Gamer Girl

I have a love/hate (but mostly hate) relationship with the phrase "gamer girl" at this point in my life. Why can't we just be gamers? Look, I know it's a male dominated industry. I know sometimes women get treated like crap and that's wrong. Although, there are some other issues that are a big deal to "gamer girls."  I have never understood these complaints about gaming.

One of the issues is  that games don't have enough strong female characters.

(I think there are many examples of awesome female characters. Here's a few: Alyx from Half-Life 2, Chell from Portal,  Zelda from Legend of Zelda, Jade from Beyond Good and Evil,  Jill and Claire from Resident Evil, Lilith in Borderlands, Anya and Sam in Gears, Samus in Metriod,  Faith from Mirror's Edge, Lara from Tomb Raider and I could go on. )

They can't relate to guy characters or something like that. I have never felt this way, so I don't know what the problem is, exactly. When I read a book or watch a movie, the main characters doesn't need to be anything like me. Am I an 11 year old British boy who found out he's a wizard? Nope.  But, I still love reading about it.

Or the complaint that games are marketed towards guys. I don't care who the target audience is, if I like it, I'll play it.  As for big AAA, hardcore games, I don't feel they target anyone but gamers with their commercials and ads. Gamers who play games not because they're "girl" games "boy" games, but because they're good.

Just because some guys (and women too) are jerks when it comes to who they think should play games, that doesn't mean we have to stoop to their level of idiocy. And when I see a lot of " I'm a girl and play games, I'm special snowflake" type of stuff, it doesn't make sense to me. We know the statistics, almost half of all gamers are female.

I really think constantly throwing gender into other people's faces does us a disservice. Complaining without offering real solutions does us a disservice. We should stop  harassment on XBL on other online games. We should take action if we're denied a job just because of our gender. But that doesn't mean we should get mad if nobody's paying attention to the loud, whiny brat who's a rare, special creature known as the "gamer girl."

If you loves games and you have a daughter, share your love of games with her. Make her a gamer, not a "gamer girl."