Game app addresses sexism and sexual harassment in the workplace

Sexism and sexual harassment in the workplace are serious problems. But individuals and organisations often cannot recognise the problem and sexism goes unchallenged. This creates an increasingly hostile working environment. The Antisexism Game is a game-based app that helps employees and employers understand the levels of perceived sexism and/or sexual harassment in their workplace. Combining academic research and serious games, the app creates an engaging diagnostic tool that helps participants recognise sexism in the workplace. It was developed by an academic with 20 years’ expertise researching and teaching the psychology of prejudice.

The game explores sexism and sexual harassment in ways that are meaningful in real-world situations, and helps employees engage in a process of self-assessment. In turn, this helps them to decide whether they have witnessed, or experienced, sexism or sexual harassment in the workplace. 10% of profits from the Antisexism Game are donated to Rape Crisis England & Wales.

How does it work?

The app is intended to be played by individual employees. It works through a web browser on any device and takes a few minutes to complete. There are two activities in the app:

1. Bubble Burst a fast paced game that helps players recognise sexism and sexual harassment.
2. Test Yourself three short questionnaires with a total of 21 questions with yes/no answers. The answers enable the app to indicate if a player has witnessed, or experienced, sexism and/or sexual harassment and how severe it was.

Employers offer their employees anonymous access to the app. The app helps individuals understand if they have witnessed, or experienced, sexism and/ or sexual harassment. Aggregated anonymous responses are available to employers through a dashboard enabling them to assess whether there are wider issues that need to be addressed. The app can then be used repeatedly to track the impact of any remedial interventions. Are the levels of perceived sexism or sexual harassment decreasing?

The Antisexism Game was created by Dr Caroline Mitchell, an academic with 20 years’ expertise researching and teaching the psychology of prejudice, in conjunction with Focus Games--a developer of game-based learning tools in healthcare.