Ladies, do you reveal your gender when playing online games?

The Game Room
1

I’m currently playing a lot of Darkwind, an online car wars game. Admittedly, there are probably not a lot of women playing this game. It still bugs me when players call everyone ‘gents’. “Good luck, gents”, “Good, race, gents”. I’d like to comment when they do, but I wonder if

a) that would just be making a fuss over nothing

b) it would make people uncomfortable, or change the way they act towards me.

So, ladies, do you say anything if people start making assumptions about your gender, and guys, how do you react if you assumed another player was male, and they turn out to be female? (not expecting SD guys to be too fazed by this, but it has happened to me in the past that guys were).

2

For years I usually didn’t bother to tell other players on line I was female because

  1. It’s usually irrelevant to the game
  2. In many circumstances it’s an open invitation to harassment (fortunately, that seems to be changing.)
  3. In many cases, I wasn’t believed anyway (I guess I played too good to be a girl :rolleyes: )

Now, with people I play regularly with, I’ll usually let them know I’m a woman, and if we’re playing using in-game chat or something like ventrilo they’ll figure it out anyhow. But with pick-up groups and such I usually don’t bother for reason #1 for the most part.

My major game these past few years has been World of Warcraft, which is probably the first game where I made nothing but female characters. For the first couple years I was assumed to be male anyway. Now, I’d say about half the time people still assume I’m male, about a quarter of the time they’ll assume female, and the rest of the time will ask.

Oddly enough, I know a man who only plays female characters on WoW, too - and plays them in character (obviously, he doesn’t use voice chat while playing). This caused a number of women in his guild to pitch a fit when they found out that no, he wasn’t a woman in real life, and no, he wasn’t gay, either. Which struck me as hypocritical, given that these same chicks had no qualms about playing male characters.

So…

a) It’s up to you whether this is “nothing” to you or not

b) yes, it probably will make some people uncomfortable, and it will definitely change how some act towards you… but are you playing for them or for you? Also, you will NEVER make everyone in an on-line game with you happy.

and I’ll add

c) men usually seem more concerned about getting the real-life player’s gender pronouns right than women are, but as my example above shows there are exceptions to that rule.

d) I’ve had to occasionally scold my in-game friends who get more insistent than I do that I be referred to as female, sometimes to the point of getting really harsh with other people - hey, guys, if it doesn’t bother me it shouldn’t bother you. If we’re interacting with people on a temporary basis, for a few minutes, and we aren’t likely to encounter them again I don’t see the point to making it an issue.

3

Ah yes, the internet, where boys sound like girls and women sound like boys. :slight_smile:

4

People can try and lie about their gender all they want, but once it’s raid time and they’re on Vent, everyone’s gonna know who’s a guy and who’s a girl.

5

In everquest and world of warcraft, I didn;t let on I was female to PUGs, just to guild members. I pretty much only play females. And it gets tiresome getting all the damned cyber tells.

In EVE online I am one of 5% of the player base that is female. I don’t mind being known as female, to be honest i have never gotten a cyber request in EVE. And it is funny, my corp started out trying to make the guys watch their language, they were quite relieved that I have just as foul a mouth as they do and know as many obscene jokes :eek::smiley: Or at least I don’t mind foul language and dirty jokes as long as they are not vicious in intent.

6

Well yes

on the internet GIRL: Guy In Real Life.

I doubt ladies would tell or be believed.

7

I don’t go about announcing it all the time, and obviously my WoW guild know my gender, but if I’m in a PUG and someone refers to me as ‘he’, I might correct them if it’s a pretty good group. If it’s a bunch of idiots and I just want to get through the instance ASAP, I won’t say anything.

To be honest, I don’t get much grief about being female at all, but I do see some younger female friends getting grief and nine times out of ten, it’s because they act flirty in chat. The extra attention is nice for them when it’s positive, but every now and then some dweeb will take it as an invitation to start whispering them, etc.

8

Depends on the setting. Both in the MUD where I played and designed for about 8 years and in WoW, yes: it even sometimes comes useful to get a certain kind of 12yo boy to beeeehave (apparently, all those years of watching over groups of 20 boys left me with a good enough Or Else voice that it even works in writing). But, same as my nationality, I do not mention it unless the other person offers information as well, are friends of friends or somesuch: “hey, where are you guys from? I’m from Russia” will get “Dun Morogh (well, ok, Spain)” - “where r u guys frm?” will get “Dun Morogh”; “are any of you chicks?” has been known to cause in-party tells of “when do you turn 10, boy?” (that wasn’t me, but I heartily agreed).

If the group has a good atmosphere and someone says “ok, boys, here goes nothing” or somesuch, I’m likely to pipe up with “and girls!” By default and unless I know otherwise, I refer to players by character’s gender, and the immense majority of mine are female like I am (the exceptions are the wolfboy, because I think the wolfgirls look foxy rather than wolf-like, and the DK who’s in honor of my dead cousin).

9

I don’t play much online, but when I do, I try not to mention that I am a girl - everyone wants cyber.

10

Late late late… I have Alice’s rabbit syndrome, I swear!
We had an incident in that MUD, bear in mind that this was c. 1997: I had been an immort (GM) for only a few months when a former immort came back. I’m in a 20-people group, we’re resting between fights and I get a tell from this guy, “hey, if I may ask, why are all your chars female?” “because I’m female, helps keep pronouns straight” “oh, wow, back when I left there was only one woman” “I know… actually… join the group, please”
*Gandalf has joined your group.
Amaya says — ‘ok, people, say hi to Gandalf here, and those who are female please say “I’m female”’
Dude almost fainted, finding himself in the company of some 8 female players :p, including the leader, main healer and both tanks.

11

My daughter is a FPS phenom. She’s 18 now and she’s been gaming with the boys online for years. She makes no bones about her gender; indeed, her user name includes the word ‘girl.’

She is currently schooling noobs in Black Ops (on the PC).

12

Re: pronouns, if you’re playing a male toon, I will refer to you as “he” and if you are a female toon I will use “she” unless I know your true gender (from Vent or whatever). Otherwise, I just treat it as a little RPing. I know most female characters are played by males, but I would feel like it was none of my business to ask. You’re playing a female, I will address you as one (and vice-versa).

I never got requests to cyber when I played a female toon, but I did notice that other players were nicer to me (letting me have drops and things like that).

13

City of Heroes is an interesting phenomenon in that it (subjectively, anyway) has a pretty high percentage of female players, particularly female players who identify themselves as such. It’s funny; considering the game is based on superhero tropes and as such is ostensibly just as male-biased as other game genres, women seem to find it a much more comfortable game to play than others.

14

I play World of Warcraft currently, and, while I wouldn’t say that I reveal it, I don’t really keep it a secret. If it comes up, it comes up. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. I don’t think it’s really made a difference at all. However, I don’t really get offended if people use “gents” or “guys” or other gender-specific language. It’s just words to me.

That being said, there’s a group of four-five of us who play together on the same server, and, while we all play female toons, I’m the only actual female. Of the rest of them, two won’t talk on vent for fear of letting the cat out of the bag, and one will and does (the other’s still a lowbie, so vent doesn’t come up).

15

I play World of Warcraft, I always play male characters and I never reveal my true gender to PUGs. My guildies know it, but they also know me well enough to know that I’m an old tomboy and I absolutely don’t tolerate any sort of adolescent cybering. In all honesty, I’ve never gotten any–my written conversational style tends to be more masculine than feminine, so I think most people who don’t know me just assume I’m male.

Funny story: when I joined my previous raiding guild, I had a “broken mic” so I didn’t have to reveal my gender. I never once mentioned whether I was male or female–and I had every single person in the guild (including some very sharp cookies) thinking I was male just by the way I communicated. I only revealed myself when I became an officer and thus had to start talking in Vent.

It’s not an issue these days in guild, because (1) pretty much everyone in the guild is mature, and (2) most of them are gay men, so they’re not interested in me “that way” anyway. :smiley:

16

It’s the Barbie Dress-Up Character Creator :smiley:

17

I don’t go out of my way to announce that I’m female, but I will correct someone if they misgender me. Which they often do, because I play WoW as a tank, which is a role that very few women take on.

Because I’m a hardcore raider, Vent means that I figure out guildie’s genders very quickly (and vice versa). Unknowns, e.g. in a PUG, will usually be referred to based on their character’s gender until I find out otherwise.

18

Somehow, Shot, it makes perfect sense to me that you’d be a tank. And I’m sure you’re an excellent one.

I do recall the episode when with a partial guild run one of the non-guild invites kept trying to hit on my. The leader put a stop to it when he asked Mr. Horny if he realized how old the chick he was hitting on was. Guy had no clue. It was pointed out I was old enough to be his grandmother. Really.

The Lil’ Jerkazoid wouldn’t speak to me for the rest of the raid. I’m assuming it was embarrassment. Guess he didn’t know old hags played, too. :smiley:

19

Thank you, thank you.

That’s a hilarious anecdote–I’ve pointed out to the occasional very young player (15 and younger) that I could technically be his mother. Which is always fun. :smiley:

ETA: Now isn’t that interesting… When it’s young teens playing, they’re always male. I don’t think I’ve played WoW with a single female (that I know of) under the age of, oh, 17 or so.

20

It must be. I ran a very entertaining task force (City’s version of raids for you WoW players) last night with a rather adorable female player who changed her outfit every time I turned around and chattered endlessly about her various characters.