Anything You Can Do, I Can Do BetterNovember 2nd, 2007 by Suzie
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Back in my formative years, I played video games without even questioning that I should. I had an Atari, and I would play Bubble Bobble, Zak Mckracken, Full Throttle and some spaceship shoot-em-up whose name I can’t remember. I bought a Sega - and added Road Rash, Street Fighter, Streets of Rage, and so on. A typical gamers story, except I’m a girl, and girls don’t game. At least, not those kinds of games. Sure, they might play The Sims, and Bejeweled, and some of them might even play World of Warcraft. But they don’t play shooters. They don’t play racing games. They don’t play Command and Conquer, or Half Life, or Bioshock.
I’ve read a lot of articles about how the casual game market is exploding. How gamers are not only women, but old people too. Lots has been written about how World of Warcraft married the hardcore with the casual, how the social aspects of Second Life or The Sims meant the women could finally ‘get it’, and how playing just a few hours of an action game could improve women’s spatial awareness to the point where there is no longer a gender difference.
Well fuck.
All it took was a few hours of Halo to completely eliminate the basis for all those ‘women driver’ jokes. So much for inborn genetic differences huh?
The fact is: women get a boost from playing games. Games teach you shit. They improve your reaction times. They improve your cognitive skills. They help you drive better. They give you self-confidence - I love being able to beat the crap out of my male friends at strategy games. If I can do that, then why can’t I fix my own car? Hammer my own nails? Why can’t I run for President? Say what I think? Demand a raise?
There’s another thing that gaming - gaming avidly - taught me. That the quickest way to learn something was to try it out. You don’t sit outside the monster’s lair, shivering and miserable, you go in there and you try and kick butt. If you die, you at least memorized the attack pattern, so the next time you go in, you can really kick butt. Sometimes it takes two goes. So sitting around passively waiting for someone to tell me what to do is no longer an option in my real life either.
If you’re playing a strategy game, you test out your theories. You don’t sit in your base and wait. How are you going to win doing that? You learn the truth behind the statement ‘the best defense is an offense’. In much the same way, I don’t sit in my house and wait. Wait for what? A prince to come and magic all the troubles in the world away? Games don’t work like that (unless you’re Princess Peach, but we won’t talk about her), and real life doesn’t work like that. Sit in your base for long enough, and eventually those bad guys will come get you anyway.
To be honest, I’m kind of tired of these ‘women play games too - but they like easy, simple, quick games‘ articles. I don’t want women playing The Sims. I mean, I do, but I also want them playing Halo. Half-Life. Command and Conquer. I want them in the top guilds, not just the casual ones. I want them hardcore, not in the sense of spending twenty hours a day running the same damn instance over and over, but in the sense of realizing that YES they can do this, that the boss can die, that they can blast their way through fifty zombies with a headshot every time, that they can get to the top of the high-score board. Why? For the same reason I got a kick out of beating my geeky male friend that first time on Warcraft III. Because it means I can do all that shit they said I couldn’t do because I was a girl. I can be an engineer, or a plumber, or a scientist. I can be a world famous chef. I can be President (well, Prime Minister in my case).
So if you’re reading this, and you’re a woman, go power up your favorite shooter or racer or RTS and kick some butt. And when you’ve done that, go save the world.
November 7th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
It’s a shame that people think women still are more casual gamers. I’ve been playing games for a very long time, and have known a lot of women that play. I guess I wasn’t really the typical jerk guy, however. It never bothered me gaming with girls. I actually enjoyed the hilarious chat that went along with it (which can be refreshing compared to what most guys say during a online match).
As for women drivers. My one friend was a very skilled driver in some racing games. One of her favorite was the Burnout series. Between her and my other friend, they were some of the top players online in that series.
November 9th, 2007 at 12:45 am
My observation is that girls are not aggressive and self-confident in their aggression.
I’m not gonna say why -I think it’s due to a variety of reasons.
But pretty much I don’t see many women saying, “dude, this is what I’m gonna do, and up yours if you don’t like it” about games, about hobbies, and even about life goals. It’s kinda interesting my highly driven sister go into college: she wants an MD, and you better not get in her way, versus the other people in her dorm, who are…not as motivated, shall we say…
November 9th, 2007 at 2:37 am
Very interesting article.
Since I was old enough to hold a joystick I’ve regularly played a very wide variety of video games - everything and anything from Half-Life to - yes, I admit it - The Sims. I think a lot of fellow female gamers are just as guilty as the mainstream population in underestimating just how many women have played video games since a young age and continue to do so - it hasn’t happened suddenly, we’ve been here all along. The only difference is that the big video game companies are willing to take notice of us now they’ve realised they can make more money out of us by targeting specific games at us.
I don’t play video games because I enjoy it when I beat male gamers - I play because I enjoy beating other gamers - regardless of gender - because I don’t believe I have anything to prove. If more women in gaming thought like this, I feel there would be much less of an issue surrounding women in the video game industry and community.
November 9th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Obviously making huge generalisations about ‘gamers’ or ‘girl gamers’ or whatever is always going to exclude some people or be wrong on some level. There are lots of individual exceptions (if there weren’t, it wouldn’t be an issue when people generalise the other way) and part of the problem is that if you are a female gamer you probably know other female gamers.
It’s nice if you feel like you have nothing to prove, but a lot of people/guilds/groups/gaming cultures make it so you have to have something prove. You either accept their stereotyping/insults, or you fight against it. There are mature communities, and there are mature guilds, and there are lots of women gamers. But in much the same way that just because there are some high-powered business women doesn’t mean that there isn’t still a significant gap between the average man and the average woman’s career, just because there are some mature gaming comms and some hardcore female gamers doesn’t mean that the gaming industry as a whole is equal.
Part of the problem, I think, is firstly that these are virtual worlds that are rarely policed - or, if they are policed it is with a very different set of rules in mind to the real world. If someone came up to you in the street and screamed abuse at you you would call the police. But in games that happens all the time, and it’s just accepted. A guild within a game is run on very similar lines to a business or a charity or a boy scouts or whatever - but legislation protects people within business, charities and scouts in a way that it doesn’t in the virtual world.
I mean, what am I going to do? Sue my guild leader for kicking me out because I “am a dumb slut”? Nobody would take that seriously. But if you got kicked out of any group in the real world for that you’d be screaming blue murder.
Okay, I am stopping before this comment ends up longer than the entry
November 9th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Paul - I agree with you. It’s not that women are incapable of being ambitious, or aggressive or self-confident, it’s just overall we’re socialised not to be. I think gaming can be a kick in the rear end for that.
November 24th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Well the articles are good.
please keep them coming.
BTWi loved the RP article.
December 4th, 2007 at 8:39 am
I only have one thing to say about girls gaming, and it is this. My mom plays WoW… she’s 64… and to all those people that may flame me for saying it. yeah? My mom is main tank…
December 9th, 2007 at 12:03 am
I was always one of those girls that was like “what? I can’t game because I’m a girl?” But ever since I can remember, I’ve been playing games like Command and Conquer, Final Fantasy, Mortal Combat, and most recently Halo, Counter Strike, and WoW. I just simply LOVE those games! I admit that in recent years I haven’t had as much time to sit down and really game, but I do what I can when I can. I’m going for my MD so the majority of my time goes to studying, but when I game I just feel like I’m in heaven. ^_~ It’s what I do to relax nowadays. I can’t wait to finally earn my MD so I can spend more time gaming again.
December 11th, 2007 at 6:01 am
Shadowrunner - that freaking rocks. Your Mom is cool
Kristen - good luck with your MD! Gaming can make a good mind-blank from studying sometimes
I like your choice of games too ^^ Yay Final Fantasy!
December 18th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Thank you for calling bullshit on the whole “casual games are for girls” phenom. It’s appearing in more and more “news” articles and mainstream gaming sites and is now coloring my personal experience. Though my husband and I have been gaming together for a good four years now, he’s still got this surprised but pleased reaction when he comes home to find me neglecting my homework in favor of playing something like Assassin’s Creed or one of the Burnout titles (by myself! Girls don’t do that - we’re social!) that pisses me off to no end.
Even when we play WoW together, there’s this double standard. At this stage in the game, burned by past guild drama, we pvp with a group of our real life friends. My char is a fury-speced warrior outfitted mostly in s3 arena gear and I do an obscene amount of damage. I’m not shocked that the players I don’t know personally treat me like a mythical beast when I run premade BGs (vent kills my anonymity but damned if I can type and pwn at the same time…), it’s when the hubby gets all gloaty about me. Obviously he thinks I’m special or he wouldn’t have married me, but there’s this weird competitiveness (yeah, bitches, she’s rare and she’s MINE) with an underlying sense of awe. It’s as if he kinda believes the hype. I mean, he tried to get me into the Sims as a segway into gaming when we first moved in together years ago and was thrown when I wanted to play Warcraft (yay Tower Defense!) instead. And just last month he installed Peggle on my box and was confused when I abandoned it in favor of CoD4.
Ugh, I feel kind of mean for picking on my guy, but I think he’s a v. good example of a larger issue. Despite the statistics and the anecdotal evidence, despite the fact that I’m the one driving the damn Warthog, there’s this denial among otherwise sensible guys that girls game. Or that girls game seriously. Or that girls have the “natural aptitude” necessary to play ‘hardcore’ games.
I’m new to the whole blog posting so I’m sorry that I ranted so long. I love love LOVE this blog and will keep coming back, though I’ll try to keep my tongue in the future.
January 5th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
my business teacher who is a woman is more of a hard core gamer than most of the students in the school and there are a lot of gamers in our school
January 27th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Great article. Just the other day I was at work and mentioned I was a gamer, and of course since I am a girl (I work tech support and I STILL got this attitude, heh), my coworker said “Oh, you’re a gamer? What do you play, the Sims?” I just looked over and politely said “Well, right now I’m working through another run of Gears of War, in the middle of Mass Effect, and when we get a paid I’m going to FINALLY pick up the Orange Box.” He just kinda looked at me and said “…Oh.”
That being said, we also have to remember that there isn’t anything wrong with games like the Sims, or simply having fun playing the Wii. It’s just frustrating when you can’t be taken seriously as a gamer just because you’re a girl. There are more of us than people seem to think. I stumbled upon this site through a girl gaming board I visit (hi Lumi!) and I’m really enjoying it. Keep up the good work!
February 5th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Just in case the industry happens across this
For their girl gamey research:
)
(Not a history list, just a few titles that spring to mind for examples
*Girl*
/played MGS1, MGS2, Starcraft, (many “boys games” of the 90’s like MK), Diablo2, Halo, Vampire Hunter D, Castlevania, Silent Scope