Where are all the non-male mage wars players?

[Sailor Vulcan]

I've noticed a pattern. Nearly everyone I've played mage wars against on octgn has either been male, claimed to have been male, or was assumed to have been male by others without any correction. For a long time I thought juli was female, and then it turned out that he wasn't.

It's gotten to the point where it seems like everyone just assumes that every active mage wars player that they meet online is a guy, no one corrects them, and I'm not sure I've even ever met a woman or any non-male people at any mage wars organized play. I've been to gen con once and origins three times.

Why does it seem like our community is, at least for the most part, mono-gendered? How many people here do we actually have who aren't guys? And if we really are a mostly "guys-only" community, why is that and how can we fix it?

Now's your chance to come out, people. Let us know that we haven't driven all the non-males away with sexism and poor sportsmanship. I understand if you don't want to post here. Women seem to face a surprising amount of prejudice and discrimination by gaming-nerd culture, and I bet that it's even worse for people with other kinds of non-conforming genders. I'm going to put an anonymous poll up. I strongly encourage everyone to answer it, no matter what your gender is. Also, answer with your gender, not your sex.

[technicallynerdyrebel]

I identify as femme nonbinary, but definitely not male. I can definitely say that a significant reason that I don't speak up more and such is because I'm worried slightly about being seen as inferior. But I will say that I've had no real reason to point to in Mage Wars fanbase specifically.

[aridigas]

[Edit]
Well, on a second thought this wasn't what I wanted to say. Please be assured I didn't mean to offend anyone. I'm truely sorry if this happend.

I thought about rewriting the whole paragraph to correct some things and put a stronger emphasis on others, but I decided against it, 'cause some things really were not okay.

[Halewijn]

I think many girlfriends/wives play mage wars. (like mine)
They don't play on OCTGN or comment on the forum, but they do exist.   

I wouldn't consider them hard-core fans, but they do enjoy the game, and that's what it's all about.

[Intangible0]

On our channel we had 100% male followers until about 2 months ago. Tis a shame.

[Zuberi]

I think many girlfriends/wives play mage wars. (like mine)
They don't play on OCTGN or comment on the forum, but they do exist.   

I wouldn't consider them hard-core fans, but they do enjoy the game, and that's what it's all about.

Inaccurate. I know for a fact several members on the forums and on OCTGN identify as female. You just assume they are male because they never explicitly state their gender. They never explicitly state it, because it doesn't matter.

I also disagree with aridigas' statement that people who are sexual beings can never have non-sexual interactions with each other. Heterosexual men/women can and do hang out all the time in a non-sexual setting, including playing board games one on one together. So do homosexual men. So do homosexual women. So do those of other genders and sexualities. You might possibly have trouble with platonic friendships, but don't assume that everyone else is incapable of seeing people as anything more than a sexual opportunity. And those with platonic friends, will more than likely have shared interests and hobbies including Mage Wars.

Also, even if your premise was true, it fails to explain why male identified people might dominate a hobby. Your premise merely says that male identified people play with other male identified, and female identified people play with other female identified. Even if they did refuse to play with one another, which is innaccruate, it doesn't explain why one group would be more prominent than the other.

Actual explanations for gender imbalance in any setting tends to be much more complicated, involving gender roles in society and possible sexism encountered in whatever setting is being discussed. I think board games actually suffer a lot less of an imbalance than popularly believed, but I don't really want to hijack this topic with such a discussion. Lets leave it as a simple poll, and if you want to discuss reasons for why the poll results in what it does, then we can start another thread or discuss things in private as you prefer.

[sIKE]

I can say that while performing demos at BGGCon, the last two years, I have taught a handful of women. Most of the time they were paired with a Male and appeared to be BF/GF there was one group off guys and girls that seemed to be in the friend zone, and then there was a two girls that proudly proclaimed themselves as geek girls and they were more than happy to learn how to play. The ratio of guys to girls at BGGCon is lopsided but they do exist in much larger numbers than when I was in college.

[Halewijn]

Inaccurate. I know for a fact several members on the forums and on OCTGN identify as female. You just assume they are male because they never explicitly state their gender. They never explicitly state it, because it doesn't matter.

I never said there were no females on OCTGN. I know that there are women that love this kind of stuff without the influence of a partner. I was just pointing out that a poll might give a biased view.

For the same reason she plays MW with me, I watch romantic comedy movies in and outside the cinema. I would rather go to lets say The Avengers, but I know she loves that and I can enjoy them too. 

[Sailor Vulcan]

[Edit]
Well, on a second thought this wasn't what I wanted to say. Please be assured I didn't mean to offend anyone. I'm truely sorry if this happend.

I thought about rewriting the whole paragraph to correct some things and put a stronger emphasis on others, but I decided against it, 'cause some things really were not okay.

On the contrary, you expressed your prejudices honestly without making any slurs or saying anything explicitly derogatory. Then you thought about it and realized that what you were saying was based on a very crude culturally taught heuristic that is much worse at predicting sexual and gender variation in human thought and behavior then it used to be, and corrected it. Although I would argue that said heuristic has been more of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You might seriously want to consider heuristics for predicting sexual and gender variation of human thought and behavior that are more widely applicable, in order to minimize exceptions and improve your understanding of people around you. Inaccurate mental representations of sufficiently large portions of the population can lead to misunderstandings, conflicts, and missed opportunities. Building in mental exceptions for individuals on a case by case basis can be useful for some of the more minute and specific details that differentiate individuals, but it is very inefficient and conceptually clunky for dealing with bigger picture stuff about slightly larger numbers of people, and some mental exceptions often don't look that genuine to the people you make those exceptions for, because of their ability to relate to others in their same demographic. And if you try to avoid dealing with too many people who you don't know where to place in your mental schemas and who you can't predict using your current heuristics, those people will assume that you are avoiding them purely because of your prejudices, or because you don't like or respect them or something, rather than because they confuse you an you don't want to do a ton of mental work to fix your prior misconceptions.

A good idea is to not assign to much certainty to your mental representation of anyone until you have gotten to know that person better. When it comes to not judging anyone prematurely, uncertainty is your best friend. It's best to have a fairly good idea of what it is that you don't know, and to be able to tolerate not knowing or to be patient enough to get to know people so that you can develop more accurate mental representations of them.

I hope that doesn't sound like incomprehensible technobabble. Formalizing my thoughts sometimes helps me to organize them and make them more coherent, consistent and defined.

[V10lentray]

At last years GenCon my wife and I both played in the apprentice tournament.

She won the tournament and received a canvas print of Devils trident that I took and had framed.

If you include the 3 rounds she played in the tournament she played the game a total of 6 times. After the tournament she was saying how the books needed more dispels, dissolves and teleports.

Female players exist.

[Laddinfance]

Gender is not important to your love of Mage Wars, or really most games for that matter. What I find with the majority of gamers is they want to game. They don't want to be singled out, they just want to play. So in the end it's not wholly important if we, on the internet, don't see many females gaming. Because they aren't here because they're female they're here because they game, and I love them for it. I'm eternally grateful for all of you who support Arcane Wonders.

In my time in this forum, I've been very happy that the focus has been on the games. It should be our goal as a community to focus on what unites us as a community, the games. Now, if a part of this community isn't comfortable, then they should have the right to stand up and speak their peace. So at least for me, it's my goal to try and keep this community open and inviting as possible. I watch for things, and I know others do as well, that may turn people away from our community. But, in my time with AW I've been very proud of how our community handles itself. We've had many excellent members who've stood up and several humble individuals who've admitted when they were wrong. In the end, our goal in this forum should be to have a great community.

So, I know that I've rambled a bunch, it's kinda what I do. However, if you take something away please take this. People want to go where they can share their interests. People want to find people they can share with, and sexuality has little to do with what's brought us together, games. We should do what we can to make sure that we're not turning people away, but we should also remember that we all share a wonderful thing in common, Mage Wars.

If anyone needs to speak on this subject or feels strongly about what has been said. Please feel free to contact me. This week is Gencon, but the issues here are all very close to my heart. Thank you.

[Sailor Vulcan]

Gender is not important to your love of Mage Wars, or really most games for that matter. What I find with the majority of gamers is they want to game. They don't want to be singled out, they just want to play. So in the end it's not wholly important if we, on the internet, don't see many females gaming. Because they aren't here because they're female they're here because they game, and I love them for it. I'm eternally grateful for all of you who support Arcane Wonders.

In my time in this forum, I've been very happy that the focus has been on the games. It should be our goal as a community to focus on what unites us as a community, the games. Now, if a part of this community isn't comfortable, then they should have the right to stand up and speak their peace. So at least for me, it's my goal to try and keep this community open and inviting as possible. I watch for things, and I know others do as well, that may turn people away from our community. But, in my time with AW I've been very proud of how our community handles itself. We've had many excellent members who've stood up and several humble individuals who've admitted when they were wrong. In the end, our goal in this forum should be to have a great community.

So, I know that I've rambled a bunch, it's kinda what I do. However, if you take something away please take this. People want to go where they can share their interests. People want to find people they can share with, and sexuality has little to do with what's brought us together, games. We should do what we can to make sure that we're not turning people away, but we should also remember that we all share a wonderful thing in common, Mage Wars.

If anyone needs to speak on this subject or feels strongly about what has been said. Please feel free to contact me. This week is Gencon, but the issues here are all very close to my heart. Thank you.

Well said!
I completely agree, the reason I was asking is because even if a lack of gender diversity wouldn't be a problem for our community in and of itself, it could be indicative of a problem.

[Laddinfance]

Then I would rather us reason through our actions. I think that if we look at what we do as we do it, we can become more aware of how our actions will be perceived.

[Sailor Vulcan]

Then I would rather us reason through our actions. I think that if we look at what we do as we do it, we can become more aware of how our actions will be perceived.

I must respectfully disagree. Sometimes it's best to take a step back and look at the bigger picture rather than "reason through our actions", since the latter wouldn't tell us anything about whether there was anything making a significant number of non-males who would otherwise be playing mage wars less likely to join our community. Such information could be helpful to inform our actions in the future.

I'm sure that Arcane Wonders has done their utmost to ensure that this community is open and egalitarian. If, and I say IF, our community is lacking diversity, for all we know there could be factors involved in that which are entirely unexpected and under the radar. That's why it's a good idea to start threads like this to find out what's actually going on, rather than just being left wondering and speculating about it. While it is not at all important on an individual level who decided to play this game and who doesn't, diversity can help enrich a community, and if there's not enough diversity in some way or at some point, it could potentially eventually become problematic.

I'm glad to see some of these forum posts as well as the explanations they've come up for the observation I pointed out in the OP. While individually they're mostly only anecdotal evidence, it is still helpful. I still encourage everyone who hasn't done so already to participate in the poll.

Thank you.

[DaveW]

I can say that while performing demos at BGGCon, the last two years, I have taught a handful of women. Most of the time they were paired with a Male and appeared to be BF/GF there was one group off guys and girls that seemed to be in the friend zone, and then there was a two girls that proudly proclaimed themselves as geek girls and they were more than happy to learn how to play. The ratio of guys to girls at BGGCon is lopsided but they do exist in much larger numbers than when I was in college.

I think about half of the 10-12 folks (I forget how many now) who I demo'd MW for at Whosyercon this year were female... and most of them loved the game at least as much as the males who played.

I also know someone who is on here has a wife who plays well but doesn't get on the forums at all.