Femalien

[LaughinGremlin]

Cool girls that aren't slaves to commercialism that targets females are more likely to be open-minded about spending "gaming time" with nice, MATURE male gamers. Typically, girls like to show off to their female cronies their "rings" (boy toys, talking to her friends about how much he spends on her, etc.) AXE body spray adds or beer commercials never show girls hanging out with scrawny guys rolling dice. Girls are trained by commercialism, "gossip circles" and MOM to be into certain things/hobbies. Other girls will shun the independent thinker and cast her away, so it takes a strong-willed, independent girl to be able to venture down other hobby paths unappologetically, and I raise my glass of cranberry juice to her!
~ Gremlin

[IcedCrow]

Girls are trained actually to go for status. You are close. Many girls, at least in western society, use men for status gain. They do not want to up down the status ladder, they want to climb it.

It's hard to make your other girlfriends jealous of you when your boyfriend is a weird guy that's not easily understood (they dont' follow the beer, sleep, food, sex, cars cycle that "normal" guys do) and that which you dont' understand is bad.

Not saying guys don't also suffer from status syndrome, but guys also use things like money, big cars, etc.. to compensate for their status.

[RanaldLoec]

My wife was previously a man so meh.

Joking I used to be a women.

No wait wait............... I'm a man my wifes a woman.

I have no interest in why there are more men in my, profession, hobby, pub (bar for americans).

All I care about is my opponent enjoys their game against me free of strange smells, sounds or poorly acted obscure comedy sketches from the previous decade.
Or a 20 minute debate over which is the best startrek captain (obviously its Sisko).

[Daniel36]

I can't be bothered to read through everything, but I hear people wondering why girls, if they are into Warhammer, are more into the hobby side and not the gaming side. I think the answer is that girls aren't as competetive (in the gaming / sports side of competetivenesszneszzz..) as guys are. As I am a very feminine type of guy, I do enjoy the hobby side more... And I can't STAND cheesy over-competetive lists...

[Thommy H]

That is why girls don't play warhammer.

Beat me to it. Girls don't play Warhammer because they quite rightly don't feel like hanging around with a group of overweight, greasy-haired, socially maladjusted freaks who wear their outsider status like it's a badge of honour and then drool all over them or make misogynistic comments without even understanding why a woman would find that repellent. And that's just the staff.

Seriously. Taking my fiancée into a GW store isn't always a pleasant experience for me, and she doesn't like it either even though she's more of a geek than I am.

Women are just human beings. They like it when you're nice to them. They don't like it when you imply they're prostitutes or spend the whole time you're talking to them staring at their breasts. The fact that I know this is the reason I can have sex with one whenever I want.

[theJ]

That is why girls don't play warhammer.

To an extent.

In most cases, though, it's that they've been convinced that this is what will inevitably happen should they ever come across a "nerd". This is rarely the case, but very few of them will ever realise it... sadly.

Of course, as has been proven, sometimes they are absolutely right...

At least, that's my theory.

EDIT: If you want a definitive answer, though, your best bet would be to just ask them.

[cool-kid-on-the-block]

does it not seem strange that people are describing women using terms such as "genetically designed", implying that they are maybe a sub species or different species being analysed by men.

they are people and all have diffent tastes and oppinions exactly the same as men.

[theJ]

does it not seem strange that people are describing women using terms such as "genetically designed", implying that they are maybe a sub species or different species being analysed by men.

they are people and all have diffent tastes and oppinions exactly the same as men.

I did try to stay away from doing that, but it's hard to describe generalisations without generalising.

/salute for standing up to it, mate.

[t-tauri]

Several posts removed. Please remember the posting guidelines.

[mrtn]

My girlfriend would be more interested in the hobby if it wasn't for all the sissy painting and miniatures. Give her plastic markers and tell her the dice will kill my markers and she couldn't be happier. Girls, just as guys, comes in all kinds of types.

@WinterChild: Welcome to the hobby. Try to ignore the idiots, but feel free to use the report button (the little ! under a posters name) and I'm sure that the moderators will deal with any transgressions.

[Thommy H]

does it not seem strange that people are describing women using terms such as "genetically designed", implying that they are maybe a sub species or different species being analysed by men.

This is precisely why I cringe when I see or hear people use the term "female" in anything besides a technical or scientific context. To a lot of young men - and a lot of older men who really should know better by now - women really are treated like they're some kind of minority, to be held at arm's length and puzzled over.

Sorry, I know I'm generalising about geeks and, as a geek myself, maybe I should be more sympathetic, but you only have to spend about five minutes on the internet before you bump into some bit of casual misogyny, or some insanely ignorant comment about women that doesn't even make sense to a mature adult.

[CSE]

there are 2 female staff in the Birmingham store now so i think its becoming more common

im glad of this though (i have a partner so no not that reason) its just more people to play against

[Haravikk]

Easy answer to the question of why women aren't as into wargaming as much as men are; society! It just isn't a "womanly" thing to do, and as much as we've progressed in the last 100 years we're still far from truly equal footing as while equal rights now abound, people's view of various things is still very backwards.

Even video-gaming is still seen as a very strange thing for women to be interested in, which is where casual gaming (handhelds, the Wii, etc.) are great, but shooters are still very male dominated and so are RPGs etc. (though not so much).

Wargaming, and by extension Warhammer, is a pretty niche area of gaming, so while video gaming is dead popular and no longer quite so male-oriented, wargaming is still catching up on that front.

But when it comes down to it, it's largely about what's "acceptable" to society; girls devoting their time to gaming, or much-worse wargaming just isn't something that's really accepted. I mean, it's not like they'd be ostracised for doing it, but they'd get a lot of odd looks or snide comments from others, it's just the way things are.

For a growing number of women that doesn't matter, and they'd just rather be doing what they want than what everyone else wants and the more people like that the better!

When it comes down to it, I wouldn't say that there is any fundamental reason why a girl can't enjoy wargaming as much as a guy does, it's just that most aren't interested or don't try it, and more often than not it's because of other, unrelated reasons, same with practically everything in life that isn't part of the drab and boring "normal".

[rob_appo]

After much deliberation me and my friends concluded that girls were those things in those videos on the internet.

There is a femail member of staff in our local store and idont think she has had any problems but our store is very friendly and most of them dont seem to gawp to much at members of the opposite sex.

[chamelion 6]

This is really interesting.

A girl asking a bunch of guys why girls don't like the the kind of stuff we guys get all worked up over...

But the reason it's so interesting is the answers, I think, tell more about us guys than the girls.

Cars, bikes, guitars and little plastic toy soldiers. Let's face it, when you get right down to it no matter what the cronological age, most of us never progress much past adolesence.

And there are few things more attractive to most of us than a girl that can beat us at our own game...

[HRM]

And that's just the staff.

I LOL'd. Hard.

To be fair, it isn't like "nerd stuff" is any MORE socially acceptable for men than women. We're ALL *********** losers, right?

When I was in high school, it got out that one of the wideouts on the football team was into Magic: The Gathering. Let me tell you, it would have been easier on him if he'd said he was gay.

[Thommy H]

To be fair, it isn't like "nerd stuff" is any MORE socially acceptable for men than women. We're ALL *********** losers, right?

Maybe visibility plays a part in this too. There are, after all, as many girl geeks as boy geeks, it's just that the habits and hobbies of boy geeks are considered more mainstream (just as everything to do with men is treated as the default setting: men's sports are the "real version", women's are just some weird niche version). So computer gaming is more-or-less socially acceptable, but writing fanfic is still considered a bit mental. Guess which gender tends to favour which.

There is very little mainstream outlet for true girl geeks, because actual girl geeks aren't considered attractive. And if you're a woman and not attractive, society has no interest in you.

I would say that miniature wargaming - indeed, anything to do with little toys and miniature worlds - is a "boy" thing, but it's still branded with a huge nerd stamp, so girls are naturally wary of being associated with it, because of the sigma of "true girl geek" as opposed to "sexy Megan Fox girl geek". There's a big gulf between wearing a tight-fitting Star Wars t-shirt and hanging around in a Games Workshop.

[eldargal]

Its good to see another girl here.

Many of the reasons why we are so rare have been touched upon, social attitudes, prevailing trends in gamer hygiene and phsical condition etc. In my experience attitudes amongst gamers is a big one, though. Nothing puts a girl off more than being stared at, talked about like you aren't there and/or hit on at every possible opportunity. Or insulted constantly in the hope you will leave and let the lads have their time without interfering females hanging about.

[Urgat]

Btw, my g/f saw me check this topic, she told me she won't play warhammer (after making me believe she would for a couple years >>) because she says girls aren't as good at strategy, and looking at me playing, she says she couldn't match that. I told her it was BS, she answered "name me a great female general", I pointed out both sexual discrimination making this a moot point but adding Jeanne d'Arc for good measure, but she wouldn't yield.
So my own personal conclusion is that girls don't play Warhammer because they don't like to play if they think it likely they will lose (but I didn't tell her that, my battles are better kept on the board -where I'm likely to win )

[Devonian Commando]

I'm not quite sure why there aren't more girl gamers, outside of the GW hobbies I know loads of girls who play World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy, not exactly non-nerdy passtimes.
A good friend of mine who is a real blonde bombshell and used to model for Benetton (if you're looking for a good sexual sterotype) liked reading the 40k novels, another girl friend likes reading all of Robin Hobb's fantasy novels and I was turned onto David Eddings by a girl.
But..... try shifting the medium from video games or the written word to little painted soldiers narrating a tale and none of them are interested, I don't think it's anything to do with hoardes of drooling nerds in the cases I know because they haven't been to a game store and been subjected to nerd lust.
I've often wondered about it myself, it's a shame because a lot of people are mssing out on a cool hobby. (not cool in the fashionable sense, obviously)
My partner isn't really interested but my 6 year old step daughter has a (un)healthy interest in my little painted men, wouldn't it be cool if she could pass that on to her little bro and teach him FB/40k?