girl gamers
I yoinked this from Hunter, but I felt like I wanted to share my own experience with this and my hope that things will become less frustrating in the future.
http://hotpinkfreak.wordpress.com/2011/03/19/a-frustrated-woman-gamer-speaks/
I pretty much got used to the misogynist spewings of many nerds & gamers. Of trying to sit at a table whilst a GM tried to force my characters into a rape scenario. Everyone said girl = priest. If you wanted a mage, it couldn’t be an ass kicking mage (okay, so what mages /were/ kicking ass back then?). I had to be a support class. If I was “allowed” to be any sort of fighter, the DM would try to make her sexy, describing all kinds of sexual situations, sexy armor… You get the picture.
During my high school days, I was first introduced to D & D by my older brother. Up until then I had only really played board games and some video games (I watched him play such an inordinate amount of them I had memorized a long list of codes, secrets, and efficient playing paths). My brother's D & D group was comprised of four other guys, the DM surprisingly being our high school's varsity starting quarterback. I was just happy to play, but it got increasingly uncomfortable as it went along. The DM decided that my character after a dimensional rift would be forced to wear a single piece of clothing, a dress; that when a variety of musical notes were sounded would morph into another piece of clothing. However, everything the dress morphed into was skimpy, kinky, or inappropriate as armor. As a dinky freshman and the only girl, I didn't really have a say in how irritating and uncomfortable this was, but the 30-year-old me is actually sort of disgusted by it.
I was thinking perhaps this idiocy had improved some, but the first guild I was in when I first started playing WoW had a twat in it who was convinced I couldn't possibly be female, because I liked the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes.
I will say though, I see a lot more lady gamers than I used to, and that makes me happy. What I would like to see less of though, are the clerks in video game stores who do one of three things when I come in: 1. grin stupidly the whole time 2. Talk down to me 3. Try and direct me toward games I'm not interested in. Maybe I should dig up the short comic I scripted about this...
http://hotpinkfreak.wordpress.com/2011/03/19/a-frustrated-woman-gamer-speaks/
I pretty much got used to the misogynist spewings of many nerds & gamers. Of trying to sit at a table whilst a GM tried to force my characters into a rape scenario. Everyone said girl = priest. If you wanted a mage, it couldn’t be an ass kicking mage (okay, so what mages /were/ kicking ass back then?). I had to be a support class. If I was “allowed” to be any sort of fighter, the DM would try to make her sexy, describing all kinds of sexual situations, sexy armor… You get the picture.
During my high school days, I was first introduced to D & D by my older brother. Up until then I had only really played board games and some video games (I watched him play such an inordinate amount of them I had memorized a long list of codes, secrets, and efficient playing paths). My brother's D & D group was comprised of four other guys, the DM surprisingly being our high school's varsity starting quarterback. I was just happy to play, but it got increasingly uncomfortable as it went along. The DM decided that my character after a dimensional rift would be forced to wear a single piece of clothing, a dress; that when a variety of musical notes were sounded would morph into another piece of clothing. However, everything the dress morphed into was skimpy, kinky, or inappropriate as armor. As a dinky freshman and the only girl, I didn't really have a say in how irritating and uncomfortable this was, but the 30-year-old me is actually sort of disgusted by it.
I was thinking perhaps this idiocy had improved some, but the first guild I was in when I first started playing WoW had a twat in it who was convinced I couldn't possibly be female, because I liked the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes.
I will say though, I see a lot more lady gamers than I used to, and that makes me happy. What I would like to see less of though, are the clerks in video game stores who do one of three things when I come in: 1. grin stupidly the whole time 2. Talk down to me 3. Try and direct me toward games I'm not interested in. Maybe I should dig up the short comic I scripted about this...