I did have another column on a completely different subject ready to go this week. Then a flame war broke out on my Facebook wall. I decided to write about this as an example of the petty crap women have to deal with when we are passionate about videogames.

It began when I updated my status to inform the world that I had finally lost my battle against temptation and bought Dragon Age: Origins, which I really have no time to play: I’m huge Bioware fangirl, and I had to have. A friend – a female friend – and I were in the midst of discussing a Left 4 Dead 2 LAN party, when a guy I’ve never actually talked to chimes in:

"i [sic] highly reccomend [sic] the new call of duty many many splosions [si… okay from this point onward sic at will]" Was the first comment that threw a spark on the tinder. The walking Xbox Live player stereotype then added, "although u r a girl maybe the role playing games are more your speed lol."

Now, most people reading this are probably going “buh” and staring at this as the blatant act of sexism that it is. Unfortunately, to this 28 year-old dude in Edmonton, this comment is not sexist because it was a joke.

Uh, what?

Cruising over to this meatbag’s Facebook page, I was treated to frequent shout outs to cougars and MILFs, then admissions that he was having no luck with said cougars and MILFs. His Facebook friends consist almost exclusively of bikini and lingerie models whom I doubt he knows in person, and he is a manager at a place that screenprints custom t-shirts. Despite having his workplace listed on his Facebook page, he boasts of his “massive sex drive”.

My favorite of his status updates, due to its sheer, inherent heinousness, is as follows:

“any cougars in edmonton want to meet a really great guy a gentleman a scholar even then send mea message girl merowww”

Shakespeare, eat your heart out: “merowww” was beyond your abilities. The boy is as gentlemanly as Lord Byron.

History buffs will laugh at that. Honest And, yes, my computer’s spellcheck is vomiting at me right now. Must… correct… errors…

The wonderful thing about Facebook is it makes the anonymity of the internet much less anonymous. It’s one thing to suspect that I had this guy’s number on the first “u r”. It’s another thing entirely to confirm it with solid data.

Sadly, this guy isn’t an anomaly in his attitudes. He’s the standard player on Xbox Live. Even Steam is full of them. They might be nice guys in the real world, but get them on the internet and they become bad stereotypes of impotent male libido, longing for validation in all the wrong ways. I think, ironically, that he was trying to sound smart with his stupid joke. The same thing happens when I post anything about comics. Men must show how awesome and appealing they are by insulting my taste in geek entertainment.

What does makes this twit unique, and what started the flame war, was that after I deleted his original comment, he wouldn’t stop. Usually when I nicely tell dudes to knock it off, they get the hint, but this little jackass…

In the interests of fairness, he did say he was joking. He didn’t apologize for the stupidity, however. Instead, he started insisting that he could beat my LAN party friend at shooters. This friend happens to be a retired professional Counterstrike player, but Mr. Edmonton thought his superiority was a safe bet because my friend is female.

This got my friend’s boyfriend involved in the melee, and the flames began to climb. I was watching this all unfold on my blackberry while I was at an anime convention. Multiple semen references, an “I boned your mom” comment, insults regarding penis size, and comments about mommies not giving out enough hugs ensued… in one response from screenprint boy. I was disappointed that he didn’t drop a gay slur or any racist epithets, because that would have made him the ultimate Xbox Live moron.

My pro-gamer friend then took the high road and offered a truce, and her gamertag, to this twit. But shirt boy was now suffering a terribly bruised ego and wouldn’t let things go. In the midst of his pissing and moaning, he insisted he was not sexist.

The worst part of it is, he’s completely wrong about girls and RPGs: the vast majority of role-playing gamers are men. For some reason, though, “that game’s for girls” has become such an affective pejorative in multiplayer circles that it’s become a near-acceptable comment in many circles. It’s certainly so widespread that most women try to ignore such comments, and don’t complain when they hear them.

There are a group of us, players I call “girlcores” – girl hardcores – who are just so sick to death of this that we refuse to play nice anymore. It’s not that we think that guys who say stupid things are inherently evil. What we believe is that this bad behavior must be seen for what it is and corrected, because we’re tired of having our enjoyment of our leisure activities tainted by the insufferable blather of assholes. We’ve heard this crap over and over again, and we’re tired of it. We just want to play games without feeling like the act of picking up a controller is the equivalent of being a Suffragette.

But gender-blind gaming is still a ways off, so here are the facts: whenever a statement is written that says “you are a girl, so you must like ________.” That is sexist. It is more sexist when there is evidence to the contrary right in front of your nose.

This does not mean the author of the statement hates women, because misogyny is a slightly different disease. What it means is that people who make these comments have engrained and limited ideas about masculinity and femininity. We all make sexist statements with varying degrees of frequency and self-awareness. There are differences between the sexes, yes, but our game preferences don’t fit into those differences. The problem with sexism is that its terribly limiting. For instance: women are hiring in “geek mediums” primarily for their looks, because there is this lurking belief that true competence isn’t really possible.

There’s a reason I wear push up bras and low cut tops to gaming events: I’m trying to hammer the point home that I have boobs and I am playing various types of games with proficiency. I want the other attendees to remember that there was a woman present, as a member of the media, who can manage headshots and combos, and isn’t constantly lurking in the Wii section. Every girlcore gamer I know complains about the Wii ghetto – I own and use a Wii, yes. But I also own a PS3, an Xbox 360, a PSP, and a separate PC used only for gaming. The act of mashing my tatas into a developer’s face is an act of rebellion against the Wii ghetto. I might even scream “Vive la Resistance!” if I wasn’t concerned that it would be misconstrued as a reference to how hard my bra was working.

My aggressiveness is a joke now, among male colleagues who have grown to respect me. They understand now what I’m doing, and they stand back and watch with gleeful grins as one of their buddies is about to get terribly confused by an encounter with me. I also take great pains to help other women who may not be quite as aggressive make the contacts and get the content that will allow them to be taken seriously in the gaming world.

In order for anything to change, we have to be determined and clear in our message, and nothing’s a clearer message than the juxtaposition of cleavage, controller, and a very bloody game. Nothing’s clearer than a woman who is shamelessly a woman, but who has also clearly done research, and clearly loves digital interactive entertainment.

And many men like boobs. Many women also like boobs. So there are many winners all around.

No comments