Women in Virtual Reality: Striving for Equal Engagement

This article will explain various virtual reality applications used in a variety of educational settings but will also explore the status of technology as a male-dominated domain.  Though virtual reality is thought to be an exception to that rule, there are still troubling issues leading to an observable lack of inclusion for women and girls, beginning with the design of VR headsets and continuing with persistent hostility towards women in technology.

Virtual Reality in Education

Technology has progressed at lightning speed over the past several decades and modern users are armed with a myriad of tools. One of those, virtual reality, promises to be a genuine game changer for many and it’s encouraging to see applications move from gaming and entertainment to more socially beneficial applications, like those used in educational settings. Using software developed by Osso VR, today’s medical students can explore the human heart and other organs without ever picking up a scalpel and even “operate” on virtual patients.

With the advent of such incredible technology, medical students are increasingly undergoing routine training using immersive simulations, which apparently “significantly improves basic robotic surgical skills” (Makransky & Lilleholt, p. 1143). After a VR training curriculum comprised of several components including camera navigation, hand eye coordination, and several laparoscopic practice exercises, the skills developed by trainees are monitored for progress towards proficiency in residency (Matzke, Ziegler, Martin, Crawford, & Sutton, p.191).

One program marketed to medical schools, Anatomyou, allows the user to travel through the inside of the human body to learn all about various systems like respiratory, circulatory and digestive, among others. Students of physical therapy programs are jumping in as well, using programs like BehaVR combined with traditional physical therapy, and learning how to help patients control their chronic pain without the use of opioids. Another PT-focused program, V-Time, whose developers address the cognitive and physical risks leading to the high incidence of falls experienced by the elderly, offers a training program that features the use of a treadmill augmented by virtual reality to “successfully address the motor-cognitive interactions that are fundamental for fall risk reduction” (Mirelman, Rochester, Reelick, Nieuwhof, Pelosin, Abbruzzese, & Hausdorff, p. 2).

Virtual reality has also made its way into K-12 education with programs like Inclusive ClassVR, which offers structured lesson plans to help students visualize and understand complex subjects. Others allows students with autism and other disabilities to engage in education free from the physical and developmental limitations they face daily. One program inspired by the movie “Inside Out”, InMind VR 2, is set inside the brain of a teenage boy and centers on the chemistry behind human emotion. Educational simulations like Google’s Expeditions software takes students on virtual field trips, and even NASA has gotten into the game with a PlayStation VR demo that allows practice with robotic arms modeled after those used by astronauts.

Other creative applications encourage students to see the world through the eyes of people from other cultures or genders. One study on VR used to increase empathy reports that virtual reality “can play a fundamental role in improving the impact of a persuasive message compared to more traditional materials such as pictures or videos” (Chittaro, Sioni, Crescentini, & Fabbro, p. 11). 

The Female VR Experience

With the advent of such amazing technology and the increased educational immersion opportunities, comes the realization that the technology is hardly perfect.  For example, VR headsets, designed primarily by men, are larger than comfortable for many women, with lenses that are too far apart for an optimal experience and headsets themselves that are loose and uncomfortable, because they are built for a larger head.

Another important factor that leads to a less enjoyable VR experience for women is the occurrence of motion sickness while immersed in VR, experienced by women at a rate four times higher than men, which some researchers attribute to hormonal differences (Munafo, Diedrick, & Stoffregen, p. 890), but may also be due to the fact that women in general are shorter than men and this phenomenon, known as “sexual dimorphism”, means that their center of mass is lower. Military researchers were among the first to recognize the phenomenon of higher rates of motion sickness for women engaged in simulator activities and though manufacturers have addressed the issue many times, the problem continues and has been called the “principal limitation on the widespread use of these systems” (Munafo et al., p. 889).

Also attributed to decreased enjoyment of women when utilizing VR is depth perception, which is apparently rendered in one of two ways; “motion parallax”, or how the human brain determines if an object that appears larger is moving closer, or “shape-from-shading”, which has to do with light reflection determining an object’s shape and location. The human brain uses both to view the world, but women are more likely to rely on shape-from-shading, which VR is less efficiently able to convey, since headsets are geared towards the men who design them, and men tend to prioritize motion parallax (Munafo et al., p. 894). 

The Implications of Gender Discrimination in VR

As colleges across the nation begin to stock their technology centers with VR headsets by the hundreds, how will female students fare if they decide to enter this exciting but not yet inclusive environment? Even as increasing numbers of woman are delving into virtual reality communities and software, there is still a pervasive objectification of women and threats of violence against them simply for their increasing participation in casual gaming (Warden et al., p. 211), even in virtual worlds meant to educate and socialize students.

In response to media critic Anita Sarkeesian’s Kickstarter campaign, meant to raise awareness of the sexual objectification and misrepresentation of women in online environments, her website was hacked and her social media sites were inundated with threats of violence, including sexual assault, rape, and even death. The threats escalated to include pornographic images of her being raped and trolls even designed a video game called “Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian”, which allowed players to pummel her into bloody and bruised submission. (Mantilla, p. 567). Alarming yes, but is such an experience unusual? Unfortunately, infuriatingly, no, it is not.

The Future of VR

So, what does this mean for the future of virtual reality in educational settings for women? That will depend largely on the ability and willingness of the technology and its users to ensure the inclusion of everyone, regardless of their gender. “Not feeling like one belongs in an environment has a detrimental impact on learning” (Cheryan et al., p. 1826), so it is important to design learning spaces to meet the needs of everyone. If women are not provided an equitable experience and this happens often enough, they may give up altogether. In fact, critical thinking, engagement, and interaction directly affect learning results and the lack of such attributes in online learning environments, for example, has been shown to be associated with increased dropout rates (Warden et al. 2013).

If we expect women and girls to benefit from the amazing technologies that continue to advance, especially in educational settings, we must allow them to feel a part of the virtual reality revolution. As Melinda Gates observed, “We cannot close the gender gap without first closing the data gap. Gaps and biases reinforce the social stereotypes and cultural practices that don't value women and girls" (Hindustan Times, 2016).