Still gettin' the hang of the Forge Culture, so please ignore the other cross posts on other threads.

Here's what I've slapped together based on the conversations here and reconsidering the model in the paper I posted.

Let me say, that in reworking my model, I realized how sexist my model really was. See, no one is immune!

Here's what I've come up with - which still needs a lot of research to make it accpetably academic.

WHY IS GAMING MALE DOMINATED?
BARRIERS TO ENTRY

GEEK CULTURE - Biggest one -
What is Geek Culture?
- geek culture is characterized by a social setting that places high value on intelligence and depth of knowledge in the capacity of trivia (applied knowledge, like accountancy, is valued, but not generally thought of as “interesting” in the social setting)
- Geeks are widely read, and often favor the science fiction and fantasy literary genres, as well as ancient myth cycles and popular cultural phenomena (Star Wars, etc.)
- my own long term group had its “experts” in various fields, and people tended to go to them for information when gaming or other pursuits required that knowledge. Though some individuals’ knowledge bases overlapped, each member of the group was recognized as a “specialist” in one or more areas.

WHO ARE THE GEEKS (Historical Overview)
- creators of RPGs in the ‘70s were people whose interests are the same as described in my original essay - fantasy, science fiction, mythology, etc
- Gygax created a fantasy scenario based on already existing miniatures war games
- Geek factor HIGH!
- not many women interested in historical simulations (then)
- not many women in the tech industry in the 1970s, where most of the people doing the war gaming met and networked to organize play
- hypothesis: a rise in women in the tech industry in the ‘80s and ‘90s might directly correlate with rise in women gaming
- also, as the Historical Geeks got married and had families, they inevitably brought their wives and daughters into play (much the same gateway existed for women artists before the late 20th Century)
- obviously, more information needs to be gathered here

HAVEN ‘T THERE ALWAYS BEEN WOMEN GEEKS?
- of course. Fine’s study suggests that they were absent from the gaming milieu for quite a while. Why is that?
- misogyny of gaming geek culture in Fines’ study indicates that old gender role stereotypes were quite strong through the late 1970s and early 1980s. This is also where Gilligan’s ideas and my own analysis of male gaming culture would probably be most apt. Women did not participate much in early gaming because it seems they were not welcomed. Gilligan’s study took place right around the same time that Fine published _Shared Fantasy_.
- misogyny in gaming groups was likely no more worse than in other all-male groups of the time (or of today, for that matter)
- my model is more applicable in this regard to early gaming groups



WHY ARE WOMEN STILL A MINORITY IN GAMING?
1. The Minority Report
- fact is, it is difficult, socially, to be a minority in any setting. People tend to try to avoid this situation if they can. Why subject yourself to the difficulty of being a minority if what you are trying to do is have fun?

2. The Opposite of Philandrony
- As mentioned earlier, the misogyny in gaming was (and still can be) rife. This is a sub-category of the “minority report”

3. Geek Culture
- women are a minority in geek culture
- cultural norms of Geek Culture are strange and can be intimidating to any outsider
A. - Geeks generally play one-up games (as in any group), but the area of expertise is KNOWLEDGE
- Geek competition can be confusing and make people feel stupid (especially if they are stupid). This applies to both men and women
- this kind of behavior can be used to enforce group membership and thus discourage new members
- the same behavior can be used to show off. This is the Geek version of brachiating, and the signals can be read as threatening to men and women, depending upon the situation
B. - non-Geek men don’t know how to compete in this arena and don’t like being outstripped by Geeks in a social setting, so they don’t continue to game (brachiating works as it is meant to, by intimidating non group-member males)
C. - non-Geek women don’t read the signals correctly, either, and end up feeling not only like the minority, but also like the stupid minority to boot.
(depending upon how threatened members of the group are by the presence of women, this can either be read to be working properly or backfiring miserably)
D. - Geek women understand the social nuances of this kind of competition and know how to navigate Geek Culture. They are properly impressed by the displays of male members. I also married a Geek because I find his intelligence and knowledge base impressive (among his many other attractive attributes) I personally compete with the men for knowledge area expertise and carve out a niche of my own in the group structure. Many groups allow for this. The group I ran into trouble with a year or so ago did not.
I don’t know how other women navigate Geek Culture - I’d love to hear some feedback from other women on the Forge.

- In GAMING GROUPS, knowledge of the _rules_ is often a main area of competition for players. This leads to the other main barrier of entry: Game Structure

GAME STRUCTURE
- this is not particular to men or women, but is a barrier to getting more people into the hobby in general. Credit to Vincent (lumpley) for this stage of my hypothesis at UniCon last November. It’s all his. Except the argot part. That's mine. :-)

1. TIME - RPGs take a HUGE amount of time to play and (if you’re a GM) even more time to prepare for. Other hobbies take a great deal of training and practice (rock climbing, sky diving). For some reason, our culture says that “Games” should be short. RISK and CIVILIZATION are notable exceptions to this, but how many people outside of Geek Culture actually play these games all the way through? See, told you.

2. THE RULES - even more of a barrier than play time, learning the rules of RPGs takes an inordinate amount of time.
A. Added to the problem of the rules is the use of ARGOT, which is differs from game to game.
- argot is a specialized vocabulary for some group. For example, “I roll 2d10 to determine whether I save versus his fireball” Most people hearing a conversation like this will respond with WTF?
- regardless of gender, those unwilling to wait patiently to understand the argot of various games is not going to have fun and suffer from the down side of Geek Culture mentioned in A-D above
B. Rule books are text books. I personally don’t want to read a text book in order to be able to play a game. It’s a question of time as well as general resistance to reading ANY KIND of textbook.
- you can learn the rules by playing, but this puts you at a distinct disadvantage to those who have read the rules and may act as “rules lawyers” or “min-maxers” who are so thoroughly knowledgeable about the rules that they can use that knowledge to their advantage.
- this can cause resentment and the desire to NOT play if players who don’t want to learn the rules inside and out feel that their characters are always inferior to the characters of others (this is a problem with GM intervention as well, but that’s not the issue in this .. Uh ... outline)

WHY ARE THERE MORE MEN IN NEOPAGANISM THAN WOMEN IN GAMING?
I think it comes down to the Structure/Argot problem.

NeoPaganism shares Geek Culture. However, built into the structure of NeoPaganism are roles that MUST be filled by women (so that the powers of male and female balance) - this leads to all kinds of gender essentialism in NeoPaganism that is incredibly problematic. Women MUST be part of a community to fulfill the necessary role of the “sacred feminine” (to use Dan Brown’s argot)

Gender essentialism in gaming has historically taken the form of excluding women, rather than requiring them to fulfill specific roles within the community. While that is changing, more female participation requires fluency with Geek Culture and also with the desire to endure learning the argot of different games.

The argot of mythology, on which NeoPaganism is based, is not so convoluted nor obfuscatory. If you read mythology, plus a little Joseph Campbell, you get the idea and are ready to join your local NeoPagan group. Most NeoPagans only find out about the religion after doing EXTENSIVE reading that familiarizes them with the argot of mythology and religion before ever setting foot in a sacred circle.

That’s it.

Krista

Not a very satisfying response, perhaps, but - the bit on gaming strikes me as essentially true.

I might be inclined to go a little farther with comparing it to other male-dominated pursuits; I guess I think it's explicitly the same, culturally, as poker night, or fishing trips, or the like.

I know essentially nothing about neopaganism, except that one of my (female) friends says it consists of little but catfights over who gets to be high priestess.

- James

Krista,

I think that's a pretty good analysis and may explain a lot about the imbalanced demographics of gamer culture. I do have one minor terminology quibble and one major suggestion about a missing piece of the puzzle, however.

the terminology quibble is over the word "misogyny". there's certainly examples of misogyny in gaming texts and gamer groups (I'm thinking of the reaction of the male gamers depicted in KotDT and the movie "The Gamers", for example, or that astounding quote from Elijah Wood in a D&D game run by Jonathan Tweet for some reporter.) however, there's a difference between "misogyny" and "gender bias" and "gender prejudice". I think it's the biases and prejudices, rather than outright hatred of women, that act as the primary turn-off for the general female public. misogyny's pretty rare, but it certainly becomes magnified in the midst of the rampant sexism.

the missing piece of the puzzle, on the other hand, is a little bigger. historically, "geek chic" didn't appear until the late '80s; you must keep in mind that prior to that time, geeks were considered outcasts, especially by women. this may explain why gamers in the '70s didn't know enough women to invite to RPGs sessions, and why they weren't comfortable enough around women to talk about gaming to new female acquaintances. thus, in the early days of gaming, it was mostly a male thing.

the culture has changed quite a bit since then, but (as you point out,) there's all this historical baggage and bad sexist habits hampering new growth in the hobby.

OK, I'm not entirely sure of this myself, but I'll throw in another aspect to the question. In the essay Group Narration: Power, Information, and Play in Role Playing Games, Liz Henry suggests that there is a split between the more "hierarchical" mode of storytelling collaboration and the "dialogic" mode. She associates traditional GM power with the hierarchical mode, which may stereotypically be viewed as more masculine. Dialogic is a more freeform structure of collaboration. From the paper:
Figure 4. A stereotypically gendered view of the dialogic and hierarchical modes of discourse.

     Masculine   :   Feminine                                     

     monologic   :   dialogic                                                   

 goal-oriented   :   process-oriented                                           

   centripetal   :   centrifugal                                                

       violent   :   verbally diplomatic                                        

          wars   :   relationships                                              

     authority   :   consensus                                                  

   competition   :   cooperation                                                

  conservative   :   open to change

i've only been gaming for around a year (i'm only 22), so maybe i missed something, but i agree with talysman that the word 'misogyny' is probably the wrong word. i certainly have never even met any misogynists other than my ex-step-father, but he was from a previous generation. so i fail to see how misogyny could ever be a major factor in the majority of games.

but what i do believe is a strong factor, is the simple stereotype of the geek. to geeks, being a gook is merely a descriptive label, and often one to be proud of. geeks hold up the positive side if the stereotype, such as intelligence, knowledge, imagination, creativity, and fun, whilst to non-geeks, geeks are socially inept weird little creatures. this relates to gender thus: males are typically less likely to care about what social niche they fit into than women are. i've never met any girl that doesn't have both an extended social network of associates and loose friends AND a small closely-knit clique. and i've never met a girl who didn't put great weight on the opinions of those within her clique, and only slightly less weight on the opinions of those in her social network. sure, i haven't met every girl in the world, and there are bound to be exceptions, but i've met quite a few girls in my years at university studying psychology. i know only two girls who game, and they are sisters who were raised by a father who used to game (thus have less inhibitions about the label "geek").

in my opinion, the male:female ratio in gaming has practically nothing to do with gamers being misogynistic, or even gynocentric (though those things may well be), but has almost everything to do with non-gamers perceptions of gamers, and inhibitions about having those perceptions placed on themselves.

also, when you think about it, RPG gaming was invented by men, for men, to be fun and engaging for men by appealing to their interests and dreams. how many men like knitting? cross-stitch? window shopping? talking to friends for hours on end over the phone? watching soap operas? or "chick-flicks"? is it because the women who do these things hate men? or try to exlude them purposefully? or is it because these things simply don't appeal to the vast majority of men? this isn't to say that no man does any or all of these things, but they are the minority. not because of any sinister plans to keep them out, but because most males don't desire to say "here, i knit you a scarf".

in my humble opinion, girls who game are an exception to the majority not because they've learnt to deal with how men play RPG's, but because they aren't frightened by the label "geek". fun can be found in any activity, from gaming to knitting. the only barriers are the ones the individual places there themselves.

I don't think all gamers are part of 'geek culture' as presented here - I'm not even sure if a majority are. There aren't many obviously geeky characters in my gaming group - lawyer types, an actor, a church youth worker, a charity worker, a map salesman. The most typically 'geeky' player is one of the women. Very few would appear geeky to someone who just met us. I'm not sure if treating RPGs as played by a homogeonous 'geek culture' is really helpful, although there certainly is one.

Edit: The idea that Hero With A Thousand Faces is more accessible than the D&D Player's Handbook, say, shows a bit of cultural bias IMO. :)

It might also be desireable to note the great variety in Geek Culture out there. If you are taking as the primary determinate of the culture the holding of obscure knowledge in esteem there are several different outlets that this behavior can take.

There is the traditional "high tech" geek that many people automatically associate with the stereotype. But there are also many other fields as well. There is an entire subculture of literary, movie, and art "geeks" who seem every bit as alien when engrossed in their particular obsession. Near DC there is an entire subculture of State Department, Pentagon, and DoD think tank, personel that can be quite different from the "high tech" variety.

Just as clearly there are other groups which by the definition offered could well be categorized as "Geeks" but for which there is much less overlap with gamer culture. It may be an interesting exercize to try to identify which subcultures tend to produce a fair number of gamers and which do not, and then determine what the distribution of women membership is between them.

Krista,

This is purely anecdotal -- your description of misogyny in gaming geek culture does not correspond to my experience. I started gaming in the early 1980's with a core group of five to six people that played in the same AD&D campaign for four years. It's true that I was the only woman of the bunch, but I was a full-fledged member and was not excluded or undermined in any way. Additionally, I would only characterize three of us as being particularly geeky. There were other players including a few women beyond the core who played for varying lengths of time. I suggest that the time commitment involved and possibly the stigma of role-playing as a suitable pastime (as Ravien suggests) were the reasons new players, particularly women, did not continue gaming over time.

You also specifically ask how women navigate geek culture. I'm not sure I can answer this question. The act of navigating does not describe my behavior; I either share interests with others or I don't. If there is no common ground between me and a group, I am not likely to spend a great deal of leisure time with them.

Julie

i certainly have never even met any misogynists other than my ex-step-father, but he was from a previous generation. so i fail to see how misogyny could ever be a major factor in the majority of games.

The misogynistic elements of gaming culture are certainly not necessarily endemic, but they do seem to be particularly vile when they do crop up, and they do seem to crop up more frequently there than in other pursuits.

The comparison to 'poker night' is apt, and I would further suggest that 'poker night' tends to be, for some groups, rather misogynistic. But at the same time, the 'misogynistic poker groups' I know of have nothing on the simulated rape-and-pillage fests that I've witnessed at the gaming table.

Maybe I've just been unlucky?

Aside from a few specific really negative experiences, most of the misogyny I've witnessed in games has come more from the relatively poor group-socialization skills and general clumsiness of guys attempts to be inclusive. One aspect of that is definitely the impression that most geek guys have that "displays of geek impressiveness" (ie, encyclopedic knowledge of Dr. Who companions, Monty Python quotage, and the like) are in fact both a reliable substitute for actual conversation and impressive to a woman who is willing to try out an RPG. This is true for us 'geek women', but isn't really very common amongst the 'mundanes'.

The geek culture thing definitely needs to be broadened. Although things are different now, largely thanks to Magic: the Gathering and Vampire, but during most of the 80s the typical "gaming geek" had an enormous overlap with computer geeks, SF geeks, science geeks, Monty Python geeks, Star Trek geeks, and even ROTC geeks (at one of my high schools). I think the stereotype has perhaps lived on longer than the reality...

Oh, and the 'argot' thing, while certainly accurate, is something I've seen lots of non-computer people complain about using the term 'jargon', which is perhaps a bit less obscure?

I'm looking forward to the end results!

First off, I would like to declare my view on gender's effect on behavior. I am most inclined to believe that all differences of gender comes firstly from the role of women to be pregnant, and that effect on culture, and secondly from men's solidarity as the primary physical warrior/enforcer when developed physical strength was a much more important determination factor in ability than it is now. I could be wrong but I've never found hard data that made me think otherwise.

Now, while I'd say there are correlations, some stronger than others, between "roleplaying > "geek culture" > stereotypical geek > Exhaustive and competetive hounds of infromation", that because you have to make so many connections that the correlation between "roleplaying > exhaustive and competeive hounds of information" that the tie becomes rather weak, only holding up superficially.

I've met a few people like that, avoided them when possible, but I've never encountered them in a roleplaying environment. But it somehow SEEMS like a very plausible stereotype, as the strongest stereotypes work by basing themslves on a long network of strong connections that don't add up to anything real.

misogyny of gaming geek culture in Fines’ study indicates that old gender role stereotypes were quite strong through the late 1970s and early 1980s. This is also where Gilligan’s ideas and my own analysis of male gaming culture would probably be most apt. Women did not participate much in early gaming because it seems they were not welcomed. Gilligan’s study took place right around the same time that Fine published _Shared Fantasy_.

- misogyny in gaming groups was likely no more worse than in other all-male groups of the time (or of today, for that matter)

B. - non-Geek men don’t know how to compete in this arena and don’t like being outstripped by Geeks in a social setting, so they don’t continue to game (brachiating works as it is meant to, by intimidating non group-member males)

D. - Geek women understand the social nuances of this kind of competition and know how to navigate Geek Culture. They are properly impressed by the displays of male members. I also married a Geek because I find his intelligence and knowledge base impressive (among his many other attractive attributes) I personally compete with the men for knowledge area expertise and carve out a niche of my own in the group structure. Many groups allow for this. The group I ran into trouble with a year or so ago did not.

NeoPaganism shares Geek Culture. However, built into the structure of NeoPaganism are roles that MUST be filled by women (so that the powers of male and female balance) - this leads to all kinds of gender essentialism in NeoPaganism that is incredibly problematic. Women MUST be part of a community to fulfill the necessary role of the “sacred feminine” (to use Dan Brown’s argot)

i think it's important to note the seperation between the geek stereotype and the reality of actual gamers. certainly no-one in the group i GM for could be labelled a geek by anyone who didn't know they gamed, and the same goes for the group i play with, and the group i play M:TG with. they include soccer players, karate senseis, heavy metal musicians (of which i am one), authors, IT people, and army personel. without knowing that they game it would be hard to apply the geek label to them.

unfortunately, negative stereotypes are very powerful and people's minds are very flexible, so once they know that these people are gamers, the label of geek applies and the perception of them is adapted to suit.

i think that even were the geek label overcome by a girl, say, by discovering some of her close friends are 'geeks', and even if she was interested in joining in on the fun despite the content and style of RPGs, i posit that there would be yet another hurdle to overcome, which perhaps is not so large from the perspective of a male. librisia mentioned it in her original post, the problem of "looking stupid" in front of the other players. there are a lot of rules to learn, and for a non-gamer to pick them all up quickly is daunting, and in my experience, not even the fact that they are all friends is enough to stiffle the feeling of "being stupid" among friends who obviously know more about the game than they do. sure, i'm not a girl, but i've seen this happen even in situations outside of gaming.

i dunno, just ideas.

just for the record, misogyny=hate of women. guys "having a go" at girls amongst their guy friends is not, in my opinion, misogynistic, any more than girls "bitching" about guys is androgynistic. i don't think either represents any level of hatred toward the other gender, just a natural and healthy venting of frustrations caused by a lack of understanding and relating to their differences. i've never been to a "poker night", so i could be wrong, but i'd hazard a guess that any animosity towards women would simply be "having a go" from an androcentric perspective when gender is salient. i'd personally reserve the use of the term misogyny or andrgyny for when it is clearly the case. "rape and pillage" was culturally acceptable to vikings and their way of life, so i'd be wary of labelling it as misogyny. roleplaying rape and pillaging is historically accurate, so again, i'd be wary. unless you know for certain the actual intentions and motivations for an action, i'd say it's hard to define it as caused by hate. unless of course misogyny/androgyny exists solely in the eyes of the beholder, in which case your reality is your own to create.

my friends and i are of the opinion that hatred toward a gender really died out a few generations back, so only exists in those generations that haven't yet died. well, at least in modern 1st world "western" cultures anyway. but we live in australia, so maybe we are wrong!

Piece of purely anecdotal data. I teach small seminar classes at Boston University, an enormous institution. My classes, because they are part of a requirement for every entering undergraduate, necessarily draw on the entire spread of B.U. students. B.U. is not terribly racially diverse, except for international students; for example, sad to say, I have never had a black student who wasn't from a foreign country. The students are generally wealthy and white, or very wealthy and foreign. Obviously there are exceptions, but they are indeed exceptions. Okay, enough background.

By the end of a semester, I can pretty effectively pick out the classic "geek" types, because I know the students well. They may be both male and female, though males predominate by, I'd say, 75%.

Now, note the following:

• I have never seen a female geek play with a calculator before class, nor discuss video games. I have often seen male geeks do this.
• I have never had a male geek apologize for his geekiness; as someone mentioned, it seems to be a badge of pride (not always, but often).
• I have very often had female geeks apologize for their interest in geeky topics, notably science fiction.
• Without exception, I find that female geeks are much better students than male ones. Given that B.U. does not get the top echelon of students, this suggests to me that there is some correlation between female geekiness and going to a school less good than they deserve. I do not know what that correlation means, and could think of so many possibilities that I'm not going to spin them out as theories.
• Every male geek who has "come out" to me has mentioned role-playing games. No female student of any kind has ever done so.

Just a little anecdotal data for the fires.

Chris Lehrich

My own anecdotal data: I know 4 different females who used to be gamers but got out of the hobby. The reason, they all told me, was because they were tired of all the "dorky" guys hitting on them. They all had stories of the other PCs harassing their characters.

I would also have to say, anecdotally of course, that a large percentage of gamers look and act just like the Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons. Sometimes I wonder if they do it on purpose. We don't all act like that, though. I remember when someone asked a friend of mine, when he was done using the computer if he saved. He said "Yeah, and I took half damage," and laughed hysterically. The girl looked puzzled at him, then at me, and before anybody could say anything, I said "It's a Dungeons and Dragons thing." She looked at me with gratitude for warning her before she asked him to explain, and dropped the subject. She avoided him after that.
However, while I have enjoyed many games with many people trying to fit that stereotype, I have also gamed with punks, frat boys, hicks, gearheads, lesbians, angry minorities, preppies, and almost every other stereotype, too. The truth is, the gaming bug can bite anyone from any walk of life. Noone is safe. You may be a normal, upstanding young jock or criminal or anything but a geek. Maybe one Thanksgiving, your uncle wants you to try this new game, or your weird friend finally talks you into going to a night of pizza and Rifts with his chess club friends. And then...damn them...you loved it. You needed more. You can still love bathing, and exercise, and dating, and all the other things that keep you from being a total geek. But you still have gaming. And there's that stigma that goes with it...I never thought I'd be longing for the days when we were satanists, not dorks (to the public). I think that stigma keeps a lot of closet gamers in the closet. And many of them are women.

Ravien wrote: just for the record, misogyny=hate of women. guys "having a go" at girls amongst their guy friends is not, in my opinion, misogynistic, any more than girls "bitching" about guys is androgynistic. i don't think either represents any level of hatred toward the other gender, just a natural and healthy venting of frustrations caused by a lack of understanding and relating to their differences. i've never been to a "poker night", so i could be wrong, but i'd hazard a guess that any animosity towards women would simply be "having a go" from an androcentric perspective when gender is salient. i'd personally reserve the use of the term misogyny or andrgyny for when it is clearly the case. "rape and pillage" was culturally acceptable to vikings and their way of life, so i'd be wary of labelling it as misogyny. roleplaying rape and pillaging is historically accurate, so again, i'd be wary. unless you know for certain the actual intentions and motivations for an action, i'd say it's hard to define it as caused by hate.

Ravien wrote: my friends and i are of the opinion that hatred toward a gender really died out a few generations back, so only exists in those generations that haven't yet died. well, at least in modern 1st world "western" cultures anyway. but we live in australia, so maybe we are wrong!

having all female NPCs (and any female PCs being run by male players) defined more by their sexual characteristics than by their personalities (ie, making them all prissy virgins or massive sluts) is again pretty objectifying, and probably isn't making most women comfortable.

Fourth, having an adventure session built around planning the sack of a town and including a breakdown of which PC is going to rape which NPC (because "she's hot"), not to mention working out how the rape is going to be undertaken (up to and including technique and what humiliating actions you're going to force her to undertake) is, again, not the route to producing a gender neutral environment in which women are going to feel particularly comfortable joining in your activities.

First, not every social interaction between a man and a woman is an invitation to be hit upon, and if you think and act as if they are, and don't pick up on signals to the contrary, this could be considered a less than friendly environment for the woman. It's probably more accurately described as a form of androcentrism, or an objectification of women.

But these behaviors are not respectful of women, and no matter how 'realistic' rape and pillage may be, not that many women are going to find it fun to explore the rape aspect of that historic fact in great detail. And if you are a guy and are finding it fun, ask yourself why? Because I certainly don't get it, but I do keep seeing it

To add to John's comments about gendered forms of storytelling:

Personally, I would associate hierarchical with Illusionism but not inherently with traditional GM power. For example, a game like Pantheon dispenses with the GM -- but it results in a very competitive mode of storytelling which I think is very different from the stereotypically-feminine dialogic mode. So I don't this has much to do with overly male demographic of RPGs, but it is interesting to consider.

Itse wrote:

(On the other hand, in USA they make a number out of a boob in telly and there seems to be all kinds of issues about things like "seeing your sister / parent / friend of opposite sex naked", so yeah, different culture.)

There are large cultural differences even between the English-speaking western countries (USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand etc), which causes confusion in these kind of discussions. European countries like Finland and Germany have different standards again. From a UK perspective, the USA has stronger gender-demarcation than other countries, there seems to be more pressure for conformity or to belong to a particular grouping, and hostility to crossing group boundaries. Eg the idea that RPGer = Geek, and what 'Geek culture' is expected to be about, seem much stronger in the USA. The USA also has very strong cultural prohibitions on nudity, and association nudity = sex, stronger than the other English-speaking countries and much stronger than most European countries.

Itse wrote:

having all female NPCs (and any female PCs being run by male players) defined more by their sexual characteristics than by their personalities (ie, making them all prissy virgins or massive sluts) is again pretty objectifying, and probably isn't making most women comfortable.

Fourth, having an adventure session built around planning the sack of a town and including a breakdown of which PC is going to rape which NPC (because "she's hot"), not to mention working out how the rape is going to be undertaken (up to and including technique and what humiliating actions you're going to force her to undertake) is, again, not the route to producing a gender neutral environment in which women are going to feel particularly comfortable joining in your activities.

I find the things you say to be weird, in the "I've never seen that, I've never even heard of that in any place except internet, and I've been around and talked to a lot of people" sense. As I have been an active member in a pretty large roleplaying association I know a lot people who have a lot of experience with roleplaying, and they've heard a lot of stories from a lot more people. I asked around somewhat, and no-one here had really heard of what you were talking about.

I have to head out to work, but just a quick comment on the rape thing.

All of the stuff I mentioned in my previous post is behavior I witnessed personally, in games I was in. And they happened at different times, in widely different areas of the US (Minnesota, Nevada, and Oregon spring to mind). But they were mostly in the 80s (I'm old), and mostly during the Jr. High/High School periods (say, roughly 12-18 year old males).

I would not for a second say that this behavior is exactly common amongst gamers, but when it shows up it seems far nastier than anywhere else I've seen it in society outside of movies and tv-shows which are trying to show a stereotyped "women-hating" subculture.

The whole rape thing, with who was going to screw whom, why, and how, was pretty disgusting, but some of the same players were also involved in a superhero game where the GM made the villain a disliked guy from school and the heroes proceeded to beat the crap out of him when he was unmasked.

Obviously, not a very well adjusted group of people. I tried my best to avoid them both in gaming and in real life after witnessing all this.

For the record, I am a woman, and I've played both male and female characters. But in my case the situation is a bit more complicated...

As a case study in this sort of behavior, I would point to the Lord of the Rings game I played in, that I described in an earlier thread, Horseplay Gone Too Far?. It wasn't incredibly horrible or anything (I stayed in the campaign, after all) -- but it was enough to make me sit up and go "Hmmm" and dislike it. At that time, there was one female player (playing a male character) in the LOTR campaign, but she dropped out a few sessions later.

Hi folks,

Just to add another, but vital factor to the mix, check out the power dominance issues that usually crop up in dysfunctional game groups. Usually we have one or two dominant personalities, a group of lesser folks looking to fit in, and a game about communication where the majority of people are bad at communicating in play, usually utilizing emotional dominance or passive aggressive tactics to deal with each other.

Pretty bare bones Alpha Male stuff going on.

Then throw a woman into the mix. As someone mentioned to me, "Guys are willing to put up with hazing and a lot of shit to fit in with other guys, women are not willing to do so to fit in with the guys."

I put the rape factor into the emotional dominance aspect, usually by folks who are honestly afraid of women(or do it to other male players to affirm their dominance).

Overall, I'd say this has less to do specifically with geek culture, and more to do with any group of guys, low self esteem, poor social skills, trying to prove their manhood to each other. The only difference is that roleplaying is less of a social venue than other similar groups(gangs, college boys, etc.) and that you have more imaginary rape rather than real rape going on.

I'd say that when roleplaying is taken to larger social contexts than a long term, insulated group, instead to LARPS, conventions, etc, you tend to see these people get checked and develop a little more social skills, or at least keep the bullshit in line a little better.

Chris

Taina wrote: John Fiske (a cultural studies academic) identifies a feminine television aesthetic - elements of television that tend to be more attractive to women. These elements include open-ended storylines, strong female characters, room to question a central narrative voice, and an emphasis on process rather than the resolution of a problem.

In the great majority of my roleplaying experience, these elements are not often found in roleplaying games. Story, plot or events focus around the resolution of a problem; once the problem is resolved, the game moves onto another plot. The GM's narrative voice overrides that of the other players. Most attempts I've seen at portraying strong female characters make them hyper-masculine.

Ravien wrote: If you are a girl, how many female characters have you played, and how many male? if you are a guy, how many female characters have you played, and how many male?

Ravien wrote:
but i dunno if anyone is interested in answering this question, but i'd really like to know: If you are a girl, how many female characters have you played, and how many male? if you are a guy, how many female characters have you played, and how many male?

S'mon wrote: many GMs at least in the USA don't allow cross-gender PCs;

Hello, all -

I've only played one female PC in recent years, in an online game with a bunch of strangers (only the fellow who organized the game knew who we were.) I chose this venue to try playing a female PC for precisely the reasons relevant to the writing class; it's easier to be believable with gender anonymity.

Before each session of the game, I'd spend about an hour reading romance novels written by a female author, with an adventuress heroine. This got me into the proper mindset to mimic both the writing style and the behavior patterns. My purpose, then, was essentionally immersionist (sim/exploration of character if you will); I wanted to see how well I could get into the female mindset. For the record, I apparently did a very good job of behaving believably female, but it was entirely through imitation, not because I understood why I was acting the way I was.

The game had four male PCs and two female PCs, including me. No initial idea of gender of the players. However, I noticed by the end of the first session that most everyone was inordinately condescending to me, in a weird way that I haven't encountered before or since (praising my every move in private messages, for instance.) The other female PC didn't return after the first session, and wasn't very active during it (still don't know gender of player).

In game, my character was consistently subtly flirtatious with one important NPC (who was, at least to me, clearly the villain), but otherwise play had essentially no sexual/romantic content.

By the end of the fourth session, every single one of the other players had at least vaguely hit on me by e-mail (completely outside of the game environent). I always made it clear, without acknowledging that they'd hit on me, that I was male in my replies; two of them wrote back and thought I was making up that I was male. At that point, the game broke up over unrelated (scheduling) reasons.

So ... my one experience as a 'female' player was acutely uncomfortable. Perhaps if you actually are female, you're used to being treated this way - but even so, I can't imagine it to be enjoyable to be hit on by a bunch of strangers and treated as mildly addled.

- James

Christopher Weeks wrote:

S'mon wrote: many GMs at least in the USA don't allow cross-gender PCs;

I don't think this could be terribly common since I've never once heard of it in ~24 years with RPGs.

james_west wrote:
(snip)
The game had four male PCs and two female PCs, including me. No initial idea of gender of the players. However, I noticed by the end of the first session that most everyone was inordinately condescending to me, in a weird way that I haven't encountered before or since (praising my every move in private messages, for instance.)
(snip)
By the end of the fourth session, every single one of the other players had at least vaguely hit on me by e-mail (completely outside of the game environent).
(snip)
So ... my one experience as a 'female' player was acutely uncomfortable. Perhaps if you actually are female, you're used to being treated this way - but even so, I can't imagine it to be enjoyable to be hit on by a bunch of strangers and treated as mildly addled.

to be condescending requires intention. whilst i have no doubt that the actions/PM's of these men can be interpreted as condescending, i do doubt that it was their intention. instead, what you see as being condescending i would interpret as a function of their attempts to hit on you. "praising your every move" seems more like some loser trying to get his end wet than someone thinking you are a lost puppy who needs constant reinforcement.

i can't say i've ever experienced being hit on by multitudes of guys, but i know what it's like to be hit on by a bunch of girls. i used to change schools alot, even right up to when i finished high school, and without fail, every time i was a "new" student i would be inundated with girls asking me if i would "go out" with their friends, who of course, i had no idea who they were. but i must say i never felt uncomfortable. maybe i was just used to it, but i think it was more the fact that the whole situation was more humourous than anything. whilst i never did so, i know many a girl who takes advantage of the multitudes of guys who fall at their feet by using them as convenient source of transport and free meals.

as for your comment AnyaTheBlue on being different to the Straight White Normal Male, you're right about it not being at all limited to women. objectively, people different to this norm are treated differently by both genders equally. just as guys might avoid or ostrasize 'weird' men and women, so too do girls avoid or ostrasize 'weird' men and women. in fact, the only ones who won't treat 'weird' people differently are other 'weird' people who are similar. i know this because many people would call me a "goth", though i myself abhore that label for the connotations it carries of pathetic depressed social retards who cut themselves. but i do wear only black, i have black hair, and i listen to and play heavy music. i wouldn't harm a fly (ok i would, i hate flies with a vengeance), and when people get to know me, they often exclaim how different i am to their initial preconceptions. and yet, just today, i was walking down the street and an old man who was walking the other way walked into the middle of the road when i got near him and then back onto the path when i had passed. i was just walking along with the mornings paper, and i managed to inadvertently scare some old guy. why? because i was different to him. i'm white, i'm male, and i'm straight. but i'm not "normal" and so i get treated differently everywhere i go. but i don't mind. even though it's harder for me to get a place to live, harder to get a job, harder to make friends, i'm not going to change because i'm happy with who i am. my image is a perfect filter for sifting through the people who aren't worth my time. so i don't bitch about discrimination, i make the best of it.

if i could suggest one thing, i would suggest not just looking for the ways women are discriminated against, but also looking at the ways men are descriminated against, and any other group of people you can think of. because not one of them recieves more discrimination than another, it only seems that way because we only have one perspective. if you don't believe me, just look in your local "accomodation vacant" section of your paper. who do people want as roommates? females, or male/female. never just male. and there are more F's than the are M/Fs as requirements, regardless of the gender of the current housemates. also think of insurance, and the courts, and sitcoms (is the wife ever a blithering clumsy idiot? is the man ever a competant father juggling work and family?), and advertisements (similar reasons to sitcoms), or try reading a Cleo or a Cosmo and tell me men aren't just as objectified as women (i've lived with many girls, and read many girls magazines) and of course the list goes on and on. so basically my suggestion is to think objectively and rationally and measure the subjective against that.

As one of the "voices of roleplaying antiquity" here on the Forge (I began playing in the summer of 1978), I have witnessed many of the antisocial behaviors that folks have described in this thread. At the same time, the incidents have been for the most part limited to individuals or groups who were poorly socialized rather than "mere geeks". Most were marginalized persons in general, victims of abuse of one or more varieties, who lashed out at people of either gender with equal alacrity and vehemence. Most also were contrite after the inappropriateness of their behavior was made plain to them in a quiet and polite manner, and strove to make amends.

I attended an all-male Catholic college preparatory school, and that made quite a difference in the general attitudes of my earliest gaming cronies. I also played with people at the friendly local game store, and even the all-male group there showed very gentlemanly and respectful attitudes toward women. Most other groups had players of both genders, and I can recall only one instance where behavior of a disrespecful or inappropriate nature occurred. The college crowd was somewhat less perfect, including a gamemaster who routinely subjected players in her (yes, her) campaigns to detailed descriptions of the raping (often homosexual) of their characters.

I am not a Straight White Normal Male myself (I identify as Bisexual and Kinky, which frightens the Straights and the Normals immensely), and so am familiar with discriminatory practices (though not to the extent which women must face on a daily basis). I came to those identifications after I began to roleplay, but fortunately have not had gaming cronies for whom my personal choices have been a problem even when characters of mine (sometimes female, occasionally not) engaged in flirtation with theirs. Of the many people with whom I have played over the years, none has had any difficulty keeping character and player separate in their minds.

I have had similar experience to James' when playing female characters in online campaigns but, given the general state of gender relations these days, I did not consider the revelation particularly surprising. What I also did not consider surprising is that all the men who flirted with me outside the game did so because they found me intelligent, funny and a pleasant conversatonal partner... and not just because they thought I was female. I have been complimented for my portrayal of female characters several times in the past, so it appears I am somewhat in touch with the feminine psyche.

Thank my mother and grandmother (God/dess rest their souls), as it was their capable, competent, educated womanhood that most informed me. :)

Not entirely off topic--

Some time back, among the MUD/MUSH/MUX crowd, there appeared a quiz for "the perfect girlfriend". The idea was that girls would answer the questions and be scored regarding how ideal a girlfriend they would be; it was written, presumably, by someone who played these games, and word of it spread through the young MUDder community.

A lot of young men of my acquaintance took this quiz; they all scored quite highly, as being ideal girlfriends.

This leads me to seriously question whether the reaction of males to a female character played anonymously by a male player is at all relevant. I'd like to think I play credible females; most of the girls who read my novel believe I wrote a credible female. But then, if what I'm doing in play is creating what guys wish girls would be like, it's pretty evident that they're going to like the girls I play.

Back in the early nineties we had a running joke going around here that E. R. Jones and I were going to start a pay-to-chat number and advertise it to make money. I'm Markie, and I know what men like. It is said that women want the authors of their romance novels to be women, because they don't want to believe that men can understand romance as well as women can; maybe there is something to the idea that a woman understands a woman better and a man understands a man better. If so, James' experience of having men be attracted to his in-game character may only mean that in some ways the perception of a woman he conveyed to them was something that clicked with their perceptions of women, and they really wanted to get to know this girl who was so like what they wanted in a girl.

Did that make any sense?

In any case, I'd be more impressed by people whose cross-gender play fools those of the gender they're playing.

--M. J. Young

There's been a great deal of talk of misogyny, or lack thereof, in the threads lately, and I'd like to try to establish this main points folks seem to be making. I've seen the following points made in threads. Note that in none of the following am I attempting to reproduce any specific person's point of view, and I'm including other threads;

(1) In my experience, a lot of groups do have an androcentric focus, sometimes becoming horribly female-unfriendly.
(a) but I didn't mind it
(b) but it was just youthful high spirits
(c) but they were socially inept in any context
(d) but you shouldn't be so sensitive
(e) but they were just reflecting societal values

(2) Our group is thoroughly integrated genderwise.
(a) and I think the horrid geek stereotype is a myth
(b) but we've all known each-other since kindergarten anyway
(c) but I live somewhere with a completely different culture than mainstream US
(d) but we're all over thirty, and thus past the particularly intense phase of sexual competition, anyway
(e) and all my friends got married to other members of the group

(3) Our group is pretty much a bunch of guys, although I don't think we're female-unfriendly
(a) but our games aren't the sort of thing women would be likely to enjoy, anyway
(b) but it's not because we're a bunch of geeks
(c) but it's for essentially historical reasons.
(d) but the presence of women distracts from male bonding
(e) but the presence of women intensifies male competition


Don't have any synthesis to go along with this at the moment; these just seem to be the sorts of points people are making.

M. J. Young wrote: I'd be more impressed by people whose cross-gender play fools those of the gender they're playing.

I'd be more impressed by people whose cross-gender play fools those of the gender they're playing.

When I was in college, I took a course in creative writing. We were asked to do an internal character sketch--that is, convey information about the personality of a character by writing a piece as seen through the eyes of the character. I decided to do a woman, modeling some of it on my perception of my wife.

The professor read the paper to the class and asked for comments, whether the character seemed believable, whether they could identify with her. The class of fourteen girls and one other guy all said it was very well written. Then the professor added that it was written by a guy, and suddenly several of the girls were saying that they knew there was something wrong about it that they just couldn't put their finger on.

james_west wrote:
(2) Our group is thoroughly integrated genderwise.
(a) and I think the horrid geek stereotype is a myth
(b) but we've all known each-other since kindergarten anyway
(c) but I live somewhere with a completely different culture than mainstream US
(d) but we're all over thirty, and thus past the particularly intense phase of sexual competition, anyway
(e) and all my friends got married to other members of the group

Ravien wrote:

I'd be more impressed by people whose cross-gender play fools those of the gender they're playing.

I've read at least two posts that identify such a phenomena, one by Doctor Xero where he cited an experimental study which almost perfectly replicates the second post given by M.J. West:

When I was in college, I took a course in creative writing. We were asked to do an internal character sketch--that is, convey information about the personality of a character by writing a piece as seen through the eyes of the character. I decided to do a woman, modeling some of it on my perception of my wife.

The professor read the paper to the class and asked for comments, whether the character seemed believable, whether they could identify with her. The class of fourteen girls and one other guy all said it was very well written. Then the professor added that it was written by a guy, and suddenly several of the girls were saying that they knew there was something wrong about it that they just couldn't put their finger on.

the problem is, as is plain to see, that a gender's perception of the reality of a fictional character is coloured by their perception of who created that character. as has been mentioned before, girls don't like to think that they can be understood by males. it almost comes close to being a quantum mechanic, where the more a male knows about a female, the more she will change herself or deny the truth to "maintain the mystery".

i think that given sufficient social interaction and learning, we all have enough machiavalian intelligence to convincingly portray the other sex, providing that our true gender remains anonymous.

Ravien wrote:

I'd be more impressed by people whose cross-gender play fools those of the gender they're playing.

I've read at least two posts that identify such a phenomena, one by Doctor Xero where he cited an experimental study which almost perfectly replicates the second post given by M.J. West:

When I was in college, I took a course in creative writing. We were asked to do an internal character sketch--that is, convey information about the personality of a character by writing a piece as seen through the eyes of the character. I decided to do a woman, modeling some of it on my perception of my wife.

The professor read the paper to the class and asked for comments, whether the character seemed believable, whether they could identify with her. The class of fourteen girls and one other guy all said it was very well written. Then the professor added that it was written by a guy, and suddenly several of the girls were saying that they knew there was something wrong about it that they just couldn't put their finger on.

the problem is, as is plain to see, that a gender's perception of the reality of a fictional character is coloured by their perception of who created that character. as has been mentioned before, girls don't like to think that they can be understood by males. it almost comes close to being a quantum mechanic, where the more a male knows about a female, the more she will change herself or deny the truth to "maintain the mystery".

So we do have a tendency to prejudice ourselves against the possibility that someone outside our group has the ability to understand what we understand.

Actually, um, those were both me. I think it can be done, and I think I've done it, but since I'm the guy who thinks he credibly plays girls, I really can't say I have the perspective for it.

M. J. Young wrote:
So we do have a tendency to prejudice ourselves against the possibility that someone outside our group has the ability to understand what we understand.