Being Gendered Correctly

[Gilraen]

Depressed how many people want me to just accept it. "Come have a happy fantasy experience, but in exchange accept constant misgendering without complaint."

It's not that you should accept it, it's that it's inconsequential to enjoying the game. Alot of the time when I get identified thusly the other player doesn't even see me, they're talking through /t or /fc, so they can't even see what gender I am. And in Duty Finder it's really not worth the effort of correcting because, really, I'm beyond caring about it. It's just a game, I don't know nor will likely ever know any of these people in real life. And if I do ever meet said people it will be a nice little icebreaker to get a conversation going to be all, "Yeah, nice to meet you, I'm X on Y server. Yeah, really." It's only when the game gets real that I ever care. Guess you could call it indifference but it's helped me keep sane in playing MMOs for as long as I have.

[Tharian]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singula...pected_authors Just as an example.

When I said the masculine pronouns were used for Gender Neutrality in the English Language historically, I was referring to the Modern English Language. The use of "They" as a Singular Pronoun dates back to Middle English which is actually an entirely different Dialect of English from the Modern English. The Modern English as it exists today did not really evolve until around the 18th to 19th Centuries anyways, so using anything prior to that date as an example of how Gender Neutrality was approached within the Modern English Language is kind of faulty. We might as well be trying to figure out how Gender Neutrality was approached in Old English while we are at it, and that really is another language in it's entirety.

And to be perfectly blunt, the Generic "He" is actually more politically correct than the singular "They"

EDIT: @Jewelfox: the Generic "He" is not a mode of sexism, rather it is an attempt to apply a form of personalization to the unknown. Since we can never know for certain what gender an individual happens to be unless we speak to them using a Voice IP, or have them tell us so themselves, using the Generic "He" is simply more politically correct than assuming that a person is correctly representing their gender in the digital medium.

[Jewelfox]

When I said the masculine pronouns were used for Gender Neutrality in the English Language historically, I was referring to the Modern English Language. The use of "They" as a Singular Pronoun dates back to Middle English which is actually an entirely different Dialect of English from the Modern English. The Modern English as it exists today did not really evolve until around the 19th Century anyways, so using anything prior to that date as an example of how Gender Neutrality was approached within the Modern English Language is kind of faulty. We might as well be trying to figure out how Gender Neutrality was approached in Old English while we are at it, and that really is another language in it's entirety.

Or we could just, you know, stop using historical sexism as an excuse for being a douchebag to other people.

[Valenzz]

It's not a general catch because it's an assumption. If you want to go gender neutral, use "they".

It's pretty much this ! If someone is to blame though it would be the males playing female characters using feminine names .
It happens in just about every MMO weather it's RPG or not. Coming from RIFT / WOW ect. I will say that 70% of the female toons are male players.

[Lord_Zlatan]

It's not a general catch because it's an assumption. If you want to go gender neutral, use "they".

I've been remmed out enough times by RL girls to know that this is the way to go. If you are going to assume, play it safe and use They.

[Purrfectstorm]

Sorry, Kimmy, this happens to me all the time. Sometimes it annoys me to the point of correcting the person but most of the time I just grit my teeth and ignore it. Even if you say you're a woman, there's a good chance some won't believe you. It is extremely sexist to assume that "everyone online is a man until proven otherwise." I recently did a research paper on game addiction and read a report that 31% of adult gamers are female. This may be a far cry from equal representation in the game world but it's still a lot more than no percent. Not everyone has to know that I'm a woman, most of the time it's not important, but I always shake my head whenever someone calls me "bro" because that assumption is always there.

[Empressia]

Sorry, Kimmy, this happens to me all the time. Sometimes it annoys me to the point of correcting the person but most of the time I just grit my teeth and ignore it. Even if you say you're a woman, there's a good chance some won't believe you. It is extremely sexist to assume that "everyone online is a man until proven otherwise." I recently did a research paper on game addiction and read a report that 31% of adult gamers are female. This may be a far cry from equal representation in the game world but it's still a lot more than no percent. Not everyone has to know that I'm a woman, most of the time it's not important, but I always shake my head whenever someone calls me "bro" because that assumption is always there.

31%? ORLY?

[Purrfectstorm]

31%? ORLY?

Sorry, the 31% is the percentage of adult women who play. I rechecked the report I read and see that the total percentage of female players (of all ages) is 45%. Source: http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2013.pdf

[Muzy]

Again, most people tend to only think in he or she, not with gender neutral terms, I'm not sayin it's right, but more pointin out, that's how people tend to think.

I personally do use they when referring to someone I don't know in game, but that was developed over time.

[Shamo_Lomenzo]

I am male, and I used to play a game where classes were gender locked. The mage class was locked as a female character, which I reluctantly played, as I would rather my character's gender be the same as mine. With that came the use of female pronouns when people referred to me in chat. It used to be annoying, but on the internet, especially when partying with random people in dungeons that don't last more than an hour (this was the case on the game I used to play as well), people don't care whether you're a male, female, trans, etc. It's just one thing that you learn to ignore.

TL;DR: You're probably never gonna see these people again so don't sweat the small stuff and move on.