nerdeXX

I love this. While I have the benefit of being blessed with a group of male friends who know through experience that I can keep up with them in their games, I know a lot of women don’t. And, outside of this group, I’ve felt the same irritation and, yes, prejudice as she may have experienced.

In addition to console/pc games, I am an avid player of various card games (Pokemon being my game of choice, but I play several others) and from time to time I am required to obtain new sleeves, damage counters etc. This means that I need to run to the local game store. This activity should be a pleasant experience, but for many females it is mostly aggravating.

“Did your boyfriend drag you here?”

“Oh, you play games…? Like, on the wii, right?”

“It’s just that girls don’t really-“

Stop. Let me stop you right there. Because we’ve heard it all before. No, we aren’t here against our will and yes, we know what a d20 is. I know that those sleeves are pink, and they are for me. And so help me GOD if you tell me when Cooking Mama is going to come out, I will stab you with a runcible spoon.

There are a surprising amount of female gamers, but I feel that it is aggravating to even be forced to place a gender before it. This is not a contest of strength, a quiz on a knowledge of car parts or some other typically male-only field. These are games, where you sit on your ass and stare at a screen, pressing either buttons or keys. In a world where we spend most of our time doing just this in even more ‘productive’ settings, why is it such a stretch to imagine that women sometimes might just want to kill some orcs (or night elves, or darkspawn, or anything else)? That maybe in between typing up an essay or doing research, she may want to unwind with her group of friends in the MMORPG of her choice? It seems like such an irrational thought process, but its prevalence among the gaming community is truly astonishing.

I could go on, but I will save that rant for another time. It is easy to feel discriminated against, but I truly want this to be a light-hearted blog, not one in which we continually martyr ourselves.

tl;dr click linky and be nice to lady gamers.

Love and peace,

Peach \//