Long ago, I wrote a psychotic, frothing rant that had everyone convinced I was male. It was my first experience with the automatic respect a person gets just for being male.
Just now, every male reading this let out a hoot of laughter. “Respect? She thinks I get respect just because I’m a dude? Man, she oughta try life in my shoes.”
All I can say to that is that you haven’t tried life in mine, and that you do in fact get a “free ten percent off all bullshit” coupon just for being born with dangly bits. I mean 10% – it’s not a lot, it’s barely apparent (and not apparent at all if you’ve never known anything else), but boy howdy, it sure does add up over time. Remember, I was a writer before I’d ever even heard of MMOs. I’d even written rants before. People reading with the assumption that I had a penis had a different and more positive take on my work than they did when they knew I had a vagina.
Just now, many of the males reading this repressed a grimace at the thought of the word vagina. I don’t know why. The word “penis” is a lot sillier sounding.
Anyway, after people found out the MMO ranting was written by a female, the feedback changed. Only a little bit… see above about 10%… and I didn’t notice at first because I had an audience that was primarily made up of people who’d come to me assuming I was male.
What changed?
The post-gender reveal feedback was just a little more… argumentative. This being the internet, I’d always gotten mail from people who assumed I hadn’t noticed [insert obvious truth], but when it became known that I was female, those letters got slightly more frequent and the tone got a little more patronizing. I never got any email saying “you’re funny, for a man” but post-gender reveal I got “you’re funny, for a woman” at least once a month. What was really “funny” is that those letters were from people who were trying to give me a compliment.
By the way, lest you chalk that up to the weaker social skills of the typical gamer, I’ve got fourteen years of experience WITH gamers and I assure you, the gamer population has exactly the same social skill set as the general population. The fringe freaks get all the attention, but pound for pound we’ve got the same “types” as any hobby.
Now, please note: These are just observations. I didn’t give a damn. No one ever believes me about that, but I don’t give a damn about that either. But if you think about it from my point of view, first as a writer and then as a community weenie, you’ll see why. See, there are tradeoffs.
As a writer: My audience mushroomed. Females made up a bigger portion of the early MMO population than anyone realized, and there was a certain amount of “gotta support my sisters” attitude back in the early days. So the news spread and more women started checking out my site – a site they might have otherwise ignored because they thought I was just another boy in love with the f-bomb and masturbation jokes. More men started reading, because let’s face it, a lot of men get a charge out of women in love with the f-bomb and masturbation jokes. And there were men that came to wonder at how the bear could dance at all. Whatever! No writer really cares about why people are reading, so long as they read.
As a community person: All of the above arguments, plus one biggie. Men are more respectful to other men, but they are kinder to women. That is a generalization, and certainly being a female community lead put me in for a certain kind of nastiness about my sexual attractiveness and availability (pop quiz: Ever seen a poll on a male community lead with the options “I’d hit it” and “Bitch is a three bagger“? That’s happened to me on nearly every job I’ve ever had). But across the board, I think I’ve had it easier than any of my male counterparts. People are less confrontational, more willing to listen, and just… friendlier. Not much. About 10%.
There’s another really obvious difference, and it’s one you can see without being either a writer or a community weenie. Strange women on the internet get forced into a “category” pretty quickly, in terms of how other people define you – we’re either mamas, sisters, buddies, or flirts. (I say “flirts” knowing that on some forums, it’s actually “whores” but I’m trying to be gracious.) Men get pigeonholed as well (the genius/the jerk/the nerd/the smartass), but you’re a lot more likely to be allowed to just be… you. And your categories have more to do with who you are than your gender. Furthermore, people interact with you as an individual from the beginning.
As a female, you encounter a large group of people that can’t settle down until they know which category you’re in, and every interaction with you is filtered through that lens. You can eventually come to be treated as an individual, but you never get to start that way. You have to establish yourself, talk often, and have a very strong written voice. (Ahem.) Neutral, normal female voices stay in their category forever. It’s helpful at first, because it gives you a quick shortcut to establish a relationship. People feel like they already know you, because subconsciously they’re associating you with the women they know of that category. It gets limiting pretty fast (you’re never X, you’re always X The Girl), but again, with the right kind of “voice” a female basically gets the head start on bonding and then switches tracks to have the advantages of individuality.
It evens out. I don’t waste any time in life trying to decide if it’s better or worse to be one gender or another. But it is different.
On TERA, I set out to hide my identity for a number of reasons, but I didn’t actually intend to hide my gender. Then it turned into kind of a funny thing. I was Schrodinger’s moderator – I was whatever you wanted me to be, and opening the box to find out for sure would have ruined the fun. And I found that yet again I was enjoying the best of both worlds. I had the automatic respect and the authority of a male, and I didn’t have any of the gross comments on whether or not I was good in bed. I had warmth, but no peen waving. I kept hiding my gender to see how things would go, honestly. I knew it would be out eventually, either at the first fan gathering or the day I left for my own community, whatever came first.
Then it came out by accident – one of the guys was in a hurry one day and used the correct pronoun instead of a neutral – and nothing really changed. Just that ten percent. Ten percent less respect, ten percent more warmth.
It was a fun experiment on a grand scale, one I may never get to repeat. But it’s one I wish everyone could try.
Think of this as your final exam from Tithus: Have you learned to read the goddamned stickies and FAQs?