Pictured: The only thing that should come up when you google 'MRA'.
Now, I'm not sure exactly when being a misogynistic asshole and being a gamer became linked at a sub-atomic level, but it sure as hell sneaked up on me. It is perhaps the most common misconception regarding the average gamer, and the more you look into it, the more you think about it, the more you start to realise that it may not even be a misconception at all. As a movement, we have failed miserably at welcoming half the population into our midst, and instead of doing something about it, those of us who are not actual assholes are still firmly stuck in "this can't be us, can it?"-mode, when we should be trying our very best to root out the poison that is clearly running through our collective veins. It's that simple: we have failed. We may not all treat women poorly, but we have all, every last one of us, failed at shutting down those that do.
If I were to point to one thing that opened my eyes to the way women are treated in the gaming culture, it wouldn't be Gamersgate. Gamersgate and their reaction to the industry slowly starting to acknowledge the existence of women is too cartoonishly evil, too over the top to really work as an eye opener. It's easy to dismiss it as an aberration, thereby missing that it's (sadly) much more representative than we'd like to admit. No, my eye opener was hearing female friend after female friend talk about how often they chose to pretend to be male, just to avoid constant harassment while online. This felt so weird to me. I had roleplayed female characters, sure, but the idea of having to hide my actual, behind the keyboard gender just to be able to go online blew my mind. And if that opened my eyes, the thing that ripped my eyelids clean off was my brief stint as a female gamer in World of Warcraft. I never fell in love with that game, and at one point of extreme boredom, I decided to create a new character and pretend that the person behind that character was female. To be clear, I didn't try to say "girly" things, flirt with other players or do any of the other things idiots may think that female gamers occupy their online time with. I just made sure to drop hints to my "actual" gender whenever I talked to other players.
Boy. That was a mistake if there ever was one.
Sure, I have encountered rude and obnoxious players as a male. That is in fact an often brought up argument: that everyone are treated badly by other gamers (which is sort of a weird argument when what you're trying to prove is that gamers don't have an attitude problem) and that females are just complaining more about the thing we all encounter on a daily basis (again, how weird is it that as a cultural movement, we're perfectly fine with the idea of everyone treating everyone else like shit at all times?). But let me tell you, you have no idea how much more of that crap women have to deal with until you've tried to level up in a party where even the ones who thinks they're being nice to you asks you for nude pics. That's some shady shit, and no, I have never, ever had the same request sent to me as an openly male gamer. My experiment didn't last long, because quite frankly, I did not have the energy to put up with that level of abuse, but it was more than enough to convince me that when women complain about not being accepted in gaming culture, they have a goddamn point.
But enough examples of how bad it really is. The truth is, any semi-intelligent gamer should be well aware of this by now, because the signs are everywhere. You only need to look at the torrent of hate directed at Anita Sarkeesian's, truth be told, rather mundane videos about gender tropes in games. Instead, let's focus on why it's bad, not just for females, but for every last one of us.
The sum of gaming culture is the face we all choose to present to the world, and do we really want that face to be a snarling cauldron of hate and stupidity? I know I don't. When I see the latest trailer for Dead or Alive, I'm egotistical enough to not primarily be concerned with the way it objectifies women. Instead, more than anything, I'm offended by the implication that all it would take to make me throw money at the screen is a few thousand tit-shaped polygons. And I wish I was a good enough person to primarily be concerned with the way Zoe Quinn's life was more or less ruined by a psychotic ex-boyfriend and millions of shitty excuses for human beings, but sadly, my main concern is "Wait, I have something in common with these shitheads?!"
As gamers, we're selling our selves short if we don't turn this thing around right now. We will have less games pushing new boundaries, less players to game with, less impact on the world around us, less money feeding the industry that feeds us and most importantly, we will not have the respect of our peers. We will be left in the cold, as the world around us keeps turning. And it's not enough for us to idly sit by and go "well at least I don't act that way". We need to completely isolate the offenders, make it abundantly clear that THEY are the ones that should leave, and not the woman who enjoy playing games. We can no longer afford to just ignore the Gamersgate cretins, hoping that our lack of support will eventually make them go away. Instead, we have gotten to a point where we have to call them out and then exclude them from the community. I don't care that exclusion might very well be the thing that led them to becoming the festering boils on humanity's rectum that they now are. They had their chance, they made their choice, and now they need to find something else to do with their free time. This is our hobby, and they are no longer welcome!
Oh, and if, while reading this, you clenched your fist and mumbled "it's about ethics in gaming journalism, dammit" under your breath, then I have this to say to you: No, it's not. It's about you being a useless piece of shit. Now go play in traffic.
Until next time, this is Johnny Panzer, signing out.
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