I’m also a bit of an amateur linguist; I look at the language people use and what it means to use it in different circumstances for no other reason than it interests me. I’ve been considering a discussion on the language of gaming with BadRep for some time now, and I think this would be a good first topic: the problem with ‘girl gamer’ as an identifier.

Obviously, everyone is welcome to self-describe however they see fit, but I’d just like it if people could think about this term a little bit before applying it to themselves or others.

Let’s think about ‘gamer’. We all recognise this as meaning ‘someone who plays games’ with the extended connotation nowadays that this means computer- & video-games (as opposed to card games or board games). There’s no other extended definition: it’s not exclusive to male players. A gamer is just a person.

Now: ‘girl’. I have a serious problem with the general use of this word when referring to adults, anyway. A girl or a boy is a child. Use of either when speaking of an adult is insulting, infantilising and diminutive. (I won’t even use the words boyfriend or girlfriend if I can avoid them). The problem with coupling ‘girl’ with ‘gamer’ is that it accentuates the misconception that the gamer in question isn’t mature enough or capable enough to play with the adults – thereby widening the void between male and female gamers and adding to the sexism that some experience.

~Insert disclaimer on how we all know that not all gamers are sexist. Furthermore, it’s not just male gamers who are sexist in gaming either.~

Using ‘girl gamer’ on one’s self and others is just adding fuel to the sexist contingent’s fire, because it’s a way of self-segregating, and not a very positive way at that. We rarely hear of other segregated terms – you don’t nearly as often see references to black gamers, white gamers, asian gamers, boy gamers, gay gamers, intergalactic invader gamers – at least, not in the same way. So why should we encourage the use of ‘girl gamer’ if at the same time we’re trying to fight against being segregated based on sex or gender?

Sure, if we’re actually talking about children, then by all means use ‘girl’, as long as we’re willing to use ‘boy’ alongside it. In the adult world, however, self-referral as a ‘girl’ plays into the patriarchal control mechanisms of English, which then eke their way into the gamer consciousness. Unfortunately, as English-speakers, we get to speak a very sexist language, historically used by the powerful to subjugate and cling to power. In the past, those powerful people have primarily been male, so there’s no surprise that the language of the realm has been adapted to keep others out of power and quash protest.

You can see this simply in the way people talk without even touching on gamers and gaming. How many times have you heard someone refer to male and female adults as ‘guys’ and ‘girls’? ‘Guy’ is widely accepted as referencing an adult man, whereas ‘girl’ is a word for a child, and puts the women in the inferior position.

Language is important and so is the use of language. Any linguist will tell you that, regardless of their sex or gender. If you pause to think about it, anybody can realise how important language is. The words we choose to use are always vital to building the way we want to describe, discuss, identify and progress. ‘Girl gamer’ is problematic. It’s used as a derogatory term by some in the community to imply that female gamers are separate and inept, and that they should be kept that way. Attempts at reclamation of the term are fraught with complications as no matter how positive the intention, it still perpetuates this segregation, infatilisation and dismissal from the realm of The Gamer.

We need to remember that within gaming, it’s the game that matters. Games are forms of escapism, so why should anything about us personally be important when we’re gaming? Yes, our identities come into play when we discuss development and progression of our preferred art form/entertainment source, but when we’re playing, they’re irrelevant. You don’t need to be male, female, trans*, gay, straight, bi, queer, old, young, white, black or anything else; when you game, you are a gamer. Anyone can game, and we have the potential to create and mould a fantastically inclusive community to wrap around our favourite hobby – we just need to take care with how we define ourselves and the language we use.

We are all gamers.That’s it.

Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday.

– Wilma Rudolph

The 1960 Summer Olympics, the first to be broadcast internationally (the 1948 games had been aired by the BBC, but only in London), helped launch the fame of one of the world’s best known athletes, Cassius Clay. But this post is about someone else who competed that year: the woman who would become known as “the Tornado” and “La Gazella Negra”, Wilma Glodean Rudolph (June 23, 1940 – November 12 1994).

Rudolph was not the most likely choice to become one of the best runners of her generation. The 20th in a family of 22 children, she was a premature birth, weighing only 4.5lbs. Racial segregation in the US at the time prevented Wilma from being treated at the local hospital, and the poverty caused by the Great Depression made it financially difficult for her family to take her elsewhere. Throughout her childhood her mother had to nurse her through measles, mumps, scarlet fever, whooping cough, chickenpox, and pneumonia.

The disease that had the most impact on her chances of athletic stardom, however, was polio, which left her partially paralysed and with a twisted left leg. It seemed unlikely that she would be able to walk again, let alone run. Wilma, however, was far too tenacious to be slowed down by a little thing like polio and childhood paralysis. Through a combination of intense physical therapy, corrective shoes, and a metal leg brace, Wilma regained the ability to walk unaided by the age of twelve.

My doctor told me I would never walk again. My mother told me I would. I believed my mother.

– Wilma Rudolph

No stranger to physical training by this point, Wilma decided to follow in the path of one of her older sisters and take up basketball. She excelled at the sport, setting state records for scoring, and catching the attention of Edward Temple – the track and field coach for Tennessee State University. She had some track experience already from high school athletics classes, and by 1956, aged 16, she was running to a high enough standard to have a spot on the US Olympic team for the 1956 games in Melbourne, where she picked up a bronze medal.

Four years beforehand she’d been unable to walk unaided, and four years before that she was being told by doctors that she’d never walk at all. Now she was an Olympic medallist. Of course, someone who overcomes polio through sheer determination isn’t the sort of person who settles for a mere bronze medal. In 1960 Wilma returned to the Olympics for the Rome games and landed no less than three gold medals, the first American woman to do so. She set a world record for the 200m sprint at 23.2 seconds, and one for the 400m relay with her teammates Martha Hudson, Lucinda Williams, and Barbara Jones.

What made Wilma’s Olympic victory go from a regular badass achievement to a triple-decker pile of brilliance, however, was what she did afterwards. Upon returning to Clarksville, Tennessee, with her medals, a homecoming parade was arranged in her honour. She insisted the parade be an integrated event, where previous such occasions had always been segregated. Her banquet was the first time in the city’s history that a large meal was held without segregation. After this, Wilma joined the protests that took place in the city until segregation laws were struck down.

You want to hear about more awesomeness? Hopefully you do, because Wilma Rudolph still had plenty more of it to deliver. Her athletic excellence had earned her a full scholarship at Tennessee State University, you see, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in education. She taught for a while at her own former high school, followed by schools in Maine and Indiana. In 1967 she was asked by the then Vice President of the US, Hubert Humphrey, to take part in an athletic outreach programme aimed at underprivileged children living in housing projects in several major cities. When the programme ended she established her own non-profit organisation, the Wilma Rudolph Foundation, to continue the work. The foundation provided free coaching, academic assistance and personal support to kids in deprived areas.

The triumph can’t be had without the struggle. And I know what struggle is. I have spent a lifetime trying to share what it has meant to be a woman first in the world of sports so that other young women have a chance to reach their dreams.

– Wilma Rudolph

For more detailed discussion on Wilma Rudolph’s athletic achievements and work as an educator and civil rights campaigner, check out Wilma Rudolph: Athlete and Educator by Alice Flanagan, and the good but somewhat short Wilma Unlimited by Kathleen Krull. Wilma’s 1977 autobiography, Wilma, is also good, but a bit tricky to find.

• Unsung Heroes: spotlighting fascinating people we never learned about at school. Rob Mulligan also blogs at Stuttering Demagogue. Stay tuned for future Heroes, or send your own in to [email protected]!