Ballad Of The Older Female Gamer

Susan Arendt, who writes for Wired's Game|Life blog, has an essay at The Escapist about the stigma of being an adult female gamer. She and other adult female gamers she spoke with have been on the wrong end of society's views of what women should be doing with their lives. Arendt points out that a woman spending $150 on a pair of shoes is normal, but on the Legendary Edition of Halo 3 it's inappropriate.

Few of our friends question my video game habit, which admittedly has a hard time squeezing in to the cracks around my writing, teaching, and programming. But even at work with other programmers, I'm in the minority as someone who devotes any time at all to videogames, especially console games. Arendt's essay reminds me of the slight stigma, maybe just ignorance, that people have towards board-game enthusiasts. In fact, any hobby that attracts geeks more than other segments of the population seems to generate a lot of suspicion among the non-geek public.