CZ Minutes: My Sister Plays EVE!
Lillik E
Mynxee: This topic annoys me, perhaps because every time the subject comes up, the same old territory gets revisited. I feel like there is nothing new to be discovered; the topic has been literally beat to death over the years. But the question of the presence of women affecting playstyles is interesting. I’ve certainly heard “Guys, cool it, there’s a lady present.” many a time on comms. That’s me affecting their game, I guess 😛 During the Hellcats era, my playstyle was certainly impacted by women because that was the core identity of our corp and my daily in-game activities were mostly with women.
I have flown with and met (in-game) a lot of women in my time in EVE. Their personalities and proclivities run the gamut: brilliant FCs, super smart strategists, complete wimps, horrible drama llamas, dedicated and talented mentors, vulgar bitches, nurturing comrades, and on and on. The same gamut of personality types and proclivities apply to men, too, though. We’re all just players, at the end of the day. Gender seems somewhat irrelevant to the question of why/how others impact your playstyle or are a humorous distraction, major annoyance, or force to be reckoned with. I don’t care what bits people are rocking in their pants if they’re fun to be around.
That said, I am interested in women EVE players because I am a woman, I like socializing with women, and most of my friends tend to be women. There is a certain camaraderie that exists among groups of women friends (similar to that which exists in any group of guy friends) which I very much enjoy. People viewing gender-exclusive groups (for example, my old corp Hellcats or its reincarnation Hellcats Reloaded) from the outside looking in often label them sexist but the reason such groups occur is far more complicated than that. A big driver is often a desire for a place among peers where certain avenues of discussion can be freely explored which might not be appropriate for nor of interest to co-ed groups. As an example, my old corp Hellcats ended up being an important haven for several women who were dealing with gender identity challenges, sexual and domestic violence, relationship drama, and other issues that were far too personal and mostly too female-centric to be shared outside a trusted circle of women. To label such groups sexist without considering what benefits they might offer members is simply soapbox nonsense. As a final note, I have always been open about the fact that I am a female in RL. To me, it’s just another attribute: brown hair, American, female, training developer, artist, horse rider, dog lover, married person, etc. It has never caused a problem. Guys tend to give the gender attribute more significance than it deserves…for example, that weighty few seconds after I speak on comms to a group of players who doesn’t know me, followed by the inevitable “OMG GIRL ON INTERNET” babble. Always amusing although it doesn’t happen as much as it used to. I think there is a growing acceptance of women EVE players that is due in part to their increased exposure through CSM service, highly visible leadership and FC roles in-game, and presence in EVE-centric social media. The recent prominence of and respect for women in important CCP dev positions also contributes to that acceptance. While these factors help normalize reactions to women EVE players, they don’t mitigate the toxicity and vulgarity commonly seen in the game which is rumored to keep many women away. That’s a whole other discussion but fortunately there are plenty of groups in existence that are a good fit for women who want to play EVE in a non-toxic corp culture. Aside: How the hell did I write a wall of text about a topic that annoys me? Sheesh…it’s all Niden’s fault. Tarek: I was going to point that last thing out but you beat me to it Mynxee 😀 Lillik: This topic has always fascinated me, from the very day that I discovered the majority of “female characters” weren’t female. Yes, it was very naive, but since EVE was my first and only MMO, I really didn’t know better. I also noticed, during my stay in EVE University, that the average female gamer typically stayed off Mumble.
Bagehi: Oh man, this topic puts me in an interesting position. (Hi, Sindel!) My wife is a gamer, so I’ve been confronted with this a lot over the years. When she first started playing Eve, four years ago, she refused to speak on comms. She did not want to be identified by her gender, as she had seen and experienced some unpleasant things over the years because of the stereotype of girl gamers.
I’m going to take things back in time a ways. Call it the mid 80s. My wife was in elementary school and sick as a dog with the flu when her parents gave her a box for Christmas. She was so sick she couldn’t even open the present. In that box was an NES. She crawled up the stairs and plugged it into her TV and from that moment forward, she was an unrepentant gamer. She has completed games listed among the top 10 most difficult video games ever. She has accomplished things in games others thought were impossible. Friends respected her skills as a gamer. The specter of “girl gamer” wasn’t a thing for her.
Bringing the story back to early in her time with Eve, she went through the same learning curve everyone else did. She jumped into camps and lost her frigate, like everyone else. She tried to dual tank, like everyone else. She fit mixed weapons like everyone else. She learned from her experiences and became more than simply a competent player. She quickly became good at fast tackle among the cesspool of null sec alliances I dragged her through early on (a fault I own). In BDEAL she spoke up on comms for one of the first times. People were shocked. The FC started stuttering. I think an element of that shock was the simple fact that none of them had suspected she was a female. She had given no indication of her gender. She had joined in on the bawdy jokes in fleet chat and local. She had performed her task of fast tackle well. She hadn’t talked about her boobs nor asked for anything, in fact she had given other people ships so they could join fleets. She was one of the guys.
There’s the problem. After it became known she was female, she was treated differently. Ribald jokes and links stopped. She was suddenly treated with deference that she had not wanted. She had to spend weeks, thereafter fighting the weirdness to just be treated like a fellow gamer. She was eventually accepted again and people stopped acting weird towards her, for the most part. Still, she would find herself on watchlists, given logistics priority, and FCs made decisions for the fleet based on what was happening to her. While, on the one hand, she welcome immediate reps that took her from suicide tackle to that hero tackle who just won’t die, on the other hand, she didn’t like the attention.
More than one man over the past four years had his stereotype of the helpless female gamer shattered in the face of her long point, guns, or missiles. One of the most epic was probably when she made a DJ eat his words on air by beating him handily in a 1v1.
Still, the strange deference continued for a long time (not the deference of a friend taking care of a friend, but that of a complete stranger treating her differently because of her gender). She’d be in a fleet with people who didn’t know her and say something on comms “I have the drake tackled” and people would fall apart. I’m not exactly sure when it happened, but she eventually became immune to it. She started joking about it. She slowly made a name for herself, by herself, and the attention grew. Now we’re in PL and while there are a few asshats who are so solidly believers of the gamer girl stereotype, most accept her and treat her like one of the guys. I’ve gotta give my fellow alliance mates credit for that.
While that long, drawn-out story outlines the one side of the coin that is female gamers. There is another side which I would likely never have been confronted with if not for my wife. Because of human nature, people do like to congregate with others like them. She has been part of many “female Eve groups” in their various incarnations. From those groups of that camaraderie, she has come into contact with people who fit the stereotype in some ways. Because of her, I had contact with some of them as well. While there are women out there who flaunt their gender in an attempt (successful or otherwise) to get things, there really is very little difference between the ones trying to get a free beer or a free internet spaceship. Beyond that, there are quite a few men who fit that mold as well who do not get called out enough for their behavior, especially in Eve. Scam artists are one and the same, regardless of their hobby, location, or gender.
For a game that highlights scams as emergent gameplay, there certainly is a lot of toxicity when it is a woman pulling off the heist. I’m not a big fan of the bulk of scammers in general, regardless of gender, mostly because too many scams are so mindlessly reused and uncreative. Whether it be a doubling scam or a “teeheehee, I have boobs, can I sit in your titan?” I don’t really see a difference between the two. Step it up and I’m suitably impressed, regardless of your genitalia.
When it comes to Eve, either you play the game or you don’t. Either you play the part of the game I play, or you don’t. Either you are good at what you do or you aren’t. Gender really has no bearing on the matter as far as I’m concerned.
Georgik Sojik: Something, something, something Brianna Wu. An interesting thing about Bagehi’s tales is a common thread that comes up, a lot actually, when talking about the mixing of genders into a male dominated community. Specifically – “She was one of the guys.” That very statement pretty much might explain why there is a 95% male population in EVE. If someone is “guy” enough to join the group, they’re immediately accepted and welcomed in, however, as soon as anything starts to diverge from the frat house mentality, that’s when things start to go awry. Again I’ll refer back to Bagehi’s tale; “After it became known she was female, she was treated differently.” Brianna Wu is quite famous for her attacks, and being attacked, as an outspoken feminist attempting to make space for female, but not “gamer girls” in a mostly male dominated society, that of computer developers. Sure there are those who are more progressive and, like PL, accept things based on merit and work put forth, and less about what someone looks like or what gender they place… but it still seems to always come back to that. Typically female gamers are looked upon as needing additional hoops and hurdles to get to the upper rungs. While some female FCs exist, there are very few of them. While female alliance leaders exist, it would be difficult for me to name one that is in charge of anything major.
This double standard exists in pretty much all forms of Western culture, sadly. In the perfect world everyone could be treated equally, and all groups accepted or allowed to thrive. However, not all gaming styles or sub-cultures in Eve would allow for this. I’m not even sure if that would be a good or bad thing, honestly. On one hand it would be amazing to have a more diverse group of people playing. Sure, there are people from all over the world, but most have the same general interests, it is a space-based economic sandbox, after all. If more diversity would come in, it would naturally dilute the Eve culture that has been created if they were allowed to exist. However, by creating rigorous standards and barrier to entry, the Eve culture can be preserved. Aren’t “one of the guys,” get the fuck out. Don’t like “X,” you’re not welcome here. By maintaining the male-focused community, it necessarily dilutes any impact the female community can make on the Eve community as a whole. There might be a “safe” part, but they’ll always be expected to be “one of the guys” or “the sexpot gamer gurl.” to sate the fraternity mindset.
Tarek: Who the hell came up with those questions? During online interaction I just view women as no different than men. IRL I may have to remind myself to “stay professional” during a conversation with an attractive young student, but online I really couldn’t care less and I never understood the guys who acted any different than that. I mean, for real, do you think you can hook up with a woman halfway across the globe when you treat her in any special way?
On the other hand, I do not really appreciate women who intentionally flaunt their femininity online either. Thank you, I don’t need to be reminded that you’re female and you either do your thing in the game or you don’t, particularly I don’t need to hear about any stupid girly stuff that only serves the purpose to turn the heads of hopeless space-nerds to mush. Women who do that are just as annoying to me as the fratboys and chavs who just can’t stop behaving like something only a slight evolutionary step away from a monkey because they think that’s the way how guys behave online.
Now that’s all just my personal, cynical worldview resulting from studying human social behaviour for too long and coming to the conclusion that in general we all are terrible creatures 😀
On the more sober side, I do understand that the social interaction in EVE can be very off-putting to women. Mind you, it can be very off-putting to men too, but most of us are more used to it because indeed we spent our youths in those boy’s locker rooms or on drunken nights “with the lads”. For us that’s like a dog owner not noticing the smell of their pet or a smoker not noticing the smell of their clothes, or at least being able to ignore it much better. For (heterosexual) women that can be more difficult, especially because – believe it or not – women like to imagine the guy on the other end of the line is hot just like guys do it the other way ‘round. If those guys behave like idiots, the women will soon become annoyed.
With EVE it is actually weird because I do not think EVE players are actively sexist generally speaking. If asked directly, a lot of them will quite likely say that they have no problem with a female gamer or developer. It is the generally immature, aggressive, overly dramatic and unsophisticated behaviour which is often displayed and sometimes even celebrated. It so happens that a critical mass of people have given EVE a version of that which leans very much towards the male, white, western, middle-class demographic. If I were to end up in a game strongly influenced by immature east-asian middle-class housewife girl-children, I would also be out of there pretty fast even if they wouldn’t actively treat me hostile as a white European guy.
Lillik: I came up with those questions.
“For (heterosexual) women that can be more difficult, especially because – believe it or not – women like to imagine the guy on the other end of the line is hot just like guys do it the other way ‘round. If those guys behave like idiots, the women will soon become annoyed.” I’m not sure what orifice you pulled this out of, but it stinks!
Niden: See, the trained response to give to this question is just that: “everyone is equal, I don’t treat either sex differently”. But you do. Do you know why? Because as a man (or woman), you’re built that way. There is however a very important distinction here that must be made: equal is not the same as not different. We are different, and anyone who says otherwise is either ignorant or naïve. We are instinctually programmed to react to the opposite sex differently because of one of our two most base instincts, down to the cellular level: survival and reproduction.
I don’t value women any less, but I do recognise the fact that we are different. A woman often has skills developed from traits that men don’t, and vice versa. The reason for that is that we as genders have evolved to make a working whole (most commonly at least). The difference between this distinction and one based on skin colour (for instance), is that the former is natural and vital and the latter fabricated and fundamentally unnecessary. All human beings are equal in value, but men and women are different. It is also equally erroneous to place more value on the traits of one of the sexes.
All this translates to slightly different interests in life (although often overlapping) and that means we’re generally looking for slightly different things in our gaming as well. 95% men is not a coincidence. The real question is: what is the cause of this number? Have the liberal restrictions on behaviour in EVE allowed the locker-room mentality of men to create an environment that women often view as hostile, or does EVE simply not provide the type of gameplay that women are typically interested in?
All that being said, I make a point of treating women no different than men when I play EVE. Not because I am going against what I just said, but because I don’t want them to feel singled out in any way, just part of the gang like anyone else, enjoying the fun. If they grab tackle for my fleet I’ll give them a pat on the back, just like anyone else. But more importantly, if they fuck up, I’ll tell them they fucked up, just like anyone else.
However, I do actively tone down the “guy humor” at least somewhat when women are around (unless I know them very well). Not because I think women are made of glass and need special treatment because of any kind of inferiority, but because I know a lot of women simply don’t appreciate it. The same as my wife knows very well that I contemplate suicide every time we spend half a day shopping at IKEA or she and her friends sit down and gossip for hours and expect me to be “social”.
Everyone who has known me for any length of time, knows that I’m a strong supporter of women playing EVE (and have actively been prodding both Mynxee and Lillik to write on the subject). However, assuming that everyone is looking for the same things regardless of gender is disqualified by 5% vs 45%. I think this needs to be recognised and acted upon. More women in EVE, please.
Apoth: Niden, aren’t you doing to some small extent exactly what Bagehi said infuriated Sindel? Let’s say, for the sake of argument, it is true that that average tolerance for “guy humour” which we can interpret as “crude humour” is lower across the female gender than it is for men. If you feel the way you interact is fine with guys but less so with women and automatically change how you behave when one enters the room, no matter how minor you are setting separate standards. If you are saying something that is unacceptable for some %age of females and the given assumption holds, it will still be unacceptable for some %age, albeit statistically smaller, of men. Are you censoring yourself for them too? Or do you just assume all men in your social group will either be okay, deal with it, or ask you to tone it down. I’m assuming the latter, and part of attaining gender equality is giving women the same shtick we give men.
Unless you specifically target a given group, the offensiveness of how you act is inherently no more or less offensive to either gender. If it’s a dumb thing to say it’s a dumb thing to say within the social paradigm of your group. I agree with you that women are different to men, biologically and how society treats them, different pressures to different extremes and laws affecting them differently, but I disagree that it affects how we should treat them socially.
Niden: That makes no sense to me. If things are different they react differently to the same stimuli. I didn’t come to this conclusion by myself, I came to it speaking to women and seeing how women react to it. A significant number of them don’t find the more extreme variants of locker-room humor appealing, while the majority of men do. That’s not to say that everyone fits the model, but by majority this is my impression. Any person can of course develop a thicker skin towards a particular aspect of a social interaction they don’t enjoy in order to get to the bits they do enjoy, which I find is often the case.
Apoth: Everyone reacts differently to the same stimuli, regardless of gender, even if minutely. By assuming these majorities you’re effectively setting that double standard feminism is trying to decry. We should be considering what is offensive or not offensive within the social limits our group, and if anyone has issue with that the group either accepts change or the person deals with it, regardless of whether that’s gender, ethnicity or anything else based.
Tarek: Quote 1: “I came up with those questions.”
Clearly you have taken my piece on trolling to heart and you are getting good results 😀
Quote 2 “I’m not sure what orifice you pulled this out of, but it stinks!”
Purely declaring a statement wrong is not a way to conduct an argument 😛 If you want to know where I pulled it out of, well there is ample literature out there which indicates that women are not so much different from men when it comes to projection of their imagination of potential sexual partners. I am not in possession of any statistics, but I am very familiar with at least one female gamer and ex EVE player who did this regularly if she found the voice of a guy enticing. The main problem with quantitative research on this is the fact that all voice-based online games tend to have a high number of male gamers. I dare you to supply a basis for why my statement “stinks” and if it has merit I will accept that I was wrong.
On a more meta level on the difference between men and women and how that is “wired” into our brains, even that has been put into question. “Delusions of Gender” by Cordelia Fine is a great book examining this assumption. The TL;DR is: no, we are not that different, we are just trained to be. Things that can be learned can also be unlearned and personally I like to make a point of doing so. We learn a lot of stuff in our younger years which we unlearn during growing up. For example that complaining and whining to an authority does not always get us what we want, we may have to do it ourselves – oh wait, that is another developmental step many EVE players never made 😛
I maintain, that civilised and mature conduct does not have to be conditional on interacting with women or men in any case, it is something we choose to do or we don’t, and people who will react negatively to female presence are the same people who treat newbies like crap or anyone who does not belong to their immediate social group. It is a very simple and very common form of defensive social aggression to attack any perceived difference in “the other” if that happens to be gender, well then that’s what the focus of attack will be.
Also: Niden, you know how our alliance leader reacts to locker-room humour. Not all men like it 😉
Lillik: Tarek: One, because I can; and it isn’t trolling by a long shot.
Two, when you stop stereotyping, you’ll understand. I also consider most “gender studies” unworthy of the paper the books/articles are written on.
“I don’t value women any less, but I do recognise the fact that we are different. A woman often has skills developed from traits that men don’t, and vice versa. The reason for that is that we as genders have evolved to make a working whole (most commonly at least). The difference between this distinction and one based on skin colour (for instance), is that the former is natural and vital and the latter fabricated and fundamentally unnecessary. All human beings are equal in value, but men and women are different. It is also equally erroneous to place more value on the traits of one of the sexes.”
^^this ^^this ^^this. Niden, your wife is a lucky woman. 🙂
“Let’s say, for the sake of argument, it is true that that average tolerance for “guy humour” which we can interpret as “crude humour” is lower across the female gender than it is for men. If you feel the way you interact is fine with guys but less so with women and automatically change how you behave when one enters the room, no matter how minor you are setting separate standards. If you are saying something that is unacceptable for some %age of females and the given assumption holds, it will still be unacceptable for some %age, albeit statistically smaller, of men. Are you censoring yourself for them too? Or do you just assume all men in your social group will either be okay, deal with it, or ask you to tone it down. I’m assuming the latter, and part of attaining gender equality is giving women the same shtick we give men.”
Apoth, when you’re an adult, you understand the folly of this statement.
Apoth: I’m just talking basic statistical extrapolation from the assumptions of Nidens points, calling me out for my age (22) and not explaining is both not a valid argument and as condescending as me telling you that you’d understand any of my points if you were a man. The final point I made was just trying to point out we should be treating both genders with respect which can quickly get forgotten in these discussions.
Statistics are a really cool tool to help us gain information. For example on this topic, to what extent does EVE have a low female player base because of the treatment they receive in game and gameplay or the inherent attractiveness to starting the game? If it’s more of the first CCP would see closer gender spread new accounts with retention being the cause of less women, more of the second would be a closer ratio of new subscriber’s gender to the ingame gender split. My point in TL;DR form is that if you’re being offensive, you’re potentially being offensive to both genders, even if some different fraction of the population of each, then choosing only one of those genders as deserving of a change in behaviour is a double standard. This is something I thought was not good.
Now, in case there has been a misunderstanding, I am talking “general” level of crudeness. Being blase about tragedies or non-gendered bigotry for shock humour as an example. If the topic is one that is going to be inherently more offensive to women than to men, of course what Niden is saying makes more sense within those specifics. I would argue that if any new person enters the room, your judgement of whether or not to change the topic or your mannerisms should be based on your knowledge (or lack thereof) of said individual.
Tarek: @Lillik, Throwing the accusation of stereotyping and in the next sentence categorically refuting all gender studies as nonsense is still not a valid argument. Also, I am doing sociology. Stereotyping is my job 😛
In all honesty, are you really saying that a) women do not like to imagine that guys they only know by voice could potentially also be good looking and b) that women will put up with inane behaviour in men voluntarily and generously. At least in the latter case the lack of women in EVE seems to indicate the opposite. Except of course if you are going to make an argument for something else being the potential reason.
In response to the last comment of Apothne I generally argue for being on the side of caution and keep behaviour generally “professional”. When you know you are with friends, male or female, who understand your humour then you can still pull all registers of terrible if you like.
Lillik: The only person that didn’t a) derail the conversation and b) actually understood my original intent, was Niden. ‘Nuff said. 😛
Apoth: Well that’s disappointing.
Lillik: Oh, Apoth. Your comments were just as valid and appreciated! *hugs*
About the author
Lillik E
A carebear by nature, she spent over a year in Eve University helping process new applicants, instructing new miners in the proper procedures and protocol of organized mining, and gas huffing. Recently, in her infinite wisdom she joined a W-space alliance and can be found blissfully huffing gases to her heart's desire.
She can be contacted at lillik@crossingzebras.com
