Gamer Response: Women are Posers

Everyone, pretend to be shocked: Kansas readers (and at least one woman) hated my video game column.

I took my last post and pared it down for my current employer. What can I say? I'm suffering serious writer's block these days.

In any case, what bothers me about these comments:

1. The rhetoric would seem to suggest that any video game featuring women at all is inherently sexist. This means women better accept their only acceptable role models are men, and crazy stupid animals (think "Viva Pinata" and "NintenDOGZ") and completely undermines the revolution spawned by Sarah Kerrigan towards depicting women as equals with complicated backstories, level abilities and protagonist prowess, and...

2. The idea that a woman advocating for more female inclusion in video games needs to "put her penis away" and "stop trying to be one of the guys" is inherently sexist and justifies the continued exclusion of females, which...

3. Inherently props up the continued subjugation of women in video games (rather than work within the system to create stronger female role models, we'll just sit around and complain about them, accepting we're all reduced to air-headed Juggies) and women who play video games (they just want to be dudes, or they just want to impress dudes) and...

4. Ultimately proves that the column is right. Until more women get involved, this will continue to be the attitude dispensed towards women gamers.


Interesting note. All of the comments here seem to accuse me of trying to conflate the sexes by blurring the line between being an individual woman who enjoys games and a woman trying to fit in with a guy crowd. Yet earlier today, my office intercepted a call from your local yokel insisting that I would likely spend the rest of my life alone with my 50 cats (for the record, I have two dogs because although my pomeranian has been known to behave in a rather cat-like fashion, I DESPISE cats) because I'm too interested in drawing distinctions between the sexes.

And this is just reason 450,429,549 why I need to get out of the midwest.