The very first Valentine's Day that my husband and I were dating, he got me a copy of World of Warcraft. In my time playing, I met quite a few couples who regularly played together and even a few who first met through World of Warcraft. Thanks to these experiences, OnlineUniversity.net's infographic suggesting games like World of Warcraft may actually be a better bet than online dating came as no surprise. If nothing else, players who meet through a game know they have at least one hobby in common.
That said, something about the infographic rubbed me the wrong way. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, so I re-read it a few times, trying to identify what bothered me.
Then it hit me.
Gamers Get Girls.
That title says a lot. It starts the infographic by suggesting that gamers are men, while women who play games are something else. It uses girls instead of women, which makes for nice alliteration, but often implies less ability or less agency than the terms man or woman.
Once I realized the problems with the title, I saw the ways the rest of the text compounded the problem. Men are always referred to as men, while the term girls, with all the baggage that comes with it, is used more often than women. When the statistics include gender, they are focused on a man's likelihood of finding a woman interested in him, without any attention to the reverse (let alone same-sex couples). These messages were then reinforced by the final panel, were a man holding controllers is made irresistible to a pair of women by his gaming prowess just above the final words "Gamers feel good and act quickly. No wonder they're getting the girls." It all added up to suggest that men, not women, have agency when it comes to finding love in games.
While this infographic isn't outright offensive, the messages it contains are part of a larger problem. As Anita Sarkeesian effectively demonstrates in the Feminist Frequency series, games are a male-dominated space, in spite of the growing number of female gamers. Most games cater to male players; female characters typically have limited agency and are reduced to objects, often sexualized ones.
When I first went to install World of Warcraft, the packaging and opening cinematics were filled with scantily clad, sexualized female Night Elves such that when it came time to make my character, I couldn't bring myself to click female and made a male druid, instead. Eventually, I made a female gnome character, but quickly learned to avoid voice chat and either dodge the question or outright lie when a stranger asked if I was male or female since a true answer usually got comments ranging from mildly suggestive to outright harassment. Eventually, I gave up on playing with strangers altogether because I got tired of comments that could be mildly sexist ("You tank like a girl!") or outright offensive ("Let's rape that bitch!" before taking on a boss, usually female). My unwillingness to deal with that kind of behavior in my leisure time did significantly limit my opportunities in the game, so I'm very grateful that my husband was tolerant of these self-imposed restrictions and would join me for questing or exploration when no one from our guild was available to play through a dungeon.
My role as a teacher interested in gaming in the classroom makes these issues even harder to ignore. I have an ethical responsibility to ensure the learning spaces for my class are welcoming and safe for all students. As part of that responsibility, I have to be aware that games do not always meet that standard for women and consider how to overcome that issue. This is especially critical in fields like physics, my own subject area, were women are already significantly under-represented. It is considered an accomplishment that 40% of the students in my honors physics class are women. While games in the classroom can certainly benefit women as much as men, most students have already experienced some of the gender dynamics in video games. Ignoring that reality will only serve to drive more female students away.
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