Re: a few misunderstandings going on
Afrodyte writes,
Rather, I am speaking from cumulative gaming experiences I've had over the years with different groups. Coincidentally, these groups have mostly been composed of men with a "GM's girlfriend" or "player's SO" sprinkled here and there, but also a couple of girls like Buttercup who'd game regardless of whether a boyfriend, fiance, or husband were involved.
I don't dispute the fact that RPGs are a good way to observe gender differences. Initially, I was all ready to jump in with my ideas about why men behave in the patterns that you observe. But I felt that the way things were going, the thread was moving towards the idea that there exists an objective social standard applicable to RPGs. And I felt that myth needed to be attacked.
The fact is that men who feel threatened/disempowered by women are over-represented in the gaming community. Thus, when they get to be in a situation where they can assert their dominance over a woman, they sometimes do. And they tend to do this in an argumentative, intellectually-framed way; but at its root, this is an emotional response.
A lot of people play RPGs as a way of dealing with their own lack of power in their personal lives. They get to play a character who has power over his situation that they don't. Thus, they have a particularly strong hostility to things that undermine their attempt to escape from the disempowerment that is their daily lives.
Unlike women, men are not socialized to accept disempowerment and instead are made to feel that they are failing as men when they do not have power in situations that confront them. So, when there is a contest of power around a gaming table between a woman and a group of men, men will sometimes react aggressively to defend the escapist group dynamic they have created.
As weird as it seems, asking these men to modify their behaviour in consideration of your feelings threatens the social dynamic they have carefully created. The only way to re-establish the dynamic they are seeking is to "put you in your place." Now, when, in the past, my life has sucked so much that I needed to be in a game that had that kind of dynamic, my solution was to simply oppose the admission of any women into the group. So , I'm not especially impressed with the guys in your group who shouldn't have invited you in the first place.
Yep. Your experiences fit into a pattern I have observed; but being
goal-oriented
, I have chosen to respond to you by looking for solutions to your problem rather than simply confirming that your generalizations are often true.
That stated, my gaming groups don't tend to be as you describe. About half the people never seem to learn the rules (and yes, women are over-represented in that group) and the game is more an excuse for people I like to get together every week than for a game to actually take place. We take long digressions, tell annecdotes, etc. But I don't think my games are typical.
Now, just because I've engaged in some pretty negative pop psych about gamer guys doesn't mean I don't have equally negative, cynical assessments of what makes most female gamers tick. But I'll save that for another thread.
