Today I have the pleasure to present you a guest editorial by Battle Angel, a female TFC player who is very committed to the problems of women playing such a male-dominated game like TFC (and I assume the situation is not any different in other first-person-shooters) and also a member of Babes in Boyland, a guide composed by female gamers. This is a good but also sad read of what women have to endure while playing a game where the sex of the player should be completely unimportant ...
So you want to know what it is like for a female playing Team Fortress Classic. Well I asked some of my fellow female friends from the Bombshells, female guilds and girls that play in co-ed clans and boy were they all but to happy to respond to this one. I guess it is like any other sport a girl would play. It’s degrading, self-challenging and not to mention, just plain fun.
Lets talk about the degrading part and get the fun stuff out of the
way. The most common response I got from the girls was " I would of
quit along time ago if it wasn’t for…" Let’s face it, more than all to
often female players have been called, bitches, dykes, lesbos, stupid
and ugly. I don’t know how they could figure out we were ugly, I mean
how did they know that I didn’t wash my hair and put on my war paint
before sitting down to play a good game of TFC but ok . And the sexual
taunts, comments like "come here little girl let me show you my rocket
launcher" or ones that aren’t so bad like " hey baby you can come over
here and heal me anytime". It takes all I’ve got not to say "You can
take that rocket launcher and shove it up your…" well you guys can
finish the rest but you get my point. Which brings us to the
self-challenging topic.When we don’t respond to those nasty
comments it can be quite a challenge on our part. I mean how long do we
take the name calling and blatant degrading remarks? I would like to
that think that the girls have acquired the great art of holding their
tongues. If we responded to them with nasty comments wouldn’t we just
be putting ourselves in those nasty little dwellings that they crawled
out of. You can’t be a wuss and play this game, you have to be a thick
skinned. And what better way to get revenge when someone is making fun
of that cute little name that took you hours to pick out then by
shoving a rocket where their sun doesn’t shine. And man isn’t that
revenge sweet.But the main reason we play is, well, it is just
so much fun when you get to open a can of whoop ass on someone. I mean
who can resist putting your little red dot between someone’s eyes and
blow their brains out left and right. Or taking out a sentry gun with
your rocket launcher. And the high your get when you finally learn to
conch as a medic, no pun intended. I bet those are all reasons why the
guys play this game as well.I also would of given up on this
game if I had not found a wonderful bunch of girls to play with. But it
also wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t mention the tons of support I have
been given by many many male players, and you guys know who you are
**wink wink**. So watch out guys we are aren’t going anywhere, and we
are coming to a server near you with our med packs, EMPS, rocket
launchers and grenades in hand!
I’m sure Battle Angel would be interested in feedback from other female players as well as mature responses from male gamers. But feel free to write me as well. Maybe this can help to create a bit more awareness on a problem which I haven’t seen discussed to any satisfying degree yet.
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