Over the last few days, I’ve seen an article on gender in gaming get passed around quite a bit. You can read it here; and it makes some interesting points. I’d love to see the study done over a wider group of people and see which results continue to be consistent. I’d also be very interested to read the “more comprehensive analysis.” The section that jumped out at me wasn’t about who likes playing which protagonists or who plays what type of games (those are also interesting, for the record). It was specifically this small section:

Burch and Wiseman took their study a step further by asking students if they identified as a “gamer.” While 65 percent of girls said no, and 65 percent of boys said yes, both genders displayed anecdotal evidence of being just as invested, and just as knowledgeable about games.

So, despite both the boys and girls displaying equal investment and knowledge in gaming, the girls were noticeably less likely to call themselves “gamers.”

This is something I’ve long had opinions about, but since they’re all anecdotal I’ve been careful about injecting them into conversations. The short version here is that some of us have got to rethink how we define a “gamer” if we’re using it to deny people their voice or push them out of the community. Continue Reading