Does "Girl Gamer" Prejudice Exist?

[Suicune's Fire]

This definitely, most certainly exists. The thing is, it's more common in certain areas than others.

For instance, male-dominated series such as CoD and Battlefield, and even GTA, are breeding grounds for sexism and bullying. But, in saying that, it's not only against women. For an example that does target women, my brother was playing Battlefield a week or two ago and was playing with a girl who was dominating (more so than him at one point) and she was getting some hate for it, although I don't think it was much. An example of other bullying is that the same brother of mine plays GTA:V online and uses his headset microphone to put on voices as a social experiment to see how people react (and possibly to mask himself so he doesn't feel like he's being personally attacked). He made a new profile and chose an African American avatar, then put on a deeper voice when he talked and he had many negative comments thrown at him about being an "n" word. Sadly, the player demographic seems to remain consistent through CoD and GTA online, simply because of how accessible it is to every age group. (The age rating would imply that it is not MEANT to be, but realistically, that's how it's designed.) And from personal experience, it's the "12 year olds" who seem to be the least educated on matters of social decency and basic manners.

As a female studying games design at the moment, yeah, I can definitely say that there's a huge stigma on "girl gamer." In fact, the whole Zoe Quinn mess is partly a product of this, although that's probably more to do with the development side of games, rather than the consumer side, and other factors which perhaps inflated the situation. But even then, personally, I think a lot of the reason she was attacked so heavily was due to gender. Another major media spotlight figure I can think of is Anita Sarkeesian, who received serious death threats for challenging the unfair treatment that female characters have in many games, compared with their male counterparts. Yes, she got some facts wrong, but all she's trying to do is raise awareness and point out what other people are too afraid to, and given that I agree with some of what she says anyway (the things she actually researches), I certainly don't think she deserves the sort of backlash she's getting. And you know what? It's males who are attacking her. (I'm sure there are angry females too.)

So, yes, there's definite sexism is the games industry, both from a consumer side and a developer side. It's a real shame, too. I mean, I don't see it personally often, if at all, but I certainly know it exists.