For my 1000th post I wanted to post something more near and dear to heart.
I am female and I like video games. A few years ago I first discovered online gaming and the world it opened up. I was so excited to play with other people, so happy to find people who liked what I liked.
The things written here are just a few of the things other gamers have said to me without provocation while playing online. Sometimes I spoke up. Sometimes I didn’t. But no matter what I did, chances are the next game would be exactly the same. If I didn’t make a big deal of it, the teasing and insults continued nonstop. If I spoke up, I’m “too sensitive”, a label that once again circled back to me being female. Eventually I stopped playing, no matter how much I loved the game.
This is by no means true of all male gamers. There are plenty of civil, polite male gamers out there, but the others outnumber them, or rather it seems that way because they are more vocal. Like in many areas of life, women have to defend, justify, or prove ourselves just because we are women. This should not be the case, especially when it comes to something that’s supposed to be recreational. Supposed to be fun.
You like to play. So do we. And we like to play with you. Don’t be mean to us, or insult us, or make assumptions about us just because we’re girls.
When most guys say, “I wish more girls played games” they mean “I wish more girls would sit quietly and watch me play games.” It took me years to figure that out.