Girls and Gaming. Orly? (Gamers Welcome)

Hi there all. I just saw a thread over at Gaia Online that set my emotions about Female gamers to a whole other level and I want to get your thoughts about this. silentXshadows has found 2 articles about female gamers that I think it's worth paying close attention to: "I have posted two articles below in which I will take segments out of. If you wish to read the whole articles I have links below. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Technology/story?id=617384&page=1 http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/conf2001/papers/groppe.html One of the articles states: Jenna Chalmers, a video game designer at software company Electronic Arts, says the video-game industry was not marketing its products to women based on stereotypes."I think it's easy to kind of stereotype that women don't want to shoot or that women don't want to do sports or that women don't want fast-paced action," Chalmers said. "I don't think that's true. I think that was part of the reason the industry wasn't speaking to women before." but then goes on to say: But many video-game experts say one game helped change the industry virtually overnight. It's called The Sims.As we all know, The Sims is hardly any sort of FPS in the slightest, and everyone and their mother can play it. It takes virtually no skill with coordination to play. To me as a true girl gamer, it is very sexist to suggest that a pansy "life skills" game like The Sims can make a gamer out of a girl but not a guy. And note that this article is on the ABC news site, a place where all sorts of people, including video game misinformed parents go. On a regular gaming sites, even sites dedicated to girl gamers like Gamer Girls Unite (http://www.gamergirlsunite.com/) girl gamers play and are just as much in love with "boy games" like Halo 3 and Counterstrike as the guys are. But then again, these sites are not as exposed to the general population as ABC is of course, so the majority will be stuck thinking girl gamers only play "girl friendly" games, especially the older crowd.In the other article I read, a psychology study of gaming girls, girls were asked to take surveys on their gaming preferences. Here are some things these girls said: "AOL game shows are pretty neat, cause you play against other people" Anonymous, 16" You can quit in the middle and no one gets mad at you, and there aren't a million pieces to set up " Melanie, 16" CD-ROM games are really great because you can play and the levels keep loading really fast. There usually aren't lines at the top like in some console games like NFL2K and stuff like that. Online games are kinda slow sometimes. " Joleen, 15" Blood and gore isn't necessarily offensive, it's just not interesting." Holli, 18" In my opinion, shooting games are SOOO boring. " Becca, 16" Yeah you get my point here. The girls interviewed were put out to be gamers by the study's author. These surveys were not taken by girl gamers at all, but by your everyday normal girl who couldn't tell you the difference between a sniper rifle and a plasma pistol worth her life. They are your "I watch my boyfriend play Unreal Tournament but can't beat him teehee." type of girl, who spends 5 hours a week playing passive puzzle games while talking to her friends on crappy n00b AOL, "CD-ROM games" (heh), and dare I say it...The Sims. Interviewing real girl gamers would have helped uncover the truth to society. Granted, it is hard to find girl gamers, but just go to a school gaming club and survey every person with breasts, and there's your study. I'm sure the girls there wouldn't say "shooting games are soooo boring". What respectful girl gamer calls Half Life for PC a "CD-ROM" game anyway? Sheesh. Then it goes on to say: "The most popular online games with the teen girls we talked to were simple ones involving matching or mazes, and card games." An insult to girls who enjoy playing MMOs for sure! As if we would succumb to some kiddy maze game. What society doesn't realize or accept yet is that girl gamers want to kick a** too. But that's my opinion. What's yours? Discuss:1. Do you feel that creating games specifically for girls is sexist? Do girls actually want to play these games? 2. Are girls that play The Sims only gamers? If so, if a boy does the same does that make him one too? 3. If you are a girl gamer, have people discriminated against you or scolded you for playing a "boy's game"? Or have you seen a girl gamer get made fun of? Sorry if it's long." My God, talk about disrespect, I agree with most of the girl gamers who also posted their thoughts on this issue and silentXshadows made a lot of valid points on this. And here's my thoughts about the female gamer from my P.O.V.; "I love to play video games and of course when I was younger, boys used to do anything to pick on me physically and emotionally just to make me stop playing video games. Well, they made me more determined to play and improve more on my skills as the years go by. I'm officially retired from the coin-ops, but I play these games on my PC as we even speak. But seriously, I getting really sick and damn tired of the female gamer Hardcore or not still be treated like a 2nd class citizen mad and this has to stop. Just because of my gender does not give the stronger sex any right to treat me and other gamers differently, we have Title IX, we can play Men's sports and we can kick more butt in the Arcades then the guys can. I'd say don't you dare let anyone intiminate you on anything and everything including playing video games. Because for the disrespected, that's egg on their face and sooner or later, we're going to fight this issue. This BS needs to stop and the whole world needs to grow up. So what if I love Video games, so what?! I have much right to do so as I would go Grocery shopping, working, going to school, and making money for me and my family, etc. Don't you try to con me in thinking I have no business playing Video Arcade games or other stuff I love to do, it's YOU who's the con artist, you're the bully and you're so-called Male domination of the Video games end here. If you don't like it, go to Hell." *sigh* I don't understand why the female gamer is so disrespected these days, but sooner or later, we'll be more dominate and equal to the Male gamer. That's how I feel, thanks for reading and I'll talk to you again soon.