Girls That Play Games
by Elizabeth Harper 
Feb 23rd 2006 at 5:30PM
There's a interesting article on the Play Girlz
blog discussing women who play Warcraft, and some of the treatment they face. They link back to a survey that has collected comments from
female gamers, which range from interesting to unusual to disturbing. Being that I have recently taken to playing
characters that are not in my raiding guild in order to avoid some of the more juvenile antics of my fellow (and
overwhelmingly male) players, I can certainly understand where the author is coming from when she points out the
following: Many people play games so they can get away from “real life” but when this fantasy that is supposed to be fun starts sounding so much like what you’re trying to get away from in the first place, it’s hard to ignore.
[Thanks, Keegan]
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Mat Feb 23rd 2006 6:05PM
Everyone knows that girls don't play video games, stop spread these vicious lies!
;)
elizabeth Feb 23rd 2006 6:11PM
Interestingly enough, that would not be the first time I've been told that. ;)
veronica Feb 23rd 2006 6:31PM
Oh... we play games. I don't often tell people when I'm playing that I'm a girl, but I do get a chuckle when someone says "Hey, Bro, nice shield!" or something.
Dr. Woo Feb 24th 2006 2:38AM
I've gotten to the point where I just automatically assume everyone out there is a guy, short of actually referring to them by "dude" or "bro" or "man."
Nanatsusaya Feb 24th 2006 5:26AM
I lie and tell people I'm a guy so they'll stop trying to cyber with me. It's only a problem that I've run into over the last month or so, and mostly with my undead priest. Guys keep asking me to go somewhere with them and let them show me a good time. Its not all that frequent though, and it amuses rather than irritates me.
Dr. Woo Feb 24th 2006 6:07AM
My main is a female, and I've never had anyone assume I was a female. At least not as far as I know.
Molly Feb 24th 2006 8:48AM
I'm a female and I play a female and I've never had anyone call me a guy. I, however, normally assume that at least half of the other female players I encounter are males. I can usually tell within a couple of minutes of conversation which they are.
I've never been hit on in game either except for once with my human in Goldshire. I'm sure night elfs have the worst of it.
PodMonkeys Feb 24th 2006 9:18AM
Anonymity is the key ingridient to bringing out every single sexist-racist-anti-gay-biggot out there in the world. There are some days where I come so close to /ignoring the general chat.
With my female human main, I did once get a marraige proposal from a gnome, but it turned out to be a setup for the best melodramatic performance I had ever seen on WoW, complete with crying, announcing that I would forever remain his only love, running several meters away, turning for the last longing gaze, a quick bout of crying, then running away into the distance to never see me again. That was some good RP.
Radiation Feb 24th 2006 9:42AM
I play along side of my wife in the same room at the same time. It still boggles me how many private whispers she gets asking if she's really female and wants to chat. She's even encountered some lame-o who has a macro that pays compliments to female characters he encounters. We watched him walk arounf for 10 minutes walking up to all the female characters and use the macro.
Even after she's reply to a whisper ans says she's taken or not interested, they still persist with crap like, "well we dont have to tell him', or 'I just wanna cyber, that's not cheating on him'.'
And this comes from out of the blue, she does not dialouge with these people, and she doesn't dance around with no clothes on in town. She's gotten to the point where as soon as she receives a tell now it's /ignore. It's pretty harsh that she has to spend so much time managing and filtering the crap that she does.
Mike Feb 24th 2006 10:09AM
"There are some days where I come so close to /ignoring the general chat."
I'll do you one better: there are some days-- few and far between-- where I actually consider /joining General chat ;)
GlennZilla Feb 24th 2006 10:36AM
Of the 6 women in my guild that get to run around with reguarly only one enjoys the attention they get from the random passersby. Though another is dating a guildmate now, they live somewhat near each other. The rest are either married and ignore our adolescent jokes or just muted us on Vent long ago.
We have a few "mangina's" as well. Mostly using the "If I gotta stare at a butt for hours on end it might as well be cute." defense.
I took a turn on an alt as a female night elf warrior. It was an RP-PVP server and I got hit up for cyber within my first 4 hours on the character. I revelaed the bitter truth of my manhood to him gently. (Names changed to protect my alt and his identity)
[Sumdood] Whispers: Hey baby, lets get naked.
Sumdood removes his pants.
[Mymangina] Whispers: Ok
Mymangina removes his pants revealing his manhood.
[Sumdood] Whispers: WTF?!?! FAG!
[Mymangina] Whispers: No, I told you I was a guy, you ignored that and kept flirting. Had to break you out of your trance.
Sumdood is ignoring you.
Mat Feb 24th 2006 11:44AM
It sounds to me like I've had much better luck avoiding juvenile behavior in this game than a lot of you had.
I'll still use the /flirt and get naked every once in a while, but only with fun RP in mind, and up until now I thought that was how it was with most :-/
But don't get me started on the Chuck Norris jokes in general... I swear to God if I could hit every person in the face telling one of those overplayed jokes, I would. At least Leroy Jenkins made sense :(
RighteousDork Feb 24th 2006 11:46AM
I take the RP stance and just pretend that everyone is the gender that is represented in the game. Personally, I don't see myself ever playing a female in the game but I can understand why some guys do. I just take the whole thing tongue in cheek. If I see a particularly attractive toon in the game, I will /flirt or /kiss but that's about it. I may throw in some sweet dialogue from time to time. "Yes, my dear." But that's about it. Anything more than that, well then you're just asking for trouble. And maybe I'm old-fashioned but I just don't understand the whole "cyber-sex" craze. It's like trying to replace the experience of watching a movie with sitting at home and looking at pictures or having someone else describe the movie to you. It's a lame imitation at best.
Mat Feb 24th 2006 11:56AM
I forgot to mention that no one ever flirts with my black and white female tauren named 'Milkplz' on Mal'Ganis :(
Brad Feb 24th 2006 7:55PM
Me too Mat, my tauren chick never gets hit on. I got hit on once by a troll, but i think he was a furry :(
My friends sister plays on one of my servers and she will hand you your arse on a platter. She past me like it was nothing. She's been playing video games with her brother (my friend) since they were little.
Dan Feb 24th 2006 8:05PM
Reading the linked article saddens me. People deserve respect no matter what their gender.
On gender identification:
I assume nothing about a person's RL gender from how their toon looks, although I occasionally subconsciously associate a certain conversational style with each gender and find myself ocassionally assuming someone is a particular gender based on how they communicate.
I myself am male, and play a female gnome warlock. I picked the character simply because I liked the dichotomy of a cute-as-a-button little gnome who controls dark magic and summons demons.
I was called "Ma'am" once, but I'm pretty sure they were just addressing my toon's gender without making assumptions about me (I play on a non-rp server). I've never been hit on, for what it's worth.
Also, the use of "dude" in certain regions is not gender specific. When I say "Dude, nice sheild" I am not assuming you're male.
BTW, you WoW Insider bloggers really need to start giving attributions to the artwork you use in postings. Some of it has been quite nice.
elizabeth Feb 24th 2006 8:16PM
The image in this post is actually some of Blizzard's Burning Crusade concept art and the full image can be found here (it's actually Blood Elf, but you can't really tell because her ears are outside the frame):
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/imageviewer.html?/burningcrusade/,images/art/,10,19,http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/artwork.html?2@2
Silvertusk Feb 27th 2006 11:09AM
With my new night elf warrior roleplaying character, I've grown to really love 'breaking the mold'. All my old characters never really had much of a.. personality; they were, well, girls in the sense that they were, um, girls. Giggly-ish or calm or "smart" or bouncy or whatever. I've come to realize that this is very boring to me, even though I'm one as well.
So this new character'o mine, Gleditsia the Honey Locust on Lightninghoof, is a nasty, mean-spirited wench who was branded an 'Outcast' and exiled from Darnassus for murdering her best friend. She is a delight to play, and I get great joy pissing other players off IC by making snide comments at people who even dare to look at 'er the wrong way.
Very fun. Try it yourselves sometime!
chem Feb 28th 2006 12:22PM
My character name isnt really is "girly name" and i did that for a couple reasons, one im a smart girl and i like names that dont make me look like a a moron or someone who cant spell.. (there are many of you out there) and second i dont care who thinks im a girl or not.. if someone qustions it then they have too much on their mind or not nearly enough going on in their life that they have to worry what sex i am. I once saw a character with the name "hotgirl-something" and was asking for gold at lvl 1 .. that had to be a guy or just a very stupid girl =) oh and because she was a "hotgirl" someone offered to give her gold.. so guys nice work =p
Mike Mar 5th 2006 4:14PM
I just realized this, but the two top bloggers here over the past 30 days are both girls. Not only that, but they've blown away the male bloggers. What does that tell us?