Being a “gamer girl” can be a surreal experience. For all the guys who don’t think women can hack it in the gaming world, there are thousands who ask Santa for more gamer girls every year. Thanks to the scarcity of gamer girls out there, we lucky ladies get just one stereotype to share between us—which means everyone has a great idea of exactly who you are before you even open your mouth. Part of the current stereotype is that we gamer girls fight with each other in order to compete for attention, status, and all those eligible gamer men.
An entertaining notion to be sure, and I can see why there is that perception. However, while I can’t speak for all gamer women, I really don’t think that sexual competition is at the root of the various rifts. I think it’s about image and branding, and what they do to the everyday life of your everyday gamer woman.
When Stereotypes Attack
There’s a great XKCD comic, where a man fails at a math problem, and they say, “Wow, you suck at math” and then a woman fails at the math problem, and they say, “Wow, girls suck at math.”
It’s funny because it’s so, so true. Not the woman sucking at math part—my mother is a mathematical genius, and current research supports that women are equally skilled in this area, thank you very much—but the stereotyping bit. I am fully aware that in some circumstances, I represent my whole gender, and it terrifies me. Making a mistake in general sucks; making a mistake your whole gender will henceforth be branded with? Priceless.
What kills me is how, in certain places, men resort to stereotypical responses to girls. I just started playing WoW and I picked a girl night elf. I couldn’t believe the way male characters talked to me. I’ve had a few “take your clothes off” and lots of requests to “be my girlfriend.” They don’t even know I’m a real girl! Also, I basically stopped using Playstation Home for this very reason. In some arenas, I go incognito just so I don’t get hounded by indecent requests, like in MW2.
I know exactly what you mean, Nicole. Some guys totally pounce on girls playing video games. Sometimes it can be amusing, but other times aggravating or insulting (”I’ll protect you, girlie.” or “Can you email me a picture of you so I can make sure u r hot?”). My brother had a demo of Battlefield II and I used to play it on XBox Live, the online service that lets you talk to other players during game play. There were so many massive jerks playing this game but I developed a few techniques that kept things fun on my end. Like, it was totally SO rewarding to hear their cries of woe when I affected a valley girl voice and shot them dead.
Haha. Nice! I love it when you see a girl slaughtering all the other players in Modern Warfare 2. Like when they have [GIRL] as their tag and they have the top kills.
The worst is when dudes have totally nasty names that are targeted to offend girls. I’ve seen plenty of those and it really sucks the fun out of the game, unless of course I can repeatedly kill them. I’m sure you’ve seen that Tillie.
I guess “it’s a man’s world.” Or something equally boorish like that.
GAMER GIRLS! Its a myth…. just joking
yea some guys just go crazy for gamer girls cause they just play games but in the end they gotta see through the gaming side and try to look for who they truly are when they put down their games. I gotta admit girls playing games at first for me was a WOAH back then cause the usual sterotype is males just play games and girls well i 4got what they did back then xD. Overall if men can play games why can’t girls play games just as good as us nothing there to stop them well just retards online i guess.
I am a girl gamer, and sometimes it is just downright ridiculous how men act towards me. I usually get the…”let me see your pic? Is that really you…nah that’s not you.” The latest and by far most infuriating experience was a group of 4 males on vent calling me a tranny because I didn’t want to get on my mic. Yea that’s gonna make me comfortable to talk…I’m just a female that enjoys playing online games. I’m not doing it to get items out of guys, or because I have no social life, it is just something I like doing. I don’t know why I need to prove to anyone that I am a female in real life..so to the guys that try to degrade women because they are too immature to know how to act in the presence of one…I say BITE ME! xD