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I feel this bears repeating:

 Melissia wrote:
I find myself having to ask this after spending the last couple minutes facepalming over the posts in this thread-- what the hell leads many of you guys to think that you know a single thing about why women do or don't play 40k, to the point where you think you know enough with such extreme surety that you are willing to say that your assumptions apply to ALL women?

Hell, I don't do that in this kind of discussion despite having the advantage of BEING a woman.

The thing is, the various women who look at GW products and 40k in specific, and then decide it's not for them or that they're put off by the culture or that they just can't afford it or whatever reason (not a single person has brought up the massive cost of the hobby yet? I'M SHOCKED I TELL YOU SHOCKED!) that women in general don't get in to the hobby... all of them have their own unique experiences and reasons.

Some of them genuinely aren't interested, just like many men aren't. Some of them just can't afford it, and so they look for a cheaper hobby. Some of them are put off by the geek culture (which can be very off-putting at times). Some of them look down on it as nerdy so they don't want to associate themselves with it. Some of them just don't have time to put in to the hobby to begin with, it IS a time consuming hobby after all. Other times, they see that the store is full of relatively affluent white men and think that they just won't fit in, so they go somewhere else.

Really, this thread is in dire need of perspective, rather than a bunch of people theorymongering and trying to label and explain the actions of half of the goddamned human population as if we were a single monolithic group.

Why not title the thread '..why people don't play 40k.'

And then add that despite the massive investment required in time and money, the god awful rules, poor game support, poor quality products, the RoW embargo, the ban on bits sellers, CHS law suit fiasco, and the Spot the Space Marine Amazon backlash...

Some people still play 40k...And some of these players are female...

 Melissia wrote:
I feel this bears repeating:

 Melissia wrote:
I find myself having to ask this after spending the last couple minutes facepalming over the posts in this thread-- what the hell leads many of you guys to think that you know a single thing about why women do or don't play 40k, to the point where you think you know enough with such extreme surety that you are willing to say that your assumptions apply to ALL women?

Hell, I don't do that in this kind of discussion despite having the advantage of BEING a woman.

The thing is, the various women who look at GW products and 40k in specific, and then decide it's not for them or that they're put off by the culture or that they just can't afford it or whatever reason (not a single person has brought up the massive cost of the hobby yet? I'M SHOCKED I TELL YOU SHOCKED!) that women in general don't get in to the hobby... all of them have their own unique experiences and reasons.

Some of them genuinely aren't interested, just like many men aren't. Some of them just can't afford it, and so they look for a cheaper hobby. Some of them are put off by the geek culture (which can be very off-putting at times). Some of them look down on it as nerdy so they don't want to associate themselves with it. Some of them just don't have time to put in to the hobby to begin with, it IS a time consuming hobby after all. Other times, they see that the store is full of relatively affluent white men and think that they just won't fit in, so they go somewhere else.

Really, this thread is in dire need of perspective, rather than a bunch of people theorymongering and trying to label and explain the actions of half of the goddamned human population as if we were a single monolithic group.

But like...you understand that women wargamers are the minority of wargamers, right?

Like...you understand this is, ultimately, a male-dominated hobby. Right?

I take it you didn't actually read the post you just responded to.

 Melissia wrote:
I take it you didn't actually read the post you just responded to.

Oh no, I did. And I don't think your jab at my credibility here is necessary.

I simply asked you two questions. No need to insult me.

 TheCaptain wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
I take it you didn't actually read the post you just responded to.

Oh no, I did. And I don't think your jab at my credibility here is necessary.

I simply asked you two questions. No need to insult me.

Questions that were already answered in the post above.

To summarize: "there are a wide variety of reasons that might discourage a woman from playing wargames." My point is, given the huge amount of reasons that might discourage a woman from playing, attempting to claim that any one reason is the specific reason for ALL women is nonsense.

Attempting to establish that "this is a boy's club" and making exclusionary generalizations without any statistically relevant knowledge of the subject is just petty and silly. Also unscientific.

 Melissia wrote:

 TheCaptain wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
I take it you didn't actually read the post you just responded to.

Oh no, I did. And I don't think your jab at my credibility here is necessary.

I simply asked you two questions. No need to insult me.

Questions that were already answered in the post above.

To summarize: "there are a wide variety of reasons that might discourage a woman from playing wargames." My point is, given the huge amount of reasons that might discourage a woman from playing, attempting to claim that any one reason is the specific reason for ALL women is nonsense.

Attempting to establish that "this is a boy's club" and making exclusionary generalizations without any statistically relevant knowledge of the subject is just petty and silly. Also unscientific.

Melissia,

Unless I'm gravely mistaken, I think you may have misinterpreted what he was saying.

I don't think he was trying to make those points at all, but instead express that the number of men who look past the things that discourage people from playing is disproportionately higher than the women who look past them. It may just be an anomoly of statistics, but the number of men who play vs women is staggering.

OK, so here's something I find curious and interesting - and I'm guilty of doing it myself.

There are at least three or four women posting on this thread. So why do we still refer to women playing in the hobby as "they" or "them"?

Surely, we should be saying "we" or "us"?

Are we subconsciously disassociating ourselves from our femininity to better fit in with the group? Or are we at the point of genuinely considering ourselves a different 'kind' of female to the ones who don't play?

I got one for you guys: Men and women have different interests.

Most women have little interest in the military. About 5% of the US Marine Corps are women. I rarely see women riding motorcycles (but I fall in love the moment I do). Most women don't play video games. They have a whole slew of hobbies that they enjoy and most guys don't. I don't see what the big deal is.

And I'm not sexist. Saying we are different doesn't mean that we aren't equal. I just have a lot of female friends and none of them have ever shown the slightest inclination in playing 40K. Its not like they were discouraged from doing it as a child because its not lady like or that GW is marketing 40K stricktly to men. Are there exceptions? Absolutely. But in general women are just not interested in the game and that is fine by me. I'll enjoy my game and they can go and drink wine and watch romantic comedies.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
OK, so here's something I find curious and interesting - and I'm guilty of doing it myself.

There are at least three or four women posting on this thread. So why do we still refer to women playing in the hobby as "they" or "them"?

Surely, we should be saying "we" or "us"?

Are we subconsciously disassociating ourselves from our femininity to better fit in with the group? Or are we at the point of genuinely considering ourselves a different 'kind' of female to the ones who don't play?

Nah. I'm referring to the ones that don't play as "they" because I play the game and they don't. I also don't like to speak for anyone but myself.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Davespil wrote:
I got one for you guys: Men and women have different interests.

The overwhelming majority of which are societally enforced, rather than biological.

Breaking down the societal barriers requires people to keep an open mind instead of just saying "go away, this isn't your thing woman". Which I know that wasn't your intent, but that can be the actual effect regardless of intent, if you aren't careful in how you word yourself.

 Melissia wrote:

To summarize: "there are a wide variety of reasons that might discourage a woman from playing wargames." My point is, given the huge amount of reasons that might discourage a woman from playing, attempting to claim that any one reason is the specific reason for ALL women is nonsense.

Has any one poster claimed that their reason was the end-all, be-all reason why there aren't more girls in LGS'?

As far as I've gleaned from reading the thread, it seems like a collective of ideas being thrown into a hat as possibilities.

I don't see the posts in this thread as mutually exclusive "My post is why girls don't 40k." "No, my post is why!"

It feels like "Maybe girls don't 40k because of X" "Yeah, or Y and Z" "I know a girl that didn't mind XYZ, but B and C is what put her off."

Because I agree with you. I'm sure Men and Women share a lot of reasons why the hobby could be unappealing to them. But there are a lot of gender-specific reasons too, it would seem.

If I may throw my contribution into the hat, as per one reason girls may avoid the hobby:

I've been accompanied by a few attractive girls into my LGS on occasion, and one one occasion met a pair of attractive young women who were there waiting to drive the one's brother home.

All these girls had two things in common.

-They were College-age and attractive.
-They were made uncomfortable by the environment.

The pair of girls, I noticed enter the LGS one saturday evening. Forgive me for stereotyping, but they did not look like the kind of girls you would find in the LGS. They looked like they'd be more comfortable at the mall or a College Party. Anyways, as I sat back painting, I occasionally witnessed a player or two being what I describe as "aggressively friendly" with them. One by one, guys would approach them with a flurry of awkwardness that you could tell was putting them off. Now, I pride myself on being well dressed, clean, and physically fit, so you could say I violate the "basement dweller" stereotype that often pervades nerd-culture, and was sadly in full show this particular night. So, eventually, the girls gravitated to me, where it seemed like they just wanted someone "normal" to talk to while they waited for their friend/brother.

I explained to these girls, as well as the girls I've brought in myself, that females (specifically those with traditional-good looks) in my specific LGS is a rarity, and though sincere, some of the gentlemen that regularly attend can be a bit, for lack of a better word, awkward. Both the two, as well as the ones I myself know, made it rather clear to me that this behavior made them quite uncomfortable; the "aggressively friendly" behavior that, from a distance, seemed just like nerds slowly gravitating to these girls like zombies.

Now, I cannot say for certain if this phenomena even effects anyone anywhere else, but I know it made five girls very uncomfortable with the prospect of spending extended time in a LGS. That much I can be sure of.

-TheCaptain

 TheCaptain wrote:
Has any one poster claimed that their reason was the end-all, be-all reason why there aren't more girls in LGS'?

Yes. Numerous posters have done so.

 Melissia wrote:

 TheCaptain wrote:
Has any one poster claimed that their reason was the end-all, be-all reason why there aren't more girls in LGS'?

Yes. Numerous posters have done so.

Ah, well, as a sane person with basic understanding of sociology, I agree with you.

There is almost never one specific reason why a group of people doesn't like something.

People are too complex for that.

I've been avoiding this thread with a ten foot pole, but Melissa has a point - this is a perfect metaphor for the "women's health board" deciding women's contraception when the board members were two priests, a catholic bishop, rabbi, and two professors of ethics.

All were male, and all voiced very popular views of both party lines of a large community, but failed to miss the central point.

They were men.

They were men discussing a woman's issue as though they knew the very thoughts of those lives their opinions affected when the simplest thing they could have done was get five completely random women off the street and ask;

"Hey, you're a woman, what do you think we should do when passing legislation pertaining to what you can and can't do about your body?"

The same opportunity has presented itself here, and a woman has answered for what she believes is the consensus of why women don't engage in the hobby - which she has made clear is that there isn't one exact reason.

I have a tendency to believe her over 5 pages of "we know best".

 Melissia wrote:
Other times, they see that the store is full of relatively affluent white men and think that they just won't fit in, so they go somewhere else.

Yeah right. You expect me to believe that women don't like relatively affluent white men.

Lets be honest, the type of men you generally see in a hobby store aren't the type that attract most women. That might be a reason they are turned off from the game.

I believe Captain and myself would disagree with you - we share the same violation of the sterotype.

 Davespil wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Other times, they see that the store is full of relatively affluent white men and think that they just won't fit in, so they go somewhere else.

Yeah right. You expect me to believe that women don't like relatively affluent white men.

As a general rule, I have found that people are more likely to try to socialize and fit in with those who are more similar to themselves. I do not claim that this is a universal fact mind you, but still, it can be disconcerting to try to fit in to a population that has very different experiences than you do.

Also? Stop assuming that the only reason women would go anywhere is to date men.

This is the redunancy deparment of redunancy. People have been repeating the same nonsense since page 1 now. Can't anyone be bothered to read the actual thread and contribute something worthwhile instead of just repeating the "women don't like smelly neckbeards" nonsense?

And why are we pretending that the female equivalent of neckbeards doesn't exist...I've certainly seen some around...

 Amaya wrote:
This is the redunancy deparment of redunancy. People have been repeating the same nonsense since page 1 now. Can't anyone be bothered to read the actual thread and contribute something worthwhile instead of just repeating the "women don't like smelly neckbeards" nonsense?

And why are we pretending that the female equivalent of neckbeards doesn't exist...I've certainly seen some around...

Yeah, I've known a few myself. Women are pressured by society more than men to look good and have good hygiene, but that doesn't mean that there aren't any women that wouldn't qualify.


During my more depressed moments in high school, I let myself slip in to that territory. Nowadays I exercise and bathe regularly thank you very much, but when you're emotionally unstable or distraught, keeping clean and in shape can oftentimes be a very minor concern.

Or read my post saying that this community apparently is a Fathers Know Best State?

 Davespil wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Other times, they see that the store is full of relatively affluent white men and think that they just won't fit in, so they go somewhere else.

Yeah right. You expect me to believe that women don't like relatively affluent white men.

You think all girls like rich white guys?

What about [Fat, rude, loud, smelly] rich white guys?

What about girls who like [Kind, friendly, attractive] middle-class/poor spanish/black/asian/etc guys?

For what it's worth, this is what GW is looking for when setting up a store: "Demographic Criteria: At least 500,000 total population within 10 miles with 33,000+ 14- to 24-year-old males. Median household income is at least $50,000."

From http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?categoryId=&pIndex=7&aId=3500005&multiPageMode=true&start=8

That said, it's amazing what can happen (and what you can sell) when you just treat people like people. My daughter may have painted her squad of Space Marines pink, but she's 5 and she picked the colour. They shoot at my wife's Orks just fine

 TheCaptain wrote:
What about girls who like [Kind, friendly, attractive] middle-class/poor spanish/black/asian/etc guys?

hehehe...

Sorry, I couldn't help myself. This thread is too tense anyway.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Davespil wrote:
I got one for you guys: Men and women have different interests.

The overwhelming majority of which are societally enforced, rather than biological.

Breaking down the social barriers requires people to keep an open mind instead of just saying "go away, this isn't your thing woman". Which I know that wasn't your intent, but that can be the actual effect regardless of intent, if you aren't careful in how you word yourself.

 Davespil wrote:

What social barrier must be broken down here??? Seriously, this is a game that peaks the interest of a lot more men than women. No one said women can't play 40K as good as a man. No one said that women shouldn't be allowed to play 40K. There is no barrier, just a large amount of women that have no interest in playing.

The societal stigma of "What is and isn't girly" is what Melissia is referencing here, I believe.

Much the same way people would berate a man who likes something that is "for girls" (ex. Brony-hate)

Many folks would likely poke fun at a girl who likes stuff that is "for boys" (ex. female hockey/baseball/rugby athletes having their sexuality questioned)

Brony hate has a lot more to do with the excessive vocality of bronies and the oversaturation of MLP images and fan art everywhere. The fact several bronies at conventions have admitted on video to clopping to rule 34 MLP content doesn't help matters at all. They're basically viewed as an offshoot of the furry subculture which is also painted as perverse due to yiffers.

I'm letting Captain run with this. Stealing the words out of my mouth.

*Shakes fist for being too slow*

 TheCaptain wrote:

 Davespil wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Other times, they see that the store is full of relatively affluent white men and think that they just won't fit in, so they go somewhere else.

Yeah right. You expect me to believe that women don't like relatively affluent white men.

You think all girls like rich white guys?

What about [Fat, rude, loud, smelly] rich white guys?

What about girls who like [Kind, friendly, attractive] middle-class/poor spanish/black/asian/etc guys?

Affluent white men was in someone else's quote, not mine. I did not bring it up, just repeated it.

As far as fat, rude, loud, smelly. I'm gonna go with most people will not like them.

And as far as poor, black, spanish, asian, etc. Again, I didn't write it, I just quoted it.

ANd no one said anything about attraction or dating. Who's sexist now?

 Davespil wrote:

Yeah right. You expect me to believe that women don't like relatively affluent white men.

TheCaptain wrote:You think all girls like rich white guys?

What about [Fat, rude, loud, smelly] rich white guys?

What about girls who like [Kind, friendly, attractive] middle-class/poor spanish/black/asian/etc guys?

 Davespil wrote:

ANd no one said anything about attraction or dating. Who's sexist now?

Neither of us said anything about attraction or dating, actually.

But you insinuated that you don't believe women have the capacity to dislike affluent white guys.

[fixing links and reposting]