Anyway before I begin I'd like to say! I WON FIRST PLACE RAFFLE, I don't know how and I have never won a single thing ever like ever! Not even a cookie! I'm so happy I gave the prizes to my girlfriend ^^"


Starting, I believe a lot of good topics were brought up in this xfire debate on women and gaming. There were many nice people that always brought a nice perspective to the debate.

However the biggest topics that came up were gender and how males portray women gamers. I'll just review my thoughts and things that I did not think of during that time.

Helen Kennedy Okay as a way of kicking things off... what are the specific challenges you have faced as a player of games and as a professional?

• Celeste Men are a huge problem and can actually infringe on my gaming. Its almost as if I have to hide my gender in order for them to stop sexually harassing me.
  
  Also I find that you get called male if you refuse to validate your gender to them, via webcam, mic, e-pic... w/e
  
  As a professional moderator I still feel that it is a bit TOO easy to gain some positions on forums, games, life. I believe this is reflective of my gender. While I feel I am more than capable to take on any moderation task. I do not want it simply because I am female.

Helen Kennedy Do you think that most women are taken seriously as players? and if not why not? is this true of women who play games competitively?

• Celeste Unfortunately I missed this question, else I would of responded like this.
  
  It is difficult to be taken seriously when the opposite gender tends to treat you with a handicap, free items, special treatment or treats friendship as just short step to a relationship. When you clearly aren't interested is when they begin acting like jerks.
  
  However when you are taken seriously and you are clearly one of the top players, and your identity is not 100% certain... Then they tend to call you a guy! Ironic I find it considering most of these same males would sexually harass me...

Helen Kennedy Apocalyptica & others.. what are the elements of 'culture' are particularly problematic?

• Celeste Well clearly the media would be a huge disadvantage for women right now in games. Considering the fact, that we are viewed as sex icons. Not only sex icons but also innocent and not very intelligent. We are viewed more as puppets or trophy's and this has a great impact on the opposite gender's views.
  
  Being that I am lesbian that actually doubles the impact of male sexual harassment. Since lesbians are considered even more so 'sex icons' in the media... That is why there are MANY pseudo lesbians in the music, game, and video industry's.

Helen Kennedy What differences are there in the treatment and representation of women between an 'offline' community and culture and that which exists online?

• Celeste I'd believe many of the same things exist online from offline... However I believe only many people's true colors are shown online. When I play a game I'm not nearly as sexually harassed as I would be in real life but still every once in awhile I'd get those same male comments in real life as well.
  
  I feel that SOME women actually abuse their femininity to gain power, free items, jobs, break rules and take advantage of other players/people. But some and probably most of these online women are actually male... posing as female.

Helen Kennedy Why do you like pink games systems - is that different to the whole pink games nonsense that emerged after the success of Barbie Fashion Designer?

• Celeste Lets see, I like pink because I find it a very pleasing color. It happens to be my most favorite color. I have seen many different colored gaming consoles, so I doubt it really has anything to do with gender bias.

Helen Kennedy Why do you think the marketing and advertising is so resistant to what seems to all of you (and me) like fairly common sense ideas. Make good games targeted at anyone/everyone?

• Celeste Not quite sure how to respond to this, kind of two questions in one. However I believe these common sense ideas are rejected because many marketers and company's like to stick with what 'works' rather than taking risks. Even if not that, they could just be close minded all together. Either or... no change is a bad thing.

Helen Kennedy Mm.. do you think that market surveys of girls and young women are really likely to produce 'out of character' responses?

• Celeste More than likely, I believe the majority of girls are pretty open about themselves or will become open about themselves in the future. So Surveys may be a good thing to administer for girls.

Helen Kennedy Athena twin, this is an interesting issue about how aspirations are somehow already built in to the toys and games girls are given to play with and choose from. How do you think we could go about addressing this? Who should we hold accountable?

• Celeste I'm not sure if this is something that can be addressed. Many girls do enjoy fashion and dolls and things like that. Everyone has their own preferences. While I think any girl can choose her toy now, it is true that those girls may want to stick with their 'gender specific' televised toy.

Helen Kennedy Is the fact that this kind of experience seems rare and clearly shocking a sign that things are improving? What changes can you identify that seem to be making things better?

• Celeste I guess now that I think of it, we do have a larger variety of characters to choose from as well as can select a difference in gender in games. But these subtle changes I feel are still not enough to really denounce the cliche female gamer.

Helen Kennedy We are already running out of time so some final questions.. If you could effect one single immediate change that would improve contemporary games culture what would it be and why?

• Celeste The ability for same sex rights in games, just as they are developing in real life. I am tired of having basic words like homosexual, lesbian, gay ... filtered simply because they can be used in an offensive manner. Honestly I can use the word tree in an offensive manner but does anyone filter it? Answer is no.
  
  I would also like to see same sex in-game marriages as I am tired of having only one option to choose from as a female game player using a female game sprite.
  
  One more thing would be to find a means of stopping sexual harassment successfully. Too many women just let it happen to them daily and it gives those same males more reason to do it on other girls.

Apocalyptica well what I really want to bring across is that in front of the pc we are all the same. no matter what color, what gender or what sexual prefenrences. We have this unique opportunity to be all the same: Gamers! Why das the marketing still cling on to the old fashioned vlaues of male or female and stuff. Its stupid. by marketing a game to guys you loose females players and vica versa. Marketing peeps have to come into the present and realize that they can just market good games

• Celeste While I understand where Apolcalyptica is going with this I'd have to disagree on a couple points.
  
  First I believe that gender is important when being on the internet considering that many times that will come into play... Whether someone calls you a he or a she is relatively important. Personally I would not like to be called a he when I know I am nothing of the sort.
  
  In a male dominant industry ( or so they say ) Treating everyone as the 'same' would really infringe on everyone's individual merit and identity. Sexual orientation is a great example of individual merit.
  
  Why is sexual orientation important? If you are not clear on it, you are often called the wrong gender. "Me: I am talking to my girlfriend on the phone" "Guy: WHAT? YOU R A BOY?" <-- This kind of thing is very common for me as a lesbian.

In ending, I find that many people said valid points that I did not cover in here sorry if I missed them. There is just to much to cover for me to write in one day. Thank you xfire and xfire guests for helping us all participate in a wonderful debate. I hope something can be accomplished from it all.

PS: Keeping track of the conversation was a difficult one... I'd say because it was scrolling so fast... and there was two separate areas to keep an eye on. I personally am not the fastest reader in the world blah, lol.