How women are treated as gamers

[Varnion]

im 25, maried, and meet my wife in a lan-house playing Counter Strike.
I play RPG (Dungeons & Dragons v1) since 1992 (yes i was 10 years old back then) and play mmorpg since 1997 (arealy 10 year O.O).
In my RPG group we have about 1/3 women.. so i think it is normal women to play and imo dont matter if it is a women or man playing.. in the end.. its just for fun.
PS: the RL friend that plays wow it is realy good at raids..
PS2: my wife made a Undead Rogue.

[forketta]

I am used to play with man and women in WOW, and i find confy playing with both.
In my former playing experience i found some nice player, and some very immature people, male or female it doesn't matter at all.
I would say that if your tank or DPS or HEALER is of a different gender than you, what it matter is only if she/he plays his role well, or she/he doesn't. That when raiding. When chatting, things change a little.
Me, being a male probably older than most of the mean player (i am 36), i find that the difference in age is more important than the difference in gender:
1) i tend to give priority to RL issues more than a younger player: in the evening i have to cook something: can't eat mcdonalds all the times... and if i am late at work in the morning...
2) when someone discovers that i could be his father, he tends simply to stop talking (as i suddenly become an alien).

BTW i am quite upset by any forms of intolerance or racism, and that includes judging people by theyr sex, or sexual habits.

Just once i was playing my pally alt, and i teamed up with a healer (a female toon); she was talking as she was a RL girl, and we started whispering each other... well like i didn't wispered to a male. Nothing serious, but it was like i was chatting to a girl that i knew wery well, and with no taboo about sex. (We also speaked a lot of music, and so on). And... 2 options there: or she was a male very good at faking his gender, or se was a nice and sexy young woman. No hassle, just some sexy chat, as it could happen in rl, or over some different media (MSN, AIM, Skype, whatever). That was the only time when being a male and talking to a female made some difference.

[wayneyoung]

Actually... the women in my guild are some of the highest ranked and highest level 70's in the guils and all of them are very helpful, courteous, and know thier game a lot better than most of the guys in the guild!

I am always asking the ladies questions! <--- About the game of course : )

[Yobyob]

My wife and I play together and after someone finds out she is a girl in rl, I notice they will sometimes apologize for saying something crude in guild chat if she is online. Other than that, I think she gets treated pretty much the same.

[Baalzimon]

I love that women play WoW. I don't really know why video games tend to attract a 90% male and 10% female population, but it seems to even out a little more each year. I've been an avid gamer since I was about 12 (currently 27) and I can recall the first online games I played and how few female players there were. Back before the MMORPG, before Diablo, and even before Doom was played online, there were MUDs on dial-up BBSes. For those that aren't familiar, they were text-based role-playing games. On the BBS I played on, out of around 200 players there were 2 females. Yes, they were treated very differently. I don't know that this has changed a whole lot. As long as there are boys around the age of puberty, there will be immature reactions towards females (especially in a setting where there are no repercussions for their behavior).

In my pre-BC raiding guild we had more than one issue of a female guildie being the center of major guild drama. A few of our guild members began referring to female players as "guild poison". Kind of funny that they looked at it this way. The way I saw it, the female was not the problem, it's the way the hormone-driven guys in the guild reacted to any female attention. The result being special treatment from Officers... unfair loot decisions... arguments among guildies... and ultimately the guild dividing into different factions that would sit in different vent channels and talk trash about each other. All because some kid wants to get some positive attention from the female voice over the internet. Hopefully this is not "the norm" among other guilds, but I'm sure it was not the only guild to have problems like these.

[Gul]

The female players in my guild are forming a girls-only Kara team.

My wife will join them when she finally gets around to joining the guild. =)

[Siouxsie]

I've been playing RPGs since I was 12 (I'm 37 now, barreling towards 38) and through the years I've noticed a growing trend (and a very welcome one too) towards women getting into gaming, whether it be console/PC gaming or tabletop/PnP games. Most of my friends are married and each of their wives is an active gamer as much as we guys are.
My roomates wife is probably the most fun to game with...in our D & D group, she plays as a female barbarian berserker type who likes to drink and brawl even more so than my half-orc fighter.
I quickly found out that you can't pigeonhole women as the types to play "the cutesy elven maiden" either. Most of the women in my group get pissy if they're not smashing some mob into pulp

[AuroraManson]

I'm a female and you do get treated differently however its not all together that bad. It can be around the wrong people. The worst online I have experienced is if you have a webcam and are on yahoo. Some perverts list got a hold of my name and listed me under "hot chicks on yahoo" so that I had tons of harassing take your top off sorts of message almost constantly.

However WoW isn't too bad. I ignore the kiddies and the people in our guild have several girls, sure the guys are 'nicer' to us we don't get ribbed as often and occasionally flirtatious but it goes along with being a girl.

One time on the PTR server we were beta testing the voice feature, anyway, some guy was like why do no girls ever play this game. I go, I'm a girl. He's like no your not!! I turned on the mic and was like yes I am (however I have a lower voice as well but its clearly female) and the guys like oh shit sorry! lol

Ah its just sterotypes I think its gotten to the point where men still want to instinctively protect you meanwhile we're 'liberated' enough not to be looked down upon or thought to be inferior because of the fact we are women. Guys today for the most part know that girls are just as good as they are at video games, the real reason is the general lack of interest in these things. I've always been one who likes what I like no matter what it is, KoRN/Star Wars/Pro Wrestling/Fitness/Martial Arts stuff that people look to as guy stuff. The stereotypes in many places are still ingrained in peoples minds however subconsciously and its very apparent everywhere. But we are making progress!

Btw, nice to meet you all lol

[Iceysparkz]

I am one of a few women in my guild, and fortunately I have never run into any problems in game when someone finds out I'm a female. In groups most of the time they are surprised and respect women who play wow. Every now and then i get asked questions, but never in a disrespectful manner. I am lucky I guess.

[Moandain]

My guild master is a Girl. She has done a great job for her term as Guild master. So Far 5 years and NO BS! (Guild has been around for almost 10 years)

She gets special treatment because she is a priest that gave up Shadow to go holy for the guild. So the Help is more out of respect than anything else.