| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My regular gaming group has a 50/50 gender ratio, and everyone acts plenty normal about it. We have our token guy who makes lewd jokes, but they've never seemed particularly sexist and he's pretty mild-mannered about it. It's been mostly the girls doing the GMing, there's none of that bizarre tendency I've seen in other groups for everyone to either play PCs of their own gender or else caricature them, and if anything I usually have to watch out to make sure I don't talk over the guys.
(For what it's worth, this has been fairly often the case for me with gaming in general. When I played competitive Pokemon TCG, nearly all condescension/mockery toward me was based on deck choice, not gender. Once I started judging more tournaments, the minor amount of disrespect that I was aware of was based entirely on age. So, yay?)
The Pathfinder group I'm part of is an open group where we always welcome new players to learn about the game and have fun with us. We meet every other Sunday, with myself and three other guys that regularly attend. We had two other guys that were expressing interest in joining us. They introduce themselves to the guys, but ignored me entirely. It was the DM that had to point me out as one of the players as well. When we were talking about the campaign world and gaming mechanics, they wouldn't ask me any questions or listen to my opinions.
I play on Roll20 and there's a ton of female players I found. My current campaign is an all girl party (Not intentional, it had two guys before it, but they flaked out)
I was in a 50/50 gaming group back in 1981 playing at the Demarest Dorm at Rutgers College campus. None of us at the time were members of the local RPGA group, which got the weekend use of a classroom in Ballantine Hall on Saturdays.
Curious, I went to one of the RPGA gatherings. The population there, about 50 or so was entirely male, mostly engineering and history majors, whereas the balanced group ran all over the spectrum.
We have a large group--eight players plus the GM--and have two women in it. We've been paying for over a decade, though we only had one woman with us for the first half of that. I do believe that we treat each other fairly, but of course I can't speak for them so their opinions may differ. :)
I've been playing D&D since I was in middle school in the 80's. When we started back then, we had four girls as regulars in our group of ten.
In college, I tried to join a couple of groups but there was not a girl to be found in any of them. I was not comfortable in all-male groups. They had a tone in them that I did not enjoy.
I actually had a majority female group in the late 1990s.
I remember in college knowing about an all woman gaming group. I watched part of one of their sessions once and they were the most ruthless, blood thirsty gang of players I'd ever seen... lol
We had two other guys that were expressing interest in joining us. They introduce themselves to the guys, but ignored me entirely.
Just as a curiosity, were they younger than you? Same age? Older? (Not that it excuses the behavior.)
We had two other guys that were expressing interest in joining us. They introduce themselves to the guys, but ignored me entirely.Just as a curiosity, were they younger than you? Same age? Older? (Not that it excuses the behavior.)
They were my age, maybe a bit younger.
I have four gaming groups, three have two ladies playing in them. I know of several other groups all have at least one and often more female gamers (both as players and GMs)
My main group has just three guys in it, counting myself.
Oh, wait, am I supposed to be exclaiming about how abnormal it is to have "a" girl in one's group? The sooner we accept it as a normal thing rather than something to take note of, the more common it will become. Because I don't think any players really like being seen as weird bugs in the big ol' relatively inclusive jar that is the gaming community. :P
Ugh. Every time I read this post, it annoys me a little bit more. I was trying to critique the way we treat women gamers like the people that "stand out", and guy gamers as just "negative space" default. But this post just came across as super self-congratulatory and smug. I would delete it if I could.
Instead, let me make up for the dumb post with a pretty good song cover. Or distract you with it. Whatever.
While in no way upset by your statements, posting a PMJ song made my day.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
They were my age, maybe a bit younger.
Yuck. No age bias, then, just pure sexism.
Yuck.
They were my age, maybe a bit younger.Yuck. No age bias, then, just pure sexism.
Yuck.
Age bias probably isn't as big a factor as you think it is.
Millennial men’s views of women’s intelligence and ability even extend to women in senior leadership positions. In a 2014 survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults, Harris Poll found that young men were less open to accepting women leaders than older men were. Only 41% of Millennial men were comfortable with women engineers, compared to 65% of men 65 or older. Likewise, only 43% of Millennial men were comfortable with women being U.S. senators, compared to 64% of Americans overall. (The numbers were 39% versus 61% for women being CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and 35% versus 57% for president of the United States.)
Moreover, according to a 2013 Pew survey of Americans, Millennial women are significantly more likely than older women to say that the country needs to continue making changes to bring about equality in the workplace, but Millennial men are the group most likely to say that all necessary changes have been made.
More here.
Okay, that's fascinating, but I can keep saying baby boomers are the worst, right? Please. This is, like, half my worldview on the cutting board here.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Okay, that's fascinating, but I can keep saying baby boomers are the worst, right? Please. This is, like, half my worldview on the cutting board here.
HEY! I'm a baby boomer! And I take umbrage at your words!
(Beyond that, you're still a pretty cool Kobold)
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
*Whips out selfie stick to wield as club*
You'll never take me alive!
Over the years I suspect around 25% of the players I have come across have been female.
Despite the stereotype that female players tend to play through some sort of family/relationship ties (there father/partner/etc is the reason they play) I have not generally found this to be the case.
Many women play purely out of their own interests. Many couple play as couples it is simply something they do as a couple. In the case of father/daughter players often the daughter is as or more keen than the father.
Instead, let me make up for the dumb post with a pretty good song cover. Or distract you with it. Whatever.
You have shown me an awesome interweb thing I had not previously seen. I think that counters at least five dumb posts.
You have shown me an awesome interweb thing I had not previously seen. I think that counters at least five dumb posts.
Instead, let me make up for the dumb post with a pretty good song cover. Or distract you with it. Whatever.
And that leaves the Kobold with long way to go lets see what the next play is.
The game I GM is me (a nonbinary person), three girls, and a guy. Most groups I've played in are mostly not guys.
Almost every game I've been in since 1987 has had at least one gal in it, to wit, Mrs Gneech. :) As for respect, at least half the time she's the party leader, She Who Must Be Obeyed. ;) Highest ratio of gals to guys I've had in a group is 50/50.
-The Gneech
They were my age, maybe a bit younger.Yuck. No age bias, then, just pure sexism.
Yuck.
Age bias probably isn't as big a factor as you think it is.
More here.Millennial men’s views of women’s intelligence and ability even extend to women in senior leadership positions. In a 2014 survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults, Harris Poll found that young men were less open to accepting women leaders than older men were. Only 41% of Millennial men were comfortable with women engineers, compared to 65% of men 65 or older. Likewise, only 43% of Millennial men were comfortable with women being U.S. senators, compared to 64% of Americans overall. (The numbers were 39% versus 61% for women being CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and 35% versus 57% for president of the United States.)
Moreover, according to a 2013 Pew survey of Americans, Millennial women are significantly more likely than older women to say that the country needs to continue making changes to bring about equality in the workplace, but Millennial men are the group most likely to say that all necessary changes have been made.
Thank you for sharing that. It's a very interesting read. I was reading an article the other day (I'll try to find it) and it discussed all kinds of interesting things about the change in marketing to children away from unisex and to segregated boys vs girls toys. If you look at early advertisements for all kinds of toys from the 70s and 80s you'll see both male and female kids playing with the toys in the ads. Later you see an evolution towards what is a "girl" or "boy" toy. Considering how early humans internalize that sort of idea, I wonder if we are seeing the results of such internalization in millennials.
Age bias probably isn't as big a factor as you think it is.
My experience tells me that sexism is by far the larger of the two, but I sort of assumed age difference is significant enough to be noticed. But, I admit that is not based on anything concrete (which is probably why I'm wrong about it).
Am noticing a significant increase of girls in RPG groups.... I'm not sure whether the release of 5e has anything to do it... could be
My group (~15-20 people, only a third of whom play tabletop RPGs) has precisely two regular (interaction-wise) female members, but that's largely due to the group consisting entirely of people from the original group in addition to friends of those people, so we don't really have the opportunity for bringing in any large amounts of people, which would help in adding more female gamers to the group. The exclusivity can be both a blessing and a curse. On one hand it allows us to have a more tightly knit group where everyone knows each other well and is closer to one another in a way that's not really possible otherwise. On the other hand, having more chicks > having almost all dudes, generally speaking.