by Frank Mainwaring

Created on: June 13, 2008

The first thing that needs to happen is to end the all too readily apparent ghetto of games that aspire to lure women into the hobby; the endless 'nods' to femininity like pink PSP's; the patronising behaviour of the writers in magazines, and shop workers.

The revolution is already here, women have just as much fun, and are as good at (if not better than) many traditional 'male' games such as Halo. Women can be just as bloodthirsty, just as callous and cruel, and just as good as men. This is the problem, our society has always split society by giving men and women different roles, telling them to do different things, and expecting them to conform to these stereotypes.

Now, unlike in the worlds of sports and entertainment, with pixels on a screen where there is no risk of injury, or 'inappropriate touching' that dog the real world, men and women can compete on a level playing field where skill and reactions, knowledge of the game and ability to think fast are all necessary. This is a good thing, but society still marks out video games as being 'male' territory. In the past this was certainly the case, but with World of Warcraft and other similar titles, women are playing more games than ever before.

The key to getting a someone to play a game, male or female, is to get them interested in a game which has a connection to something they already enjoy. This is certainly true for boys, and is well catered for in the boyish past-times of most male youth. With girls, these activities are frowned upon, tom-boyish and unfeminine, which is why there is such a bias against girls in the first place.

Finding a title that bridges the divide, and gets a girl trying out a PC or console is the first step, and not everyone moves away from the more casual titles into First-Person Shooters or Survival Horror genre games. The first turn-offs that a girl gets from picking up a controller are the looks of horror from the boys in the room...as if she has committed a terrible social faux pas. This just entrenches the belief that she isn't supposed to play games deeper into her mind.

Then, once you find a girl with a thick enough skin to continue playing, you have the jibes and trash-talking that all guys do to a new player...and it is this that I find tends to kill off the most of potential new girl players - 'haha, you suck at this game'....of course WE ALL DID THE FIRST TIME WE PLAYED!

These two points are the biggest hurdles to girl gamers, if we as men stop these behaviours, change the

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