Every time we think we make some little bit of progress, someone does something that makes it clear there is still a ton of work to do. Some things are mistakes (that some dude bro must have thought was hysterical when they penned it) and when they’re rectified, it’s at least a small step forward.

In 2020, I renewed my love of gaming with a Nintendo Switch. I was teaching middle school at the time and we had gone on “extended spring break” while the whole covid thing “blew over” (oh how naive we were). I’d been thinking about getting one and started following some YouTubers that talked Switch and Nintendo (primarily Wood Hawker on BeatEmUps) and my boyfriend decided to surprise me with a Let’s Go Eevee Switch and the new Animal Crossing.

Yeah, that kept me occupied during the last quarter of school and well into the next year while struggling with remote learning.

That also meant that I was going to look for more games and accessories for it. At this point I have a decent collection (for me) of mostly digital games and a great holder and travel case recommended by BeatEmUps: the Satisfy ZenGrip Pro holder and case (which I got as a bundle that isn’t currently available on the site). Absolutely the single most comfortable way to play my Switch and a great way to keep it safe while taking it on trips or to school (hey, teachers need downtime on lunch, too).

I absolutely LOVE this product. It deserves every recommendation it’s received and then some.

As an existing customer, I get emails from them occasionally. They’re not spammy, so I actually open them when I get them. The level of infuriated I hit when opening this was insane.

As I said to the @SatisfyeGaming account on Twitter, news flash marketing geniuses: I’m your customer.

Tell me your company is run entirely by men without telling me it’s run entirely by men.

The fact that this email was sent out at all is appalling. This cleared the dude bro who wrote it, their higher ups and everyone in the chain of command and they all decided that there was nothing wrong with this message.

“So, don’t worry about trying to understand him and his love for gaming.“

Because us silly women-folk can’t possibly comprehend these super complex video games. We just want someone to tell us we’re pretty while we get them a beer, right? 🙄

I screenshot the email and hit off a few tweets pointing out the blatant sexism and tagging @BeatEmUpsWood while saying he wasn’t recommending them to just the male part of his audience.

To my surprise, Wood commented on that one and said others had reached out to him about it. I tell you, this guy is a stand up human being. Go follow him everywhere.

An hour after the initial email hit inboxes (12:02 pm MST), Satisfye tweeted a response (1:05 pm MST) and followed up with an email about two and a half hours later (3:33 pm MST) apologizing for their screwup with the same language that was tweeted and a bit more.

I will give them credit for responding fairly quickly to the issue. I do think they recognize that this was an awful mistake that shouldn’t have ever happened.

But the fact that it even went out or was even thought of as a good marketing idea at all demonstrates that we still have a long way to go when it comes to being seen as equals in the world at large, even when it comes to our hobbies.

I’ve been playing Nintendo systems since the 80’s (my first was an Atari if that tells you anything), grew up with a love of board games, have a ton of casual phone games on every new model I upgrade to, and have played D&D for about six years and I still hesitate to call myself a “gamer.” The massive gatekeeping that demands women know every minute detail when they say they like something already keeps us out of spaces needlessly. Marketing mistakes like this only reinforce the archaic idea of who doesn’t belong there.