Why don't girls play games? That is the question that is asked time and time again, and based on this article, the usual answer to this question is that girls don't play videogames. Much like a pebble causing a ripple in a still pool, it only takes one for them to finally get noticed, and though one at first might be considered a fluke, by the time more and more shows up, it starts to become the norm and accepted.

From the article:

I know male players who play predominantly female characters, and when questioned directly about their own gender by other players, they tend towards evasion. Most of them say that it shouldn't matter. When other players ask me if I'm actually a woman, I always say yes, because I want them to know that this female player exists. Maybe this is part of why female players so rarely genderswap in general; although they do often mention incidents of gender-based harassment or other unwelcome behaviors, they don't usually seem to deal with this in MMOGs by playing male characters. More frequently, they may play desexualized female characters, such as Tauren (cow people) in WoW. And yet, these same women are still often buying into the idea that they're weird, that women don't play games, that women certainly never make hypersexualized avatars. It's the common knowledge that everybody knows: real girls don't.

I don't know what the solution is. Maybe it's time and technological development; get more girls and women to play, keep them playing, integrate streaming voice communication into games rather than forcing people to rely on text chat or third-party applications, although at least one company has hit on the great idea of marketing a voice-changing device that would allow female players to masculinize their voices; one article actually puts this forth as a great step forward for gender equality, as if nothing shows people that women can game like providing credible evidence that even real female players are actually male. But assuming that most women would not genderswap their voices, much as they don't genderswap their avatars, this might be the way to finally show people how many women are already there, and how widely their play preferences and styles actually vary. The sooner the better.

Read the full article over at strangehorizons.com