Voice Girl Gamers

Giving female gamers a voice because everyone has the right to be themselves both online and offline

WINDTRE is one of the biggest telco players in Italy and aimed to build awareness of the negative behaviors of some gamers online – negativity that includes disrespect for female gamers. By altering the voice of a male gamer to sound feminine so that all participants could feel the aggression that many women experience online, our experiment sensitized both boys and girls alike and called out bad behavior online that's rarely discussed.

Bring to light the fact that many girl gamers playing online are victims of violence and don’t feel free to be themselves, thus hiding their gender because they're afraid to express their identity. Why? Probably because if women speak during the game, they're insulted, mocked with sexist jokes and asked to leave.

With female gamers, only 28% of them turn on their microphone while playing – which means that 72% of women choose not to make their voice heard.

WINDTRE and Wunderman Thompson Italy invited a professional gamer to play online, wearing "women's shoes" so to speak thanks to a voice switcher plug-in that turned his voice into a female voice. Thinking he was a girl, our player was offended, insulted and bullied with sexist comments and jokes. But the initiative sparked reflection and action, with the experiment being used for educational purposes shown at industry events and in schools.

'Voice Girl Gamers' was the first initiative to give female gamers a voice to push back against online sexism and the campaign achieved more than two million views, was the most discussed gaming campaign in Italy in 2022, and received the highest increase in client W3's annual reputation score.