Ania, on her blog writes about garnering more female players.
I am a huge fan of hers, and her amazing art work for many of my favorite games. Ania’s art design philosophy is 2nd to none. This recent post, is clearly meant to start a conversation, so lets have one shall we?
While there is no doubt that more wargamers of all stripes is a desirable outcome, is there a burning issue with it being mostly male dominated? Does anyone really care? I dont know the answer to that. Some decent efforts at exploring this are on the Facebook Wargamers group, where the blog post has generated 185 comments so far.
So lets assume that we obviously want more wargamers, wargaming, and that we want more of them to be female.
Where is the recruiting pool?
History buffs? RPG players? PC game players, or Euro gamers?
Ania suggests two things to help- dealing with how other non female wargamers treat female wargamers, and supporting female bloggers/youtubers.
Treat a female opponent the same way you would treat a male one
Looking at the solution presented :
1. Treat them like you treat any other player you play…hmm well in my group some of the guys burp, swear and shout at each other.
So no… I cannot do that as I would like to think I am a gentleman and wont burp or swear excessively around women. Yep..Im gunna treat you not like one of the guys.
Oh and yes, I know sorry ass guys, but beggars cannot be choosers hey Pete, Austin and co!!
1.1 – Do not flirt with a woman or claim they won due to distracting good looks. – Really?
Give me a break for goodness sake. We may be male but we [or at least I am not ] are not teenagers. If males are treating women this way, shame on them. Or are some women so uncomfortable that you cannot or wont accept that any male could just roll dice and not give a shit about your feminine wiles? All the gamers I know, would treat a woman respectfully, and expect the same in return.
2. Support female bloggers I’ve been supportive for 3 of the 3. One however uses manipulative tactics, shaming and foments drama to generate reads on what is an otherwise solid blog [ I no longer reference, bump or mention said blog] . That blogger also will not enter into ANY conversation that has an alternate view on their opinion on anything. Makes discussion a hard thing to have.
Sadly I don’t see much these days of @WarGamerGirl or @FushigiTerebi [Fushigi I know is dealing with motherhood at the moment but I can hope we see her back at some point with a budding new wargamer! ] are two other excellent youtubers in the wargame genre.
As others have mentioned, if females have an interest this page, the Wargamers on Facebook group and many others are wide open and welcoming. Introduce yourself and lets find a game to play!
I’ve personally taught wargames to females, spent time swapping notes with them on game design, blogging, equipment and even at one point had a regular google hangout going with 2 ladies and a group of men. Not once did I hear see or sense anything that would dissuade a woman from joining in. They are gamers first as it should be.
So how do we get more females into gaming of the military kind?
I think the crossover point has become games in the COIN realm from GMT Games. The game play feels less confrontational than many ‘wargames’, they have a resource management aspect that is somewhat familiar, hand management and it delves into some cool history and topics.
These topics are at the outset perhaps more appealing than Kursk battles or the obscura some hardcore blokes are into. The same could be said for Churchill and Pericles. A great starting point full of rich gaming which can lead to exploration of other topics, and sets of mechanics.
These types of titles are great ‘heart starters’ for budding wargamers, as they need to think strategically, act locally [ in the given areas] and work as a team to some extent.
There are so many different types of people, who like wargames. The male contingent has a plethora of ‘reasons why I wargame’ ; History, mechanics, alt outcome options, learning, OCD therapy you name it.
If we assume women have equally broad interests, then finding a silver bullet to attract them is going to be hard. I suggest we simply start with polite conversation, exploration of mutual interest and then suggest something approachable as a game and see how it goes, then perhaps play a game that person likes to learn more about what makes them tick.
Well said… and there is not much that I can add to it. I am one of the two administrators of the aforementioned Facebook Wargamers Group, which has in excess of 10,000 members. I do not know, without spending a couple of hours going through the lists, what percentage of the Group are female, but I do see many posts by women and wish that there were more.
Occasionally, I intervene when the “Children’s Department” as I call them, act like prepubescent teenagers when an image of a female playing a wargame appears and I tend to treat them with the contempt that they deserve. Luckily, these occasions are few and far between. In the sixties (yes I am THAT old) I was a member of a Wargaming club just outside Manchester which had a few female members and these were treated exactly the same as the male members and were not spared some good-natured ribbing because of their gender, but the point is that it was good-natured and game related and NOT sexist.
Another good game to induce any member to stray from the Dark Side and play Wargames is Polis, which I regard as a Euro with bloodshed. One thing I didn’t mention about the Manchester club is that it was a group of Miniature Wargamers, who played with wee sodjers, as I like to call them. With that in mind, I feel that it should be easier to attract a larger group of female players to the boardgaming side of the hobby.
Regards,
Jim O’Neill (69 going on 13 and always a gentleman).