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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Banshee16" data-source="post: 2168596" data-attributes="member: 7883">Well, I would hope that most gamers don't actually have a problem with women playing.  I think that many people are a bit defensive about it though.  I saw enough instances in High School where gamers I knew were openly harassed and ridiculed by peers, and basically ostracized, when some clever bully or other found out about the hobby.As a result, they get defensive.  I think there's an insecurity factor involved, and the fear that if women know what the guy is into, they'll somehow think less about them.  Not sure if that makes sense.I myself kept my hobby private through school.  Not all my friends did, and they suffered for it.  Severely.  I think it's wrong that it was allowed to happen by the school authorities, but that's 13 years in the past, now.  I also had interests outside of gaming...competitive swimming, lifeguarding, art, soccer, and regular high school stuff....but a lot of gamers I knew didn't.....gaming is all they did.  By strange coincidence a few years back, I learned that half the guys in my division of my company were gamers, but nobody realized anyone else was, since everyone was keeping it private.Even now, some of the guys I've had in my group have been a little reclusive.  I don't know if that kind of person is drawn to roleplaying, or if they become like that being so defensive and reclusive about their hobby.  I've learned on two separate instances to be careful about mixing my gaming friends with my other friends.  On two separate instances, players of mine who had the opportunity to meet my sister, who is very attractive and very outgoing.  In these instances they made inappropriate comments to her.  Not suggestive, but in one case being rather pushy, and in both instances, telling her, who they had literally met only once or twice that they had never kissed a girl or had a girlfriend, or asking her out when it's been made clear that she's already in a long-term, committed relationship.  Those types of things.  Obviously these instances have made her uncomfortable.  And some of these guys are like 30.  It's just not the kind of thing you say to someone you just met.  And then I'm left making excuses for these guys.On other instances, I've had guys in the group make comments about my own girlfriend, and in another instance, one of them did something that made my girlfriend very uncomfortable in our own house.  If these were non-gamer friends, I'd be angrier, but with these particular friends, I feel bad, because I don't think they have the experience to know any better.After having said this, I realize that it sounds like I'm painting all gamers with the weird brush.  Many are quite "normal"....whatever the label "normal" means.  Most of my players aren't like the ones I've mentioned, nor am I.  Maybe because of defensiveness about the hobby, some gamers don't have the opportunities to interact with a lot of women, and hence have difficulty accepting them in their groups?  I don't know the answer.  I suspect that it's ones like that that make such a big deal out of women playing.I've had women in my groups before, though not many, and those I had were excellent roleplayers.On the flip side of things, many women I've known just didn't understand the hobby at all.  Even my girlfriend of almost 4 years doesn't really understand it, though she accepts it since she knows I enjoy it.Banshee</blockquote>

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