Playing OW as a Girl is Playing the game on "Hard Mode"

General Discussion
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  • Women get harassed more merely for existing on voice comms.
  • Women get belittled more, and are told play “easier heroes”.
  • Women are ridiculed more as being “boosted”, “less skilled”, or “carried” no matter how well they play.

Playing Overwatch as a Woman, is playing Overwatch on Hard Mode.

Prove me wrong.

Edit: Protip, just because it doesn’t happen in your games, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. #StayWoke

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism_in_video_gaming

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/us/sexual-harassment-in-online-gaming-stirs-anger.html

https://www.marieclaire.com.au/sexism-and-video-games

https://comicsverse.com/sexism-video-game-culture/

https://www.polygon.com/2018/1/18/16896858/overwatch-league-women-esports-sexism-geguri

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/women-in-video-games-accept-it-or-don-t-buy-the-game/

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The burden of proof should rest with the person who’s making claims, no? Why would anyone else need to “prove” anything?

Edit: Just so people know the context when reading this, the thread was originally written with no content except for what I quoted here. Everything you see was edited in after this post.

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I personally have never experienced any of these things.

I am truly sorry that you have

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I don’t think I’ve ever seen a girl get harassed in Overwatch. I play on the Americas region on the Australian servers. Just my experience.

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None of those things make the game more difficult, though. Toxic people will be toxic regardless of how you sound on the mic. They’re just toxic in different ways.

I’ve played with games where women get harassed for being women. I’ve been in games where no one cares that someone playing is a woman. I’ve been in games with women who are toxic. Trying to generalize the experience of every woman or every player is dehumanizing, and doesn’t accomplish anything.

In my experience, the resounding response to someone being sexist is calling that person out, muting them, and having a good game despite them.

Edited for Language by the Moderation Team.
https://us.battle.net/en/community/conduct

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“I have an edgy and contrarian opinion! Prove my opinion wrong!” -OP

They don’t want to be proven wrong. They want people to reinforce their worldview.

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Having less voice coms and having anxiety to speak from knowing that there’s a good chance you would be harassed, doesn’t make climbing in the ladder more difficult?

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peoples words mean nothing unless you give them power over you

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Yikes. This is exactly the mindset that holds us all back as gamers.

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Sadly women will always get harassed, especially in videogames

But I don’t think it’s as bad as you’re making it out to be. Like it happens yes, there is no denying it, but it doesn’t happen every game.

I’ve had a lot of women play in comms in comp and QP and Ive never seen anyone harass them. Doesn’t mean it doesnt happen though. But to say it’s happening every game is… ehhh…

Like I’m not a woman, but I have a stereotypical “gay” voice that borders on always being mistaken for female. The worst I’ve had is a guy going “lmao are u a gamer gurrl” :man_shrugging:

I do feel sorry for what you’ve experienced but like, dontbe like “prove me wrong” because then youre lumping all women into this group of “oh no Im so harassed ))):” instead of speaking out about your own experiences and opening up an actual conversation

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As Bombz said your so vague I’m not really sure what to argue against.

There’s no evidence

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If you have anxiety to speak, it doesn’t mean you will get harassed for being a girl once you start talking in voice. It’s time to stop with this.
Men get harassed too.
Toxic people will be toxic no matter what. Mute\block\report and live happily without their opinion.

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Is this easy mode?

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Sure

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You’re not wrong.

That said, what was the point of this post? I don’t think anyone’s saying it’s not true.

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I never denied that. But women get harassed more on average in video games, and thus have a more difficult time playing them because of it. Which is my point.

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Ok. Ill prove you wrong. I am a girl and have never encountered a single person that did anything like that. My plat mercy account hasn’t either.

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It’s yet another old unfunny meme with no real point.

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It’s really weird that I have not experienced any of those things yet. Whenever a girl joins my games, everyone seems not to be bothered by it.

Maybe it’s because I play on EU.

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And? People can be bigots, get over it, these are words and not actions so the difficulty remains the same, and on the other hand there was that whole ellie thing…

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