Why do women hate each other?
Tuesday, July 28, 2009 by Tim Woolford
Although I tend to see the whole Male vs. Female FPS (first person shooter) argument as a little redundant (I think we're all aware that Men tend to ‘masculanise’ their hobbies, computer games being one of these). I am intrigued by the Female 'power user' tendencies to denounce other players online for lacking what the other might see as sufficient skill (noob), and as the research suggest, be less willing to help others to learn new skills within game-play. I reluctantly place myself in the 'power user' category, although just meeting the threshold of 'several' hours of gaming a week, and it is in my experience that men are far more competitive and less likely to help other players. I am speaking specifically about Counterstrike, where having played religiously as a teenager I found there to be little or no desire for teenage boys to dote on other players, secret tips or tactics. Perhaps it is my own stereotypes relating to gender but I see this research as being in direct contrast to my own personal experience. At the risk of sounding old fashioned or even chauvinistic, isn’t it Women whose instinct lends itself to caring and nurture? And if so, why once a new-media platform is introduced, do these presumed values go out with the bathwater? Perhaps there has been a shift since my days entrenched in the FPS online community (2001-2004), in male and female attitudes not towards games, but other gamers. Are there any Females out there who would agree/disagree and/or guys who have had a similar experience to me?
Tim W
Tim W
I would say that in my experience women have the capacity to be as aggressive and competitive as men and equally, that men can be caring and nurturing. But the degree to which we demonstrate these traits in public is largely socially determined.
It has been a long time since I've played any kind of computer game 'and I confess that I'd probably choose Tetris or Pong over any kind of realistic FPS game. I don't like shooting things and I have a shocking lack of spatial ability and my attempts at playing Halo resulted in me aimlessly wandering about walking into walls and falling into holes.
However, a very long time ago I did really enjoy playing playstation games such as Tekken, a fairly violent game (though probably not by today's standards. Based on this limited experience of gameplay I'd suggest the possibility that our behaviour in the gaming realm is probably dictated more by the values of the game itself that of the players. In a competitive and aggressive environment my natural instinct would be to compete and be aggressive. Or, to put it another way, in an environment where 'masculine' behaviour is the norm I think it would seem quite natural to adopt more 'masculine' modes of behaviour to fit in.