"Gamer Girl": Thoughts on This Label?

[Scott Wilhelm]

Terquem wrote:

um, nope, just, um, nope

I think the correct term is

Gamer

I've been gaming since I was nine or ten, and I am fifty three years old on this October 11th.

No one ever called me a "gamer boy"

However, my Samoan relatives used to call me Davy Boy, when I was young

Nobody has ever called me a "gamer boy," but some people have called me a "gamer geek."

While I have heard reliably reported first-hand many gamer girls experience lots of mistreatment and verbal abuse, it occurs to me that the very name "gamer geek" is a good bit more pejorative than gamer girl.

I'm probably reading too much into it. People call me a "gamer geek" and not "gamer boy" because of alliteration, not because they are trying extra hard to be pejorative.

But still, why not "gamer guy?"

I have decided for myself that I call myself "gamer geek." The enemy's flag means something different when you take possession of it.

[Alexander Augunas]

I've never used the term gamer girl, personally. It seems extraneous.

That being said, the word "gamer" itself is very weird. Its a 90s term that primarily correlates to people who play video games, and since 90s video gaming was basically marketed as a boys club activity there's also the assumption that only males can be "gamers." Ergo, anything that isn't a "video game" usually gets a context adjective and anyone that isn't male usually gets a gender adjective.

Personally, I try to never use gender adjectives in conjunction with "gamer," and I try to use context adjective with "gamer" to specify whatever games I'm talking about. (Unless I'm talking about *all* games in general.)

Examples:
— Video Gamer
— Tabletop Gamer
— PC Gamer
— Board Gamer
— Card Gamer
— But never "gamer boy" or gamer girl or gamer man or gamer woman." Basically, when you say "Gamer Girl" you're describing the activity rather than the person performing the activity. In my opinion, its better to say, "male video gamer," or "female card gamer," because at least then you are using two separate adjectives to describe the individual instead of one adjective to describe the individual + some sort of freaky adjective-modifying-adjective.

[Aranna]

I have been thinking about why "gamer girl" doesn't bother me or other women while at the same time really bothering a different group of women. Can two completely different meanings be applied to the same label? I think yes. "gamer girl" sets us apart from the general gaming population by our gender. So yes it is "othering". So why doesn't it bother some? I think there are two different sorts of uses here for the same label. On one hand you have some gamers using it to exclude women, clearly treating us as lesser players. I think this is what some have encountered and why they hate the label. Others (myself included) have had the label applied to show that we are different in a desirable way. That we bring a fresh new perspective to the game and are seen as equally skilled in play. When a boy calls me "gamer girl" he usually wants to play with me rather than exclude me. So it doesn't bother me at all.

[WormysQueue]

Orfamay Quest wrote:

Yeah, I've never seen anyone throw the word "poser" (or even better, "poseur," as though pseudo-French makes it that much better) around in any other context than games.

Well, we used it all the time when Hair metal still was a thing. Those posers really thought that what they did had anything to do with metal when it was actually bad pop music. (I guess it has to do with the fact that, as long as you aren't Iron Maiden or Black Sabbath, you're simply not allowed to be commercially successful and still be considered as Metal)

[Kobold Catgirl]

Sundakan wrote:

What kind of liquor store has a door with a doorknob? It's not smart business to provide a significant obstacle to overcome just to get in and out. Push/pull signs are already pushing it.

"WE'RE TRAPPED!"

[Terquem]

I have always thought that "gamer-girl" sort of carried an unspoken sort of slightly insulting desirability

[Orfamay Quest]

Aranna wrote:

I have been thinking about why "gamer girl" doesn't bother me or other women while at the same time really bothering a different group of women. Can two completely different meanings be applied to the same label?

Of course they can. It's language.

Quote:

"gamer girl" sets us apart from the general gaming population by our gender. So yes it is "othering". So why doesn't it bother some? I think there are two different sorts of uses here for the same label. On one hand you have some gamers using it to exclude women, clearly treating us as lesser players. I think this is what some have encountered and why they hate the label. Others (myself included) have had the label applied to show that we are different in a desirable way.

And there's a third, neutral, meaning, which is simply that a "typical" gamer is male, and therefore the atypical variant is the one that gets the modifier. (The linguistic term for this is "markedness.")

For example, in the US there is "turkey bacon," but not "pork bacon." Pork bacon is simply "bacon." There is also "decaffeinated coffee," but not "caffeinated coffee" or even "coffee with caffeine." Similarly, when you go into a restaurant and order "coffee," it comes in a cup and hot, rather than in a glass with ice. If you want it that way, you order the marked form, "iced coffee" (or sometimes "ice coffee"). If you just order "pizza" you get red pizza (with tomato sauce), not "green pizza" (with pesto) or "white pizza," (with no sauce). Heck, this even makes it into product names -- we have "Coke" and "Diet Coke" and "Coke Zero."

Note that "typical" doesn't necessarily mean the numerical majority, but merely the representation of what's in most speakers' heads as a prototype.

Where the negativity and/or positivity comes in is in the need to mark. I understand why my sweetie tells me to get "turkey bacon" at the store, because otherwise I might come home with the wrong sort. (I don't need to be told to pick up "pork bacon" because "bacon" means pork unless specified otherwise.) So someone is labelled as a "gamer girl" either because she's the wrong sort (and the speaker wants to make that clear), or because she's the right sort (and the speaker wants to make that clear)....

[Chris Lambertz]

Removed a series of posts and their responses. The intent of this thread, as repeated by the original poster, is to query what women for their opinions of the term "gamer girl" and get their thoughts about its usage. We need participants in this thread to be cognizant that the feedback requested comes from a specific perspective (that of women who game), and that dismissive/passive-aggressive commentary (including references to Gamergate or negative commentary about other online communities) in reference to the information they put forward can serve to "other" and belittle their contributions. That sort of behavior is divisive or undermines our goal to create an inclusive and friendly space.

This also isn't an appropriate thread to discuss the validity of "exclusive" groups and their purpose. This line of conversation detracts from the original intent of the thread, and can be seen as dismissive of the contributions put forward here. If you really want to continue that line of discussion, it's best had in another thread.

[Quark Blast]

Chris, I think this applies to the OP.

Certainly I don't consider myself a Gamer Girl but whenever I hear the term I think of this girl here:

Dodger - "Gamer Girl"

And since she is a girl, I posted the link to let her speak for herself.

[Kobold Catgirl]

I think sharing what you've heard women say is fine. After all, that's what I did in my own original post.

[BearsDragon]

As a woman who plays rpgs I've seen the term gamer girl evolve into a put down and it's not a term I've thought of myself as. If I think of myself as anything its gamer, GM, word-nerd, story-nerd or writer. Also an interesting side note, I've mostly played in groups that were more gender balanced than many. I've only ever played with one group where I was the only person at the table who didn't have a Y chromosome. Gender balance makes for a heck of a better rp in my experience.