"Women and Wargaming – the Enigma" Topic

"We all say that wargaming needs better gender equality. One company seems to have figured it out.

I've been traveling around tournaments across the United States for some time and have noticed something. From north to south, east to west, the same pattern emerges – Warmachine/Hordes has a much higher percentage of women than other systems…

We have often said in the wargaming universe for years that gender inequality is striking. In an overwhelmingly male dominated activity the inclusion of more women would strengthen the hobby. Of course that statement would quickly be followed by next month's announcement of the latest bloodsoaked muscle bound killers boxed set from company A and the inevitable DD spandex-clad female enforcers with the pouty lips from company B… you get the picture. People start asking what armies women should like, and so on…"
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Amicalement
Armand

I haven't been saying anything concerning gender equality.

I like to have a group that is all guys.

Why is there something wrong with that?

Joe Collins

I happen to believe this hobby just doesn't hold much appeal for women. No big deal.

Is wargaming in 2020 where roleplaying games were in the 1980's? I remember a fair number of female players when Mage Knight came out in 2001.

I know when I grew up there were only a few female RPG gamers. When they joined our groups, they usually were treated differently which often caused them to drop out. I don't think it was the game as much as how they were treated by those in the group.

The subject of warfare holds great interest for many people, as does painting and modeling. My 20 year old daughter plays a lot of Call of Duty on the PS 4 with her High School friends (male and female), so I don't think the subject causes concern or distress based on having a second X chromosome. The only thing that makes sense to me is that when someone walks into a game room for the first time, the greeting they get determines if they will come back for another visit, and in general women do not get the same treatment men get during that first visit – except possibly for game cultures like Warmachine/Hordes. YMMV.

Reminds me of a problem one of the largest retailers once had regarding gender equality. They were having complaints that some of their departments had few or no female clerks/employees. The department store in question tried to encourage women to work in the departments in question but the response was disappointing to say the least. Gee, now why do you suppose that women had little or no interest in selling mechanics tools, bar-b-que grills, lawnmowers, and tractors Hmmm?
They keep telling us that there are no differences between men and women.

Joe have to ask why you feel a need to have a group that all Guys?

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

DA, perhaps Joe just like to game what his group is already gaming – not changing it for a group of people who are unlikely to want to game that way. Nothing wrong with that, as this is a hobby not a business, each to their own.

Why do you feel a need to question how he likes to play with his toys?

Just trying to understand why this is important to him?

I wish I understood this perception folks have about gaming and diversity.
I have been gaming since before middle school(back in the iron-age sometime about :))and although my first gaming group was all males,they were friends and classmates.It was not that we did not want girls to play with us(um …I guess that could be taken different ways ways…let us be honest, attraction wanted or unwanted plays a part in all interaction in human relations.),we could not imagine that any girls were interested in what we liked or even wanted to be around us. By high school, at least some of us had girlfriends who wanted to play D&D, but wargames? No, not one. Not because we did not want them to join us, they had zero interest.
Let us be real and honest. Although as an exception, some of our community are a bit more socially well rounded,many are a bit awkward and in general we are a quirky and odd lot.
Fast forward to late 90s and early 2000s and I owned and operated a game and hobby shop for a decade. I had regular customers and in store gamers of every age,race,creed, gender and orientation you could think of. Never had a complaint of discrimination or exclusivity behavior in all that time. This was in the Southern States of the U.S.
I had one regular who thought his gender transition would make others feel awkward and asked me if he could make an announcement to a full store on a Friday night.( I told him (jokingly of course, to help diffuse his trepidation :D ) That as long as he did not show up in a bikini and try and dance on the gaming tables( absolutely nothing within his personality to do, again this was a joke he took in the good nature it was proffered), none would care or treat him any differently. True to my perception the announcement was made and greeted with shoulder shrugs and another regular asking him if they could still count on him to show for their regularly scheduled game night. :D
Now I know many may say that their own experience is vastly different and they were made to feel unwelcome in other places. I just have not witnessed or been involved in any incident in 40 plus years of gaming in shops, cons, homes or anywhere else.( unless we want to count an ex-wife of one customer, showing up to the shop with her new partner, apparently to make him uncomfortable. I asked each group to play in different rooms when tension became apparent, to ease any friction and they all agreed without further incident. As a side note the ex-wife/boyfriend never came back to the shop so perhaps the gaming was not what they were really after.

Soooo this is all detail to reach a round about conclusion that the "problem"(not truly a problem) of less women in gaming was a lack of interest and exposure to the hobby and in current times it is the prevalence of online gaming by everyone that has broadened women's interest in games in general…including miniature war games.
To believe sexism drives women away from gaming just does not pan out. Online gaming is toxic to say the least and that has not driven most away. In person, toxic people cannot hide behind distance and anonymity and should not be tolerated by anyone… ever.
I think as time passes and gaming become more and more of a social norm we will see more woman and minorities joining our community as the discover it, and it piques theirs interests.
My advice, welcome them all as gaming buds first and foremost and the surface differences will disappear under the shared enjoyment of a great hobby and community.

To believe sexism drives women away from gaming just does not pan out. Online gaming is toxic to say the least and that has not driven most away. In person, toxic people cannot hide behind distance and anonymity and should not be tolerated by anyone… ever.

Just look at some of the sculpts there are several producers who specialize in adolescent fantasy. I think there have been a number of women who have been here and walk away.

"I think as time passes and gaming become more and more of a social norm we will see more woman and minorities joining our community as the discover it, and it piques theirs interests.
My advice, welcome them all as gaming buds first and foremost and the surface differences will disappear under the shared enjoyment of a great hobby and community."

I hope so, the quickest way is to stop shrugging are shoulders and saying "I did nothing wrong."

Dapters,
I have to politely disagree with you when you state "I hope so, the quickest way is to stop shrugging are(our,yes?) shoulders and saying "I did nothing wrong."
I think one could avoid coming to the judgmental conclusion that someone else must have done something wrong.
I personally do not care for ridicule worthy,cartoon exaggerated,hyper sexualized females in miniature( the hairy eyeball is looking at you Kingdom Death LOL) or high heels, corsets and battle bikinis on my gaming miniatures. This does not , however make anyone else" wrong" if they do like such things.
Sexuality is an intrinsic part of human nature. If our society had some balance and much less sexual repression then I believe the hyper sexual and the deviant would be very much lessened.
Notice that even that statement does not imply anyone is wrong. Just not to my taste. That is discernment and I apply it to myself.

Closer to the subject, we see very little to no sexualized presentations in historical miniature war games and as for fantasy/ Science-ficion,there is enough variety on the market to provide for any individuals personal taste. If one does find something distasteful then one can if they so wish,remove oneself from any such interaction.
I find anything "zombie" to be idiotic, distasteful, puerile and off-putting. I don't engage with media the involves it and don't play games with it either.
Nor do I judge others badly because they do said things. I don't understand many peoples fascinations with many things, nor do I always care to find out.
None of this makes them wrong and needing to stop for my sake.

As for this "Just look at some of the sculpts there are several producers who specialize in adolescent fantasy. I think there have been a number of women who have been here and walk away."

I think that stuff ends up in the Nudes and NSFW board and is easy for anyone to avoid.
I am not trying to insinuate you are virtue signaling nor am I attacking you, I just feel you are taking the personal power of others away from them when you imply that they were driven away because they found something distasteful. Others make there own choices.
I cannot stand to be around people with poor hygiene habits. If that were my criteria, then exactly what could I do in public that would insulate me from never having to deal with it. I would never leave my house if that were the case. Do you get what I am trying to say?
They don't have to change for me….. I can pick and chose the parts of a thing /activity I like, and disregard and/or avoid the parts I don't. Discernment. :)

Der Krieg Geist I actually agree with much of your observations…but we don't live in a vacuum, so our resolves are obviously quite different.

A side note I went to a gun range a couple of years ago and you had to buy the targets, you could shoot at a very stereotyped caricatures of people of your choice as a target. They also had zombies male and female; you can guess what the female looked like.

Dapters,I am unclear as to what point you were trying to make then ,in your earlier posts, if you and I are in much agreement.
We don't live in a vacuum? I fail to see any relevance in that assertion. Do you care to elaborate so I may understand your point of view better?

Here is a game site that needs more gender diversity. Feel free to sign up and post some AAR's:
games2girls.com

Wolfhag

Der Krieg Geist, you wrote:
"I personally do not care for ridicule worthy,cartoon exaggerated,hyper sexualized females in miniature( the hairy eyeball is looking at you Kingdom Death LOL) or high heels, corsets and battle bikinis on my gaming miniatures."

Let me ask why do you personally think this? Why do you referrer to these things as "ridicule worthy?"

"If our society had some balance and much less sexual repression then I believe the hyper sexual and the deviant would be very much lessened."

How do we get there? Where do we start?

dapeters,
You asked four questions but you did not answer my question to you, so here we are anyway…

(1)and (2) I personally think this because that is how they strike my sensibilities, as ridiculous. Perhaps it is why I also find Hyper violent media,shock horror,anything Zombie related as well as gratuitous sexuality off putting.
I don't know if you sense that I can find the content of someone elses tastes to be ridicule worthy without extending that ridicule to the persons themselves.

To be even more clear I desire balance and appropriateness in all things.

Sexuality for when I am engaged in sexual intercourse with another human being or find interest in how others relate in a sexual way.
I do not want or need sexuality shoved into everything I do and see in order for others to entice me to buy whatever they are selling by coating something in a glaze of sex, so I won't notice they have nothing else of value or interest to sell me.

Violence for when I am engaged, with violence by someone else and in no more proportion then is absolutely necessary to defuse said violence. Or for when I find interest in understanding how others relate in violent ways and situations.

Shock horror holds little no appeal to me as there is enough real world horror without the need for me to get my Adrenalin and fear instincts twitching for no good reason. I feel that again this is a selling tactic designed to harness the unconscious drives to sell me that which has no other value in of itself.

Zombies, I don't know what to say really. The concept to me is just pure nonsense. Dead is dead, nothing and no one comes back…ever…sorry if some belief systems propose otherwise.

(3) How do we get where? A society with more balance and less sexual repression? Each one of us takes individual responsibility for ourselves first. Again discernment.
I cannot and should not control others choices.( I am not talking about allowing other to inflict harm upon myself or a third party either, that is another conversation, if you are interested) I can only make my own choices clear. If I object to something, I don't participate in it. I let others,if they care to know, why.

(4) With ourselves, always.
It is the desire to control others and have power over them, that causes a vast amount of any societies real problems.

Dapters,
Guess this means you have no intention of answering my question?

Did you believe you were asking such brilliantly rhetorical questions that they were going to dazzle me into incoherence? :)

Are you simply unprepared to defend your initial assertions, having no desire to do anything beyond stating opinions that could easily be interpreted as empty provocations?

ok, hold on a minute.

There's an NSFW board?

Yup

Well, it has been a week dapeters, still no answer?

Funny, I was not sure if you wear being rhetorical and based on your last post I am still not.

(1)and (2) , I agree with you so far, (horror films are just mostly morality plays.)

"To be even more clear I desire balance and appropriateness in all things."

Yes of course but I suspect that "balance" is in perception. What I realized in life is most people that I've encounter do not have a good idea of fairness, they only register when they perceive that things are (un)fair against them. This happens particularly when some advantage, entitlement, right , benefit whatever has been removed,

"I do not want or need sexuality shoved into everything I do and see in order for others to entice me to buy whatever they are selling by coating something in a glaze of sex, so I won't notice they have nothing else of value or interest to sell me."

Not sure, how this quite fits in unless you're actually saying your fine with women being dehumanized and that you're only offended at the notion that some marketer thought this was going to track with you. But now, I am being rhetorical and I am guessing you don't believe that the mere presence of females dose this?
"
(3) and (4)
This is where we divide, I don't mean to offend but it sounds to me like you want to have your cake and eat it too, which is why I dropped the thread. You seem to be head towards the tired argument that nothing can be done, "oh it such a pity, thoughts and prayers…" . Some of us guys can't treat women decently, which actually means treating them like any other human being. These problems are not going anywhere. My question to Joe was neither brilliant nor rhetorical. The only hope is to talk them out and try to get to the root causes.

dapters,

I would gently invite you to re-read my words and consider them with more open thoughtfulness. I cannot fathom how you interpreted what I wrote to fit into what appears to be a narrow pre-conceived notion of how you believe others think.

If you are not sure quite how something fits in,(in what I wrote) it is usually efficacious to ask questions instead of pulling wild accusations out of thin air to try and grasp at some sort of perceived moral high ground.

I could be wrong of course,perhaps that is not your intention. However, I do not get a sense that you desire a conversation as your questions appear to come with pre-loaded answers on your part.

If you want to state your opinions and broker no disagreement, well that is your prerogative. Challenging you to widen your view is mine. I do not see a world of absolutes. Nor do I care to be prejudged or have accusation laid at my feet, for failing to swallows other peoples assumptions.

In my experience most women I have known are not interested in war gaming. I have been married 40 years and for the first 15 my wife resented my leaving her to play. When we started going to conventions that began to change and she began to play certain games. I began to realize that the lack of female participation in war gaming is the fault of the male participants. You first have to find out what a woman's interests are, then find games that match those interests. For example my wife has interests that include history, politics and socializing. Her gaming parameters are: simple rules, relatively short length of gaming time (about an hour), and quick turns that fit in with her short attention span. In our gaming world we have found 3 games that meet those parameters so far. Two are naval games and the other is a board game. She likes Limeys and Slimeys, Blood and Plunder, and Command and Colors. We are having fun and she has been learning how historical troops work and developing strategy.

I took my wife to a gaming convention. She said the players smelled and never went back. The women/girls I have seen playing are generally above average players.

I make it a point not to game with women. They show up in a low cut blouse and my concentration gets thrown off when they bend over that table to move models. It's very distracting and unfair tactic. I won't stand for it.

Wolfhag

Der Krieg Geist
Unfortunately this is not a good medium for this sort of discussions, (and with respect) particularly when so many are prone to knee jerk reactions. What I learned is that when I play a game my major desire is to have good time, in that, winning or losing becomes almost irrelevant. If I am having a good time, then who I am playing with is just as irrelevant. I also enjoying have a couple beers with a game, some people have issues with it. If they say something to me, then I know, I can stop. If I have fun with them, I may play with them again. If I say I don't like playing with fat, middle age, balding men, most of us will laugh and say who's left? But no doubt someone would also ask why? So let's go back to Joe's Statement. In all honesty we both could hazard a guess what he might say. But we really don't know, until he answers. Again the only way to solve problems is to talk them out. But I would suggest you read the two posts that came after your last one. Neither author has ever struck me as being a progressive, yet both clearly laid it out, in different ways.

The best solution if you have a baby… (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

I've seen this guy on Youtube that plays Black Powder with his wife/girlfriend. He's had several demo games. Doesn't appear she's been coerced. She genuinely seems to be having fun. Lucky guy

This past 30 years I've been married to my primary wargame opponent. I've no thoughts on Sci-Fi or Fantasy, but I have noticed that quite a few women play Bolt Action compared to other WW2 games.

Feminist War Games?

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Armand