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[Vic Van Meter]

Tbh Vic, the most sexist attitudes I have experienced were on Eve (platinum achievement to homophobic slurs though). The most hardcore the game... Added to the obnoxious community atmosphere in that game, can detonate very quickly when female gamers are involved.

Actually, especially regarding your last paragraph, it's exactly the contrary in my experience. I have rarely witnessed a community so disgusting as the one living on Eve. Everything is about smack, testosterone contests, taunts, tears drinking. And everything is allowed to reach your goal for that, and that usually starts with the most inventive ways I have seen to be offensive. Only matched in power by FPS games online, except the latter are rarely as insidious as the ones happening in Eve.

We may have simply had different circles we ran in?  Full confession:  for a year my "other game" slot besides WoW was taken up by Battlefield 2.  I don't know what kind of slimy bastards you ran into here in EVE to give you the opinion that this game is the pinnacle of broski bullshit, but there has never been said anything anywhere in any other game that I've ever heard that could even break the top 10 of things I've heard in Battlefield.

In the year I played that game, I only ran into two women.  Ever.  And the things said by the all-male audience was.... yeah.  I don't even want to repeat some of it.  Suffice it to say that mass online FPS games are the Cannibal Corpse of gamer culture:  so ridiculously offensive that it makes a full circle around making you feel disgusted and just starts entertaining you instead.

.... I should also disclose that I listen to Cannibal Corpse.  I think I might be a little less civilized than I thought....

[Vic Van Meter]

I think the bigger problem is that EVE is a pretty bad game to ask this in.  It's such an androgynous game to begin with since it's such a hard-numbers, PVP-centric game where we aren't really playing characters as much as we're flying around in ships.  The closest we ever experience each others' avatars in person tends to be in a still shot.  Nor is there an awful lot of style involved in flying; its not as if you can paint your ship pink and purple or put a hula girl on the dash.

EVE's not very sexy, in short.

What the flying fuck is that. It's a numbers game and not about dressing up an avatar, so it's inherently "not for girls"?

No, I highlighted the relevant word in the paragraph.

[Karmilla Strife]

BOYS RULE! GIRLS DROOL!   

[Desiderya]

No, I highlighted the relevant word in the paragraph.

I know, I've read your post! It still sounds like an awful lot of stereotyping with conclusions I'd disagree on, but I guess it does showcase a bit of the issue we're discussing here in the first place.

[Ghost Hunter]

1. They're gamers.

2. Yes and no; If they're a 'random' I don't devote much/any thought to the subject. I do have an admitted personal bias in that I'm more willing to pay (passive) attention to a woman speaking/involvement in personal circles. That usually goes away the better of an opinion I build on them, which is my normal procedure for people over all.

3. Yes and no. There's the normal 'we formed a group based on mutual interest', and then there's the 'we formed a group due to hostile predation'. Refer to answer 5 for detail.

4. If I'm honest this feels like another way of rewording Question #5.

5. Sexism is an issue, but in gaming it's merely a symptom of a larger, more systemic problem.

Keeping attention focused, however, some of the most casual ways I've seen it operate : signaling out of women for griefing/stalking purposes, exclusion of women from activity based on their sex, degradation of the female gender entirely and intentional association of it with weakness, hypersexualized female character design to the point of little more than masturbation fantasy bait, sabotaged female character design where usual design principles are shelved in favor of turning them into male-character enhancement bait, so on and so forth.

One could argue it's "getting better" in recent years, but I think that's also because the vector of harassment has changed. Anonymous cyber stalking is the most popular choice right now, and with its ability to attack without fear of reprisal, it's usually the most virulent. This is merely on the consumer level, from what I know in game development and management, there is a slew of workplace issues there as well. And, as I mentioned, there is a host of issues with the presentation of female characters in the gaming world - but arguably, this is true of men as well. You don't see gentle men, or strong women, generally speaking.

[Kala]

Will answer the questions first, then jump in to debate 

The questions:

1. What is your opinion on girl gamers?

2. After finding out an opponent or teammate is the opposite gender, do you feel different about them?

3. Do you feel gamer girls are their own clique within gamers as a whole?

4. Do you feel their is a rivalry or alliance between the genders in the gaming community?

5. Do you feel sexism is an issue, and if so, have you experienced it?

1. Jaaa...Welp, I am one. Or was. Uh, meaning I don't play games as often in my dotage, not that I've grown a penis    If this is going to be used in research I should probably start again.

It's difficult to answer what my opinion is on 'them' if I am one - it's almost like the question presupposes I won't be.
My opinion on the label varies though.  I suppose I'd rather we were all gamers and gender was irrelevant - but that's a utopian dream as gender seems so deeply emotively loaded as an issue in the gaming community.

2. That they're a man? I'd be profoundly unsurprised, to be honest.  Which sounds sexist; but it's not like I don't expect other women to play games, just that it's been my experience men have been the majority in the games I've played. I've played with other women, and suspect they're more prevalent than people may assume, but the only woman I ever heard on TS was Foyle.

I've interpreted the question to mean "the opposite gender" to me, rather than "the opposite gender" to their avatar.  In which cases, if they're representing themselves as one gender (by name, appearance, whatever) or roleplaying a character in any way, I'll refer to them as that gender unless told otherwise.  Though that's less being surprised of any gender dissonance and treating someone how I think they want to be treated (though personally I think gender is a role we all play anyway).

3.  Yes and no.  Not sure clique is the right word.  I think women tend to be a minority, or appear to be, in the games that I play.  But that doesn't necessarily mean they will band together or even meet eachother.  (Though that said, there is/was a female only chat channel in EVE.  I didn't find even that cliquey though, as an idea.  I think the idea was to create a safe space.)

4. No, I wouldn't have said rivalry or alliance that's gender based.  I do think that certain men will feel very threatened by the mere presence of a woman playing a game with them, but that's not the same thing.  That said, I also feel that women will probably have to prove themselves in some way to be treated as an equal in terms of skill for the same reason.  But depends very much on the maturity of who you're playing with.

5. Hahahahaha. Yes. God yes. Sexism is absolutely an issue.  I have experienced it, but the level of which has depended on what game I've played.  (EVE has actually been one of the better ones). With the anonymity of an online presence I'm fairly thick-skinned about it and quite happy to put them back in their box (particularly when none of it is inventive or clever, variations of tits or gtfo, send me your photo etc*) though I'd be irate if I saw someone being harassed and taking it to heart. The exception is team speak when I'm suddenly (disappointingly) self-conscious at having to use my real voice, and the surprise it garners



*that happened once in EVE, many years ago.  I forget how the encounter happened but ended up chatting to this guy and he wanted naked photos for iskies.  I encouraged him, and agreed under the proviso that he send me the iskies first.  He did.  I think he was drunk. Obviously I then reneged on the deal    Angered, he put a bounty on me, so I got a friend to pod me and we split the difference. Was a profitable encounter 

[kalaratiri]

Thank you all very much for your answers so far

I understand a few of the questions are bit ambiguous so I'm adding a specific, Eve related one of my own

"Eve is well known as a male dominated game, with approx 95% of players being men. This has led to the long running joke/tagline "there are no girls in eve (or on the internet)". What sort of impact do you think this has on female Eve players, or women just starting to play the game? For those of you who are female Eve players, have you encountered this often? Do you feel a need to 'prove' that you are female, or do you prefer to just get on with playing the game?"

[Kala]

I think the bigger problem is that EVE is a pretty bad game to ask this in.  It's such an androgynous game to begin with since it's such a hard-numbers, PVP-centric game where we aren't really playing characters as much as we're flying around in ships.  The closest we ever experience each others' avatars in person tends to be in a still shot.  Nor is there an awful lot of style involved in flying; its not as if you can paint your ship pink and purple or put a hula girl on the dash.

EVE's not very sexy, in short.

Tbh Vic, the most sexist attitudes I have experienced were on Eve (platinum achievement to homophobic slurs though). The most hardcore the game... Added to the obnoxious community atmosphere in that game, can detonate very quickly when female gamers are involved.

Actually, especially regarding your last paragraph, it's exactly the contrary in my experience. I have rarely witnessed a community so disgusting as the one living on Eve. Everything is about smack, testosterone contests, taunts, tears drinking. And everything is allowed to reach your goal for that, and that usually starts with the most inventive ways I have seen to be offensive. Only matched in power by FPS games online, except the latter are rarely as insidious as the ones happening in Eve.

Right then.  I disagree with both of you 

I've heard a lot of people express the sentiments that 'hard numbers', the abstraction from an avatar, or that it's relatively brutal for an mmo, or that it's sci-fi - these things don't attract the girls.

But I think perhaps what gets overlooked is (when I played, which is going to be the caveat for everything I'm saying here) EVE, even for MMOs, is a highly social game.  Which also sounds somewhat sexist; that girls don't like hard numbers or brutality but they do like chatting, which is not something I believe, but just trying to give the other side of the coin of how the game is perceived. 

EVE is set up much easier to just start talking to people than other games - just clicking open a tab to evemail or pm someone, joining a channel - it's all very nice and intuitive.  When I played WoWs beta I was all like...wtf how do I talk  In Ultima Online from what I could see you could only talk to someone you encountered if they were on the same screen as you - people used ICQ to organise things.  So there's the ease with which you can communicate.

There's also the need to be sociable to realistically survive in the game world.  Even the essentially 'solo' players in school corp who hadn't joined a corp banded together to do this or that - mining ops or ratting or whatever.  You could do things alone, but it was either not profitable or comparatively very dangerous.  This was before missions became remotely viable (which to me happened when implants came in) or mining barges or anything.  You could still afk an indy but, well, that's not really playing as such.

And there's the social aspect of everyone sharing the same game world rather than individual shards - I'm finding it difficult to articulate exactly how that shared experience makes a difference, but I have a gut feeling that it does; I've certainly had the experience before of finding it difficult to play games with friends in the US because they've been forced into another version of the game.  Maybe a broader more diverse community.  I dunno.

Also, I think perhaps what makes EVE harsh and brutal (basically, the risk/reward loss element and the steep learning curve) also tends to encourage camaraderie and forge relationships because you have to rely on your friends and corp-mates - your virtual life may depend on it.  And I'm aware there's a lot of politicking, scamming and backstabbing - but the same applies, if anything it does seem to make the friendships you do make more worthwhile.  Again, not articulating well here.  Other than my corp-mates felt like brothers to me - jokey, idiot brothers but I knew they'd have my back if I needed it. 

In fact, I feel all nostalgic and maudlin now.

My experience is different in that EVE has had the absolute best people I've played a game with. I think it very much depends on who you play with, and I'm aware that the community has grown from something quite niche to quite mainstream and perhaps that changes things massively.  Not to be a snob, but also in some ways the difficulty has dropped (though the complexity hasn't) since when I first played and maybe there's more stupid around now   

(I mean, they get a tutorial now and everything.  They get a free ship at the end of it. I was given a mining laser and a rock and I had to figure out everything else for myself.  In my day, etc etc.)

I've experienced more stupidity and hate in other games, more childish tantrums in games where you don't actually stand to lose anything.  Which is not to say I haven't encountered all these things in EVE - I have, but not to the same degree as in other games and I was lucky to be in a good corp with a good circle of friends and contacts outside of that as well.  There may be a lot of random factors about experiences here. The social adhesive stuff around camaraderie re: tangible loss I talked about earlier comes into it too, I think.   Though it can go the other way as well.

It might be that the age demographic is broadly higher in EVE than some other MMOs I've played, too.  (Though I have indeed met some very immature 40 year olds  )

And EVE isn't sexy? Bah.  Even at release, to me it was beautiful, glossy and sleek in it's design.  Plus some ships are undoubtedly phallic (thorax, I look at you).

[Kala]

"Eve is well known as a male dominated game, with approx 95% of players being men. This has led to the long running joke/tagline "there are no girls in eve (or on the internet)". What sort of impact do you think this has on female Eve players, or women just starting to play the game? For those of you who are female Eve players, have you encountered this often? Do you feel a need to 'prove' that you are female, or do you prefer to just get on with playing the game?"

Yeah. I hate that one the most, I think. Or the "MMORPG stands for Many Men Online Role Playing Girls"

There's some truth to it with the demographic - but yes, it's off-putting.  Either your existence is automatically denied, or yes, you are asked to prove it in some way (usually derogatory) - or if you do assert that you exist then you're "attention seeking."

Further, even if people do accept your existence as a Real Life Female (or hear you on TS) you're treated like some bizarre novelty zoo animal.  ZOMG! A girl! Online!



There's no way to win that one, really.  The game is rigged.

The best I've ever managed to re: that scenario is shrug things off as much as possible, mock people who are idiots and hang about with those who have a modicum of sense.  I've never felt the need to prove anything to anyone, as no one worth knowing has asked me to prove anything.

(Though I've heard the surprised sentiments from people I like, mind  but they've never been of the dogged 'prove it!' persuasion, or hostile deniers)

[Vic Van Meter]

Okay, I think I'm being taken a bit out of context.  See below from Miriam-Webster:

an·drog·y·nous adjective \an-ˈdrä-jə-nəs\
 
Full Definition of ANDROGYNOUS

1
:  having the characteristics or nature of both male and female
2
a :  neither specifically feminine nor masculine <the androgynous pronoun them>
b :  suitable to or for either sex <androgynous clothing>
3
:  having traditional male and female roles obscured or reversed <an androgynous marriage>

Gaming culture may be, on the whole, geared towards men, but EVE isn't that game.  Essentially, EVE doesn't have a gender.  I don't see EVE players as women or men playing women, in fact I really don't make any kind of distinction between men and women in EVE.  It's absolutely meaningless.  That hard-numbers, PVP style doesn't discourage women, it completely eliminates the idea of gender, even persona, in the game.  A Dramiel is a Dramiel, it has no color, no gender, no difference from model to model.  You can't make it look like a "girly" Dramiel, nor can you make it a "masculine" Dramiel.  It's just a Dramiel, and all of them are the same until you start playing with the likewise androgynous fittings.

Maybe the weird thing about EVE is that I really don't know who is a woman or man even IN THE GAME WORLD, much less if the person in real life is playing one.  There's not an awful lot of personality from ship to ship, so everything gets obscured.  It's nothing but ships, equipment, and corporations.  It's about as sterile as it gets.

Which is sort of the point.  EVE is meant to be a sandbox's sandbox, something neutral to everything, therefore reflecting no bias.  There's actually a LOT of girls playing EVE compared to some of the other games I've been in, and the thing is that I really don't think that's a reflection of anything specific.  The game isn't brutal or masculine, it's very clinical and clean.  It's a damn sight nicer than most of the FPS games I've ever played, especially Battlefield, where the actual learning curve for someone who's never played an FPS is a lot harder to deal with than EVE's.

EVE gets a really bad reputation for complexity and difficulty, so if women aren't playing for some reason it's more than likely its reputation, but it's really just not that game.  It's very much the Eurythmics of MMO games, sort of futuristic and stripped down to undertones.  In a world of games where you get more and more customization so your personality can shine through, you can't even change the color of your ship in EVE.

It's not a matter of the game being masculine or not, it's like Marilyn Manson in his boobed bodysuit thing he wore during the Mechanical Animals phase.  There is no gender in your ship or your fit, or really anything else.  EVE's not the place where sharp discrepancies are going to show up.

[Desiderya]

Okay, so if the character's gender in EVE is utterly meaningless, why is it of importance in other games?

Also +1:

It's a numbers game and not about dressing up an avatar, so it's inherently "not for girls"?

No.
[...]
EVE gets a really bad reputation for complexity and difficulty, so if women aren't playing for some reason it's more than likely its reputation, but it's really just not that game. [...]  In a world of games where you get more and more customization so your personality can shine through, you can't even change the color of your ship in EVE.

[kalaratiri]

My friend is reading the thread, so I'm including my own answers to her questions 

The questions:

1. What is your opinion on girl gamers?

2. After finding out an opponent or teammate is the opposite gender, do you feel different about them?

3. Do you feel gamer girls are their own clique within gamers as a whole?

4. Do you feel there is a rivalry or alliance between the genders in the gaming community?

5. Do you feel sexism is an issue, and if so, have you experienced it?

1. As someone who has met quite a few of them, I mostly see female gamers as just like any other gamer. Some of them are toxic and annoying, some of them are extremely good fun to be around just like any male gamer.

2.  I hope not. When I am playing a social game like Eve, I do my best to ignore gender as a factor. It simply doesn't matter to me what a person's biology is as long as they are fun to be around. I have encountered a few people (all male) who makes jokes about women being unable to pvp, but my encounters with people such as Ava means that I tend to ignore them.

3. I would say no, however, there are examples such as the Women Gamers of Eve channel and the old Hellcats pirate corp that show that this can happen. I think those specific examples might be more to do with Eve than gaming as a whole though, due to the huge disparity in gender. Women may just simply want somewhere to hang out that isn't infested with men

4. Yes to rivalry, but I also feel it to be mainly one sided. There seems to be a considerable amount of hate directed towards women by some male gamers who see women as enroaching on their territory. "Gaming is for men, women are bad at it, get back in the kitchen" sort of hate. It's totally stupid in my eyes, and as far as the "women are bad at gaming" sentiment goes, it's provably false. My sister consistently beats the shit out of me at racing games.

5. Definitely. I see widespread issues of sexism in the gaming world, from the vitrolic attitude of some male gamers to the utter lack of characterisation of many female characters in gaming. Female characters are constantly used as eye candy to bait men into buying the games, such as Ivy in Soulcaliber and Fran from Final Fantasy XII (it would be difficult for either of them to be wearing less clothes), rather than making them important story drivers in their own right. Either that or they end up dead to inspire the righteous fury of their male counterpart :l

I have personally never been the target of sexist comments, but I have been present while female players were. Several years ago, I was invited to a public Teamspeak channel where around 50 or 60 Eve players were talking. When a woman happened to speak up, there was a short pause followed by a storm of every kind of stupid, meme based sexist comment you can think of. Tits or gtfo was a popular one. This kind of behaviour, in my opinion, is the biggest obstacle to equal numbers of each gender being involved in social mmos such as Eve.

[Kala]

Okay, I think I'm being taken a bit out of context.

If you mean me, I prefer to think of it as 'used what you said as a springboard to have a ramble'    Which it was in a lot of ways rather than a direct response (as well as muddled in with getting ideas from what Lyn said) Re: hard numbers and the like, it's reminded me of what other people have said about EVE when wondering why the female demographic was so small compared to contemporaries such as WoW (though I think at the time being a smaller, more niche and less known game may have had something to do with it!) so I rehashed it and ran with it.  Wasn't deliberately attributing things you didn't say to you.

I know what androgynous means, just was unclear how you were using it or in what ways EVE is androgynous.  (Or whether you're talking design, mechanics or community as I'm certainly conflating all of the above when describing it)

Flying a ship doesn't eliminate gender, though.  It does form less of an association with an avatar - but still.  There are people. Who talk to eachother.  It would be wonderful if they all thought like you that because we fly ships EVE is completely gender neutral - but honestly, they don't.  Some do, and those are the good ones.   But a lot don't.

If you wanted to take part in 0.0 PVP you're probably going to have to get on teamspeak at some point.  You're probably just going to have to take my word for it that when people hear a female voice they don't equate you with your tempest. I wonder how that voice synthesiser thing will effect things.  Is that a thing yet?

But even before I'd ever got on teamspeak, there were plenty of examples of um - non neutrality from other players.  I suspect from people who don't get out much.

By brutal, I didn't mean masculine, or brutalism in a design sense, I meant in the sense that many MMOs - the vast majority since Ultima Online in fact, have no sense of loss.  You don't lose your stuff.  I guess I also mean the relative scope of nasty things the game allows you to do to other players. (Which, for the record, I'm perfectly fine with). 

But yeah.  There's always idiots, but my experience with the EVE community has largely been that they've been fluffy bunnies.  Including the pirates. (Especially the pirates).

[Esna Pitoojee]

1. What is your opinion on girl gamers?

They're... gamers? I don't tend to distinguish; in my experience they can be every bit as competent as male gamers.

I'll note at this point that of the 7 corps I've been in, 5 have had female members (of the remaining two, I still interacted with female members of an alliance or bloc on a regular basis). Of those 5, in every case there was a woman in some form of a command or director position. So, pretty early on in EVE I was hit with the point that you don't judge someone by their sex, but by their rank in your corp.  Coming off of my Halo experience (see question #5), that was actually a pretty enjoyable angle for me.

2. After finding out an opponent or teammate is the opposite gender, do you feel different about them?

I don't really think so. As said above, EVE has deeply impressed on me the idea that you don't judge someone by their gender, but their personality and capabilities. Doing so can lead to meeting some nice, smart, seriously capable people - and failing to do so will make the same rather angry at you.

3. Do you feel gamer girls are their own clique within gamers as a whole?

At times. This can be motivated by outside pressure or hostility, but also at times by the self-motivated desire to "better" than anyone else. This can happen to any group, but does occasionally happen "simply because". I will note that this behavior can at times cycle back in a feedback loop, where they will get more negative attention because they stand out. However, I don't think that this is related to gender differences, so much as it is the habit of the internet to make fun of any group that promotes themselves as "special" or "different".

4. Do you feel there is a rivalry or alliance between the genders in the gaming community?

I don't think one can definitively say either way, because that would suggest the genders are absolutely unified in either direction - this is, of course, absolutely untrue. I think the vast majority of gamers simply don't care and would rather focus on meeting their game-objectives; if that counts as an 'alliance' then I guess I'd go with that. There are, naturally, a few who insist there's some kind of rivalry, but they are few and the gamer community is vast.

5. Do you feel sexism is an issue, and if so, have you experienced it?

Yes. Yes it definitely is. Before going any further, I'll split my answer into the separate issues of directed sexism and casual sexism.

Directed sexism - when someone experiences an extended personal attack aimed directly at them as an individual, based on their gender - is rarer than you might think, but it does happen. In some cases, it is entirely unwarranted; this forms the vast majority of these cases. It is also the only kind of sexism I can say I have even remotely experienced, as two female EVE players I know have gone through it and it was extremely unpleasant for both of them, yielding the two or three people who I continue to harbor a deep hostility to in EVE. Suffice to say I have a very low tolerance for it. In other cases, equally unfortunately, it can be exacerbated by the 'victims' themselves - for instance, Mintchip. Use your gender to personally enrich yourself, post nude photos online, then act surprised when people bring it up? WHO'D HAVE THOUGHT!

I will note that the prevalence of this varies significantly by game. Before I came to EVE, I played a lot of Halo 2 - which fully lived up to its reputation as a game in which speaking with a remotely female voice would unleash a hail of catcalls and unpleasant comments. I, for one, found this frustrating more than anything else - I came here to play a game, not listen to a bunch of people display how many sexual euphemisms they can come up with - but in retrospect I can understand how much worse it could be for the people on the receiving end.

Casual sexism is far more common. I'm talking about using sexually derogatory phrases, making crude jokes, posting pornography in game or game-related sites, anything which is not a directed, specific attack but could still make someone of a specific gender feel uncomfortable. I don't think one can go on the internet without experiencing this, and it does in fact run in both ways - male and female. Thing is, gender's hardly the only thing to be targeted: Religions, races, countries, mental disorders, tones of voice, poor spelling - the internet has decided nothing is sacred and all shall be mocked and denigrated. Whether this is a good or bad thing is an entirely separate discussion which I will not get into here; my point is that the casual sexism is not anything especially significant compared to the others. It can merit an eyeroll and frustration, but I don't feel going into apoplexy over it contributes either.

"Eve is well known as a male dominated game, with approx 95% of players being men. This has led to the long running joke/tagline "there are no girls in eve (or on the internet)". What sort of impact do you think this has on female Eve players, or women just starting to play the game? For those of you who are female Eve players, have you encountered this often? Do you feel a need to 'prove' that you are female, or do you prefer to just get on with playing the game?"

I can't answer the latter part, obviously, but I'd file the former under what I referred to as 'casual sexism' above - and then promptly go on to note that it's hardly the only kind of joke you run into on the internet or EVE. In my personal opinion, giving serious ear to that kind of thing isn't real helpful and if you can't learn to ignore it then you're going to have a rough time on the internet in general. Trying to "prove" that you are female isn't real helpful; trying to prove that you're a competent, smart, capable person who deserves respect is.

[Vic Van Meter]

Okay, I think I'm being taken a bit out of context.

If you mean me, I prefer to think of it as 'used what you said as a springboard to have a ramble'    Which it was in a lot of ways rather than a direct response (as well as muddled in with getting ideas from what Lyn said) Re: hard numbers and the like, it's reminded me of what other people have said about EVE when wondering why the female demographic was so small compared to contemporaries such as WoW (though I think at the time being a smaller, more niche and less known game may have had something to do with it!) so I rehashed it and ran with it.  Wasn't deliberately attributing things you didn't say to you.

Nah, I was just wondering if people had missed the androgynous thing.  Which kind of brings me to...

Okay, so if the character's gender in EVE is utterly meaningless, why is it of importance in other games?

Also +1:

It's a numbers game and not about dressing up an avatar, so it's inherently "not for girls"?

No.
[...]
EVE gets a really bad reputation for complexity and difficulty, so if women aren't playing for some reason it's more than likely its reputation, but it's really just not that game. [...]  In a world of games where you get more and more customization so your personality can shine through, you can't even change the color of your ship in EVE.

I think maybe you don't realize how badly I want to change the color of my ship and make it look different.  I'm not a girl.  The whole problem is, in the game, I'm not anything.  All the personality my character has is on the IGS and in the RP channels.  Compare and contrast that to my primary game, where I've intentionally removed my helm and cloak.  I was one of the people that squeed hard when transmogrification was brought in.  I love character customization that you can see in game because, let's face it, I get bored very quickly if I feel like another blip on the radar.  I'm one of those random idiots that collects a buttload of mounts, has certain summonable pets set on macro for certain characters, and I still have severely outdated class gear for a warlock just because it's the only green robe with writing on it.

In short, I'm the person you think the girl should be.  I was only saying that, if girls are being told that the game's got a high learning curve and they shouldn't play it because they won't get it, it would certainly explain things.  I was also saying it's bullshit, EVE's not that hard of a game to play.

To answer the question though, that level of painting your personality right where everyone can see it puts a lot of parts of your own personality into the game, and that necessarily brings gender into it.  It's a big part of who everyone is.  It tends to come out.  It happens a lot more when you've got that opportunity to represent yourself in game more overtly.  Your Machariel isn't anything that can reflect your gender, or anything else, it's just a ship.

Now, imagine you could paint it, and you saw one painted pink with a Hello Kitty logo painted on the side.

Whether it was actually a girl flying it or not, certain thoughts about gender are necessarily going to run through your head.  It's not just "Machariel" anymore, it's "WTF Pink Machariel, is it a girl or a guy flying it ironically?  Are they twelve?"  It's that sort of thing.  We have sparkly horses and giant scorpions with guild flags on them, that's obviously flown through my mind a few times.  More importantly, in WoW, if you see someone playing a girl, they might not/probably aren't actually a girl in real life.  But as you see them in a girl's avatar, rather than the gender-neutral ships of EVE, you unconsciously confront the idea.  Is it really a girl?  Is it not?  If not, why play one?  Why would I think it is one?  Why would I care?

Doesn't happen in a ship; I don't bother checking someone's profile picture before I take off from my data site on Roman.  They're either a battleship or they're a mining ship, they're not a person.

That's sort of what I'm getting at.  I'm sort of surprised at Lyn having seen a lot of sexism and such in EVE because I can't see why anyone would ever know or care if the people they play against or with are women or men.  They could be sentient rocks for all it matters; your personal presence is sort of left behind by the vast distances involved and your in-game presence being represented by a standardized ship model, not by the character you spent all your time customizing.