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Thought that this was very related.

Personally, I attribute the increased number of female gamers to the wicked machinations of the patriarchy.

here's what I think of your "hardcore" gaming:


Anyways, I'm a girl gamer, and generally in my personal experience, there are 3 reactions to other (male) players finding out I'm a girl:
1. anger/disbelief/extremely sexist comment (i.e. "prove it," "tits or GTFO," "get out you'll make us lose," "you're only playing to get attention")

2. unwanted attention, unwanted help, getting hit on

3. being asked a zillion billion questions (which I generally wouldn't mind but NOT WHILE WE'RE HALFWAY THROUGH THE WAVE MORON)

Because of this, I generally don't say anything about being a girl. Unfortunately, this means I can't use voice chat without being "found out."

I play all kinds of games, from tabletop to card games to console to PC, and yes even casual games on my phone when I'm bored. I like RPGs the most, I'm not very good at FPS but I love games like Killing Floor and TF2, and I really like indie puzzle games (my steam library is full of them). My first game console was a gameboy color when I was 9 years old, and I learned to play N64 when I was 7. I grew up gaming, and being told I'm not a "real gamer" because I don't have an xbox 360 and I've never played Halo pisses me off.

I don't really see why it matters to the other gamers, though--the only people who should really care about female gamers are the game companies, and yet they continue to ignore the female gaming population and cater strongly to men. the barbie adventure games are all nice and good for little girls who love barbie, but what about women? There are hundreds of games that cater to men, and plenty that are more neutral, and tons that cater to kids, but very few (if any) specifically cater to women. Now I'm not saying there need to be women-specific games, but I am saying that gaming companies stand to make one hell of a lot more money if they tried to appeal to women instead of ignoring us.

I usually say something and end up being an ass, however, here goes.

I personally am thinking that, generally speaking, the 'girls in gaming' thing has only come about in the past few years.

I've been a member (and volunteer staff) of some online games since oh, about 2001.

One of them, I played in was the Star Wars Combine. I'm pretty sure back in the day they had over 8000 active members (please don't quote me on that...) I've just logged on it there and there's apparently 2881 active members. Considering when I last played, mmo's barely even existed. That's not an unexpected drop.

In any case, I really would not be surprised if there was less than 50 female players in the game back then. And a couple of the most noted staff were female. - Dredging my memory, one of the main admins (Syn I think her name was!), plus the leader of the Jedi. So it didn't seem like the games culture was against women being there. It just simply wasn't the done thing.

2004 to 2008 and I moved on to another game, where I eventually became an actual staffmember.
This really seemed to be the time of, "The internet: When the men are men, the women are also men and the children are FBI agents."

The amount of horror stories I could tell from this time period as a game staff member. Every cliche happened. The current 40k news about the Deep Strike 40k Radio thing? Was pretty much a broken record.

The game entered a very dark period a few years back (2006-07), when the guy running the game fell in love with a girl, started a long distance relationship but it turned out that she was a banned players cousin and he was slipping her a few bucks to do some skype calls so he could get free stuff in the game. And so on and so forth....

And now, I'm going to drop in the beartrap of my own devising by adding my own little addendum to that rule. - "The internet: When the men are men, the women are also men and the children are FBI agents. And the tiny amount of actual women will stab you in the leg if they ever met you."

Yes... That did (allegedly) happen, fortunately not to me...

The past 4 years or so, however... Things are improving a bit. The game is probably running at about 5%-10% "actual females" now, with about the same percentage on staff. Not awesome, but it's a fairly niche game.

But it's a whole lot better than (my complete guess) of a 10th of that number, in that other game in the early 2000's.

Of course, the question is, what can we do to increase those %'s? The game is what it is - a (free) RPG with an emphasis on the RP. We try to clamp down on the jerky behaviour when we see it. However, to be honest, we're not going to get a 50% ratio for 'girls who like pretending to be people in Star Wars.'

Are we?

I think a big part of it is that the girls who DO like gaming get endless harassment for it both online and IRL. It doesn't really make for new female players feeling welcome, and so they're a lot less likely to join in the first place. Like I said before, though-- that harassment can come in all different forms, and even in some cases from female friends who think that girls gaming is "weird" or "uncool" or whatever.

Without intending to deny that there's a great deal of sexism prevalent in online gaming, I'd like to relate a little story. I hopped into a game of Battlefield 3 over the weekend after a recent reinstall, and neglected to alter the default control settings for helicopter flying. Predictably, my first attempt at flying a helicopter since the reinstall ended up with an abrupt crash into a building, killing four other dudes on my team. Not exactly a big deal; you wait five seconds, and respawn. Nevertheless, a gentleman on my team suggested that my flying skills were impeded because I was busy performing sexual favors for a close male relative, to clean his language up a tad, a suggestion that I, a heterosexual male uninterested in incest, found offensive.

The point of that story is simply that everyone in online gaming is going to get vile, pointless insults hurled at them as long as they choose to pursue the pastime, especially in certain genres. I started gaming online with, I think, Duke Nukem 3D, so it's nothing new, and it hasn't changed. Talking endless amounts of gak for no reason at all is part and parcel of online gaming. Should it be? No. Will it always be? Probably. I've been called a derogatory term for homosexuals so many times online that I'm a little surprised I've never caught myself signing checks with it instead of my name.

I doubt that the endless, bs sexism is an expression of real, deep-seated misogyny for most, though. For the majority, it's simply an easy target, one they know works.

 Seaward wrote:
Without intending to deny that there's a great deal of sexism prevalent in online gaming, I'd like to relate a little story. I hopped into a game of Battlefield 3 over the weekend after a recent reinstall, and neglected to alter the default control settings for helicopter flying. Predictably, my first attempt at flying a helicopter since the reinstall ended up with an abrupt crash into a building, killing four other dudes on my team. Not exactly a big deal; you wait five seconds, and respawn. Nevertheless, a gentleman on my team suggested that my flying skills were impeded because I was busy performing sexual favors for a close male relative, to clean his language up a tad, a suggestion that I, a heterosexual male uninterested in incest, found offensive.

The point of that story is simply that everyone in online gaming is going to get vile, pointless insults hurled at them as long as they choose to pursue the pastime, especially in certain genres. I started gaming online with, I think, Duke Nukem 3D, so it's nothing new, and it hasn't changed. Talking endless amounts of gak for no reason at all is part and parcel of online gaming. Should it be? No. Will it always be? Probably. I've been called a derogatory term for homosexuals so many times online that I'm a little surprised I've never caught myself signing checks with it instead of my name.

I doubt that the endless, bs sexism is an expression of real, deep-seated misogyny for most, though. For the majority, it's simply an easy target, one they know works.

I think that i agree, just assume that everyone on the line is a jackass and don't take anything to heart. Make yourself an easy target and you will get attacked. This isn't a mysogynistic thing, it's a guy thing. If you react badly (by getting offended or angry) to this targeting it kinda ends up as open season.
I'm not sure why guys do this but almost every male peer group I have ever met does this to some extent.
I think this whole mysogynistic gamer thing might come from women being fully exposed to this kind of behaviour whereas for the most part IRL they are somewhat protected from being savaged as much .

 Seaward wrote:

I doubt that the endless, bs sexism is an expression of real, deep-seated misogyny for most, though. For the majority, it's simply an easy target, one they know works.

It's an interesting observation, though, and one I'd like to be further researched. The study Melissia posted was...well, a good hint in a possible direction. The execution was "meh", but hey it's something. I, personally, consider it to be a similar thing to people calling others "jews" in online games (especially in Europe of course). Kids nowadays use the word as an insult simply because they are aware of a "somehow" negative connotation of the term itself. Not everyone calling another player a "jew" is a racist, obviously, just as not everyone calling a female player a "slut" or sth. is sexist, it's tendencies that can be observed...and thus, I'd like to get additional actual input on that.

In regards to women in gaming and men's reactions to it, we gotta keep in mind that most of these issues happen in a competitive environment that is especially stressful for men, moresore than it is for women, plus a lot of gamers are very young and might simply flame another player for its gender because of their very own insecurity. But alas, those are mere speculations, I got no profound data on this.

 Satan's Little Helper wrote:
If you need statistics to win an argument, you've already lost.

That's a pretty dumb comment =)

[edit: delete]

I saw a roughly 2:1 male:female ratio in an MMO I used to play (Kingdom of Loathing).. mostly younger guys, older women (not much of a diffrence, mind). If you went in chat you'd think there were more women though since they tended to be more chatty (depending on the channel.. the casual "hearty" channel was mostly female whereas the hardcore gamer talk channel was mostly male... and PvP was pretty much an even split with the ladies being much better at smack talk.

Saw quite a high number of people meeting IRL through the game and getting married.

It was quite a friendly environment though, you had to pass a spelling and grammar test before being allowed to enter chat, and anyone throwing out the typical sexist spew wouldn't just get banned by the mods.. they'd get torn to shreds by the entire chatroom first.
More mild cases of "idiot guy who just has no clue how to socialise with women", would get mocked mercilessly until they figured out what they were doing wrong. And then they'd keep getting mocked, for good measure for a good while. :p

Surprisingly, graphic sex talk and jokes were extremely common and no-one really cared, because it was never directed or hateful. I think MMOs create the right kind of environment, definitely not male-dominated, and being a jerk doesn't get you anywhere due to the co-operative clan-based nature of the game.

Also, I call BS on the image at the top of this page, my housemate managed to complete the Lion King on her Sega as a kid (1996 or so?)... I sucked at it and never got past the third level.

If it's any consolation, it's just as rough for a guy to enjoy female stuff.. the "sissy, pervert, pedophile" assumptions get rolled out like a freight train as soon as you do anything in life that isn't a traditional male hobby.

Most people don't, scarletsquig... most don't...

The ESRB sticker saying that "online interactions are not rated by the ESRB" should really be replaced with, "Admit One: Summit of Patriarchy, where nothing is wrong and everything is permitted.*

*Fine print: Women, those of color, LBGT, handicapped, Muslim, Jewish, German, Mexican, Canadian, Asian, gingers, and those of moral virtue need not apply.

 DemetriDominov wrote:
The ESRB sticker saying that "online interactions are not rated by the ESRB" should really be replaced with, "Admit One: Summit of Patriarchy, where nothing is wrong and everything is permitted.*

*Fine print: Women, those of color, LBGT, handicapped, Muslim, Jewish, German, Mexican, Canadian, Asian, gingers, and those of moral virtue need not apply.

Stop being a victim and mute the donkey-caves.

The hyperbole here is getting a bit over the top. I'd say that being straight, male, and white is no guarantee that you won't get online abuse but I don't feel like reading the rebuttal based in special pleading.

Or the fact that being straight, male, and white isn't even grounds for abuse, but being anything other than that is.

It's much harder to see over a wall of gak when you're brick molded inside of it.

 DemetriDominov wrote:
Or the fact that being straight, male, and white isn't even grounds for abuse, but being anything other than that is..

On the contrary, as the perceived majority they would be the target of all "general" abuse, such as gamertags with non-specific insults targeted at the reader. At any rate, you missed the point.

 DemetriDominov wrote:
It's much harder to see over a wall of gak when you're brick molded inside of it.

Yup, that's pretty much what I expected.

 DemetriDominov wrote:
Or the fact that being straight, male, and white isn't even grounds for abuse, but being anything other than that is.

It's much harder to see over a wall of gak when you're brick molded inside of it.

I'm amused you still seem to be of the opinion that the abuse needs to have at least some linchpin in reality before it gets hurled.

Knock that off. Everyone's going to get called a lot of stuff they're not and possibly some stuff they are while online gaming. The people doing it aren't using the Sniper Rifle of Precision Socio-Economic Hate, they're using the Shotgun of Coating Everything In Gak And Seeing What Sticks.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Monster Rain wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:

 Monster Rain wrote:
I don't think any type of game is more "real" than the other, but I think that making the distinction allows for more accurate discussion.

Except when the question is 'how many women play video games into comparison to men". Now if the question is "how many women play FPS compared to the number of men who play FPS" then it makes sense to exclude other types of games. It is still a problem, and probably part of the overall issue at hand, that people still treat games like that as not really video games, when in fact they are video games.

My point is that "video games" is a very broad topic. It would be similar to having the same conversation about movies, books or music.

It's so vague that I don't know what the point of bringing it up is, I guess.

I don't disagree, I was more referring to the attitude that is often displayed at people who enjoy games like Farmville as not really being gamers.

I had a guy in my group that would get rankled over the use of the term gamer. "Back in my day, gamer meant you played D&D. Blah, blah, blah..." It really set him off to hear FPS shooters and such calling themselves gamers instead of video gamers.

Like there's a difference. Anyway, I found the stats in the first post very eye-opening. I'd love to see a breakdown of male/female by genre.

I'm going to say this now.

I don't give two craps if you're a female gamer. I don't. I think if you advertise the fact you are a girl gamer (a term which I think is stupid. Can I call myself a Mexican Gamer for playing 40k since I barely see any other Mexicans around?) you aren't helping with stopping online sexism. If you want to be treated like everyone else act like everyone else.

Now! Stopping online sexism isn't going to stop with the death of the term "girl gamer". It's not even really the root of it. The true root of the issue is probably too complex to really address in this post but I think it's a combination of an innate hate of outsiders humans have, deep rooted sexism in males and the power anonymity can give. Women dropping the term "Girl Gamer" might help the first issue but it would take some serious social and technological change to help the last two issues. I'm not even sure it's even possible.

Before someone screams "VICTIM BLAMING!" my point about "girl gamers" isn't victim blaming. It's just that in my experience people who go out of their way to point out that they are different are treated differently. It's just how things work. Especially in the world of the internet where people no liek different.

I don't think the term 'girl gamer' has any real effect on anything. I'd assume what people would like most is, for example when playing battlefield and has the temerity to say something like, "need backup at flag A" on voice not to get drowned out with 'while you respawn, go get me a sammich' in response.

It doesn't seem that unreasonable a hope to me...

The main problem is that although such situations occur, there's nothing you can do about it. And really, I don't see the much of a difference between someone making a sammices joke and calling someone else's mother's names. If people think that everytime online players say sth. that can be interpretated as sexist, it automatically means there's sexism at work...well, you have my pity.

 Monster Rain wrote:

 DemetriDominov wrote:
The ESRB sticker saying that "online interactions are not rated by the ESRB" should really be replaced with, "Admit One: Summit of Patriarchy, where nothing is wrong and everything is permitted.*

*Fine print: Women, those of color, LBGT, handicapped, Muslim, Jewish, German, Mexican, Canadian, Asian, gingers, and those of moral virtue need not apply.

Stop being a victim and mute the donkey-caves.

The hyperbole here is getting a bit over the top. I'd say that being straight, male, and white is no guarantee that you won't get online abuse but I don't feel like reading the rebuttal based in special pleading.

Well, no it's certainly not guarantee you won't get abuse. However it is an almost certain guarantee that you won't be facing the sort of abuse that that hits home with negative experiences and abuse you face more broadly in society as a whole by being a straight white male.

For example, you may face string of expletives and homophobic slurs at roughly the same rate as anyone else. However being straight this likely amounts to little more than a passing annoyance. If you're actually gay there is a good chance this has either been a regular part of your life, or at minimum something you've feared. You're certainly aware it's the kind of language actively used bt people that genuinely hate you, would hurt you given the chance, or want to deprive you of your rights. The little squit on the other end may or may not actually be one of these people, but that doesn't change you're getting hit by the same language those people use. The same words are far more likely to have deep impact on someone who is actually part of a group who suffers widespread harm from the ideas those words go along with.

It's really not possible for the experience that a straight white male has, to be comparable to someone who actually belong to groups that have been deeply affected by racism, homophobia and misogyny even if the actual behavior they run into is the same.

Even for example some person was going around speaking in slurs against straight white males specifically it still wouldn't be comparable. This is because those ideas have never held enough institutional power to broadly affect straight white males as a group. I mean they're still donkey-caves, but they're hardly using language that's been a very real part of very real widespread oppression and violence.

None of that has anything to do with the main gist of my posts on the topic:

There are donkey-caves on online games. Mute them. Whatever your perceived social niche is, they get their jollies by upsetting you. There's nothing more to it than that.

Furthermore, you're still using a fallacious argument because there's more than one way to upset someone aside from slurs and expletives that even, and this may come as a surprise, your typical straight, white man could be bothered by. I guess it depends how you want to approach the issue. I personally find it more empowering to tell people to not let themselves be victimized by jerk-offs. Ignore them and know that they're troglodytes. Continually espousing a culture of victimhood, particularly in a setting where it is completely avoidable, only serves to perpetuate the problem.

Especially since we blame the victim around these parts.

 Monster Rain wrote:
None of that has anything to do with the main gist of my posts on the topic:

There are donkey-caves on online games. Mute them. Whatever your perceived social niche is, they get their jollies by upsetting you. There's nothing more to it than that.

Furthermore, you're still using a fallacious argument because there's more than one way to upset someone aside from slurs and expletives that even, and this may come as a surprise, your typical straight, white man could be bothered by.

Slurs, Expletives and sexually violent language are certainly the most common as I've been able to observe, so I think they deserve special attention.

That aside, I by no means mean that people couldn't say something that would deeply affect someone who is straight, white and male. For example perhaps something along the lines of "I hope your mom dies of cancer" - or something equally distasteful, when in fact that guy's mom in fact died of cancer. That could be downright awful for someone.

However, the experience I describe doesn't come from the fact he's a straight white male, it stems from specific personal experience. That's what different. "Straight, White, Male" is fairly unique in that there is little true nastiness that can be tapped into purely attributed to being "Straight, White, Male". If you're a woman, if you're gay, if you're black, etc... there is very real harm that can be tapped into by the words people use. That's why being white being straight/white & male is unique, for whatever words people may use little to none of it can strike home with widespread oppression suffered for being straight/white/male, because that just hasn't affected that particular group.

This is extremely relevant to your point because the solution is "Just mute them". However at that point, you've already had to be slapped in the face by whatever they did. Manageable I'm sure for some people even if the words really do hit home for them, but that initial exposure (repeated over many individuals) still has a greater impact due to being a part of the group actually being talked about.

Chongara wrote:
That's why being white being straight/white & male is unique, for whatever words people may use little to none of it can strike home with widespread oppression suffered for being straight/white/male, because that just hasn't affected that particular group.

Here's the part that I don't understand, and it may simply be an inescapable facet of my personality: Why be offended by someone who is only actively trying to piss you off? Why give them that power? If you know that they are only saying whatever it is they are saying to get a rise out of you how can one not recognize it for what it is? There are a wealth of things that can be said that can affect any person of any race/gender/sex just as badly as a racial slur based on their life experience.

I'm not saying people aren't entitled to be bothered by language that they hear. You'd have to be a complete dildo to use those terms, but then, that's exactly what we're talking about here. The edge of the bell curve of antisocial online behavior. My point isn't that what they are saying isn't bad, or that something shouldn't be done to prevent from happening as much as it does, but I'm just pointing out that recognizing the behavior for what it is makes it seem less offensive and more pathetic.

Chongara wrote:
This is extremely relevant o your point because the solution is "Just mute them". However at that point, you've already had to be slapped in the face by whatever they did. Manageable I'm sure for some people even if the words really do hit home for them, but that initial exposure (repeated over many individuals) still has a greater impact due to being a part of the group actually being talked about.

As I reiterated above, the solution is simply not to just mute them. You remove them from your presence while enjoying the smug superiority that comes from not being offended by some 14-year-old nobody who's shouting words that he doesn't really understand into a microphone.

 Monster Rain wrote:

Chongara wrote:
That's why being white being straight/white & male is unique, for whatever words people may use little to none of it can strike home with widespread oppression suffered for being straight/white/male, because that just hasn't affected that particular group.

Here's the part that I don't understand, and it may simply be an inescapable facet of my personality: Why be offended by someone who is only actively trying to piss you off? Why give them that power? If you know that they are only saying whatever it is they are saying to get a rise out of you how can one not recognize it for what it is? There are a wealth of things that can be said that can affect any person of any race/gender/sex just as badly as a racial slur based on their life experience.

That part you don't understand, that's exactly what I'm talking about. You ask "Why give them that power", they don't have a choice. They're bombarded regularly with this stuff. If not on a direct personal level, than certainly at minimum in news stories and larger cultural experiences. When you're surrounded by something like, when it's something that targets a part of your identity - it's hard, really hard for it not to get to you.


Imagine everywhere you look you see people drowning or almost drowning. Half the time when you walk past a body water, some poor dude is failing his arms about gasping for air. Maybe he makes it to shore, maybe he doesn't. You've probably almost drowned in the water yourself on at least one occasion. Even if you haven't you at minimum still constantly see people just like you gasping for air, almost every day. Then a whole bunch of people you know just aren't in danger of drowning start telling you "Go take a swim" in a really hostile tone of voice and then other people just like them say "Those guys are jerks, but why do you let it bother you - just mute them". It'd suck.

Now imagine instead of trying to swim, the thing that gets you in trouble is just you being you.
Now imagine instead of the water being the thing that hurts you, it's damn close to half of America.

I can't really claim to know what it's like to be a woman or be gay and be on the receiving end of this. However, when I sit down and try to empathize with their position, I can at least say what they're saying makes sense just by knowing what it's like to be human. I'm sure my little thought experiment above really doesn't do the experience justice, but it's enough I think to see where these people are coming from.

I can't imagine having the will to prevent something from having power over me when it just so very pervasive, and I don't think it's fair to assume the problem is with them not doing so rather than with the community that creates the environment.

Chongara wrote:
I can't imagine having the will to prevent something from having power over me when it just so very pervasive, and I don't think it's fair to assume the problem is with them not doing so rather than with the community that creates the environment.

It isn't a matter of will, but simply knowing that while you can't control the behavior of others, you can control how their behavior affects you.

Clearly this is anecdotal, but my experience with about 90% of online game chat, even when there's female players is "building 2", "spawn flip", etc. with the occasional banter in between games.

The other 10% is your trolls and mic spammers, who are muted as soon as they show that they are stupid. My point is I'm not sure that the "community" is creating that environment that you describe. I would say that it's just the 10% of any group of people that are dicks.

My experience with online games was similar to MR's. It was easy enough to hit the mute button on certain people. Also, DDO had a mechanic where you can flag people's characters, and choose to allow them in a group you created or not.

There's also the fact that there's an option to report people who are being abusive and starting the process of having their account banned.

It's not like the companies providing the service don't have a system in place to try to keep this sort of thing under control.

 Monster Rain wrote:

It isn't a matter of will, but simply knowing that while you can't control the behavior of others, you can control how their behavior affects you.

This isn't true, at least it isn't normally. Human beings aren't that detached from the experiences they have with their culture and the people around them. Maybe you have some ability to say "I'm just going to pick and choose which of my deep personal experiences causes me to have strong reactions to things", and hey more power to you if that's the case. However it's just not how most people deal with gak. Again, consider: It is also possible you feel this way because your status as a [White, Straight, Male] has shielded you from some of the broader experiences that create these kind of powerful aversions, and you've just been fortunate enough to shield you from the more specific ones. I couldn't say, I haven't lived your life, it does seem possible though.

It remains that people just can't "Turn off" deeply personal experiences.

EDIT:

There's also the fact that there's an option to report people who are being abusive and starting the process of having their account banned.

It's not like the companies providing the service don't have a system in place to try to keep this sort of thing under control.

Come on man, this is silly.

"A lot of people get mugged. I think we should talk about why so many muggings are happening, and what steps we could take to discourage so many muggings."
"Mugging is already illegal, they'd get arrested if the cops caught them. It's not like we don't already have a system in place"

How in the world is that constructive stance to take?

What would you suggest be done? I wouldn't say my statement is any less constructive than your idea that, if I may use your analogy, that all of the other people on the street are creating an environment conducive to mugging.

I think your idea that I can't be potentially offended due to your perception of my race and whatnot speaks volumes.