Women and Video Games - "Girl Gamers"

"Girl Gamers"

"Girl gamers" or "gamer girls" is a label for women who regularly play video games, role-playing games, or other games. While some critics have advocated use of the label as a reappropriated term, others have described the term as unhelpful, offensive, and even harmful or misleading. The word "girl", for example, has been seen as an inherently age-linked term that glosses over the difference between women over 30 and younger women. The term "girl gamer" rather than simply "gamer" has also been described as perpetuating the minority position of female gamers. For many critics uncomfortable with the term "girl gamer", its over-embracement may lead to the perpetuation of negative stereotypes of female gamers as oversexualized, casual or "fake", and sometimes defiant or confrontational. This in turn can result in poor game design. These critics submit that there is no single definition of a female gamer, and that women gamers are as diverse as any other group of people.