Violent Video Games and Girls

Whilst taking the time to write about how violent video games affect people, I got to thinking, these are all stories about boys. I wanted to know if the same situations affected girls in the same way, and if they did, compare the experiences. For one, I found it much more difficult to find scholarly articles to support my queries (it was just as hard to find regular articles too.) I did, however, stumble upon a few articles where the affect on girls was looked at. The first one comes from a paper from Georgia Tech where the idea of whether violent video games should be banned. The writer quotes a study done on the topic.

The Polman study found that an aggression level change due to violent video game play occurred specifically for boys; aggression in girls was not affected by game condition (Polman, de Castro, & van Aken, 2008).

This both surprised me and got my wheels turning. It's easy to understand why a boy would be affected more by violent exposure. Men are naturally tougher, while women are nurturing. I suppose I just didn't expect to see that the results would be so different between the two genders. This begs the question then, if we do ban violent video games, is that really fair? Yes, an increase in aggression has been seen in males, but what about the females who enjoy the games? They would no longer be able to have access to them because it would be a liability. The writer of that article goes on to say that this study shows exactly why we can't ban violent video games and also exactly why it is the parents job to regulate time spent playing violent video games.

After doing some more searching, it was very hard for me to find information that compares aggressive behavior in boys against the change in aggression for girls. They always say that violent video games have such a negative affect; I'd like to see how this "negative affect" differs in boys and girls. It'd be interesting to see if the biological differences between the two sexes contribute to how aggressive they are after playing a violent game. It seems to me that all the research is focused on how violent video games affect children. I want to see a study that takes into account the fundamental differences between the sexes.

If anyone's interested in the article I pulled the quote from, here it is.
Should Violent Video Games Be Banned?