First, I should say, back when I decided to make my own Xbox Live Gamertag I had no real intention of playing any games online. The Gamertag I originally wanted was taken and I didn't want to add numbers to it so I added "Miss" to the begging. Little did I know this was going to cause me issues in the future.
After years of owning an Xbox I was introduced to Call Of Duty and I was instantly hooked. Once I became familiar with the game I started to play online matches. This is where my understanding of how gamers, that just so happen to have a vagina, are treated in the online world.
What I found was that my interaction with others fell into one of three categories: either I was hit on, talked down to, or embraced. The last of the three happened infrequently but I found it's frequency also depended on the game I was playing at the time. If I happened to be playing COD, I was more than likely going to fall into the first two categories. In Left 4 Dead, on the other hand, I found I was more excepted by my male counterparts. Some of them even saying that they come across many females in the game and found it refreshing. But, even with that glimmer of hope on the distant horizon, I still had issues with falling into the first two categories.
In my nativity, I tended to brush off any of the comments, break out the AK47, and proceed to kick some ass thinking they would stop once I proved myself a worthy competitor. Some of the time I was right and they would welcome me to the team (although never once apologizing or even acknowledging any mistreatment). Other times any talent would only worsen the ridicule.
It was only recently that I began to see this as a problem. You see, as someone who doesn't make a terrible amount of money, my boyfriend and I decided there was no reason to have a second Xbox Live account and that he would, when he felt so inclined, just use my account to play things like NHL with his buddies. Basically, we didn't see the point in purchasing a whole new account when he normally plays the Playstation anyways. Perfectly harmless, right? Maybe not. Apparently there are just some games women aren't invited to play.
Recently I logged on to my account to see I had a bunch of new messages. Not having had time to play anything recently I wondered who they were from. When I read them I found that 90% were messages my boyfriend had received while playing NHL from guys either trying to pick him up; thinking he was me, or some form of obscenity, again, thinking he was me.
The above are just the messages that I haven't already deleted. I should also mention that none of these have been replied to and yet sometimes, as you can see, the original sender will continue to express their opinion over several messages. The examples above were both sent while my boyfriend was playing NHL13. Sure, maybe more men play NHL than women, but does that mean you can put a stake in it and claim it for your own? Your entire gender now owns NHL games and women aren't invited? What is this, the fourth grade?
I am for sure not the only one out there who experiences this. A simple Google search will yield many screen shots of messages very similar to the ones listed above. In fact, to my astonishment, there is even an entire website dedicated to it. And these are just the text messages. You should hear the things that get sent in the form of voice messages.
Now, you may be thinking why I don't just make a new account or pay to change my existing Gamertag to something else. When this gets suggested to me a little part of me dies inside. Why should I have to? Why should I go out of my way to change my Gamertag, my avatar, and refrain from using my mic to make sure everyone online thinks I have a penis. This should not be the only way to gain any sort of respect from fellow gamers.
A common misconception is that this abuse is coming from the younger demographic of gamers, and that we should just ignore the immaturity and move on. I can tell you first hand that this is not correct. While some of the comments directed at me and my girl gamer friends are indeed from youngsters, the majority are from grown men. How are we going to teach these young teens and preteens that this isn't okay when the adults of our community are the biggest offenders?
Don't get me wrong, I know it isn't all male gamers that act like this. I'm merely calling attention to the ones that do. And I know this isn't the only problem with online gaming. This it just the issue of focus for this particular article. So what are we going to do about it? Well one thing is for sure, ignoring the problem won't make it go away. "Don't feed the trolls" does not apply here. Nobody got anywhere in fighting for equality by sitting down and hoping that it would pass. We need to keep the conversation flowing.
Listen, it boils down to this, we're all in this for the same reason - we love video games! So lets all just relax, take a step back, and look at it for what it is. We're all equals here. Let us start acting like it.
