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I've been furloughed for 6wks while lab is still closed, but scientists just can't resist collecting data. So I would like to present my lockdown study investigating sexist behaviour on the popular Scrabble app, Words With Friends!
VERY IMPORTANT SCIENCE
VERY IMPORTANT SCIENCE
I downloaded the app to play with a friend, but lots of strangers also started games with me, which I accepted. I quickly noticed that men I don't know frequently sent messages using the chat function, whereas women did not. I began to quantify....
10 out of 12 men who started games with me sent messages (83.3%) compared to 1 out of 10 women (10%; P=0.0006). 50% of men who messaged attempted multiple times, with a mean of 2.1 attempts and a range from 2-6. 60% of men who messaged resigned the game when I did not respond...
30% of men who messaged sent content I deemed "inappropriate". 2 expressed a sense of entitlement to conversation from me, and 1 was condescending. The 1 woman who messaged sent a single message with well wishes that I am staying safe during covid...
These experiments were conducted using an account in my name (Sarah) with no profile photo. Next, I made an account with the name John, also with no photo, to investigate whether men would treat other men the same way they treated women...
To avoid bias, all data had been collected on users who invited me to play. However, no invites were sent to John, presumably because new accounts are not suggested to other users until they become active. Therefore "John" sent invites to all users suggested by the app...
The plan was to start collecting data once invitations started coming in and repeat the experiments in Fig 1. However, no invitations were sent to John by male users, even after much activity (invites were received from women, none of whom sent messages)....
Interestingly, only 42.3% of men (n=14) accepted invites from John, compared to 83.3% (n=12) of women (P=0.0344). To investigate whether men declined invitations because they came from another man, this was repeated using the account in the name Sarah...
No sex differences were observed in invite acceptance from Sarah (P=0.8222; n=11 men/10 women). Further, men were significantly more likely to accept invitations from Sarah than John (P=0.0484), whereas women were equally likely to accept invites from either account (P=0.7483)...
My data demonstrates clear sexist behaviour by men, but not women, on the Word With Friends app. Of note, many male users expressed a sense of entitlement to conversation from women they do not know, either through repeat messaging or by explicitly stating so in their messages...
These findings suggest that men need to SORT THEMSELVES OUT (scientific term), as the onus falls on women who wish to play games in peace to act against this by blocking individuals, yet another example of women being forced to change their behaviour to avoid harassment. THE END.
Addendum! Sorry Fig 1 was super dark. Uploading as a different file type here!
