Are more women becoming part of the gaming community?

For decades the gaming community has been male dominant but in more recent years the scales have been fairly even between male and female gamers, because now account for 46% of all gamers. Even though this is the case harassment is still a problem for female gamers. In 2012, a study of the Ohio University showed that the same person playing Halo 3 online with a male and a female profile using recorded voice messages received three times more negative comments with the female profile.

Why are women more targeted than men in online gaming?

The biggest reason for women being targeted by men is that women are often harassed because they are perceived as an outside and intrusive minority in a mostly male environment. Men also think that women aren't as skilled at the games although they will on average be more respectful towards a male that is bad at the game than they are to a female who is skilled at the game. The bright side of this is that women are making up a bigger percentage of online gamers and because of this harassment is not being tolerated and is instead being reported and spoken about on a larger platform like YouTube or Twitch.