A Sexist Male’s View on Female Gamers

I received this comment yesterday on one of my articles about female gamers. The subject matter was three mistakes that female gamers make that hurt our overall reputation. His sexist comment wasn’t entirely relevant to the subject at hand but instead a reflection (I use that term loosely) on female gamers in general. I didn’t publish it there as I wanted it to receive special attention. I thought it was worthy of its own article. These are his words, verbatim.

From Whiteguysamurai :

You are a girl, and this is a boy’s club. We built it, we funded it and we made it big.
There is no reason you should feel entitled to join our club.
If your gender had submitted anything more than Sims skins, you may be welcomed more often.
There is no glass ceiling in this industry, there are women big-ups, Rieko Kodama is just one of them, but if you ask her, she’s not even into games her self.
And frankly, just because you can play your boyfriend’s Xbox, does not make you a gamer.
Gamers are people who spend a great deal of time and money on getting games, building PCs for games and spending endless time perfecting their skills.
If you want to really earn that title of gamer, you will have to show more than a passing interest in halo, guitar hero or the latest weak attempt at getting non-gamers interested the Wii.
You will have to accept that you are not welcome here in the world of gaming, on the contrary you are seen as an intruder!
And whatever skill you may have, will never be as sophisticated as a man’s, because he’s had years of practice while you, at one point were not interested in games at all.

As i said, your gender will forever be ostracized from the gaming community at large, partly because of discrimination, but mostly because your gender never contributed anything other than rude looks while the men of your lives played madden instead of doing what you wanted them to do.

Also, pointing out the fact that you are a girl at almost every point in your blog does little to help your cause.

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Top Three Female Gamer Mistakes

Female gamers have a complicated reputation. We tend to get certain comments said to us over and over and over. Some people treat us as goddesses, others see us as the scum of the earth. The minority view us as simply gamers, which is actually all most female gamers want. Many of us (myself included) simply want to game. We don’t want to be treated differently, we don’t want to be treated better, we don’t want to be treated worse. We just want to be treated the same. As an equal. Because a gamer is a gamer, regardless of which gender we are, right?

Unfortunately there are some bad apples out there in the female gaming population (as there are in any absolutely group) that manage to single handedly ruin the reputation of female gamers. These are the top three mistakes I see female gamers making that hurts the image of all of us. Girls doing these things just need to stop and handle themselves in a more mature manner. Perhaps then we will be seen in a more positive light.

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Four Funny Female Gamer Shirts

I love my gamer gear. I am a total nerd and revel in my complete and utter geekiness. There is nothing I love more than showing off my passion for gaming. Especially those subtle shirts that non-gamers don’t understand. Those are the best.

One time I was traveling to an out of state LAN and I was wearing my Press and hold (X) to Pick Up shirt. I remember coming to the screening area and being next up in line. The guy waving people through just sat there and stared at me. I patiently waited, not sure what was going on. After a solid minute or two of just studying me and my shirt, he finally told me to come through saying, “Sorry, I was distracted by your shirt”. I just looked at him and said, “I’m a gamer, you’re not really supposed to touch the X” and he said, “That’s what I figured” still looking puzzled. I went on my way, giggling over the exchange.

I am always on the lookout for girly gamer shirts, not just regular gamer shirts but ones that are suitable for females. I recently discovered some gems. And guess what? They aren’t even pink. Enjoy.

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