Gender, harassment, and safety in immersive digital spaces: A study of inequality on the metaverse

Abstract

The metaverse, constituted by immersive virtual environments rendered through extended reality technologies, has emerged as a site of sociality, labour, commerce, and cultural production. Yet this architecture of digital togetherness has simultaneously reproduced, and in certain structural respects intensified, the gendered asymmetries of harm. Drawing upon secondary data analysis, systematic content analysis of extant empirical literature and platform policy documents, and illustrative case study evidence, this paper examines the modalities, structural determinants, and experiential consequences of gender-based harassment within metaversal spaces. The analysis is theoretically anchored in feminist technoscience, Galtung's structural violence framework, Crenshaw's intersectionality thesis, and the digital dualism critique advanced by Jurgenson. Findings indicate that women, non-binary, and LGBTQ + users disproportionately encounter verbal abuse, avatar-based sexual assault, doxxing, and systematic exclusion within major platforms including Meta Horizon Worlds, VRChat, and Decentraland. Platform governance architectures are shown to be structurally inadequate, characterised by anonymity-enabling design, reactive rather than proactive moderation, and the absence of intersectionality-sensitive policy frameworks. The paper concludes with a set of evidence-informed policy recommendations directed at platform developers, regulatory bodies, and civil society actors.