Gender and Games (Uh-Oh)

Gender and Games

Okay, here we go - a bite at the big apple. So there are these two stages regarding games and genders to think of, which is the design stage and the gameplay stage, the difference between the two is bigger than us males ever want to point out.

So let’s look at the first one. When I say design, I mean everything that counts as the creation stage of a game – all the concept and ideas, designs and actual creation. Here, we’re all on the same team. When we sit down and create our games, everyone is equal and all opinions are valid – it’s actually unbelievable but when someone actually sits down and just watches a mixed group (male and females – let’s deal with one thing at a time) we can see that everyone can discuss game ideas fine, albeit with some awkwardness amongst the males.

But then we enter a whole new playground when actual gameplay is involved. It doesn’t matter if it is a board game or a video game – the gamer crowd tends to be one of the most sexist groups on the face of the planet. Now let me clarify, we men don’t hunt women down and burn them as witches nor are we outright mean to them, but more often than not female players will be avoided. So why is this exactly? Well we don’t need no scientist study to tell you why.

See it all started with where gamers started from. Modern gamers evolved from a simpler, more primal beast known as the “Basement dweller”. This is the stereotype that gamers where nerdy dudes who sat in their parents basements playing games whilst getting fatter and fatter (thanks for that one America!) and yes, there was a time where that was true and just everyone hated gamers believing that (rightly I suppose) gamers were loners.

From there games evolved and we with them, as gamers started growing in numbers and then during the early 2000s, something strange happened. Gaming had become so popular and well done that everyone started to do it and the once hobby became the cultural icon it is today, everybody was doing it. Well almost everybody. There was one group who wholly despised gaming and would you like to guess who it was? Womankind.

Now there are exceptions to the rule, there always is, but if you are a girl gamer take a minute to think what age you got into to gaming and how many buddies of yours did or do it? Probably got into gaming as a late teen (16 +) and most if not all your friends don’t like it. It’s quite crazy when you think about it, after all what is there about gaming that is so unlikable for girls? It really depends how deeply you want to delve into it.

After all there is nothing stopping a girl picking up a controller and playing, hell most times they will love playing games. In fact in this glorious age of gaming there are more girls gaming than ever. But us men really don’t like it and here’s why.

……..

Huh…. This is harder to write than I thought it would be.

Okay, of all my online gamer friends only 2 of them I mean 280 of them are female, but I make friends with guy gamers easier. There’s a stereotype to girls in games where they don’t really know what they are doing and they generally … er… suck. It’s the age old thing where gamers want to play with gamers not people who have just picked up the controller. Also girls do tend to scare us men.

You know what? It’s hurting my head to much to go too far into this, so I’m going to leave it there.