When Stephanie Gelish joined the video games club at her college last fall, she found it overwhelmingly male and less than inviting to females. But rather than throw down her controller, she did something about it. With the help of friends, she started her own video games club for girls: GameHers.

A freshman at Champlain College (Burlington, VT), Stephanie is an avid gamer who aspires to have a career in game design. She's currently majoring in Electronic Interactive Game Design, or "E-Gaming." It's a major offered by few colleges, and taken by even fewer females. That's what she wants to change. "Video games are a completely different world," Stephanie says. "You can be anyone, and if you get into the video games industry you can put your ideas out there. Anything can happen."

Stephanie wants to do more with the club than the usual tournaments and gaming sessions. The girls plan to meet with women in the gaming industry, while also inspiring younger girls to consider the field. Members have regular discussions on how to make the industry more welcoming to women, and how to get more girls gaming. "Girls just laugh," she complains. "They say, 'Oh, that game's too complicated for me.'"

But according to Stephanie, girls wouldn't think that way if given the chance to play as children, instead of being conditioned to think of gaming as a "guy thing." The games that are geared toward girls are not even games, she says. She cites Barbie dress-up video games as an example. "They're not making girl games challenging," explains Stephanie. "We have to exercise girls' minds."

And she has just the game plan to do it. By incorporating the things that girls already like (such as cute guys, great storylines, and romance), Stephanie is confident they'll be able to win over the fairer sex without compromising gaming's guy fans. "I don't want to create separate girl and guy games," she states. "I want to make video games that appeal to both."

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