Armies 'for girls'

[Lowtardog]

I think the gender preferences would definately point to a length answer, blue for boys pink for girls stereotyping etc.

My daughters dabbled with greek gods and also liked splintered light minis as in Redwall books they were reading at the time, they also enjoyed zombie games.

But you have to think what their peers are doing which will more than likely not fit in with those hence the dabble in wargames rather than it becoming a hobby.

An interesting change which to be honest I cant see has been over the last 20 years or so the move certainly in my circle of friends for women to start supporting football teams etc, whether genuine or going with the flow because hubby is a football fan I am not sure. Wargaming may have similar appeal in that respect

[Ray Rivers]

My guess would be that the wargaming community isn't very welcoming to girls/women. The portrayal of women in most wargame settings are awful and the language I've met at different gaming stores/conventions/etc. is horrible!

Yep. Behavior would suggest we obviously don't want them there.

Look adults have a lot to do with this. Dad wants his boy to play football, and praises him when they do. Mom's want their daughter to learn how to dance, and praise them when they do.

In fact, if we want to break stereotypes we need to praise our children in what ever venture they might find interest. A good friend of ours has 2 male twins (age 5) and a daughter aged 11. The daughter took to playing football this year and I make a point of asking her how she is doing whenever I see her.

Folks need to ... well, grow up.

[religon]

My daughters gravitate to female figures, animals and children. I have made it a point in recent years to collect and paint small warbands that they are prone to relate to: Crooked Dice's Savage School Girls, the kid super-hero team "Power Pack", Tarzan-Jane-animal allies, Fox Force Five, the Cave Girls, etc. They like to dig them out between games and look at them or play dollhouse type games on by spare office table. My 7-yr old loves her 'steam-o bull' (mechanical minotaur) with Amazon archer allies.

[Johnno]

Maybe its all in the title.
"Wargames". War is typically/historically fought by men.
Thus wargaming is played by a more male oriented audience.

I wonder what Wolfgirl or Jevenkah (or every other female LAFer i have missed) have to say about this.
However, following threads by both, they belong to a deep,d scenario based campaign style game systems with regular players and games and support from family.

Whereas, often I line up my troops and my friend lines up his and we fight to the death with little to no correlation or linkages between games.

Perhaps being ogled and drooled over has stopped some women from entering wargames stores but the language some women i know possess could make sailors blush.

[Cubs]

Girls are about communication and social interaction. They tend to develop language and inter-personal skills faster.

Boys are about personal goals and their self. They tend to develop coordination and movement skills faster.

Generalisations of course, because real humans are a little bit of everything and outside influences will always have their say, but from the womb and the development of the brain it's biology, not psychology.

From that it would suggest women would be more likely to game, not less. Having said that, perhaps the natural male aggression and tendency to compete leads us to play more games against other people.

Q. Why do girls wear make-up and perfume?

A. Because they're ugly and they smell.

[former user]

oh, if only everyone would understand wargaming as social interaction......

[Duff]

Isn't the answer to the question "Armies for girls?" obvious? Elves, and goth girls play Dark elves. This also explains the parsity of female players as the extreme disparity in gender gaming choices puts them all off.  

[nic-e]

oh, if only everyone would understand wargaming as social interaction......

We know it is, but it's the sort of interaction that males are taught more of , being conflict and dominance based.
rpg's are more to do with team work, social structure and navigating and managing relationships between people.

i think really it's a big mixture of things that stops women engaging in wargaming , and the reasons are probably as diverse as the women themselves.

[Neotacha]

I much prefer to play cooperatively than competitively.  It's not so much how I grew up (I have three older brothers and we all played and fought together) as it is my personality.  I like cooperation.  Role-playing games allow for that cooperation much more so than wargames.  The same holds true for board games -- Arkham Horror allows cooperation and I like it better than Monopoly, where the point is to screw everyone else up.

A nice thing about mweaver and his brother is that they created a number of Mordheim scenarios that are cooperative.  I like Mordheim when I'm working toward a goal alongside a friend, rather than against a friend.

What faction I play makes no difference to me, as long I am in a cooperative game.  (To be strictly honest, I'll pick the one sans bimbos in bikinis (or less) if I have a choice.  I know how much a smack to the boobs hurts; I'd rather pick a faction where the women are interested in protecting themselves over titillating the guys.)

[grant]

Q. Why do girls wear make-up and perfume?

A. Because they're ugly and they smell.

Nailed it.

[Conquistador]

I much prefer to play cooperatively than competitively. <snip>

That is why I like THW so much - the games are specifically designed for solo and cooperative play as much as competitively.

I can play my niche eras/genres solo, play my fringe games cooperatively with fellow fanatics, and play 'standard' (WW2, Napoleonic, Fantasy,)  across the table with my competition oriented friends.

Gracias,

Glenn

[FramFramson]

I mentioned once before that my wife once had an Ork army. Then she went and married me instead.  

'ere wot boyz I does wot me missus tellz me. dats how we play dem gamez round herez

[Conquistador]

<snip>blue for boys pink for girls stereotyping etc.

<snip>

Which was reversed at one time.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/when-did-girls-start-wearing-pink-1370097/

Gracias,

Glenn

[FramFramson]

Jokes aside, I must say that I've seen a lot of women and girls play Pulp Alley in various AARs, etc.

It's still a competitive game, but it does have a very strong vibe of fun-and-storytelling being more important than any actual victory.

[Connectamabob]

Well, I play a lot of video games, and in the video gaming community this exact sort of issue has become a really big topic in the last few years. There's been lots of discussion, looking at statistics, culture etc. I think a lot of the insights from that would be equally valuable here.

The biggest thing is that, in the video game word, current stats show that roughly 40% of video gamers are female, and that things like violence or competition don't really seem to be a factor in whether or not a game or genre has a female audience. Female gamers have the illusion of being scarce on the ground, however, because both the fan communities and the corporate marketeers have a tendency to respond poorly to them; so many hide or downplay the fact that they're female when online. When you see a game with an actual hard-numbers rock-bottom female player percentage, it usually correlates to either the game itself or it's fan community having something about it that can be perceived as hostile to women or women gamers.

TL/DR: Psychological incompatibility with women in genre or mechanics appears to be an empirically flawed notion at best, but perceived hostility to and/or active dismissiveness of women can make a big difference. Most of the debate these days is over what kinds of elements or behavior reasonably constitute such hostility/dismissiveness.

I can't really speak to the reasons why you don't see as many female tabletop gamers (I'm afraid these boards are my main interaction with the community these days), but in light of the above, I feel pretty confident in believing they're a matter of culture, not biological bias.

I'd speculate that tabletop gaming may be perceived by the general public as something that's been mostly outmoded by computer gaming. Compounding this, while video gaming has become increasingly mainstream to the point where it now sometimes competes on the same level with movies and TV for the under 30 demographics, tabletop gaming has remained an entrenched niche of turbogeekery in the eyes of the general public. All concerns about the gaming community culture's welcoming of women aside, many women who in a better world might be interested may be preemptively turned off to the hobby sight unseen because of these things. In other words, any problems in getting women interested are likely greatly magnified by the general problems in getting any new blood interested.