A while ago, I read an article about girls in the gaming world, how they are being treated and how they behave. Sure, she made good points, and I agreed with many things she wrote – I’ll give her that. However, parts of the article made me think that the author of it must hate being a female human being. She absolutely moaned big time about girls in the gaming world. She generalized to such a degree that it was hurtful to read.
Guys treating girls differently, letting them win, trying to talk to them, or becoming friends with them just doesn’t have a place in gaming. Seriously, guys hitting on girls via Xbox Live (Or Playstation Network for that matter), haven’t you heard about freaking dating sites? Just write that you want a girl who likes video games in your dating profile. Girls are much more open to talk to new people on dating sites rather than while they game.
On the other hand, there are users who deliberately downtalk and verbally attack girls when it comes to their attention there’s a girl in the lobby or game. Well, the author of this article “excused” this behavior as being competitive and hyping about the game. I can understand this for popular shooter games, as they are getting very competitive and people try to provoke people or bring down their self esteem this way.
However, girls aren’t the only ones who are being attacked verbally in the online gaming experience – or just online in general. There is racism out there, and people are mocking each other for their accent or anything that is against their own values (you can alter this obviously, but you get where this edit is going). The online gaming experience might be worse though, because there is the competitive nature on top of the mountain.
I still do think there’s way too much trashtalk on Xbox LIVE when I join games with randoms. There’s really many immature players, being it for their personality, their background, or the most simple: young age. Many parents – and many stores(maybe I should say sales representatives here) for that matter – doesn’t think twice about the recommended age rating on games (in Europe called PEGI rating and in US called ESRB) and since these immature people are the ones that are vociferous, people tend to remember them.
The article also did moan a lot about girls expecting to be treated differently. Surely, I agree on this in all aspects of what this article described. However, I believe that she did moan too much. Yeah, sure, there’s girls out there who just plain suck at games. So what? There’s guys out there who are just as bad. They might not have played the game that much, so they aren’t used to it and therefore make mistakes or are slow. The problem here is – just like regular driving in the real world – is that people tend to blame the bad performance on the gender, when it’s only a few people giving the rest of us a bad reputation. In my eyes, this is very wrong.
Girls asking to be treated differently was also mentioned, asking to be allowed to progress in the game, but I believe this is more of asking for help in the game rather than making use of the guys excitement that he has contact to a girl.
Girls talking about “girly” stuff like shampoo, make up, and clothes, is just like guys talking about sailboating, tools or cars. Quit jabbering already, there will always be gender-populated interests, which include gaming. There’s a reason why girls are a minority in the gaming world – counting out the games on Facebook that our mothers play!
The part of the article which I disagreed with the most was her trashing “girly” websites and girls, who bring attention to their gender by adding themselves to gaming communities for girls. However, most are joining these communities to find other gamers with their gender, who want to share thoughts and experiences, just as we would in the real world with co-workers or schoolmates. Why would I hide my gender?
It’s not like it’s the first thing I yell about in a gaming lobby or for that matter, on a forum. I actually tend to mute myself and turn down the volume to avoid hearing the other players when I play with randoms.
But if people refer to me as male, is there ANY reason not to tell them and make them aware that they should refer to me as female? This still happens, in spite of having a female avatar and most of my colors being red, pink, rose and purple, which are girly colors.
Counting out the WoW reference in my gamertag, it’s pretty girly too! (and no, I’m not playing WoW, just in case people should ask).
People told me I was one of these girls who wanted attention or special treatment because of my gender. I can’t see why I should want this. Apart from boosting, it’s not fun to win a game because the other participants let you win. I mentioned my gender in my profile description on some website, and people almost called me an attention whore for this, more or less based on the article that made me write this article.
I would say if anyone wanted to be an attention whore, it must be the author of the article that made me write this one. She moaned about girls wanting the attention, while she herself writes the article, and doesn’t exactly hide her gender either. She uses a girl avatar, has a girly gamertag and games. That’s exactly what I do, only I don’t hate myself! I’m convinced she wants to be a guy, as she really did come across as hating being lumped in with the rest of us.
Popularity: 7% [?]
She loves gaming, but not on the serious level, and have been gaming for about 20 years. Pro game reviewer, owner and editor of this site.