Gamer Girls, Game On

I was going to post my next set of (long overdue) movie reviews, but something more current has happened, something that interests me: E3. Despite my lack of knowledge on current games (part of it being that I'm more fond of retro games, another being that I focus more on film and TV), E3 had quite a few things that filled me with joy.

But that's not what I'm starting with, I'll cover that next time. No, today, something that infuriated me. I'm not going to claim I'm a champion for women's rights, nowhere near such a level, but I know women can be as capable as men in so many things. Gender has never mattered to me, it's your actions and opinions I will notice.

So, on the subject of opinion, some repulsive ones have come to light.

This is a Tumblr post I read, the catalyst for the post you're reading now: http://femfreq.tumblr.com/post/52673540142/twitter-vs-female-protagonists-in-video-games

Basically, several people decided the best way to talk to someone who raised a concern they had was to be as sexist and backwards-thinking as possible. And here I thought humanity was getting better in this respect.

While it's never really bothered me if a game has or doesn't have a female protagonist (since the player can always project their own selves onto a character, or treat it like an interactive movie), that doesn't mean it's not a valid concern.

And all the misogyny and venom this one Tweet has caused has made me wonder where it comes from and why people would hold on to such opinions?

There are two reasons in particular that this bothers me, aside from just not being sexist and having respect for people (as much as I can, at least. Again, it all comes down to the individual).

1. It's disrespectful to the women in these men's lives.
   Before anyone pipes in with “Well, DUH!”, let me elaborate: with some of the Tweets mentioning cooking/cleaning/floral arrangement, it's obvious these guys still have the “men go out and work, women stay home and do housework” mentality. Again, obvious, but here's the thing, and I'm going to address the men in question for the next few sections: guys, I'm guessing a lot of your mothers did a large portion of the housework, if not all of it. So, this attitude you're displaying, this looks like a slap into the face to the women who raised you.
   
   
   And if you have sisters or other female members in your family that choose to stay at home (or even if they don't), are you saying what they do is invalid and worth criticising? Even though raising a family is arguably the hardest thing in the world to do? I don't want to throw stereotypes here, since we're already on the subject of the housewife stereotype, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of you live up to the typical “gamer stereotype” of living on a diet of nothing but Doritos and soda, while calling people “noob” over a game of Halo/Call Of Duty/insert some FPS here. And if that's the case, what do YOU do that makes YOU better than them? As far as I see, not a damn thing.
   And if you're in a relationship with a woman at the time I'm posting this, I want to know exactly how you maintain that relationship when you clearly think so little of your partner.
   Unless... oh, I get it now. It's the “Friend Zone”, isn't it? You're being rejected time after time, and thus, you think being sexist is the way to go. Honestly, I shake my head at humans sometimes.

2. Pushing women gamers away= less people to play with.
   This should be self-evident. Why on Earth would we want to push gaming people away based on something like gender? Or for that matter, race, sexual orientation, political leaning, etc. This kind of elitism means less potential opponents for multiplayer games, which means less opportunity for fun! Why would we deny fun, when we have too much in the world trying to drag us down?
   Whenever I find fellow gamers on Twitter/FaceBook/what have you, I'm always excited, because it generates discussion, same with other things I like. My first question to female gamers isn't issuing them a challenge like “Name all eight Robot Masters in Mega Man 2”, it's often “Favourite game/console?” or something that shows I'm eager to discuss games (though bonus points if Pokemon comes up, since I love the Pokemon franchise).
   Twitter has made it easier for me to find fellow gamers/pop culture geeks, from all walks of life, and I cherish that. Why would I throw away possible friendships simply because they're biologically different to me? Hell, I don't want to be me some of the time, so why would I want to be with people EXACTLY like me? Is that what you guys want, to hang out with people who are carbon copies of yourself? Is this an ego thing?
   The way I see it, the more people that would want to play Mario Kart with me, the better! And if they like games, but don't want to play with me, that's fine too, so long as they can game in peace.

I think I'll leave it there. At the end of the day, I don't get why we would want to push people away from a fandom for such an arbitrary reason. If you want someone to leave a fandom because they're trolling you, or bullying members of said fandom, that I can understand. But you shouldn't be so cold to someone so eager to join something, or question an aspect in a mature manner.

Especially since I imagine than a large quantity of geeks have been bullied, or made outcasts, simply for what they liked. Why would the bullied become the bullies, when they know what it's like to face ostracism?

(Note: if anyone's offended by the use of “girls” as opposed to “women” in the post title, my apologies, I did that for alliteration. It's one of the little things in life I love)