SweetieGames

If you’ve been in the online gaming space, you have surely seen stereotypes floating around about girl gamers. They have entirely pink setups, catfish men online, don’t actually play games at all or only play casually, or have huge expensive PCs purely to play The Sims and Stardew Valley. They only claim to be into video games to attract men. But where did this come from? Is it true?

While it’s frustrating to be stereotyped, the origins come from partial truth. For example, according to 2021 data, over 60% of Sims players were cis female. Of course, this doesn’t mean that every woman playing games is playing The Sims, but if you’re seeing Sims content online, it’s most likely coming from a woman. You can see where the leap of logic has come from, but it is the same as any other stereotype; an exaggeration!

Girls may be the dominant audience for cosy games and The Sims, but did you know that 56% of girl gamers regularly play action adventure games? Or that 49% of them play shooters? This is according to a recent study from Bryter, who also demonstrated that these percentages are higher than the percentage of women playing life sims or puzzle games. There’s a big chunk of girl gamers who enjoy playing a bit of Call of Duty, but aren’t touching Animal Crossing or Candy Crush. This study also showed that girl gamers average 20 hours of gaming every week; far more hours than what could be considered “casual” gaming.

Even if you fully fit into the girl gamer stereotype; you have a bright pink Razer setup and you’ve spent thousands on it purely so you can enjoy cosy games with a tonne of mods on it, nobody should judge you for that! Games are made to be enjoyed, and no two gamers are entirely alike. If you want to play puzzle games on your pink PC, or with your Switch in a pink skin, you do you. It isn’t something to be made fun of; those who do make fun are probably the ones who don’t fully enjoy playing games anyway.

It is a real shame that a lot of women tend to stay out of gaming spaces online, such as worldwide multiplayer and online discussions due to their fear of being made fun of, verbally abused or just getting into an unnecessary argument. Over one in four women will not refer to themselves as a “gamer”, and 59% of women experienced harassment while playing games in 2024. The vast majority of women playing games have experienced exclusion from the space due to harmful negative stereotypes not just around girl gamers, but also gaming and women in general.

I’ve always firmly believed that gaming is for everyone, no matter who you are. If you conform to the stereotypes or not, you should be allowed to enjoy your hobby in peace. I hope that this is one day the case!