Female Gamers: Part Two

Like I've said before, the majority of my interactions with other gamers have been positive. Unfortunately, I have experienced a negative side to online gaming. If you're going to talk shit do it right.

We all love top 10 lists right? How about top 5? Like it or not here it is: 

The Top 5 Negative Things Said/Heard About Female Gamers:

Keep in mind these are things I have heard while talking on my mic. I can take my dose of trash talk and playful banter but there is a line that can get crossed.

5. Antisocial loner.

This is definitely something that can be said about both male and female gamers alike. However I'm not sure why a gamer would say this as it's insulting oneself. I don't live in my mother's basement and I do have real friends. It's OK if you don't though.       

4. Lazy and disheveled.

Another one where I think "Why?" In saying this you're not just putting me down you're also putting yourself down. Sure we're a bit lazy. We do sit on our couches for hours at a time but lets have other interests too?

3. Fat not Phat.

Fat is in the realm of lazy. There are fat women and fat gamers. So yes there are fat female gamers. Must you assume I am obese? 

2. Ugly and not attractive in any way.

There are very attractive female gamers. If you haven't figured this out by now Google it. Enough said.

1. Sexual/Sexuality remarks

This is number one for a reason. I've never been more turned off by online gaming then when I heard a fellow gamer discussing rape. Jokingly or not: NOT COOL. Sexual remarks as such should be off limits.

For some reason because I'm a female gamer I am also a lesbian. Must we discuss our sexual identities? I'm not assuming you're a straight male.

Things like this make me question if I should turn my mic on or just play it safe and keep it off. Let's be adults and keep our trash talk on the humane side. And if you're not an adult and speaking so obscenely maybe you should ask your mom what she'd think. 

Female Gamers: Part One

I recently asked my twitter followers to describe girl/female gamers in one word.  


The majority of the responses that I received were positive:

"Badass"

"Unique, endangered species"

"Sexy!"

"Rare"

"Unconquerable"

"Dedicated"

"Gamettes"

Others certainly emphasized gaming as a gender neutral term:

 "Same as male ones i guess?"

 "Gamer"

Others I didn't quite know what to think of:

"If a girl gamer states her gender then you can't help but judge them for wanting attention."

So, what to think of these responses? Well clearly from this small sample of my Twitter followers (the majority being male) people think female gamers are pretty damn cool. Overall it would seem that female gamers generally have positive interactions with male gamers. 

In my experience 99.9% of the time I receive praise and support for being a gamer. But there has been a handful of times where I have been insulted, degraded, and put-down simply for being female. 

In part two of this blog post I will explore the typical negative perceptions of female gamers, why I believe this occurs, and how we can discourage this negativity.  

For now...
Game On!

This blog post is featured on Future Retro Gamer.

Female Gamers: An Introduction

Who knew? There is such a thing as a female gamer. 

Shocking.

There are female gamers just as there are female athletes, mechanics, and  soldiers. Holy s*@%.
 
Clearly we're all aware that girls play video games (I certainly hope so). And guess what a lot of them are pretty damn good. I'm not going to be the judge of my own gameplay but sometimes I'm pretty kick a** (Other times, not so much).

This is not going to be a discussion about male gamers degrading female gamers. It's not going to be a rant about how much "girl gamers," rock. Instead I'm just going to be honest. Overall I'm going to try to stay positive; expressing my experience and thoughts on how others view female gamers.

More to come and...
Game on!

This blog post is featured on Future Retro Gamer.