The Misogynistic Gamer Girl

In the past, society has seen women fight for their right to game, with gaming seen as a primarily male-dominated hobby. Whilst this is still relevant today, the rise of female gamers has also brought about some interesting issues in itself. Recently, I have begun to notice a real discrimination against women who game; and it comes from other women.

It seems strange to think that women who enjoy playing games would discriminate against others who share the same love and passion for this huge entertainment industry. I’d like to, within the confines of this article, explore how and why this happens, the possible reasons behind it and why it needs to stop. 

First off, let’s take a look at some of the ways this discrimination is occurring. Interestingly enough, rather than taking place in the virtual game worlds in which we play, it is happening in the ‘real world’ and often through the medium of the internet, in particular, social media.

Slut shaming. We’ve all heard it, it’s a hot topic at the moment, and the discussion around the issue is both divided and vigorous to say the least. At the moment I am regularly seeing slut shaming going on in the gaming community, and it is almost exclusively instigated and perpetuated by women.

The way it is manifesting itself is often through the publishing of photographs. Whether the photograph be of a woman who appears to be playing a game, or of a comparison of two different women normally provoke different responses; I will address them both. 

Firstly we have the self-portrait. Often seen on a community or group who have formed due to shared love of gaming, the faces behind the voices are posted up so others can see what they look like. Unfortunately, many photos come under vicious scrutiny due to the content inside them. Criticism can occur for many reasons, from things like having a full face of make-up, to wearing a low-cut top, from the expression on the person’s face, to the angle at which the shot is taken.

Reactions to these fluctuations also range, from the purely complimentary, to the more worrying aforementioned slut shaming. If the pic is not seen as appropriate, she is deemed a slut, a fake gamer, an attention seeker, pathetic, embarrassing, deserving of the verbal abuse, bringing it on herself even. Ironically, with a hobby in which you are very rarely visible to others, on social media it appears to dictate whether or not you are allowed to call yourself a gamer.

Moving onto the second-part of photograph issues, we go from the socially shunned inappropriate photographs to comparison photographs, which categorically state what is acceptable and what a female gamer should look like. Regularly these come with actual bullet points on not just physical attributes but how a gamer girl behaves not only in the virtual world of games, but outside of that as well; women falling outside of this category are not real gamers, they suggest.

So we can see how this discrimination is taking place, but why is it happening? Why is it that women are feeling the need to call out and demean their peers, to shame and slander people who love what they love?

As previously mentioned, the gaming industry has historically been, and to a certain extent still is, male dominated. That means women have had to prove themselves as adept at the hobby, they themselves feeling discriminated against by the masculine majority. Games like Call of Duty and Halo, which emulate wars, shooting, and situations that, in the real world, would be tasks of great physical output, have had increasingly female numbers, with them proving that they too can master these particularly masculinely perceived titles.

There appears to be desire for women to prove their mettle, to bring gender equality by matching the skill of male gamers. What makes this so fascinating is that when you pick up your controller, or sit at your PC and enter the virtual realm there isn’t really any need for these perceptions. Everyone is automatically equal. You are all on the same playing field, the differing physical attributes of being a man or a woman are no longer relevant here. This place is about brains, logic, puzzle solving and reflexes, and yet we still bring in social constructs of women needing to compete for and fight to gain equality with men because that psyche that games are male-dominated has been drilled into our brains.

It is this type of game; the ones perceived as masculine, that seem to be the main prerequisite to qualifying as a “real” gamer. Women that choose to play other games due to personal preference are then being mocked for not meeting the mark, playing titles that aren’t “proper” games. Why is it that by choosing less ‘masculine’ games, or being into more casual ones it disqualifies people from achieving ‘gamer’ status?

Let’s look at it from a different angle. There are two women, one focuses on her career, is a head player in a large business in a largely male company, and the other decides to be a housewife, and stays at home to raise a family. Is one better than the other? Should the businesswoman look down on the housewife for her supposedly more feminine life choices? No. Should the housewife feel embarrassed for her decisions? No. Both have taken different paths in life depending on their own personal goals and interests; neither one is a lesser human for it.

It is this attitude that really needs to be extinguished, because left unchecked it could cause serious damage, snowballing and affecting the opinions of generations to come. Particularly in the case of slut shaming, I am often reading remarks that I almost cannot believe are being written.

Women are beautiful and sexy, and if women who feel beautiful and sexy want to put that out there then they should be able to without the backlash of hate that seems to come hand in hand with it. If you look at sites like Suicide Girls where hundreds of incredibly sexy, tattooed women, many of whom love gaming, and take part in nude photo shoots that contain references to their hobby, you can see these women are empowered, and deserving of your respect.

This behaviour can be witnessed all over the Internet from a teenager’s Vlog channel on YouTube, to reader comments on some sombre news article. A woman's lack of a professional photographer to direct them and edit their photos does not result in their being unworthy of your respect. You cannot determine a person’s sex life from a photo, and why is that even being brought up? People have sex, people enjoy sex, people need to get over this, it has no relevance on whether someone is a ‘real’ gamer. Women who post attractive photos of themselves are not objects craving attention, they are confident people who want the world to see who they are.

Really, women should be embracing each other for their differences and getting along regardless of whether they choose to spend their gaming hours on Battlefield 4 or Candy Crush Saga. Throwing hate and rage around because of the way a woman chooses to present herself physically (which has absolutely no relevance on the way one plays a game), or the mediums through which she chooses to entertain herself is misogynistic and sexist, regardless of your gender.

Attempting to shame someone who is comfortable being herself through this public medium of the internet does nothing except shame the people doing it. The question that begs to be asked is why they feel enough of a conviction to comment, let alone use such obviously emotionally-charged remarks. It seems like this sort of roused response has to come from somewhere deep within where personal insecurities and jealousy reside. Perhaps a longing to be liberated like these women they disapprove of so much, to be free from a lifetime of being limited by their own self-doubt could be the reason for this hate speech, albeit an unwarranted one.

In a culture that has only really come into prevalence in the past couple of decades with the creation of the internet, and social networking, we are the first generation having to deal with issues like this on a virtual level. It’s important that we take the time to sort them out now and learn to be tolerant and accepting, so that generations to come have something positive to build upon. Gaming is great, let’s help keep that way.

 

 

Special thanks to S. Dyer and L. Morris.