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 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
Cause I think if I understood what he was trying to say i might be able to leave it, but I just don't get what he is arguing (about the pic) and maybe if I crack that I will be able to turn lead into gold or something.

Did you know that talking about me in third person instead of asking me some questions directly is rude ?
Whinny whinny voice : If you continue like that, I will report you ! You don't respect rule 1 ! Whinny whinny whine !

Oh, sorry. I forgot to focus on what you said instead of how you said it. Wait, you didn't say anything worthwhile ! Oh my, I'm so surprised ! I hope that doesn't sound like sarcastic, I wouldn't want to hurt your feelings, just like you wouldn't want to hurt mine .
Troll.

I did ask you directly. I then asked someone else if they understood, in an attempt to get a handle on what you were saying and establish whether I was being inexplicably dense. Understandably, I referred to you in the third person in this case.

Reported.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 MetalOxide wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:


Steps are being taken to offer more alternatives to cheesecake models, and I am pleased at the encouragement sculptors like Vic are getting for their forays into this area of miniatures. There is a demand for these other types of models, and the inclusion of more combat appropriate, practically attired female models, will do a lot to ease the negative stereotypes surrounding this hobby and make the entry barriers for women less severe.

Seriously? There are no 'severe' entry barriers for women to get into wargaming. If a woman wants to get in to wargaming but is incapable of doing a little research to find wargames with no cheesecake, then there is something wrong with her, not the hobby/community.

I disagree with that statement and so do others on here, as do men and women I have discussed this matter with.

To name a few barriers brought up in this thread:
There is the barrier of social stigma for playing a "guys game" and straying from established gender norms. I bet that female wrestler that Paulson Games mentioned didn't get any flak for being the only girl on a guy's wrestling team, right?
There is the barrier of sexism (real or perceived) that occurs when women engage in gaming, which brings the representations of women in gaming artwork and miniatures into sharp focus.

Quite simply, there are barriers. So much of the discussion over the last few pages has focused on how few women want to play miniatures games and not enough focus has been placed on why they choose not to play--other than the rather unsatisfactory circular argument that women don't play these games because they aren't interested. There is more to it than that, surely, since some women (despite the crap that is put in front of them for entering the hobby) do find their way into the hobby and do enjoy the games. So, either those few women are bizarre outliers, or they are equipped in some way to deal with the barriers better than "most" women. But, that does not mean those barriers do not exist, nor does it mean we should ignore (and embrace?) those barriers.

Absolute nonsense. The general consensus among the males in the wargaming community is that more women and diversity in the hobby is great. Women are more likely to get flack from other women for being into 'guys' hobbies than from the men just like how men would get more flak from other men for being into 'girly things' and those who are misogynistic and put women in the hobby down are a very few vocal minority who give the rest of us male hobbyists and the hobby in general a bad name. As for the representation of women in miniature games and the 'cheesecake ' sculpts, I will state again that there are plenty of games out there where women are wearing much more sensible attire.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Or to put it another way: There is no victory to be had here Paulson. The Social Justice League will always find a way to paint anything as a male power fantasy and there's not a damned thing any of us can do about. And in the end this all started because someone got uppity over an Inquisitor showing off her cleavage, so how seriously should we take this?

You know what? To hell with all of this this. My problem with this discussion was never with the Inquisitor picture, and I made that abundantly clear, but myopic rabble-rousers here can't entertain more than two extremes of opinion at any one time, utterly unable to recognize that maybe there's a thing called nuance on this planet. All I ask for was not to be summarily and cynically lumped together with every misguided idiot with a knee-jerk reaction, but no, even that is a bar too high for the average Dakkadakka user to vault over. This is the real world, damn it all to Hades, and not everything can be simplistically reduced to two fundamentally different and axiomatically opposed parties. We're not chasing after soundbytes or trying to win an organized debate. Nobody's walking away from the thread with a trophy or a wreath.

If there's one thing I really wanted to get across it was this: There's more to the issue than easy-to-lampoon extremes. Things can be cool and stupid and problematic and awesome at the same time. I see now that I have utterly failed at this, possibly because I didn't dub my opposition Misogynist Douchebag Zombies, or some other cutesy term of dismissal. Or maybe it's just that impossible to talk about this topic online like civilized adults, because none of us are willing to act like civilized adults. About the only thing on the typical feminism arguments bingo sheet nobody went for was rampant homophobia, so thank the gods for small favours, I guess.

Regardless of the actual issues at hand, if this discussion is the best this forum can do, maybe we should pull the plug and start anew. There are no winners here, no memorable putdowns of obnoxious trolls or skillful dismantlings of arguments. No, we're all of us in the gutter, delivering a punch after weary punch at each other, bleeding ourselves dry and getting more and more mired in the filth until it's impossible to tell the sides apart anymore.

Saldiven wrote:
I feel that it is more likely that women who like wargaming are outliers to the norm, just like guys who like scrapbooking are outliers to the norm.

There's nothing wrong with people being different.

No, there isn't anything wrong with people being different from the norm. But even now we are using loaded language. Whether you choose to agree or not, some consider normality to be socially constructed, and thus it is hard to argue for the "normalcy" of behavior when men and women are encourage to behave differently under certain conditions.

Things are changing, but generally speaking, girls are still dissuaded from liking "boys" things and vice versa. Culturally we engender most activities, and there is still a heavy stigma attached to individuals who stray from culturally approved, gender appropriate activities. Just like the poor guys in your scrap booking example. They aren't normal because they like scrap booking. Why? Cutting out pictures and fabric doesn't make you grow a third arm, or force your testicles to retract up into your body, but it is seen as aberrant behavior because we have deemed scrap booking a female activity. You don't think women get the same sort of push back from their friends and families if they decide they like Tyranids instead of Monster High dolls?

Overly sexualized models/artwork aren't the only cause of the problem, but taken with some of the other issues, they make war gaming very unattractive for females.

I can feel Seaward tugging on his Patriarchy zipper, so left fly my good man. Let fly!



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MetalOxide wrote:
Women are more likely to get flack from other women for being into 'guys' hobbies than from the men just like how men would get more flak from other men for being into 'girly things' and those who are misogynistic and put women in the hobby down are a very few vocal minority who give the rest of us male hobbyists and the hobby in general a bad name

Is that the problem? Is the notion that women trying to enter the hobby and facing social stigma misinterpreted as negativity only coming from men? Is that your beef?

Of course much of that stigma would be coming from other women. We are really good at policing ourselves, right? As a kid did you ever get "caught" playing with the wrong toys? I used to play Barbies with a girl down the street because I had a bit of a crush on her, but boy did I catch hell from my male friends when they found out. And when they found out guess who stopped playing with his crush?

It is the judgment and perceptions of others that often keep people in check. War games are guy territory, so women are discouraged from playing by both other women and men.

 MetalOxide wrote:
As for the representation of women in miniature games and the 'cheesecake ' sculpts, I will state again that there are plenty of games out there where women are wearing much more sensible attire.

Cool. I want to play 40k and I really like the Imperial Guard because they have tanks and the background material says there are mixed gender regiments, but I can't find any female Guard on GW's site. Could you help me out?
I'd also like to play Warmachine, and really like how Cryx plays, but I can't seem to find any versions of Deneghra that don't have her sporting a midriff and high heels. Could you point me to an alternate figure that is tournament legal?

See my point? What if a female player wants to play a specific game that is guilty of a "cheesecake or nothing" policy with its miniature line? Are they SOL? Or should they just go play another game because... why?

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
Let fly!

Why? If you believe sexually dimorphic behavior is a product of nurture rather than nature, nothing's going to change your mind.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
See my point? What if a female player wants to play a specific game that is guilty of a "cheesecake or nothing" policy with its miniature line? Are they SOL?

Why would they be? My woman's all about the cheesecake. It's what she draws, and it's her favorite sort of model to paint, if the number completed is anything to go by.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
See my point? What if a female player wants to play a specific game that is guilty of a "cheesecake or nothing" policy with its miniature line? Are they SOL? Or should they just go play another game because... why?

Weird.. It's almost like life isn't tailored to the individual

Edit: She could make her own wargame however she wanted to, I'd recommend that avenue if no companies offer her what she wants instead of forcing the company to change.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
You know what? To hell with all of this this. My problem with this discussion was never with the Inquisitor picture, and I made that abundantly clear, but myopic rabble-rousers here

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
even that is a bar too high for the average Dakkadakka user to vault over.

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
because none of us are willing to act like civilized adults.

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
if this discussion is the best this forum can do, maybe we should pull the plug and start anew.

Damn, all in one post, too!

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
See my point? What if a female player wants to play a specific game that is guilty of a "cheesecake or nothing" policy with its miniature line? Are they SOL? Or should they just go play another game because... why?

Weird.. It's almost like life isn't tailored to the individual

Edit: She could make her own wargame however she wanted to, I'd recommend that avenue if no companies offer her what she wants instead of forcing the company to change.

A perfectly reasonable response!

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
See my point? What if a female player wants to play a specific game that is guilty of a "cheesecake or nothing" policy with its miniature line? Are they SOL? Or should they just go play another game because... why?

Weird.. It's almost like life isn't tailored to the individual

Edit: She could make her own wargame however she wanted to, I'd recommend that avenue if no companies offer her what she wants instead of forcing the company to change.

Yes, that's reasonable! "If you don't like it, go make your own game!" Could you be any more entitled? Or can we use that as an answer to every (of the numerous) complains towards GW people express on these forums?

 Crimson wrote:

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
See my point? What if a female player wants to play a specific game that is guilty of a "cheesecake or nothing" policy with its miniature line? Are they SOL? Or should they just go play another game because... why?

Weird.. It's almost like life isn't tailored to the individual

Edit: She could make her own wargame however she wanted to, I'd recommend that avenue if no companies offer her what she wants instead of forcing the company to change.

Yes, that's reasonable! "If you don't like it, go make your own game!" Could you be any more entitled? Or can we use that as an answer to every (of the numerous) complains towards GW people express on these forums?

So I go to Jiffy Lube looking for a sandwich only to find out that they don't make sandwiches, so what did I do? Go to a place that sells something I want? Nah, I'm going to write to Jiffy Lube and ask them to make sandwiches so that they can appeal to me.

Crimson wrote:Could you be any more entitled?

As a straight, white male? No

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
See my point? What if a female player wants to play a specific game that is guilty of a "cheesecake or nothing" policy with its miniature line? Are they SOL? Or should they just go play another game because... why?

Weird.. It's almost like life isn't tailored to the individual

Edit: She could make her own wargame however she wanted to, I'd recommend that avenue if no companies offer her what she wants instead of forcing the company to change.

Yes, that's reasonable! "If you don't like it, go make your own game!" Could you be any more entitled? Or can we use that as an answer to every (of the numerous) complains towards GW people express on these forums?

So I go to Jiffy Lube looking for a sandwich only to find out that they don't make sandwiches, so what did I do? Go to a place that sells something I want? Nah, I'm going to write to Jiffy Lube and ask them to make sandwiches so that they can appeal to me.

Because that is a great analogy for what we are discussing here. Hrm. No, it isn't.

How about, you go into a game shop to buy into a game you have heard some buzz about but the game shop only sell miniatures of half naked men in fetish wear. When you scoff and ask for other options, the clerk dismissively suggests you go and make your own miniatures game if you don't like what he has on offer. Reasonable, right?

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
See my point? What if a female player wants to play a specific game that is guilty of a "cheesecake or nothing" policy with its miniature line? Are they SOL? Or should they just go play another game because... why?

Weird.. It's almost like life isn't tailored to the individual

Edit: She could make her own wargame however she wanted to, I'd recommend that avenue if no companies offer her what she wants instead of forcing the company to change.

Yes, that's reasonable! "If you don't like it, go make your own game!" Could you be any more entitled? Or can we use that as an answer to every (of the numerous) complains towards GW people express on these forums?

So I go to Jiffy Lube looking for a sandwich only to find out that they don't make sandwiches, so what did I do? Go to a place that sells something I want? Nah, I'm going to write to Jiffy Lube and ask them to make sandwiches so that they can appeal to me.

Because that is a great analogy for what we are discussing here. Hrm. No, it isn't.

How about, you go into a game shop to buy into a game you have heard some buzz about but the game shop only sell miniatures of half naked men in fetish wear. When you scoff and ask for other options, the clerk dismissively suggests you go and make your own miniatures game if you don't like what he has on offer. Reasonable, right?

Yes, if I don't like half naked men in fetish wear I won't buy the game. Is it really more reasonable that I tell that man to change his business on my behalf?

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
Yes, if I don't like half naked men in fetish wear I won't buy the game. Is it really more reasonable that I tell that man to change his business on my behalf?

Walking away is reasonable (and I'd argue that is what most women are doing when contemplating this hobby) but demanding that an appropriate solution to the problem is creating your own game to satisfy your needs is not reasonable.

You made a stupid comment. Own it and move on.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
Yes, if I don't like half naked men in fetish wear I won't buy the game. Is it really more reasonable that I tell that man to change his business on my behalf?

Walking away is reasonable (and I'd argue that is what most women are doing when contemplating this hobby) but demanding that an appropriate solution to the problem is creating your own game to satisfy your needs is not reasonable.

You made a stupid comment. Own it and move on.

I merely suggested that if someone is unhappy with every available offering they are welcome to create their own game how they want. Also I don't think it was a stupid comment at all so I completely own it

Edit: I'm curious though, how would you handle the store in the scenario you gave me?

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
I merely suggested that if someone is unhappy with every available offering they are welcome to create their own game how they want. Also I don't think it was a stupid comment at all so I completely own it

If you were being serious and not just facetious then fair enough, but do you really think investing thousands of dollars and hours to create a game is really a reasonable solution to the problem? We are talking the average female-would-be-player, not some trust fund kid with nothing but time and money on their hands.

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
Edit: I'm curious though, how would you handle the store in the scenario you gave me?

I'd walk away. Which is what I think many of the women who do have an interest in this hobby end up doing. Not necessarily because of just one factor (the minis, or the art work, or the perception of this being a male's pursuit) but because of many factors that make the hobby in general, unappealing.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
I merely suggested that if someone is unhappy with every available offering they are welcome to create their own game how they want. Also I don't think it was a stupid comment at all so I completely own it

If you were being serious and not just facetious then fair enough, but do you really think investing thousands of dollars and hours to create a game is really a reasonable solution to the problem? We are talking the average female-would-be-player, not some trust fund kid with nothing but time and money on their hands.

I look in the News and Rumors section and see a whole lot of people making their own games and miniatures, and I'm pretty sure not all of them were do-nothing trustfund kids.

Edit: Ah, the average WOULD BE player (Safe to assume someone just getting in to wargaming wouldn't want to make their own)

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
Edit: I'm curious though, how would you handle the store in the scenario you gave me?

I'd walk away. Which is what I think many of the women who do have an interest in this hobby end up doing. Not necessarily because of just one factor (the minis, or the art work, or the perception of this being a male's pursuit) but because of many factors that make the hobby in general, unappealing.

So how far should this extend? What if my kid doesn't like the game? Should we make the company cater the game more to children so they can get involved too?

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
I look in the News and Rumors section and see a whole lot of people making their own games and miniatures, and I'm pretty sure not all of them were do-nothing trustfund kids.

But I bet those entrepreneurs had an interest in gaming in order to expend the time and resources to make their games, right? I don't think that example is applicable since we are discussing entry level situations where people are put off by entering into the hobby for reasons x, y, and z.

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
So how far should this extend? What if my kid doesn't like the game? Should we make the company cater the game more to children so they can get involved too?

Depends on how off topic we want to make this thread. I am talking about how gaming is perceived by women and how that perception might discourage them from playing. Children, pets, and grandparents are for other threads.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
Depends on how off topic we want to make this thread. I am talking about how gaming is perceived by women and how that perception might discourage them from playing. Children, pets, and grandparents are for other threads.

Tabletop wargaming, not gaming.

 Seaward wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
Depends on how off topic we want to make this thread. I am talking about how gaming is perceived by women and how that perception might discourage them from playing. Children, pets, and grandparents are for other threads.

Tabletop wargaming, not gaming.

Thanks. That is correct. Tabletop war gaming.

I just went through gw website and looked at all of their female models with the expectations of a few units most of them are really tame and most of them are covered up even the dark elder wytches have less skin showing than I expected and even the ones that are scantaly clad the context or the fluff actually makes sense so they are not scantily clad for the sake of being scantily clad.

So the ones arguing that the art and models are offensive should maybe focus on the majority of the models depicting females instead of the scantily minority and so I go back to my original argument that it is attitude and not the context of the game that is keeping women out, and yes women do give other women flak for this hobby my fiancée one day took her demon army to work and when her co workers saw this one of her female co workers said and I quote "You know you are a girl right?"

Back to the picture that started this all well I said before I can picture seeing a female Inquisitor using her sexuality to get what she needs mainly because if you look at 40K would death really be something you are afraid of. If I was a guardsmen especially a Cadian guardsmen I would not be afraid of an Inquisitor especially since I fight and survived chaos space marines and demons so really and Inquisitor I would literally flip them off. But if I had an Inquisitor being nice to me ore even flirting with me I would probably drop my guard down and slip up than BAM she nails me for heresy so you know she would literally kill me with kindness those damn crafty Inquisitors

What did your fiancée say to that woman in responce?

I think she either said " Really I did not notice" or " That would explain a few things" or a combination of the two

Better late than never...

ahem -

Next person who decides to flirt with rule #1 is going to be in trouble. If you guys can't control yourselves this thread will be locked. If you even vaguely think I might be talking about you, probably best you steer clear of this thread for a week or two.

First and last warning.

 paulson games wrote:
I'm still curious why there's a bunch of guys protesting about something that boils down to a women's issue. If you guys are truly enlightened in wanting a gender free gaming world shouldn't you let women actually be the ones advocating it?

This isn't a really good argument, is it? I mean, you can't ever see something you'd like changed unless it's personally affecting you?

 Ouze wrote:

 paulson games wrote:
I'm still curious why there's a bunch of guys protesting about something that boils down to a women's issue. If you guys are truly enlightened in wanting a gender free gaming world shouldn't you let women actually be the ones advocating it?

This isn't a really good argument, is it? I mean, you can't ever see something you'd like changed unless it's personally affecting you?

I'd make sure to ask the people concerned if it was really affecting them before I did anything about it, though, or else I might be making a lot of fuss over nothing.

No point in changing around a whole bunch of stuff if the people you change it for aren't even really worried about it.

I think a more important issue than women is gaming is fat people in gaming.

I have noticed a distinct lack of realistic obese people represented in gaming. This is every disappointing as there seems to be a large proportion of overweight gamers. I think that to get more fat people into gaming ( is this even possible) we need to have more exposed but crack and more bellies.
I can count the number of obese miniatures who aren't monsters on one hand. I am disappoint.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
See my point? What if a female player wants to play a specific game that is guilty of a "cheesecake or nothing" policy with its miniature line? Are they SOL? Or should they just go play another game because... why?

Weird.. It's almost like life isn't tailored to the individual

Edit: She could make her own wargame however she wanted to, I'd recommend that avenue if no companies offer her what she wants instead of forcing the company to change.

A perfectly reasonable response!

White Knight to the rescue!

Bullockist wrote:
I think a more important issue than women is gaming is fat people in gaming.

I have noticed a distinct lack of realistic obese people represented in gaming. This is every disappointing as there seems to be a large proportion of overweight gamers. I think that to get more fat people into gaming ( is this even possible) we need to have more exposed but crack and more bellies.
I can count the number of obese miniatures who aren't monsters on one hand. I am disappoint.

Well, you're clearly just acting of self interest here - hoping that by fervently lobbying for a representation of the obese, that perhaps some greatly overweight person will at some point have sex with you.

Sweaty, panting sex.

Bullockist wrote:
I think a more important issue than women is gaming is fat people in gaming.

I have noticed a distinct lack of realistic obese people represented in gaming. This is every disappointing as there seems to be a large proportion of overweight gamers. I think that to get more fat people into gaming ( is this even possible) we need to have more exposed but crack and more bellies.
I can count the number of obese miniatures who aren't monsters on one hand. I am disappoint.

You jest, but a broader variety of body types is something I for one would like to see. The same with ages. We need more fat geezers, especially civilians.

 MetalOxide wrote:
Absolute nonsense. The general consensus among the males in the wargaming community is that more women and diversity in the hobby is great. Women are more likely to get flack from other women for being into 'guys' hobbies than from the men just like how men would get more flak from other men for being into 'girly things' and those who are misogynistic and put women in the hobby down are a very few vocal minority who give the rest of us male hobbyists and the hobby in general a bad name. As for the representation of women in miniature games and the 'cheesecake ' sculpts, I will state again that there are plenty of games out there where women are wearing much more sensible attire.

I'd have to agree with that; the mrs has had more stick from her (all female) co-workers about playing with toy soldiers than she has from the guys in the club (none), there's been a bit of banter about the fact she's nearly the only girl there but everyone has been pretty helpful and friendly and no-ones treated her any differently.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Agamemnon2 wrote:

Bullockist wrote:
I think a more important issue than women is gaming is fat people in gaming.

I have noticed a distinct lack of realistic obese people represented in gaming. This is every disappointing as there seems to be a large proportion of overweight gamers. I think that to get more fat people into gaming ( is this even possible) we need to have more exposed but crack and more bellies.
I can count the number of obese miniatures who aren't monsters on one hand. I am disappoint.

You jest, but a broader variety of body types is something I for one would like to see. The same with ages. We need more fat geezers, especially civilians.

This is also very true, there's very little variety on either side of the gender divide.

I should do a gender/age breakdown of, say, the reaper human/humanoid catalogue sometime, to see if my gut feeling about fit-bodied manly men being predominant there is actually true or not. Figures in non-aggressive postures is another category that I reckon is underrepresented, partially I think because modern sculptors like doing dynamic action poses to set themselves apart from the flat, two-dimensional stuff of the 80s and 90s.

Angry warlike men we have in abundance, at least from a diorama builder's point of view