Division Never Brings Equality – Why Some Female Gamers are Holding Themselves Back

The rant that started the Equal Gaming blog.

Being in MMOs I never really researched a guild or linkshell very well before I joined them. In FFXI I stuck with a group of 5 friends (all males) and I followed them from linkshell to linkshell. In WoW I stuck with a group of 3 RL friends (all males) and followed them from guild to guild. I decided to venture on my own and find a clan for Xbox360 for the first person shooter Call of Duty 4.

I never actively looked for other female gamers. Unfortunately I completely regret doing so. I randomly threw in “female COD4 clan Xbox360″ into google and checked out the first few links. One of them ended up being PMS (A well known female only clan). However after looking around the site and googling for more info on PMS I found that it wasn’t for me. During my research I found another clan. It stated it was co-ed and that it wanted to stay that way after being part of PMS.

I thought perfect. After being in the clan I started to notice a few things. For instance we (females) weren’t allowed to create teams with male members. And the only teams allowed to compete were female only teams. I thought Why on earth would you have a ‘co-ed’ clan but continue to divide them. The reason given as to why teams could not be co-ed was: “We want to be known as a female clan and if we have co-ed teams then everyone will say that the only reason we do well is because of the male players.”

I wanted to be on a team I worked well with. I wanted a team with players I knew I could trust. Who cares if two of the ones I wanted were male? Apparently they did. Apparently winning took a backseat to “Girl Power!” Thank you for setting “us” back even further. Annoyed but not completely turned off I continued my way with the clan.

Having never played Halo I grew curious and began browsing the Halo specific part of the forums. Deciding I could bend my anti-halo ways I checked the rules for practices. I was met with this sticky:

Just a reminder concerning combined practices.

When playing a CUSTOM team game the guys SHOULD NOT be picking up power weapons. If everyone has a power weapon as a secondary weapon or as a primary weapon then the guys, of course, can use them.

When playing team games the girls are chosen first for teams and the guys last. Try to always make sure that there are the same number of guys on each team if possible. Team captains should always be the girls. These are technically the girls practices and the guys are guests.

If you go into matchmaking the guys CAN use the power weapons if they want. We should always work together as teams, backing each other up.

Apparently being born a female I have to have special rules just to survive against a male competitor. I don’t need special rules to beat other gamers. I don’t need you to water down the multiplayer games because I am a female. I can do just fine, thank you.

How do you expect the gaming community to take female gamers seriously when all you do is put them on a pedestal and then whine when they are not treated as equals?

Related Posts

1. Another Female Gamers Rant
2. “No Boys Allowed” ~ No You’re SEXIST!
3. Sucker for Internet Drama
4. Video Games and The Female Audience