Grrl gamers
May. 4th, 2009 10:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
paradoxIn a recent post, ms_katonic linked to an article discussing geeky women and that got me to thinking. I too consider myself a geek - which is probably pretty typical of most Dreamwidth users as it stands! However, in addition to being obsessed with blog, auction & comic websites, I also spend a fair amount of time playing computer games. For most of the past four years, the game of choice has been World of Warcraft (and yes, I tried Warhammer Online instead, but my laptop couldn't handle it).
Because of this, I consider myself a geek and a gamer.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with WoW, it's an online role-playing game with millions of subscribers worldwide. For those of you who ARE familiar with it, I've been playing a female human paladin on a US server since April '05, and have also levelled a druid, warlock and two other paladins on different factions & servers. I did the PvP grind, ending at Rank 13. I raided end-game content at both 60 (in the top-ranked Alliance guild on our server) and 70 (in the second-ranked Horde guild on our server). I achieved Duelist rank in 2v2 for both S1 and S2 arenas, even with my 400ms latency. And, although I have a lot less time to play these days, I've levelled my human pally again to 80, and my belf pally to 78.
All of this has taken a considerable amount of time, dedication and effort. The bonus, of course, was that I've had a lot of fun doing it.
Now that I've thrown my credentials down for everyone to see, here's the point I was trying to make: all of this effort, all of the skill I've shown, all of the dedication means precisely squat to the average male player. Because I'm a girl. As soon as I make that known (tends to happen when people hear me speak on Vent), that's it. The only criterion by which they will judge me is whether or not I'm "hot".
For my first year of playing, everything was cool. The only people who heard me speak were my guildmates and, given that my boyfriend was also in guild, they didn't make a big deal out of it. We were also lucky in that we had several gamer chicks in guild, who weren't gonna take any shit from the boys!
And when I did the PvP (Player vs Player, a type of direct combat) grind, we rarely used Vent. My group of WSG junkies used to joke that my name was Steve, after Steve Irwin the crocodile hunter (hey, I'm a Kiwi but to most Americans, the accent sounds the same as that of Australians), and the rumour spread fast, so eventually people assumed that I was, in real life, a dude named Steve.
Those were good times. The boys didn't try to flirt with me. The boys didn't assume that I was trying to find a man. The boys didn't assume that if they gave me in-game items, they could get private sessions on Vent. The boys didn't ask me to email them photos. The boys didn't assume I needed every aspect of the game explained to me. The boys didn't assume that I would be a liability to their in-game success.
But when I began raiding PvE (Player vs Enemy, or player vs computer) content again, and thus had to out myself as non-male, all of that changed. The boys tried to flirt with me, which embarassed me, and if I tried to politely ask them to stop, I became a lesbian/ a bitch/ frigid. The boys began assuming that I played WoW just so I could find a man, because everyone knows that games are a male-dominated zone, and not even the in-guild presence of my fiance changed their minds. The boys sent me in-game items or tried to give me in-game money, and the couple of times that I accepted a loan, they felt like I owed them something more in repayment. The boys asked for RL photos. The boys assumed I didn't know how to play, and thus had to have every small thing explained to me, so that I wouldn't get them killed.
Never mind that I'd been playing, and succeeding at, the game for far longer than they. Never mind that I proved my skill in every encounter.
So, I stopped playing entirely. The game was no longer fun for me. I could no longer be patient with sexist, arrogant, hypocritical boys with low self-esteem, and that meant I spent most of my play time feeling like a bitch. I didn't like the person that I turned into, so I removed the cause. In doing so, the person I punished most was myself. I was the only one who changed, who lost out. Those boys all just moved on to the next girl who joined. And I wasn't even there to give her moral support.
I play WoW again now. But I'm far more selective of who I play with. I let people know the difference between a joke and an offensive comment, and I'm polite without being a pushover. If they have issues with women who have minds of their own, that's something they need to overcome. I'm not willing to surrender my power to them anymore.
As a final note, I find it both sad and hilarious that the prime insult directed at female players by these sorts of boys is "fatty", or some equivalent. This is their most common interpretation of "ugly", which is what they're really trying to say. As if they had any idea what the women in question look like. As if real life appearance had anything to do with playing the game. As if fat was equivalent to ugly. As if fat was some objective standard. It seems appearance is still the standard by which all women will be judged, at least by small-minded bigots.
ms_katonic linked to an article discussing geeky women and that got me to thinking. I too consider myself a geek - which is probably pretty typical of most Dreamwidth users as it stands! However, in addition to being obsessed with blog, auction & comic websites, I also spend a fair amount of time playing computer games. For most of the past four years, the game of choice has been World of Warcraft (and yes, I tried Warhammer Online instead, but my laptop couldn't handle it).Because of this, I consider myself a geek and a gamer.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with WoW, it's an online role-playing game with millions of subscribers worldwide. For those of you who ARE familiar with it, I've been playing a female human paladin on a US server since April '05, and have also levelled a druid, warlock and two other paladins on different factions & servers. I did the PvP grind, ending at Rank 13. I raided end-game content at both 60 (in the top-ranked Alliance guild on our server) and 70 (in the second-ranked Horde guild on our server). I achieved Duelist rank in 2v2 for both S1 and S2 arenas, even with my 400ms latency. And, although I have a lot less time to play these days, I've levelled my human pally again to 80, and my belf pally to 78.
All of this has taken a considerable amount of time, dedication and effort. The bonus, of course, was that I've had a lot of fun doing it.
Now that I've thrown my credentials down for everyone to see, here's the point I was trying to make: all of this effort, all of the skill I've shown, all of the dedication means precisely squat to the average male player. Because I'm a girl. As soon as I make that known (tends to happen when people hear me speak on Vent), that's it. The only criterion by which they will judge me is whether or not I'm "hot".
For my first year of playing, everything was cool. The only people who heard me speak were my guildmates and, given that my boyfriend was also in guild, they didn't make a big deal out of it. We were also lucky in that we had several gamer chicks in guild, who weren't gonna take any shit from the boys!
And when I did the PvP (Player vs Player, a type of direct combat) grind, we rarely used Vent. My group of WSG junkies used to joke that my name was Steve, after Steve Irwin the crocodile hunter (hey, I'm a Kiwi but to most Americans, the accent sounds the same as that of Australians), and the rumour spread fast, so eventually people assumed that I was, in real life, a dude named Steve.
Those were good times. The boys didn't try to flirt with me. The boys didn't assume that I was trying to find a man. The boys didn't assume that if they gave me in-game items, they could get private sessions on Vent. The boys didn't ask me to email them photos. The boys didn't assume I needed every aspect of the game explained to me. The boys didn't assume that I would be a liability to their in-game success.
But when I began raiding PvE (Player vs Enemy, or player vs computer) content again, and thus had to out myself as non-male, all of that changed. The boys tried to flirt with me, which embarassed me, and if I tried to politely ask them to stop, I became a lesbian/ a bitch/ frigid. The boys began assuming that I played WoW just so I could find a man, because everyone knows that games are a male-dominated zone, and not even the in-guild presence of my fiance changed their minds. The boys sent me in-game items or tried to give me in-game money, and the couple of times that I accepted a loan, they felt like I owed them something more in repayment. The boys asked for RL photos. The boys assumed I didn't know how to play, and thus had to have every small thing explained to me, so that I wouldn't get them killed.
Never mind that I'd been playing, and succeeding at, the game for far longer than they. Never mind that I proved my skill in every encounter.
So, I stopped playing entirely. The game was no longer fun for me. I could no longer be patient with sexist, arrogant, hypocritical boys with low self-esteem, and that meant I spent most of my play time feeling like a bitch. I didn't like the person that I turned into, so I removed the cause. In doing so, the person I punished most was myself. I was the only one who changed, who lost out. Those boys all just moved on to the next girl who joined. And I wasn't even there to give her moral support.
I play WoW again now. But I'm far more selective of who I play with. I let people know the difference between a joke and an offensive comment, and I'm polite without being a pushover. If they have issues with women who have minds of their own, that's something they need to overcome. I'm not willing to surrender my power to them anymore.
As a final note, I find it both sad and hilarious that the prime insult directed at female players by these sorts of boys is "fatty", or some equivalent. This is their most common interpretation of "ugly", which is what they're really trying to say. As if they had any idea what the women in question look like. As if real life appearance had anything to do with playing the game. As if fat was equivalent to ugly. As if fat was some objective standard. It seems appearance is still the standard by which all women will be judged, at least by small-minded bigots.
