Knocking Down the Gamer Girl Pedestal

A few months ago, Busted Analog posted an article titled Gamer Girls Aren’t Special Anymore. His stance: stop putting gamer girls on a pedestal because females are more integrated into the gaming world nowadays and therefore should be treated with gender-free equality. The post also introduced me to the concept of the "single game girl," someone who was introduced to a title via a male friend or old boyfriend and obsessively plays only that title. While Busted Analog makes a very stimulating point, I was more interested in the comments that ensued afterward, both online and in real life:

"Like some of the others have said, I think the mystery is still there because 90% of the gamer girls out there aren't what most of us consider gamers. Playing occasional games of Guitar Hero and Tetris does not a gamer make. Girls who play MMORPGs like WoW don't count as well as that is more of a female nerd than female gamer."

Having attended an engineering college, I experienced first hand the perks of being a woman in a male-dominated environment. I never stooped as low as some of my female classmates, who would deliberately wear low-cut, tight-fitting tops to weasel extra computer time from the lab assistants. But yeah, guys would willingly help me with a homework question, while brusquely declining if another dude had asked the same thing. Plus, on the anime chat room where I downloaded episodes, I used a seemingly generic username. But once people realized that I was female, the number of chats I received suddenly tripled.

Yes, college was exactly like this...

I talked about the phenomenon with K afterward, and our conversation turned back to the article...
K: I don't see what the big deal is. An attractive female that actually can beat me at Mortal Kombat seems like quite the rarity to me.
A: Now that I cannot do.
K: True, but you probably could get to my level with practice. I think that the real issue is that you don't like competitive games in general, so your motivation to do so isn't there.
K: Anyone who gave Metroid a big try qualifies as hardcore to me - that game's hard!
A: I definitely prefer co-op; even Left 4 Dead would be ok (if it weren't so creeepy ^_~)
K: After your experience with Monster Hunter, I bet you'd be 4000% better at Metroid's gameplay skill aspect now. I mean, if you can decode timing and tells on a monster and move in with a precision hit... well, that's Metroid in another form.

Aww, thanks for the boost in confidence, K! #^_^#

Related Links:
Seven Types of Girl Gamers