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Nine Inch Heels

How do you interact with men<->women in games? Any differences for you?

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I hope you don't mind the long title that I came up with.

In reference to a video made by ReviewTechUSA, which adresses this topic to some extent, I felt like this may be interesting to discuss.

Now, this should not be about the sexism sort of issues and whatever. I'd rather like to know how you feel about "encountering", for example, females in case you're a male, or vice versa, or encountering people of the same gender. Is there something that makes it "different" for you?

In contrast to what my username may suggest, I am a female, and I don't actually keep it a secret, for any reason, by chosing what could be a deceptive username. So, for me this is actually a really interesting subject by way of nature, since gaming (some genres in particular) has been more of a "patriarchaical" scene, if that makes any sense.

For me, logging in and having mostly male people around me is something that I have just gotten used to over time. The same applies to how male people approach me, once they take notice of my gender. For me it is always a bit of a surprise when I meet other females online, in a game, and these cases have been becoming a bit more common in the last years, but it is not really something I'd consider a "regular occurence" yet. I really am still surprised when this happens, and at times, I can figure out a person's gender, by how they communicate in terms of text messages, for example, but at times it remains a surprise to me, and a rather pleasant one, too.

So, for me there is a difference, obviously. And it is kind of interesting that females occasionally talk with me about things, that they would not talk about with males, for example. Also it would seem that people are more likely to talk about personal things with people of the same gender, however there are exceptions to this as well. There have been numerable cases in which guys would actually rather talk to me (or other females) than to other guys, which seems to be specific to things like relationships, emotions in general, or at times even sex related topics.

Did you have similar experiences, or opposite ones, or is it all mixed up for you?

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I don't really interact with them very differently then men, but then again I've been plaiyng games with my sister all my life so female gamers aren't an unusual thing in my life.

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Swine & Roses said:

There are no women in games. Only men pretending to be women.


You never met a female in game, and talked via team-speak, or the likes?

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Gez said:

I don't play online, so moot point.


Don't really play anything online anymore. When I did I won't use any teamspeak or any verbal communication system. The gestures in Dark Souls games is pretty much it. I'm a great team player.

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Granted you'll run into a lot more dudes than dudettes when playing online, but if the opposite or in-between pop up I don't treat them any differently. Many times been in a game and a female voice comes on the audio and everybody is like "OMG A WOMAN WTF AAAA SO LIKE ARE YOU HOT?!"

Me and my sister used to play games together when we were younger, and as we've become older too. Or just sit and watch each other play. Not so much nowadays though, she lives in her own place with her other half and 2 kids but you get the idea.

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Don't be a victim. The proven tally of men pretending to be women in Zan is at like 4 or 5 out of 7. When men in doom pretend to be women for too long, this happens.

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Sure Bowb said:

You never met a female in game, and talked via team-speak, or the likes?


Haha well yes, I did. Actually I first met my now ex-gf in a game.
However, in the same game a good 30% of "females" I met turned out to be guys. :P

Females are usually treaded better in online games (dare I say "female privilege"?), so people will try to take advantage of that. Both male and female.

I'll just act gentleman-like as usual. But inside I'm cautious. And maybe a little sour.

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Swine & Roses said:

Females are usually treaded better in online games (dare I say "female privilege"?), so people will try to take advantage of that. Both male and female.

I do not think this is a universal truth, there's also a lot of misogyny and hostility towards women "encroaching" on men's territory.

And even then, it depends on whether clumsy obsequiousness from teenage boys hoping you'll be their girlfriend and perhaps send pix plox count as "better"...

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With women I make sure to refer to them as m'lady and give them enough items so they can see not all guys are bad. Any time guys start groveling over her I set them straight over private message.

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Gez said:

I do not think this is a universal truth, there's also a lot of misogyny and hostility towards women "encroaching" on men's territory.

And even then, it depends on whether clumsy obsequiousness from teenage boys hoping you'll be their girlfriend and perhaps send pix plox count as "better"...


Oh well. I've never witnessed such a thing, nor did female friends mention something like that. On the other hand, this is the internet. The magic place where strangers are quick to call you names for no reason. Not really a matter of misogony to me.

2nd part.. Yeah, that's true. But I'm slightly jealous anyway. :P

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I'm male and generally take it as a good sign that there are female members in a particular stratum of gaming. Maybe this reaction was intensified while playing Eve, where there are very few women, and lots of men with female characters.

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Swine & Roses said:

Haha well yes, I did. Actually I first met my now ex-gf in a game.
However, in the same game a good 30% of "females" I met turned out to be guys. :P

Females are usually treaded better in online games (dare I say "female privilege"?), so people will try to take advantage of that. Both male and female.

I'll just act gentleman-like as usual. But inside I'm cautious. And maybe a little sour.


Well, sorry about that ex-gf thing. I hope it was for the better for you.

As for the fakers, it's kind of a mixed bag, I feel. Truth be told, for me it has become some sort of a habit in my early online days to not tell anyone I was female, and I also almost never joined any TS-servers (when I did, I turned my mic off to avoid strange reactions).

As you can imagine there were reasons for me to do so. I can understand the idea behind females being treated "better", and why some would try and abuse it, by pretending to be female. On the other hand I have found myself in situations in which I had to "prove my worth", so to speak, or I have met teams/guilds/clans which would not want me to join because they did not want females among them. I have no idea how things are today, because I do not have enough time to really involve myself in these groups, let alone on a regular basis.

I would not go as far as saying the scene back then was "hostile" towards me, but it wasn't exactly welcoming either.

Gez said:

I do not think this is a universal truth, there's also a lot of misogyny and hostility towards women "encroaching" on men's territory.

And even then, it depends on whether clumsy obsequiousness from teenage boys hoping you'll be their girlfriend and perhaps send pix plox count as "better"...


Well, I have been asked if I was "beautiful" at times, but that did not bother me all that much, let alone that I think of beauty as something more than just appearance. Sometimes people would want my myspace/facebook name, which is where I draw the line up until this very day. Some habits die hard, others are there to stay, I think.

I think in general many "dudettes" like me still approach the online-gaming territory very cautiously, and I can say for a fact that some of us never actually tell others that they're females, unless they have a proof of some sort, that they are interacting with another female.

As I was saying earlier, sometimes females have a specific way of wording things, which is why "catch on to each other" every now and then. I wonder if there ever was someone you met online, who you thought would be female, but wasn't giving it away.

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I used to raid in Warcraft in a guild with quite a few women in it, one of them being the raid leader. There weren't really any differences from being in a "bro guild" and no drama either. I did get "hit on" if you will by random people with female characters that claimed to want to send me illicit images, but who knows who those were. /ignore

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I don't think I've ever interacted with a girl online, but I'm sure I'd treat them the same as anyone else.

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I suppose I have a somewhat more unique perspective here given that I'm a trans woman. Unfortunately, it's not any more interesting :-P From what I've noticed, people don't usually treat me any different when they find out I'm a female, unless they're some sort of asshole to begin with. I'm just another player, and my avatar is just about all they have to interact with. The game I play online most is WoW, and so as long as I do my job in the raid or party, they could care less what gender I am.

The same goes with how I interact with others. Whether they're male or female, I don't care, as long as they do their part to make the game fun. When it comes to friendship and what I talk about with the people I know better, it doesn't matter much either. Their trustworthiness and character is more important to me.

The only two differences I noticed was that, after I transitioned, a few of my female friends talked to me about emotional stuff a bit more often, and a few of my guy friends were a bit more flirtatious. And that was still only a slight change, and was not in the context of games. Online, it was just business as usual.

On a side note, before I ever played WoW, I always assumed the player base was overwhelmingly female. This might have been because the only people I knew IRL who played it were females. So it was surprising to find out that there are more men on there than women.

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I only play csgo online and there are rarely any women playing. They get a bad rep for being terrible at the game. Even the "pro" female players are some of the worst teams in the scene. On the off chance there is a girl on my team I treat them normal anyway even if they do act somewhat immaturely in a flirty kind of way which I dislike though it makes it easier to get some banter going.

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I don't think many people can say that they treat the opposite sex *exactly* the same, nor should they. There are, of course, differences - among other areas, in the brain. For most people, saying they treat the opposite sex *exactly* the same is just as disingenuous as claiming that you should be treated *exactly* the same.

And, let's face it: a female interjecting herself into a predominantly male environment *is*, at least, bucking the norm, a bit, right? There's nothing wrong with that, either, but it does infer, or maybe, invite a tiny drama into the mix.

So, yeah, males will treat you a little different, by nature. It's hardwired, normal, and not a thing to worry about, on it's own. And, there should be no reason that you cannot identify yourself, and enjoy the same offerings as anyone else in games, on various sites, etc.

Now, in reality, every now and then, you'll get some idiotic, unnecessary adolescent (regardless of age) behavior, due to a sex difference. But, generally, every possible difference will be exploited by such persons: Hair color, eye color, race, religion, politics, you name it.

I would boil it down to 2 options, of which you are already very familiar:
1. Hide your sex. This cleanly sidesteps most issues you may encounter, and, maybe you don't feel like dealing with any drama at the moment :) Nothing wrong with that.

2. Put the info out there early, embracing who you are with pride (not defiance), dealing with the mandatory idiocy, and getting on with it.

A lot of extra stuff goes on inside people's heads when you meet someone face-to-face vs. with text. And, it is nice to know something about who you're talking to. I might avoid telling you a joke or two, knowing you were female. Then again, you might laugh even harder if I did!

If I were you, I'd just go with the flow, and not give it much thought or consideration. And, for Heaven's sake, don't create challenges with people, to "prove" yourself worthy - that's ridiculous, and unnecesary. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses in different areas. Just enjoy yourself, and be true to thyself. That's all we can do, anyway.

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I play so few things online that I think I've only encountered women who I already knew or who were there with my friends. I don't think I've used voice chat in a game ever, so I've never met the whiney, sweary kids either.

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Last I checked about half the world's population were women, and I interact with them just fine. Why, just today I successfully purchased a packet of cigarettes without once mentioning somebody's vagina, or smearing the word GAMERGATE over the shop wall using my own feces.

I realize this puts me in the minority, being a man and all.

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Treat 'em as anyone else. However, CSGO was an awful place for females. Anytime one hopped on mic she was instantly spammed with "NUDES NUDES LOL GIRLS ON GAMES YOU'RE A GUY LOL TITS OR GTFO WHORE." It got pretty bad sometimes. There were a few exceptions, but this was usually since they were with a group of others and thus the cat calls were less abrasive, since the only people on mic were her mates.

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The only game I ever play online anymore is Star Trek Online, there's plenty of men playing as female characters in it which isn't very surprising, a lot of LPer's of the game on YouTube also play as female characters.

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The only online games i played have only text chat, so it's a mystery unless they explicitly say their genre. And even then i don't give it much though. And I'm an art student raised by women, I learned the hard way that women are just as filthy and mundane as men.

For me, there's only two types of people in gaming: jerks and not-jerks.

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squeky people get on my nerves, Thats people in general, other then that I get along with women online well, Mainly I believe because I'm Highly lacking in labido so I don't ever act like a creep. I'v many female friends in real life as well that I get along great with (I imagine for the same reason). I'm friends with Sheena Perez, one of the devs for Spooky's house of jump scares. She's really cool.

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Most online games are populated by children, teenagers and juvenile adults. I have played my fair share of multiplayer games and interacted with many males and females. I tend to find girls more reasonable but their presence tends to get the worst out of bad people. I will admit as soon as a female is made known, it gets my attention more-so than most other forgettable strangers I play with. If I was in a bad mood, feeling competitive or alike I tend to stay calmer and watch my words, as if she may be more sensitive (not always the case).

What bothers me is the two common behaviors some blokes get around female gamers. They either hate them or cuck themselves in love. You notice how guys tend to use lots more emotes and smilies around girls? With exception to an ignorant teenage girl, any reasonable person wouldn't like to be treated differently just because of their gender.

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If there was a female player online and she confirmed it, then so what? I keep going on with the game and beat her ass. Or play with her, if she's on our team. I'd treat like a player (which she obviously is)

Imagine in a war, a male Sergeant flirting with the female Private, instead of concentrating on the tank coming his way. Crazy, right?

Its a game. If i want to flirt with her, I'd go to her social network account and flirt with her there.

Unfortunately, I'm not the flirting kind.

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