Male or Female?

[Al]

My group has 1 female and 6 males, not including myself the DM (male).

 

[orchid blossom]

There was a lot of response to this thread about which of enworlds denizens were female. No poll though.

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=54907

 

[Buttercup]

I have three female players, and then there is me, of course. But you wouldn't let me vote 4 times.

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

I'm a girl. I'm the only girl in my group with 5 guys. I just joined another group in which there is another woman. I know 2 other women who game and one who is very interested in gaming.

 

[Ao the Overkitty]

We have a total of 4 women and 8 men between the three games I am involved in.

Including GMs, one group has 6 men and 2 women, another has 4 men and 2 women, and the last has 3 men and 2 women. Obviously, there is overlap of players, but only one woman plays in all three games.

 

[woodelf]

Groups i've been involved in:

A: 7 regular women, 10 regular men, ~6 drop-in women, ~10 drop-in men (male GM)
B: 5 women, 1 man (female GM)
C: 3 men, one woman (male GM)
D: 3 men, 3 women (male GM)
E: 4 men, 2 women (male GM)
F: 6 men, 3 women (male GM)
G: 2 men, 1 woman (male GM)
H: 4 men
I: 4 men, 1 woman (female GM)
J: 4 men, 1 woman (all took turns GMing)
K: 4 men
L: 6 men, 4 women (male GM)

Some overlap:
C&D, D&E, A&B, H&E, H&I,

Significant overlap:
G&A, J&K

So, approximating the overlaps, i've personally gamed with around 27 men and 19 women on an ongoing basis--i'm not counting convention games, nor the huge number of very-short-lived games i've been involved in (many of which i've probably forgotten). And i may not be counting all the long-lived games, nor remembering every person (especially in that first one), so assume i've undercounted significantly. Of regular RPers, that'd skew more towards men--i've probably forgotten more men than women. Of total, i'm not sure--i've seen a *lot* of women & girls come and go at the gaming table, giving it a try--if i include all of them, i might have actually gamed with more women/girls than men/boys, over the years. From talking to other RPers, both those i've played with and those i haven't, my experiences are atypical, but not radical--most groups i've encountered/heard about have at least one woman per 5 players, and all but one that i'm aware of have at least 2 women.

Anyway, not quite the question asked, but i figure my total gaming experience is a lot more useful in establishing some demographic approximations than my personal gender is.

 

[Ferret]

So the questions is: are women more inclined to respond to this poll, knowing they're the minority, thus skewing the results?

For me, a more interesting poll would be to ask what people's native language is. I imagine most D&D players are English-speaking (possibly primarily American), but I may be way off on that.

But hey, I voted. Male. No female...wait...yeah, Male.

I second that.

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

Let's see, I'm female, and I have two females and three males in my group. We're well-balanced!

 

[Silver Moon]

My personal experience from the past quarter century is around the 25% mark. My guess is this poll will probably result in the 10 to 15% range, as that appears to be the ENWorld ratio. If you ran this same poll over on the www.randomlingshouse.com gaming board you'd probably get a much higher percentage - it even has a forum exclusive to female gamers.

 

[diaglo]

over the last 3 years of gaming. 36 gamers in my area (not conventions, sorry Ray Silver ), only 2 of them were female.

previous editions: approx. 125 gamers only 1 female (my sister)