I actually do think it is a good thing for women to make their presence known and speak up, If it becomes a commonplace thing, people will learn to deal with it in a mature way. Maybe we can deal with some of misogynist crapola getting enshrined in culture at the same time.jadedcritic said:
OMG Girlz Don't Exist on teh Intarweb!!!!1
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Some good points are getting brought up in the discussion here, but I wanted to raise a few of my own. To begin, there's this weird sort of dismissive attitude towards all those girls that "only play Sims and Guitar Hero". I see it all over the place, and it rubs me the wrong way. It's like the only valid form of REAL GAMING is the manly, headshotting FPSes and stuff. The Sims is still a game. Guitar Hero is still a game. Dance Dance Revolution is still a game. RPGs are still games. Heck, all those little Popcap Flash games? They're games, too. At my current place of employment, my team members are mostly women in their 20s and 30s and 40s, and I'm gleefully overjoyed that one mom plays DDR every night, another mom recently dusted off her old NES and got her Mario on, and that pretty much everyone is gushing over how fun stuff like Guitar Hero is. Not to mention, I swear, at least half the building plays WoW, men and women. There are gamers everywhere! But apparently not the right sort of gamers? Yarrrgh! Can this stop?
But that sort of digresses from the actual "Interwebs" part of the discussion...
I don't draw attention to myself as a girl, when I play online. If the question comes up, yeah, my gender is admitted to. And for the most part, guys go "Oh, okay" and more or less behave themselves. I've had more than a few sexist piggish jerkwads request pics and then immediately ask if I have a boyfriend and where do I live and... maaaan I can hear the heavy breathing from here, please to be taking your hand out of your pants, kthx? I hate it. I just want to play a game! I don't want to date anyone! I hate the assumption that so many guys online have, that girls are there for sex. I'm not a person, I'm a GIRL, a mysterious and incomprehensible thing, that also has magical sexyparts that GASP, they may have access to if they play their cards right!
Thankfully, this is infrequent. But less thankfully, this means I talk a lot less when I play online games. Less typing, less vent, less actual interaction unless I can find a very compelling reason to do so. By shutting myself off, I suspect that I'm not making the situation any better.
But that sort of digresses from the actual "Interwebs" part of the discussion...
I don't draw attention to myself as a girl, when I play online. If the question comes up, yeah, my gender is admitted to. And for the most part, guys go "Oh, okay" and more or less behave themselves. I've had more than a few sexist piggish jerkwads request pics and then immediately ask if I have a boyfriend and where do I live and... maaaan I can hear the heavy breathing from here, please to be taking your hand out of your pants, kthx? I hate it. I just want to play a game! I don't want to date anyone! I hate the assumption that so many guys online have, that girls are there for sex. I'm not a person, I'm a GIRL, a mysterious and incomprehensible thing, that also has magical sexyparts that GASP, they may have access to if they play their cards right!
Thankfully, this is infrequent. But less thankfully, this means I talk a lot less when I play online games. Less typing, less vent, less actual interaction unless I can find a very compelling reason to do so. By shutting myself off, I suspect that I'm not making the situation any better.
being a girl gamer i find that artical hysterical. she didnt mention the obessive way guys get when they find out you are a girl gamer. its like they feel the need to pertect and serve. lol like if we where really out on the battlefield that he would have to feel the need to cover my ass just because i am female. its sweet but i could hand you your own ass back to you before you ever covered mine. but then you get the other guys who just give you crap all the time. the crude comments and never ending requests for sex or other random acts. but then you cant competely blame all the guys on this. you get thouse guys who do pretend to be a girl and well yeah some guys do get fooled. no one likes to play the fool so you cant blame them for never believeing it. but then you get thouse girl gaming whores. the girls who go in and are all talk and no action. they go in to mess with the desperate gaming geeks. they whore themselfs to the males of the gaming community and gives the rest of us a bad name. the ones who get the girl skins when it is clearly an act screaming for attention. the ones who start the guys into all the sexual content. its ridclous. its almost like girls on any server is a legend. heard of once but never really seen. girls either get confronted by a wave of jack asses or a wave of thouse who want to protect and serve, or well pretty much stamp their name on your ass. -.-'
umm, maybe i should jump on the bandwagon? Anyway, Maybe i'm a hypocrite, but i do think that when playing with IRL girls online, i just don't care.
I just wanna play the game, and that's it.
However, i am kind of shy, so when playing a multiplayer game wit ha girl next to me, is very unnerving for me. But i think i have to adjust to it.
Anyway, i don't get it either why men will obsess over girls in an online game... It's online, don't think you can go and visit her... and try to win her over, that's not what a game is for, most likel. Allthough some MMOs seem to encourage this with marriage, in-game. Which i think is stupid.
Maybe they are actually not mature enough, so the ystart doing that, or they want to show off what they did. Ummm ok?
I just wanna play the game, and that's it.
However, i am kind of shy, so when playing a multiplayer game wit ha girl next to me, is very unnerving for me. But i think i have to adjust to it.
Anyway, i don't get it either why men will obsess over girls in an online game... It's online, don't think you can go and visit her... and try to win her over, that's not what a game is for, most likel. Allthough some MMOs seem to encourage this with marriage, in-game. Which i think is stupid.
Maybe they are actually not mature enough, so the ystart doing that, or they want to show off what they did. Ummm ok?
"But I can't talk to the top of someone's head. Am I really that scary? Or was the boy just afraid to face the truth that I am a girl?"
Maybe he loves you? : )
People off the internet are not uncommonly unsure of themselves.
Hey, even I have a hard time keeping eye contact with people I've only just met sometimes ~~ Just a 'lil nervous. It goes away.
I find it interesting how extremely rare good grammar and politness seems to be in the circles you frequent. I guess it could suggest that they are more mature and believers of equality, but some of the more well-spoken people I've talked to on forums turned out to be facists or even religious extremists (and I'm not exaggerating! I'm talking war-loving torture endorsers here!) As for the L337-SP33K:ers, I personally would draw the conclusion that they're all 12-year old dimwits, but they can't ALL be, can they? I don't play WoW, but most of the people in my clan in wc3 use good grammar. We've had female members come and go without any more notice than an average male clan member.
Rather than girls no existing on the internet I'd say that getting on the internet lowers your IQ (in lack of a more accurate scale) by ca 40. When you can't take any real physical or social damage from being a complete idiot it's easy to go there. ~~
"It's like the only valid form of REAL GAMING is the manly, headshotting FPSes and stuff. "
I think you're getting it wrong. The point is that much of the male fps-community considers The Sims to be the only game that girls can play. A genre is a genre, and every fanbase has preset views on the fanbase of all other genres.
Maybe he loves you? : )
People off the internet are not uncommonly unsure of themselves.
Hey, even I have a hard time keeping eye contact with people I've only just met sometimes ~~ Just a 'lil nervous. It goes away.
I find it interesting how extremely rare good grammar and politness seems to be in the circles you frequent. I guess it could suggest that they are more mature and believers of equality, but some of the more well-spoken people I've talked to on forums turned out to be facists or even religious extremists (and I'm not exaggerating! I'm talking war-loving torture endorsers here!) As for the L337-SP33K:ers, I personally would draw the conclusion that they're all 12-year old dimwits, but they can't ALL be, can they? I don't play WoW, but most of the people in my clan in wc3 use good grammar. We've had female members come and go without any more notice than an average male clan member.
Rather than girls no existing on the internet I'd say that getting on the internet lowers your IQ (in lack of a more accurate scale) by ca 40. When you can't take any real physical or social damage from being a complete idiot it's easy to go there. ~~
"It's like the only valid form of REAL GAMING is the manly, headshotting FPSes and stuff. "
I think you're getting it wrong. The point is that much of the male fps-community considers The Sims to be the only game that girls can play. A genre is a genre, and every fanbase has preset views on the fanbase of all other genres.
I love being a girl gamer and playing online. I've been playing games online since the ps2 network launched and now play most nights online on ps3. Since I started playing online I have gradually seen an improvement in peoples attitudes to me. I chose a very girlie name (princess_uk) simply because when I started playing online games I regularly came across the attitude that girls couldn't be good at games and so I decided to prove people wrong by being obviously female.
I think the thing that annoys me the most about being a girl gamer is the lack of female characters to play as, currently I'm playing Call of Duty 4 online and can only play as generic male. I also get annoyed when guys either hit on me over the comms(I'm happily married), or (and this has happened plenty of times) say "let's look for princess_uk, she's an easy target, she's a girl." I think people are surprised when I end up in the top 3 on the scoreboard lol.
I hope that one day peoples attitudes will change but I think that developers need to encourage girl gamers more by including female characters in their games.
I think the thing that annoys me the most about being a girl gamer is the lack of female characters to play as, currently I'm playing Call of Duty 4 online and can only play as generic male. I also get annoyed when guys either hit on me over the comms(I'm happily married), or (and this has happened plenty of times) say "let's look for princess_uk, she's an easy target, she's a girl." I think people are surprised when I end up in the top 3 on the scoreboard lol.
I hope that one day peoples attitudes will change but I think that developers need to encourage girl gamers more by including female characters in their games.
About the points brought up by Lampdevil...
I think that has a lot more to do with the line (a mostly imaginary one) between casual gamers and hardcore ones, rather than having much really to do with gender politics. The distinctions out there people like to draw, some out of long term loyalty to their hobby (video games are decades old but many gamers feel that they've only been becoming mainstream recently) or just plain old elitism. Is someone who can get and maintain 200 Actions Per Minute in StarCraft, or land headshots against a running enemy halfway across the map while jumping in Unreal Tournament more of a gamer than someone who plays the Sims and Guitar Hero? But that's an issue for another day, I guess.
The point AnGeL.SLayer brought up about some male players trying (often too hard) to look out for female players I find fascinating. I suppose there are a lot of motives behind that, from some strange sense of chivalry to the ever-present tail-chase that some guys are on. I've seen a bit of both in almost ten years of online gaming, but on the internet you never know who anyone is, even less why they're doing what they do.
Honestly though I think people should care far less. Most of the time from what you can tell of people is based on between 4 and 16 characters on a screen and whatever they might type. That's the person, there's little to go on and usually little to take interest in unless they have an exceptional playstyle. More recently with VOIP features in game you can hear people too which can add an interesting new dimension to online gaming, which by it's nature has been very impersonal.
The purpose of gaming I guess comes up when you think about this issue in depth. Why do people play games with others? I see two primary reasons.
The first, is competition and honing skills. You see this a lot in action games and strategy games, where competition can be fierce and leaderboard standings count a great deal to many players. Getting better and having fun are the goals here. So what does it matter how old your competition is (although kids often have better reflexes, which can count), how tall they are, where they live (aside from ping) or what's between their legs. If you game for this, it really shouldn't matter much, just the skill of the opposition.
The other is social interaction. Some people game for a unique social experience, since you cannot go out to your local cave with Night Elves and kill baddies or clear the warehouse district of Russian Ultranationalists with your friends. Some games online are as much about teamwork and knowing the other people you're with as they are about succeeding, and fun can be derived from that. I think that's most common in MMO's, a genre I'm not a fan of, but I know many people who love to play partially to just interact with friends (online or otherwise), people in their Guilds, or just random people. In games or gaming where an integral part of the experience is just interacting and getting to know people (not trying to put a 7.62 through their skull) I think gender can matter about as much as it matters in life. That's not to say that people are defined solely by it, but rather it is part of who they are and why they are who they are, and when you're trying to get to know someone, that can factor in.
It's a funny issue all around.
Addendum. This post lost it's way when my mind began to wander, sorry for the lack of coherent structure.
I think that has a lot more to do with the line (a mostly imaginary one) between casual gamers and hardcore ones, rather than having much really to do with gender politics. The distinctions out there people like to draw, some out of long term loyalty to their hobby (video games are decades old but many gamers feel that they've only been becoming mainstream recently) or just plain old elitism. Is someone who can get and maintain 200 Actions Per Minute in StarCraft, or land headshots against a running enemy halfway across the map while jumping in Unreal Tournament more of a gamer than someone who plays the Sims and Guitar Hero? But that's an issue for another day, I guess.
The point AnGeL.SLayer brought up about some male players trying (often too hard) to look out for female players I find fascinating. I suppose there are a lot of motives behind that, from some strange sense of chivalry to the ever-present tail-chase that some guys are on. I've seen a bit of both in almost ten years of online gaming, but on the internet you never know who anyone is, even less why they're doing what they do.
Honestly though I think people should care far less. Most of the time from what you can tell of people is based on between 4 and 16 characters on a screen and whatever they might type. That's the person, there's little to go on and usually little to take interest in unless they have an exceptional playstyle. More recently with VOIP features in game you can hear people too which can add an interesting new dimension to online gaming, which by it's nature has been very impersonal.
The purpose of gaming I guess comes up when you think about this issue in depth. Why do people play games with others? I see two primary reasons.
The first, is competition and honing skills. You see this a lot in action games and strategy games, where competition can be fierce and leaderboard standings count a great deal to many players. Getting better and having fun are the goals here. So what does it matter how old your competition is (although kids often have better reflexes, which can count), how tall they are, where they live (aside from ping) or what's between their legs. If you game for this, it really shouldn't matter much, just the skill of the opposition.
The other is social interaction. Some people game for a unique social experience, since you cannot go out to your local cave with Night Elves and kill baddies or clear the warehouse district of Russian Ultranationalists with your friends. Some games online are as much about teamwork and knowing the other people you're with as they are about succeeding, and fun can be derived from that. I think that's most common in MMO's, a genre I'm not a fan of, but I know many people who love to play partially to just interact with friends (online or otherwise), people in their Guilds, or just random people. In games or gaming where an integral part of the experience is just interacting and getting to know people (not trying to put a 7.62 through their skull) I think gender can matter about as much as it matters in life. That's not to say that people are defined solely by it, but rather it is part of who they are and why they are who they are, and when you're trying to get to know someone, that can factor in.
It's a funny issue all around.
Addendum. This post lost it's way when my mind began to wander, sorry for the lack of coherent structure.
I just want to jump in on this thread real quick and point out that if we find anyone pretending to be a female just to get their rocks off, or using this forum as a cyber club or hookup joint, there will be ban hammer bloodshed. That is all.
/mod.
/mod.
I knew a couple of female gamers back in high school. They both moved away. I know female gamers exist. If you were to approach me online and tell me you were female, I wouldn't give you flak for it. I just wouldn't believe you.
Hold on, hold on, stay the flame throwers a moment. I said I wouldn't believe you, not that I would challenge you. My general response to "Of course Im a gurl on halo!" Is a simple nod and maybe a mention that there is a plasma grenade on the individual in question's back. There are a lot of guys on the internet who like to pose as girls. There are also a lot of girls who simply enjoy a good raid or deathmatch. I don't generally try to figure out people's gender online. It should not matter if they are a male or female, and as such, I don't care for the info. I don't care which bathroom you go to, only if you can hold a base in CTF or if you can hold aggro as a tank.
Generally, I've also found that if I'm not trying to find out who is what gender, then the only people who make a big deal of trying to convince me they are a girl when I don't give them the expected "OMG UR HOT LETZ CYBR" response turn out to be 40 year old men.
Hold on, hold on, stay the flame throwers a moment. I said I wouldn't believe you, not that I would challenge you. My general response to "Of course Im a gurl on halo!" Is a simple nod and maybe a mention that there is a plasma grenade on the individual in question's back. There are a lot of guys on the internet who like to pose as girls. There are also a lot of girls who simply enjoy a good raid or deathmatch. I don't generally try to figure out people's gender online. It should not matter if they are a male or female, and as such, I don't care for the info. I don't care which bathroom you go to, only if you can hold a base in CTF or if you can hold aggro as a tank.
Generally, I've also found that if I'm not trying to find out who is what gender, then the only people who make a big deal of trying to convince me they are a girl when I don't give them the expected "OMG UR HOT LETZ CYBR" response turn out to be 40 year old men.
The game I play most online is Unreal Tournament, and there truly aren't hardly any girls in it. My clan used to have one back in the DAY like 7 years ago when shooters and RTS's were the only online games available, and I think she plays WoW now... most girls do gravitate away from the fast-paced violent types of games, and that's what the bulk of online gaming is (besides MMOs I guess). The online UT community is so overwhelmingly male (200 to 1 gender ratio, no exaggeration) that I can't blame girls from shying away from it. Any time one shows up she's instantly greeted with a mix of the following:
Disbelief (as described in this article)
Overly super-niceness
Plain ol' crudity
Angsty misogynism
All of course brought on by the deep, deep well of pent-up sexual frustration that is a community of 99% teenage boys, mostly without girlfriends.
I personally treat women online a little differently than men, just like I would in real life, but with as much equality as I can manage. Most men change their behavior around girls, and in an online community that's pretty much like a real-life "guy's club" it's a little disorienting sometimes having a woman around. Not saying it's a bad thing, but the problem isn't the presence of females in general, it's their relative scarcity. 50 girls and 50 guys is normal. 2 girls and 98 guys is weird. And as Angel.Slayer pointed out, the ones that can actually handle an atmosphere like that sometimes tend to be people that are desperate for attention, which makes us guys further skeptical. If I was a woman online, honestly, I'd probably just pretend I was a dude and not use voice comm.
I'd love to see more girls on the intarweb, but I wonder if it'll ever happen.
Disbelief (as described in this article)
Overly super-niceness
Plain ol' crudity
Angsty misogynism
All of course brought on by the deep, deep well of pent-up sexual frustration that is a community of 99% teenage boys, mostly without girlfriends.
I personally treat women online a little differently than men, just like I would in real life, but with as much equality as I can manage. Most men change their behavior around girls, and in an online community that's pretty much like a real-life "guy's club" it's a little disorienting sometimes having a woman around. Not saying it's a bad thing, but the problem isn't the presence of females in general, it's their relative scarcity. 50 girls and 50 guys is normal. 2 girls and 98 guys is weird. And as Angel.Slayer pointed out, the ones that can actually handle an atmosphere like that sometimes tend to be people that are desperate for attention, which makes us guys further skeptical. If I was a woman online, honestly, I'd probably just pretend I was a dude and not use voice comm.
I'd love to see more girls on the intarweb, but I wonder if it'll ever happen.
Bleh. One of my good friends be a gamer and cruising internet constantly.
Now, in a complete reversal of all this, I must say that on one forum I frequent everyone believed (for some bizarre reason) that I was, in fact, a woman. *Shrug* I have no clue why that is so, it just happened.
Now, in a complete reversal of all this, I must say that on one forum I frequent everyone believed (for some bizarre reason) that I was, in fact, a woman. *Shrug* I have no clue why that is so, it just happened.
I've seen this exact thing more times then I can count. I don't know why people can't except that girls play games. Most of my friends from high school are female and they all play some type of video game.
In my guild on WoW we currently have 56 people total. Out of those there are three girls that have spoken on vent/posted a picture on the guild site (we never ask them to, all members are welcome to post a picture and a lot of them actually do once they settle in). One of those is our GM who is also married to one of the other members. Another is engaged to another member and the last is single. The first two get attention from a lot of the new members but once they find out they are spoken for it seems to trickle off. The last gets the most attention for the longest.
Sadly its looking more and more like guys just can not (or do not want to) accept that girls are online playing the same games that we are. I hope that those that play will keep there heads down and be smart, don't want you having to deal with anymore idiots then you are already going to have to.
In my guild on WoW we currently have 56 people total. Out of those there are three girls that have spoken on vent/posted a picture on the guild site (we never ask them to, all members are welcome to post a picture and a lot of them actually do once they settle in). One of those is our GM who is also married to one of the other members. Another is engaged to another member and the last is single. The first two get attention from a lot of the new members but once they find out they are spoken for it seems to trickle off. The last gets the most attention for the longest.
Sadly its looking more and more like guys just can not (or do not want to) accept that girls are online playing the same games that we are. I hope that those that play will keep there heads down and be smart, don't want you having to deal with anymore idiots then you are already going to have to.
Well, those things are still games, so you can say those are gamers, with different tastes.GrowlersAtSea said:
Anyway, everyone agrees to it that MMOs are being stereotyped. Maybe it's also because of that one ad of WoW, which actually catered more to the ones that played it and let it dust. It was more for guys it seems. And i didn't completely do my homework on this one, so correct me if there is an ad with a female star in it.
But what people tend to forget what that stereotype in mind is that everyone can play it. You shouldn't be surprised to find girls there, now shuld you? People should realize that for one, But it's also something we tend to forget alot. Well, not the people at the escapist, they seem more inteligent and mature than any other community. I'm digressing though, but my point is that people(usually around 12-15 something age) forget that their game can be played by anyone.
So why do we neglect that aspect?
It's a weird cycle. Are teh men on teh interweb crude and desperate because they don't have girlfriends? Or do they not have girlfriends because they're crude and desperate? Either way, I'm always ashamed of my fellow man when their whole gaming experience derails because they're horny. "OMG UR A GURL, PIX PLS" Just.....it's just....sad. I always wonder if that's how they would talk to someone in real life. Maybe not, but I bet they're thinkin' it.
BUT, as many webcomics have pointed out,
Normal person + Anonymity + public voice = Complete asswad.
BUT, as many webcomics have pointed out,
Normal person + Anonymity + public voice = Complete asswad.
Oh God, there was a thread I read somewhere about how girl gamers were all either fat, ugly, or only played The Sims*, and were therefore worthless. The sense of sheer entitlement was just... Well, the day someone invents an internet death-ray, I know who I'm going after.
(*Also, a guy found out his girlfriend played The Sims, so he 'educated' her as to why she was a stupid ***** for doing so. I bet he gets so much sex, you guys. We wimminz love being called stupid bitches who should just play with dolls if we wanna play house.)
(*Also, a guy found out his girlfriend played The Sims, so he 'educated' her as to why she was a stupid ***** for doing so. I bet he gets so much sex, you guys. We wimminz love being called stupid bitches who should just play with dolls if we wanna play house.)