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Andykp wrote:

This place is cesspit in many ways but is getting better, because some people make the effort. The fact that those with a negative point of view or bigoted views are starting feel uncomfortable here down to the fact that some will stand up and call out that behaviour for what it is, but importantly fo it well and eloquently. I have learnt a lot this last year on here.

I always liked that the mods here give a pretty large window for people here to discuss/argue their points without getting banned for the slightest infraction.

I do think though that a lot of people here have tried to be more welcoming and accommodating over the years, even though some forums seem to get derailed very quickly into side arguments that have only minimal connections to the original topic.... kind of like this one lol.

Despite being here for 10 years myself, I tend to read a lot more than I post.

 Noir Eternal wrote:

Andykp wrote:

This place is cesspit in many ways but is getting better, because some people make the effort. The fact that those with a negative point of view or bigoted views are starting feel uncomfortable here down to the fact that some will stand up and call out that behaviour for what it is, but importantly fo it well and eloquently. I have learnt a lot this last year on here.

I always liked that the mods here give a pretty large window for people here to discuss/argue their points without getting banned for the slightest infraction.

I do think though that a lot of people here have tried to be more welcoming and accommodating over the years, even though some forums seem to get derailed very quickly into side arguments that have only minimal connections to the original topic.... kind of like this one lol.

Despite being here for 10 years myself, I tend to read a lot more than I post.

Likewise. It is improving, and the mods have done much better of late, I think they did a great job on the female marine threads recently in here and it seemed like a full time job for them.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Sim-Life wrote:

TheBestBucketHead wrote:I have autism and depression, my friend has anxiety and ptsd. We are extremely socially awkward and can be anti social sometimes. Some people are just bad at socializing. I understand the notion to get rid of gatekeeping, and I agree that we shouldn't have social boundaries defined by immutable characteristics, but please do not act like everyone that is socially awkward or antisocial can just get better at being social easily.

Again, socially awkward and anti-social =/= sexism. When I'm talking about sexist behaviour, I'm talking about sexist behaviour, not being socially awkward. I would class myself as socially awkward, but I wouldn't class myself as sexist.

This isn't a case of "get better socially", I'm talking about the very real genuine sexism and ideas that "this is not a space for women" - some of which have been espoused in this thread. If we can keep our eyes on that, instead of trying to conflate non-issues with that and thereby drown out those concerns, that would be good.

I should specifiy that it wasn't you I had an issue with when I said that. Sexism and racism are not excusable by social disorders. However, what can come off as sexism and racism can be. My issue was with someone's implication that we can just get better at socializing, and that's that.

And andykp and macluvin ignore the very relevant critique that people's feelings aren't always valid... avoidance of a strong rebuke to your statement just makes you appear ideologically incoherent.

macluvin wrote:
And I realized all the times I didn’t notice that people refused to in other threads to use their preferred pronouns just to spite them.

You know people can't see signatures on mobile or might have them turned off in the forum settings right?

Also I feel like a lot of people could learn a lot about this whole thread by watching Rashomon.

Sim-Life wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I would class myself as socially awkward, but I wouldn't class myself as sexist.

Weren't you just saying that people can be discriminatory without knowing it? How do you know your social awkwardness isn't a result of sexism you don't know you have?

Sure - but I'm waiting for someone to correct me on if I do behave in a sexist way. If no-one calls it out, either they don't feel safe to, or there isn't an issue in my behaviour. Considering that I'm part of a group that is more than happy to call out problematic behaviours, I don't think I'm one of them.

Hecaton wrote:

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:
Usually making an effort to use better words (assuming you have the vocabulary) leads to the identification and amelioration of such tendencies.

So you're saying that the use of certain shibboleths and incantations frees one from the sin of sexism and other forms of bigotry?

I'm saying treating people with respect is usually a good place to start - performative gestures are just that, performative, but the refusal to understand and accept certain terms (ie, not using certain phrases, and wilfully choosing to use problematic phrases) is similarly a pretty bad look.

Actions over words - and sometimes, the action not to use certain words is just as loud.

Sim-Life wrote:But we're not talking about a woman going into a store and a guy launching into an incel-y rant about women invading his space

I mean, did we just miss how there were comments along the lines of "this isn't supposed to be a woman's space, this is a MAN'S hobby"? I think we hit that point already.

Its about how a woman went to a FLGS and encountered people trying to accomadate a new player, a bad loser and someone looking at her funny. Only one of these thing are probably a gender thing (the last one, if that wasn't clear) and even then we only have OPs perception to go on and women aren't known to be infallible. My wife accuses me of giving her funny looks all the time and usually I'm just emoting at something I'm thinking about like trying to do math in my head or trying to get the most out of my gaming budget.

Sure, but the OP is the only person who was actually there. I'm inclined to take her opinion on what actually happened over the opinion of the people who literally weren't in the room when it happened.

Look, all I'm saying is I don't like the precedent of "well, can *really* trust what that woman said, after all - 'women aren't known to be infallible'". At that point, why should we ever listen to any comment anyone makes - all groups of people are capable of lying or misrepresenting.

Irkjoe wrote:But the reason you are gathered is to engage in the hobby, not engaging in the hobby just to hang out.

That's the same thing. The hobby *includes* the hanging out.

Women are more concerned with the social interaction while the men are going to care less and be more forgiving of the awkward.

Are they? What's your source?

Sgt_Smudge wrote: I'm curious, what about enby folks? What are they more concerned with, seeing as you want to be all gender-reductive here.

I don't even know what that means but they're men and women so all the same rules apply.

See, that's where you're wrong, kid.

JNAProductions wrote:Enby is non-binary. Someone who is neither male nor female. It’s another way of writing NB.

I avoid using NB because in some cases, NB is also used to refer to 'non-black', and so I use enby as the phonetic spelling of the term! But yes, absolutely right.

TheBestBucketHead wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Again, socially awkward and anti-social =/= sexism. When I'm talking about sexist behaviour, I'm talking about sexist behaviour, not being socially awkward. I would class myself as socially awkward, but I wouldn't class myself as sexist.

This isn't a case of "get better socially", I'm talking about the very real genuine sexism and ideas that "this is not a space for women" - some of which have been espoused in this thread. If we can keep our eyes on that, instead of trying to conflate non-issues with that and thereby drown out those concerns, that would be good.

I should specifiy that it wasn't you I had an issue with when I said that. Sexism and racism are not excusable by social disorders. However, what can come off as sexism and racism can be. My issue was with someone's implication that we can just get better at socializing, and that's that.

No, absolutely - my apologies if that came on like I was directly attacking you!

Sim-Life wrote:

macluvin wrote:
And I realized all the times I didn’t notice that people refused to in other threads to use their preferred pronouns just to spite them.

You know people can't see signatures on mobile or might have them turned off in the forum settings right?

I should also mention that certain users continued to use incorrect pronouns *after being informed directly within the thread*. I actually raised this issue with the mods, and advocated for having a pronouns section in the left hand section, near the info on our post counts or whatever goofy "role" we have. The thread was locked by certain individuals claiming that my identity wasn't valid.

Since then, no response from the mod team on this matter, so that's peachy.

 Sim-Life wrote:

macluvin wrote:
And I realized all the times I didn’t notice that people refused to in other threads to use their preferred pronouns just to spite them.

You know people can't see signatures on mobile or might have them turned off in the forum settings right?

Reminds me of some forums I have visited over the years that have a simple "preferred gender" tag that will then just sit by your username. Been awhile since I posted on some of them but even back in like 2008/9 they were able to have male, female, m->f, f->m etc. It really helped with using correct pronouns and I would not mind at all if dakka included such a feature.

Some misgendering is out of ignorance, I've done it before on boards (I still often default to "he" in anonymous forums, been trying to get better about it and be gender neutral till I know for certain but well, that stuff takes time). The key is correcting the mistake when it gets called out. Sometimes people can get malicious with it however and purposely misgender people.

Hecaton wrote:
And andykp and macluvin ignore the very relevant critique that people's feelings aren't always valid... avoidance of a strong rebuke to your statement just makes you appear ideologically incoherent.

As has been previously stated,
a) the OP was the only one there and is the only one whose input we can go on
b) there seems to be a strong trend of women feeling uncomfortable in local hobby communities; even if the OP was misunderstanding the situation it is hardly an explanation that holds water for the majority of women. A second woman also chimed in to this thread to let us know that she experienced similar issues
c) this thread has had some content that was hostile towards women, and content that belongs in an incel forum has been deleted by mods in a recent female space marine thread. The mods do an excellent job curbing the most egregious of offenses but due to the nature of discrimination against certain groups, unless you are the discriminated against party, you are unlikely to be aware of a lot of it because it has to happen around you, you have to be receptive to how it can effect the discriminated against party, and most of it is not going to happen around you anyways so you won’t be aware of the extent in which it occurs anyways. Also also we tend to only consider text book “(insert group here) is inferior” or statements of violence or stereotypical insults directed at said groups as discriminatory behavior. We don’t consider how we may have been raised to treat different groups differently or how we may have been consciously or subconsciously taught to associate different people with different traits; for example, I have an Asian friend. Asians being good at math and schoolwork is a good stereotype right? Except she is terrible at book stuff and it has absolutely wreaked havoc on her mental wellbeing because she basically lived her whole life not living up to society’s expectations of her as an Asian. We don’t consider these things though because we are not often the focal point of these discriminations and biases.

People's feelings definitely matter, all the time.
How others perceive you is the primary driver of your destiny, like cells on an organ, or a child in a classroom.
Even competition itself requires an implicit aire of respect.
Why do you think GW just had to release a rebuke to what happened in Spain?

Because being known for appealing to Nazis is damaging to the profit motive?

macluvin wrote:
Because being known for appealing to Nazis is damaging to the profit motive?

No, their opponent literally didn't want to play with them, they won those games and huge deal was made about it.
Why would that affect sales? I guess because angry customers would buy less....

OR they actually meant what they said.

I'm leaning toward the second.

macluvin wrote:

As has been previously stated,
a) the OP was the only one there and is the only one whose input we can go on

Y'all were drawing the comparison out beyond this one case.

macluvin wrote:
b) there seems to be a strong trend of women feeling uncomfortable in local hobby communities; even if the OP was misunderstanding the situation it is hardly an explanation that holds water for the majority of women. A second woman also chimed in to this thread to let us know that she experienced similar issues

Isn't that confirmation bias? A woman who hasn't had those issues isn't likely to speak up. And, as other posters mentioned, it might instead be a trend of women interpreting hostility that happens to all gamers as specifically sexism.

macluvin wrote:
c) this thread has had some content that was hostile towards women, and content that belongs in an incel forum has been deleted by mods in a recent female space marine thread. The mods do an excellent job curbing the most egregious of offenses but due to the nature of discrimination against certain groups, unless you are the discriminated against party, you are unlikely to be aware of a lot of it because it has to happen around you, you have to be receptive to how it can effect the discriminated against party, and most of it is not going to happen around you anyways so you won’t be aware of the extent in which it occurs anyways. Also also we tend to only consider text book “(insert group here) is inferior” or statements of violence or stereotypical insults directed at said groups as discriminatory behavior. We don’t consider how we may have been raised to treat different groups differently or how we may have been consciously or subconsciously taught to associate different people with different traits; for example, I have an Asian friend. Asians being good at math and schoolwork is a good stereotype right? Except she is terrible at book stuff and it has absolutely wreaked havoc on her mental wellbeing because she basically lived her whole life not living up to society’s expectations of her as an Asian. We don’t consider these things though because we are not often the focal point of these discriminations and biases.

Ok cool. All this is red herring.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

macluvin wrote:
Because being known for appealing to Nazis is damaging to the profit motive?

Well very specifically they're doing the awkward dance of portraying genocidal fascist-like monsters as unironic heroes in their setting and condemning similar ideologies in the real world.

Hecaton wrote:
Isn't that confirmation bias? A woman who hasn't had those issues isn't likely to speak up. And, as other posters mentioned, it might instead be a trend of women interpreting hostility that happens to all gamers as specifically sexism.

Erm, no. Just no. If anything, minorities (in this context, women, but it really applies to all of them) are so desensitivized to constant abuse and harassment, be it active or passive, that when they DO speak up, the issues had been vastly bigger than these experienced by men. If a woman doesn't speak up, she most likely is already way past the level at which a man would speak up (again, desensitization). If she didn't have these issues, she would be offering gloving praises, not 'not speaking up'

And really? Hostility to 'all gamers'? Have you hid in a hole for past ten years? What is 'gamer gate'? Current reports (and huge lawsuits) about insanely toxic, misogynistic anti-women atmosphere in pretty much all big gaming companies (and this is even worse, because these relationships are supposed to be professional)? Mad Max (the game, and this is just one example out of dozens) being review bombed on review platforms by screeching incels because Mad Max (the movie) dared to have strong woman as a lead (despite game being very good)? It's not 2010 anymore, sexism in various gaming circles had been exposed and shown so many times that hemming and hawing it away is so out of date it's just sad. It's a real issue, no matter how many times it's whitewashed away.

Ok cool. All this is red herring.

Translation: I failed to either understand or empathize with point being made.

Hecaton wrote:

Well very specifically they're doing the awkward dance of portraying genocidal fascist-like monsters as unironic heroes in their setting

Mind naming 5 examples?

 Irbis wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

Well very specifically they're doing the awkward dance of portraying genocidal fascist-like monsters as unironic heroes in their setting

Mind naming 5 examples?

I disagree with the rest of the stuff Hecaton was saying, but...

The Emperor of Mankind (destroyed multiple alien civilizations, treated as divine figure and indisputable protagonist of Horus Heresy series)
Robute Gulliman (destroyed multiple alien civilizations, treated as Jesus figure and indisputable protagonist of Horus Heresy series)
Ferrus Magnus (destroyed multiple alien AND HUMAN civilizations, indisputable deuteragonist of Horus Heresy series)
Rogal Dorn (destroyed multiple alien civilizations, indisputable deuteragonist of Horus Heresy series)
and basically any commissar protagonist in a piece of Warhammer fiction. Do I get a reward?

Now let's get back to the original topic.

 Irbis wrote:
Erm, no. Just no. If anything, minorities (in this context, women, but it really applies to all of them) are so desensitivized to constant abuse and harassment, be it active or passive, that when they DO speak up, the issues had been vastly bigger than these experienced by men. If a woman doesn't speak up, she most likely is already way past the level at which a man would speak up (again, desensitization). If she didn't have these issues, she would be offering gloving praises, not 'not speaking up'

Nah, you're failing to understand what confirmation bias is. Not every woman who has a positive experience in their gaming groups is vocal about it. People are more likely to be vocal about negative experiences than positive ones.

 Irbis wrote:
And really? Hostility to 'all gamers'? Have you hid in a hole for past ten years? What is 'gamer gate'? Current reports (and huge lawsuits) about insanely toxic, misogynistic anti-women atmosphere in pretty much all big gaming companies (and this is even worse, because these relationships are supposed to be professional)? Mad Max (the game, and this is just one example out of dozens) being review bombed on review platforms by screeching incels because Mad Max (the movie) dared to have strong woman as a lead (despite game being very good)? It's not 2010 anymore, sexism in various gaming circles had been exposed and shown so many times that hemming and hawing it away is so out of date it's just sad. It's a real issue, no matter how many times it's whitewashed away.

The tabletop gamer communities and the video game development communities are fairly discrete. There's crossover, but one does not define the other - and it's particularly noteworthy considering that in the case of Blizzard, it comes top-down from Bobby Kotick, who's not a gamer (and seems to generally despise his consumer base). Holding the tabletop gaming community responsible for the actions of some jerks in LA is incredibly disingenuous and doesn't amount to meaningful evidence of any sort.

 Irbis wrote:

Translation: I failed to either understand or empathize with point being made.

Nope! I just disagree that it's relevant. But you should show some more respect instead of being toxic.

 Irbis wrote:

Mind naming 5 examples?

I'll just name one, THE IMPERIUM. It's a genocidal and oppressive regime that's portrayed as unironically heroic from an out-of-universe perspective. They kill babies that are born with cleft palettes or sixth fingers or whatever. They commit genocide against other races. And they've got the "heroic" Ultramarines in their advertising material, going out and defending this regime. If you're going to portray fascism, or at least fascism-like, ideas as heroic in your setting, it's a cowardly move to claim that you don't endorse them in the real world. GW wants the money but none of the smoke.

The confirmation bias argument would hold more weight if the sample size of women in 40k was bigger. There are very few women in the hobby and the few that are seem to trend to express feelings of discomfort as women in the hobby, which, considering how people often feel discouraged from speaking about how they feel uncomfortable (especially, as evident here, the community is quick to generally hand wave their complaints with little serious consideration of the complainants) should be surprising that we hear from them at all. They are a minority and they are not likely to be speak up. Case in point: rape tends to be a seriously underreported crime and for the same reasons and from the same social pressures and often from the same sort of logic. Not to infer or equate these things to rape, I am not making or touching that argument. The point being that my explanation that women face discrimination in the 40k community and possibly other tabletop wargaming communities builds on already understood and very well supported phenomena. Already the confirmation bias argument falls apart once you start assuming that the only voices we hear are just the vocal minority when we are considering a small minority as is. This also falls in line with behavior in video gaming communities and role playing communities, as there is still a fair bit of toxicity towards women in them despite the fact that they have wedged themselves into those communities, and they have become more appealing to women because women are starting to become normalized in them and that toxicity as a result is weaning. We are seeing steps towards that in 40k as well, as they do have female representation in their videos (sometimes).
Confirmation bias is something we are all guilty of, but you’ve got the bias wrong. Confirmation bias is our tendency to seek information and data and other resources that support our point of view over others; we are terrible at researching opposing points of view as human beings. The bias you are thinking about occurs with people that are empowered to complain, or those who hold power and are used to things going their way. Women in this hobby simply have not been and the evidence of that is the lack of women in the hobby and even right now, making decisions about what women’s opinions and behaviors are while disregarding their input.
If women were common in the hobby enough to get their perspective more often, I would entertain your argument a bit more.

macluvin wrote:
The confirmation bias argument would hold more weight if the sample size of women in 40k was bigger. There are very few women in the hobby and the few that are seem to trend to express feelings of discomfort as women in the hobby, which, considering how people often feel discouraged from speaking about how they feel uncomfortable (especially, as evident here, the community is quick to generally hand wave their complaints with little serious consideration of the complainants) should be surprising that we hear from them at all.

Small sample size doesn't have anything to do with ameliorating confirmation bias. How do you know how many women aren't being vocal and don't have major problems with the community?

macluvin wrote:
They are a minority and they are not likely to be speak up. Case in point: rape tends to be a seriously underreported crime and for the same reasons and from the same social pressures and often from the same sort of logic. Not to infer or equate these things to rape, I am not making or touching that argument. The point being that my explanation that women face discrimination in the 40k community and possibly other tabletop wargaming communities builds on already understood and very well supported phenomena. Already the confirmation bias argument falls apart once you start assuming that the only voices we hear are just the vocal minority when we are considering a small minority as is. This also falls in line with behavior in video gaming communities and role playing communities, as there is still a fair bit of toxicity towards women in them despite the fact that they have wedged themselves into those communities, and they have become more appealing to women because women are starting to become normalized in them and that toxicity as a result is weaning. We are seeing steps towards that in 40k as well, as they do have female representation in their videos (sometimes).

Your analogy fails there when comparing sex crimes to possible community hostility. The right analogy would be comparing people who are victims of rape who are properly served by the justice system versus those who aren't - if justice is swiftly done there won't be complaints with the justice system. But justice isn't always swiftly done, or at all. And there are people who study this, who look at statistics and are able to show how and why this lack of justice occurs. We don't have any of that here with this situation with a wargaming community, there aren't numbers. People have opinions, certainly, but without data to back them up opinions are just opinions.

macluvin wrote:
Confirmation bias is something we are all guilty of, but you’ve got the bias wrong. Confirmation bias is our tendency to seek information and data and other resources that support our point of view over others; we are terrible at researching opposing points of view as human beings. The bias you are thinking about occurs with people that are empowered to complain, or those who hold power and are used to things going their way. Women in this hobby simply have not been and the evidence of that is the lack of women in the hobby and even right now, making decisions about what women’s opinions and behaviors are while disregarding their input.

Oh, so you magically are immune to confirmation bias but not me? Forgive me if I'm skeptical, lol. You certainly seem set in your beliefs; how would you react if there was data that showed that, despite your opinion and the complaints of some female members of the community, women in the community were actual treated fairly compared to men? Would that be easy for you to accept? I think not.

Just because a group is a minority within a larger group does not mean they are discriminated against. That argument is a failure of logic and if I were you I'd sit down and think hard about why you're saying that.

macluvin wrote:
If women were common in the hobby enough to get their perspective more often, I would entertain your argument a bit more.

Very specifically how common would women have to be for that to be true? I'd imagine that goalpost would move right out of the stadium if that were the case. Regardless, just because women are a minority in the wargaming hobby, it's not evidence that there is discrimination. Just because a bunch of nerdy guys are off doing something without women, doesn't mean misogyny is taking place, though there are some people who experience visceral disgust at that behavior (Sally Gearhart etc).

Hecaton wrote:

 Irbis wrote:
Erm, no. Just no. If anything, minorities (in this context, women, but it really applies to all of them) are so desensitivized to constant abuse and harassment, be it active or passive, that when they DO speak up, the issues had been vastly bigger than these experienced by men. If a woman doesn't speak up, she most likely is already way past the level at which a man would speak up (again, desensitization). If she didn't have these issues, she would be offering gloving praises, not 'not speaking up'

Nah, you're failing to understand what confirmation bias is. Not every woman who has a positive experience in their gaming groups is vocal about it. People are more likely to be vocal about negative experiences than positive ones.

Um no, Irbis is exactly correct there. People do get desensitized to this sort of stuff and don't speak up. Look what someone speaking up did here in this thread, a bunch of people attacked her and someone claimed she was a sockpuppet account, and there were claims that girls are genetically predisposed to dislike games and therefore their opinions on games don't matter. Lots of people, when faced with the choice of putting up with a bad time, or speaking up and ending up with an even worse time, will opt for the first one. And if they can, will just up and leave the community.

Hecaton wrote:

macluvin wrote:
The confirmation bias argument would hold more weight if the sample size of women in 40k was bigger. There are very few women in the hobby and the few that are seem to trend to express feelings of discomfort as women in the hobby, which, considering how people often feel discouraged from speaking about how they feel uncomfortable (especially, as evident here, the community is quick to generally hand wave their complaints with little serious consideration of the complainants) should be surprising that we hear from them at all.

Small sample size doesn't have anything to do with ameliorating confirmation bias. How do you know how many women aren't being vocal and don't have major problems with the community?

And how do you know how many women aren't being vocal but do have major problems with the community. I'm not saying we need to go and poll every women tabletop player in the world here, but when people think that nothing will change and if anything things will get worse for them, they might just be less likely to speak up. For example, at this point, do you really think the OP will return? I know I can't blame her with the mess this thread has become. She asked for some simple advice and this thread has then spiraled in all sorts of...not great...directions.

The problem is you are throwing out demands that are literally unprovable short of taking polls on each and every women who plays the game or interacts with the community (which do note, also claiming that a majority of people are perfectly fine and dandy with how things are but just aren't screaming to the skies about how great it is is equally unprovable). In this very thread there have been people giving examples of women being treated differently (and some posters insisting that women must be treated differently). Hemming and hawing about how there are plenty of women who are perfectly fine with their groups (which is likely true, not all game groups are terrible) doesn't change the fact that the entire point of this thread was to help someone with a new group she had joined.

How about, instead of going on, we turn this thread around, and instead focus on how we can include more people in the hobby of various backgrounds? I know I have inbuilt biases - I've challenged many but I still have room to grow as a person, and don't have an answer for everything. Instead of divisiveness and arguing, how about stop and think "how can we make women, lgbtq, minority groups, etc more welcome in the community."

 kurhanik wrote:
Um no, Irbis is exactly correct there. People do get desensitized to this sort of stuff and don't speak up. Look what someone speaking up did here in this thread, a bunch of people attacked her and someone claimed she was a sockpuppet account, and there were claims that girls are genetically predisposed to dislike games and therefore their opinions on games don't matter. Lots of people, when faced with the choice of putting up with a bad time, or speaking up and ending up with an even worse time, will opt for the first one. And if they can, will just up and leave the community.

People can, it can also be a matter of a squeaky wheel getting the grease. Without data there's no way to tell. There's multiple kinds of bias that can be in play here. So Ibris isn't really correct, he's just saying what he *wishes* was true.

 kurhanik wrote:
And how do you know how many women aren't being vocal but do have major problems with the community.

I don't. The point is that you can't make generalized statements about the community on biased hunches.

 kurhanik wrote:
I'm not saying we need to go and poll every women tabletop player in the world here, but when people think that nothing will change and if anything things will get worse for them, they might just be less likely to speak up. For example, at this point, do you really think the OP will return? I know I can't blame her with the mess this thread has become. She asked for some simple advice and this thread has then spiraled in all sorts of...not great...directions.

I'm not going to respond to the specific case presented in the OP for reasons I've stated.

 kurhanik wrote:
The problem is you are throwing out demands that are literally unprovable short of taking polls on each and every women who plays the game or interacts with the community (which do note, also claiming that a majority of people are perfectly fine and dandy with how things are but just aren't screaming to the skies about how great it is is equally unprovable). In this very thread there have been people giving examples of women being treated differently (and some posters insisting that women must be treated differently). Hemming and hawing about how there are plenty of women who are perfectly fine with their groups (which is likely true, not all game groups are terrible) doesn't change the fact that the entire point of this thread was to help someone with a new group she had joined.

You wouldn't need to take a poll of every woman who plays the game. Do you know what a representative sample is? Or anything about statistical sampling? It's not unprovable at all.

 kurhanik wrote:
How about, instead of going on, we turn this thread around, and instead focus on how we can include more people in the hobby of various backgrounds? I know I have inbuilt biases - I've challenged many but I still have room to grow as a person, and don't have an answer for everything. Instead of divisiveness and arguing, how about stop and think "how can we make women, lgbtq, minority groups, etc more welcome in the community."

From my perspective, minority groups are very welcome in minis wargaming in California in 2021, which is where I live. This is overall a good thing. In my experience not too many women are interested in wargaming; in fact, cis women are outnumbered by trans women from what I understand, which to me suggests it's not a matter of prejudice, since trans women are going to get a lot more hostility from almost any community than cis women.

Never thought about it before I read Hecatons post above but I think I actually know about equal amounts of trans and queer people as straight women in 40k.

We even had a local paper make an article about our club recently and they "translated" what one of our members said to "extremely LBTQ friendly" instead of the longer version that was more like "we don't care about background as long as you are up to a game and thus the hobby is more accepting than the rest of society to marginalized groups" and had some backlash for risk of being too inclusive to the point it could be seen as a political statement. (The club is quite left leaning on average, even for Sweden, if looking at the members but we don't want to come off that way since politics should be left at the door anyway)

 Irkjoe wrote:


But the reason you are gathered is to engage in the hobby, not engaging in the hobby just to hang out.

How do you know that? What works for you may not work for others. I don't want to play tournament 40k when I'm gathered, simple.

 Irkjoe wrote:

Most men prioritize the "thing". I don't mean literally the rules of the game and a bunch of waac players. Women are more concerned with the social interaction while the men are going to care less and be more forgiving of the awkward.

What's the "thing"? For many, including me, the "thing" is mostly assembling, painting and collecting. Gaming is fun but it's definitely the worst part of the hobby.

And where's that "most" men come from? I've always perceived 40k as friendly minded for the majority with just a tiny fraction of the player base that actually plays cut-throat competitive. Look at all the youtube channels that do battle reports, even most of the more "competitive oriented" ones are actually very friendly minded and not that competitive after all. How many of those channels are overly serious and deal only with the actual gaming, with no chat, jokes, etc..?

Hecaton wrote:Not every woman who has a positive experience in their gaming groups is vocal about it. People are more likely to be vocal about negative experiences than positive ones.

So where's the flood of men complaining about their hobby experiences feeling excluded? In terms of complaints about feeling excluded, those comments disproportionately come from women. If, as you say, people would be more vocal about negative experiences, where are those same complaints from everyone else?

Hecaton wrote:How do you know how many women aren't being vocal and don't have major problems with the community?

We don't - but we could assume anything is fine with that kind of logic. "We don't see it all, so maybe the silent majority are fine" is a pretty awful talking point, especially when it's used to shut down criticism from minority groups.

Just because a group is a minority within a larger group does not mean they are discriminated against.

No-one's saying that. However, when the minority group themselves are saying that they feel discriminated against, I suggest you listen very closely, and think hard about why you're so afraid to hear that out.

Regardless, just because women are a minority in the wargaming hobby, it's not evidence that there is discrimination.

And what about the testimony and feelings of those women? Is that not evidence for you? Do their voices not concern you?

Hecaton wrote:Without data there's no way to tell.

So maybe, instead of shutting down what little data we have (OP's testimony), we should hear it out and consider it, instead of screaming "there's no data, we can't possibly judge this" - you're right, there's no data because people keep handwaving it away.

The point is that you can't make generalized statements about the community on biased hunches.

And you're not also doing that?

 kurhanik wrote:
How about, instead of going on, we turn this thread around, and instead focus on how we can include more people in the hobby of various backgrounds? I know I have inbuilt biases - I've challenged many but I still have room to grow as a person, and don't have an answer for everything. Instead of divisiveness and arguing, how about stop and think "how can we make women, lgbtq, minority groups, etc more welcome in the community."

A good place to start is to listen to the comments made by minority groups, without stifling them with "BUT IN MY EXPERIENCE" or "YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO LIKE THIS" or "YOU'RE NOT ACTUALLY VICTIMISED, GET OVER IT" or "THERE ISN'T A PROBLEM, BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE ANY DATA".

Listen to people, and *respect their input*.

I should mention that's not aimed at you, kurhanik.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Look, all I'm saying is I don't like the precedent of "well, can *really* trust what that woman said, after all - 'women aren't known to be infallible'". At that point, why should we ever listen to any comment anyone makes - all groups of people are capable of lying or misrepresenting.

You're so close to getting my point here but you chose to focus on the "woman" part of it like I'm being sexist instead of just human. Like I said, go watch Rashomon then see how the story of that film can be applied here. If you don't want to watch a classic Kurosawa film (in which case, what's wrong with you?) the film is about 4 people relating their versions of a crime. Each witness tells a different story and each version casts the person telling it in the best possible light. Its about how our perceptions alter our experiences and recollections because they're filtered through our own subjectivness and ego. Women aren't exempt from this and to think they are is just as sexist as you're accusing others of being.

There's actually a lot of condescension from people in this thread towards women from people purporting to be allies. Its kind of funny. I'm reading a lot of these out to my ex rad-fem wife and he reactions are priceless.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kurhanik wrote:
Look what someone speaking up did here in this thread, a bunch of people attacked her and someone claimed she was a sockpuppet account, and there were claims that girls are genetically predisposed to dislike games and therefore their opinions on games don't matter. Lots of people, when faced with the choice of putting up with a bad time, or speaking up and ending up with an even worse time, will opt for the first one. And if they can, will just up and leave the community.

No one attacked her.
One person claimed it was a sock puppet.
Claims of women being predisposed wasn't talking about OP specifically and you're taking it out of context.

Having to put up with people who annoy you is part of being a community. You cannot agree with people 100% of the time and sometime people will do stuff that annoy you. Doesn't matter what gender you are, this will always be the case. This is true with family, work, hobbies and anything else that involves directly interacting with people. My wife doesn't get along with one of the guys in my board game group but shes never assumed that his issues with her are due to sexism. They just don't get along because sometimes humans just don't mesh well with other humans. I get along with him fine for the most part because I can overlook his more irritating behaviours as personality flaws so that i actually have a board game group. Some people in this thread are talking about the OP as if she was walked into an FLGS and was met with a MGTOW rally. Others are talking about what probably happened, where she entered a room full of socially awkward nerds.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Sim-Life wrote:Weren't you just saying that people can be discriminatory without knowing it? How do you know your social awkwardness isn't a result of sexism you don't know you have?

Sure - but I'm waiting for someone to correct me on if I do behave in a sexist way.

Well alright...

Compare this post:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
So where's the flood of men complaining about their hobby experiences feeling excluded? In terms of complaints about feeling excluded, those comments disproportionately come from women. If, as you say, people would be more vocal about negative experiences, where are those same complaints from everyone else?

To this a few posts earlier, blowing a guy off for talking about their autism and depression:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I'm talking about the very real genuine sexism and ideas that "this is not a space for women" - some of which have been espoused in this thread. If we can keep our eyes on that, instead of trying to conflate non-issues with that and thereby drown out those concerns, that would be good.

Ask yourself if your replies here would have been different if it was a guy posting that people in their new group have been treating them as if they don't know the rules, accusing them of luck when winning,sometimes ignoring them in conversations, and asking if there was anything they can do to make the community more welcoming. That is ultimately the long and short of the OPs actual post content after all.

Hecaton, no surprise that you disagree with me. You miss the point entirely. Regardless of the intent of the people in the OPs experience they made her feel excluded, that was her experience and nothing you can say can change that.

Now if you are happy with people feeling excluded that’s fine, and on you. Also not a surprise.

If you want to ignore the problems in the community, also on you. But the more you rant and gripe about the people complaining and trying to fix it and the more you shout about how there isn’t a problem at all, the more you are part of the problem.

Sim-Life wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Look, all I'm saying is I don't like the precedent of "well, can *really* trust what that woman said, after all - 'women aren't known to be infallible'". At that point, why should we ever listen to any comment anyone makes - all groups of people are capable of lying or misrepresenting.

You're so close to getting my point here but you chose to focus on the "woman" part of it like I'm being sexist instead of just human.

I literally quoted what was said. It wasn't "focusing" on the woman part, it was literally quoting the comment back.

Like I said, go watch Rashomon then see how the story of that film can be applied here. If you don't want to watch a classic Kurosawa film (in which case, what's wrong with you?) the film is about 4 people relating their versions of a crime. Each witness tells a different story and each version casts the person telling it in the best possible light. Its about how our perceptions alter our experiences and recollections because they're filtered through our own subjectivness and ego. Women aren't exempt from this and to think they are is just as sexist as you're accusing others of being.

I'm well aware that perceptions of reality are different, thank you. However, there's a time and a place for it, and right now, unlike Rashomon, we don't have 4 conflicting perspectives: we have one perspective, which people are choosing to inject their own opinions and views on, thereby implicitly devaluing and distrusting the opinion and perspective of the ONLY person who was actually there.

This may be my experience (bringing that back around), but I don't see this happen to men nearly as much as it happens to women and non-men. In my experience, when a non-man presents their experience and feelings, it is nearly always shut down by men who question it - and yet I hardly see men treat other male experiences the same.

I'm not saying women are exempt, but I am saying that it's pretty poor behaviour that so many people are more willing to distrust OP than to trust her.

There's actually a lot of condescension from people in this thread towards women from people purporting to be allies. Its kind of funny. I'm reading a lot of these out to my ex rad-fem wife and he reactions are priceless.

There's a lot of people in this thread claiming to be harmless and innocent in their comments, and remain blissfully unaware of the systems they are perpetuating as well.

YMMV.

No one attacked her.
One person claimed it was a sock puppet.

And that's not an attack? I think we have different standards of what constitutes an offence/attack. Claiming that someone is a sockpuppet is an attack on the entire identity and legitimacy of OP's experiences. How do you not recognise that?

Claims of women being predisposed wasn't talking about OP specifically and you're taking it out of context.

Aw, at least they didn't associate the OP with their troglodytic views!! /s

I frankly don't care if it was addressed to the OP or not, they still claimed that the demographic the OP is in *should not be interested*, and therefore isn't worth catering to. It wasn't a direct attack, but it was an attack regardless.

Having to put up with people who annoy you is part of being a community.

Disagree.

Annoyed by the way people might prefer one faction to another? Sure.
Annoyed by colour schemes which I might not personally have used myself? Sure.
Annoyed by feeling excluded and victimised because of a severe lack of respect and trust over my gender? That's not something anyone in any community should have to stand for. Sorry, but you need better community standards there.

I get along with him fine for the most part because I can overlook his more irritating behaviours as personality flaws so that i actually have a board game group.

As above - your standards indicate that you'd rather have a gaming group than deal with problematic behaviours in it.

I have different standards, and I stick by them. I'd rather have the smallest group of people who love and respect eachother, despite their small quirks, than a large group who can't even agree on if some people deserve the same amount of respect.

Some people in this thread are talking about the OP as if she was walked into an FLGS and was met with a MGTOW rally. Others are talking about what probably happened, where she entered a room full of socially awkward nerds.

Were you there? No? So how can you, in any authority, claim what "probably" happened?

You only have one person's actual evidence to go off of. Why are you so eager to dismiss it?

A.T. wrote:Compare this post:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
So where's the flood of men complaining about their hobby experiences feeling excluded? In terms of complaints about feeling excluded, those comments disproportionately come from women. If, as you say, people would be more vocal about negative experiences, where are those same complaints from everyone else?

To this a few posts earlier, blowing a guy off for talking about their autism and depression:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I'm talking about the very real genuine sexism and ideas that "this is not a space for women" - some of which have been espoused in this thread. If we can keep our eyes on that, instead of trying to conflate non-issues with that and thereby drown out those concerns, that would be good.

Ask yourself if your replies here would have been different if it was a guy posting that people in their new group have been treating them as if they don't know the rules, accusing them of luck when winning,sometimes ignoring them in conversations, and asking if there was anything they can do to make the community more welcoming. That is ultimately the long and short of the OPs actual post content after all.

I'm sorry, but I'm not aware of any systemic indication that men are shunned from groups because of their gender - could you show me some indications of that?

By ignoring the gender aspect (which was quite evident in OP's post), you are missing vital context which frames the discussion, and actually contributes to wider issues of systemic marginalisation.
It's not sexist to point out trends of sexist behaviour.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Sim-Life wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Look, all I'm saying is I don't like the precedent of "well, can *really* trust what that woman said, after all - 'women aren't known to be infallible'". At that point, why should we ever listen to any comment anyone makes - all groups of people are capable of lying or misrepresenting.

You're so close to getting my point here but you chose to focus on the "woman" part of it like I'm being sexist instead of just human.

I literally quoted what was said. It wasn't "focusing" on the woman part, it was literally quoting the comment back.

Like I said, go watch Rashomon then see how the story of that film can be applied here. If you don't want to watch a classic Kurosawa film (in which case, what's wrong with you?) the film is about 4 people relating their versions of a crime. Each witness tells a different story and each version casts the person telling it in the best possible light. Its about how our perceptions alter our experiences and recollections because they're filtered through our own subjectivness and ego. Women aren't exempt from this and to think they are is just as sexist as you're accusing others of being.

I'm well aware that perceptions of reality are different, thank you. However, there's a time and a place for it, and right now, unlike Rashomon, we don't have 4 conflicting perspectives: we have one perspective, which people are choosing to inject their own opinions and views on, thereby implicitly devaluing and distrusting the opinion and perspective of the ONLY person who was actually there.

This may be my experience (bringing that back around), but I don't see this happen to men nearly as much as it happens to women and non-men. In my experience, when a non-man presents their experience and feelings, it is nearly always shut down by men who question it - and yet I hardly see men treat other male experiences the same.

I'm not saying women are exempt, but I am saying that it's pretty poor behaviour that so many people are more willing to distrust OP than to trust her.

There's actually a lot of condescension from people in this thread towards women from people purporting to be allies. Its kind of funny. I'm reading a lot of these out to my ex rad-fem wife and he reactions are priceless.

There's a lot of people in this thread claiming to be harmless and innocent in their comments, and remain blissfully unaware of the systems they are perpetuating as well.

YMMV.

No one attacked her.
One person claimed it was a sock puppet.

And that's not an attack? I think we have different standards of what constitutes an offence/attack. Claiming that someone is a sockpuppet is an attack on the entire identity and legitimacy of OP's experiences. How do you not recognise that?

Claims of women being predisposed wasn't talking about OP specifically and you're taking it out of context.

Aw, at least they didn't associate the OP with their troglodytic views!! /s

I frankly don't care if it was addressed to the OP or not, they still claimed that the demographic the OP is in *should not be interested*, and therefore isn't worth catering to. It wasn't a direct attack, but it was an attack regardless.

Having to put up with people who annoy you is part of being a community.

Disagree.

Annoyed by the way people might prefer one faction to another? Sure.
Annoyed by colour schemes which I might not personally have used myself? Sure.
Annoyed by feeling excluded and victimised because of a severe lack of respect and trust over my gender? That's not something anyone in any community should have to stand for. Sorry, but you need better community standards there.

I get along with him fine for the most part because I can overlook his more irritating behaviours as personality flaws so that i actually have a board game group.

As above - your standards indicate that you'd rather have a gaming group than deal with problematic behaviours in it.

I have different standards, and I stick by them. I'd rather have the smallest group of people who love and respect eachother, despite their small quirks, than a large group who can't even agree on if some people deserve the same amount of respect.

Some people in this thread are talking about the OP as if she was walked into an FLGS and was met with a MGTOW rally. Others are talking about what probably happened, where she entered a room full of socially awkward nerds.

Were you there? No? So how can you, in any authority, claim what "probably" happened?

You only have one person's actual evidence to go off of. Why are you so eager to dismiss it?

A.T. wrote:Compare this post:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
So where's the flood of men complaining about their hobby experiences feeling excluded? In terms of complaints about feeling excluded, those comments disproportionately come from women. If, as you say, people would be more vocal about negative experiences, where are those same complaints from everyone else?

To this a few posts earlier, blowing a guy off for talking about their autism and depression:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I'm talking about the very real genuine sexism and ideas that "this is not a space for women" - some of which have been espoused in this thread. If we can keep our eyes on that, instead of trying to conflate non-issues with that and thereby drown out those concerns, that would be good.

Ask yourself if your replies here would have been different if it was a guy posting that people in their new group have been treating them as if they don't know the rules, accusing them of luck when winning,sometimes ignoring them in conversations, and asking if there was anything they can do to make the community more welcoming. That is ultimately the long and short of the OPs actual post content after all.

I'm sorry, but I'm not aware of any systemic indication that men are shunned from groups because of their gender - could you show me some indications of that?

By ignoring the gender aspect (which was quite evident in OP's post), you are missing vital context which frames the discussion, and actually contributes to wider issues of systemic marginalisation.
It's not sexist to point out trends of sexist behaviour.

Okay I think I'm done here. Its pretty clear that you seem to think OPs experience was with some kind of formless misoginistic blob rather than actual humans with thoughts and perspectives of their own and that the OP is a perfect creature, incapable of misunderstandings but fully capable of discerning peoples motives and opinions instantly from a few hours of interactions (presumably because she's a woman and therefore correct in all things). It's also clear that you play in some kind of echo chamber where everyone must conform to the agreed upon standards lest they be exiled. If you kick everyone that disagrees with you out of your group you're going to eventually find yourself alone.

Also I never said she can't be trusted because shes a woman. I said women aren't infallible. Don't put words in my mouth to portray me as sexist in order to strengthen your argument.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I'm sorry, but I'm not aware of any systemic indication that men are shunned from groups because of their gender - could you show me some indications of that?

No. You said that you were waiting for someone to point out if you were acting in a perhaps unkowningly discriminatory way and that was my intent, nothing more.

Andykp wrote:
Hecaton, no surprise that you disagree with me. You miss the point entirely. Regardless of the intent of the people in the OPs experience they made her feel excluded, that was her experience and nothing you can say can change that.

For the specific case mentioned in the OP, I'm not commenting for reasons I stated above.

In general, though, people's feelings aren't always valid or in tune with reality.

Hecaton wrote:

Andykp wrote:
Hecaton, no surprise that you disagree with me. You miss the point entirely. Regardless of the intent of the people in the OPs experience they made her feel excluded, that was her experience and nothing you can say can change that.

For the specific case mentioned in the OP, I'm not commenting for reasons I stated above.

In general, though, people's feelings aren't always valid or in tune with reality.

Feelings not being in tune with reality, sure. I'll grant you that.

If I greet my friend with a text that's seemingly insulting, like a "What up, *****?" and they get their feelings hurt, then that's not in tune with the reality of what I meant to say.

That doesn't make their feelings invalid-I should still apologize if they let me know that that hurt them, and strive to do better in the future.