"Wargaming has a Diversity Problem" Topic

"Wargaming has a diversity problem: 98% white and male.

I propose there are two ways that people engage with wargames:…"

Full article here

link

Armand

I don't care. I want to wargame with people who want to wargame. That's all I care about. This is another variation on the our hobby is aging and in 20 years there will be no wargamers theme.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

Was that bilge water played by someone who is actually a wargamer?
If it's a classic solution in desperate need of a problem.

And? Enough of this nonsense, or should we encourage more teapots to join and give them standard +10 to all of their dice rolls to make them feel good

Tally Ho!

The article is about 'professional' wargaming where the loss of different ideas and perspectives from not having a diverse pool of talent to draw from may have real world consequences.
Nobody cares who you play with for recreation.

To quote one of my friends…….WALOB…..What a load of bal***ks.

We know there is a lack of diversity in our hobby, that does not make it a problem.

Look around you when you are next at a convention. The chances are the vast majority of participants will be white, male, and over 50. Most women you will see will either be running or assisting on the trade stands, be part of the re-enactment group, or just be there with their husbands/boyfriends supporting them in their hobby. There are very few wargaming women, those that are should be applauded and encouraged.

Sooooo, we are going to force people to wargame?
Maybe it will turn out they like it.

So…bere's a thought….why does the hobby need to be forced to diversify in gender lines?

+1 BillyNM

My wife said her spinning and weaving groups are composed almost entirely of women. Shocking! On the other hand she pointed out that she is not aware of any women being locked out of wargaming. If she wanted to play she could.

I welcome all to a game as long as they are not a dick.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? (Yes, I did scream that.)

Keep this CRAP out of our hobby

Scrapbooking or quilting, anyone?

I'm surprised it took this long.

The author was Sally Davis, who is a professional wargamer and co-author of the Derby House Principles for diversity and inclusion in professional wargaming. The article was pointing out that the world of professional wargaming has a diversity problem, not the world of hobby wargaming.

Most of the Major US, UK, and European organisations involved with professional wargaming have adopted these principles.

The principles are:
1. Promoting inclusion and diversity in professional wargaming, through the standards we set, the opportunities we offer, and access to activities we organise.
2. Making clear our opposition to sexism, racism, homophobia, and other forms of discrimination across the board, as well as in wargaming.
3. Encouraging a greater role and higher profile for colleagues from underrepresented groups in our professional activities.
4. Seeking out and listening to the concerns and suggestions of our colleagues as to how our commitment to diversity and inclusion could be enhanced.
5. Demonstrating our commitment to diversity and inclusion through ongoing assessment of progress made and discussion of future steps.

Some interesting points, but I'm not even sure what a professional wargamer is?
Personally I game to enjoy with hopefully like-minded folks (and I couldn't care less what they look like, what their sexual orientation is, or anything else that peeps like to tag as diversity). The author's 2 gaming options seem to be very limited, "Some people play games to feel powerful. Others play to experience diversity."

Wait. There are PROFESSIONAL wargamers???

Wait. There are PROFESSIONAL wargamers???

Yes. Me. I used to participate in, design, and run wargames for the USG and NATO. I just recently ran a class for professional wargamers.

Wargaming does NOT have a diversity problem. Whether someone's hobby is diverse or not is not "a problem".

Thanks!.

Armand

Reminds of a BS study Sears did back in the day trying to get more female employees in tools, lawn and garden, and fitness. Guess what, several months and 10s of thousands of dollars later they had their answer…..

Women just weren't interested in tools, lawn and garden, and fitness.

WOW, shocking right?

I could've done the same thing in a day or two for a couple hundred, more PTO, and free lunches.

+1 Winston Kodogo

Now, let me get back to my petipoint!

Didn't we grind this exact same grist about 18 months ago?

The assumption that herd interest in anything should be proportional to gender ratios or racial ratios or any ratio is assumptive and absurd.

I don't care.

"professional wargamers"

Isn't that just another term for "tournament players"?

"Encouraging a greater role and higher profile for colleagues from underrepresented groups in our professional activities."

In the USA how many women drive garbage trucks and work coal mines and are professional big game hunters? Why not pick on them?

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

As I am an old fart I remember an incident that happened at GenCon when it was at horticultural hall in Lake Geneva. We were picketed (1970?) and invited the picketers in to see what we were doing. The picketing stopped and the picketers got interested in the games. The next year I saw one of the picketers that had been rather aggressive playing in one of the games.

Maybe we should spread a rumor that we are war mongers and see if that will attract those who will come to convert us.

Are tournament players now professional wargamers? Only played in a tournament once and didn't enjoy it (cherry picked the army to give the best chance to win and not use historical organization). I guess I'm just not up to professional standards.

Guys, don't you get it?
There are those, like us who, wargame for fun or to pursue a fascination with military history, there are others who use it as a tool to test business decisions or military plans. These are 'professional' wargames' are these are where a lack of diversity can be a serious problem as it encourages group-think.
Now let's all take a chill pill, get our toys out and enjoy a nice game – the article is not about our hobby.

BillyNM, they've read the headline and nothing more, wonder if they read more of their rules before playing?

I get it! However, I think the authoress refuses to acknowledge that the majority of the officer corps in the United States reflects the overall society, i.e. it's overwhelming white (whites being 61% or so of the United States population, blacks being 13%). So, the drive for 'diversity' isn't so much a drive for 'equality/equity' as a drive for an idiotic utopia.

I'm guessing she's ignoring the 'professional wargaming' communities in the Pentagon, West Point, Sandhurst, etc. or the 'professional wargaming community' in most U.S. corporations – I wouldn't call them 'professional wargamers' but 'professional risk assessment specialists' to make her point.

Frankly, the first section, entitled "Executive Summary" tells me everything I need to know about her and her ideas:

"Playing for domination leads to misogynist and toxic behaviour towards women and minorities."

More Postmodernist horsehockey from the 'overeducated' crowd.

In any kind of 'wargaming', i.e. in business or in the military, you want to DOMINATE – that's the whole point of the exercise! What kind of idiot who games various business scenarios or various military scenarios wants:

"To experience a new perspective, to learn, to grow, to embrace the unknown."?

In the majority of corporations, risk assessment officers are men. In the majority of combat units in ALL militaries around the world, the officers are men. Geez, in Poland (which is 98% Polish), it's stupid to insist on 'diversity', as here 'diversity' doesn't exist in the 'professional' wargaming community because it doesn't exist in the overall population of the country!

She's an ideologue posing as an intellectual! One last quote from this tripe of an article. She's describing some stupid board game that sounds full of 'wonderment':

"The first lesson of 'Aftershock' is that the real world is hard."

WOW! Truly insightful! Imagine that! The real world is hard! Who would've thought that!

I'm sorry I wasted my time on this crap! She's an idiot, plain and simple! Tango01 – sorry, I normally like your posts but this time, you missed the mark.

Therapeutic Alienation – It begins with a falsehood, "If someone is oppressing me, then I hold no responsibility for the outcome." This becomes, "I do not see what I want to see, so someone is oppressing me." And then, "I must find an outcome I can express as wrong."

link

Dr. McWhorter's books on language are also quite interesting.

Glup!….

Armand

Didn't ELO write a song about this….I think it was called
"Pyschobabble" kinda apropos isn't it.

Why is the thought of diversity so scary to some of you?

DesertScrb, I don't think the respondents are scared of diversity, more that they are reacting to the implied criticisms of the report.

"All white men are privileged racists, homophobic misogynists who are scared of…!" is getting to be an old, worn-out tune- particularly to those of us that don't fit that puerile, politically-motivated description. It may be valid in some cases, but when it's not people people will be angered. See above.

No, diversity has a wargaming problem, as it has problems with many other subjects.

Different civilisations, no connection. Do we mostly know, care, understand and then play Chinese history that is besides Boxers? Same way around for others.
Same thing happens with historical novels.

Yes. Gaming lacks diversity and is racist. I don't care.

I am racist? I don't care.
You don't like it? I don't care.
You think I am evil? I don't care.

If you don't like the way I'm living..
You just leave this long-haired country boy alone.

Joe Collins

HMGS should look into outreach to people of color and different gendered people.

This site could also be more equitable. I can't remember ever seeing any discussion of topics of Black or Latinx interest.

You're either part of the solution or you're part of the problem.

This site could also be more equitable.

Strange, considering everyone who works here identifies as Hispanic or Filipino, and represent a range of gender.

I can't remember ever seeing any discussion of topics of Black or Latinx interest.

I've previously mentioned my Latino and black ancestry in an article here, and have talked about wargaming 'my DNA'.

We do have a board specifically for Spanish-language discussions.

You are, of course, free to initiate forum discussions which you think would promote diversity in the hobby.

Why should we reach out?
Will it make us better people. If so, why? Does your religion tell you to do this? What if mine doesn't?
Will doing this erase my sin?

What if I and a lot of my friends don't like people of color? What if we find differently gendered persons to be morally degenerate?

What if I am a Fascist? Should you reach out to me for my diverse opinion?

If you hate me for my racism, genderism, and political opinions… aren't you just a "hater" or is your "hate" somehow justified and righteous?

The whole argument is nonsense.

Much better I think is to do what Bill does… provide a friendly site to politely share our opinions and experiences of wargaming. We should be reaching out to fellow wargamers. The rest will sort itself out (though on occasion with our friendly editors' help).

Joe Collins

Each his interests. As for wargaming if "they" are not interested, so what? Only as we are dying out, this thing will vanish alongside.The Historical stuff.
US replacement is different from European, the depth of differences are way lower, not the least, those you here call " latinx"(?) are Christians civilization.
Tacos instead of hamburgers.
Difficult subject, acculturation, or appropriating another history in our case, to feel an attraction to it. Guess it depends upon education and surroundings.
Or maybe that is why the mainstream of wargaming today is Game more than History.
It goes in the same with reading (it needs reading), museums, music. Same frame of mind.
Not sure existing historical wargamers can do much.if others don't go to shows, don't read your stuff, live de facto separated, nothing from our hobby will reach them. Here in France, I would like to see the self annointed saints take a wargame demo into one of our 700 foreign enclaves to spread the interests.
Not easy, but a real sorry thing that it seems pretty hard to reach out.

What if I and a lot of my friends don't like people of color? What if we find differently gendered persons to be morally degenerate?

What if I am a Fascist? Should you reach out to me for my diverse opinion?

If you hate me for my racism, genderism, and political opinions… aren't you just a "hater" or is your "hate" somehow justified and righteous?

Being Black, Asian, White, gay, transgender, Christian, or Jewish doesn't harm other people or disparage them. These traits and beliefs are thus morally neutral, and therefore no justification for hatred.

Disliking people of color or transgender people or being a Fascist does harm and disparage other people – as millions of Blacks enslaved and discriminated against in the United States, hundreds of thousands of Tutsi slaughtered in Rwanda, and millions of Jews slaughtered by the Nazis demonstrate.

And even today, we have people of Asian descent in the United States being harassed and assaulted on the street.

So, bigotry and Fascism are NOT morally neutral, and therefore hating and opposing bigots and Fascists is most certainly justified.

Murder and genocide were carried out by blacks, Asians, Jews and Christians. None are clean. None are righteous. Should I judge the Jews just as harshly as Hitler? Their genocides are well documented and celebrated in their holidays and holy writings. The same goes for many Christian nations… and of course Islam. We can move the same argument from religion to race and definitely to politics.

The traits may be morally neutral, but they naturally divide us. Forcing divided groups together against their wishes is source of much hate and strife.

Diversity and "inclusion" also are not morally neutral. They are in fact lies in their modern conception.

They are designed to divide us and destroy our institutions. This isn't a secret. Their authors wrote and lectured openly and in great length on this. They planned to use them to destroy liberalism.

It is working.

I think a better strategy is try and love our fellow man.

People will separate into their own groups naturally. We should respect that separation.

Our inclusiveness and outreach should be to other gamers and those interested in history.

Joe Collins

There is no diversity problem in wargaming. I could make that claim for literally any activity, hobby or interest.

"There is a diversity problem in bungee jumping because only this age group tends to do it."

Ummmmm, ok. So what, we get quotas for bungee jumping to include other age groups? I mean it's ridiculous.

There are lots of things that African Americans do more than Caucasians and vice versa, lots of things that people in their 20s do more than people in their 50s, etc.

Bingo tends to be played by people who are 55 years and older. Is there age discrimination in Bingo?

C'mon!

Why is the thought of diversity so scary to some of you?

Scary my sisters black cat's ass!!!!,
this has nothing to do with diversity. If someone has an interest to game with our group here we are, welcome! We're not gonna march them in there and demand that they join to increase our "Diversity" and foster some PC "woke" agenda.

+1 Skipper John
ARE YOU KIDDING ME? (Yes, I did scream that.)

I can't remember ever seeing any discussion of topics of Black or Latinx interest.

Then why don't you start one and stop bitching about it!!!!

It's May in the northern hemisphere, but I'm seeing a lot of snowflakes on this thread!

My wife once applied to register as a childminder, so our home was visited by an Ofsted inspector to assess its, and her, suitability.
The inspector commented that there was nothing to indicate we live in a racially diverse society in the UK. My wife, who is a Filipina, pointed to a family group photograph on the wall and said, "Will that do?"
The inspector then commented that we had no toys that depicted disabled people. My wife, after a moment's thought, cried, "Yes we do – here are figures of Long John Silver, Doctor X and Captain Hook!" She forgot my 54mm display model of Lord Nelson…