No Girls Allowed

[Tsumarin]

Way back in the day, say Diablo 1, before headsets and the ability to hear who you were playing with and, therefore what gender, I went by a fairly ambiguous gamer tag so most people didn't know I was a girl. In any given online game that I would play, I would get called out with many of the insults exampled above: fag, loser, cheater, etc etc...
It's interesting to note that as soon as it might have come out in general chat that I was a girl (because one of my friends used a give-away pronoun)every one of those people who had already decided they didn't like me dropped ALL of the previous insults and opted for ones strictly based on the fact that I'm female.

So, yes. As has already been pointed out, the same people who will insult you for being a girl, would have insulted you anyway for anything else they could think of. I know from personal experience and observation.

One could do a pretty interesting psychological study on the inner workings of the male gamer mind.

 

[Tharwen]

How do they find out that you're a girl? I know it's immature to kick you but surely you can just remove all traces of your girl-hood from your account.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

Why are there still so many people that don't get the whole "People are dicks on the internet" thing?

 

[Continuity]

One could do a pretty interesting psychological study on the inner workings of the male gamer mind.

Please... we're not all like that

 

[Azure Sky]

Another case of them needing to justify their own existence to soften the blow there ego just received.

 

[Doctor VonSexMachine]

Don't let them know you're a girl? Works for me!

 

[Not-here-anymore]

The one reason I don't own a microphone/headset is because every single person I've played online who uses them seems to be a whiny insulting little shit (OK, I've ran into one or toe less dickish people, but not many). I've taken to automatically muting everyone I see on any game, and not listening to voice messages unless they're from people I know IRL.

The infrequent times I forget to mute things, all sound is drowned out by a wave of swearing and insults aimed at every player, their mothers, and occasionally their dogs. And yes, girl gamers seem to get flamed a lot more than guys.

 

[Blimey]

Don't worry, its not just girls they rag on. Its everyone. I've been called pretty much every nasty thing you can think of in my years.

Just let it go and ignore the douche-nuggets acting tough while they sit in mommies basement.

 

[deadguynotyetburied]

An annoying percentage of players in the on-line gaming world see absolutely everything as a form of combat and want to win. Even in a "co-op" game they want to outbadge you, they want to outdamage you, they want a higher gear score. When you go into a free-for-all, it's concentrated because the more social gamers are less likely to play. You usually have tools available to set up friends lists and groups, and especially in a game environment such as you describe I would use that extensively. A little in-your-face jockeying is cool, when people keep it friendly.

 

[Harrowdown]

There's a few reasons, I think. Games are traditionally guy things, with guy themes and the like. If a guy gets beaten by a girl in a virtual fight, no matter how fair said fight was, he'll feel emasculated*. No shame in being outmatched by a girl in my opinion, or no more than being beaten by anyone anyway, but you see my point. As it's all anonymous as well, people are just generally bigger assholes. Most of the console community is like this, but there's still some sensible people scattered about. TF2 has a good community, I hear.

*EDIT:Not all guys, just the sort that give you shit.

SECOND EDIT:A few people are suggesting you just hide your gender. It might well do the trick, but you really shouldn't have to. Just keep playing as best you can against these assholes.

 

[syth0000]

As men were just overcompetitive ass holes sometimes. We tend to take games to seriously and to save our pride when we lose we'll come up with any excuse in the book to defend ourselves. Usually this is done by immasculinating fellow males I.E: fag, douche etc, Calling out race, or more recently calling out gender.

 

[Wormthong]

play eve online seriously 5% of the people that play that game are female and all corps want more females because all the men are getting some sort of online non flirting frustration.

 

[Plurralbles]

because the people you're playing with can't get any, so they're misogynist's... Or they just attack anyone who they can get a grip on how to attack them..

 

[Requx]

So I was playing a game of DotA and I was prentending to be a girl to see what would happen. I was going godlike (9 kills without dying) and everybody was pretty pissed because they thought they were losing to a girl. So then they pretty much told me only a ***** would play tinker(the hero I played as) and proceeded with sandwich jokes... I didn't really care though because I was godlike.

 

[Goldhawk777]

I think that many people have already taken the intelligent stance. But it is just that gaming is still traditionally seen as a mostly masculine activity. It is only now that females are taking more of an interest in gaming, and the game designers are making more games with flexibility for female characters. But if you are a guy in games, sheesh, along with the gay and fag references, people who are sore losers would probably insult the size of your member. Since you don't have one, they would call you a ***** or say that you are ugly. Truthfully, I believe you are a good and probably beautiful person, just by making the thread and asking for an opinion from SOME mature posters.

 

[DarkHuntress]

Oh don't let this bother you. Most of the comments you receive are probably from young teenage boys who are still in their "macho" stage.

I have played many online games and have only had one or two negative comments from males. That might be because I don't take kindly to that kind of thing.

Come to think of it, all of my playing partners have been male and we have a great time together.

So don't let any of this get under your skin, play and have a good time. Most of these young boys will soon grow out of this as more and more female gamers start appearing.

 

[Souplex]

Surveys have found a rather large percentage of online players are female. They just avoid saying so for fear of what happened to you.
[HEADING=3]You must keep at it, lead by example![/HEADING]
[HEADING=2]Raise your banner, make a stand![/HEADING]
[HEADING=1]Sound a battle cry loud enough that they can hear it, and laugh as they fear it![/HEADING]
Although Soul Calibur is a terrible game series.

 

[Kasawd]

Don't worry, it's not because you're a girl, it's because soul calibur 4 has the most abysmal online community ever in my experience.
I tried getting into it for a bit, got shit talked at nearly every match (but never used my headset).
I wasn't great at the game and was just learning, so my kill to loss ratio was pretty miserable, and when I finally had the satisfaction of winning ONE OUT OF FIFTEEN games, the douche bag I beat took the time to private message me saying "learn to play with a real character ******." because I used Nightmare that match.
And that did it for me - never touched the game online again.

It depends on the game too. In competitive games you get lots of insults.
If it's a cooperative game, the little boys will drop their jaw and be like "oohhh, I em playin' wit a girlz." and do everything to help them. Which I suppose can be equally insulting...

I use Nightmare. People just get butthurt because he's hard to play but nearly unstoppable with his power, reach and combo momentum.

 

[DarthNinja]

I have a history of loitering around the Soul Calibur 4 online multiplayer. I love this game for whatever reason, but this isn't what this topic is about.
While on their I keep finding myself becoming the victim of the No Girls Allowed club. When I enter matches I occasionally will get sneared at for being a girl. One of my favourite most recent lines I had to take before being kicked was: "God, this is why girls suck at games, they have to cheat to beat a guy!"

why is it that girls have to take this kind of smack talk? I realize that there will always be smack-talk online, however it seems girls get attacked from the moment we enter a room.

Trying playing TF2, nobody gives a shit.
Although I expect you'll get quite a lot of friend invites...

 

[Burningsok]

A no girls allowed club... lol don't worry they are probably a bunch of 10 year olds who still fear the cooties. The little brats don't understand the opposite gender very well. Believe me, I've played against a few girls in my life on fighting games like Soul Calibur and they are just as good. A couple of girls that I graduated with were gamers and they were playing games like RE4 and have already beaten it a few times. So don't worry about it. The line between guy gamers and girl gamers is starting to disappear.