Wow, it took me so long to get through this thread, I had to stop for a snack in the middle (While your character doesn't have to eat, remember that YOU do. We don't want to lose any dedicate players
). Anyway, I realize it's kind of old (I waded through pages and pages from over a year ago), but now that I've found it through the KOTOR forum, I'd like to make a few comments (well, maybe more than a few; a long thread merits a long response).
Following Larry Summer's controversial remarks regarding women in math, I read some articles citing evidence (note the word choice: evidence, not proof) that there are differences between the brains of men and women. (Since it relates to gaming, I'll share that one of the studies described in a Newsweek article showed that men were on average naturally better at Tetris than women, but with practice, women could get as good as men). Now, this is my own speculation, but I think it's possible that the differences in men and women's brains are the result of social conditioning, rather than the cause of all the social differences. I guess it's all a very current research topic, and little if anything is known for sure. And since I am far from an expert on this topic, I will get off this particular subject and back to the apparent difference in the number of female vs. male gamers.
Social conditioning, I think, greatly affects a person's interest in violent entertainment and affects what games a person is interested in. Back in the day, man's physical strength made him the better hunter, while woman (perhaps with her better sense of smell, or something else appropriate) would be the gatherer, which would also give her the opportunity to take along and care for her children. That's very simplified, I know, but it may be one of the roots of the issue at hand. Society is full of gender difference concepts. There's some old rhyme about boys being made of snakes and snails and puppy-dog tales, or something to that effect, and girls being made of sugar and spice and everything nice. There's the whole men from Mars, women from Venus thing. There also are definite differences in upbringing I can find in my personal history. For instance, my dad would read us each a bedtime story when we were in elementary school. He read Lord of the Rings to my brothers, but Secret Garden and A Little Princess to me (I still turned out okay
). A couple of my friends and I once each took this "geek test" we found online, where it lists a bunch of statements that you check off if it applies to you, and at the end, it had something like "I am a female geek" to give you a bunch of extra points; clearly, it sees a girl geek as a rarer, more bizarre specimen than a regular old male geek (though I felt no shame in giving myself the extra points
). And it's true (somewhere in the thread, someone commented on this), our first family PC was given to my older brother for his birthday, and our second was given, years later, to my younger brother for his birthday. Our Sega Genesis belonged to my older brother, the PlayStation to my younger. I did get a GameBoy along the way, but note the BOY
. It's hard to convey mood and tone of voice through writing (that's why I'm putting in all the smilies
), so I want to make it clear that I'm not an angry or bitter feminist, merely a merrily musing
mild feminist. Really, I suppose I somewhat enjoy being a bit of a minority.
I guess I owe my interest in computer games (RPGs mainly, other games too, most of which involve some level of violence) and fantasy/sci-fi in general partly to my brother, who as my main playmate (I lived with him after all) often made me play what he wanted to play. While I did have, and enjoy, my Barbies, when the other girls in pre-school wanted to play dress-up, I wanted to play Star Wars. I think that without my brothers, whom society was in a way encouraging to get into computer games and RPGs, I, as a girl growing up in the same society, might not have had the exposure necessary to get me interested in these things.
So why are computer games, especially RPGs, seemingly such a male thing in our society? My simplistic theory, which of course has exceptions, is that in the beginning, programmers were all males, since women hadn't much gotten into that field yet, so the men made games that were best for other males. This made more males attracted to the field, so they in turn made more games for males, etc., etc.
I'd like to digress a little and discuss this concept of games geared towards males. I think at some point in the thread, someone suggested that Tomb Raider was geared towards female players. Yes, Lara Croft is a woman. But she was not made for women. As others pointed out, she and many other video game women were designed by men for the enjoyment of other men. And for anyone who suggests that women are turned off of games with characters such as Lara because of jealousy, I'd like to say it is not envy but disgust. Looking at it a certain way, it is offensive that the males who designed her and the many more males who greatly enjoy that design seem to think that a kick-butt woman like Lara should have boulder-sized breasts (no woman has done anything bad enough to deserve breasts as cumbersome as hers
). Also, as to the discussion about how girls may be more interested in games with good stories and guys more interested in plain violence, I guess I have to say that I do prefer games like BG2 (though Anomen was a prick, IMO--so much for liking the romance), but that doesn't keep me from playing Diablo II through mulitple times. And as for stereotyping the types of characters girls play, my favorite BG2 character was a kensai, but in Diablo II I liked playing the sorceress, so go figure. I'm not sure I had any point in the last couple bits, so, end of digression.
Anyway, as women get into gaming and programming, and as society slowly changes expectations (and these two things build upon one another) I think the ratio of female to male gamers will continue to grow towards equality.
P.S. Sorry I went on so much. I must be in a chatty mood.
