermasculine characters, function as a modern analog to historically male-exclusive indulgences like alcohol or narcotics. The industry’s lack of female protagonists (only 5% at E3 2019) and the harassment of women in online spaces further reinforce this gendered gatekeeping. By linking Gamergate’s anti-feminist backlash to Thorstein Veblen’s theories of conspicuous consumption and Mary Louise Roberts’ work on gendered consumer ideologies, this analysis reveals how gaming subcultures perpetuate historical patterns of excluding women from autonomous, pleasure-driven consumption.