SableWyvern
Cruel Despot
S'mon: agreed on all points.
You asked~Female gamers
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Balsamic Dragon
First Post
My 2 cents, well actually closer to a buck fifty 
On attracting new female players: if people want female players, there is a lot of advice out there to help them make their games more attractice to players of both genders.
However, what I'd like to see is advice for high school girls on how to start their own all-girl D&D game! Most of the long term players on the list learned to play in high school or junior high, and let's face it, having a mixed gender group at that age poses a lot more problems than it does for adults. So instead of joining the boys group, a better solution might be to start their own.
So as a more constructive topic: how can a high school (or junior high school) girl find and/or form a group? And how can rpg companies write the kind of game that would be useful for that purpose?
Personally, I look at games like Sailor Moon as ideal for this. It is based on something that girls may have an interest in already, it has lots of combat, lots of roleplaying, a relatively simple rules system and only requires the purchase of one book! Any other recommendations?
Myself, I went through being the only girl in the game of all guys all the way up into college, and while I enjoy my hobby, I wouldn't expect every gamer to put up with the kind of crap I did.
I won't comment on the whole women and violence thing, as I've posted my opinions here many times and those who care to listen have already done so The topic attracts more trolls than it does those of genuine interest.
Balsamic Dragon
On attracting new female players: if people want female players, there is a lot of advice out there to help them make their games more attractice to players of both genders.
However, what I'd like to see is advice for high school girls on how to start their own all-girl D&D game! Most of the long term players on the list learned to play in high school or junior high, and let's face it, having a mixed gender group at that age poses a lot more problems than it does for adults. So instead of joining the boys group, a better solution might be to start their own.
So as a more constructive topic: how can a high school (or junior high school) girl find and/or form a group? And how can rpg companies write the kind of game that would be useful for that purpose?
Personally, I look at games like Sailor Moon as ideal for this. It is based on something that girls may have an interest in already, it has lots of combat, lots of roleplaying, a relatively simple rules system and only requires the purchase of one book! Any other recommendations?
Myself, I went through being the only girl in the game of all guys all the way up into college, and while I enjoy my hobby, I wouldn't expect every gamer to put up with the kind of crap I did.
I won't comment on the whole women and violence thing, as I've posted my opinions here many times and those who care to listen have already done so
The topic attracts more trolls than it does those of genuine interest.Balsamic Dragon
*sigh*
Biological imperatives are not the sole determinant of behavior.
**It's CULTURAL**
Everything we do - and this is everything from philosphy to the basics of shelter, food and sex - is coached and framed and shaped by our culture. Culture tells us how to act, how to be, how to live.
If you grew up as a member of a certain tribe in the African desert, you'd be using camel piss to brush your teeth and you'd think it was the best way to do it because that's what your parents taught you. If you were one of two brothers in the old Tibetan agricultural system, you'd marry the same woman to make sure the land wasn't divided into plots too small to live on. And in one South American tribe, heterosexual sex is considered a necessary evil, and men couple with other men for sexual pleasure.
Did you watch the Women's Hockey Match in the Olympics? Wow. A great match. Fabulous tough players; played their hearts out. Would put a lot of NHLers to shame. Clean passing, speedly play. Good stuff. And they say that every year they are out there, every year young girls see them playing, means more of those little girls wanting to play. They are hungry for it, until it's crushed out of them socially. "You'll be too butch to get a guy." "Are you a dyke?" "Girls don't play sports." "Why are they taking field time away from the boy teams?" This comes from both sexes because, again, that's what they are raised to do, by narrow-minded jerks who don't know any better.
In the thousands of years before the modern age in our culture (and in others), yes, women were at a disadvantage. We were breeders and breeders alone. We were robbed of rights, of social class, and of power. Coupled with a sexually represive religion that featured women as one of the main reasons for all of us being kicked out of Eden. CENTURIES upon CENTURIES of this has brought the Western world to where it is today. These cultural stereotypes were firmly entrenched and they were faithfully passed on to our children. "Deviants" who strayed from these stereotypes were strictly punished socially. But thanks to two world wars and the advent of birth control, we are no longer just breeders. We could work in the factories. We were pregnant when we chose to be. It's only been in the last century that women have been started to move forward to stand as equals. It's still not there, and we have centuries of baggage to get behind us, but we're getting there.
If it was so biological, we'd all be doing the same thing across the globe. But the variation is HUGE, almost staggering. Biological determinism is racist, sexist and just plain wrong and has been used to justify all sorts of terrible things that kept the status quo alive for those who profited the most from it. We aren't rats - we're people. Our minds give us a (terrible) advantage over the non-sentient. Whether or not you want to hear it, biological determinism is not a sound theory presisely because you cannot separate what is biological and what is cultural from the subjects. And the study is done in the vacuum of one single culture - a culture that is not representative of the world and, on the flipside, one that is also very chaotic and dynamic. Again - if it was biological or somehow ingrained, we would not have seen the steady rate of change in social mores that we have over the last 100 years.
Keep the hobby open to those who express interest, regardless of whether or not the person is male or female. I honestly feel that there is nothing you can do to convince someone who has already accepted the mindset that these games are strange or weird that they are any different. This discussion also seems to preclude that all men like hack equally - which is also not true. It's too simplistic to boil it down to "men like to kill things; women like to talk to them." There's too much variation to make such a sweeping statement.
Things to look for in a possible gamer:
1) Likes fantasy, science fiction, horror, or any other genre stuff.
2) Has an active imagination.
3) Has access to a non-demeaning peer group to try the activity.
Gender has no place in that list, unless you ascribe some otherworldly nature to the opposite sex that sets them apart as untouchable, unknowable. And while I can see believing that if you're twelve, there's no good reason to cling to that falsehood as an adult.
You can dismiss the cultural factors all you like. I could probably drown you in evidence and it wouldn't make a difference. You're just going to keep grasping at this magical straw that will somehow reveal just why is it that 'women' don't like games. We do. We like all sorts of games, just like men do. There is no mystery. Whether or not a person starts playing a game will come down to whether or not it's there thing to begin with, if they can get enjoyment out of it, and whether or not they feel it has a place in their lives. It's really not anymore complicated than that.
Ashtal
Biological imperatives are not the sole determinant of behavior.
**It's CULTURAL**
Everything we do - and this is everything from philosphy to the basics of shelter, food and sex - is coached and framed and shaped by our culture. Culture tells us how to act, how to be, how to live.
If you grew up as a member of a certain tribe in the African desert, you'd be using camel piss to brush your teeth and you'd think it was the best way to do it because that's what your parents taught you. If you were one of two brothers in the old Tibetan agricultural system, you'd marry the same woman to make sure the land wasn't divided into plots too small to live on. And in one South American tribe, heterosexual sex is considered a necessary evil, and men couple with other men for sexual pleasure.
Did you watch the Women's Hockey Match in the Olympics? Wow. A great match. Fabulous tough players; played their hearts out. Would put a lot of NHLers to shame. Clean passing, speedly play. Good stuff. And they say that every year they are out there, every year young girls see them playing, means more of those little girls wanting to play. They are hungry for it, until it's crushed out of them socially. "You'll be too butch to get a guy." "Are you a dyke?" "Girls don't play sports." "Why are they taking field time away from the boy teams?" This comes from both sexes because, again, that's what they are raised to do, by narrow-minded jerks who don't know any better.
In the thousands of years before the modern age in our culture (and in others), yes, women were at a disadvantage. We were breeders and breeders alone. We were robbed of rights, of social class, and of power. Coupled with a sexually represive religion that featured women as one of the main reasons for all of us being kicked out of Eden. CENTURIES upon CENTURIES of this has brought the Western world to where it is today. These cultural stereotypes were firmly entrenched and they were faithfully passed on to our children. "Deviants" who strayed from these stereotypes were strictly punished socially. But thanks to two world wars and the advent of birth control, we are no longer just breeders. We could work in the factories. We were pregnant when we chose to be. It's only been in the last century that women have been started to move forward to stand as equals. It's still not there, and we have centuries of baggage to get behind us, but we're getting there.
If it was so biological, we'd all be doing the same thing across the globe. But the variation is HUGE, almost staggering. Biological determinism is racist, sexist and just plain wrong and has been used to justify all sorts of terrible things that kept the status quo alive for those who profited the most from it. We aren't rats - we're people. Our minds give us a (terrible) advantage over the non-sentient. Whether or not you want to hear it, biological determinism is not a sound theory presisely because you cannot separate what is biological and what is cultural from the subjects. And the study is done in the vacuum of one single culture - a culture that is not representative of the world and, on the flipside, one that is also very chaotic and dynamic. Again - if it was biological or somehow ingrained, we would not have seen the steady rate of change in social mores that we have over the last 100 years.
Keep the hobby open to those who express interest, regardless of whether or not the person is male or female. I honestly feel that there is nothing you can do to convince someone who has already accepted the mindset that these games are strange or weird that they are any different. This discussion also seems to preclude that all men like hack equally - which is also not true. It's too simplistic to boil it down to "men like to kill things; women like to talk to them." There's too much variation to make such a sweeping statement.
Things to look for in a possible gamer:
1) Likes fantasy, science fiction, horror, or any other genre stuff.
2) Has an active imagination.
3) Has access to a non-demeaning peer group to try the activity.
Gender has no place in that list, unless you ascribe some otherworldly nature to the opposite sex that sets them apart as untouchable, unknowable. And while I can see believing that if you're twelve, there's no good reason to cling to that falsehood as an adult.
You can dismiss the cultural factors all you like. I could probably drown you in evidence and it wouldn't make a difference. You're just going to keep grasping at this magical straw that will somehow reveal just why is it that 'women' don't like games. We do. We like all sorts of games, just like men do. There is no mystery. Whether or not a person starts playing a game will come down to whether or not it's there thing to begin with, if they can get enjoyment out of it, and whether or not they feel it has a place in their lives. It's really not anymore complicated than that.
Ashtal
Re: My 2 cents, well actually closer to a buck fifty
That's what I had to do in Junior High. No guy would play with me (they barely tolerated me the first time I horned in on a game), so I approached some of my girlfriends and we started playing. We were all into fantasy and stuff at the time, so it seemed like a natural thing. In retrospect, I imagine that if I hadn't been part of that group for those two years, I probably wouldn't have continued on. D&D would have gathered dust on my shelf as that "game I never got to try" and I likely wouldn't have tried it again.
Once I was in highschool, then we had a mixed gender group. I think at that stage, it's really dependent on the people you play with. Some of the guys were fine, others were absolute morons who made me roll to see if I fell in love with the Paladin with high Charisma.
By the end of high school, it was better still. Trying to find people through the local game store helped me meet new people and in University, we even had a club. Even trying to put an ad out asking for participants for an all-girl club, or doing demonstration games at the local store to keep finding new people. If they've never tried gaming before, introduce them with something fun, relatively simple so you don't overwhelm them (advice for newbies of either gender), and be easy-going and relaxed about it. Encourage them to talk, ask question, have fun, but don't expect them to know all the ins and outs, don't be domineering or mean or controlling.
Balsamic Dragon said:
That's what I had to do in Junior High. No guy would play with me (they barely tolerated me the first time I horned in on a game), so I approached some of my girlfriends and we started playing. We were all into fantasy and stuff at the time, so it seemed like a natural thing. In retrospect, I imagine that if I hadn't been part of that group for those two years, I probably wouldn't have continued on. D&D would have gathered dust on my shelf as that "game I never got to try" and I likely wouldn't have tried it again.
Once I was in highschool, then we had a mixed gender group. I think at that stage, it's really dependent on the people you play with. Some of the guys were fine, others were absolute morons who made me roll to see if I fell in love with the Paladin with high Charisma.
By the end of high school, it was better still. Trying to find people through the local game store helped me meet new people and in University, we even had a club. Even trying to put an ad out asking for participants for an all-girl club, or doing demonstration games at the local store to keep finding new people. If they've never tried gaming before, introduce them with something fun, relatively simple so you don't overwhelm them (advice for newbies of either gender), and be easy-going and relaxed about it. Encourage them to talk, ask question, have fun, but don't expect them to know all the ins and outs, don't be domineering or mean or controlling.
Kichwas
Half-breed
Re: *finishes reading the rest of the thread*
You'd figure women's basketball at least would replace the NBA with ease on the male viewership side...
Of course sports in general doesn't appeal to me at all so I don't have the insight it would take to see the details on this one.
Asian women have oppression (more than in the west), but they were never tought to be weak. They were never taught that science said they were silly-minded, unintelligent, fragile (Victorian Science did more damage to western women than all the oppression before it), or the cause of evil and sin.
Their oppression is not internal.
So the women you get tend to be strong and very hard and more willing to use physical force than the men around them. Including in non-hostile social situations, using some physical force is acceptible for women as a casual social tool (sometimes in Korea the first sign a guy might get that his girlfirend has showed up is that somebody just wacked him good across the back of the head... ). For men it means you're out of control much like in the west.
(For the fools who try to claim it on me: I'm not denying the oppression, but it doesn't take the forms a westerner would expect.)
But that goes for the men too...
This always baffles me. I always assumed men liked watching a bunch of sweaty women bounce around...Ashtal said:
You'd figure women's basketball at least would replace the NBA with ease on the male viewership side... Of course sports in general doesn't appeal to me at all so I don't have the insight it would take to see the details on this one.
Too true...
Again true. Living in Asia for me was an eye opener into how different gender roles could be both from what they were at home and from what they were as opposed to what I thought they were among asians before I got there.... I'll never again think of asian women as submissive or weak, where-as I now have to struggle to avoid that bias against western women because in relation to asians they tend to be...
Asian women have oppression (more than in the west), but they were never tought to be weak. They were never taught that science said they were silly-minded, unintelligent, fragile (Victorian Science did more damage to western women than all the oppression before it), or the cause of evil and sin.
Their oppression is not internal.
So the women you get tend to be strong and very hard and more willing to use physical force than the men around them. Including in non-hostile social situations, using some physical force is acceptible for women as a casual social tool (sometimes in Korea the first sign a guy might get that his girlfirend has showed up is that somebody just wacked him good across the back of the head...
). For men it means you're out of control much like in the west.(For the fools who try to claim it on me: I'm not denying the oppression, but it doesn't take the forms a westerner would expect.)
Well they are...
But that goes for the men too...
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Ds Da Man
First Post
Blah, Blah, Blah,...... I have never turned down a female for a group, nor have I ever asked a female to join. I honestly don't care whether or not Miss Sassy wants to "reason" with an ogre, or cut off its head! Women have been repressed for generations, and continue to be to this day. Don't worry though, my contribution to the next generation of those wonderful female RPGers is coming soon.......my daughter is 7, and has already made a character for the thwacking of EVILLLL UNDEAD, MONSTEROUSLY UGLY BUGBEARS, and those welcomed cannon-fodder, known as DISPOSIBLE DRAGONS!!!!!
And when she gets old enough, and has friends interested, I pledge I shall teach all these young women to become the little min-maxers that I know they can be! I will have no one tell my little badass that "girls shouldn't play D&D".
Of course, she may just think dads the big geek he is, and not want to play at all, OH WELL!!!!!
And when she gets old enough, and has friends interested, I pledge I shall teach all these young women to become the little min-maxers that I know they can be! I will have no one tell my little badass that "girls shouldn't play D&D".
Of course, she may just think dads the big geek he is, and not want to play at all, OH WELL!!!!!
Wuxia
First Post
Re: Re: My 2 cents, well actually closer to a buck fifty
Yeah, that's completely silly. Nowadays, most happily, the Paladin can be back in charge and make a Diplomacy check!
Ashtal said:Once I was in highschool, then we had a mixed gender group. I think at that stage, it's really dependent on the people you play with. Some of the guys were fine, others were absolute morons who made me roll to see if I fell in love with the Paladin with high Charisma.
Yeah, that's completely silly. Nowadays, most happily, the Paladin can be back in charge and make a Diplomacy check!
ColonelHardisson
What? Me Worry?
Ashtal and I have discussed this in the past, and I respect her viewpoint on this. In fact, she has helped me look at this issue in a different way. However, in the interest of stimulating discourse (and being a Devil's Advocate ), I feel it necessary to reply to a few things that have been said. I'm not trying to refute anything simply discuss, because I think we only understand something better after discussing it civilly (most of the time) with someone whose views are not exactly the same as ours. So don't hate me, Ashtal
I think you may be weighting the scales too heavily in favor of cultural determinism here. While I agree that biology isn't the only determining factor in regards to the way we live, I assert that biology plays a big role.
While variation is, indeed, huge, I don't think the gender roles that we are familiar with in our culture are unique to us, by any means. They vary in detail, but some of the traits most firmly associated with a particular gender in our culture (aggression in males, relative passivity in females, for example) seem to be common in almost all other cultures. Wasn't it Margaret Mead who suffered from professional embarassment when she thought she had discovered a culture in Malaysia (IIRC) in which the "traditional" gender roles of Western culture were reversed? The point is that such cultures are very few. What I suggest, in the spirit of discussion, not argument, is that this may indicate that biology may play a bigger part than you are willing to concede. Perhaps not the biggest part, but certainly a major part. I think this is so, because many universals among living organisms indicate biological similarity, because otherwise they wouldn't be universal, owing to geographical separation.
I see your point here, but animals also have highly structured "cultures," if you will, in many cases. Take wolves or whales or chimpanzees. These non-sentients (in comparison to humans) have formed social structures for a reason. This suggests that there may be biological reasons for such structures to exist. Certainly our minds give us at least a short term advantage (the dinos existed 200 million years, and they were as dumb as a box of hammers We've been around a tiny fraction of that amount of time), so it is our task to overcome the vestiges of biological determinism that are causing our problems and oppressing at least half the human race.
Or, perhaps it is because humans are actually starting to use that brain power mentioned above, due to leaps ahead in technology that have come very close to liberating many of us from having to worry about fulfilling biological needs. That is, the less work we have to do simply to exist, the more time we have to actually think.
Anyway, in regards to the main topic - why women don't game in larger numbers - I don't know for sure, but I doubt it has anything to do with biology. I'd guess it simply has to do with the way RPGs are marketed, as some have already noted. The marketing has traditionally tried to appeal to the male audience, using images and words that resonate with them on some level - but whether that level was determined by biology or culture, I don't know. I just felt like discussing this with Ashtal, because her argument is passionate and interesting to read.
), I feel it necessary to reply to a few things that have been said. I'm not trying to refute anything simply discuss, because I think we only understand something better after discussing it civilly (most of the time) with someone whose views are not exactly the same as ours. So don't hate me, Ashtal Ashtal said:
I think you may be weighting the scales too heavily in favor of cultural determinism here. While I agree that biology isn't the only determining factor in regards to the way we live, I assert that biology plays a big role.
Ashtal said:
While variation is, indeed, huge, I don't think the gender roles that we are familiar with in our culture are unique to us, by any means. They vary in detail, but some of the traits most firmly associated with a particular gender in our culture (aggression in males, relative passivity in females, for example) seem to be common in almost all other cultures. Wasn't it Margaret Mead who suffered from professional embarassment when she thought she had discovered a culture in Malaysia (IIRC) in which the "traditional" gender roles of Western culture were reversed? The point is that such cultures are very few. What I suggest, in the spirit of discussion, not argument, is that this may indicate that biology may play a bigger part than you are willing to concede. Perhaps not the biggest part, but certainly a major part. I think this is so, because many universals among living organisms indicate biological similarity, because otherwise they wouldn't be universal, owing to geographical separation.
Ashtal said:
I see your point here, but animals also have highly structured "cultures," if you will, in many cases. Take wolves or whales or chimpanzees. These non-sentients (in comparison to humans) have formed social structures for a reason. This suggests that there may be biological reasons for such structures to exist. Certainly our minds give us at least a short term advantage (the dinos existed 200 million years, and they were as dumb as a box of hammers
We've been around a tiny fraction of that amount of time), so it is our task to overcome the vestiges of biological determinism that are causing our problems and oppressing at least half the human race.Ashtal said:
Or, perhaps it is because humans are actually starting to use that brain power mentioned above, due to leaps ahead in technology that have come very close to liberating many of us from having to worry about fulfilling biological needs. That is, the less work we have to do simply to exist, the more time we have to actually think.
Anyway, in regards to the main topic - why women don't game in larger numbers - I don't know for sure, but I doubt it has anything to do with biology. I'd guess it simply has to do with the way RPGs are marketed, as some have already noted. The marketing has traditionally tried to appeal to the male audience, using images and words that resonate with them on some level - but whether that level was determined by biology or culture, I don't know. I just felt like discussing this with Ashtal, because her argument is passionate and interesting to read.
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ColonelHardisson
What? Me Worry?
Re: Re: *finishes reading the rest of the thread*
While I don't dispute any of this - I defer to your first-hand experience - the fact is that Asian society is male-dominated. The only reason I'm pointing this out is that it seems to be the overarching discussion, in some respects. What interests me is that, despite your assertion that the women of Korean culture are more assertive/strong-willed, they can still be oppressed by their society. What is the cause of this? If one sex is personally more assertive, then how does that sex become the dominated, rather than the dominant? I'm not arguing, I'm asking.
arcady said:
While I don't dispute any of this - I defer to your first-hand experience - the fact is that Asian society is male-dominated. The only reason I'm pointing this out is that it seems to be the overarching discussion, in some respects. What interests me is that, despite your assertion that the women of Korean culture are more assertive/strong-willed, they can still be oppressed by their society. What is the cause of this? If one sex is personally more assertive, then how does that sex become the dominated, rather than the dominant? I'm not arguing, I'm asking.
Wuxia
First Post
Ashtal said:
They are, for me.
Oh, well... I've never been socially savvy, I just don't understand... people. Myself included. But to add something of my own experience to this thread, I can tell you that some of the Taekwondo female players in the NYU team are tough. One day, just to show off, I asked a black belt guy there to kick me in the abs as strong as he could. I was standing against a wall, so no way to roll with the blow. I could take it, rather easily. I would not have been able to take it from all the guys in the team... and there is at least one girl, maybe two, who would have crushed my ribs and sent me and my big ego directly to the emergencies. I know because I have been on the receiving end of Dambee Kim's kicks, and I could roll with the blows, and I had a chest protector, and I was not smiling.
Are there as many female as male TKD competitors? No. But the most agressive players are among those fewer competitors. And that's not something that just dawned on me, that's actually something a member of the medical team pointed out to me during a tournament.
As for the other TKD club I'm in, without collegiate competition but with sparring every session, the membership is about 50/50. Most of the girls are somewhat shier fighters, but there is one, and a beginner at that, who fears no one. She had to take a break, though, because she actually trained so much that her ankles and arms were completely blue with bruises. I could not even believe she had been fighting with that; there was nearly no skin-pink left anywhere.
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