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 Ashiraya wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:
Quite honestly, as long as everybody who is interested in playing tabletop games gets to play and enjoy playing tabletop games, I really don't care what the gender ratio ends up being at the end. To me it just seems like the focus should be more on improving acceptance of any newcomers to the hobby as opposed to "need more females".

I do not think anyone is arguing for actively recruiting females in particular rather than reducing the resistance to join.

I will take your word for that since I haven't actually been reading the entirety of this thread and have no reason to doubt you, however that wasn't really the point I was trying to make. What I was trying to assert was that worrying particularly about female players and hoping for gender equality in this hobby seems to be rather missing the point. What difference does it make how many females actually end up in the hobby as long as everybody who wants to be there can be? In particular I think discussing gender ratios is rather the wrong path to go down in this instance. I noticed that going around a lot in what I have read of this thread and I don't really think it's the most productive line to take.

Apple fox wrote:

But I don't think we are talking about a little group at someone's house, I am talking about places that welcome all but put up a invisible sign that says this isn't realy for you go away.
Many places do this, just as a form off culture

Thankfully I haven't ever seen anything like that happen in any of polish stores, so the whole idea of treating women worse is a little abstract to me. I'm sorry if it happens to you or any of your friends, but that's specifically the issue of guys there and if it happens, it should be reported to the store owner.

Apple fox wrote:
As for excluding I realy do think you are, you are saying that we are not welcome becouse some men can't handle it.

No, no, you got me wrong there. :-) I am not excluding anyone, I'm just giving reasons why girls might have a hard time joining a sausage fest community - I have nothing against girls blending in to the group and if I'd see anyone mistreat or show lack of respect to any girl at our LGS I'd help the owner kick the guy out and vote for banning him for some time from tournaments and such if it happens again. What I meant by talking about not being able to handle girls is that there are some guys with social issues that come to our LGS to have some fun with other nerds without having to stress over a girl's presence and possible judgement, that's it. I'm not telling the girl not to come to our store, I'd just ask her to be very careful, friendly and understanding, as some of people in this community have their own issues and I know they'd have problems if they saw a girl look at them like they were some kind of weird, alien nerd type. If a girl is friendly and shows that she wants to be a part of our group, we would welcome her and treat her like an equal.. but if she can't stand our crude jokes(not necessarily sexist, sometimes just slightly inappropriate type you see on sites like 9gag), then it's her issue, not ours. We've been in that group for quite some time and we won't change just so a single newcomer feels better, I hope it's easy to understand.

Apple fox wrote:
That we should just accept the the issues since some people can't not say something they shouldent and would feal bad if they get called out for it.
Sexism is still sexism when girls can't here it.

Intended, malicious sexism is wrong no matter what, I agree. But if someone goes 'butthurt' over a little sexist joke that is clearly not serious nor speaks for the saying one's personal beliefs he's just silly no matter his gender.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Klerych wrote:
I don't think it's about lack of respect for women personally..

Then out of what?

From my experience it's more about.. uh.. fear? Couldn't find a better word so fear it is. Fear of having your comfort stripped away and suddenly having to act less relaxed and more like on some official meeting to not hurt the supposedly fragile girl that is very likely(according to stereotypes that might be wrong, but they stand until proven false) to find their crude jokes and relaxed, crude behaviour bad so they'll have to censor themselves.

IF lack of respect is the case in some places, however, that should be reported to the store owner/employee because it's wrong. But as I said - fortunately in Poland it doesn't seem to happen.

If you are acting that bad around your friends that even you know you will hurt peoples feelings..... you should probably address that issue sooner then later. Because it is a long lonley and well failing road for those who can't get along with others or grossly offend others thinking it is ok.

Biggest issue I have is people under the age of 25 ish, they text when they are being spoken to, chew with their mouth open, make vulgar or rude comments, say things that should make you embarrassed and refuse to make eye contact and all around just unpleasant to be around or near.

I live with the saying my grandfather told me " If you are too embarrassed to say it or admit you do it in front of your family then you should probably not be doing it.

OgreChubbs wrote:
I live with the saying my grandfather told me " If you are too embarrassed to say it or admit you do it in front of your family then you should probably not be doing it.

So you should not have sex ?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

OgreChubbs wrote:
I live with the saying my grandfather told me " If you are too embarrassed to say it or admit you do it in front of your family then you should probably not be doing it.

So you should not have sex ?

If your parents never had sex, odds are that you won't either.

OgreChubbs wrote:
If you are acting that bad around your friends that even you know you will hurt peoples feelings..... you should probably address that issue sooner then later. Because it is a long lonley and well failing road for those who can't get along with others or grossly offend others thinking it is ok.

I don't get why are you so fixed on trying not to understand what I mean by what I write.. either that or I'm bad at expressing myself. See - we're not talking about people being unable to stand up to regular social standards here, nor do guys like that only act like apes wherever they are. Is it really so hard to grasp that some people want to spend their free time in bliss of fun that is less restricted than what you'd do on the street among 'normal' people? Again - I'm not talking about taking off your pants and wearing a sweaty shirt while farting like there was no tomorrow, nor do I mean cursing all the time and spewing crap out of your mouth - I mean those random, mildly inappropriate jokes that pop up every now and then and a random burp that someone might let out without having to worry that someone else will look at them weird. I feel kinda bad that you don't have a pack of good buddies with whom you don't have to censor yourself like it was a situation more relaxed than meeting with acquaintances from your work.

I assure you that most men that like those crude jokes here and like to act a bit more relax are very much capable of functioning in the bigger society, so please, don't pretend that being a bit more relaxed is something wrong.

OgreChubbs wrote:
Biggest issue I have is people under the age of 25 ish, they text when they are being spoken to, chew with their mouth open, make vulgar or rude comments, say things that should make you embarrassed and refuse to make eye contact and all around just unpleasant to be around or near.

That's not the type of 'crude' behaviour I meant, so at least I know you're not bashing the kind of groups I am talking about. Behaviour that you have listed should be dissed and branded in every group.

OgreChubbs wrote:
I live with the saying my grandfather told me " If you are too embarrassed to say it or admit you do it in front of your family then you should probably not be doing it.

I'm sorry if I sound like an ass, but.. Don't you think that it's a bit too stiff? I mean.. there are many things you would normally do with friends that you probably wouldn't in front of your family, and it's, in my opinion, fairly normal. Do you openly admit in front of your family that you have sex daily with your wife, even mentioning the amount and type of positions? Or that you masturbate? It's obviously things that you are doing and they're natural under their particular circumstances while not really the best family conversation material. Unless, of course, you're a sexual abstinent. Long story short - your grandpa gave you a neat little anecdote that should never be taken too seriously unless you're in situation in which it is expected of you to be very strict with your behaviour. And in my opinion the time I spend on my hobbies, outside of the workplace is definetely not one of those, when I should be censoring myself.

Edit: Someone beat me to mentioning sex.. damn you, guys!

 Klerych wrote:

OgreChubbs wrote:
I live with the saying my grandfather told me " If you are too embarrassed to say it or admit you do it in front of your family then you should probably not be doing it.

I'm sorry if I sound like an ass, but.. Don't you think that it's a bit too stiff? I mean.. there are many things you would normally do with friends that you probably wouldn't in front of your family, and it's, in my opinion, fairly normal. Do you openly admit in front of your family that you have sex daily with your wife, even mentioning the amount and type of positions? Or that you masturbate? It's obviously things that you are doing and they're natural under their particular circumstances while not really the best family conversation material. Unless, of course, you're a sexual abstinent. Long story short - your grandpa gave you a neat little anecdote that should never be taken too seriously unless you're in situation in which it is expected of you to be very strict with your behaviour. And in my opinion the time I spend on my hobbies, outside of the workplace is definetely not one of those, when I should be censoring myself.

Edit: Someone beat me to mentioning sex.. damn you, guys!

As a parent there is truth in both statements, however, I have seriously considered and will probably use a similar quote to stress a point to my boys. Eventually as a responsible parent I will need to discuss sex and obviously if they are too embarressed to talk about it they don't need to be having sex. So, in a limited situation it does have its place in a family setting.

oh and this has gotten way off track

 Rune Stonegrinder wrote:

As a parent there is truth in both statements, however, I have seriously considered and will probably use a similar quote to stress a point to my boys. Eventually as a responsible parent I will need to discuss sex and obviously if they are too embarressed to talk about it they don't need to be having sex. So, in a limited situation it does have its place in a family setting.

Of course, it's a very noble and memorable quote and I'm sure I will be telling something similar to my kids and/or grandkids, but as I said, it's just a situational, pretty sounding anecdote that should be treated as a carrier of a moral value, rather than strict, exact meaning.

 Klerych wrote:
Edit: Someone beat me to mentioning sex.. damn you, guys!

If that makes you feel better, I regretted it, because I later realized gaking was even more appropriate. Depending on your family, you might speak about sex. What are the chances that your family will want you to give any details about the last gak you took? Well, there is the very, very, very specific situation of an health problem in which the aspect of your feces matters. Apart from that…

 Seaward wrote:

 Krellnus wrote:
That is not what he said and you know it, stop being disingenuous, you were the one talking about sexual dimorphism being the cause of psychological differences in men and women, that is evolutionary psychology and it is that which is pseudoscience at worst and pure conjecture at best.

Do men produce more testosterone than women? Considerably more?

Does testosterone affect aggression? Would a castrated male of a given mammalian species, for example, exhibit less aggression than before castration?

Do gonadal hormones influence development of some human behaviors that show sex differences, including childhood play patterns and preferences?

The answer to all of those is yes. Not once did we brush even close to "evolutionary psychology" while identifying sexually dimorphic characteristics that could very well influence behavior and preference.

I get that it's popular, in certain circles, to blame society or that no-good confounded patriarchy or the Illuminati or whatever for the fact that men and women do indeed exhibit behavioral, emotional, and yes, psychological differences. The truth is that said differences do exist, in the aggregate, and they exist naturally.

Oh, and that is indeed what he said.

Aaaaand it seems you misunderstand what sexual dimorphism is, all it is, is how men and women look different, not the underlying physiological differences that cause it (that is, different genes)
So it is things that make women and men look and only these things look different, including men having facial hair, women, being lither and slighter of from, women having prominent breasts (compared to males), you were the one suggesting sexual dimorphism results in different ways of thinking, nice to know have a stubble is what causes me to think different than my sister and not how society treats us and the different ways we were taught in the classroom.

dementedwombat wrote:What difference does it make how many females actually end up in the hobby as long as everybody who wants to be there can be?

Problem being is that there are parts of the hobby (specifically, the actions and attitudes of certain types of players) that actively drive people, especially female players, away from the game.

Now, I don't expect there to be a 50/50 mix if these things were to suddenly go away. I have no idea whether or not the average "gamer-girl" is going to be into a broken, unbalanced and frequently boring tabletop wargame... but I know that a lot of them won't give it a second chance after being basically chased from the table by the more-boorish of players.

Just out of curiosity how many times has anyone actually seen a woman/girl walk into a shop, curious about the game, and been so disrespected/creeped out by the players that she was forced to leave?

I gamed regularly for about five years at my local GW, and I went every Saturday for the big 40K game and in all that time I saw one girl, once. She had a massive ork army, was very quiet (there were four of us on that table that day and none of us knew each other beforehand) and never came back. There was no hint of any kind what-so-ever that she was anything other than just another gamer. Lots of people used to turn up, play a game and never come back again so I don't see that this one girl doing the same as many others warrants any particular emphasis.

From what I've read of the thread it seems a lot of what is being discussed is fairly generalised; maybe girls don't get into the hobby because of X, Y, Z. How many times have people seen any of those things actually happen in real life?

From my own personal experience most people, male or female, see collecting toy soldiers, let alone playing games with them as either kid's stuff, rubbish or incomprehensible. The 'that's rubbish!' was the most frequent comment from girls who bothered to comment at all, with a far, far less frequent 'my brother plays those', certainly there was never any positive interest that was then thrown back in the girl's face but I was always happy to talk to anyone about the hobby of they were interested and if one had happened to be female I would have behaved in the same way and can only imagine most people would be like that too?

I once peered up from my sweaty wargaming and saw a female human step inside the creaking, slithery depths of my gaming store. Before she could realize the horrific error she'd made her skin began to blacken and slough off. She screamed and turned to run but it was too late. She didn't take more than three steps out before she turned into dust.

Some say she never existed at all. Some say that female gamers are just a cautionary tale used by store owners to frighten young nerds into not fudging their dice rolls and eating their hot pockets.

You know, the place where i play is not filled with GUO guyz. There are also girls playing simultaniously in the same room. But they never play warhammer. They're just not interested and prefer other games.

 Krellnus wrote:
Aaaaand it seems you misunderstand what sexual dimorphism is, all it is, is how men and women look different, not the underlying physiological differences that cause it (that is, different genes)
So it is things that make women and men look and only these things look different, including men having facial hair, women, being lither and slighter of from, women having prominent breasts (compared to males), you were the one suggesting sexual dimorphism results in different ways of thinking, nice to know have a stubble is what causes me to think different than my sister and not how society treats us and the different ways we were taught in the classroom.

Why does no one bother reading what I link before talking about it, out of curiosity? Unfortunately, I'm afraid you're incorrect.

And just so I understand what you're saying - because I'm not sure you thought it all the way through - you're suggesting that if you and your sister were taught in the same way in the classroom and society treated you the same, you'd think the same? What about you and your friend? Or your boss? The idea that genetics, hormones...biology in general, really, has no effect on behavior or preference is just outright fascinating. Crazy, but fascinating.

Yup. The Male and Female brains work slightly differently thanks to a large combination of factors.

More relevant to the current discussion why should people get a free pass on their behavior just because they are playing Warhammer 40,000? If their behavior would be unacceptable in any other setting then we should inform them of the fact. If that means getting rid of some creeps then the hobby is better for it.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Yup. The Male and Female brains work slightly differently thanks to a large combination of factors.

More relevant to the current discussion why should people get a free pass on their behavior just because they are playing Warhammer 40,000? If their behavior would be unacceptable in any other setting then we should inform them of the fact. If that means getting rid of some creeps then the hobby is better for it.

Uh.. mate.. I hope you're refering to the disrespectful neckbeard trolls, not the 'crude joke' behaviour.

As for girls in the community.. We don't have many women playing 40k in our city, but it's mostly due to their lack of interest in wargaming in general. From what I've heard for them it boils down to "so.. you just point at who your minis are shooting, then you roll off and.. that's it? You just try to wipe each other out to win? That's all? What's the goal?", those girls I know just don't like the dry 'strategy game' feel of 40k and so far it has nothing to do with our community, because we have many girls coming to our LGS to play other games with M:tG being the most popular among them. I don't think I've seen anyone do anything disrespectful towards any girl aside from one guy that sometimes come over from another group, but even then everyone knows he's joking and she got over it as everyone knows that occasional crude joke is not something uncommon in geekdom.

 Gogsnik wrote:
Just out of curiosity how many times has anyone actually seen a woman/girl walk into a shop, curious about the game, and been so disrespected/creeped out by the players that she was forced to leave?

It's starting to happen over here right now.

It's annoying.

Tangentially related to the topic on hand, but it's illustrative of th sort of thing I'm talking about.

http://comicsalliance.com/sexual-harassment-online-rape-threats-comics-superheroes-lessons-men-geek-culture/

 Psienesis wrote:
Tangentially related to the topic on hand, but it's illustrative of th sort of thing I'm talking about.

http://comicsalliance.com/sexual-harassment-online-rape-threats-comics-superheroes-lessons-men-geek-culture/

The Comic Book fandom is perhaps the most self-loathing and Ivory tower prone fandom I've ever seen. Misogynistic, elitist, snobbish, self-loathing, just overall awful.

Yes... but there's an awful lot of overlap into gamer culture.

 Psienesis wrote:
Yes... but there's an awful lot of overlap into gamer culture.

Oh yes, gamer culture has a lot of rotten apples. For every legitimately awesome guy like Angry Joe or Markiplier you have twenty thousand racist, homophobic, misogynists screaming in CoD or fat slobs making rape jokes and skeeving over scantily clad elf butts while snowing over any fanservice oriented towards women with a billion and a half remarks offensive to both the female and LGBT community.

In the U.S., sure, maybe. In France, not that much. I cannot tell for other countries.
[edit]Was talking about the overlap, of course[/edit]

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
In the U.S., sure, maybe. In France, not that much. I cannot tell for other countries.
[edit]Was talking about the overlap, of course[/edit]

The Comic Book industry in Europe is not at all dominated by DC and Marvel superhero books is it not?

I remember reading that in Europe comic books tended to be more on the lines of Tintin and Asterix or Disney books than caped crusaders and supervillains.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
In the U.S., sure, maybe. In France, not that much. I cannot tell for other countries.
[edit]Was talking about the overlap, of course[/edit]

That may be so, I can't speak of anything other than the American perspective.

 Psienesis wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
In the U.S., sure, maybe. In France, not that much. I cannot tell for other countries.
[edit]Was talking about the overlap, of course[/edit]

That may be so, I can't speak of anything other than the American perspective.

In France the majority of comics sold are from things like Asterix and Obelisk, Tintin, or Disney's comic books.

Contrast to America where the crushing majority of the market is tied up into superhero fiction.

 Kain wrote:
In France the majority of comics sold are from things like Asterix and Obelisk, Tintin, or Disney's comic books.

Obelix.

I am not sure if this is true. I think now Japanese manga overweight our classic French bandes dessinées. Which in turn overweight U.S. and British comics. Manga, bande dessinées and comics are actually pretty different in a bunch of regards, with the very different way those industries are lead influencing a lot. Also, those bande dessinées you quote are like really old classics, they are famous and everything but they are not really representative of the current bande dessinée production. You should give stuff like Dungeon, Requiem Chevalier Vampire, Lanfeust of Troy, Black Moon Chronicles, Metabarons, or The Incal a look for a better idea of what adult-oriented modern French bande dessinée look like.

 Gogsnik wrote:
Just out of curiosity how many times has anyone actually seen a woman/girl walk into a shop, curious about the game, and been so disrespected/creeped out by the players that she was forced to leave?

I've seen it, and done it, too. A couple of stores (GW and LGS) have been so passively hostile that I had to leave, otherwise Bad Things would happen - I have anger control issues.

My daughter has sensed it too, and she's only eleven. We were in this one store, me to look at the display models, my son to watch a demonstration game (he's nine), and my daughter said, "Chrissy, I have to go outside, this shop is creepy and it smells." And she's not usually weirded out by *anything*.

 Chrissy_J wrote:
I have anger control issues.

I'm not saying you're a bad person and that your condition, whatever it is, isn't real and very difficult for you, but I wouldn't want you in my group, and it has nothing to do with gender. I can't stand people that have outbursts, and most that have anger control issues will pop for every slight, be it real or not. The ostracizing becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as you start going off about imagined slights, then people get tired of it and start actually setting up the walls, and then you have proof of the slights that "totally were there from the start!"

My gaming is my spare time and I use it to relax. I couldn't relax around people with anger control issues, genders be damned. Thankfully, my group is a private one made up of old friends, not a FLGS.

And if the shop is so bad that it smells, I'd leave too.

Ohh that brings up one of my Pet pieves.....the dreaded 'GAMER FUNK'! Take a shower before showing up to game seriously and use deoderant.

We happen to have a person at our FLGS who has sportsmanship and outburst issues not sure if it would qualify as a anger control issues. But they sure can suck the fun out of the room fast.