When you grow older you get the bigger picture, that you don’t have to be “accepted” by some minor social party that has small tolerance and that gamers are a large social group that will accept you anyway.

About the “crude jokes” I guess it’s just human nature? When I started my new job in this male dominated field and I’m one of the only 3 female employees in my section. Things were a liiittle bit icy at first. I guess soon the guys noticed I swear a lot too, and we actually have the same ideals and ideas, the same things humour us etc. and suddenly the “crude jokes” were back and ok and now we have a fun & relaxed atmosphere at work. As a female gamer I think you are in a way a groundbreaker and you have to prove yourself and show the guys that it’s ok to act just as they normally would by acting like you yourself normally would. If you are one of those females that like to advertize your gender and that you are a GIRL GAMER just there to gather attention and not actually play – then you are doing it wrong. These chicks are a hinderance that might actually be part of the reason for the generic male gamer reaction.

I haven’t come accross too much of this type of behaviour in most of the games I play but then again I don’t play WoW and I tend to hang out with older groups.

Wow you’re the first female I ever heard say that….whenever me and (now the ex) girlfriend were fighting, I use a strategic C-bomb, and she would go ballistic.

Yea she’s an ex cause I’m a ahole. I know this, but that’s a tale for a different time.

2. Anon, look into the history behind the creation of the look of the male Blood Elf. Read why the avatar had to be changed. Why is the male Blood Elf almost universally despised by a certain type of male player? Male BElfs don’t “count” in WoW because they are an anomaly. They are not buffed out or have a unique special skill that another race does not have–in fact, they have a weakness. They are not silly and cute; they are meant to be taken seriously. On a macho design scale, they have less value than most other males. (The paladin class often is the only reason males play them.) In fact, their value for a certain kind of gamer makes them on par with playing a female character — in other words, they don’t count. They are viewed as subordinate rather than dominant on a gut level by your basic male gamer of a certain age and of a certain sensibility. Especially the ones grappling with establishing themselves in the male hierarchy and are busying preening for females.

3. Anon, who are you angry at? Who do you dislike? I can’t really tell. Is the description “most moronic feminist cunts” meant to include MOST feminists or just the “cunty” ones? If the latter, what is your criteria for making the cut-off? And a word of advice, before you accuse someone or a whole group of people of being “false feminists”, try to understand the concept of feminism first. Just from your short rant, it sounds like you don’t know a whole lot about it.

4. Finally Anon, name-calling doesn’t make you look informed or persuade anyone; you just appear unhinged and fanatical. And if you want people to listen to you, the precepts of logic dictate that they don’t waste their time talking to a fanatic. They are unreasonable and their positions are emotion-based, thus should be ignored. Is that your goal? If not, I would suggest a better method of communication because that “cunt” and “bitch” shit is just soooo 1980s.

And while I definitely did over-generalise my other statements, they were not as far from the truth as you seem to think, and even if we take gender out of the equation, there is a lot of unfair perceptions surrounding videogaming that no other equally widely participated in activity suffers from.

Nonsense. How many male-only golf clubs are there now? For football, see the statement on the FA website: “We are committed to making football accessible, enjoyable and safe for everyone, regardless of race, religion, gender, sexuality, background or ability.”

Yet gaming is uniquely looked down upon

Not really, no; trainspotters, military re-enactors, LARPers, stamp collectors, there’s any number of hobbies that’ll get you strange looks and flagged as a “weirdo”.

… think of a traditional group of males participating in any given activity, whether that be drinking at the pub, watching a game of football, or raiding together in World of Warcraft. For the most part, if you took a typical session of such an activity, it would involve a lot of loudness, good-natured insults, and crude comments.

“Males” are no more a homogeneous group than “gamers”, some *people* are into loudness, insults and crude comments, some aren’t. Personally, the conversations I have down the pub or over voice comms in games don’t change at all depending on the sex of the participants.

a) I’m thick skinned and happy to take comments on what I have written if people don’t agree.
b) To note that I’d rather be called a cunt than a bitch, because one is physically accurate and the other is a female dog.

And as far as ‘fuck you’ goes, if this is your idea of a chat up, it fails.