ENWorld women

Originally posted by Silver Moon

We are spoiled PC. This thread, and the parallel thread over in Randomling's House led Kriskrafts and I to a long conversation last night on the subject. She commented about how, despite the vast number of conventions we all attended, a large number of players still refused to accept her as a equal due to her gender.

It reminded me of one thing that I saw happen several times marshalling RPGA games - players who had never met either of them before that would make an effort to switch tables to avoid having either Kriskrafts for a D&D DM or KidCathulhu as a CofC GM. I would allow it, just because I didn't want either gamemaster to have to be stuck with a player with a sexist attitude. I also knew that the players were really just hurting themselves, switching from the best GM that slot to an inferior one.

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Much as discrimination based on something one cannot control (race, sex, etc.) hurts regardless of the underlying reasons behind it, I think it is a mistake to assume that when men try to avoid gaming with you or display obvious discomfort or hostility based on your gender, that this arises from them believing you to be inferior.

Gaming is often tough for people when they are socially uncomfortable; for many gamers, gaming is the only social activity in which they do not feel uncomfortable. For many such maladjusted individuals, the presence of a woman in the group they're gaming with can destroy their sense of social comfort. If such a person has spent their hard-earned money to attend a convention, I can understand why they might feel entitled to be in a group that was exclusively male -- and therefore one in which they could relax and enjoy themselves.

Obviously, such feelings of insecurity spring from a belief in the inequality of male and female gamers but I would argue that they are far more likely to derive from a belief in the superiority, not the inferiority of women.

Okay Fusangite, that makes sense. But I still feel that anyone who intentionally bypasses an opportunity to play Call of Cthulhu with KidCthulhu has already failed their sanity check.

I always had at least one women in my groups, playing all kindsa games/genres/characters.

some of the things said here (and in a small discussion on randomlings house) sadden me completely.

Silvermoon, kriskrafts, PC, your not spoiled: you are doing things like it suppose to be done.

Gods what is the world backwards sometimes

To answer the question about minority female gamers, I'm one. I spell my screen nick like this for a reason *wink*.

To make things more "weird," although I did grow up in a mostly white, suburban area, my parents grew up in poor, black, and rural. Rather than try to shield me from what they went through, they shared their experiences with me, so I was always conscious (even if I was young and naive) of the dynamics of race and gender in this country (USA, hooray!). To make matters "worse," I went to an HBCU. Yet, I am not a card-carrying member of the Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers, or the Mao Maos, nor would I like to be (sexism being the main turn-off, the other being a tendency to think of white people as beyond hope---an attitude that white supremacists have towards minorities). So, for a real long time now I have had difficulty explaining the dynamics of identity and politics and how I, due to my circumstances, cannot divorce the two. It's been...frustrating...to say the least. Fortunately, the people who have understand me most amongst "the enemy" tended to be gamers.

Most of the long-term gaming groups I've been in have had at least one gamer girl. And quite a few con games too.

Mobidity and Miho who post (or have posted) on these boards are both female.

As for racial minority female gamers, one of the regulars in my gaming group when I was an undergrad was an Asian woman (half Philipina, half Singaporean IIRC). And there's a black female gamer that I've talked to at a couple of Dragonmeets. I suspect that Afro-Caribbean women are one of the most under-represented groups among gamers.

(BTW I'm a white male. Apologies for contributing to the gamer stereotype )

Everybody in our game, until it fizzled a few weeks ago, was a minority. We had a potter, a guy from Northern Kentucky, a guy from Western Kentucky, an Army reservist, and a person of colorblindness. It was kind of a tense blend, obviously, and ultimately we broke up due to tension over cultural differences. I think diversity counseling might have helped, but we didn't get it in time sadly.

Personally, I think 6-fingered Tasmanian hermaphrodites with long earlobes are the most underrepresented minority among gamers, but I'm a long-time member of the umbrella group Americans for Social Justice for Six-Fingered Tasmanian Hermaphrodites With Earlobes of Various Lengths (ASJSFTHWEVL), so I'm somewhat biased.

tarchon said:

Everybody in our game, until it fizzled a few weeks ago, was a minority. We had a potter,

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i cannot believe you are saying this, we all know potters form a solid majority!

Just saw the new avatar, sixchan, NICE!

Angcuru said:

Just saw the new avatar, sixchan, NICE!

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Thanks!

It's not as large as I'd like it to be (since on the other site I used it it was 140x130 pixels), but it suffices, and looks badass sailor-cool.

If only we could have unlimited avatars, for I truly have the greatest avatar ever:

Note: Translated roughly as "I DON'T KNOW AS WELL!"

Sixchan said:

If only we could have unlimited avatars, for I truly have the greatest avatar ever:

Note: Translated roughly as "I DON'T KNOW AS WELL!"

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but is that Akane?