In the beginning there was woman

4-chan, Reddit, and Twitter would have you convinced that women are responsible for ruining gaming. Before us troublesome women came along, unrealistic body types, sexism, and unabashed violence was clearly the norm, right?

This does not even begin to cover the truth. While the vocal minority of gamers may claim that women are new intrusions into their sacred community, we have been here since the beginning. Roberta Williams created the classic hit Mystery House in 1982. Reiko Kodama was the artist and character designer for the acclaimed Phantasy Star series. Since the 70s and 80s, women have written about, designed, drew, marketed, and been involved in all areas of gaming production.

Better seen and not heard

Yet, video games have not reflected the diversity of those who play them. Women make up close to half of all gamers, but awkward stereotypes and harassment continue to proliferate in all aspects of gaming. There remains a clear divide in the gaming community to this day between women who want better representation, those (usually straight, male gamers) who want their games to remain exactly the same without a hint of progress, and those silent gamers who keep their noses down and try to avoid the constant bloodshed that has garnered the title of gamer an increasingly bad rap. At least, those self-identified gamers who most staunchly defend the title and fight to decide who can lay claim are the ones who earn the most ire.

No better example of the vicious bloodshed that happens when women dare to fight for their place in gaming is the infamous GamerGate. A period of vicious harassment in 2014, GamerGate showcased the very worst that gaming is now associated with. Zoe Quinn, a female designer of untraditional Twine games that some claim are not games at all, was the initial victim forced to flee her home after her ex posted a screed online after their break-up. Gamers took this moment and ran with it.

Many who fought on behalf of "gamers" would claim that GamerGate was merely a protest against unfair journalism. However, you only need to look at the aftereffects in the lives of the women targeted to see how false this was. Other women such as Brianna Wu had to hand over multiple death threats to the FBI in the wake of GamerGate's onslaught. Her crime? Daring to write about the struggles of sexism in gaming.

If the true enemy was unfair gaming journalism, then why was Anita Sarkeesian also victimized during this time? Anita decided to take her academic feminism and transmit it to a larger audience by starting a Kickstarter to fund her new venture, Feminist Frequency. Creating video discussing tropes surrounding women and queer individuals in video games, her work brought a decidedly more nuanced conversation to the table. If the problem was unfair journalism, then surely a well-researched video series criticing gaming would be perfectly fine?

Yet, death, and other, threats abounded. They were so prevalent, Sarkeesian even became comfortable sharing her expertise for remaining safe with Quinn and others dealing with onslaughts of hate. The truth was clear. The problem was not the quality of gaming journalism. It was the fact that women, at least vocal women, were involved with the gaming community at all.

Hot or not

The anger towards women who break the traditional mold in gaming continues to this day. Perhaps this is the most prevalent part of GamerGate's legacy. One recent example was The Last of Us Two's reception from certain "gamers." The long waited for sequel to a well-loved game, the introduction of one particular character drew attention. The wrong kind of attention.

A buff woman who is the exact opposite of the stereotypical female character that has been criticized time and again, Abby was a new addition to the franchise. And she caused a rage unlike any other. Instead of merely decrying her killing one beloved character from the original, Joel, while simultaneously forcing the other, Ellie, to share the spotlight, and game time, the criticism took a vicious turn.

Manly. Unrealistic. Transgender. Transphobia and sexism combined into a toxic smoothie that caused a wave of hate towards the developers of the game. Straight out of the GamerGate handbook, death threats and racist parodies were the least of their worries. Not only attacking the unrealism of Abby's muscles, a humorous complaint compared to the fair criticism lodged at Lara Croft and other loved female characters for their actually unrealistic bodies, but they also began attacking the voice actor who played Abby as well. Yet again, the "gamer" hate spilled past its "valid" arguments to its true target: the women who earned their ire for one reason or another.

Do you even game girl?

When women are not attacked for their resistance to fitting the expected gamer girl mold, they also face assault on a different front. With the rise of the internet, women who proclaim their love of games have become increasingly visible. Yet, it is common for these same women to receive criticism that they are merely "attention seekers." Oddly enough, some of this criticism comes from other female gamers themselves.

Usually the criticism takes one of two forms, the first is the dismissal of their claim to gamer identity in the first place. As seen with the rise of the TikTok trend where teen girls would sing along to the vocal clip "I'm Already Tracer" from a song criticizing the expectation that women can only play support roles in games, comments cam in droves claiming that the controllers TikTokkers posed with were incorrect, not turned on, or borrowed from boyfriends.

When not smugly pointing out the inconsistencies these rabid true gamers believe to be proof of the false gamer girl, they also turn to old-fashioned sexual harassment as well. E-thots as some call them, these women range from the infamous Belle Delphine who made waves for selling her "Gamer Girl Bathwater" to Twitch streamers such as Valkyrae. Women have begun to gain more attention in the world of online game streaming or other showcases of their gamer affiliation. Yet, even those who gain sizeable audiences are sexually harassed and degraded as mere "cam girls."

A gamer girl and proud

So what can women do to be accepted as gamers? When we speak up, we are harassed. When we try to have fun and claim our identity as gamers, we are shunned. And those of us who are lucky enough to make a living gaming are harassed, bullied, and sexualized. Yet, designers such as Brianna Wu, critics like Anita Sarkeesian, and streamers such as Pokimane continue to prosper on. The hate may live on, but women in gaming are not going anywhere. We have been here from the beginning and we will continue to be here. It's up to the industry to recognize the growing force that female gamers make in the larger market and stop catering to the more extremist segments accordingly. Developers like Naughty Dog have already done this work despite the hate, but it must continue. In the end, the hate will never disappear, only get smaller. Yet, us women? We only become louder and more vocal. For we are gamers too and proud. In order to recognize this, here is what needs to be done:

1. Platforms need to take harassment seriously and give harassers harsher punishments.

In many of the cases above, harassment was incredibly easy to start and difficult to completely stop. In order to make it safer for women to game, social media sites need to promptly block and ban those accounts, or even IP addresses for those with spoof accounts, that have a history of saying vile and demeaning comments. When it comes to playing online, technology that can monitor voice communications should be a priority so no woman should feel afraid to speak up during a game again.

2. Women's achievements in gaming should be made more prominently clear.

Too many are unaware of the number of women who have been, and continue to be, foundational to the creation of gaming's legacy. Beyond recognizing the growing female streamers and esports players who have started to change the tide, a bigger spotlight should be placed on those women who make games, were a part of gaming history, draw games, voice act, etc. Whether this means a new awards ceremony, a special legacy award, a recognition article, or just trying to hire more women in gaming in the future. All of these would be a step to showing the community that women have a place in the field.

3. The industry itself needs to decide what it wants to be known for in mainstream media.

Following up with the last point, gaming itself has an identity crisis to figure out. By continuing to be silent or cater to those vocal gamers who have been responsible for so much drama and angst to the rest of the community, those large studios, journalists, and figure heads need to step up. Instead of languishing in silence while allowing the "true gamers" to speak for the rest, game studios need to embrace more women creators and playtesters, reach out to their female fans, and put out statements that such harassing behavior is not allowed on their platforms. And when someone inevitably breaks that rule? Then, the game makers need to appropriately stick to their statement and ban them. Silence is complicence at this point. By never saying anything, then the industry is giving a non-verbal sign of agreement. Things will not change until those at the top and most visible positions in the industry resoundingly say: "Our designers are women. Our fans are women. Our content creators are women. Gamers are women."