“Girl” Gamers & the Community
Why are girl gamers harassed constantly? How are they misrepresented in the gaming community?
Being a gamer myself, there’s a misconception that girls are bad at video games. A year ago, my boyfriend introduced me to the game Counter Strike: Global Offensive. At first, I would just do casual shooting games by myself, to understand how the game works. After getting pressured to begin match matching and actually competing against other people, I started off at a low-tier level of the game. I was scared of speaking, because the moment they knew I was a girl, they’d either harass me, or think they can’t rely on me throughout the game. Of course I always get the same responses when I speak in game, “omg it’s a gril”, or “you’re a girl? you sound like a 12-year-old.” Luckily for me, no one has yet to harass me as drastically as others have been and I’m grateful that the community is expanding for gamers. However, it still is a prevalent thing to famous streamers and gamers, as communities have built a “safe, girl gaming” community, in support of these misogynist acts.
If you look upon websites like Twitch, you’ll see that a lot of the streamers are men. However, you look at the community of women streamers and you understand why girls are still seen as objects. A lot of these girl streamers show excessive body parts, such as their breasts, sexualizing them. Fan are allowed to subscribe to these streamers and even donate money and adding comments that are inappropriate. Even if we have a more conservative girl gamer, you are still prone to comments such as “take off your shirt”. It’s not that we need to change our girls, but change the way gamers view this community.
On the other hand, girls are so afraid of becoming gamers because there are not many of us in the community. Most players in any game will harass a girl and say “we have a girl on the team, we are going to lose” or “go back to the kitchen where you belong”. Similar to the coding community, girls seem incapable of doing a “man’s job” and are always harassed to be what they should be. This gaming community has always been geared towards boys, which is why girls are constantly harassed for “intruding” in their “safe space.” Even so, there isn’t a strong female representation in the community for other girls to look towards. Families don’t support the idea of a girl gamer because “it’s for guys”.
Places such as UCI’s Sports Arena is changing these stereotypes by scheduling camps for girl gamers, who don’t have a community to support them. The directors of the camp state that, “don’t want [the campers] to see gaming as something that’s only for boys — it’s something everyone can be a part of..” (Chan) One way that people filter out users and comments is by banning them, or taking screenshots of them and posting them onto Reddit. Social media is a powerful tool within the gaming community that can help filter users that do the following. It’s a stepping stone towards helping the community, and I’m glad that more people are accepting of “girl” gamers. It should be a community of anyone, regardless of ethnicity and gender.
Chan, Alex. “Female Gamers, No Strangers to Online Harassment, Learn Ways to Combat Discrimination during Summer Camp at UCI.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 16 July 2017, www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/entertainment/tn-wknd-et-female-gamers-20170716-story.html.
