Jim, in historical miniatures there are few depictions of women with stilettos and big butts and boobs that I have come across. In fact, those are staples of the fantasy and sci-fi genres, which have much higher participation rates by women than historical miniatures already. The question is how to get more women in historical games.
Since the depictions you mention don't seem to affect women playing sci fi or fantasy games, somehow I don't think that is the answer. These discussions always seem to devolve down into men being the problem, but that is simplistic and wrong as well. Men being simply more welcoming is to me a straw man argument. Bringing up stereotypes of bad gamers (who are often bad gamers whether or not a woman is at the table) is not the solution, either.
The problem is two-fold. Military history appeals to more men than women. Is that bad, or simply a reality? That isn't to say that there are not fantastic women who enjoy military history, just that it is less common.
Second, the truth is that many women want to participate in areas where they feel represented. Outside of a very few battles, the participants in the fighting were almost exclusively male. There seems to be a movement that feels we should make battles the way we want history to have been rather than as it was. By this I mean having an army include women or people of color where historically there weren't any. This seems to be a growing movement in video and board games where you see games with persons of color being in key numbers in rifle squads storming the beaches at D-Day, and women as part of bomber crews in World War 2.
This is historically inaccurate, but to the people who advocate this, the goal isn't accuracy, but inclusion. However, is simply fielding Vikings of color and Napoleonic women cavalry really a solution?
There is a separate movement that says we should simply not focus on history that is male-centric or based in European culture to promote inclusion.
This approach opens up interesting avenues, like focusing on battles where Indian or East Asian, or African troops were heavily engaged, or where women played a larger role. However, in the case of women in battle there are far fewer examples to choose from, and in the case of non-European centric battles, it forces a bit of cognitive dissonance to ignore a huge swath of history or forces the current majority of players to deny their own connections to that history in favor of groups that are not inclusive of them. Even then, I'm not convinced as I see many Samurai era, Chinese historical, or SubSaharan African games in play, and that doesn't seem to create any appreciable uptick in non-white players. We could do an experiment and reserve, say, a single Cold Wars to only include non-euro centric games and advertise it as such, but would that really make more difference than, say, having an all fantasy and sci-fi con?
I don't think there are any simple fixes to this problem, or really any proof that this is a problem other than to a select few who feel performative need to express their own feelings of a perceived guilt.
We no longer seem to accept interests based on gender or certain cultures. This can be very good, but can also end up throwing the baby out with the bath water.
I would love it if my wife would play What A Tanker or Lion Rampant or Wings of Glory with me. She would not, no matter how inclusive I would make those. Even if I did a Girls Un Panzer game she'd be uninterested (she hates that show). However, if I put an army of Dwarves on the table (even if they are all male) she is in. She will also play Sci fi games (again even if the army is all male). She finds history Gaming as dull as dirt (she loves the Last Kingdom and even though I am slowly painting Anglo-Saxons and Vikings, she has zero interest in gaming it).
My eldest daughter I tried to get into historical war gaming. She even played in an Uncle Duke extravaganza at age 11 in a game with ancient Egyptians Vs Hittites. She did it because I wanted her to, but didn't really want to go back. Everyone was incredibly welcoming and friendly to her. She would much rather play Pokémon or a Godzilla game to this day now that she is an adult.
The most fun I ever had in a Historicon game was in a Warhammer 40k game run by a black game group. It wasn't historical but I never laughed so much in a game before or since. It was amazing, so maybe humor is an answer.
This is no simple issue and no matter how you slice it, a smaller percentage of women will prefer historical war gaming than men. Is that easily overcome? Is it even necessary to try? Or do we simply remain as welcoming as we can be and accept those percentages?
says 'thank you' one more time.
