Entre jogar e se proteger: uma leitura gestáltica das experiências de violência de gênero em jogos eletrônicos

Abstract

This study aimed to understand, from a Gestalt therapy perspective, the experiences of genderbased violence in electronic games as reported by cisgender women enrolled in the Psychology program at the Universidade Federal de Goiás. The research is basic in nature, with a crosssectional design, exploratory-descriptive objectives, and a qualitative approach. Four cisgender women participated in the study, with whom individual semi-structured interviews were conducted. The interviews were recorded and transcribed, and the transcriptions were submitted to MAXQDA 26.0.0 software, used as an analytical support tool, resulting in 760 occurrences distributed across 16 codes organized into three analytical axes: Contact and Identity, Game Elements, and Violence. The theoretical framework drew on gender studies, the understanding of electronic games as gender technologies, and Gestalt therapy concepts, particularly Self Theory and the misery adjustment. The results indicate that gender-based violence manifests in games both through symbolic violence embedded in their content and through relational violence present in player interactions within online multiplayer games. Faced with these experiences, participants develop creative adjustments, such as muting their microphone, avoiding certain game styles, and restricting themselves to accompanied matches, understood as expressions of the misery adjustment, which arises from conditions external to the subject that constrain spontaneous action in the field. It is concluded that gender-based violence in electronic games is part of the patriarchal logic that regulates which bodies may occupy certain spaces, producing effects that compromise the players' self beyond the specific episodes of victimization