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Girls in the Gaming World
dkleinsc writes "The BBC is running an article about life as a female gaming squad. There's some discussion about the welcome or lack thereof women get in the gaming community, and arguments over whether it's a good idea to have separate women's matches."
Ctrl-Alt-Del Comic about a girl gamer
Are "gamers" that insecure about their masculinity/sexuality/gaming prowess/dick size/pick something else that they're afraid of playing against girls?
My girlfriend loves Mario Kart: Double Dash and it makes me happy it's one of the hobbies we can share.
If playing against girls makes you uncomfortable, don't play games at all!
and arguments over whether it's a good idea to have separate women's matches."
Why? This isn't real life, where men have more muscle than women do (I'm not being sexist, just take an intro biology course), and are therefore superior to women in terms of pure strength, speed, etc. Online, everybody's equal, the characters can be tuned to roughly equivalent stats, the only thing that matters is reflexes to move the mouse and hit the keyboard.
Does anyone else see this as an attempt to make an issue out of a non-issue? Games are marketed towards guys because guys make up the vast majority of the gaming market. Why don't they target the elderly with hiphop music? Becuase its more cost effective to target the younger crowd. Girls gaming? Great... But no one should complain about the fact that way more guys game then girls. Thats the girl's own preogatives.
The imbalance between men and women was clear to see, with almost 50 male teams taking part, compared with just seven female squads. And as in the world of sport, there were separate competitions for each gender.
Separate competitions? That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.
Boys' and girls' real-world sports are separated early on because of physical attributes. Physically, girls have different abilities from boys. And there are other physical attributes that cause both genders to become... distracted.
But online? Who knows -- who cares -- about your real-world attributes? For crying out loud, that's what makes gaming great for us geeks -- we don't have to be muscular, or fit, or even easily mobile! I'd probably lose 10-to-1 against Stephen Hawking at BZFlag.
So in a world where physical ability and differences are irrelevant, what justification could there possibly be for a gender-segregated gaming tournament?
Perhaps the organizers have a cynical ulterior motive? If I were a top-level girl geek, I'd turn down an invitation to such a demeaning event -- so all they'd get would be the second-rate girl teams. And then they can say "but look, they're clearly not in the same league."
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
My co-worker used to play online using a feminine name. If you'd ever seen my co-worker you'd realize how funny this was. Think Richard Stallman meets John Goodman... Anyway, he swore that he did better with a female name because people were less likely to kill him.
I heard that Slashdot moderators also go kindly on female posters.
Sarah_the_geek_grrl
I've spent the last year trying to get my fiancee interested in games... this last week, she started showing signs of being hooked on Roller Coaster Tycoon. I guess it goes: Mid-range PC: $800 RollerCoaster Tycoon Deluxe: $20 Watching my SO build a coaster that makes all the riders sick: Priceless!
Windows isn't the answer... it's the question. NO is the answer!
I am a girl in the gamming world and I think having seperate matches for woman is rather stupid. It is a game, it is ment to be fun, and if some girls suck gamming then they can suck it up, practice, and get better.
"Most interesting how often you humans seem to obtain that which you do not want" -Spock
My wife got started on computers games playing the original tribes. It started out with me showing her the basics and helping her get started. I'd have her switch to my team so I could show her tactics, etc. Soon, she started playing a lot on her own.
Fast-forward to a few weeks later, and I would lose to her in duels 90 percent of the time. She would hit top scores on servers routinely, and I started switching to her team any time we played together so I wouldn't always be on the losing team.
The funny thing was, no one believed it was really a woman playing when she'd kick their ass.
-i
actually, it is a well-documented fact that while on average men are superior in the areas of simple strength, and aggressive competitive behavior comes more easily to men than women, women have significantly faster reaction time, better accuracy, and the ability to track more targets at one time. this was discovered specifically relating to women being fighter pilots, but i'd bet it's valid for twitch games too. what holds most women back is that they lack confidence and are not aggressive enough. that and they are scared that people will think they are a "bitch" if they act aggressive. it's sad that society beats that sort of thing into them... i'll tell ya this, my fiance hands me my ass at tekken...
sometimes, i wonder if i'm the only conservative on teh intarweb. ah well, back to mah hogs and warmongerin'....
1. Serious Gamers
Guys don't like playing them because they're smarter, better, faster, and sometimes you fall in love...
2. "WHEEE CUTE!"
Usually they watch anime and/or create bad erotic fanart about doe-eyed male anime characters. They don't play any game that doesn't involve a cute catgirl or bunnygirl. See Final Fantasy XI or Ragnarok Online.
3. Your Mom Playing Solitaire
You know she's playing it right now. Remember that 1.5ghz Athlon system you built for her so she can send digital photos to grandma and make her own mix CD's? Yea, it's a $900 solitaire deck shuffler.
They're playing Sims, Dance Dance REvolution, and other social, simulation and interactivity-based games. That's where the real interest lies and the market is huge. Sims 2 will BLOW AWAY Far Cry and Pain Killer and maybe even DOOM 3 because 51% of the population that own a computer and play games are going to buy it.
...and they want to bring it back in? I play some of these games and not once in my mind has the gender of my teammate or opponents has ever entered my mind. In fact it would be a distraction. Thinking that someone has an advantage in a game because they are male or female is like trying to figure out if someone has an advantage if they are right or left handed. If someone wins or loses they do so because they are an accomplished or failed player. Gender has very little to do with it.
The one place where competition can be leveled down to fundemental non-physical attributes, a place where women can actually compete on equal footing as guys, they want to bring back gender divisions? I just don't get it.
Actually, men tend to perform better than women on tests of visuospatial ability. For example, they are better at mental rotation (Delgado & Prieto, 1996) and various other tests of visualspatial function (Collaer & Nelson, 2002). Men actually show different brain activations during a navigation task, something speficially relevant to these types of games (Wunderlisch, Spitzer, Tomczak, and Riepe, 2000). I'm not saying that there should be separate competitions, but I also would not assume the playing field is equal simply because muscles are not invovled.
Collaer, M. L., & Nelson, J. D. (2002). Large visuospatial sex difference in line judgment: Possible role of attentional factors. Brain and Cognition, 49, 1-12.
Delgado, A.R., & Prieto, G. (1996). Sex differences in visuospatial ability: do performance factors play such an important role? Memory & Cognition, 24: 504 - 510.
Wunderlich, Spitzer, Tomczak, & Reipe (2000). Brain activation during human naviagtion: gender-different neural networks as a function of performance. Nat Neurosci. 2000 Apr;3(4):404-8.
I'll probably get modded down, because no one of either gender every listens to me, but.....
Since many major online games (UT, Quake, etc) offer granularity of servers, I imagine there's probably alredy "girls only" servers and other private interest group servers just the same (password protected, et al).
It seems natural. We already have television networks (several) specifically for genders. Chat rooms for certain interests.
Now, with all that said, I can't say I mind competing with/losing to a girl. I don't understand the need for specific major competitions specifically for females. In fact, I'd imagine that 'being a male' as a requirement for a competition would probably result in legal action.
-m.
My wife is an avid gamer, and has handed my butt to me on the proverbial platter several times in UT and UT2003 and now she's mastered (God help us all) the Raptor in the UT2004 demo. I've always been the proud monkey at LAN parties when she starts screaming "How'd you like that one, MotherF***er?" at all my guy friends. The family that plays together, stays together.
End of Line.
What exacally is wrong with girls gaming? I'm a female. I love video games... and I play well. Why should I have to play against all girls because some little 15 y/o boy is afraid I will beat him? Any male who thinks we should be seperated needs to grow up. It won't hurt your ego that bad to loose to a girl.
-ABG
Oh yes... but this article is about Counter-Strike competitions where females don't get the participate in the same brackets as male, and don't get to try and win the big cash prizes. Now please enlighten us as to how this is justifyable by saying girls prefer other games genres. I guess because the game is not targetted at them, they can't play it at the same level as men ?
It's a load of crock if you ask me. It's men afraid that their testosteron levels will be going down if they get beat by a girl. Get over yourselves. Even if only 1% of Counter-strike gamers are girls, it doesn't mean that they are the worst 1% of players. And it also doesn't mean that they can't play in a "no-girls allowed" tournement (you know the kind, where 8 year old boys don't want to catch cooties and stuff). And that they can't win the same prize money. This is not a sport where physical differences would tip the scale. Girls and boys handle mices and keyboards with the same skill.
I personnally don't see why women can't participate at the same level and even against men in this type of event.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
I was playing an online game ( I think it was Battlezone by Activision) a few years ago and my handle was gender neutral. Someone asked if I was male / female. I was taken back by that question as why would it matter? I said female to see if it mattered. Boy did it. I had players taking damage by jumping between me and an opponent, players nearly killing off someone and then leaving the prey for me to finish off to up my score, and even offering tips! Normal protocol is to be mean, rude, and blast everything that moves and even some that don't.
Its one world but not everyone experiences it the same way.
...was regularly ranked in the top ten Tribes players in the world, according to the realtime stats at some site that tracks such things. She used to play 10+ hours/day 5+ days/week.
It was interesting to see the varied reactions of the guys. She didn't advertise that she was female, but if it came up the first reaction was usually disbelief and dismissal -- they assumed she was a guy lying about his gender. Then after adequate proof (using voice comm in game, for example) they'd be surprised, but accept the truth. Then they wanted to see pictures.
There were basically two reactions: anger and attraction. It was usually the younger guys who got angry -- for some reason they were pissed off that a girl could beat them. They'd get all bitchy at her and call her names, claim she was cheating and disappear. Maybe they'd be like that with anyone. Who knows?
Most of the older guys (heh -- meaning past puberty) ended up getting attracted to her. In fact a whole bunch of guys would flock around her online wherever she went... be it gaming, or IRC.
She went to TribesCon IV in Reno a couple years ago, and she was one of maybe three girls who came to play... out of 200+ total gamers. There were lots of girlfriends there, but they stayed off to the side.
Some of the guys became quite taken with her (it doesn't hurt that she's a hottie). Which got a little weird. Eventually she retired and got back into real life.
Cheers.
Some though, would feel that allowing that would further underline the differences. Today we can all play make-believe and say there's one class only for girls, one only for boys, so it's equal in a way.
If we let girls compete whereever they choose (and I see no reason not to) then we also need to be intellectually honest enough that there's one "free for all" class, and one "females only", and we can no longer pretend it's "equal".
The risk is that this would further undermine the status of the females-only class. It'd be sorta like there's special classes in many sports for "only those under 16".
You'd have a situation where it'd basically be a male as "World-Champion" (or whatever) in any sport, and the females would be relegated to "World-Champion - female only class"
It's a tricky bussiness. It's tricky because we have this ideal, and the political correctness, that we're supposed to be equal. And the fact of the matter is that today we are not. In some sports, like those where muscle-mass play a role, we'll never be. In others, where muscles are irrelevant, we *migth* get there some day, but today we're not. (Personally I'd be overjoyed to see a female F1-winner or chess grandmaster)
I just want to say that the comments from the male crowd here alone is a very good indication of why there aren't as many girl gamers.
We simply do not get any respect.
A common misconception about girls that play games is that they play "boring online games", such as Yahoo games, solitare, chess or whatever. Yes, many girls play those kinds of games. However, so do many guys. The thing is, most of those guys would never post here, and most of those girls are the only ones the average slashdotter would see (Yeah, I'm using a stereotype here, so sue me).
Another common misconception is that games are marketed towards guys because there aren't as many girls that do play "the cool" games. This is a matter of market forces. While I agree that there are fewer girls that play games than guys, the number of girls that play games isn't really that low. In fact, most of my female friends play games. Females make up 51% of the world population, after all, so there's a HUGE market out there.
A third misconception is that girls aren't interested in games. Totally wrong, see above. Girls ARE interested in games. Obviously.
These are misconceptions that are repeated constantly. We girls are simply seen as people who aren't techy. If one of us IS, then we're seen as not as competent as a guy. If we prove to be competent, then we suddenly turn into a threat. All of those are reasons to talk down to girls, not just in gaming, but in other areas as well.
I can tell you one thing that girls are though. We're not interested in being called names, just because we try to show an interest in the very same field as guys.
Maybe, just maybe, more girls would confess to being gamers if they weren't insulted whenever they tried it.
(Okay, maybe this post wasn't so thought through, but I'm currently busy starving myself to keep my figure.... or maybe I'm just delirious from coding all day and forgetting to eat. Bah, whatever.)
That says to me that the girls can be just as good as the guys. Why should they be limited from playing in any particular bracket in a tournament? I can't think of a good reason...unless I didn't think I could beat them.
The problem I see is with the article rather than with the tournaments. This is the first time I've heard of a tournament that had seperate brackets for males and females. In most cases, men and women competed on the same ladders with mixed or unmixed teams, their choice. As far as I'm aware of, the push for female-only ladders came from female-only clans, not from male-only clans (and to my knowledge, few clans are male-only by choice of the members). Each clan I've participated in has welcomed any female member that was up to the normal membership requirements of the clan, which has resulted in a handful of female members over the years between the 3 clans. The only reason there weren't more female members is because there weren't more female players looking to join (one exception in my memory being a point at which membership closed while a female was being actively recruited, because the clan decided to stop playing the game rather than bringing in 6-10 new players).
-PainKilleR-[CE]
Its not so much that women can or can't participate in the same brackets as men.
The point is that the winnings of any competition are distributed by the mandates of the competitions holders, not those participating in it. We live in a capitalist society (well most of the world anyways) and that means that the man with the money makes all the rules. If the competitions holders want to discriminate then that is their prerogative. Its not like you are forced to participate in that competition if you feel the policies to be discriminatory. There are plenty of other competitions that aren't discriminatory.
Likewise, those admins on public servers that wish to be can be as discriminatory as they want. Discrimination is not illegal, only more expensive. A company that wants to maintain its right to be selective about its employees without regard to equal opportunity simply have to pay fines and be marked as such. The government isn't going to put them out of business because of this.
But then again I don't really see the point of playing to the point that you are so good to warrant going to any of these competitions. That's just too much time invested in a practice that can't pay the bills for the majority of those who participate. Its not like professional sports where all the athletes still make a living whether they lose or not.
The bottom line is, if its not yours then you have to live by the edicts of its owner when using it. Pretty simple concept really. Its surprising to see as many people as I do feeling entitled to equal access to someone else's holdings.
The thing that seems off about your post is how you're confusing videogames with sports. The physical differences (such as lower center of gravity, muscle-length / breadth, and etc.) that tend to delineate the female and male classes in sports don't really apply to videogames. PS: Chess grandmaster Anjelina Belakovskaia 1995, in case you were wondering. More recently, Alexandra Kosteniuk was ranked #29 over all in U.S. Chess on December 2003 (http://www.uschess.org/ratings/top/dec03/OverallL ist.php) which is ranked regardless of gender or age. She's only 20.
PPS: I regularly manage to kick people's asses in videogames, regardless of their gender. It's probably my lower center of gravity helping me.
I don't want the world, I just want your half.
I have to say I can only imagine what it would be for me to live *as* a female gaming squad.
I suppose I would have 10 breasts and 10 arms to fondle myself wi....
OH, WAIT!
I had forgotten that Slashdot editors are incapable of using correct grammar! They must have meant, "Life for a female gaming squad."
I am Gay, and it's a frustrating to see the strings of invectives that come poring across my screen, but if you've ever posted on Yahoo! message boards you know it is even worse there. Usually if I call someone on it, they'll stop for awhile. But when I used an ID that had the word "gay" in it, I had people change teams so they could try to kill me. Of course, the real bigot/haters are usually horrible players, probably because they spend so much time typing they forget to play. So much of it is also profoundly misogynist and uses profoundly sexist language. If I were a woman, I'd feel I was getting a rather hostile response from people who didn't even know, most of the time, that I was a woman. I support servers that make an attempt to keep it clean and ban those who are overtly hostile.
That's gotta fit into your schema somewhere