If you would, please have a look at this blog. It highlights exactly what is wrong with the gaming community when it comes to females. Thanks.
It's amazing that women in the geek community can act like this and be rewarded. bit.ly/OECqUp
Ginny,
I'm sorry you had that experience; you sound like an amply qualified gamer geek.
However, it is not unreasonable for the gaming community to encourage companies to present more balanced representations of women that do not focus so much on conventional physical attractiveness. I don't honestly see anything wrong with asking for a wider spectrum of representation that shows women of different looks and ages, including non model types.
It sucks that you, personally, may have lost out here because you *are* a conventionally attractive model type. Sometimes representation jobs are like that, if there is legitimately a need for a different kind of representation than you can provide. And there is, legitimately, that need.
Given your geek cred I personally would have been okay with your winning. But I still would have been annoyed if the only people who won were model types. I do not think that would have been a fair or reasonable representation of female gamers, nor would I be willing to believe that geek cred or gaming experience had very much to do with their selection.
As it is, I'm not nearly as annoyed with the finalists as I thought I would be, as at least some individuals are included who are not showing themselves as model types or in model poses, sexy/pretty clothing, etc.
One of the things I like very much about Monica is that it is absolutely clear that she is presenting herself as a serious gamer who is here for gaming, not a pretty face and body that can be used to sell stuff. That's a lot more than I expected given the language of their press release. The "Here is a serious gamer who is here to game, NOT to dress up and look pretty" message goes a very long way towards a better representation
and better treatment for women in our community. That is true regardless of what they happen to look like physically.
I'm okay with how she campaigned to be taken seriously as a gamer, without even trying for model looks or cute clothes. I'm okay with her asking folks to help show Genesys that we want better representation for more serious looking, non model types. I'm less okay with her targeting you personally, but in fairness, I agree that there are indeed legitimate social issues when it comes to having the most traditional model type (skinny white blonde specifically) representing female gamers in our community.
It's not that gamer women who happen to be skinny white blondes should automatically lose their nerd cred. That's not fair either. I remember what happened when I went to a gaming con without stopping at home to dress down from another occasion, and how I was treated because I looked conventionally pretty. That wasn't fun. I got ignored and disrespected, and either avoided or treated like a category of "hot chick" rather than like another gamer. I ditched the decor for a ratty t-shirt and jeans as quickly as possible, lost the makeup, swapped my contacts for nice thick nerdy glasses, wrecked my 'do, and then I got much better treatment. So I do know how that feels, and no, it's not fair to you at all.
Neither is the fact that in mainstream culture, skinny blonde white women are so often held up to us as the default model that it's turned seriously toxic. Girls develop eating disorders and commit suicide because they feel so heavily pressured to look like this perfect ideal. And that's not good either, for a pretty epic value of not good. Girls are taught that they have no value except for the prettiness of their faces and bodies, and how pleasing they can make themselves to other people's gaze. The toxic effects of this on girls and on the women they become are widespread and deeply harmful.
I can not fault people for speaking out against this as the default model, and encouraging companies to make different and more varied choices, especially choices that explicitly do not show women as being valued for how they look or what they wear.
None of this is fair or good. None of it, not on either side. I don't have any more comforting words than that, unfortunately.
And, Ginny? I respect YOUR right to refer to yourself as a girl, if that is how you personally choose to identify, but the rest of us are women unless we are actually girls. As in, minor children. I am not a child, and I do not like being referred to in the general language of "gamer girls" or "geek girls" if you are not actually talking about minors. Thank you for respecting that.
Well, I don't. 
