Anyway, this is going to be a very long post but it will help people understand why I do and say the things you see in games and on forums. This is a story about how, much like Dr. Frankenstein, misogynists in the gaming community created their very own monster. And much like in the story of Frankenstein, that monster came back to bite them in the ass. ;O)
Before I get started, I want to mention a few things. I will probably be posting this on several forums so I want to quickly introduce myself for those who don't know me. My name is Rachel Catalano and I am a competitive gamer. I also happen to be a female gamer.
The second thing I want to say is that I am going to let you in on a little secret that many people outside of my clans and circle of friends in the gaming community don't know about.... The ego-tripping, trash-talking, queen of fragging known as "ViXeN" is an exaggerated version of myself created for the sole purpose of pissing off misogynists in the gaming community. While I do have a lot in common with "ViXeN" those who know me well also know that I act quite a bit different toward people I actually like. LOL
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The Beginning - How it all started
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Back when I was a kid, my older brother actually got me into video games. I was watching him play a little game called Tribes and it looked like fun so I decided to give it a shot myself. Even though I had never tried a game before that, I seemed to pick it up quickly and did pretty well. A few weeks later I was out-playing my brother and several of his friends. A month after that, I was invited to join one of the top competive teams on the game at the time, Strategic Team Dominance. This was where it all started for me. They had another female gamer named StarDust who was an incredible player. I mean I was pretty good myself at the time but she was on a completely different level. I was amazed watching her just completely dominate most of the guys on the servers but what was even more amazing was the amount of hatred toward her I witnessed when I was playing. A lot of guys targeted her with their anger and I couldn't figure out why at the time but not long after that I understood. StarDust not only took me under her wing and taught me how to be a better player, she also taught me three other important things... Not to take any crap from anyone, not to let anyone tell me I can't do something and not to let people chase me away from gaming.
With my skill level increasing every week, STD decided that it was time for me to play in my first Tribes scrim. I ended up with over 40 points and 3 flag-caps, which seemed to upset a few people on the other team. When I went was reading a thread on the forum about the scrim, I noticed that two of them were calling me names (slut and bitch mostly) and saying I suck even though I had never done anything to them, other than help my team win our scrim. And the kitchen comments started of course. That was just my first taste of the sexism in the community and it was only going to get worse from there. Much worse.
As the months passed and I continued to get better and better, I joined other really good competitive teams after STD eventually died. It seemed like the better I became and the better the teams were that I joined, the more the hatred toward me seemed to increase.
Here is just a small sample of the things I had to deal with from guys in the gaming community:
* I had people threatening to beat me, rape me, kill me, etc... And considering my age at the time, this was pretty upsetting.
* I had my pics photoshopped and posted on forums. The last time it had the word “whore” and a picture of a penis added to the picture.
* I had pics posted on picture-rating types of sites, without my permision. Usually with some pretty horrible things written about me in the profile for the photo.
* I have had people tell me that they hope I get cancer and die.
* I had the TW Forum jackasses spend hours invading every mIRC channel I was in.... I’d kick/ban them and then they would change their IP and come back with a new name.
* I had one small group of haters harass me constantly for well over a year.
* I had been called pretty much every name you can imagine.
* I had dozens of flame threads posted about me.
* I had people make an anti-vixy team just for the sole purpose of playing (and failing 0-2) against my clans.
* I have had my clans specifically targeted anytime I am a co-leader in one of them.
* Like I said, I had been threatened countless times. Ruckas said he would “deck” me if he ever met me in real life. And one person threatened to kick my ass if I showed up at the old UVALAN gaming event that was held every year. I was too young to go anyway but that is just crazy.
* I had one person tell me he was going to harass me until I quit playing the game which didn’t happen.
* I had people follow me around on different servers just to flame and try to team-kill me so that I couldn’t enjoy the game. It basically got to the point where I could only play on servers that had some of my friends (or people who didn’t tolerate stupidity) as admins.
* No matter what I accomplished, these people always said I sucked.
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Other elite female gamers with similar experience
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At first I didn't understand why they hated me so much but then I realized that they were doing the same thing to several other female gamers in the communities.
Jupe - She was the original leader of Estrogen back on T2 and she was constantly harassed by these people. They were always telling her that's she ugly, looked like a zombie, etc... And Jupe let it get to her a lot which is why I always tried to shift their hatred entirely on me. I had developed a chip on my shoulder and I knew I could handle anything they dished out at that point.
Envee - One of the other best female gamers around and the amount of hatred she gets pretty much rivals what I deal with...
Maxine - She is an older player and the best engineer on Tribes but was constantly harassed by other players.
Ophy and abentwookie - Two of the nicest people I have ever met in gaming and both are constantly targeted by these clowns just because they are amazing players.
Brootal - A great MW2 who was a member of my team at one point. She was a great CQC Rusher and would frequently enrage guys into calling her every name imaginable.
The list goes on and on and on. Female players just can’t seem to win...
If you don’t beat the guys, you suck.
If you DO beat the guys, you suck.
If you don’t post pics, you’re either a guy or you’re fat.
If you DO post pics, you’re just looking for attention.
If you don’t flirt with all the guys and act nice, you’re a bitch.
If you DO flirt with all the guys, you’re just looking for attention.
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The "Rules" for being a female gamer if you don't want to be targeted as much.
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I have noticed a few interesting things over the years, though. They may not bother you as much if you kiss their asses enough, downplay your skills, and defend the guys whenever one of the other female players points out the rampant sexism and idiotic behavior. A good example would be when Half the Sky defended the guys after Jupe flamed them for posting pics of another female player on the old tribalwar forum. Naturally Half-the-Sky tried to place the blame on the victim by claiming that she shouldn’t have given out her pics to anyone.
Well, the person in question said the guy who decided to stab her in the back was a friend and you would think that you could actually trust a friend, but that isn’t always the case. I learned that myself once. Jupe pointed out the fact that they were the ones who posted the pics so the blame belongs on them, which was 100% correct. We seem to enjoy playing the “blame the victim so the other person doesn’t have to take any responsibility for his own actions” game in our society though.
Anyway, if you act like Half-the-Sky they may not flame you as much, but if you are a female gamer who exhibit any of the following traits, you can expect to become a target:
1. You are a highly skilled gamer.
2. You know you are a highly skilled gamer.
3. You have no problems with letting others know you are a highly skilled gamer.
4. You don’t take crap from anyone.
5. When a guy trashtalks, you call them out.
6. You are a serious gamer (me, Maxine, Vesta, jupe, etc..) instead of a cheerleader type of gamer who just sits around flirting and talking.
7. You beat the male players mercilessly (Note: The better the players are that you beat, the more people will hate you, which is why I usually go after the top players.)
And don't even think you will ever earn their respect by playing better. That will have the opposite effect. I constantly tried to prove myself since my first day and I have accomplished more than 99% of my critics, yet I still get disrespected by certain people. I mean I know I have plenty of respect from a lot of the vets of the competitive community, especially former teams i’ve played for and against, but for some reason some people in the community refuse to admit that i’m a very good player, no matter what I do to prove it. I can play better than them constantly in pubs and pickups and even beat their teams in scrims/matches and I still hear the “vixy sucks” comments.
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Creating the "Monster" - Every action creates an equal and opposite reaction
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I will admit that I let all of the hate get to me at first and it definitely left a scar. After my first couple of years, I even quit playing games entirely for several months at one point. I had just had enough of it. But then I remembered what StarDust told me... Don't let people chase me away from gaming. That was the moment when I decided make a stand. Not just for me but for the entire female gaming community.
What these guys didn't realize was that they had just created a monster with their constant harassment. I learned to use their hatred as motivation to become better and better. I spent months learning from the best players around and studied every part of gaming: teamwork, tactics, rushing, defending, 1on1 dueling, flag-capping, etc.. I also recorded my game-play so I could learn from my own mistakes and watched other top players to see what mistakes they made. I also developed a love of trash-talk which really made people mad. And I exaggerated my own personality a bit just because I knew they hated it so much.
I basically became everything they hated. I became a female gamer who played and trash-talked even better than most of the guys and that did not sit well with a lot of people. They didn't know to react to me. A lot of people still don't... LOL Now that I knew what really made these guys mad, I decided to pay them back for all of the bullshit I and other female gamer had received. It was time to sink that knife a little deeper into their fragile little psyches. ;O)
Any time I joined a new gaming community, I would make it a point to find and beat some of the top players on the game because I knew that was the best way to bring out the sexist guys in the community. And once I knew who they were, I made it my mission to absolutely crush their egos in every way possible. Maybe this makes me as bad as they are, I don't know. But I do know that this could have been prevented if they would have just treated me like any other player right from the start. But they didn't and this is the consequence of their actions.
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Conclusion
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I came to the conclusion that Maxine was right in the discussion we had a few years ago. The gaming community really is still just some boys club and we’re never going to get the respect we’ve more than earned, it doesn’t really matter what we do to prove ourselves. With that said, I have only one thing left to say to these trolls: I don’t know what your problem is, maybe you’ve been rejected too many times by women in real life so you want to take it out on people over the internet (way to hide behind a computer), maybe your fragile egos can’t handle being rocked by female players, maybe you’re just some ignorant rednecks, whatever… I don’t really care at this point. You can pretty much take your respect (I don’t want it) and misogynistic little boys club and shove it up your asses.
As I said countless times, you can flame all you want and tell me I suck, but i’ll still continue to be the one rocking you every single day in pubs, scrims, PUs, and matches. And there isn’t a damned thing you can do about it except whine and flame. And if you think you will fair better than all of the other guys who thought they could beat me in a game, I am not hard to find. Just don't be surprised when you are left raging and crying like everyone else. ;O)
Every time you guys set a new line in the sand and dare me to cross it, I absolutely will. Every time you tell me I can't do something, I will. Every time you tell me I can't beat a certain player, I'll beat him.
