Here's my experience with the whole girl gamer thing.
I played games since around 5-8, tried different systems by accident, enjoyed them more than hanging out with kids, moved to a different country, ended up playing games again at the age of 10-11, discovered the internet around 13-14 and things really started around that age.
Before discovering the internet, I'd read magazines and see links to forums that were inviting for game minded people. I felt like sharing my passion somewhere and getting more involved. I've discovered some Nintendo forums and first lurked for a while instead of becoming a member straight away. What became apparent during that time is how girl gamers are talked about often like they didn't exist. This was really odd to me at the time, being told that I don't exist. So when creating an account, I ironically decided to call myself Girlgamer just to prove a point, that girls do in fact exist. It was a very sincere thought without hoping to get any attention out of it. To my surprise, I got TONS of attention. In my world people where very nice to me, welcoming, sweet and inviting. It was the best feeling ever. I never knew girl gamers were treated that way before. I never showed pics either, just the nickname was enough. Eventually I got used to that kind of attention, it was to be expected, kind of like demanding it in a way. Eventually though, random forum members wanted to meet me. I felt so odd to have people ask me that, from strangers nonetheless. I would make up excuses to not hurt their feelings. The reason was to protect myself, I might have been young, but I was very protective over any potential danger. Eventually I disappeared from those 2 forums due to all the pressure of showing up in person. It was hard to say no.
After around that time, I started growing up, noticing how games were very sexual in nature and started being bothered about how reading magazines felt very sexist at the time. They are game magazines, yet they showed pics of real women in bikini as a ''reward'' when male readers wrote something to the magazine, talked from a male perspective during news sections, mentioned the parties that were had during conventions and talking about the chick they got or jokes along those lines, having a topic dedicated to booth babes ranking, keep hitting on the female writers they had as a joke, showing some naked women through various ways once in a while. After a while, I seriously started feeling disgusted.
Being the naive child that I was, I decided to make it a mission to fight for equal representation, the female demographics being treated like part of the gaming demographic and all of that. I would seriously get so heated in forums, try to make it known that yes I am a girl and correct anyone that would refer to me as a he.
Now being 25, I've seen it all. Things have certainly improved, more girls are feeling comfortable to come out and talk about these things. The phase of me liking and expecting attention was a short lived one. Me having heated discussions on forums still happens, but it's less hostile, less frequent and I'm honestly tired of going on about it for too much. I'm honestly feeling relieved and happy to have more support and more girls discussing this topic on forums. Developers are more aware of female gamers even if it's still long ways to go until we are treated like any other gamers out there.
The moral of the story is, there are certainly girls who try to get attention by the fact that they play video games. Heck, a long time ago I used to get annoyed at the annoying ones without thinking too much about it. But not all girls who make themselves known do that out of attention. They do it because they want to make a statement.
