RPGs... Male dominated

Galuf the Dwarf · Post by **Galuf the Dwarf** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 9:31 am

[QUOTE=fable]By coincidence, Microsoft sent out a press release today touching upon all this. It reads, in part:

Recent surveys have shown a tremendous surge of female gamers, and contrary to the common perception of video gaming, women make up nearly 40 percent of all video and computer gamers. On Microsoft's Zone.com, two out of every three online gamers are female, and roughly 60% of all online gamers are over the age of 35.

This not only explodes the myth of RPGs being male-dominated, but also the one about the extreme youth of gamers as a group.[/QUOTE]

Interesting. However, by that common age for Zone.com (along with the amount of female gamers), I would presume this could be a case of the 'housewife after the kids left the nest' gamer?

fable · Post by **fable** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 9:40 am

What makes you think women wouldn't few games as simply a form of relaxing entertainment, instead of television? We have at least several women on this board who enjoy playing while the kids are at school, or after they're asleep.

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 11:41 am

[QUOTE=fable]What makes you think women wouldn't few games as simply a form of relaxing entertainment, instead of television? We have at least several women on this board who enjoy playing while the kids are at school, or after they're asleep.[/QUOTE]
Indeed! Equally, gaming is a good way to unwind after work.
I rarely watch TV. If I want to do something somewhat mindless and escapist (and I'm too tired to read) , my first choice tends to be an RPG.

This brings me to another point though....
I often equate an FPS with watching TV in that neither really require much mental interaction. For me, it is not the blood and gore of an FPS that turns me away from the genre, it is more that mindlessly killing things without any real purpose or storyline bores me.

So I am wondering what sort of breakdown exists between FPS types of games and RPGs....
Some people will undoubtedly argue that gender plays a role, but I'm just as inclined to think that culture, educational background, personality and interests would be at work.
For example, I have long enjoyed well-written crime fiction.. so RPGs are a natural progression for me.

Galuf the Dwarf · Post by **Galuf the Dwarf** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 9:04 pm

[QUOTE=fable]What makes you think women wouldn't few games as simply a form of relaxing entertainment, instead of television? We have at least several women on this board who enjoy playing while the kids are at school, or after they're asleep.[/QUOTE]

Sorry fable, but there's plenty to this world that I still don't understand, especially when it comes to juggling a family.

I'm only 20, so I've got a ways to go, in that respect.

Still, no offense in any shape or form is/was intended with any statement in this post or the previous one.

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 8:40 am

[QUOTE=Ekental]Anyway, I just can't see an equal representation of the sexes in RPGs... maybe your server is unnaturally gifted with a more equal division but most of the servers I'm on are predominatedly male,
As for science eliminating bias, science IS a bias all in of itself, just wanted to point that out[/QUOTE]

Considering all the evidence from game companies and marketing investigations, online sites and survey data, it is surprising that you "can't see" an equal representation of the sexes in RPG:s...do you think that RPG:s are more male dominated than for instance action games or strategy games? Another possibility is also that the servers you play on have a skew sample so there are more males than in average.

Can you explain how science is a bias in itself? As I am sure you know, the term "bias" means "a partiality that prevents objective consideration of an issue or situation". This partiality can be a in the form of prejudice, preconceptions, emotions, opinions, skewness in selection, etc. The scientific method is defined and set up in a way that minimise the influence of all such factors. So what exactly is it that you are aiming to point out?

Monolith · Post by **Monolith** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 9:05 am

[QUOTE=dragon wench]This brings me to another point though....
I often equate an FPS with watching TV in that neither really require much mental interaction. For me, it is not the blood and gore of an FPS that turns me away from the genre, it is more that mindlessly killing things without any real purpose or storyline bores me.
[/QUOTE]
You haven't played Max Payne yet, have you? I'm not a FPS-Fan, but I like to play a shooter from time to time ( when I'm in a certain 'I-don't-want-to-think-and-do-anything-right-now...'-mood). Then I usually play Postal 2 or Quake 3 Arena. But Max Payne was totally different. I played it because of the great story, the atmosphere - the role you're put in. I felt as if I were in a good action-movie or book. An incredible game...

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 10:27 am

The only reason I played Max Payne was bullet time ... besides that it was to easy (especially with bullet time) and to short, and thus I didn't bother playing it through anymore then once.... money out the window - bah @ short games.

Whops - sorry for the OT

[QUOTE=C Elegans]Considering all the evidence from game companies and marketing investigations, online sites and survey data, it is surprising that you "can't see" an equal representation of the sexes in RPG:s...do you think that RPG:s are more male dominated than for instance action games or strategy games? Another possibility is also that the servers you play on have a skew sample so there are more males than in average. <snip>[/quote]

I think the reason is that (many) people use their own personal experiences as references, instead of looking up surveys and statistics. If in your own "social circle" you only see males play computer games, or the online experiences you have seems to be dominated by (apparently) males - then it is "easy" to conclude that such scenes are male dominated.

Monolith · Post by **Monolith** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 2:21 pm

[QUOTE=Xandax]The only reason I played Max Payne was bullet time ... besides that it was to easy (especially with bullet time) and to short, and thus I didn't bother playing it through anymore then once.... money out the window - bah @ short games.
[/QUOTE]

Well, I played it twice, the first time the clean version and the second time with the kung-fu mod installed. Yes, it is short, but it has everything - at least in my opinion. Thus it was worth the money...
Isn't it the same with most books? Usually I need about two days for a book with 400 pages - if I'm really into that book. It's seldom that I read a book oftener than once. Money out of the window? Well, I like to have the book in my bookcase, knowing that I supported the author... ( if the book really was worth that money...).

Enough OT.

There's something I almost forgot about. I saw documentation about gender differences a while back. It was a studie ( at least I had the impression that it was) which showed differences in behaviour between young males and females ( they were about 5 years, later about 10 old [ this are just guesses, I don't know the proper numbers anymore]).

The results showed that girls/women are more...uhh...a vocabulary is lacking here....public-spirited? More sensetive to social...affairs (?), emotions and that they can control their emotions better. They backed this up with reactions of young boys to girls which were of the same age. While the girl standed still, the boys were to go to the girl. As soon as they felt uncomfortable with the distance they should stop. Later they did the same experiment vice versa. The difference was astonishing. The girls came much nearer the boys then the boys came to the girls. I'm talking about a difference of many meters. The distance became greater and greater the older the boys were. I guess that there were more experiments, but I forgot about the others...

As far as I can remember they said that this behaviour is related to upbringing and the way parents deal with either a boy or a girl. For instance girls get dolls, while boys get cars. I'm not entirely sure about this though. They could have mentioned a relation to gender differences on a neuronal basis, but well, just like I said, it's a while back...

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 5:56 pm

[QUOTE=Monolith]The results showed that girls/women are more...uhh...a vocabulary is lacking here....public-spirited? More sensetive to social...affairs (?), emotions and that they can control their emotions better. They backed this up with reactions of young boys to girls which were of the same age. While the girl standed still, the boys were to go to the girl. As soon as they felt uncomfortable with the distance they should stop. Later they did the same experiment vice versa. The difference was astonishing. The girls came much nearer the boys then the boys came to the girls. I'm talking about a difference of many meters. The distance became greater and greater the older the boys were. I guess that there were more experiments, but I forgot about the others...

As far as I can remember they said that this behaviour is related to upbringing and the way parents deal with either a boy or a girl. For instance girls get dolls, while boys get cars. I'm not entirely sure about this though. They could have mentioned a relation to gender differences on a neuronal basis, but well, just like I said, it's a while back...[/QUOTE]

Gender studies of children demonstrate the same sociocultural influence as gender studies of adults. This is because social conditioning of gender roles start even before a child is born. Studies of parental behaviour show clearly that adults start to gender sterotype their kids already during pregnancy. Parents tend to think things like "I wonder if it's going to be a boy or a girl - it would be interesting to know whether one should prepare for playing hockey or buying little pink dresses". Then, as soon as the baby is born, adults around the kid starts to socialise the child into the respective gender pattern in that society. Little boys in the Western world gets encouraged by parents, relatives and preschool teachers to behave "boyish". A girl who shows physical aggression gets punished by the adults to a much larger extent than a boy. A boy who is a "crybaby" and hides behind his mother, is described as "shy, needs support, is week", whereas a girl who shows the same behaviour is described as "sweet, cute and lovable".

Some very interesting studies have been done of children below age 1 year. In so small children, it's impossible to see gender differences unless you change diapers on them. In the lab, children were divided into two groups, half boys and half girls in each groups. Adult subjects were instructed by the staff that all of the kids in group A were girls, and all of the children in group B were boys. In reality, half of the babies had another gender from what the adults were told. The result was that the adults behaved totally differentely towards the babies depending on what sex they thought baby had, regardless of the real sex of the baby. When they though a baby was a girl, they spoke with softer voice, they cuddled a lot more with the baby and they called the baby sweet names. When they thought is was a boy, they used words as "tough" and "brave" and were much more rough and physical in the way they played with the baby (ie lifting, throwing).
Thus, it's not surprising that some studies shows that young girls are more "socially" and "emotionally" competent than boys at group level - social behaviour in humans has to be learned, and practise make perfect. Girls get more social and emotional training from the adult world, since they are expected to be more emotionally and socially responsive.

I don't know how old the kids in the study you refer to were, but studies show that pre school kids have a tendency to behave more gender sterotypic than adults, because they haven't yet developed an independant identity and they rely heavily upon model learning and encouragement/punishment from adults. Interview studies of preschool kids gender role attitudes shows that the children have a great awareness of "what boys should do and what girls should do", what "mummies" should do and what "daddies" should do. Not surprisingly, the children's answers correlate highly with the degree of gender sterotypes in their families.

One of the few documented differences between boys and girls at a neuronal level, is that the myelination of certain neural circuits occur later in boys than in girls. (Myelin is the fat tissue that is like a sheath around the axons of the nerve cells.) Myelin is necessary for the nerve impulses to propagate, and it is speculated that the earlier myelination in girls may be related to the earlier maturation of cognitive and emotional functions in girls compared to boys. It is however impossible to say in what direction causality is going here. Girls in the Western world reach puberty on the average 2 years earlier than boys whereas in many native cultures, this difference is less than one year. This suggests that even something one would assume is very biologically determined, may be strongly affected by sociocultural factors.

Morril · Post by **Morril** » Sun Sep 05, 2004 7:15 am

[QUOTE=C Elegans]
3. Sure, there are 1000:s of good articles, not so many good weblinks however. What would you be interested in?
[/QUOTE]

Sorry for the late answer. I have been quite busy - work.
In general I am interested in anything "new" (the last 5-10 years) about neurotransmitters. When I studied medicine (15-20 years ago) we learned very little about neurotransmitters, simple because there was very little material to read about it.
I think this is of little interest for most other than you and me (and maybe a few others?), so I will send you a PM later

Monolith · Post by **Monolith** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 11:22 am

@C Elegans
Thanks for clearing this up. Quite interesting how...well...deadlocked we are. But that's society, isn't it? Maybe there's a good reason for such a behaviour. Maybe not. What would you do? My sister has a doughter and while she was pregnant she said that she wouldn't "gender stereotype" her child - no matter the gender. Now she's doing exactly this. You should see the cloths and dolls her babygirl has...

Fiona · Post by **Fiona** » Sat Sep 18, 2004 5:11 am

RPG's : Male Dominated

I read this thread with interest.
I am new to this type of game and I have enjoyed IWD2 so far. I find it a little strange that the male domination of gaming can be seen as a difference in response to violence, whether culturally or biologically determined. There is no violence in these games - they are games. I certainly do not see anything which is frightening or dangerous.
Is it not possible that the explanation is simpler, though still culturally gendered. I have the impression that all "hobbies" are male dominated. This seems to be related to the fact that males have more leisure time and always have had. Boys are encouraged to develop interests which take up a good deal of time and they continue those throughout life. Sadly that is one reason they don't tend to pull their weight in child care, house cleaning etc. (you can argue but the facts are out there).
RPG takes up loads of time. I have the impression that most of the people who play are quite young and the young also have more leisure.
Also most people nominally share a computer but it often "really" belongs to the boys. Makes it hard for some women to get adequate access.

tom the terribl · Post by **tom the terribl** » Sat Sep 18, 2004 8:52 am

Why Males

All humans on Earth have a brain devided in half. Between the sexes the two halfs are connected differently. Male brains have one connection between the halfs so concintration is realy easy. We can loose ourselves easly in doing left brain activities and it make us feal busy.

However women have two brain connections and enables them to think and work more effeicently. Women can actually listen and talk at the same time. A feature that puzzled men for centuries. So a site like this only fills half their brain the other half is thinking about kids, work, future planing, ect.

A suggestion for women: When you want to get the attention of a male who is involved in some activity wait until he looks up or takes a sip of some drink to get his attention. It will reduce the long term frustration between the sexes. Men think along one track at a time.

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Sat Sep 18, 2004 9:24 am

tom the terribl wrote:All humans on Earth have a brain devided in half. Between the sexes the two halfs are connected differently.

If you read above, you can see that Morril and I are discussing the thickness of the corpus callosum. When you say "the two halfs are connected differently" I assume you are referring to the finding that women have a thicker corpus callosum than men, because any other gender differences in hemispherial connectivity are not known.

Male brains have one connection between the halfs so concintration is realy easy. We can loose ourselves easly in doing left brain activities and it make us feal busy.

However women have two brain connections and enables them to think and work more effeicently. Women can actually listen and talk at the same time. A feature that puzzled men for centuries. So a site like this only fills half their brain the other half is thinking about kids, work, future planing, ect.

Is this a joke? If not, where did you get this information? It is totally unfounded, and the associations you draw between hemispheric connectivity and functions, are fantasies. Again, as I and Morril discusse above, the thickness of the corpus calluson has no relationship to simultaneous capacity.

Talking and listening at the same time is an example of working memory functions, or simultanous capacity in popular terms. Studies show that there is not difference in working memory performance between males and females.

Also, to belive that different type of information go to different hemispheres of the brain, is a total misunderstanding. You don't seem to have studied even basic biology or anatomy. I am astonished as to how you can come up with such huge misunderstandings. Your belief that different information go to different halves of the brain, is like saying woman can eat more than men because their body halves are differently connected so the beef goes to one half and the potato to the other half.

A suggestion for women: When you want to get the attention of a male who is involved in some activity wait until he looks up or takes a sip of some drink to get his attention. It will reduce the long term frustration between the sexes. Men think along one track at a time.

A suggestion to you, unless this is some kind of joke: avoid stereotyping people and get some real facts instead of falling back on superficial plattitudes.

Morril · Post by **Morril** » Sat Sep 18, 2004 10:16 am

[QUOTE=tom the terribl]All humans on Earth have a brain devided in half. Between the sexes the two halfs are connected differently. Male brains have one connection between the halfs so concintration is realy easy. We can loose ourselves easly in doing left brain activities and it make us feal busy.

However women have two brain connections and enables them to think and work more effeicently. Women can actually listen and talk at the same time. A feature that puzzled men for centuries. So a site like this only fills half their brain the other half is thinking about kids, work, future planing, ect.

A suggestion for women: When you want to get the attention of a male who is involved in some activity wait until he looks up or takes a sip of some drink to get his attention. It will reduce the long term frustration between the sexes. Men think along one track at a time.[/QUOTE]

He he. I really hope this a joke. No offense - but if this it not a joke I strongly suggest reading some elemental books about the topic.

Side note @CE: thanks for the articles

asurademon · Post by **asurademon** » Sat Sep 18, 2004 1:04 pm

In the RPG group I most often play with (which gets to be over 20 people at times, I think at one point there were as many as 40 that were gaming together) it's a pretty close to even split between men and women. Of course, I have been in a few RPG groups before that were definately male dominated. Women roleplayers really aren't as uncommon as people think though, I don't think there's that fewer female roleplayers than male roleplayers, though I haven't exactly done a study so I can't be certain.

edit:
What someone said about men and women's brains having the left at right sides connected differently I've heard somewhere before as well. However even if it is true (and I can't say for sure whether it is or not, I haven't studied this much at all) in a generalized sense, it's not going to be true for all individuals, because not all men and women function the same, even brain developement among individuals can be quite different.
Not all women can multitask efficiently, and some men can do so very efficiently, this could be a sign of the brain forming differently, or it could be a sign of different training (or a bit of both). So there's definately variation in the capabilities among each individual within the sexes.
This is comming from a woman whom sometimes gets told she has a man's brain lol.

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 10:54 am

A funny study that shows how gender stereotyping can affect people, was just performed in the UK. You all know the traditional symptoms of PMS: irritability, depressed mood, stomach ache, headache, hot flushes, concentration problems? Well, a researcher asked a group of women and a group of men to rate how much of these symptoms they suffered from - and the result was that the men on average suffered more than the women from all symptoms populary associated with PMS, expect water retention. So what does this tell us? We have three alternatives here:

1. Men suffer from PMS more than women.
2. Men and women both suffer from a syndrome that is not PMS, but something else. However, the same symptoms tend to be interpreted as PMS when women show them, but as "job stress" or other external factors when men show them.
3. Men don't suffer from these symptoms to the same degree as women, they just complain more (studies indicate that men have a lower pain threshold than women, which may in this study make them rate higher)

Personally, I think alt 2 is the most reasonable interpretation of this finding. I hope they expand the study to include objective ratings (to investigate alt 3) and also hormonal measurements (to investigate alt 2).

@Asurademon: Regarding brain hemisphere connectivity, I have studied the subject a lot since I am a neuroscientist working with human brain research, and you are certainly right in your assumption that differences between individuals is larger than differences between genders. However, I am keen to learn where you as well as Tom the Terrible have heard this stuff about men's and women's brain hemispheres being connected differently. Some studies, but not all, studies have reported a larger corpus callusom in women than in men, and I think there is also a study that reported a larger anterior commisure in female brains than in males, but it is yet unknown whether this anatomical difference has any functional difference. It is unlikely that it is in any way related to "multitasking" (ie simultaneous capacity, ie working memory) since no difference between men and women have been found in working memory tasks.

asurademon · Post by **asurademon** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 12:36 pm

I wish I could remember where I heard about that left brain, right brain thing, maybe it was anthropology or sociology class, or it could have just been some internet site.
As for the whole multitasking thing, I'll admit that's just a stereotype I've heard a lot, and I don't actually firmly believe it, I just know I don't fit it lol. I was just trying to give an example of something which some people do well and other people don't do well, something which one gender is stereotyped as being better than the other. Regardless of whether the stereotype is true (and there's any tendecy of one gender being better than the other at it), that does hint that people's brains form differently and there's a lot variation among each gender (though I suppose I could be wrong, I don't know for certain what causes some people to be good at multitasking and some to not be).
I hope that all made sense, I just woke up...

Morril · Post by **Morril** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 1:27 pm

[QUOTE=C Elegans]
Some studies[/i], but not all, studies have reported a larger corpus callusom in women than in men, and I think there is also a study that reported a larger anterior commisure in female brains than in males, but it is yet unknown whether this anatomical difference has any functional difference. [/QUOTE]

But I find it interesting WHY there is that difference. Because human organs construction (anatomy) is most often related to function (physiology). Allmost all organs in the human have the same function (physiology) in man and woman, and also have the same construction (anatomy) - the only diiference is the size of the organs. F.eks the heart and lungs are identical for man or woman, and have same functions. This means same anatomy and same physiology. If man and woman have a little difference in the anatomy of the brain I find it logically that there also must be a little difference in the physiology (function) - even if we haven't found it yet...

Bloodthroe · Post by **Bloodthroe** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 1:51 pm

[QUOTE=Morril]But I find it interesting WHY there is that difference. Because human organs construction (anatomy) is most often related to function (physiology). Allmost all organs in the human have the same function (physiology) in man and woman, and also have the same construction (anatomy) - the only diiference is the size of the organs. F.eks the heart and lungs are identical for man or woman, and have same functions. This means same anatomy and same physiology. If man and woman have a little difference in the anatomy of the brain I find it logically that there also must be a little difference in the physiology (function) - even if we haven't found it yet...[/QUOTE]Well I have learned that there are differences in the human bodies and brains between genders. Men are supposed to naturally have twice as much upper body strength. As far as the brain, women show more tolerance to pain and have better social skills. While men are stronger physically and mentally and so on. I guess that there are differences in men and women, but I don't know of anything that shows video games are male dominated according to physiology. I believe that it's likely to be a society thing is why in the past the majority of gamers was greatly men and not women. Why else are games played by so many women today? No, seriously... I'm asking why, If someone wants to answer...