A great deal of attention lately has been placed on female Magic: The Gathering players, or more specifically, the lack of equality in both representation and treatment. While the issue is nothing new, recent spectacles like Alyssa Bereznak’s infamous piece and Geordie Tait’s subsequent knight-in-shining armor response have put the spotlight on this subject that comes up time and time again.
Here’s my take on the issue, for how much mana it’s worth – When male gamers start treating each other right, they’ll start treating women correctly at the game table too. Mr. Tait’s well-intentioned observations that place women on a pedestal are actually counterintuitive to accomplishing an environment where everyone will feel comfortable playing.
The core issue can be seen across a wide variety of gaming fields, certainly not limited to Magic: The Gathering – Male gamers are often forged in competitive environments that quickly teach demeaning attitudes toward others and an incredibly disturbing vocabulary that would be considered hate speech anywhere in public but is the “norm” over voice communication and text chat within gaming environments.
If you’ve ever played any game online, you know exactly what I’m speaking of, an attitude of superiority, “pwnage”, dominance, and alpha-male smack talk. You’re likely to hear racial slurs, sexuality slams, and everything else under the sun all thrown about with the casual candor of ordering a pizza, and that’s before anyone even gets confrontational!
The male-dominated gaming atmosphere is closer to prison gang initiation than a school of mages looking to best each other in a duel of minds, and if you’re looking to change the way that women are treated in the gaming space this is crucial – the difference has to start with how male gamers treat male gamers.
It definitely doesn’t help that a there are a good number of high-profile eSports players that actually exemplify and embrace this stereotype. Or that if you try to go into the game space and try to set a good example, you’re likely going to be the target for everyone there and completely dismissed.
Next time you go on a killing spree in your favorite FPS, take the “F***** pwned noob ***” down a few notches. Maybe refrain from throwing out a make me a sandwich joke that you seem downright possessed to do when a female does join the server. Try very, very hard to remember you’re playing a game and things like “Kill yourself and uninstall the game bad kid” are really not helping your hobby grow.
Magic: The Gathering is a great game and can be enjoyed by people of any combination of chromosomes, colors, and lifestyle choices. Edit: The example given here was removed not due to inaccuracy, but because I felt it detracted from the point of the article - Dan
The possibility for change is there – and it starts by simply treating fellow gamers like human beings.
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