by Kathleen Malark

Created on: March 05, 2009

When the 360s came out, I went to purchase my Xbox 360 Elite at a retailer I'll leave unnamed. I waited with quiet anticipation while the employee fetched it from the back for me. I couldn't wait to take home my sleek new system, set it up, and spend a night pwning nubs. When he returned, system in hand, he looked me up and down and asked "Is this a gift for your boyfriend, or something?" I gave him the benefit of the doubt and informed him the system was, in fact, for me. There was a long pause, and then he asked me "Do you want the pink controller with it, then?"

In all seriousness, the extent of gender bias in video games is definitely a problem in the gaming community. This ranges from a large majority of games only offering male characters to play, to male gamers refusing to acknowledge the skill of female gamers, even in-game sexual harassment. The problem doesn't just lie with men, but also the social response other women have to female gamers. Gamer girls are considered weird', the modern edition of the tomboy. Many girls feel the way about game controllers as they do about cars, football, poker and the UFC. I can't count the number of times I've heard male gamers make assumptions about female gamers, commenting that any girl that plays video games must be hideous - assuming that pretty girls would never play video games. This isn't just limited to girl gamers, society has an expectancy that video gamers are white males under the age of 35, and anyone who doesn't fit into that group is a bizarre novelty.
Fortunately, female gamers are starting to break these conceptions. One example is a FragDolls, a group of attractive, highly skilled girls that game. Sponsored by Ubisoft, the team has won several gaming tournaments while promoting female gamers. The group has gone a long way in proving that girls can be just as talented as the boys when it comes to games, and also proving to game producers that girls are becoming just as viable as consumers in a market that traditionally tailors itself to men. Many women are rising in the ranks behind the video games as well, many top video game companys have women in executive positions (such as Jade Raymond, the producer of Assassin's Creed) or creative positions (such as Rhianna Pratchett, the writer of Mirror's Edge, a game which stars a female lead character). Although there's still a lot of ground for female gamers to cover, more and more girls are starting to game, and the trend will only grow. Hopefully, male gamers will accept it as a good thing that the industry is growing, and that girls can game just as hard as boys. And to the boys that don't accept girl gamers - here's the thing. I know you're loathe to admit it, but somewhere, somehow, a girl has beaten you at a videogame. You may not even have known she was a chick, but its happened. And you just have to deal with it.

Learn more about this author, Kathleen Malark.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.