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How about those men who silently (and otherwise) reject and ostracize women who don't fit society's (actually media-marketed and enforced) standards of beauty?

I mean, hell, if there was one battle where I could put an end to racism, sexism and all of that sort of thing in one go? Hell, point me to that battle, I'll lead the charge.

 Peregrine wrote:
No, you just refuse to accept that the reasons have a lot to do with how the community treats them, not the concept of a tabletop wargame.

Nice straw man.

For reference, my actual position: Women are not interested in wargaming because of the large number of socially awkward, unattractive men associated with the hobby. And because its an expensive, time-consuming hobby about war, which is just not something most women care about.

And you know what? Those changes and excluding those people would be good things. If your game is ruined because there are more female characters (who aren't just there to be sex objects) then I don't want you in my hobby anyway.

Do you even play Warhammer? What exactly would be the point of adding female characters? I mean...you do get that the Imperium is a racist, sexist, xenophobic and fascist dystopian nightmare, right? But what, you want them to present the Imperium as an egalitarian wonderland? If you make the 40k setting less horrifically racist, sexist and fascistics, then you start turning the Imperium into something that might actually look hopeful. They might actually appear to be good guys. There aren't a whole lot of games I'd say this about, but yeah actually the sexism is pretty integral to 40k. The thing that makes 40k fun is that no matter what faction you play, you're the bad guy. You're the mindless horde devouring the carcass of humanity, or your the carcass of humanity spasming in its death throes. It's grimdark.

It's kind of supposed to be awful. You certainly could change it to be more appealing to more people, but you'd totally kill the vibe.

Also, the "sex object" argument is nonsense. No character in a game is there "just" to be a sex object. That term gets misapplied and overused to the point of being meaningless. It is not a synonym for sexy, and you need to not use it as one.The idea that most women are desperately clamoring for unidealized, plain-looking heroines is just nonsense. If you really believe that, you know where to find Kickstarter. You don't even need to put your own money where your mouth is. Do a kickstarter for the kind of models you want to see, and if you have any real success, then you can start claiming that's what women want.

If you're going to ragequit because the community won't tolerate you being a creepy every time a woman enters the store then, again, I want you gone. Feel free to come back when you're capable of being a decent person.

Really? See, I would take that guy aside and have a talk with him, let him know that's not acceptable, but also give him a chance to work out some of the feelings he's clearly bottling up, and try to help him develop some coping mechanism to better deal with his loneliness and hurting.

I guess I'm just a nicer person than you.

Stopped reading there. Welcome to my ignore file, you silly, silly person.

Ah, that old classic. When you can't deal with the substance of an argument just make a big deal about how you're blocking the person making it.

What argument? When a person says they believe in thought crime, they're basically tell you that you should ignore them. The guy just admitted that he would lie and cheat and bully and harass people if they don't think exactly as he demands because he's that certain that his every malign speculation about others is . Why would you give someone who admitted that the time of day, let alone have a conversation with them? They're never going to show you any respect because by merely disagreeing with them you've proven yourself a "criminal" worthy of being bullied, harrassed and lied to.

Only masochists go into battle with self-admitted ideological zealots.

friendlycommissar wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
No, you just refuse to accept that the reasons have a lot to do with how the community treats them, not the concept of a tabletop wargame.

Nice straw man.

For reference, my actual position: Women are not interested in wargaming because of the large number of socially awkward, unattractive men associated with the hobby. And because its an expensive, time-consuming hobby about war, which is just not something most women care about.

And you know what? Those changes and excluding those people would be good things. If your game is ruined because there are more female characters (who aren't just there to be sex objects) then I don't want you in my hobby anyway.

Do you even play Warhammer? What exactly would be the point of adding female characters? I mean...you do get that the Imperium is a racist, sexist, xenophobic and fascist dystopian nightmare, right? But what, you want them to present the Imperium as an egalitarian wonderland? If you make the 40k setting less horrifically racist, sexist and fascistics, then you start turning the Imperium into something that might actually look hopeful. They might actually appear to be good guys. There aren't a whole lot of games I'd say this about, but yeah actually the sexism is pretty integral to 40k. The thing that makes 40k fun is that no matter what faction you play, you're the bad guy. You're the mindless horde devouring the carcass of humanity, or your the carcass of humanity spasming in its death throes. It's grimdark.

It's kind of supposed to be awful. You certainly could change it to be more appealing to more people, but you'd totally kill the vibe.

Also, the "sex object" argument is nonsense. No character in a game is there "just" to be a sex object. That term gets misapplied and overused to the point of being meaningless. It is not a synonym for sexy, and you need to not use it as one.The idea that most women are desperately clamoring for unidealized, plain-looking heroines is just nonsense. If you really believe that, you know where to find Kickstarter. You don't even need to put your own money where your mouth is. Do a kickstarter for the kind of models you want to see, and if you have any real success, then you can start claiming that's what women want.

If you're going to ragequit because the community won't tolerate you being a creepy every time a woman enters the store then, again, I want you gone. Feel free to come back when you're capable of being a decent person.

Really? See, I would take that guy aside and have a talk with him, let him know that's not acceptable, but also give him a chance to work out some of the feelings he's clearly bottling up, and try to help him develop some coping mechanism to better deal with his loneliness and hurting.

I guess I'm just a nicer person than you.

Stopped reading there. Welcome to my ignore file, you silly, silly person.

Ah, that old classic. When you can't deal with the substance of an argument just make a big deal about how you're blocking the person making it.

What argument? When a person says they believe in thought crime, they're basically tell you that you should ignore them. The guy just admitted that he would lie and cheat and bully and harass people if they don't think exactly as he demands because he's that certain that his every malign speculation about others is . Why would you give someone who admitted that the time of day, let alone have a conversation with them? They're never going to show you any respect because by merely disagreeing with them you've proven yourself a "criminal" worthy of being bullied, harrassed and lied to.

Only masochists go into battle with self-admitted ideological zealots.

When did 40k become racist or sexist? I've never seen that in the game. The closest has been the new fluff about males being the only ones capable of being knights. Besides that, we've had fluff of female guardsman, inquisitors, commissars, and even a techpriest or two. The RPGs also don't really pay it much regard. Besides that, there's planets where it's matriarchal and others where it is patriarchal in the fluff. As per race, not really. Most are white and the exceptions are SM representing cultures, Salamanders which are pointed to being daemonic looking but having hearts of gold, and groups like the Tallarn that just use a themed tactic. The Imperium isn't sexist or is it racist. The Imperium is classist, xenophobic, mutant hating, and a fascist dystopian nightmare, not a sexist or racist world.

friendlycommissar wrote:
For reference, my actual position: Women are not interested in wargaming because of the large number of socially awkward, unattractive men associated with the hobby. And because its an expensive, time-consuming hobby about war, which is just not something most women care about.

And you keep missing the point here: the second half of your reason is fine, but the first half isn't. Nobody is suggesting that we change what 40k is in a desperate attempt to get more women involved. The point is that we should not tolerate creepy s that drive women (and men) away because they don't know how to behave in public.

Do you even play Warhammer? What exactly would be the point of adding female characters? I mean...you do get that the Imperium is a racist, sexist, xenophobic and fascist dystopian nightmare, right? But what, you want them to present the Imperium as an egalitarian wonderland? If you make the 40k setting less horrifically racist, sexist and fascistics, then you start turning the Imperium into something that might actually look hopeful. They might actually appear to be good guys. There aren't a whole lot of games I'd say this about, but yeah actually the sexism is pretty integral to 40k. The thing that makes 40k fun is that no matter what faction you play, you're the bad guy. You're the mindless horde devouring the carcass of humanity, or your the carcass of humanity spasming in its death throes. It's grimdark.

Sigh. Congratulations on missing the point of the setting entirely. 40k should have lots of women in non-space marine armies because everyone has to fight. There's none of this chivalrous nonsense where women are to be kept safe at home while the men go off and fight, if you're able to hold a lasgun then congratulations, you're sent off into the meat grinder to be expended along with millions of your fellow guardsmen. In fact, the fluff makes this explicit: Cadia has 100% conscription, every single person is part of the military. And other armies are similar: Tau and Eldar/DE explicitly have women in combat, while only space marines are all-male.

The problem is that, while GW presents a setting where women are part of the military, the models don't reflect that reality. Instead of mixed-gender Cadians (remember, 100% conscription includes all women) they're all men. Fixing this isn't just an anti-sexism thing, it also brings the models in line with the fluff.

Also, the "sex object" argument is nonsense. No character in a game is there "just" to be a sex object.

You can't possibly be serious about that.

The idea that most women are desperately clamoring for unidealized, plain-looking heroines is just nonsense.

Yeah, just ignore the women saying "I want average-looking women in my fiction who aren't treated as sex objects". Why pay attention to reality when it gets in the way of your ideology?

Really? See, I would take that guy aside and have a talk with him, let him know that's not acceptable, but also give him a chance to work out some of the feelings he's clearly bottling up, and try to help him develop some coping mechanism to better deal with his loneliness and hurting.

I guess I'm just a nicer person than you.

I'm here to play a game I enjoy, not to give basic "how to not be a terrible person" lessons.

We used to have a FoW women player but moved to another state with her military husband. Awesome player and awesome painter. Miss both of them but hated the one battle I played against them. I learned a lot but it was a total noob stomp (me being the noob...).

The store with the most players is an all around hobby store so it has MtG, FoW, Warhammer, 40k and Larps. On some of the big MtG and larp days the place can get horrible. The smell of 20 unwashed pre-teen nasty tends to cause females to stay away from my hobby store.

Time to shift direction of the conversation, folks.

As well as most people

I think the best part of this thread is not only a whole bunch of guys talking about women, but the fact that it's called Female Players.

While that's true, if the title was supposed to represent the actual thread, it'd be "Female Players: Why aren't there very many?"

I think the thread, as a whole, does a pretty good job of answering the question.

 Psienesis wrote:
While that's true, if the title was supposed to represent the actual thread, it'd be "Female Players: Why aren't there very many?"

I think the thread, as a whole, does a pretty good job of answering the question.

Women have different interests then men? That's what I got out of the thread.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Women have different interests then men? That's what I got out of the thread.

Whereas I learned that failing to invite the wives/girlfriends or other women along for the upcoming guys' weekend in Vegas is a borderline hate crime.

 Seaward wrote:
Whereas I learned that failing to invite the wives/girlfriends or other women along for the upcoming guys' weekend in Vegas is a borderline hate crime.

Except nobody is actually saying that.

I think the best explanation for the gender disparity came from the guy who made the case about knitting clubs. Sewing is simply a female dominated hobby because men do not like the idea behind it. I, and I am pretty sure other men, can appreciate the end results of knitting but have no interest in the hobby itself. Same is true for women when it comes to 40k it would seem.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
I think the best explanation for the gender disparity came from the guy who made the case about knitting clubs. Sewing is simply a female dominated hobby because men do not like the idea behind it. I, and I am pretty sure other men, can appreciate the end results of knitting but have no interest in the hobby itself. Same is true for women when it comes to 40k it would seem.

And again, you are stating the effect, not the cause.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
I think the best explanation for the gender disparity came from the guy who made the case about knitting clubs. Sewing is simply a female dominated hobby because men do not like the idea behind it. I, and I am pretty sure other men, can appreciate the end results of knitting but have no interest in the hobby itself. Same is true for women when it comes to 40k it would seem.

And again, you are stating the effect, not the cause.

I am not a psychologist, I have not studied the differences between the male and femaale minds and I have not conducted any research into the matter. All I can say for certain is that something about the 40k hobby puts girls off and something about the knitting hobby puts guys off. It seems, from the various anecdotes I've read, that the complicated ruleset puts girls off. Though I guess that still doesn't answer your question.

I knit, play 40k , and am gay. Where is your god now?

Sitting on the Golden Throne of Terra, my good sir!

Die Hetero Cisgendered Imperial Scum

 TheCustomLime wrote:
All I can say for certain is that something about the 40k hobby puts girls off

That is correct. See Peregrine's posts- he usually talks a lot of sense on topics like these.

Yeah, I agree with him too that 40k players are too tolerant of this behavior being displayed by their fellows. Even if the goal isn't to bring in more female players it's just common decency.

But I don't think we will ever get gender parity in 40k. A shame that half of the population can't really enjoy the game but human dimorphism is what it is.

 Ashiraya wrote:
That is correct. See Peregrine's posts- he usually talks a lot of sense on topics like these.

The guy who said male and female humans are biologically identical earlier in the thread?

Quote it.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Quote it.

Happy to.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Seaward wrote:
I mean, sexual dimorphism isn't exactly a controversial concept. It very much exists. I suppose we can pretend like it doesn't influence anything, but I'm not sure I see the point in that.

Well, it exists as long as you love bad evolutionary psychology and other pseudoscience.

I don't know what other conclusion to draw from the fact that he believes sexual dimorphism to be the province of pseudoscience than that he believes there to be no physiological differences between men and women.

How is this even relevant to the discussion, though?

Unless you are saying that the behaviour that is being argued against is justified because of biological gender differences in which case... I don't have anything more to say. :|

 Ashiraya wrote:
How is this even relevant to the discussion, though?

Unless you are saying that the behaviour that is being argued against is justified because of biological gender differences in which case... I don't have anything more to say. :|

I was arguing that I've known few women to have an interest in wargaming of any sort, 40K or otherwise, and hence the issue is probably more divergent interests than the 40K community when it comes to why there aren't more female players.

Peregrine was arguing that women and men have exactly the same interests, it's just the patriarchy that forces some to go by the wayside.

I countered that no, there are probably biological reasons for some interests to be traditionally male and some to be traditionally female, because hey, sexual dimorphism. Male and female hormone levels aren't the same, different areas of the brain get a little more development, etc.

Peregrine then said that sexual dimorphism doesn't exist, and it's all the patriarchy.

And now we're up to speed.

Would you be able to post a link to his full post seaward?

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Yeah, I agree with him too that 40k players are too tolerant of this behavior being displayed by their fellows. Even if the goal isn't to bring in more female players it's just common decency.

But I don't think we will ever get gender parity in 40k. A shame that half of the population can't really enjoy the game but human dimorphism is what it is.

It's not just that and I don't think people ever expected 50-50. I think it's more like going for 60-40 or even 75-25. As per human dimorphism, it's not just that. That's the problem with it. It's never that simple as that argues it's all about nature when life is really a combination of nature and nurture. Society influences what is acceptable and unacceptable of everybody from what you should like to what you should wear. It changes over time but there's always expectations. So the question becomes, how much is because of genetics and how much is because of your life, your friends, your parents, and all the other things that influence you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Seaward wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Quote it.

Happy to.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Seaward wrote:
I mean, sexual dimorphism isn't exactly a controversial concept. It very much exists. I suppose we can pretend like it doesn't influence anything, but I'm not sure I see the point in that.

Well, it exists as long as you love bad evolutionary psychology and other pseudoscience.

I don't know what other conclusion to draw from the fact that he believes sexual dimorphism to be the province of pseudoscience than that he believes there to be no physiological differences between men and women.

To be fair, the only thing he did was badly word it. You didn't link the rest of what he said: "The much more likely scenario is that any inherent gender differences are less significant than the variation between individuals, and most of the "inherent" differences are better explained by social factors. The fact that wargaming, in an ideal sexism-free world, might be 60/40 in favor of men doesn't mean that we should pretend that the current 99/1 ratio represents inherent attributes rather than problems in the community and society as a whole."

Badly worded yes but even he admitted a possible 60/40 which would also represent sexual dimorphism.

 Seaward wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
How is this even relevant to the discussion, though?

Unless you are saying that the behaviour that is being argued against is justified because of biological gender differences in which case... I don't have anything more to say. :|

I was arguing that I've known few women to have an interest in wargaming of any sort, 40K or otherwise, and hence the issue is probably more divergent interests than the 40K community when it comes to why there aren't more female players.

Peregrine was arguing that women and men have exactly the same interests, it's just the patriarchy that forces some to go by the wayside.

I countered that no, there are probably biological reasons for some interests to be traditionally male and some to be traditionally female, because hey, sexual dimorphism. Male and female hormone levels aren't the same, different areas of the brain get a little more development, etc.

Peregrine then said that sexual dimorphism doesn't exist, and it's all the patriarchy.

And now we're up to speed.

But... That is just a 'not a cause for a cause' fallacy.

You have nothing but speculation to back up your statements.

You assume that the biological differences are the sole reasons for this controversy but you have no proof whatsoever of this being the case, while it is obvious that the social hindrances are rather significant. Just look earlier in this thread for plenty of examples.

Of course it's possible the numbers won't reach 50% due to uneven genuine interest. Nobody has said anything else. But the current numbers are definitely skewed by far more than mere nature.

Plus what Startrotter says.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Would you be able to post a link to his full post seaward?

The full conversation starts around page 5, I believe.

 Seaward wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Would you be able to post a link to his full post seaward?

The full conversation starts around page 5, I believe.

I didn't link it (I'm still not quite used to how all of the posts funciton, but Silver meant the rest of his statement) but I posted the rest of the statement you took that except from