by E. Rae Fallesen

Created on: January 11, 2008

My sisters and I are avid video game players. We love all kinds of console games, but MMORPG's hold a special place in our heart because we can play them together and compete against other teams. In my seven years of on line gaming I have experienced a lot of different attitudes towards female gamers. As soon as you are revealed as a RL female attitudes towards you tend to shift.

First and foremost, I would like to say that there really is no way to know that the girl toons forming guilds and communities are really girls.
In fact on Role playing servers many males play female characters exclusively. I believe it is often the case that all-females guilds have girl characters being played by guys. Cross-gender characters are nothing new to the gaming community. If they never get on voice chat you'll never really know, no matter what they claim.

Cross gender characters can be eye opening. My sisters and I play male characters as well as female characters and I know first hand that male characters usually get treated much differently. When you play a guy, people tend not to suppose that you don't know what you're doing. You also don't get unwanted attention from male gamers. You receive in a sense, more respect. You can easily become part of the pack.

We were in a guild once (playing females) where all the guys were clamoring to help us out with tasks. It was our first guild and we just assumed people were friendly. Then a few started making suggestions toward us and acting negatively when we turned them down. There was always the constant "flirting" directed at us and it made us uncomfortable to say the least.

It can be difficult revealing anything about yourself as a gamer when you are a girl. In our experiences you are judged on your availability. Are you married? How old are you? People want RL pictures. They go so far as to randomly ask for measurements. Sure you don't have to give them anything, but just getting asked is uncomfortable.

As a girl character you get bossed around a lot more by other gamers. And you constantly have to defend yourself that yes, you are a girl in real life. The accusations are impossible to defend without going on voice chat or providing pictures which none of the three of us are interested in. Instead we just type that we are, and try to disengage from conversation.

Why do we defend that we are girl players and not just let people assume we are males playing cross gender characters? I mean in a sense it seems like it would be easier

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