1. INTRODUction
Science and technology boasted a supposed neutrality for a long time, as if their construction and maintenance were not based on the hierarchy of subjects according to their social class, gender, ethnicity, race, etc. The traditional subject of science is the hegemonic subject, subject of colonialism, white, European, heteronormative and belonging to privileged social classes (Freitas et al., 2017).
This scenario is gradually changing, motivated by feminist agendas and gender studies, black studies, indigenous studies, among others. These studies seek to show that science and technology are part of a structure of power relations based on an androcentric patriarchal society in addition to not being neutral constructions (Freitas et al., 2017).
Historically, the discussion on the "gender" category has involved diverse perspectives and discussions among researchers, which leads to this field of study having different approaches and lines of thought. More than a category based on physiological elements, gender must be understood as a cultural form of classification, part of a relational and hierarchical system that makes distinctions based on symbolic violence. Beyond the dichotomies man/woman, female/male, is an abstract category that aims to "explain and deconstruct differentiations based on social perceptions of sex, body, culture" (Natansohn, 2014, p. 5).
This study is guided by the perspective defended by researcher Linda Nicholson. In her article "Interpreting gender", she leads the reader to think of the biological body as something complex that must be analyzed within a history and a culture, from a variable perspective, not constant. The author warns about the dangers of thinking that gender depends on the biological body, which would contribute to the exclusion of those who differ from normative heterosexuality, based on binary male/female opposition (Nicholson, 2000).
To think about the category of women, it is necessary to abandon the female/male dichotomy, understanding it as a complex network of interlocking characteristics (Nicholson, 2000). The author draws on Ludwig Wittgenstein's ideas about language, to argue that the meaning of the word woman should not be defined by means of a characteristic or set of them, but, based on a complex network of characteristics, with different elements present in different cases.
Therefore, I suggest thinking of the meaning of "woman" as being able to illustrate the map of similarities and differences that intersect. In this map the body does not disappear, it becomes a historically specific variable whose meaning and importance are recognized as potentially different in changing historical contexts. (Nicholson, 2000, p. 36)
The philosopher and researcher Judith Butler (2018) corroborates what Nicholson mentions, by abandoning the idea of an exact definition for the “women” category, which she says would only reinforce the male/female binarism of a heterosexual matrix. The author, in her book "Gender problems", tests the category of the subject by arguing that it is a performative construction. Therefore, the word woman "in itself is a term in process, a becoming, a construction that cannot legitimately be said to have an origin or an end" (p. 69).
Therefore, "woman" is considered as this complex network of intersecting characteristics, a constant construction with no fixed definition. In other words, the meaning of women is not limited to a specific physical, social or psychological characteristic, nor to a set of them, but to the network of attributes that allow mapping similarities and recognizing differences in these issues.
In this analysis, we seek to understand the games from the perspective of “gender technologies”, a term coined by the writer Teresa De Lauretis that refers to the discursive techniques and strategies with which specific gender relations are constructed (De Lauretis, 1994). This perspective resembles that of Pereira (2009). As the author mentions, gender is not a property of bodies, that is, something natural for human beings but a set of effects "produced on bodies, behaviors and social relations" (p. 486).
For the author, the genre is the product of different social technologies such as television, cinema, press, internet and also games. Therefore, gender is not the property of bodies, but a set of effects produced in them.
Throughout this work, the focus will be on gender issues, aimed at the experience of women in the virtual context and especially digital games. It is important to reinforce that gender in this research is not synonymous of women. The central issues addressed throughout this research are identified as women, but in this conception there is a multiplicity of identities created discursively that articulate to reason, geographical origin, social class, cultural context, sexual orientation, among others in addition to gender.
The concept of intersectionality, coined academically by African-American Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, allows us to see the overlays of gender, race and class and defines the position of black feminism against the idea of a global white and hegemonic feminism. Although the term became popular in the academic context from the 2000s, its origin is linked to the black feminist movement of the 1970s, known as black feminism. She sought to criticize the hegemony of white, European, heterosexual and middle class feminism. "Intersectionality is seen as one of the ways to combat multiple and interrelated oppression and, therefore, as an instrument of political struggle" (Hirata, 2014, p. 69).
1.1. THE TECHNOLOGICAL GAP OF GENDER
Historically, productive work has been assigned to the male gender, reserving for women the functions of satisfying basic needs and social welfare, essentially linked to the problems of care and reproduction. If in the past they were linked exclusively to functions such as taking care of the house, educating children and engaging in handicraft activities, even today these stereotypes reproduce with the feminine image strongly related to care functions, being mostly linked to areas such as nursing, human resources, communication, education, etc.
Female exclusion from scientific and technological practice was guided by scientific discourses, which postulated based on biological determinations that women would be less able to produce science and technology. More recent studies point to concerns about this hegemonic, androcentric and sexist universe in science and technology. (Freitas et al., 2017, p. 4)
In general terms, gender studies in science and technology indicate that this knowledge was instituted based on male epistemological and philosophical bases. Science was built by men for men. Not by a biological determinism that justifies the elimination of women from these areas, but by a construction designed to maintain male privileges over the androcentric hegemonic context of science.
The concept of supposed biological determinism was strongly used to perpetuate the idea that women have lower capacities than men in certain areas, including science, technology and games. A wrong concept that completely ignores the social context in which the subject is inserted (Nicholson, 2000). The elimination of women from technology is not based on biological factors, but on a technological gender gap.
This gap refers not only to the obstacles women face in accessing Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), but also involves social dimensions of how gender operates hierarchically in the design, distribution and appropriation of technologies by the female gender (Natansohn, 2013).
If you look at the history of great technological advances, it is possible to identify two factors. First, the technology has been designed, molded and disseminated by white men in the academy and in the military industrial complex. Second, when women somehow manage to close this gap that segregates gender participation in technology, there is a historical and systematic elimination of female performance, such as the fact that Ada Lovelace and Hedy Lamarr are important names in technology and go unnoticed for most people.
What we learn from the history of the internet is that it was engineered, implemented, programmed, and spread by white men in academia and the military-industrial complex. Despite the fact that the earliest computer programmers were actually women, the creators of ARPANET and the earliest desk-sized computers were educated white men with ties to research institutions and the government, spaces which have historically been associated with white male authority and privilege. (Bezio, 2018)
In the book “Internet in feminine code: theories and practices”, author Graciela Natansohn (2013) uses the example of the experience of children in dismantling their toys to illustrate what she calls “binary, hierarchical and highly unfavorable technological habitats for girls" (p. 17).
According to the author, children are encouraged to disarm and (try) to reassemble their toys in an exercise of fundamental creative curiosity in making technology, while girls in the same situation of disarming their dolls are scolded and discouraged, encouraged to show zeal and responsibility for their belongings and pushed to the work of care, social welfare and reproduction.
