"Girl Gamers"

[Space Spoons]

Does anyone past the age of 16 really care about the gender of their fellow gamers? Really? It's such a trivial issue to get caught up on.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

The fact you had to explain you were being sarcastic may mean you need a sarcasm upgrade there.

Oh really? Thanks for letting me know that my sarcasm may need upgrading.

 

[Gxas]

This is the same as women expecting men to treat them kindly. Now, I'm not trying to be a dick here, but if you demand equal rights as men, why is it still against moral code for me to hit a girl? You are of the same standing as I am now, why can you hit me but I can't hit back? Also, why should I attempt to be a gentleman for you? You can do everything I can do now, hold the fucking door for me for a change.

Thoughts?

 

[Scabadus]

Lastly, quit complaining about guys being "sexist" or whatever on games. You are a female invading what guys have always thought of as being their space, their time. A lot of guys I know keep their real lives seperate from their gaming lives. They have girlfriends and yes, they do find them a little irritating at times, so its relaxing to come onto a game and talk to other guys who may be in a similar situation. A girl invading that time can only make them resentful so obviously they're going to be a bit annoyed. They think of their games as a guy thing and the idea of a girl potentially beating them is not favourable. So yes, they will insult you. Yes, they may say some out of order things but a lot of guys are like that to each other all the time and if you can't handle having to put up with the male mentality, then gtfo games.

I've gotta disagree with you there. As a guy I've no problem with girls playing games; it's one of relativly few activities thay both sexes are completly equal in so I think that many guys just can't stand being beated by girls and would prefer to not take the chance. Personall I can't stand being beaten at all but that's an issue for another thread and a psychologist .

I know many girls who play games and don't mind the whole male-audience skew, possibly because all visual media is like this (James Bond films anyone?) and people have kinda gotten used to it over the years.

Finally, given a choice, I can't stand playing a female character. I always, ALWAYS play male if I can, even in offline games such as Oblivion or Mass Effect. Funnily enough I don't mind playing Laura in Tomb Raider, but the very few times I have played a female avatar as a mesh it felt so utterly wrong I couldn't cope. I'm not judging or have a problem with any males who do play female avatars, after all they're just a bunch of pixels, but it's a certain bunch of pixels I personally can't stand.

 

[ErictheRed1989]

.

macho, frat boy, "hardcore" type gamer(you know who I'm talking about) .

Are you thinking of the same visor-wearing, collar-popping douches that I'm thinking of? If so, I wouldn't exactlly call them hardcore gamers.

 

[Insanum]

i put girl gamers in the same catagories as furries. The thing is, they tend to be "Yeah, Im a - the thing is, thats before they even said hi.

Now ive never known anyone be sexist on XBL, Ive seen people flirting, And its creepy sometimes, And ive also seen the whole "ill protect you" scenario, Which although i can see how it could get annoying the 30th time, But its not like they're diving in front of you to take shots mid-game.

I pretty much agree with the OP statements, Your a gamer like everyone else.

<---Post count + Guy.

Post count means nothing. You should know this of all people.

Furries? Really?

Well yes, Furries & sometimes girl gamers tend to be very....Standoff-ish. Furries tend to be renowned for it, Very "Yeah, im a furry, AND IM PROUD & THERES NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO STOP ME. DONT OPPRESS ME! [/I]". IM just sat there going...Thats nice...But i met you like 5 mins ago & i never brought up furries...

The fact you had to explain you were being sarcastic may mean you need a sarcasm upgrade there.

Oh really? Thanks for letting me know that my sarcasm may need upgrading.

Ah, You work fast. That was one quick upgrade. *slow Clap*

 

[ninja_thae]

This is the same as women expecting men to treat them kindly. Now, I'm not trying to be a dick here, but if you demand equal rights as men, why is it still against moral code for me to hit a girl? You are of the same standing as I am now, why can you hit me but I can't hit back? Also, why should I attempt to be a gentleman for you? You can do everything I can do now, hold the fucking door for me for a change.

Thoughts?

Do the words "Glass Ceiling" mean anything to you? How about the fact that women still face restrictions as to where they can serve in the military? Or how about the fact that women still make roughly 80 cents to the male dollar?

 

[HentMas]

I think the social underpinning of sexism in games(yes it exists, just look at booth babes, Laura Croft, and hypermacho games like Gears of War) Mostly stems from the fact that Geeky dudes are the majority of people who play games. An isolated and fantasy setting, such as that presence in the activity of playing games, tends to interest the often social awkward and removed geek community. Why this community is mostly male goes back to the larger social underpinning of females being more social and less apt to be a reject of society. With a lack of girls, this community simply does not think of the interest of girls and thus will focus on male interests. A more recent injection of of macho, frat boy, "hardcore" type gamer(you know who I'm talking about) adds a new layer of sexism because this group is largely made up of people who are already sexist. It has become cooth to advertise these types of people and thus to accept that sexism in order to better market their products. This creates an overall air of sexism because now the companies are advertise games that follow this mindset of underlying sexism that apply to these gamers. In short, there is a community of gamers who are sexist and that is reflected in the games and the community. Your results may very by the game you play and community you come in contact with but there is still a current of sexism running through games(as it does with all things).
Note: Barbie horse adventure is as sexist as Tomb Raider to me. Games just reflect a larger social normalizing of sexism blah blah blah is my point.

i read your nick and thought O MY GOD!!! then saw your avatar... damn, i really was about to activate my FLAMESHIELD!

 

[Azulito]

I like the general post. Excluding the whole "Guys act differently when in a girls presence" paragraphy. I enjoy all gaming whether it's with a guy or girl, I actually perfer gaming with a girl since it's new and girls are mostly willing to listen instead of going "I AM GOD. BEEEEEEEEEEFFFFFF CAAAAKKKKKKKKEEEEEE". I enjoy gaming with everyone. :3

I think that it's fair that some games don't include female orientated content because it ruins it for the majority of gamers if its put in there for the sake of it. IE. That woman in RE5 was put there due to the whole racism thing and I dislike that that's happened. Whereas chars such as Louis in L4D I'm ok with because that's the original plan. Plus, I don't really look at women being comfortable on games where they go around butchering people. I'm just rambling now xD all gamers are awesome but you can't please everyone :3

In all fairness if a girl was added in say Call of Duty as a medic then some people will complain that a medic isnt a 'real' army role. Everyone can't be please. Plus, in all truthness I'd be really uncomfortable having to shoot a woman in the back of the head in a game. It's just REALLY not something I like to do, same with harming animals in games.

 

[Charles-mcdashin]

i got to agree with scabadus on avatar preference, cant really describe why really. I at least have no problem with playing with girls, might be that i'm single or it i might just be that playing games is an activity i love to share with others, and gender doesnt make a diffrence to me anyway, only that girls are great chat partners on mmo's when i'm just grinding

 

[JanatUrlich]

I am a gamer who happens to have a vagina.

Yep, that's pretty much it.

And lol "invading guys space". Why don't you just blow yourself if you don't want girls invading your "guy space"? Hahaaaa

This is the same as women expecting men to treat them kindly. Now, I'm not trying to be a dick here, but if you demand equal rights as men, why is it still against moral code for me to hit a girl? You are of the same standing as I am now, why can you hit me but I can't hit back? Also, why should I attempt to be a gentleman for you? You can do everything I can do now, hold the fucking door for me for a change.

Thoughts?

Yeah I agree that guys should be able to hit girls if they're being absolutely unreasonable. I'd be insulted if a guy said he wouldn't hit me because I'm unable to defend myself. I HAVE A 6FT TALL YOUNGER BROTHER. I WILL KICK YOUR ASS.

I do enjoy not having to buy my own drinks at a bar though, thanks for that guys ;D

 

[SnipErlite]

Ignoring the generalisations, people use terms like Girl Gamers if it is part of what their saying, since saying "Gamer" means people assume you're talking about a guy.

To me a gamer is a gamer

=]

 

[HentMas]

oh, and what apparently seems like the right thing to do whenever i see a girl gamer

"booobies..." *drools*

okok, seriously??, they do games trough demographic research, why does people think everyone just say "LETS MAKE A SPACE MARINE SHOOTER, THAT WILL BE AWESOME!!"
thats not the case, they do research and work and stuff to find out what will sell best, even the teen girls (12-15) have their niche, but its in portable games because mainstream games are more about fratboys and over 18 years old.

if there is a thrend right now, its because there are not enough female gamers to fill what would be called a propper "niche" because if a girl is a gamer then by default they are gamers because they play what everyone else is playing, in other words they "adjust" to the thrend

when a guy looks and notices that there are enough girls to build a niche, it will be the beggining of a new focus, the current focus??? (and what will be for about 2 more years?) Casual Gamers (or how to bring new people into playing games-or how to teach new people to play games)

 

[Gxas]

This is the same as women expecting men to treat them kindly. Now, I'm not trying to be a dick here, but if you demand equal rights as men, why is it still against moral code for me to hit a girl? You are of the same standing as I am now, why can you hit me but I can't hit back? Also, why should I attempt to be a gentleman for you? You can do everything I can do now, hold the fucking door for me for a change.

Thoughts?

Do the words "Glass Ceiling" mean anything to you? How about the fact that women still face restrictions as to where they can serve in the military? Or how about the fact that women still make roughly 80 cents to the male dollar?

Ahh, see, you got my point. Women are still unequal from men. Therefore, all of this rubbish about "girl gamers" and "sexism" is going to be around for a long time until women are actually, one-hundred percent, equal to men.

 

[Charles-mcdashin]

i just wonder why the title girl gamer exist, since it has no real relevance to gameing in my view, i guess i could nod my head if i got a good reason

 

[ItsAPaul]

To me girl gamer = healer, but then again the only games that I would find out what the sex of a player is would be mmos. Then again I'm not the type to flirt with anyone over vent/in game chat like every chick I know complains about, so I guess it doesn't really matter there either.

 

[ninja_thae]

This is the same as women expecting men to treat them kindly. Now, I'm not trying to be a dick here, but if you demand equal rights as men, why is it still against moral code for me to hit a girl? You are of the same standing as I am now, why can you hit me but I can't hit back? Also, why should I attempt to be a gentleman for you? You can do everything I can do now, hold the fucking door for me for a change.

Thoughts?

Do the words "Glass Ceiling" mean anything to you? How about the fact that women still face restrictions as to where they can serve in the military? Or how about the fact that women still make roughly 80 cents to the male dollar?

Ahh, see, you got my point. Women are still unequal from men. Therefore, all of this rubbish about "girl gamers" and "sexism" is going to be around for a long time until women are actually, one-hundred percent, equal to men.

Unless I've made a grievous error in judging whether or not that remark was sarcastic, I completely agree with you.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Ahh, see, you got my point. Women are still unequal from men. Therefore, all of this rubbish about "girl gamers" and "sexism" is going to be around for a long time until women are actually, one-hundred percent, equal to men.

Never going to happen. Never likely to happen. Not possible to happen.

What many people don't realise is the "Glass Ceiling" affects 80% of the workforce, it's just that men were in there when it was first defined.

 

[aesshen]

What I don't see is why games "just have" to be a "guy" thing. There are girls who game. That's undeniably obvious. There's you and me at least. Actually, there's a heck of a lot more than that - 10 to 30% of even "hardcore games," depending on how you count, so the idea that girl gamers are some sort of rare and mysterious creatures who no one could possibly be expected to understand is kind of annoying. Why is it that women have to be excluded from interactive entertainment, and when we actually do buy games and then expect developers to respond to what we want? We're customers. We want certain things, and the only way we can possibly expect to get them is to complain in forums (literally forums) where we can hope to change the opinions of developers and other customers.

Yes, we're a minority. But why the heck should we be? Is there some rule hardcoded into the universe that says that shooting pixel aliens with pixel guns must be an exclusively male activity? More and more women are playing games, and a lot of them don't see any reason not to challenge the status quo. I don't see why games being more responsive to women's (actually incredibly minor) requests should hurt games generally. People talk about zots, but reskinning a fucking character model is not exactly on par with designing a new physics engine in terms of man-hours. There's no comparison.

I hate multiplayer slightly more than, umm, anything, so I've never once had to deal with people being rude to me in a game because of my gender, but it comes down to this: if you can expect girls to put up with guys insulting them because of their gender, I don't see why the hell you can't expect guys to put up with girls inhabiting the same server for a while. Like, seriously? If games were explicitly "complain about our girlfriends clubs" then maybe I'd understand, but that's not the point.

Also, if women were immune to sexism, the world would be a much better place. Haven't you seen the thread about the bunch of teenage girls who were saying that a girl their own age who was brutally gang-raped was "asking for it?"

I guess my point is: women are video game customers. No matter how much people freak out about it, that's the way things are, and that's the way things will be more and more. As customers, we have the right to have opinions about the products we buy. And if you can't handle other people's opinions about games - might I suggest that a video game forum may not be the best place for you?

EDIT:

Plus, in all truthness I'd be really uncomfortable having to shoot a woman in the back of the head in a game. It's just REALLY not something I like to do, same with harming animals in games.

I... I guess I get where you're coming from... but women and animals are, umm, kind of different. For instance, a woman could shoot you in the back of the head. A fuzzy bunny might find it difficult.