Yeah I qualify to be a "guy gamer" in your list. The fact that I haven't been playing games from the dawn doesn't mean anything. I've been playing since I was fucking born, and no list is gonna tell me otherwise because my first console was a Nintendo 64 It doesn't make anyone less hardcore the longer you have been playing.
I can recognize the portrayals and strategies used by developers in games, I can understand the mechanics, I can understand the art design. I can see how it works, why it is good or bad. This is now less about wether the gender of gaming, but it upon myself that the term hardcore cannot be applied to me is an insult.
What I mean to say is, it matters not how long you've been playing, but rather that you have the retrospective and the passion to learn. You need not have experienced the first advent of gaming to learn from it. It is benefactory that we take a concise lesson from those events and mold them into something meaningful of today, whether it be in a speech, game, or a reply to a silly internet thread.
(I have also successfully converted many people to the wonders of gaming. Including attractive single women. If that fucking helps my gamerscore in your book.)