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 Amaya wrote:
Are you seriously trying to argue that some cosplay, larping, or tabletop RPGs are not nerdy?

No.

I am trying to explain that "nerdy" isn't a useful category because it contains so many different things that are liked and disliked by so many different people. Thus saying "girls like nerdy things but like wargaming less" is equally not useful.

Do you even understand the point you're trying to make?

I can tell you completely missed mine.

 Amaya wrote:
Do you even understand the point you're trying to make?

I can tell you completely missed mine.

Now there's no need to be rude. I'll just let it be, since obviously you don't want to discuss anything.

There is no point in discussion if the process of communication has failed.

I can see that it has because you are making an argument that I do not consider to be pertitent to my statement. One of us has failed.

I'll explain why there are significantly fewer females than males who play 40k. It's complicated. It's not just one thing. It's a series of connected causes that all add up to what we all see.

First, remember, out of populations where TTWG occurs, only a small subset of men play. Many men don't, and other posters have discussed it- it doesn't interest them, too expensive, too time consuming, etc.

How do men that play actually start? They either walk into a GW/FLGS, or their friends introduce them. When a male walks in to a GW/FLGS, he is immediately assumed to be a game player or potential game player. The community accepts him as one of them as long as he adheres to whatever social rules are in place. If a female walks in, it is very likely she will be treated as a shopper, not a player, or of she stays too long, the patrons are likely to creep on her. I go to game stores every time I'm on travel, and this is by far my normal experience.

Stay with me. Now I'm going to discuss why this excludes females...

Very few women are exposed at all to this hobby. Those who are even aware it exists often are via significant others or their children, so since a very small subset of women get exposed to the concept at all, is it any wonder so few women actually play?

Let me throw some numbers as an example. Let's say 1% of the population (males and females) would become TTWG gamers given the chance. The current hobby is dominated by males, and females are mostly exposed via males in their lives due to lack of advertising outside the hobby. If we have a population of 10000, and start with 10 male players, then ballpark is likely only 10-20 females who will be exposed...ever, if each talks to 1 or 2 women about it. (Remember, thought experiment- stay with me). Each gamer in the example will likely talk to many more male friends, who are probably more likely or open to play because of shared interests that lead to the friendship in the first place.

If only 1%, meaning 1 in 100, males and females alike, would play given the chance, and only 20 females know it exists, what are the chances one of those 20 is in the 1%?

It happens, but not often. It also happens occasionally, and I'm one, where a female with the inclination will fall into it, but that's another story.

So let's say we get one female who gets interested. If she wants to play in public, I assure you, all those creepy condescending and exclusionary things discussed about the community DO occur. I was driven out of my local store by two creepy social trolls, one who stared, hovered way too close, and spent all his time trying to make me pay attention to him-including yelling ay me for not responding to some inane general comment to the group. The other would talk down to me, even though I've played longer than he's been alive, interrupt me, talk over me, but constantly latch on to me at the same time.

I know its not all guys in game stores who are like that. All it takes is one. When my internal rape alarms go off, and creeper #1 seriously freaked me out, I will not go back. The whole place takes on that negative connotation. It wasn't just me. Two other females were driven out, as well.

So why don't you see women playing 40k? Those who might be interested aren't getting exposed. Those who do start to play get creeped on, treated like accessories or not really legit gamers, and are talked down to. It never mattered that I out painted, out played, out fluff talked, whatever, I was always just a girl. There is a vicious cycle where not a lot of women play so not many get the chance, and those who do play get driven out.

As for the assumptions that women just don't like TTWG... that's like saying women can't be scientists because there are none. That was the assumption for a very long time. All sorts of justifications about how it doesn't interest them, or just isn't in their nature, they aren't capable, etc, were used to explain it... Just like we are seeing in this thread for why women don't play 40k. It should be obvious but there is no inherent womanly sensibility that kept women out of science- that was all 100% cultural. There are many female scientists now. In fact in my career, most of the scientists I have worked with in labs have been female. Just like women as scientists, this whole thought that women as a group don't like TTWG is assuming a cause that is just not demonstrably true.

Edit- autocorrect lulz
Edit 2&3 - fixed many typos and better explained my example

 Gymnogyps wrote:
I'll explain why there are significantly fewer females than males who play 40k. It's complicated.

The abbreviated version of this post on the main screen only showed that. Much different than what is actually there.

 Gymnogyps wrote:
I'll explain why there are significantly fewer females than males who play 40k. It's complicated. It's not just one thing. It's a series of connected causes that all add up to what we all see.

First, remember, out of populations where TTWG occurs, only a small subset of men play. Many men don't, and other posters have discussed it- it doesn't interest them, too expensive, too time consuming, etc.

How do men that play actually start? They either walk into a GW/FLGS, or their friends introduce them. When a male walks in to a GW/FLGS, he is immediately assumed to be a game player or potential game player. The community accepts him as one of them as long as he adheres to whatever social rules are in place. If a female walks in, it is very likely she will be treated as a shopper, not a player, or of she stays too long, the patrons are likely to creep on her. I go to game stores every time I'm on travel, and this is by far my normal experience.

Stay with me. Now I'm going to discuss why this excludes females...

Very few women are exposed at all to this hobby. Those who are even aware it exists often are via significant others or their children, so since a very small subset of women get exposed to the concept at all, is it any wonder so few women actually play?

Let me throw some numbers as an example. Let's say 1% of the population (males and females) would become TTWG gamers given the chance. The current hobby is dominated by males, and females are mostly exposed via males in their lives due to lack of advertising outside the hobby. If we have a population of 10000, and start with 10 male players, then ballpark is likely only 10-20 females who will be exposed...ever, if each talks to 1 or 2 women about it. (Remember, thought experiment- stay with me). Each gamer in the example will likely talk to many more male friends, who are probably more likely or open to play because of shared interests that lead to the friendship in the first place.

If only 1%, meaning 1 in 100, males and females alike, would play given the chance, and only 20 females know it exists, what are the chances one of those 20 is in the 1%?

It happens, but not often. It also happens occasionally, and I'm one, where a female with the inclination will fall into it, but that's another story.

So let's say we get one female who gets interested. If she wants to play in public, I assure you, all those creepy condescending and exclusionary things discussed about the community DO occur. I was driven out of my local store by two creepy social trolls, one who stared, hovered way too close, and spent all his time trying to make me pay attention to him-including yelling ay me for not responding to some inane general comment to the group. The other would talk down to me, even though I've played longer than he's been alive, interrupt me, talk over me, but constantly latch on to me at the same time.

I know its not all guys in game stores who are like that. All it takes is one. When my internal rape alarms go off, and creeper #1 seriously freaked me out, I will not go back. The whole place takes on that negative connotation. It wasn't just me. Two other females were driven out, as well.

So why don't you see women playing 40k? Those who might be interested aren't getting exposed. Those who do start to play get creeped on, treated like accessories or not really legit gamers, and are talked down to. It never mattered that I out painted, out played, out fluff talked, whatever, I was always just a girl. There is a vicious cycle where not a lot of women play so not many get the chance, and those who do play get driven out.

As for the assumptions that women just don't like TTWG... that's like saying women can't be scientists because there are none. That was the assumption for a very long time. All sorts of justifications about how it doesn't interest them, or just isn't in their nature, they aren't capable, etc, were used to explain it... Just like we are seeing in this thread for why women don't play 40k. It should be obvious but there is no inherent womanly sensibility that kept women out of science- that was all 100% cultural. There are many female scientists now. In fact in my career, most of the scientists I have worked with in labs have been female. Just like women as scientists, this whole thought that women as a group don't like TTWG is assuming a cause that is just not demonstrably true.

Edit- autocorrect lulz
Edit 2&3 - fixed many typos and better explained my example

Exalted! Nice argument there. I am waiting to see what others think because I think this pretty much sums it all up.

 Amaya wrote:
Are you seriously trying to argue that some cosplay, larping, or tabletop RPGs are not nerdy?

edit: You're accusing me of lumping things and you just lumped all of cosplay into anime.

lmao

Frankly I'd consider myself less nerdy than most sports fans...

Sports fans are incredibly nerdy about their sports, but because it's sports it gets its own name for its nerds.

As for the boyfriends/spouses argument, one of my friends once punched a guy for saying he'd hate to have to play against the boyfriend who taught her to play. Partly because of Singles Frustration, but mostly because it's an outrageous thing to say and really quite insulting to her.

I agree gym, I have an 11 year old niece who like to game aswell, I dont bring her to my local club yet for 2 reasons,

Under 18
Its quite a.. Manly place, what I mean by that is we're all men and behave like a room full of men.. Rude jokes bad language, you know the normal stuff, this can be off putting to woman, let alone to a little kid.

 Melissia wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
Are you seriously trying to argue that some cosplay, larping, or tabletop RPGs are not nerdy?

edit: You're accusing me of lumping things and you just lumped all of cosplay into anime.

lmao

Frankly I'd consider myself less nerdy than most sports fans...

How so?

 Amaya wrote:
Even though women engage with similarly "gross" males in other activities such as tabletop RPGs, LARPing, video gaming, cosplay, CCGs, etc.

I just don't think it particularly appeals to women and has little to do with the males in the gaming community.

So if we just swapped out every cheeto-stained neckbeard in a Darth Maul t-shirt with super well-adjusted and friendly underwear models it wouldn't do anything to FLGS attendance over the course of several years? Nobody would think anything would be different about the FLGS environment? Society has just, in your worldview, conditioned women so incredibly specifically that millions of them are constantly flocking to game stores to dress up like cat ninjas and play the newest blue/white control deck and see what feats are in the new Pathfinder book, but as soon as they look at a space marine they're just like "NOPE!" and leave?

I'm willing to bet you know a few girls that LARP, and a few girls that play RPGs, and a few girls that dress like wizards and/or Pikachu, and this experience is somehow allowing you to pretend it's not true that if you put them all together you will still have a very very very very very small number relative to the male audience of these activities, and then you're trying to use that to force some really bad extrapolation that the men creating the wargaming environment have almost nothing to do with why women don't wargame. I would say it's the *most* absurd thing I've seen in this thread but then it would have to contend with this weight-lifting tangent, something about frat initiations, the whole tired ''society forces women to be pretty'' thing, a brief foray into ''is popular good'', some stuff about a TV show everyone pretends to give a damn about because it's the closest thing we have to nerd chic, and of course your awkward need to attempt to have an entire discussion via nothing but short, declarative, sentences. It's definitely a ridiculous point for you to try to assert but, at least it's in good company here.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Amaya wrote:
There is no point in discussion if the process of communication has failed.

I can see that it has because you are making an argument that I do not consider to be pertitent to my statement. One of us has failed.

Griddle's arguments were very pertinent to your statement. He said your statements are too broad to draw any meaningful conclusions. He addressed your statements as directly as possible, by calling into question the very assumptions which brought them into existence. He also shot them down for being ridiculous, which is why you're claiming he wasn't listening to you. Trying to claim that he wasn't addressing your claims in as pretentious a manner as possible doesn't actually make that assertion correct, it just makes it look that much more absurd when it fails.

What exactly is the definition of a neckbeard? Keep seeing this term thrown around, is someone who rarely shaves or can only grow a nasty bear located exclusively on the neck?

But back on topic this is a very broad topic that has roots in multiple humanities disciplines ranging from Major:sociology but also can draw stuff from anthropology and psychology. Essentially how I see it with the current societal shifts we will hopefully see many more women in the table top wargaming scene as the shackles of the "baby boomer" societal norms wear off. It'll be in imho a long tedious process that can only be quickened by better advertising and word of mouth. So get out there and convince those lady friends, spouses, children etc to give it a go, they may be pleasantly surprised.

 Formosa wrote:
I agree gym, I have an 11 year old niece who like to game aswell, I dont bring her to my local club yet for 2 reasons,

Under 18
Its quite a.. Manly place, what I mean by that is we're all men and behave like a room full of men.. Rude jokes bad language, you know the normal stuff, this can be off putting to woman, let alone to a little kid.

You have clearly never spent much time with women at ease with other women. Some of the jokes... (Also, blushing orks are freaky >&gt

It's interesting about the creeper comment because some of the local women come by, ask us a few questions, and just stare at how the game is going somethimes when there boyfriends are in the sotres looking at board games.

 Amaya wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
Are you seriously trying to argue that some cosplay, larping, or tabletop RPGs are not nerdy?

Frankly I'd consider myself less nerdy than most sports fans...

How so?

Who else is so enthusiastically nerdy as to start riots and commit arson over their nerddom?

Hell browncoats didn't do that and they actually had a good reason to.

 Furyou Miko wrote:


You have clearly never spent much time with women at ease with other women. Some of the jokes... (Also, blushing orks are freaky >&gt

Yeah... my WoW guild was mostly women. Level of dirty talk easily surpassed anything I've ever witnessed in any all-guys group.

 SwampRats45MK wrote:
What exactly is the definition of a neckbeard? Keep seeing this term thrown around, is someone who rarely shaves or can only grow a nasty bear located exclusively on the neck?

But back on topic this is a very broad topic that has roots in multiple humanities disciplines ranging from Major:sociology but also can draw stuff from anthropology and psychology. Essentially how I see it with the current societal shifts we will hopefully see many more women in the table top wargaming scene as the shackles of the "baby boomer" societal norms wear off. It'll be in imho a long tedious process that can only be quickened by better advertising and word of mouth. So get out there and convince those lady friends, spouses, children etc to give it a go, they may be pleasantly surprised.

Actually having a beardy neck, Isn't necessarily for someone to be a neckbeard. In fact, it's entirely possible (Though very rare) to find a female neckbeard.

It's basically, someone who is borderline obsessed on a certain game/hobby, to the point where basic thing's like social interaction skills, and personnal hygene, go out of the window.
They get called neckbeards, because so many of them seem to have them, because they don't care about their appearance.

But, generally, they tend to not be very nice, a bit socially stunted, and creepy. The type who get's really angry at the slightest rules mistake, or when they lose. Just generally, the bad end of the gaming community.

Someone could make a killing making some replacement heads for IG Cadians... Just add a female face and pony tail sticking out the back and its about as real as when I was in Iraq and that was the only way to see who was female and who was male...

...if GW doesn't try to sue you for making them.

I got my wife into miniature gaming using LotR miniatures, painting the horses, and finally getting Eldar which have a decent mix of female models compared to male in the Guardians and other parts of the force.

Evileyes: thanks I was all around curious, now I know. Knowledge is half the battle and all that.

 Furyou Miko wrote:


You have clearly never spent much time with women at ease with other women. Some of the jokes... (Also, blushing orks are freaky >&gt

But women act like that only in women dominated places or in groups made mostly of women . In mixed groups or male dominated groups , women do not act like that .
Also I fail to see why table top gaming being male dominated seems to be such a big problem . There are few if any places right now where man can act like man without being branded for acting so .

That's because of social pressures and stigma, the very subject of this thread. If we didn't feel like we had to "act like women" in mixed groups, then a lot of the arguments in the original article and this thread about why women don't play 40k would never have been made.

Melissia wrote:

 Amaya wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
Are you seriously trying to argue that some cosplay, larping, or tabletop RPGs are not nerdy?

Frankly I'd consider myself less nerdy than most sports fans...

How so?

Who else is so enthusiastically nerdy as to start riots and commit arson over their nerddom?

Hell browncoats didn't do that and they actually had a good reason to.

Are revolutionaries nerdy because they start insurrections? I wouldn't call sports fans being idiots, nerdy, I would say that they are being blooming idiots.

Crimson wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:


You have clearly never spent much time with women at ease with other women. Some of the jokes... (Also, blushing orks are freaky >&gt

Yeah... my WoW guild was mostly women. Level of dirty talk easily surpassed anything I've ever witnessed in any all-guys group.

That awkward moment when you pass by a group of girls who don't notice you until after they say something horribly raunchy...yeah.

I've known a few who had no issue saying such things around everyone...and I worked (briefly) as a stocker at a fabrics store where I was the only male, I heard things...such terrible, terrible things.

Evileyes wrote:

 SwampRats45MK wrote:
What exactly is the definition of a neckbeard? Keep seeing this term thrown around, is someone who rarely shaves or can only grow a nasty bear located exclusively on the neck?

But back on topic this is a very broad topic that has roots in multiple humanities disciplines ranging from Major:sociology but also can draw stuff from anthropology and psychology. Essentially how I see it with the current societal shifts we will hopefully see many more women in the table top wargaming scene as the shackles of the "baby boomer" societal norms wear off. It'll be in imho a long tedious process that can only be quickened by better advertising and word of mouth. So get out there and convince those lady friends, spouses, children etc to give it a go, they may be pleasantly surprised.

Actually having a beardy neck, Isn't necessarily for someone to be a neckbeard. In fact, it's entirely possible (Though very rare) to find a female neckbeard.

It's basically, someone who is borderline obsessed on a certain game/hobby, to the point where basic thing's like social interaction skills, and personnal hygene, go out of the window.
They get called neckbeards, because so many of them seem to have them, because they don't care about their appearance.

But, generally, they tend to not be very nice, a bit socially stunted, and creepy. The type who get's really angry at the slightest rules mistake, or when they lose. Just generally, the bad end of the gaming community.

I wouldn't say very rare at all. They aren't common, but I've seen quite a few around FLGSs. Including at least one twice my weight (ie she was over 400 lbs)...cringe.

Makumba wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:


You have clearly never spent much time with women at ease with other women. Some of the jokes... (Also, blushing orks are freaky >&gt

But women act like that only in women dominated places or in groups made mostly of women . In mixed groups or male dominated groups , women do not act like that .
Also I fail to see why table top gaming being male dominated seems to be such a big problem . There are few if any places right now where man can act like man without being branded for acting so .

That works both ways, you know? That's societal pressure to behave in a certain manner. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It's also a bit hypocritical that we expect women to act like "ladies" whenever in our presence, yet we bemoan the fact that we cannot act "like men" (or, more specifically, id-driven Neanderthals) in their presence.