Radio 5, fascinating discussion on male behaviour to women in the Metaverse

[IvyTwines]

They've just had a fascinating discussion on the 'Metaverse' on BBC Radio 5, starting at around 12.45pm, where a female tech journalist went into it with a female avatar, and found it very male, and the male behaviour towards her unsettling. It's an interesting discussion and makes you wonder how appealing or successful this new platform will be with potential female users, especially given the 'on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog' aspect of online personas. Or maybe we'll all end up going online with male avatars to avoid harassment. Progress, eh?

Didn't this just launch? Didn't take long.

I heard this – the men were just staring at her, or taking pictures of her, or (worst of all) getting so close to her in the virtual space that she could hear them whispering in her ears! Very depressing, if grimly fascinating from a psychological perspective. Some men just can't help themselves it seems – every advance of this type will create a new avenue for creepy behaviour and abuse.

Yes, the piece didn't go the way I was expecting it to. I haven't done online gaming in the last decade or so, but does this happen to women there too? Sorry if I'm stating the obvious here but it made me think, what if I was a teenage girl, got hassled in the game with my female avatar, made myself a male avatar, enjoyed the relief of not being leered at, and found myself taken seriously as an equal and then wanted to carry that through into my real life? Is that what's going on with some of the identifying-out girls?