Chapter 7: The Feminine Embodiment of VR: Critiquing the Default Masculinity of VR Embodiment

This chapter critiques the masculinist assumptions underlying the development and experience of VR technology, emphasising the importance of acknowledging the player's own body in VR systems. Mark Zuckerberg's 2022 keynote, introducing Facebook's rebrand as Meta, reflected ongoing industry narratives that VR allows users to transcend their physical bodies. This chapter challenges such myths, highlighting how VR technology is often designed with a white, cis, able-bodied male user in mind, marginalising other bodies. Drawing from feminist phenomenology, the chapter argues for a situated understanding of embodiment in VR that acknowledges the specific socio-cultural and physical contexts of the user body. The chapter explores how VR produces presence, immersion and embodiment through an affective assemblage of player body, VR system and game, emphasising the individualised and contingent nature of VR experiences. The chapter critiques the concept of VR as an empathy machine, as popularised by figures like Jaron Lanier and Nonny de la Peña, and instead proposes a feminist approach to VR embodiment. This approach recognises the limitations of the body and the sociohistorical contexts that shape our understanding of bodily possibilities. Using the VR game Tentacular (Firepunchd Games, 2022) as a case study, the chapter demonstrates how a feminist understanding of VR embodiment provides a more nuanced analysis of VR's potential. This game highlights the importance of the relationship between player and avatar(s) in producing affective experiences that challenge dominant narratives of mastery and control in VR.