Poll Results: Harder Being a Guy or Girl Gamer
By maryvarn on May 20th, 2010Posted In: NPC Blog,Polls
Clocking in at 1028 votes and 83 comments (at the time of this writing), this poll was by far the most controversial one I’ve run. Obviously the answer is based on your own subjective experiences and is different for everyone. In short, there is no right answer.
Here’s what we can extrapolate from the poll results:
1) Most of the voters think it’s harder being a guy gamer, and many commenters cited the negative stereotypes of being holed up in the parents’ basement.
2) Most of the voters are guys. (Well they identified as such anyway, and I’m gonna take their word for it.)
3) Most people voted for their own gender as being the harder of the two. Some commenters cited in-game excessive flirting and sexist remarks.
I finally voted at the last minute. I went with it’s harder for girls. I kind of hate voting that way, because I don’t think all gamer girls, nor maybe even most of them, have a rough go at it. But personally, I get a little lonely sometimes. The gaming world still tends to feel like a bit of a boy’s club. I don’t blame anyone for that though, and some of that might just be in my head.
But enough of this talk of hardship. Gaming is fun! Honestly, the hardest thing about being a gamer for me lately was that stupid last level of Plants vs. Zombies. And I beat it.
Interesting though:
59% of guys think it’s harder to be a guy gamer
72% of girls think it’s harder to be a girl gamer
While I think it’s absolutely true that people are more likely to identify their own gender/religion/ethnicity/whatever as having it tougher, it’s pretty clear that girls feel disproportionately more that they have it tough than guys do. Given that guys are the vast majority – both in population and perception – this should be fairly unsurprising.
The only reason “most of the voters think it’s harder being a guy gamer” is because guys were the vast majority of respondents, around 74%. If you scale male and female opinions to have equal weight, then the poll would suggest people as a whole think girl gamers have it tougher.
Of all the self-identified guys only 59% think its harder to be a guy gamer.
Of all the self-identified girls, 72% think its harder to be a girl gamer.
I’m not sure what conclusion I should draw from that –
(maybe it’s really harder for girls, or guys are just more emphatic?
– but I found that interesting and wanted to share it.
– Sec
I think that the level of gender hardship also depends on what genre you’re playing. A girl in the FPS community is probably going to catch more flak from the knuckle draggers that tend to congregate there. But at the same time I can’t stand playing an FPS online due to player attitudes so it might not be exclusively a gender thing.
In a more female-dominated genre like MMOs things seem much easier for women. Sure there was some of the usual adolescent male “girls don’t play video games” posturing when World of Warcraft first came out six years ago, but anyone who plays seriously today probably counts a few girls as part of their raiding team. And those girls are usually d-mned good. They also seem to be treated with far more respect in a genre where long term social interaction is part of the formula for long term success.
I think you are right when you make the difference between social-oriented games like MMOs, especially MMORPGs, and the other games.
I am mostly a single player-oriented gamer (principally due to my terrible connection), and when I play online, it’s FPS or RTS. Games that don’t need to interact with whoever is at the other side on the screen in any other way than shooting at him.
This kind of gaming past is strong enough that I am lvl60 in the MMORPG I play and never been in a guild – I’m playing it as if it was a single-player game.
So when we say “gamer”, I think it’s important to think which kind of games. Girls would probably have more difficulties in not social-oriented games if they reveal their gender, but it is also easier given that you can just decide to not interact with other people when they start acting like douchebags.
MMOs are “female-dominated”? That’s news to me. There may (or may not) be a higher percentage of women playing MMOs than playing FPSs, but I don’t think there are any major titles with a playerbase of over 50% women.
Assuming that these numbers are representative of the population, which isn’t really statistically valid, given the sampling error and sample size, other interesting interpretations come to light:
47% of the overall population of gamers feel that guy gamers have it harder.
46% of the overall population of gamers feel that girl gamers have it harder.
(This actually seems to be at odds with your first conclusion, that most voters think it’s harder to be a guy gamer. It seems, especially when you consider the results would have a confidence interval, that the poll shows that the same number of people believe it’s harder for guy and girl gamers)
Thus, we might assume that since there are the same proportion of the population sympathetic to the plight of each gender, that neither side actually has it harder.
Further, looking at the disparity between the gender’s opinions of the difficulty the other has, we can see that no matter who you are, roughly half of guy gamers are on your side, whereas, for a guy gamer, only one out of three girl gamers think you deserve to be cut a little slack.
This means that the most intolerant and isolationist group of gamers appears to be girl gamers, which actually is supported by anecdotal evidence (for the nothing that’s worth) since I think we’d be hard pressed to identify a “no girls allowed” guild or group anywhere (not simply a group with no females, but one that will not accept females), whereas “no boys allowed” groups aren’t nearly as rare.
Given the nature of the complaints the girl gamer has, it would be an interesting to study to see if the isolationist nature of the girl gamer is more the result of or the cause of their difficulties. Of course, this assumes an isolationist nature, so verifying that would be the first study to do.
“This means that the most intolerant and isolationist group of gamers appears to be girl gamers” – supported by anecdotal evidence which *you yourself* note is worthless. For instance, I’ve heard of far *more* guilds with strict “no girls allowed” policies than “no guys allowed” policies. FWIW, try actually getting statistics. I did a google search for ‘guild “no girls allowed”‘ and one for ‘guild “no guys allowed”‘ – no girls won handily, 190000 to 268. Three. Orders. Of. Magnitude. (Granted, that’s not necessarily directly proportional to actual guilds with those policies, but I imagine there’s a relation.) And even if there were more girls-only guilds (totally possible, though I have no evidence for that), it would be for the same reason you see minorities in *any* population form support groups. Guys don’t *need* guys-only guilds, the same way the world doesn’t need a straight pride parade – every fracking day is straight pride day, and we don’t need a white history month – that’s every month. So what, because I’m a straight white male, I’m supposed to cry about how intolerant and isolationist people who want any kind of recognition in society are? I suppose I could do that, but then I would be *a frigging moron*.
I have never, ever, ever, EVER, seen any guy get harassed for being a guy in WoW. I *have* seen female players get “omg ur a girl? show us ur t-ts” or something to that effect more times than I care to count.
God, really? You see that girls say “hey, it’s hard being a girl gamer” more than guys say it’s hard to be a guy gamer, and the conclusion that you draw is that girls are intolerant and isolationist? Is your head even turned on? Have you considered perhaps the alternate hypothesis that it may actually be harder to be a girl gamer than a guy gamer? Because that would also be consistent with the data and not completely, insultingly wrong in a blame-the-victim kind of way.
*goes to murder some mobs to let off some steam*
(Note: I think girl gamers actually have it mostly okay these days, and certainly compared to other forms of gender discrimination – or discrimination overall – it ranks low on my list of wrongs in the world in desperate need of righting. But to claim that because girl gamers think they’re worse off than guys they must be… *intolerant* just blows my freaking mind.)
(And I’m sorry if this is too bile-licious. I just… arggh. GAAARHGH! HULK SMASH! Someone on the internet is WRONG!)
I’m not married to the idea. That’s why I suggested further study.
And of course I admit anecdotal evidence is pretty worthless. It’s anecdotal evidence. I was just relating what my personal experience has been. Hell, the note about anecdotal evidence was specifically so that everyone knew that’s what I was doing, not trying to hold it up as some sort of gospel.
Although, my google searches come out significantly different than yours.
Wow Guild “guys only” gets me 5000 hits
Wow Guild “girls only” nets me 15000
P.S. This is my favorite XKCD of all time (http://xkcd.com/386/), so I feel you on “I’m way too angry on this misc guy being stupid” I do it too, so be all the angry you want. I like the points you make, and barely noticed the angry tortilla wrap.
As a woman who plays WoW, I know that there are players out there with terrible attitudes about women, because I and some of my female guildmates have run into them. The crap they pull runs the gamut, from ostensibly “nice” things like giving us presents or insisting on “helping” us with leveling, to ignoring our strategies in raids while listening to the same thing from a guy, to outright bashing us for being women. My friends and I are lucky; we have a guild that won’t put up with anyone being a jerk to anyone else for any reason. But I’ve seen enough stuff happen that I know an all-female guild is providing the same kind of safe space as an LGBT guild provides for that community: it’s a place to be safe from some very real issues that exist in the gaming world at large.
This is certainly not to say that all guys who game are terrible. I know a bunch of great guys in WoW. That the good guys exist does not, sadly, cancel out the vicious minority who can make gaming life stop being fun for a girl.
I like what you’re saying here. While I may see “50% support each gender” and extrapolate that to “everyone has equal support”, you bring up good points that not only is anti-female sentiment more intrusive, but more targeted, which means even if it’s the same volume (which still isn’t proven) that it could well be more offensive and hurtful. The fact that you illustrate of guys “helping” who probably view themselves as pro-girl in this debate, also displays another layer of why I shouldn’t assume that “I think girls have it harder” doesn’t equal “I’m not a douche to girls”
I am convinced. My original primes was poorly thought out. Good points all around.
I think the poll should have been split into two questions.
1 – Who has it harder in a gaming context (girls win, cause they have more to “prove”)
2 – Who has it harder in a social context (guys win, because the social stigma is so much worse)
Clearly, the women are more self-centered
I think it is a very good point about dividing it into two aspects – the in-game context and the social context. I don’t agree though that guys have it harder socially.
As a girl gamer, I totally identify with the way that the girl feels she can’t ‘come out’ at work about her gaming. There are a number of guys at my work that openly talking about gaming and have games nights together and the non gamers just accept it as ‘that’s what guys do’. A girl doing the same thing is seen as a bit of a freak. Only a couple of people at work know I play WoW and they are fellow WoW players.
When I have previously told people I work with about WoW, I get a condescending attitude from then on along the lines of how addicted I am to it (I’m not) and how I should get out and do other things (I do). So now I am in the closet.
I voted with guys having it harder, and I’m a guy.
I think the word ‘harder’ might be subjective, though. If harder means more difficult fitting into a female social circle, then yes, I can see the other side of things and that girls probably would have a tougher time. If ‘harder’ applies to your ability to find a date with the opposite gender without downplaying gaming like it’s some kind of baggage, then I stand my my original conclusion. I think both difficulties stem from the fact that female gamers are a minority.
That being said, the former problem is solved by picking your social circle differently. The latter means you have to change your dating selection criteria and/or deal with the long term problem of wife/girlfriend aggro. I mitigate wife aggro on a daily basis.
All i have to say is congrats on completing the Plants vs. Zombies!
now you can concentrate on getting the golden trophy 
Solution, everyone! If/when you become a parent, raise your daughters to have some involvement in gaming. Try to influence your nieces as well. In a few generations, we can reduce the number of jerks that discriminate against gamer girls as they will have a much more difficult time getting a date as a larger % of the dating pool will have a hobby they abhor. Thus, those males will have a harder time reproducing which reduces the number of children they can pass their bad attitude onto. We may not reap the benefit, but we will make the world a better place. Also, raise the young gamer boys to use soap. That is another part of the world we must change.
I feel that guys have it harder.
We are looked down upon by most of the opposite sex for playing video games.
Girls are worshiped by most of the opposite sex for playing video games.
Girls may have it harder in-game than guys, but most of life happens outside of video games.