Why I think "Gamer Girls" shouldn't hide.

[FunnyBunny]

Umm why? If asked what I do for fun then gamer is a perfectly acceptable description, the same as if I still played cricket saying I was a cricketer would be acceptable or that I was a football player if I still played football or the fact that I'm a camper because I love to get away and go camping. Lables are only bad when they are used negatively or imposed on people, when you chose them and use them as positives for yourself there is nothing wrong with them.

Camper, no problem, but when you are outdoors. I guess. It definitely does not mean something you would say to a group of new acquaintances: hello, my name is Anthony and I'm camper. Lol. Thus, it limits to your activity, yes, but it's not some general sticker you place on your forehead for ever and ever. Lol. Well maybe, if the only thing you did and cared for in life was camping. Either way, I only posted because I found someone else wondering what was all the fuss about gaming and labels and all. My point is - if you take games too serious, I'm not part of your group, lifestyle, social status. Lol.

 

[Dismal purple]

I like getting attention from men, big dealio.

You don't even have to work for it. As long as you get decent scores and your gender is known people will pay attention to you. All my guy friends are better than me but on the internet I'm competing with teenagers and casuals so it's not too hard to be the top ranked player every now and then.

 

[Dragonbums]

The funny thing about "Girl Gamers" is that when I talk about games in real life- they never see me as a "girl who plays games."

They see me as another person who enjoys their hobby in video games.

However once it comes to the interenet, this is when I see the whole "prove it" and tits GTFO kind of comments.

 

[FrankatronX]

Saying female gamers hide due to getting scrutinized, harassed, etc - that part is fine, it's believable. But then saying "we need to support them!" as if they're some kind of weak endangered species that need supporting? That's pretty demeaning to female gamers if you ask me.

It's not that I think Women are weak or need my Man-protection. It's that I can't stand to watch people hide when they shouldn't. This whole world is cruel and harsh enough without us being that way to each other. In this I have seen enough and will not allow the excuse that "it's everywhere" to stop me or be a crutch for anyone to lean on when the fight gets tough.
I appreciate that you feel differently and I thank you for letting me know what you think but I believe you are merely allowing others to get away with their discriminating remarks and bullying. By not taking action you empower the aggressor and the meek will always suffer if that continues.

With all the popular culture becoming "Geek Culture" in the last 15 years we have ignored our place as the elders and will be elders of various genres and clicks. It is our place to impart that our desire for our culture to be a unifying force for the whole of humanity. There are many others that want this and it can happen only when we decide to make it happen.

 

[FrankatronX]

It is not my responsibility to support anybody regardless of gender.

I disagree. It is all of our responsibility to help.
It's not easy and it takes real guts but there is no shame in giving help to people who need it.

Do you hold yourself as exempt or above this problem?

 

[SavyGamer]

I'm new to the whole online gaming thing but, I was getting mad when trying to chose a gamertag because everyone was like "Rainbows! Unicorns! Puppies!" I don't think it'd be all that easy telling others yous a girl in the world of gaming. I mean, look at how they present us! Nude licking controllers. Of course, I'm new so I don't really know about this stuff. I'm really nervous about gaming with boys. In anyone uses Xbox and meets 'MaskedRanger09' that's me and I probably need abit of help!

 

[DugMachine]

I really wish everyone could just game together without having to bring up gender or stupid sexist assholes. My girlfriend got totally turned off any sort of online play after the abuse she got from Halo/WoW. It's fucking stupid that kids and some "adults" have to say sexist or demeaning things simply because a fellow gamer has a vagina. Some of the best WoW players I ever knew were girls and I gave not a single fuck about their gender.

To me sexism in games doesn't come from the big tits on female characters, it's the little 12 year old shits that get on xbox live to do nothing but harass women and spout racist remarks.

 

[I.Muir]

It is not my responsibility to support anybody regardless of gender.

I disagree. It is all of our responsibility to help.
It's not easy and it takes real guts but there is no shame in giving help to people who need it.

Do you hold yourself as exempt or above this problem?

My responsibility to others ends by not being a part of the problem. Anything outside that is an act of generosity or if possible a team exercise.

 

[FrankatronX]

My responsibility to others ends by not being a part of the problem. Anything outside that is an act of generosity or if possible a team exercise.

That might be enough for your clearly self interested motivations but don't stand idly by and tell me you're helping.
Do you honestly think that not being abusive is enough? Are you going to watch as others get degraded and do nothing all the while quietly humming to yourself for it to stop and later looking at your own lack of action and say "Well at least I didn't abuse anybody!"

Forgive me but I think you are very much a part of the problem.

 

[FrankatronX]

I don't get it
At all
Why would anyone hide their gender or abuse someone because of their gender
I just can't understand it

In regards hiding...
I think a lot of it has to do with the *boys club* mentality. "This is boy territory, no girls allowed" Which boils down to fear. The particulars are that a very vocal group of boy-gamer's seem to think that they have to defend the "purity" of gaming from girls because in my opinion they have been lonely and shunned all their lives and now because the "geek culture" has become "popular culture" they think it's okay to challenge girls on their right to be called a gamer.

In regards abusing others...
Now onto the fear. The people making these negative comments are simply afraid of the thing that they have always been afraid of. Rejection, for years these people hid themselves away from women behind the cloak of geekdom using it as an excuse for why they remain single and bitter. But now that shroud is lifted and they are faced with the ugly truth that women don't like them because they are sexist. This does not entitle them to lash out but they do anyway.

That's my view on it and I hope you will look into this matter deeper and find your own answers.

 

[I.Muir]

My responsibility to others ends by not being a part of the problem. Anything outside that is an act of generosity or if possible a team exercise.

That might be enough for your clearly self interested motivations but don't stand idly by and tell me you're helping.
Do you honestly think that not being abusive is enough? Are you going to watch as others get degraded and do nothing all the while quietly humming to yourself for it to stop and later looking at your own lack of action and say "Well at least I didn't abuse anybody!"

Forgive me but I think you are very much a part of the problem.

Good thing I didn't imply I was helping. As for believing that I am part of a problem by not making it my own, well ill forgive you for being wrong. It seems like you have a strong for or against us mentality going.

As I was saying I may defend somebody anyway but I don't feel the slightest bit obligated to do so. The kind of abuse that thrives in the Internets dark places will not be thwarted by any amount of white knighting. Moderator tools in the hands of a reasonable person might have some if only a temporary impact but the kinds of attacks my friends have faced were too personal to be dealt with by anything but the messaging service itself. They however have learned to adapt until such a time as some form of internet etiquette becomes common place. The best thing anybody can do when dealing with abuse everybody seems to suffer occasionally on the net is learn to help themselves. Nobody really survives with a victim mentality constantly leaning on the help of others.

Oh it's not all sexism as there several possible reasons I can think of why somebody would abuse others and not just gender specifically. In my experience peoples apparent fear of rejection and shaming causes them to white knight more than anything else. There are people who will find and stab at any vulnerabilities you have because they can or find it funny. They don't find comments such as I'm a girl btw relevant to the game their playing and categorize it as detrimental to the team. The boy's club and fear of the womb run of the mill brand sexism are just the "textbook" reasons.

 

[Fappy]

Very few of the woman I know that play games (which is a pretty big number, actually) attempt to hide their gender from other gamers or their hobby from others in the real world. To be fair though, most of them don't play games online that much so they're not as exposed to the vitriol as many other woman are. My girlfriend and one of her friends play MMOs which seem to be a lot more accepting to females than many other genres are (in my experience).

I understand why some women want to hide their identities. I wouldn't want to be harassed either, but I think that on the whole more of them are going to have to be loud and proud if they want stupid people to get used to their presence.

 

[Thebazilly]

I tend to hide/not mention my gender when I'm online. I only do voice chat when I'm playing with my friends, and I don't really like online games with strangers much anyway (being held to the expectations of random internet douchebags stresses me out, s'why I quit playing LoL).

Mostly it's because if you mention being female, even if it's relevant to the subject, you get called out for being an attention whore. This is especially bad in the tabletop gaming community (DnD and the like). I nearly have to pretend to be male when I visit tabletop-related sites.

I've never been hit on in a game, but funnily enough, I watched it happen to my boyfriend in a WoW dungeon once because he was playing a female character. We both laughed at the guy for assuming any female avatar was actually played by a female.

 

[Screamarie]

Recently I watched a talk about the experiences of women while playing online. It was interesting, with examples of good and bad experiences (though the majority were bad). Several known websites were pointed out where people collect messages from people they had the 'pleasure' of playing with.

The video was downvoted to hell and the whole comment section was full about whining how there are no girls gaming, how it is their fault, how they asked for it by 'announcing their gender' (which can be anything from having a female sounding nickname to talking in a teambased competitive game) and weak differentiations between 'girl gamers' and 'gurrl gamers' (which is bullshit in its own way)... There you have it.

And the really fucked up part is that if they DIDN'T let people know they were female and then the other players found out later, one way or another, then they would catch shit for that too, I bet.

I have a copy of Mass Effect 3, I adore it, and I've wondered towards playing the multiplayer. I also have a brother who loves all the CoD and Battlefield type games and he would love it if I would get a headset and a copy and play him. But I have NEVER done either because one, it'd be my first time playing multiplayer ever and I don't know how well I'd do, I don't want to fuck something up for someone else cause I suck at multiplayer and don't know it yet.

And 2 because I'm female and I've heard all of the shit women go through when they go on multiplayer (not necessarily ME3, maybe they're a perfect utopia of multiplaying but I doubt it) and it scares me. I, as a person, don't really give a shit what anyone thinks about me, but I also have anxiety disorders which makes me worry and freak out over any negative comments I get so I always have a part of my brain telling me I'm horrible and I have to fight that all the time. Now I don't expect people to avoid telling me my faults when it's necessary and true, I take that information and do my best to face and deal with it...but possibly putting myself right in the middle of the vicious world where I either can't tell anyone who I actually am or risk being told I'm ugly, fat, stupid, bad at games, a whore, a *****, or that I'm going to be raped?...No, that's not being comeptitive, that's being hateful and I don't want to have to deal with that.