"Skilled female gamers at risk of harassment from inferior men"

Article here. Excerpt:

'Men are bullies -- at least online, in games, and disproportionately towards women, an international study has found. The kicker though, is that men are most likely to harrass women when they're being beaten by them.

In their paper "Insights into Sexism: Male Status and Performance Moderates Female-Directed Hostile and Amicable Behaviour", Michael M. Kasumovic of the University of New South Wales' Ecology and Evolution Research Centre and Jeffrey H. Kuznekoff of Miami University Middletown's Department of Integrative Studies researched whether "female-initiated disruption of a male hierarchy incites hostile behaviour from poor performing males who stand to lose the most status."

Kuznekoff and Kasumovic looked at behaviour in Halo 3 multiplayer matches, creating three different Xbox Live accounts and measuring player reactions. All matches were recorded for later analysis. The 'control' account merely played the game, without using the real-time voice comms to interact with other players. The remaining accounts were assigned male and female attributes, with researchers broadcasting pre-recorded phrases in a gender-specific voice.'