Are we all that odd??        Posted by:  S. R.
5/25/99    07:30 PM

Are women in gaming all that odd to hear of?? See, I was invited out last night and said I couldn't cause I was already commited to playing D&D. The response I got was 'You? I've never heard of a girl playing Dungeons and Dragons' (which he said as though it were an incredibly dirty thing to say...) Are there that few women gaming?? How come?
 

Untitled        Posted by:  T. W. in response to Are we all that odd??
5/25/99    07:30 PM

Women in gaming:

For one, it started out as a guy thing. My dad grew up in Upstate New York when the game came out, back when it was just rules for warrior figurines, and only the techno-weenies really got into it. A lot of girls integrated only because their boyfriends did it, and they wanted to know what all the fuss was. Live action is actually pretty 50/50, but tabletop is still male-dominated in AD&D. Maybe it's because it's not as romantic (that may not be the best word, but you get the idea) as White Wolf or Cthulu, and other games that aren't nearly as old-fashioned as AD&D. A lot of guys stay faithful to first edition AD&D much like computer techies stay faithful to DOS or UNIX---cuz that's the way it started out as.
 

Untitled        Posted by:  G. R.
5/25/99    08:20 PM

Apparently, boys don't accept that a woman can be able to take a sword and  cut their heads
Greetings from the Dragon Lady!

G. R.
Buenos Aires, Argentina
 

They sure can tho!        Posted by:  J. R. in response to Untitled by G. R.
5/26/99    07:16 AM

That's why I like to play such types, even tho I'm male. :)

Seems Odd        Posted by:  L. S. in response to Are we all that odd??
5/25/99    10:33 PM

I haven't encountered many female gamers either. But look how boys and girls are brought up different- they play violent games while girls dress up. I hear stories of brothers beating each other up as kids, I have all sisters and we never did anything like that. I love gaming, even if I am the only female, I guess we are just odd ones.

L.
 

Re:  Are we all that odd?        Posted by:  fyre DK in response to Are we all that odd??
5/26/99    05:33 AM

When I first started gaming about 16 years ago, I was the only female in the group. That was in Florida, not that that means anything. I moved up to Baltimore and joined a group that was probably a 50/50 ratio. A lot of women I've met at renaissance fairs have also gamed - most of them say that they used to when they were teenagers or something like that.
 

Untitled        Posted by:  C. L. in response to Are we all that odd??
5/26/99    09:20 AM

I don't think Women in Gaming are all that 'odd' but they can certainly be 'rare'. I think that, at least in my age group (25-30 or thereabouts) it has to do with gender stereotyping as a child: trucks and Basic D&D for boys, barbies and babies for girls. Breaking out of that stereotype was often times a matter of luck; I had a cousin who played Basic D&D and I happened to be around when he wanted to play it. Later in middle school they had an actual club, and all of my friends were in it already so I joined, and it continued from there. If I had never had that cousin, and believed from a young age that roleplaying was for both genders, I don't know if I would have tried it before college, or I might have developed a bias against it like so many people do.

Of course, I'm not sure if this is a reason why there are fewer women than men gaming, but I know in those early years in middle school I was the only woman in the group, and had to put up with a lot of "we find your paladin chained naked to the wall of the dungeon" kind of adolescent crap. Thankfully that has mostly disappeared (and where it hasn't, it has become much more subtle -- I'm only naked and chained if I wanna be).

With the advent of collectible card games and story-based RPGs like Vampire, games are becoming more welcoming to women players, and I believe that just like we are seeing a boom in womens' sports among the younger generations due to Title IX (women who never believed they had less of a right to play), we are going to see that same boom in women participating in RPGs -- I look forward to it.

C.

Untitled        Posted by:  L. B. in response to Are we all that odd??
5/26/99    09:29 AM

Sadly, I really think we ARE somewhat of a rarity, if not an actual oddity. I've only ever once played any sort of RPG with another woman and that's only because she was the girlfriend of the GM. I've pretty much resigned myself to being the token female in any gaming group I happen into. I would it were not so as having women in a gaming group adds a different perspective to the game, but such appears to be the way of things.

Well...        Posted by:  A. M. in response to Are we all that odd??
5/26/99    10:14 AM

Gamers in general are still a misunderstood minority in the population. Many people I run into don't even know what role playing is or have heard of it only as an insidious thing that destroys a person's grip on reality. Since women are a minority in the gaming community (for the historical reasons that people have mentioned and because a lot of women don't find the hobby interesting enough to stick with it in spite of the isolation and other crap), we run into more prejudice from outsiders because we don't fit whatever stereotype they have in mind (probably a 16 year old boy with bad acne and no social skills).

Gaming as a hobby is still sufficiently unacceptable that I don't dare put it on a resume or mention it to most of my co-workers. My whole family knows, but I know some adults who still have to hide their gaming from their parents and siblings.

Of course, S., the guy you dealt with may have been being extra nasty because he was annoyed that you considered a game more important than him...

Odd?        Posted by:  L. E. in response to Are we all that odd??
5/26/99    11:02 AM

No, we are not that few. Yes, we are odd. But then who wants to be normal. Normal seems awfully boring to me.

Untitled        Posted by:  D. B. in response to Are we all that odd??
5/26/99    12:24 PM

We seem to be (odd/rare). In our group, there have been a few vagrant girls who play a game or two then quit -- usually someone's current girlfriend or a friend who thought it might be fun to try (or *groan* gf's who think it's a good way to get to spend time with their sweetie during game night). I'm the ONLY one who's stuck around during the 3 yrs I've been playing with these guys. I couldn't say why, though.

Most the guys I know started playing during junior high/early high school, when (in many cases) guys & girls stay more separate than they do at other ages ... maybe that's a partial cause ... and maybe some of the girls who tried to start around that time had trouble with some of the other problems mentioned previously in this group (characters being assaulted etc). ??
D.
 

Untitled        Posted by:  I. M. in response to Are we all that odd??
5/26/99    09:00 PM

The female gaming population remains a minority in the industry.

Gender in Gaming        Posted by:  C. A. in response to Are we all that odd??
5/27/99    11:14 AM

I'm pretty new to gaming - start dating a game designer and you're pretty much guaranteed to start playing, like it or not :-)

I do like it, though, and I think I'd play even if S. & I weren't together. I've been curious about it for years.  Some of my friends in high school played, but it was definitely a Guy Thing - I was present for a D&D game once and bored stiff (I've never been much of a spectator). Now I know that it was how they were playing and the (poor) quality of the DM more than D&D itself. We're doing our part to pass the torch - S. plays D&D with our three kids - two girls and a boy. There are three other women in our current Mage game, too - three of us play female characters, one is playing a male character.

Most of the gamers I know fit into other 'fringe' groups - largely SF&F fans, several are Mensans, high percentage of pagans, etc. - and within those groups it's often dangerous to make too many gender-related assumptions.

C.

I know what you mean        Posted by:  S. R. in response to Gender in Gaming
5/27/99    04:11 PM

I am a Pagan and have been interested in it for a long time. I studied faerie wicca so I chose to play a pixie.  (How much more girlie could I get right?) I used to watch my cousin play so I decided to give it a shot when I grew up more and the people I was doing a play with thought I might want to give it a try. I am loving it to bits even though I am still relatively new to the game...

unfortunately...        Posted by:  S. M. in response to Are we all that odd??
5/30/99    11:56 AM

 ...at least in this state, yes they are. And the ones that do are considered to be the kind of huge muscle-bound women who want to dominate the world with a sword, or something.

I don't know why there are so few of us. I've always thought of it as a healthy pursuit.

My only theory is that people judge gamer groups by the fantasies they create. If you play a game where you pretend to be a vampire, you're supposed to be obsessed with darkness, a goth at the very least. If you play a game where you pretend to wield a sword and charge head-first into battle, you must be Xena: Warrior Dyke IRL. Perhaps it seems too active a pursuit to be feminine.

Most of the time, I find other people are intrigued by the prospect of a woman gaming...like it says something deep and meaningful about me as a person.
 

 
I guess I'm a bit lucky...        Posted by:  S. R. in response to unfortunately...
5/31/99    04:16 PM

The people I game with are SO open minded and our group started out with a female DM. We have about 2 regular girls who attend and 2 drop ins. We also have the adventure written so that anyone can come and go as they please since finding a night when EVERYONE can game is difficult. (I help with the organizing so I make it ALL the time hee hee)Our latest DM is a guy and he's creative with his adventures and he doesn't tend to stereotype or 'go gentle' on us girlies.