A video based on an article titled, “Playing with privilege: the invisible benefits of gaming while male” and written by Tropes vs Women in Video Games producer, Jonathan McIntosh was released today.
It’s very informative, well spoken and well produced. You should watch it. And while you are watching it feel free to swap back in forth in your head the word gaming or “playing games” for “publicly participating in the atheist or skeptic communities.” Because the words may slightly change but the messages and effects that we see are very similar. The gaming and secular communities online have so much crossover that they might as well be a figure eight knot.
The video is called, The 25 Invisible Benefits of Gaming While Male.
Enjoy:
Here’s the article (for some reason it looks link-y in the writeup but isn’t a link).
I never got the ‘women who play vidya want male attention’ stereotype.
First, there was a long history of assuming gamers (and nerds in general) were unpopular with the ladies; very rarely did a sexually active (male, all nerds in pop culture were male for the longest time) nerd in pop culture exist without the seeming incompatibility of those two traits being remarked upon. (And I can’t remember any of the few exceptions being gamers.)
Secondly, would you want that kind of attention? They find out you’re a woman, and immediately they ask about your breasts and butt.