I thought you were just one of the guys!  Actually, I don’t think that I treat gamers differently initially based on their gender.  I will admit that I might judge or classify people later—but that’s after I’ve played games with them or seen what type of games they like to play! 

I’ve lost enough games in enough different ways to people of all colors, genders and ages not to try to pre-judge people’s gaming abilities based on appearance.  Hell, even someone like Larry Levy can crush me from time to time!

Dale

Great column, Valerie.  I don’t think anyone who reads your column would underestimate you head-to-head across the gaming table!

My wife is unfortunately not a gaming geek like I am, although she has lovingly learned about two-dozen games over the years and enjoyed playing from time to time.  It has much more to do with her personality and less to do with the fact that she’s a woman (she describes herself as a “tomboy” in most other things).  Personality tests might be a better indicator of what games a person will like, but, as you mentioned, scientists just can’t seem to pigeon-hole us into the programmed evolutions many of them make us out to be.
For the record, I am also quite happy to do the laundry, wash the dishes, and take care of the babies to give my wife a break with her friends--it’s the least I can do to thank her for doing the same for me and my gaming friends.  By your definition, I guess that makes me a feminist:)

What, me gedanken?

You have a copy of Memoir 44 and a copy of Lost Cities.  Two nongamers, one man and one woman (whom you otherwise know nothing about), would like to play a game, but not with each other (there is a pair of friendly androgynous identical twins willing to be their opponents).  They look to you to suggest who plays what.  If they both enjoy their games, you’ll be given a million bucks.  Is there a choice that increases you odds of getting the money, or might you as well flip a coin?

Damn you, Jay Bloodworth!!  If I said no, I’d be lying.

"I think women should be free to follow their career dreams and/or raise families as their hearts desire.”

I think that absolutely makes you a feminist, Valerie, and that’s a core belief, not just a grain of salt.  Of course, to me, “feminism” is far from a radical belief, but a simple statement of equality and equivalence; by that way of thinking, I’d say at least 90% of the people I know are feminists, whether they decribe themselves that way or not.  It’s not necessary to carry banners or burn bras in order to qualify as a feminist, although I have no problem with either of those activities; quiet belief of what seems to be an obvious truth is enough.

Asking what games women are likely to play is indeed contentious, but these queries aren’t necessarily bogus.  There ARE some differences between the sexes in game choice, but these (IMO) stem from societal pressures rather than differences in mental or psychological makeup.  In the U.S., at least, girls are still encouraged to avoid conflict and aggression, whereas boys are turned toward more of a “sic ‘em!” mentality.  This, to me, is completely equivalent to the fact that many Germans prefer less contentious games with little direct conflict; this doesn’t stem from any innate differences, but has to do with their society and teachings.  Of course it doesn’t apply to every case, but the tendencies are there.  It’ll be great when boys and girls are given the same world view, but for now, these generalities have some validity.  That has NOTHING, however, to do with the fact that men and women are equal on an even playing field, in gaming just as in other areas.

Generalizations can be valid when evaluating a bell curve, but not so much when evaluating a point on the bell curve.  When it comes to board games, you are at least two standard deviations above the norm.  But then again, so are we all.

Really interesting article. Those women I’ve met, which really like gaming aren’t really different to male gamers. The only difference is really that the female gamers are always much fewer. I’m lucky to have a partner who enjoys playing euro games now and then and helps me to arrange gaming days at our place, but she avoids heavy strategic games. She have been with me 3 times in Essen and a few local cosy gaming conventions (but definitivelt not the noisy conventiona which are in school buildings).

My partner and myself actually used to have another prejudice: that most gamers are IT people. Most of the persons I played with during the 90’s were collegues or friends to them and when my “gaming circle” increased to Gothenburg, then those were mainly working with IT or at least higher eduction like physicist, mathematicians etc. But the last years, especially when I start to play regularly in a local gaming club, I found out that in other “gaming circles”, the IT persons were rather exceptions. Here there were more people working in either health care or industry.

I have seen somewhere that among designers are teachers quite over represented, but I someetimes wonder how education and work is connected to the gaming interest.
/Carl

Val, really interesting topic that warrants examination.  I’ve heard surprising tales of women gamers being treated in a not-so-nice manner by male gamers.  (which I think is amazing considering you’d think that men would want more women involved in playing boardgames)

I was lucky enough to be raised in a family with very progressive women who all enjoy playing games.  One of my sisters, in fact, loves playing games of all kinds while her husband does not.

Something interesting that I noticed is that the game trade shows in the US seem to be much more heavily attended by males, whereas at Spiel in Essen, the percentage of women attendees is considerably higher.  So maybe it’s not so much a male/female thing, but rather an issue of nationality.

I’ve looked at the Women and Gaming forum too.  In fact, with Ann Hamon’s help, I wrote an article for Gamefest about Women and boardgames a while back.  My purpose was to elict more of a response to convince others to encourage more women to play boardgames.

That being said, I think there are fundamental differences in the games women typically like vs. what men/boys typically like.  Maybe it is promulgated by… or capitalized on (your pick)… by the major toy makers; but there is a substantive difference between games marketed for boys vs what is marketed and sold for girls.  And I think that that is OK.

What IS encouraging are boardgame companies that pay attention to themes that BOTH men and women can get into.  But truth be told, I bet if someone ran a survey about Age of Steam among the general populace, games like “Age of Steam” would be preferred by a much larger ratio of men over women.  And I don’t think there is anything condescending to women in making that assertion.  I always become wary when I think I see “group think” being exhibited. I think Jay Bloodworth’s comment was brilliant.

In closing:  I would say, however, that for Valerie personally… if she likes to play “Age of Steam”, more power to her!  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

This article did raise one interesting question for me,that drives ME nuts. 

In the Women and Gaming forum, I often see women start threads asking that the comments on the thread be made exclusively by other women only. 

Invariably, however, some guy (usually more than one) always has to jump in and make a comment on one of the thread items. 

Why is that?

Ryan:  I don’t pay much attention to the BGG forums, except for specific games.  However, I remember quite clearly that when the Women & Gaming forum was first announced, the admins were adamant that it not be considered a “women only” section; that the comments should be ABOUT women but not exclusively FROM them.  If threads requesting no male input are popping up routinely, then the initial terms of the forum are being violated, and that’s not cool.

That said, however, a guy who jumps into a thread for the sole purpose of irritating its other participants is guilty of a greater offense.

Valerie, do you have any comments about the role that a game’s theme and visual elements play in its likelihood (or perceived likelihood) to appeal to female gamers?

In my limited experience with female gamers, they usually go along with it if one or more of the guys at the table has a strong desire to play a particular game.  But, if she’s asked to express a preference, she’ll usually go with the prettiest/flashiest game at hand, whether or not she’s familiar with the actual content.

Of course, guys will do this sort of thing too.  I read all sorts of distressting comments about Celtica when it first came out, but bought it anyway because I couldn’t take my eyes off of those eye-melting photos on BGG.  The menfolk seem to require less persuasion to try a game that’s visually unappealing, though.

[BGG admin hat on]

The terms of the forum are not violated if a thread pops up asking for only female input. It’s no worse than a survey that wants female input only appearing in Chit-Chat, e.g., it’s not bad. Or, for that matter, a thread that asks for only male input.

So it’s cool.

Sensibly speaking, guys shouldn’t comment in a thread that’s asking for input *only* from women, because they 1) aren’t women and 2) nor should they speak for a woman or women, since input is most honest coming from its own source. (Instead, they should encourage the women in their lives to join BoardGameGeek!).

[BGG Admin hat off]

As for feminism, I came from a part of the country where, when I said “I think women should have equal rights where jobs and promotions are concerned”, thinking that was merely common sense, I was considered a dangerous outsider.  I got seriously lectured on how women are just helpmates (see, the Bible says so!  Or at least some translations do) and should not take the “upper hand” in any situation, apart from child-rearing.

That, of course, is an extreme.  But you can see gradations of that attitude around and abouts.  I consider it a present problem, but one that is dying out; the last remnants kick and scream all the louder for it.  Ever onwards, I say.

Which is not to say that sexism *isn’t* a problem, even on BGG. Or on the net, if you’re interested in things like comics, where the male presence tends to be accentuated.

I used to get by with seeing the occaisonal idiotic comments (okay, they aren’t always that occaisonal) by thinking “guy”.  For ages I kept up a male persona on BGG, because I didn’t really want to deal with the issues, and didn’t want to be viewed as a complicating factor in conversations.  Nowadays, as an admin, I have to be open and I have to deal.  It’s not fun, but you do what you have to.

Many BGGers are quite mature.  The majority, by far.  But you only need one idiot to sour things, and there are rather more than a few such.

Hi Eric,

I’m not Valerie, but I do not think that guys require less persuasion to try ugly games.  Or more persuasion.  Speaking as a gal and all that, who has gamed with gamer gals in serious gamer situations (like weekly game gatherings in Seattle, or convention settings like BGG.Con or the Gathering).

For non-gamers, I have a hard time convincing either gender to try an ugly game.  But if it’s shiny....

I guess I should have said “spirit” instead of “terms”; I dunno how many such threads there are.  Well, no big deal.  (I hope.)

I would expect female gamers who qualify as anything higher than “casual” to not attach too much significance to a game’s visual appeal.  The problem is, I don’t regularly game with any such women.  Not by choice, mind you; that’s just the way it is.

I would argue (and it seems to be supported by the stat geeks on bgg) that gamer girls do not differ significantly in the games they like from gamer boys.  Yes, Age of Steam was missing from a review of the top 20 games as rated by women on BGG, but Twilight Struggle was rated higher by women than by men.  So I maintain my position--the stereotypes about women and game or toy preferences don’t hold up when she is already identified as a hobbyist in a mostly male world.  You could argue that she might not fit the female stereotype in many other ways as well.

I will agree that the application of stereotypes to non-gaming males and non-gaming females might hold up better.  But I still maintain that non-gamer and woman are terms that should not be considered interchangeable.

Val wrote:
> Sometimes it is hard to know how to interact
> with the non-gaming spouses of our male gaming
> friends.

Cool, I recognize that thread! ;) I’m glad you found it “interesting”; I found the responses quite useful and used a couple to break the ice with non-gaming spouses. We even garnered a “convert”!

Well, I’m going to make a comment from a pensioner’s perspective - having started boardgaming when ‘femenist’ wasn’t a word in the dictionary.  I and my wife are now in our seventies as are many of our friends.

We play in two different groups.  One is with our friends from those times, so are of similar age.  Another is with a much younger group that comes to our house every Thursday - all just about 40 years old.

The interesting thing is that in the group of the pensioners with whom we have been playing for so very long, the wives always play and have always done so.

However, in our other group of folk just over half our age, who also meets on a weekly basis, not a single wife will agree to play games (apart from my own wife).  This I think is sad for the guys, considering that they so much enjoy playing that they are prepared to travel for 1 hour here and back in order to do so. 

And whilst it might seem strange that young guys are prepared to travel so far to play with a couple of golden-oldies they know they have to be on their metal, as was shown when my wife (at 72) slaughtered everybody at DIE MACHER a few weeks back, and then rubbed salt into the wound with a devastating win at TYRANNO EX the following week!

OK - I’m not so daft as to think that each of the groups I refer to were either typical or a-typical.  But in our case I think we were at the tail end of several generations where games playing (and this usually meant cards) was a standard pastime for everybody in the family.  (Just think of the success of CANASTA) Some folk might not have enjoyed it as much as others but nobody had any hang-up about it - everybody was prepared to play a game.  It was no big deal!

But in our children’s generation I have noticed that whereas many of the men enjoy a game of some sort their wives (who are vastly better educated than any of the women in my extended family) not only don’t share that enthusiasm but positively refuse to play - almost being frightened of the prospect.  I’m thoroughly delighted when we find an exception.

- Derek

Fascinating observation, Derek!  Let’s just hope that the hobby is coming full circle and gaming once again becomes a family activity--as innocuous as watching tv.

Thanks for this discussion, Valarie.  We’ve just started a new site to help people find local gamers, and I’ve been thinking a lot about how to make sure it’s a welcoming place for gamers of both genders.  Balanced viewpoints such as your own seem a bit rare on this topic, so I’m happy to see a middle ground does exist.