The Surprising Reason Men Harass Women Online

Many women these days have likely experienced some sort of online harassment from men, whether it's from a friend or complete stranger. Now, a study published in PLOS One has found that men who engage in this type of behavior suffer from their own set of issues. (Surprise, surprise.)

The study, conducted by two researchers — Michale Kasumovic at the University of New South Wales and Jeffrey Kuznekoff at Miami University — looked at how male video game players interacted with women players in Halo 3. Their conclusions, after 163 games, discovered that men who were doing more poorly in Halo 3 were much more hostile and aggressive to women than to men in the same game. On the flip side, men who were doing great at the game were equally as nice to both male and female players, since they didn't have to worry about losing. As the Washington Post put it, "sexist dudes are literally losers."

The researchers argue that the men react this way because of their evolutionary tendency to be a dominant male in society, like how it was in the hunter-gatherer times. And since women sometimes are be more attracted to that type of men, the "loser men" do everything in their power to gain that sense of worth by saying terrible things to women.

"We argue that a secondary benefit of increased female-directed hostility is that it simultaneously decreases a female's confidence and perception of her self-worth (i.e. negging) while simultaneously increasing the perception of him being a dominant (i.e. socially valuable) mate," wrote Kasumovic.

Considering how there is so much harassment toward women online because of the anonymity allowed, this study shows just how pervasive that can be; the researchers also believe these conclusions can be a bigger jumping-off point of studying how other male-dominated areas function.

"The idea that videogames may be reinforcing such gender segregation as the norm for many teenagers is troubling given the fact that a significant proportion of them are gamers," wrote Kausmovic. "Such ideas have the potential to spill over in real-life interactions and promote socially unacceptable behaviors such as sexism."

While the researchers didn't propose any magical solution to end the problem, having this knowledge is a start in trying to end the awful comments women have to endure when entering a male-dominated area — which exists online and in many work settings.