The Female Gaming Experience [Safe Space]

I mean, it was an oft-cited thing that the show 24 never dealt with Jack needing to use the bathroom. If one decides to gloss over that detail, along with menstruation, I'm fine with suspending my disbelief. It's definitely a topic that could be an interesting or relateable moment but so easily becomes gauche that I can't shame anyone for skipping it.

It's as if women have never been out in the wilderness before this century!

ActualDragon wrote:

I mean, it was an oft-cited thing that the show 24 never dealt with Jack needing to use the bathroom. If one decides to gloss over that detail, along with menstruation, I'm fine with suspending my disbelief. It's definitely a topic that could be an interesting or relateable moment but so easily becomes gauche that I can't shame anyone for skipping it.

This was pretty much my thought process.

I'd personally ignore the subject of menstruating altogether. It honesty wouldn't even come to mind. If anyone suggested it, man or woman, I'd look at them with bewilderment as to why any bodily functions should be addressed. Awkward. Unnecessary.

I can see where they're coming from, and what they meant, but it's poorly executed, and again not at all necessary. Everyone knows. Someone will need to have a conversion. Sure. But does it need to be in a video game? I don't think so. Let's just assume it's being handled off screen, privately.

One thought! Blood in a zombie apocalypse? I'm not sure if these zombies even follow those rules. (Some may be all for blood. Others for brains. Or noise. Or sound.) Where they even going for that?

Oh good, I was worried I would only be able to read female gaming experiences in here. Crisis averted.

sometimesdee wrote:
Eleima wrote:

Oh my gosh YES, Clock, YES! See, she gets it. You hit the nail on the head, Clocky, that's exactly it. (I just wish you'd completed that last sentence, it's awesome stuff)

She did complete the sentence. The point is that there would be no conversation.

And you're welcome, BTW.

Oh now I feel sheepish. That totally went right over my head . Heh.
Now I really feel silly.

I'm generally trying to stay out of here, sorry to intrude, but I did want to offer something...

bekkilyn wrote:

I got my period at age 11 and have hated every single moment of it since then and still do. I pray every time it happens that it will be my very last.

My partner uses the Mirena IUD, which stops menstruation for many people. She considers it a wonderful side effect. I don't know if this is already widely known, but it's something you might care to look into.

beeporama wrote:

I'm generally trying to stay out of here, sorry to intrude, but I did want to offer something...

bekkilyn wrote:

I got my period at age 11 and have hated every single moment of it since then and still do. I pray every time it happens that it will be my very last.

My partner uses the Mirena IUD, which stops menstruation for many people. She considers it a wonderful side effect. I don't know if this is already widely known, but it's something you might care to look into.

Good to know, thanks. For me though I'm at the point where it might finally be going away on it's own and am hoping some of what I'm currently experiencing are signs of peri-menopause, hence the praying that any periods I have will be my last. Your wife is incredibly lucky to experience *that* particular side effect!

And for me, the Mirena gave me such bad periods that it had to be taken out. Let's not generalize from one particular case and let's please, please get back to "The Female Gaming Experience."
I'm almost sorry I brought it up in the first place.

clover wrote:

Oh good, I was worried I would only be able to read female gaming experiences in here. Crisis averted.

Hey, a dude post rate of 70% is better than the 95% in the other topics, right?

clover wrote:

Oh good, I was worried I would only be able to read female gaming experiences in here. Crisis averted.

With respect, when I made the thread I didn't dictate this was for women only to post in although the purpose of it should obviously lean that way. In this thread I don't mind dudes offering support, but they shouldn't be the majority voice. I'm going to update the top post to reflect that more clearly.

Certis wrote:
clover wrote:

Oh good, I was worried I would only be able to read female gaming experiences in here. Crisis averted.

With respect, when I made the thread I didn't dictate this was for women only to post in although the purpose of it should obviously lean that way. In this thread I don't mind dudes offering support, but they shouldn't be the majority voice. I'm going to update the top post to reflect that more clearly.

With respect, what you "dictate" and whether you "mind" dudes offering support in women centered space is irrelevant. A man shouldn't be the thread owner in the first place. If it's possible to change ownership, please do that (maybe sometimesdee, since she's a mod?). If not, let's make a new thread.

I was speaking as a moderator, Garden, meaning I can't fairly remove or edit posts when I didn't establish the ground rule in the first place. When I said "with respect" I meant it sincerely. I respect the point and adjusted the topic to better reflect its purpose as I intended when I made the thread.

You are very welcome to create a new thread and establish the ground rules for it. The mod team will do their best to help enforce them provided they don't run against the CoC.

Certis wrote:
clover wrote:

Oh good, I was worried I would only be able to read female gaming experiences in here. Crisis averted.

With respect, when I made the thread I didn't dictate this was for women only to post in although the purpose of it should obviously lean that way. In this thread I don't mind dudes offering support, but they shouldn't be the majority voice. I'm going to update the top post to reflect that more clearly.

I understand that; sacrificing nuance on the altar of brevity was an editing choice.

My actual point seems to have come through well enough.

Demyx wrote:

I honestly don't understand why any guy would want to be in here. I'd leave the whole discussion behind if I felt like I could.

MOD NOTE: SHORT AND SUPPORTIVE ONLY PLEASE.Placing rest of post in spoiler tag. - Certis

Spoiler:

I know I'm replying to a really old post, but I am because I didn't see anyone else had reply to it, and I would like to explain why I am here, and why I literally got excited when I first started reading posts here.

Its technically for the same reason most of you are here: to hear others' experiences. I am a human and get to live in a world where approximately half of everyone is female, but where unfortunately those females are most often silenced. All those times a female is too annoyed and tired to to say something about misrepresentation or being disrespected are times I don't get to learn where my sex has misstepped. Here I could learn how a writer failed to write a believable woman. Here I can learn of some of the annoyances that come with shopping as a female that I have never experienced (just as I have never experienced those issues that come with being black and shopping or in a wheelchair and shopping--being colorblind and having a speech impediment is the worse I have to deal with on a daily basis). While it is important to have a safe place for females to have these discussions without having to deal with the antifeminist jackasses that are too common online, if these conversations are only held in closed environments with only females, then nothing can change.

I apologize for my part in a short conversation that some found offensive and derailing. To be honest, my main motivation for posting was to make my presence known in one of the few threads that I have read more than just a few posts in and did not feel right adding to the conversation of writers handling talk about menstruation. I also did not want to come off as someone patting themselves on the back and explaining how I love and support women and yay for me.

As for concerns of too many male voices, I will limit my future responses. I came in thinking "safe place" simple meant female and males could have conversations about concerns and experiences females have had in a place where all would strive not to belittle any female for voicing those concerns, but if you are finding there is too much male noise, than I will respect that concern. I am going to continue to lurk around these parts though.

Anyways, simply put: Why am I here? Because people who are well written and have opinions that I respect are here, giving voice to concerns I do not hear otherwise.

As I have taken enough real estate on here already, I am going to place my thought on the separate conversation of retail experiences in a spoiler section.

Spoiler:

So those stories about how gaming retailers have treated some of you is ghastly. I am saying this as a person who sells video games in a chain retailer, though not one that I saw mentioned (probably do to the fact that the video game section is neglected in most of the locations of my retailer). I personally enjoy when I have a female customer I can talk to about video games, as I do with any of my customers that I get to talk games with. All too often though, it actually does turn out that the young lady looking for a game actually is just buying it for her boyfriend and knows nothing about gaming. I know see that is because so many of you have turned to the internet to buy games. (FYI, I am not disappointed in these situations because I wanted to hit on a gamer gal. I am already married.) An experience I find annoying are the parents I often help find games who as for a recommendation "for a girl." Like that is suppose to give me a better idea of her interests. Am I not suppose to suggest Rocket League for a girl because it is cars and sports combined? Its the best league in the world! Everyone could enjoy that game! Am I suppose to say "Just Dance?" I normally just say Minecraft or "anything Lego" as there are generally 5 different Lego games available at any given moment and then the parents could narrow it down to one that would interest the child. Hopefully as the older generation give way to a generation that grew up with video games everywhere, the concept of separate games for females will die off. Or if the female gamers that exclusively buy online start going back into stores maybe their presence can help education retailers and other shoppers a like...but who buys in stores any more anyways, right?

Moving on. - Certis

Tip: swap out 'females' for 'women'

Also, it's not 'the male sex' that misssteps, it's individual men. It's not 'us vs them'.

Mermaidpirate wrote:

Tip: swap out 'females' for 'women'

What's wrong with using "female"?

Homestly, agentwred, I get that you're coming from a place of wanting to understand and listen, but that's kinda disproven by the gigantic wall o'text drowning out anything else. A simple "I'm sorry, I just want to listen and learn" would've sufficed.
As taken from the Wikipedia page, "The term safe space has been extended to refer to an autonomous space for individuals who feel marginalized to come together to communicate regarding their experiences with marginalization." This is exactly how I see this thread and Certis' brief update to the original post is, I believe, in that spirit.
And for the record, you won't find anything about our experience "shopping" (*sigh*), this is the "female gaming experience" thread.

agentwred wrote:

if these conversations are only held in closed environments with only females, then nothing can change.

If that is how you truly feel, then you'd best be served by heading over to the Feminism thread as I linked in my previous reply to you. This is NOT the purpose of this thread.

Looking forward to other women's input, I'd hate to monopolize the thread.

bekkilyn wrote:
Mermaidpirate wrote:

Tip: swap out 'females' for 'women'

What's wrong with using "female"?

There's nothing wrong with using "female", although personally I avoid using it as a noun. Because that's primarily done with animals ("the female cautiously approaches the water hole"), I find it dehumanizing when used to refer to people. So I'm fine with things like "the world needs more female doctors" but feel weird about things like "doctoral programs need more females".

Also, to be perfectly honest, guys using "female" or "females" instead of "woman" or "women" is one of my reliable red flags. I'm not sure why there's a correlation there, but it's one I've seen pretty frequently.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
bekkilyn wrote:
Mermaidpirate wrote:

Tip: swap out 'females' for 'women'

What's wrong with using "female"?

There's nothing wrong with using "female", although personally I avoid using it as a noun. Because that's primarily done with animals ("the female cautiously approaches the water hole"), I find it dehumanizing when used to refer to people. So I'm fine with things like "the world needs more female doctors" but feel weird about things like "doctoral programs need more females".

Also, to be perfectly honest, guys using "female" or "females" instead of "woman" or "women" is one of my reliable red flags. I'm not sure why there's a correlation there, but it's one I've seen pretty frequently.

I've always viewed them as interchangeable, but now I'll have to pay more attention to how I actually use them to see if there's a pattern to how I choose one over the other. Interesting!

Eleima wrote:

If that is how you truly feel, then you'd best be served by heading over to the Feminism thread as I linked in my previous reply to you. This is NOT the purpose of this thread.

Looking forward to other women's input, I'd hate to monopolize the thread.

I was thinking the Feminism thread is exactly what he wants.

bekkilyn wrote:
Eleima wrote:

If that is how you truly feel, then you'd best be served by heading over to the Feminism thread as I linked in my previous reply to you. This is NOT the purpose of this thread.

Looking forward to other women's input, I'd hate to monopolize the thread.

I was thinking the Feminism thread is exactly what he wants.

It may not be the Feminism thread we want, but it's the Feminism thread thread we need! All joking aside, that FAQ Hypatia put together is really, really good, a perfect place to start.

Since you quoted me, agentwred, I'll explain a little more what I meant by

Demyx wrote:

I honestly don't understand why any guy would want to be in here. I'd leave the whole discussion behind if I felt like I could.

What I mean is that I would rather just be playing games and going about my life, not discussing poor representation and treatment of women. I don't want the responsibility of teaching men about what women's lives are like thrust upon me. I'm not a representative of all women. I'm one woman who basically fails to conform to gender roles on most counts, who only has my own experience to talk about.

Men have far more choice over where and when they engage with women's experiences. Women don't; even if I decide that I really don't give a flying crap about women's issues, it's still going to pop up in my life in all kinds of unwanted ways.

In fact, this is basically what happened. In college especially I styled myself as "one of the guys" and laughed about how women who were concerned about sexism were "living in the past", "oversensitive", "need to learn to take a joke", "drama queens" etc. It didn't matter; it didn't offer protection against sexism; it comes for us all regardless.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
bekkilyn wrote:
Mermaidpirate wrote:

Tip: swap out 'females' for 'women'

What's wrong with using "female"?

There's nothing wrong with using "female", although personally I avoid using it as a noun. Because that's primarily done with animals ("the female cautiously approaches the water hole"), I find it dehumanizing when used to refer to people. So I'm fine with things like "the world needs more female doctors" but feel weird about things like "doctoral programs need more females".

Also, to be perfectly honest, guys using "female" or "females" instead of "woman" or "women" is one of my reliable red flags. I'm not sure why there's a correlation there, but it's one I've seen pretty frequently.

Yeah, this. Dehumanising and the word used when talking about animal behavioural science.

Mermaidpirate wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:
bekkilyn wrote:
Mermaidpirate wrote:

Tip: swap out 'females' for 'women'

What's wrong with using "female"?

There's nothing wrong with using "female", although personally I avoid using it as a noun. Because that's primarily done with animals ("the female cautiously approaches the water hole"), I find it dehumanizing when used to refer to people. So I'm fine with things like "the world needs more female doctors" but feel weird about things like "doctoral programs need more females".

Also, to be perfectly honest, guys using "female" or "females" instead of "woman" or "women" is one of my reliable red flags. I'm not sure why there's a correlation there, but it's one I've seen pretty frequently.

Yeah, this. Dehumanising and the word used when talking about animal behavioural science.

+1. I picture a Ferengi saying it.

Mermaidpirate wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:
bekkilyn wrote:
Mermaidpirate wrote:

Tip: swap out 'females' for 'women'

What's wrong with using "female"?

There's nothing wrong with using "female", although personally I avoid using it as a noun. Because that's primarily done with animals ("the female cautiously approaches the water hole"), I find it dehumanizing when used to refer to people. So I'm fine with things like "the world needs more female doctors" but feel weird about things like "doctoral programs need more females".

Also, to be perfectly honest, guys using "female" or "females" instead of "woman" or "women" is one of my reliable red flags. I'm not sure why there's a correlation there, but it's one I've seen pretty frequently.

Yeah, this. Dehumanising and the word used when talking about animal behavioural science.

“Female” is an Adjective: You Got Your Grammar in My Feminism!

Article wrote:

We use “female” as a noun all the time. We use it to describe animals, or parts of plants, hell, even computer components have “male” and “female” parts. But what these things all have in common is that they are not human beings. Referring to a female human being as a “female” is reducing women to their most biological component and, in part, erasing their humanity just a little.

Probably no big surprises here for most people
(Warning : some clips and discussion of sexually charged harassment).

I saw this video yesterday and I knew that's what the new unread post in this thread was going to be.

I wanted someone to grab the camera and scream into it, "BLIZZARD! BAN PEOPLE ALREADY! ENFORCE A HARASSMENT POLICY!"

The most heartbreaking thing about that video for me was the tone of resignation in the women's' voices. Every single woman in the video is like "Yep, sounds about right. Happens to me all the time."

What a f*cked culture of hatred in multiplayer games. And every publisher that runs a game like this is culpable because none of them are willing to devote the considerable resources required to end the abuse.