Dreiko said:
It's less "it's your fault cause you don't try hard enough" and more "it's this way for all of us and we make it so you should be able to". I've been threatened with rape during friendly competitive matches. I'm 6'1" and 180 pounds and a dude. It's just the attitude some people have. When people get this mad it means you're performing successfully and are making them mad so you should take it as praise. If you think guys do not legitimately fear actually being raped, well, that may be but you can still get your ass kicked. It's much more likely for men to have a physical fight with other men than with women, at least. Also, if you actually fear being raped, simply cause it's more common for women than men to be raped, you live in a paranoid bubble. Nobody who says that stuff would actually go and do it. Just like I laugh it off and tell the dude to stop sucking and do better, so should you. The more belligerent people get, the awesomer you are. If you get them to break their controllers/arcade sticks/headphones etc. out of anger you'll be seen as a hero, even! It's really quite a bit of fun and nothing to feel threatened over.
The knitting analogy would work if there were men protesting not being viewed as manly or accepted within the knitting community. I personally don't knit cause I have no interest in creating clothing, since clothing is dull. I believe this is why most women don't compete in games. They simply lack the interest level demanded to devote oneself in a game enough to become competitive, they don't see the worth in it. That they're drive-off-able is show enough. If you're devoted enough that you spend multiple thousands of hours of your life working on something, do you think a few ignorant assholes would be enough to drive you off? They wouldn't have a chance in hell of driving me off of anything I like this much. Same with any other competitive folk I know. The love of the game would instantly overshadow them.
Well, your post was interesting, and I'm happy to see we can have a discussion even if we have different opinions.
I'll tell you an anedocte that happened just a couple days ago, playing the MOBA "Smite". I'm in a clan, and at one point, someone asked about my gender. "Does it matter", I said. "No, but are you male or female?". "I'm a woman" I replied. "Wow, and all this time I've called you bro!". "Aha, it's because I don't like telling my gender online. Sometimes players treat you differently, they either call you noob or become overly nice." "Well.... it's true."
Good point about the knitting comparison, you got me. Well, I suppose the reason no man makes a huge deal about knitting is because... knitting isn't sexist per se. It's not like women knit images of submissive, half-naked, perfect man ready to obey a woman's whim, or something.
But videogames are sometimes sexist, in a very immature way. This is the reason of the big sexism debate, and tell you what... I love the fact there's almost too much talk about sexism in gaming. Because it means something is about to change; it means the current situation doesn't sit well anymore.
The most important part is that certain people are trying their best to keep women away from videogames. I dare say Guerrila could be one of them, as his latest comment reveals: