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There's a toxicity within gaming culture, and also in tech culture, that drives this misogynist hatred, this reactionary backlash against women who have anything to say, especially those who have critiques or who are feminists.

Online harassment, especially gendered online harassment, is an epidemic. Women are being driven out; they're being driven offline. This isn't just in gaming. This is happening across the board online, especially with women who participate in or work in male-dominated industries.

I love playing women, and I think that this is a throughline to a lot of the characters I've played - they all have this aspect of being wronged. And I think, a lot of the time, the characters are actually wronged by themselves, and they find someone else to blame it on.

GamerGate is really a sexist temper tantrum. That's kind of a silly, funny way of putting it, but it's kind of what it feels like, right? They're going after and targeting women who are trying to make changes in the industry. They're attacking anyone who supports women.

Gaming in general is a male thing. It isn't that gaming is designed to exclude women. Everybody who's tried to design a game to interest a large female audience has failed. And I think that has to do with the different thinking processes of men and women.

Game creators aren't necessarily all sitting around twirling their nefarious-looking mustaches while consciously trying to figure out how to best misrepresent women as part of some grand conspiracy. Most probably just haven't given much thought to the underlying messages their games are sending.

The denial of female aggression is a destructive myth. It robs an entire gender of a significant spectrum of power, leaving women less than equal with men and effectively keeping them 'in their place' and under control.

The notion that gaming was not for women rippled out into society, until we heard it not just from the games industry, but from our families, teachers and friends. As a consequence, I, like many women, had a complicated, love-hate relationship with gaming culture.

I get quite disappointed that we're still telling stories that I think are problematic in terms of what they're saying about women.