The negative stereotypes about girl gamers
''Girl gamers are not skillful gamers''
I've met girl gamers who are very skillful gamers to the extent they've beaten and earned platinum trophies for some of the hardest games that have been released this generation such as Demon's Souls and Dark Souls.Both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls are action RPGs and require good timing,concentration,use of strategy and the fact I've seen numerous female gamers beat or even earn platinum trophies for these games proves there's some very skilled female gamers.I've met many male gamers who cannot beat Demon's Souls or Dark Souls,let alone earn their platinum trophies.
There's a JRPG named ''Resonance of Fate'' (Japanese name is End of Eternity)and it's regarded as quite a difficult JRPG but I've met female gamers who've beaten this game and have also earned it's platinum trophy.On the otherhand,I've met male gamers who can't beat Resonance of Fate.
A counterarguement I've heard is male gamers win more gaming tournaments than female gamers do but this does not prove girl gamers are not skillful gamers because a gamer doesn't need to be elite to be skillful.
''Girls are only casual gamers who play games on their NDS or phone''
There's many female users on Gamespot who play games on PS3 and Xbox360 and they play games that require a lot of time and/or skill to beat.These are games such as the Mass Effect games,Skyrim,Final Fantasy games or even something as challenging as Demon's Souls or Dark Souls.Many female gamers like to play games competitively online.I've met many female gamers who like to play Halo games,Call of Duty games and Uncharted 2 online in competitive modes.
A Korean woman who's an expert in Warcraft 3 did commentary for a WarCraft 3 tournament final and her expertise meant she could give good information about what was happening during the match,as well as about the strategies the players were using and it made the match more exciting.A person cannot become a WarCraft 3 expert unless they play and analyse many WarCraft 3 matches.
The importance of girl gamers
In Australia,recent studies show 47% of gamers are female.This means more game sales,more jobs.
Many JRPG fans are female(possibly because JRPGs often have love stories,female characters)and as a JRPG fan I appreciate the existance of many female JRPG fans because it means I can share experiences/feelings about the JRPGs I've played.On the otherhand,most western male gamers I've met don't like JRPGs and being a male sometimes I feel left out when I hear males talking about Call of Duty or Halo.I've met many female gamers who like JRPGs and it gives me a chance to have gamer conversations.If girl gamers didn't exist,it would probably mean a lot less JRPG sales and a higher possibility of Japanese developers not releasing certain JRPGs in the west because certain JRPGs don't sell well in the west.
Above is a screenshot from Final Fantasy X.It's a game that's loved by many male and female gamers.
The way women are portayed in video games
In many Japanese games,especially anime-inspired ones,female characters tend to act bubbly,goofy and a bit ditzy.Personally I don't mind this as it brightens up the mood and many males like women with bubbly,cute personalities.
Women in video games are often large-breasted with slim figures.Some people say it makes women like like sex objects but I think it's no different to how male athletes pose for photos of themselves when they're not wearing much clothes and women like to perv on those males.
The character above is Kasumi from the Dead or Alive series.Dead or Alive games are as famous for their busty beauties as they are for their gameplay and beautiful visuals.
I think Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII is a female character who can inspire people(especially women)because after her parents died she took care of her younger sister and looks out for her younger sister whilst being in the military.Lightning is beautiful without being unrealisitcally voluptuous like many other female video games are and she is a powerful fighter who plays a large role in trying to save the world.
Above is Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII.She is a tough,woman-warrior character,a potential saviour of the world and is beautiful and has a more realistic shaped body.
One of the main characters from Final Fantasy X named Yuna learned to become strong and brave when she was trying to save the world and when she wanted to protect her friends.She was willing to sacrifise her life to save the world and was willing to marry somebody she doesn't love because she believed it was for the good of the people in her world.Characters don't come any stronger(mentally)and braver than her and guess what? She's a woman character.
Above is a picture of Yuna from Final Fantasy X
Misogyny
Misogyny should not be part of the community and should be discouraged because it encourages negative stereotypes and negative stereotypes are harmful to society because stereotypes divide the community and tolerating stereotypes such as ''woman should not play games'' will encourage people to be prejudice and ignorant.
I am proud to be your friend haha, great blog! Unfortunately guys might misunderstand, all you trying to say is, that guys underestimate girl, while female gamers would not undersetimate a male gamer. we´re all equal by now, especially because we´re all human and because we love to play video games.
2 Like theres so many of these blogs all of the sudden, that it seems rather redundant to reply to them all. this is not a gaming community issue, its a society issue. as long as women are continued to be exploited by the mass media, they will be exploited in all forms of it - including video games. if women continue to single themselves out as a minority in a medium where men are the majority - they will continue to be treated as such..because such is the way of society, and every outcry singles you out. it may not be intentional to the extent that you single yourselves out, but latching on to subject matter like these blog topics does exactly that - it singles you out as a minority in the gaming community. its difficult to take it serious when women want to be an integral part of this community of respected gamers when you tend to operate as a separate faction among us. in light of this view, you can never just be a gamer, but you will forever be recognized as a female gamer. in a sense that is what you are, but it is also a position in the community that promotes separation - when what you really want is to be more connected to it.
@UniversalCypher I think what ZanarkandTidus tries to say is, female gamers don´t underrestimate male gamers, but but male gmaers always underestimate female gamers. it´s really not that complicated.
1 Like @UniversalCypher Cypher you have a very valid point that this kind of blogs single out and call the attention of the people. However this kind of blogs and opinions exist because it's true that the gamer demographic is mostly male and because there's a lot of hostility in online communities if you are different from the male heterosexual caucasian model, the cycle goes on, It's madness!. But you make excellent points, good post!
1 Like I know of a few girl gamers. All of which are 'skillful'. Skillful is such a loose term when applied to gaming as you can be 'skilled' at one genre and not at another. One girl I met in a Black Ops lobby absolutely dominated the opposing team in several games. Another girl I have played with in Dark Souls is killer at the PVP in that game. Last night I was chatting to a girl, who'd came over to visit a housemate and somehow we got onto the subject of Halo 4, Prince of Persia and Assassin's Creed completely out of the blue.I honestly think that this misogynistic view that you assume others have is in fact by far in the minority of gamers, most people don't care the gender of their team mates whilst trying to play the game and win. Not once have I ever considered or even heard others say things like "Girls are only casual gamers who play on their NDS or phone".Whilst I agree with a lot that is mentioned in your blog I feel that you're making assumptions about the larger communities opinions and views.
1 Like @FellowSirRaptor Yes,people can be skilled at a particular game/genre but not another,that's why I said some girls are skillful to the extent they're very good at Dark Souls and possess good timing,concentration,use of strategy which are skills that make some girl gamers good at Dark Souls.I was using this example to counter the stereotypes such as ''girls are not good at games''. I've seen stereotypes such as ''most girl gamers play Nintendogs on their NDS'' or whom play puzzle games on PC/Phone.I'm not saying a majority of guys think this way though,I think most guys don't think this way,but some guys do,just like some people stereotype video games as being for kids. I've never felt it's the majority of the community that think this way about girl gamers nor did I mention I think that in my blog.I actually made this blog because it's been a topic that Gamespot users have been asked to blog about because it's a topic of interest :)
awesome blog and I competely agree. Light has become one of my favorite charactes for the fact that she can put up just as good of fight as any male hero. Congrats man this was on the first page as an awesome blog.
It does bug me to an extent how many games make women into sex objects. When clearly you stated they do it to men but it is not that big of a deal.
I don't know if it's a coincidence but none of the female gamers I have known here on GS have any exceptional skills. I haven't seen any speedrun of a game posted by a female user on YouTube, and I don't recall having read any walkthough guide in FAQs written by a female gamer. Maybe I'm reproducing myself a stereotype here, but in my opinion girls don't take games so seriously as guys. I doubt if they will ever "study" a game, do a research, become an expert on something, and not just play it through. Female gamers, if they want to be taken seriously, they have to develop a gamer mentality, a gamer culture.
@Rheinmetal There's Korean women who are StarCraft/Warcraft experts who have a great understanding of those games and they must study those games a lot since they know about many of the strategies for those games and even do commentary for StarCraft/WarCraft 3 matches.Honestly speaking,every walkthrough I've seen on YouTube has been done by a male and I don't know why that's so but I've met lots of skilled female gamers,some of whom have given me helpful advice on games.
As a girl gamer I appreciate this post, but I highly disagree when you ponited out that there was no problem with large breasts girls in games. I disagree because both are very different things, for instance imagine a game like DoA but with large 'sexy' man where cam shots ware clearly made to please female audience and I say "but that's ok since guys drown over models pictures".
The awesomeness of games is how you feel connected to certain characters, look on how powerful and incredible he seems. As a girl gamer I want to be the hero, that is independent, not just the sidekick, the powerful one, not just the healer, my wish is for more female main characters that I can identify with.
May seem like a small thing for gamers that always had strong male main characters, I'm not complainig I just want more female characters that first gets the attention because of her attitude or power not just her assets. That's why I liked FFXIII so much, despise all the hate, it has been so long since I had seen a great female character that was clearly strong, independent and with no insistents breasts and @$$ shots.
@fefisgbf13 If a game was made that allows female gamers to perv on good-looking men who have nice bodies and the cam shots focused on certain parts of a male's body,it wouldn't bother me,I just wouldn't buy the game but I would think if a woman were to play such a game and enjoys it,then I'm happy for them.It would be nice if the gaming world did work both ways like this,but most game developers and anime writers are male and their characters are created from male fantasies.If a team of female game developers or anime producers were to create a game/anime that allowed women to perv on hunky men,it wouldn't bother me at all as long as I can perv on women characters too :P
I like Lightning as a character for the reasons I've mentioned in my blog.Many people don't like Lightning because they think she's too cold and lacks compassion but then again many people say Kratos from God of War is a great character because he's badass(even though he kills innocent people)simply because he's a guy and they think it's OK for a guy to act this way but it's not OK for a woman to act this way.
Sexists everywhere! Ah well , I've met countless females that game better than most males I've seen. I like it better when I'm playing alongside a female than a male , I think women should simply stop being associated with a non-gaming or casual-gamer stereotype kind of character!
I don't really think that Kasumi's body is less realistic than Lightning's. There are a lot of women in this world who are naturally very busty while still being slim. Even bustier than the DoA women. Understand that I'm not trying to say that they are not sexualising women in DoA. They are, but it doesn't mean that their figures are unrealistically proportionate.
@jonmar I've seen women who are slim and busty but even they are nowhere near as busty as the DoA girls.The DoA girls look like they've had breast implants.I've seen a lot more women who have a body that's more similar to Lightning's.This is just my observation though :)
@ZanarkandTidus Well, trust me there are women who are naturally just as busty as the DoA girls. The redhead from Mad Med comes to mind as an example. Also numerous adult film stars :p How common that is I don't know but that wasn't really my point. My point was that the body type portrayed on women in DoA isn't unrealistic. It might not be very common but it's very much within the realm of natural.
1 Like I like this blog, but I ultimately think that: Can female gamers be as good as male gamers ? Yes. Are female gamers usually as good as male gamers ? Not really.
1 Like @g1rldraco7 That's probably because she (or he, it could be a he.) makes a similar point to the one you were making, but this person has taken a balanced view of the situation and has considered every party involved.
Needs a lot of improvement. Some of your points are valid, but the way you argue them is cumbersome. 47% of gamers female? How does that equate to more jobs than if, say, 20% were female? You can't imply that there are more gamers simply based on the percentage of female gamers...
And Lightning has a realistic body? Maybe more so than others, but she's still being sexualized somewhat.
Misogyny promotes negative stereotypes? No, it IS a negative stereotype...
Blogger Dr. Nerd Love's great blog on sexism in gaming has a great point about the alleged equal sexualization of men:
"[On the claim that men are sexualized as much as women]To start with, it assumes ? falsely ? that the things that women find sexy are the same things that guys find sexy; that is, the exaggerated secondary sex characteristics. But we?ll get to that in a second.
The other issue is the reason for the exaggeration. Comics and games are fantasy true, but the fantasy aspect differs when it comes to male and female characters. Male characters are a power fantasy; the large muscles and massive torsos are visual signs that this character is an unstoppable powerhouse. Kratos doesn?t look the way he does because Sony Computer Entertainment did focus-market studies and found that women reacted best to that design; he looks the way he does because he represents the powerful alpha-male that gamers want to be."
Read more here: http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2012/01/nerds-and-male-privilege-part-2/all/1/
1 Like @Granpire I thought it was obvious that video games are still popular amongst males and the fact 47% of gamers in Australia are female means there's a higher total number of gamers(the stats in Australia show Australia has more gamers than ever and it's partially because more females are becoming interesting in video games).More gamers means more game sales and stores make more money and more jobs.
I said Lightning has a ''more realistic'' body and I meant in comparison to the women in many other games that portray women as being large-breasted and slim.
What I meant when I said misogyny encourages negative stereotypes is if people think it's OK to be a misogynist you are telling them it's OK to using negative stereotypes against women.
When I said women perv on male athletes,I wasn't implying the video game world has an even level of sexualization because I was well aware women are more sexualized in games due to the fact most video game story writers/character designers are men.I was just stating women shouldn't complain about women being sexualized in video games because women perv on males too.If women want to complain there is MORE sexualized female characters than hunky male characters in video games then fair enough.
Sorry I meant to say ''girls are becoming more interested in games'' not ''more interesting in games''.
Unreal. None of the examples and pictures here represent females in reality, they are enhanced illusions of someone's imagination, that said without the descriptive language that would have communicated the exact disgusting nature of those images. Girls can play games, but I pity any that would when they have to face those heroines and female characters which alternate between super models and street trash in terms of attitude and personality. Let them play if they want, though the real hot ones that I know never do. Given the facts as I mentioned above, games seem to be more aimed at guys or to corrupt girls by giving them an icon of rottenness and despicability, commonly a woman on the outside with a gloss of dirt, bruises, scars and other markings which are nothing compared to their largely masculine personalities, gruff voices, foul language and disgusting pessimism, reduced to one of the purest forms of evil you could ever find.
1 Like @tgwolf I think Lightning has personality traits which women aspire to and that I think are positive such as independence,caring for her family,assertiveness.I think these are positive traits.As for her physical features,I've seen many women who have a body similar to hers but her face and hair look more suited to a super model than a regular woman.But movies and TV series use good-looking actors/actresses to represent ''regular'' people quite often too.I just wanted to point out in my blog that some video games portay women in a positive way because some people complain many female video game characters are sexualized or act ditzy.
To gamers (real ones not the stupid backwards trolls) gender does not matter. Thats why you'll find that the majority of the community does not see this as a problem any more. The issue is that the publishers, corporate, the suits that care about stock and money, they still think all of those stereotypes are true. So when someone pitches a game. They'll say "we want girls to buy this so add pink." If you find a game which respects females and everyone is equal, you can be certain that game has the original design that the developer planned and that corporate didn't get involved.
1 Like Idk I see women the same way I see guys in gaming. Hell I got destroyed by quite a few girls in Tekken tag 2 this past weekend.
1 Like Stereotyping such as that listed above is stupid. The article is right, sex does not equal video game skill.
3 Like Women should play games. It'd give me something in common with them to talk about with them. It's difficult to find subjects like that.
2 Like Also, skill in video games is down to reflexes and mentality, it's not a very psychical, strength based, skill set. So, it's no wonder that girls can get good at it. It's the same with dudes.
4 Like Not to offend anyone, but this is my view from a male perspective. I believe girls can be as skillful as any guy in a video game. What I see where the stereotype arise is not from the single-player games. It's usually from the online multiplayer. I play a lot of FPS, MMORPG, and LoL (guess I'm gonna put it as its own thing because its the only MOBA I play). In MMORPGs, I've seen my fair shares of skillful gamer girls. I've even taken pointers from a lot of 'em and was in two guilds led by working mothers. However, maybe women are not into the FPS and MOBA scene, but the females I've played with tend to be less competitive and really relaxed. I guess it may not come down to skill, but the mentality. I'm extremely competitive and obsessed with winning. The girls just enjoy the game as a game. Guess in the end, girls might even appreciate video games better than us guys in a way.
2 Like I hate how female are portrayed in many American game compared to Japanease game. Dead Or Alive being the utmost offender ... a game where all the women wear bikini ... yeah ... a perv game. American tend to make the mâle heroic, boosted on steroid and have small "almost fragile" girl with a big in-your-face breast ...
I find caracter in Japanease game more realistic body and personality.
Yes some girls are good and in fact I just don,t care ... I just like it when a girl plays some games because shee understand better why I like it and sometime we can play together.
I summed my opinion here, it was easier: http://www.gamespot.com/users/Torquille/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25997267
2 Like skill isn't sometime that is gender locked,as long as you are able to do something you might get skillful in it through practice.you are not born with skills, you acquire them through repetitiveness of the thing you were doing that required said skill.
