The Misogynistic Gamer Girl
‘Slut shaming. We’ve
all heard it, it’s a hot
topic at the moment’
The way it is manifesting itself is often through
the publishing of photographs. Whether the
photograph be of a woman who appears to be
playing a game, or of a comparison of two different
women normally provoke different responses; I
will address them both.
Moving onto the second-part of photograph issues,
we go from the socially shunned inappropriate
photographs to comparison photographs, which
categorically state what is acceptable and what
a female gamer should look like. Regularly these
come with actual bullet points on not just physical
attributes but how a gamer girl behaves not only
in the virtual world of games, but outside of that
as well; women falling outside of this category are
not real gamers, they suggest.
So we can see how this discrimination is taking
Firstly we have the self-portrait. Often seen on place, but why is it happening? Why is it that women
a community or group who have formed due to are feeling the need to call out and demean their
shared love of gaming, the faces behind the voices peers, to shame and slander people who love what
are posted up so others can see what they look like. they love?
Unfortunately, many photos come under vicious
scrutiny due to the content inside
them. Criticism can occur for many
reasons, from things like having a
full face of make-up, to wearing a
low-cut top, from the expression
on the person’s face, to the angle
at which the shot is taken.
Reactions to these fluctuations
also range, from the purely
complimentary, to the more
worrying aforementioned slut
shaming. If the pic is not seen as
appropriate, she is deemed a slut,
a fake gamer, an attention seeker,
pathetic, embarrassing, deserving
of the verbal abuse, bringing it
on herself even. Ironically, with a
hobby in which you are very rarely
visible to others, on social media it
appears to dictate whether or not
you are allowed to call yourself a
gamer.
Issue 51 • January 2014
13 • GameOn Magazine