i started playing valorant recently cause me and my friends happened to stumble across a gaming cafe when we explored a nearby city. i’ve never played shooter games before, or just games in general so it was a new and exciting experience. I built my own pc and i’ve started playing val (and other games a lot more).

However, there’s a huge problem with sexism and misogyny in the game. I’m a woman and i feel super uncomfortable having voice chat on. I only want to play games and have fun, but that seems impossible. It makes me feel so shit when they sexualise and objectify me, and try to flirt with me in the game. Honestly it ruins the whole experience.

For example, I played a game where i did good, two of my teammates attacked and sexualised another girl in our team and i couldn’t help but tell them to stop being gross. Almost instantly they started attacking and harassing me instead. Asking if i was a “female”, if i wanted to add their phone number cause i sound hot, that i’m just lucky cus there’s no way im this good at the game. When i rejected his dating idea and said “this is not a dating site” he started insulting me bad.

Don’t get me wrong, i acknowledge and love the healthy and funny side of the community, but at the same time i’m aware that this isn’t something new to the community. Please be mindful of how you treat your teammates - and women in gaming, and for this instance valorant.