"Women and wargaming: the good, the bad, and the ugly" Topic

"A few days ago—spurred by a recent PAXsims readers poll that showed that an astonishing 99% of our readers are men—I posted a few thoughts on gender and national security gaming. My argument, I thought, was fairly unremarkable: Women are underrepresented in professional national security gaming; this is due to a variety of reasons (gender socialization, male preponderance in the military, underrepresentation of women within hobby wargaming, and so forth); and increasing the number of women in this area was a good idea, since—among other things—it brings more brainpower and bodies and expertise to address important issues in serious gaming.

As part of that argument, I pointed to the massive gender imbalance within the wargaming hobby, which is probably 95% or more male too. Since hobby gaming can help to develop professionally-relevant skills, and thus be an asset for those who go on in national security analysis (or, for that matter, teaching), wouldn't it be a good idea to try to encourage more women to participate here too?…"

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Armand

I know it's not cool to say, but there are biological differences in men and women. I'm not talking physical: no doubt there was a Neathdertal clan with Butch women and their babies died on neglect. Natural selection at work.

That said we all started in an amniotic soup which varies to we get variations in men and women's personality over a given norm. Most women aren't wargamers because we didn't evolve that way BUT there are exceptions for sure.

One of the biological differences between the sexes is, in general, men are more interested in things and women are more interested in people. The more egalitarian the society, the more those differences manifest themselves because individuals can more readily select for their interests.

If you see the gender disparity in wargaming as an issue, put more emphasis within your group on the social aspects (people) instead of rules & miniatures (things) and it would increase the interest of females.

The big question I have is, how does the TYPE of wargame influence things? Historical wargaming my be female-short, but what about fantasy/SF gaming? I know a lot of women & girls that paint minis for D&D & other RPGs. While not traditional wargaming, they developed from the hobby, & I definitely think female representation is much higher there, for example.

Damon.

I can only speak from my own experience but I do the membership admin for Wargame Developments, and 4% of our membership is female.

When I've visited the wargame design course at Kings College London, the gender split amongst the students is approximately 50/50 male/female, and in the world of professional rather than hobby wargaming, I've seen more and more females taking part, running games etc., over the past few years.

Thanks.

Armand

There are almost no women involved in curbside trash collection but no on seems to care about that gender inequity.

Non-sexual male bonding is important and we need to stop trying to force men into welcoming women into every aspect of our lives.

My wife and her friends what to play with needles and little pieces of colored string and I don't bother them.

They don't bother me and the army men.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek

I'm trying to remember when was the last time I heard anybody complain there were notenough men in a profession, hobby, readership of particular books or magazines…

People have different preferences, just accept it.

My daughter & 1 of her friends would play D&D & Traveller with her brother & his friends when I ran games, but she had no interest in traditional tabletop miniature games.