For the purposes of this topic's question, I will say that no, there are not many women who play X-Wing at tournaments. These could be for various reasons, but I suspect it goes back to "wargaming" in general not being an atmosphere or environment that feels welcoming.

As opposed to, say, women (statistically as a group, not individuals of course) simply may not care for war-gaming as a hobby?

Consider hobbies that are historically female centric (and no, I'm not going to mention any - pick one you in your head). Got it? Do you think that somewhere on a message board that female-rich environment is worried and discussing that they have not created an atmosphere or environment that feels welcoming to the under represented male population?

Or do you think they are just doing their hobby as it is?

This is a good response and I take your point. I'm fully willing to accept that many women don't particularly care for wargaming. What I'm saying is that for those women that do, there's no reason why we as a community couldn't be welcoming and, to an extent, accommodating.

Generally treating people courteously and with respect is a positive thing. Telling them to "not be so offended" because "this is how it is", is very much not. That mentality of I shouldn't have to change my behaviour just because x feels y is, in my opinion, a problem.

Had a yogurt for a snack and then had some stir fry rice my buddy made before we played a game of X-Wing. Just had an icecream sandwich and we're going to be cooking up a pizza from Costco soon.

I'm always leery of Big Box Store food products... is it any good? Is it store brand?

For the purposes of this topic's question, I will say that no, there are not many women who play X-Wing at tournaments. These could be for various reasons, but I suspect it goes back to "wargaming" in general not being an atmosphere or environment that feels welcoming.

As opposed to, say, women (statistically as a group, not individuals of course) simply may not care for war-gaming as a hobby?

Consider hobbies that are historically female centric (and no, I'm not going to mention any - pick one you in your head). Got it? Do you think that somewhere on a message board that female-rich environment is worried and discussing that they have not created an atmosphere or environment that feels welcoming to the under represented male population?

Or do you think they are just doing their hobby as it is?

This is a good response and I take your point. I'm fully willing to accept that many women don't particularly care for wargaming. What I'm saying is that for those women that do, there's no reason why we as a community couldn't be welcoming and, to an extent, accommodating.

Generally treating people courteously and with respect is a positive thing. Telling them to "not be so offended" because "this is how it is", is very much not. That mentality of I shouldn't have to change my behaviour just because x feels y is, in my opinion, a problem.

Agreed.

Had a yogurt for a snack and then had some stir fry rice my buddy made before we played a game of X-Wing. Just had an icecream sandwich and we're going to be cooking up a pizza from Costco soon.

I'm always leery of Big Box Store food products... is it any good? Is it store brand?

Store brand and pretty much the best pizza around this area. Also one of the nest pizza's I've had. (Note I Havent been to places like Chicago where pizza is supposed to be life changing and the last time I was in New York I was 2 years old.)

The other choices in this area are Publix, Wal-Mart, various frozen pizzas found in most grocery stores and Dominoes/Little Caesar's/Papa Johns. Out of those other choices, I would prefer Papa Johns. The cheap cost of Little Caesar's makes it great for boardgame nights however.

Read thread title and OP. Also read page 8. Very confused but uninterested to learn how "how many females play X-Wing" turned into what we're eating for our current meals.

As for what I'm sure is the past 8 pages of internetters arguing about political correctness and respect for all genders/identities/etc: Keep it outside of the plastic spaceship forums. Long story short: Consider your words and actions, and recognize that you should always respect others, but don't let it go so far that it clouds your ability to laugh and loosen up in the proper contexts. Also don't take your progressive attitude so far that you're actually counteracting the very thing you're striving for. I recently read an amazing article on how taking sensitivity too far on college campuses is not just coddling young people, but driving them to deeper and more ingrained anxiety and ignorance by avoiding those touchy subjects.

Aaaaaaanyway:

I haven't seen any ladyfolk playing at my very limited tournament experience, but my girlfriend will play with me on occasion. TONS of girls are into Star Wars, but I think the strategic and spatial recognition (read: maneuvering) elements are what turn some of them off. Female brains, on average, are less adept at spacial reasoning and find it more difficult to interpret where things will be when planning - this is scientifically proven (to be fair, women have far superior sensory abilities and interpersonal skills because they can better read expressions and emotional states, yada yada it's all tied back to evolution and the female nurturing traditions vs. the male hunting/gathering skills).

Had a yogurt for a snack and then had some stir fry rice my buddy made before we played a game of X-Wing. Just had an icecream sandwich and we're going to be cooking up a pizza from Costco soon.

I'm always leery of Big Box Store food products... is it any good? Is it store brand?

Store brand and pretty much the best pizza around this area. Also one of the nest pizza's I've had. (Note I Havent been to places like Chicago where pizza is supposed to be life changing and the last time I was in New York I was 2 years old.)

The other choices in this area are Publix, Wal-Mart, various frozen pizzas found in most grocery stores and Dominoes/Little Caesar's/Papa Johns. Out of those other choices, I would prefer Papa Johns. The cheap cost of Little Caesar's makes it great for boardgame nights however.

I lived in Chitown for 2 years, honestly had some amazing store-bought frozen pizza that was amazing, and there was an incredible thin-crust pizza/brewery around the corner to die for... not to mention the heaven that is a good sausage deep dish 'za.

Had a yogurt for a snack and then had some stir fry rice my buddy made before we played a game of X-Wing. Just had an icecream sandwich and we're going to be cooking up a pizza from Costco soon.

I'm always leery of Big Box Store food products... is it any good? Is it store brand?

Store brand and pretty much the best pizza around this area. Also one of the nest pizza's I've had. (Note I Havent been to places like Chicago where pizza is supposed to be life changing and the last time I was in New York I was 2 years old.)

The other choices in this area are Publix, Wal-Mart, various frozen pizzas found in most grocery stores and Dominoes/Little Caesar's/Papa Johns. Out of those other choices, I would prefer Papa Johns. The cheap cost of Little Caesar's makes it great for boardgame nights however.

I lived in Chitown for 2 years, honestly had some amazing store-bought frozen pizza that was amazing, and there was an incredible thin-crust pizza/brewery around the corner to die for... not to mention the heaven that is a good sausage deep dish 'za.

You know, there was a decent pizza I had a few months back in downtown Fort Myers. Can't remember the name of the place though.

This thread. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.

What a friggin' dumpster fire of a thread. This is proof that there are stupid questions, and it shows the dangerous places they can go.

I'm willing to extrapolate our local board gaming community as a generic local gaming community. We're all gamers - girls and guys aren't viewed as girls and guys - but as people to play games with.

X-wing is a niche here, miniatures is a smaller subset of board gamers. Many board gamers are willing to try - but not everyone gets hooked on the idea. There are fewer X-wing players than general board game players. There are fewer female players in general, so the subset of female x-wing players is even smaller. They're willing to try - and some will enjoy the game, and some won't.

Personally, We are looking at a subset of players who - Like / love star wars, enjoy space fighter combat, like one on one competition, like to represent that with little ships, enjoy a pokeresque game, enjoy dice games, enjoy crafting lists to fly, enjoy the blind movement / spatial relationship aspect of the game. My wife - is meh on star wars, not big into one v one competition, and would rather play something like Carcassonne, Tikal, Dixit or Coup than create space battles. - She will occasionally play the game with me, because she knows I enjoy it - but I would never ask her to play in a tournament, because I know she doesn't enjoy it.

Any woman who desired to play in an X-wing tournament here would be fully welcomed as another X-wing player, How many of you agree with that statement? While there may be no caribou / ocelot / mice that play X-wing, (which is why we don't see them at tournaments) - the Female X-wing player is probably also just - rare - which is why we don't often see them at tournaments.

There are a myriad reasons for this, often coming down to scheduling and priorities. I'm sure there are toxic communities that are unwelcoming to women / full of misogynistic jerks. Leaving alone the seperate issue of why there aren't more femae gamers in general, I'm willing to bet that most of the X-wing community is fairly mature, well reasoned and embody the spirit of "fly casual." - To which we can conclude, perhaps X-wing just needs more promotion in general, a larger group of players may not increase the ratio of male to female, but it will increase the number of players!

Neil Gaiman:

...I thought, "That’s not actually anything to do with 'political correctness'. That’s just treating other people with respect." Which made me oddly happy. I started imagining a world in which we replaced the phrase "politically correct" wherever we could with "treating other people with respect", and it made me smile.

You should try it. It’s peculiarly enlightening.

I would substitute "courtesy" for "respect", there, but otherwise I endorse this entirely.

I don't care for topics like this one I am in here BUT I have to point out that you don't actually endorse his ideology. Just about every topic I see you in you make personal attacks, or follow people around that do worse than what I have seen you do, hell you cheer them on sometimes. Its one thing to attack someones idea or hypothesis about a subjects, buts its extremely disrespectful the first thing you see out of these peoples mouths is a personal attack.

Neil Gaiman:

...I thought, "That’s not actually anything to do with 'political correctness'. That’s just treating other people with respect." Which made me oddly happy. I started imagining a world in which we replaced the phrase "politically correct" wherever we could with "treating other people with respect", and it made me smile.

You should try it. It’s peculiarly enlightening.

I would substitute "courtesy" for "respect", there, but otherwise I endorse this entirely.

I don't care for topics like this one I am in here BUT I have to point out that you don't actually endorse his ideology. Just about every topic I see you in you make personal attacks...

Not until someone has thoroughly earned it, and usually not even then. For instance, if someone accused me of calling names rather than contributing to conversations, I could snap right back at that person, or I could roll my eyes and then treat him as if he's actually trying to have a conversation.

...or follow people around that do worse than what I have seen you do, hell you cheer them on sometimes.

Only if they're really funny. Also, I'm not sure who you mean unless it's WonderWAAAGH, who hasn't been around for weeks.

Its one thing to attack someones idea or hypothesis about a subjects...

Right, which is why you'll almost always find me talking about arguments without evidence or about specific actions rather than calling someone an idiot. I'm often blunt and occasionally even rude (although again, I usually try to cut people some slack, especially if they're new), but I do actually try to make it about ideas and arguments rather than personalities.

...buts its extremely disrespectful the first thing you see out of these peoples mouths is a personal attack.

I'd also like to point out that, of the two of us, only one decided to take this thread and make it about someone in particular.

EDIT: Okay, one more thing. Posting here isn't a popularity contest, and being popular doesn't prevent anyone from also being a bully. But I'd like to note that (as I write this) I have 4,598 posts here, and 8,893 "likes"--on average, that's almost 2 likes per post. From where I'm standing, that makes it at least somewhat less plausible that "Just about every topic I see you in you make personal attacks".

So yeah, sexism is real, but it isn't always the root of what happens to offend someone. And yes, i know my example above is not sexism, but a way to make my point about assumptions.

The behavior you describe is plainly sexist. The loan officer being a woman doesn't change that.

So yeah, sexism is real, but it isn't always the root of what happens to offend someone. And yes, i know my example above is not sexism, but a way to make my point about assumptions.

The behavior you describe is plainly sexist. The loan officer being a woman doesn't change that.

A lot of people still think women aren't capable of being sexist, and that minorities aren't capable of being racist.

You humans disgust me, what with your using of multiple orifices for different bodily functions when us sea slugs can eat, crap, breathe and breed all with the same ultra-efficient hole!

The best part about all the jokes in this thread is not just the misogyny, but that fact that they're also just very tired, unoriginal and not very good jokes.

Like, it's tiring, if I want to play a game I just want to play the game, not get cheesy jokes or get talked down to just cause I happen to be a woman. And it doesn't help that miniature games are still very commonly seen as a guy thing, that does put people off.

I find it interesting, from a sociological perspective, that your comments have been essentially ignored.

Happens quite often in this kind of thread.

Read thread title and OP. Also read page 8. Very confused but uninterested to learn how "how many females play X-Wing" turned into what we're eating for our current meals.

As for what I'm sure is the past 8 pages of internetters arguing about political correctness and respect for all genders/identities/etc: Keep it outside of the plastic spaceship forums. Long story short: Consider your words and actions, and recognize that you should always respect others, but don't let it go so far that it clouds your ability to laugh and loosen up in the proper contexts. Also don't take your progressive attitude so far that you're actually counteracting the very thing you're striving for. I recently read an amazing article on how taking sensitivity too far on college campuses is not just coddling young people, but driving them to deeper and more ingrained anxiety and ignorance by avoiding those touchy subjects.

The internet. Home to off-topic deviations since 1976 (or so). But interesting point regarding the increased anxiety. Got the link?

Aaaaaaanyway:

I haven't seen any ladyfolk playing at my very limited tournament experience, but my girlfriend will play with me on occasion. TONS of girls are into Star Wars, but I think the strategic and spatial recognition (read: maneuvering) elements are what turn some of them off. Female brains, on average, are less adept at spacial reasoning and find it more difficult to interpret where things will be when planning - this is scientifically proven (to be fair, women have far superior sensory abilities and interpersonal skills because they can better read expressions and emotional states, yada yada it's all tied back to evolution and the female nurturing traditions vs. the male hunting/gathering skills).

In all honesty, the female players I've played at tournaments range from bottom of the barrel to coolly professional and efficient. They have fun. They don't freak out. As for innate biological differences... they're real but they're small. And look to be getting smaller. Seriously, there are a higher proportion of female air force pilots than women and girls at X-Wing tournaments. There are other issues at work than minor brain differences as to why females don't feature a lot in a game of plastic spaceships and manchildren like myself.

A lot of people still think women aren't capable of being sexist, and that minorities aren't capable of being racist.

What you've got here is a similar situation to when Young-Earth Creationists claim that evolution is "only a theory". You're confusing the way the word is used in common discourse with the way it's being used in a more specialised setting.

Feminist theory draws a distinction between sexism and prejudice. Sexism is prejudice backed up by institutional power, which men as a class have but women as a class do not. By that definition, a woman can't be sexist against men because she doesn't have "the system" lending its weight to her individual prejudice.

In my experience, the vast majority of the time someone says "women can't be sexist" they do NOT mean "Women can't be prejudiced against men" or "Prejudice against men isn't bad and wrong". Within-a-rounding-error-of-nobody believes that. They generally mean something along the lines of "Look, we're talking about wider issues and societal trends here, so kindly stop trying to derail the conversation by making it all about how Men Suffer Prejudice Too because that's really not germane to the subject at hand."

If you're interested, there's a better explanation of why feminists draw a distinction between "sexism" and "prejudice" here: https://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/sexism-definition/

TL;DR - "Women can't be sexist" <> "Women can't be prejudiced against men" or "Prejudice against men isn't wrong".

We're now wiiiiiiiildly off-topic for a miniatures game messageboard, so probably best if I leave it there.

A lot of people still think women aren't capable of being sexist, and that minorities aren't capable of being racist.

What you've got here is a similar situation to when Young-Earth Creationists claim that evolution is "only a theory". You're confusing the way the word is used in common discourse with the way it's being used in a more specialised setting.

Feminist theory draws a distinction between sexism and prejudice. Sexism is prejudice backed up by institutional power, which men as a class have but women as a class do not. By that definition, a woman can't be sexist against men because she doesn't have "the system" lending its weight to her individual prejudice.

In my experience, the vast majority of the time someone says "women can't be sexist" they do NOT mean "Women can't be prejudiced against men" or "Prejudice against men isn't bad and wrong". Within-a-rounding-error-of-nobody believes that. They generally mean something along the lines of "Look, we're talking about wider issues and societal trends here, so kindly stop trying to derail the conversation by making it all about how Men Suffer Prejudice Too because that's really not germane to the subject at hand."

If you're interested, there's a better explanation of why feminists draw a distinction between "sexism" and "prejudice" here: https://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/sexism-definition/

TL;DR - "Women can't be sexist" <> "Women can't be prejudiced against men" or "Prejudice against men isn't wrong".

We're now wiiiiiiiildly off-topic for a miniatures game messageboard, so probably best if I leave it there.

I've read 1984. So I'm quite fluent in doublespeak.

Enough to know when someone says "that isn't relevant" sometimes means "that hurts my argument"

A lot of people still think women aren't capable of being sexist, and that minorities aren't capable of being racist.

What you've got here is a similar situation to when Young-Earth Creationists claim that evolution is "only a theory". You're confusing the way the word is used in common discourse with the way it's being used in a more specialised setting.

Feminist theory draws a distinction between sexism and prejudice. Sexism is prejudice backed up by institutional power, which men as a class have but women as a class do not. By that definition, a woman can't be sexist against men because she doesn't have "the system" lending its weight to her individual prejudice.

In my experience, the vast majority of the time someone says "women can't be sexist" they do NOT mean "Women can't be prejudiced against men" or "Prejudice against men isn't bad and wrong". Within-a-rounding-error-of-nobody believes that. They generally mean something along the lines of "Look, we're talking about wider issues and societal trends here, so kindly stop trying to derail the conversation by making it all about how Men Suffer Prejudice Too because that's really not germane to the subject at hand."

If you're interested, there's a better explanation of why feminists draw a distinction between "sexism" and "prejudice" here: https://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/sexism-definition/

TL;DR - "Women can't be sexist" <> "Women can't be prejudiced against men" or "Prejudice against men isn't wrong".

We're now wiiiiiiiildly off-topic for a miniatures game messageboard, so probably best if I leave it there.

Great explanation though, so worth contributing.

The one pictured on the left, Zoe Quinn, is a sociopath most well known for emotionally abusing her mentally ill boyfriend... The one on the right, Anita Sarkeesian is a former promoter of teleseminars whose found a niche market of women she can exploit for profit in the name of feminism... In case anyone didn't know who they were...

^not to mention being puppeted and ghostwritten by a guy who makes Billy Madison look like a genius.

I think the feminism they practice was grafted from a Zack Snyder movie.

Welp, the last 3 posts killed the thread once and for all. Let's all move on with our lives, slightly less happy knowing some people in our hobby believe strange nonsense that definitely has no place on a miniatures forum.

The movie is "Sucker Punch"

Welp, the last 3 posts killed the thread once and for all. Let's all move on with our lives, slightly less happy knowing some people in our hobby believe strange nonsense that definitely has no place on a miniatures forum.

While I agree with your last point, in what universe do facts qualify as nonsense?

Welp, the last 3 posts killed the thread once and for all. Let's all move on with our lives, slightly less happy knowing some people in our hobby believe strange nonsense that definitely has no place on a miniatures forum.

While I agree with your last point, in what universe do facts qualify as nonsense?

I believe someone already provided a link to feminist theory.