• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Why is NeoGaf so predominantly male?

Status
Not open for further replies.
I admittedly wonder how many were just making flippant jokes, but then they have a terrible sense of humor instead. Plus it is that kind of joking and (lack of) thinking that contributes to the problem.

The problem with flippant jokes is rather like the problem with flippant "would/would not bang" comments. On any one individual level there's perhaps nothing to criticize too deeply because they're, well, flippant, but when they form an undercurrent of discussion it means that they're speaking to some concept running through the zeitgeist.
 
i sure don't know a single girl who would even consider joining a videogame-centric forum, but i know about 20 guys who would.

the numbers that say "there are as many woman gamers as men" are wack. sure there are a lot of girls who play CoD because they're boyfriends got them into it, or maybe zelda because link is hot, but i have never met a girl who goes out of her way to be informed about video games the way men do. even gamer girls i've met online are never as informed as guys.how do we make gaming something that girls care about too
or
can we stop caring SO MUCH about video game politics?

Holy fuck. I'm going to print this out for my friend who works as an assistant manager at Gamestop. She's probably going to lose her job because her boyfriend is a Manager at gamestop and her own store manager quit and instead of giving the store to her that she deserves, they're going to to have her boyfriend run both of the stores which either she can get transfered to another store (which the closest is in another county) or she can just quit because, fuck her. Never mind that she helped find the job initially for her boyfriend before they were dating, and once they started dating he had to transfer to the other store and he quickly got promoted, while she had to fight for three years as a regular GA to get promoted to assistant manager to where she was pretty much running the goddamn store because her boss was a lazy prick who never did any work.

I'm going to print this off, have her read it and it will make her fucking day. She already has to put up with "being in the shadow of her boyfriend" who now makes more money than her even though she's been working harder and longer than him. She'll read this and it will totally tickle her on how she only likes video games because link is hot or her boyfriend gets her interested in them.

Jesus christ dude.
 
Also, I'm curious as to the subsection of female gamers who think Link is hot. I wasn't aware that's a standard reason cited for women picking that game up.

Fun fact: When making OoT, one of the developers' wives asked why Nintendo never made any handsome male characters, hence the design of Adult Link.

It's another thing on my mental list that says Samus and Link are sides of the same coin.
 
Holy fuck. I'm going to print this out for my friend who works as an assistant manager at Gamestop. She's probably going to lose her job because her boyfriend is a Manager at gamestop and her own store manager quit and instead of giving the store to her that she deserves, they're going to to have her boyfriend run both of the stores which either she can get transfered to another store (which the closest is in another county) or she can just quit because, fuck her. Never mind that she helped find the job initially for her boyfriend before they were dating, and once they started dating he had to transfer to the other store and he quickly got promoted, while she had to fight for three years as a regular GA to get promoted to assistant manager to where she was pretty much running the goddamn store because her boss was a lazy prick who never did any work.

I'm going to print this off, have her read it and it will make her fucking day. She already has to put up with "being in the shadow of her boyfriend" who now makes more money than her even though she's been working harder and longer than him. She'll read this and it will totally tickle her on how she only likes video games because link is hot or her boyfriend gets her interested in them.

Jesus christ dude.
She is our goddamned poster child.
 
Fun fact: When making OoT, one of the developers' wives asked why Nintendo never made any handsome male characters, hence the design of Adult Link.

It's another thing on my mental list that says Samus and Link are sides of the same coin.

That's pretty interesting. I think we could then make a lot out of the differences in character design between modern Link and modern Samus.
 
Where's my Zero Tunic Link???

the-legend-of-zelda-twilight-princess-20061110104838727.jpg
 
Holy fuck. I'm going to print this out for my friend who works as an assistant manager at Gamestop. She's probably going to lose her job because her boyfriend is a Manager at gamestop and her own store manager quit and instead of giving the store to her that she deserves, they're going to to have her boyfriend run both of the stores which either she can get transfered to another store (which the closest is in another county) or she can just quit because, fuck her. Never mind that she helped find the job initially for her boyfriend before they were dating, and once they started dating he had to transfer to the other store and he quickly got promoted, while she had to fight for three years as a regular GA to get promoted to assistant manager to where she was pretty much running the goddamn store because her boss was a lazy prick who never did any work.

I'm going to print this off, have her read it and it will make her fucking day. She already has to put up with "being in the shadow of her boyfriend" who now makes more money than her even though she's been working harder and longer than him. She'll read this and it will totally tickle her on how she only likes video games because link is hot or her boyfriend gets her interested in them.

Jesus christ dude.

Having worked at GameStop for two years and dealing with the sexism, I definitely empathize. Something similar happened to me and by the time they offered me a store, I was done with them. Also dealing with bullshit of customers. Don't get me wrong, I had some wonderful regulars, but for every one awesome regular, I'd get four or five guys that would talk to me as if I've obviously gotten lost and should be working at the Claire's next door.

Or they think I'm there to ogle Link. I have no patience for people who think the way that rynvie thinks, but I'll just assume he doesn't know that wide a variety of females.
 
Only Young Link doesn't wear pants. Doesn't count.

Pantsless link WiiU confirmed.

I'll be honest I enjoy my eye candy, but there's times when I get REAAALY pissed off when they try to fuck up something I ready like. Case in point:

Look what they did to my Catherine the Great.

8GNASNX.jpg


She went from stylish, authoritave, and strong to this bullshit in Civ Revolutions:

Gee I wonder what her greatest "asset" is here. ::roll eyes::

(sorry for some reason IMGUR stopped working at work, I'll edit it when I get back home go google Catherine the Great for Civ Rev, its ridiculous)

It's even worse what they did to Cleopatra. So yeah, I can see women givng a :| look to a lot of this.
 
I think another part of the issue is how it seems males are treated as being capable of holding any variation or combination of views and likes/dislikes, in other words as individual persons.

But when women are discussed, it seems they are often treated like something on discovery channel, mysterious creatures with a set package of behaviours and likes/dislikes that are observed based on a few anecdotal cases expanded onto a whole population. In other words, not like individual persons.
 
I think another part of the issue is how it seems males are treated as being capable of holding any variation or combination of views and likes/dislikes, in other words as individual persons.

But when women are discussed, it seems they are often treated like something on discovery channel, mysterious creatures with a set package of behaviours and likes/dislikes that are observed based on a few anecdotal cases expanded onto a whole population. In other words, not like individual persons.

Wait, not every woman is like each other? The fuck? How else am I going to marginalize them!?
 
Pantsless link WiiU confirmed.

I'll be honest I enjoy my eye candy, but there's times when I get REAAALY pissed off when they try to fuck up something I ready like. Case in point:

Look what they did to my Catherine the Great.

8GNASNX.jpg


She went from stylish, authoritave, and strong to this bullshit in Civ Revolutions:

Gee I wonder what her greatest "asset" is here. ::roll eyes::

(sorry for some reason IMGUR stopped working at work, I'll edit it when I get back home go google Catherine the Great for Civ Rev, its ridiculous)

It's even worse what they did to Cleopatra. So yeah, I can see women givng a :| look to a lot of this.

I'll help out, because this is EXACTLY the reason why GAF is so "predominantly male":
s32918_ps3_32.jpg
 
Should be "Your rack does not frighten us".

Jesus...
 
I'm sorry. That's really shitty of us. We'll try harder to be homogenous.


:)

Being a halfbreed its fun when people say "I can't tell what kind of asian you are" and I reply "Why are you making a list?"

Still doesn't come close to the bullshit women have to put up with.

er

/back in character

Damn straight, all I know about women is they make the food and poop out the babies. Anything else scares me! Get back in the kitchen!
 
I don't think it's that women don't want to talk about games, I think it's more so that guys exclude them from conversation.
I donno about how it is in here, but when a woman in real life starts talking to me about say the MGS series, I freak out, get excited like a puppy and that conversation will go on for good two hours. Bottom line; I'm always excited about a woman talking about one of my favorite hobbies, and I'm always very careful to not undermine their knowledge in the subject, I try not to disagree with their opinions on games, but when I really have to, I do it very cautiously, without making them feel like their point is useless etc.
Anyway that's in real life, in here I barely get into any discussions about games, here I just read gaming threads and obtain the knowledge, so I'm armed with it, in case I am in a discussion about games IRL.
 
I tend to be defensive of Devo, even though she doesn't need it, because people often jump into threads she is posting in just to snipe at her or get a shot at her and score points. Which is kinda what you were doing. Kudos to you for not just sniping and leaving, but it happens CONSTANTLY. If you feel like people are picking apart what you say, watch how people respond to her in pretty much everything she does.
A bit late here, but this is one of the weirdest and most pathetic phenomenon on GAF. The absolute saltiness is incredible especially considering Devo knows her shit. Hell, I've gone into threads about sexism, racism, or homophobia ready to throw down, but I see that Devo has already said what I wanted to say, better than I was going to so I just nod and leave.
Funny about this thread, I was reading a topic in the OT section of this forum recently about a female artist. The comments on the entire first page were without exception sleazy, degrading comments about ogling her or having sex with her. It really struck me then how uninviting that must be for a woman on this website, to be bombarded with either subtle or often blatant sexism. And neogaf is one of the better ones!

I imagine it must get very tiring for a lot of women in all kinds of situations, but it's the dehumanization that's the worst. Even if it isn't hostile, it's saying that women aren't worth treating like real people. Ever since then, whenever I read a thread about a new song by a female artist and the first post is 'would' my skin crawls and I feel ashamed for my gender.
The Jennifer Lawrence thread yesterday...the very first post. I ended up not posting there even though I think she's awesome and I love her healthy self-esteem. But, a bunch of guys decided that she's fat and should diet no matter what she thinks. Others feel she looks great and express that by informing us graphically what exactly they think they would do to her if they ever met. I thought the point of the thread was to discuss a young, attractive, talented actress who is successful without having to starve herself to be marketable.
Right man can take down the world with a pocket knife.

I had a friend who used to say, "I may not be able to reach the end but I can sure bang the hell out of the sides."
 
Already in and making applesauce. BE JEALOUS, GAF.

Too late I already did with all the goddamned apple picking my wife made me er that I graciously agreed to do with her last weekend. It was totally not a waste of time :)

(my wife don't even like apples :| )
 
I had a friend who used to say, "I may not be able to reach the end but I can sure bang the hell out of the sides."

That's hilarious. And like you, I avoided the shit out of the Jennifer Lawrence thread. I like it here and would prefer not to get banned, and if I go in some of these threads, I am gonna lose all my shit.

Too late I already did with all the goddamned apple picking my wife made me er that I graciously agreed to do with her last weekend. It was totally not a waste of time :)

(my wife don't even like apples :| )

For a second, I thought you were maybe my husband in a clever half-Asian disguise, because we went last weekend, but that fizzled quickly on account of I'm a reasonable goddamn human being who likes apples.
 
Funny about this thread, I was reading a topic in the OT section of this forum recently about a female artist. The comments on the entire first page were without exception sleazy, degrading comments about ogling her or having sex with her. It really struck me then how uninviting that must be for a woman on this website, to be bombarded with either subtle or often blatant sexism. And neogaf is one of the better ones!

I imagine it must get very tiring for a lot of women in all kinds of situations, but it's the dehumanization that's the worst. Even if it isn't hostile, it's saying that women aren't worth treating like real people. Ever since then, whenever I read a thread about a new song by a female artist and the first post is 'would' my skin crawls and I feel ashamed for my gender.

Its part of a long-standing cultural problem that regards women in entertainment media (and arguably women in general, but its especially bad in entertainment media and perhaps more importantly its not improving anywhere near as fast) as visual and sexual commodities. Often times its casual or "flippant" or "joking" but like I said above, when something is so pervasive its because its speaking to an underlying theme running through the culture
 
For a second, I thought you were maybe my husband in a clever half-Asian disguise, because we went last weekend, but that fizzled quickly on account of I'm a reasonable goddamn simian who likes apples.


Well duh, monkeys like apples :p They only tolerate bananners cause thats what the scientist (MALE SCIENTISTS) force upon them.


More on topic, that Jennifer Lawrence thread was a trainwreck. Like I've said in previous posts there's threads appropriate to ogling but I tend to agree if there's a woman involved, there's always going to be some sort of cry for the woman's physical appearance. It doesn't matter if its a miss america post or that woman who fucks dogs post, there's going to be people who care more about what they look like rather than what the person did.

But like SmokeyDave said prior, its more of a symptom as a result of it being predominately male. Now if this was GAF day one and there was a 50/50 split between woman and men signing up and being active we could see it drift either way.

Still, its irrelevant however to TODAY as we damn well know that there's plenty of women on GAF and those types of comments can alienate in nature.

As I said before though in stuff like Dat Ass threads it should be expected, but really if a starlet is going to talk about how she's not going to succumb to the demands of what the industry expects of her and she's willing to realize she could be typecasted for it, then more power to her.

You know its funny, gender roles is something I have to constantly discuss with my wife. She's for the lack of a better term, very "traditional". I'm always trying to show her the other sides to ideas, and I think she's picking up on it. How she grew up she wouldn't for a second to have thought she was repressed or "locked into a stereotype" but from other peoples perspectives (mine included) I would have been horrfied by the way she was raised. Well horrified his hyperbole, but rather its not a wonder why she doesn't understand yet that not all women have to wear pretty dresses, and no if you don't subscribe to what her parents and culture inscribed on you it doesn't make you "gay". Thats the thing her, the idea of a woman who wears jeans and t-shirts and plays with boys and does "boys" things will mean that they're "Tomboys" (butchy lesbians in the philippines).

Hell really the country is like that, I constantly amuse a lot of my friensd by telling them about how sex and gender are still considered the same there. You don't find gay men outside the Bravo television stereotype of the foppish effeminate gay man in the Philippines, and lesbians tend to be more masculine in nature. I have a friend that is transgendered and known since high school and we were good friends as guys and now we're good friends as a guy and a girl and its confusing for my wife to understand how my friend could be considered a lesbian when she still has a penis yet dates women. Then again I've known people in the states to be confused by that as well :p
 
Yeah, I actually have no real issue with the let's-ogle threads if they're defined as such. I even go in some. I like ogling hot babes, too; why not? It's when it's something else that gets quickly derailed with a chorus of WOULD, like women are literally (sigh; that word) nothing beyond sexual objects.

And that's why I was more saddened by what's-his-name, Bradlums or whatever, because a good portion of guys, I think, like him, are just reacting within the realm of the world as they know it. They don't know better. Like your wife, Chojin, and the world in which she was raised. You get shown one paradigm, it's the dominant paradigm in your experience, and some people, when challenged, think and grow (like it sounds like your wife is doing), and some just try to diminish the challenge or explain it away. They just don't see these things as real problems.

My son is five and I try very hard to patiently counter the things he picks up from the world without being overbearing with it. He likes pink, he thinks dolls are okay, he is obsessed with weapons, he loves his sister, he has a lot of little girl friends, and we discuss physiological differences between boys and girls and differences pushed on us by society as much as we can (in his limited five-year-old way). I try to approach everything this way with him -- we let him play a lot of violent video games, too, but not all, because we believe in discussion and fostering his interests -- but becoming a parent has really brought home to me the things I hadn't thought of before, like how affected men are by what society tells them.

And I'm not trying to be an apologist, and say that's okay, but I understand it and I think there are big, overriding issues we need to work to counter. I just wish I knew more and better solutions for that.
 
but becoming a parent has really brought home to me the things I hadn't thought of before, like how affected men are by what society tells them.

You want to know my dirty secret? It wasn't until I got married and realized I didn't imagine every woman I come across as a "potential <insert whatever depraved or not so depraved noun here>" and though I don't have as many women friends as I used to the ones I'm still friends with are have made since being with my wife seem a lot more fruitful and better.

It's shameful for me to say it but really thats how I was prior. Again I've stated prior its a lot about biology, but again thats not even an excuse as we're better than our genes, it does help put some perspective. A lot of the people on GAF are young, they're in their 20s or even younger, when I was that age I was just as horny. I objectified women, I blamed them for my woes. I thought I was a "nice guy" and it wasn't until I turned 30 and realized that maybe the women I'm attracted to really aren't the women I'm attracted to and then I found Carla and realized yeah I definitely was not happy with the women I was attracted to in my 20s. It really seems childish in retrospect.

I suspect when we have kids i'll be the same way, I fear I'm going to be one of those "fun" dads and my wife will have to pick up the discipline stick but again, maybe my perspective will change when I realize that yeah I'm a dad now I gotta do dad stuff. Getting married and having to share my life with someone made me realize how selfish I was, and well. When you're single you are selfish :p So I try not to get too riled up with the younger crowd, a lot of them not know what they do. I was just as bad, and hell there aren't days when I see a nice body part flash at me in public, but I know better than to say it out loud ;)
 
And I'm not trying to be an apologist, and say that's okay, but I understand it and I think there are big, overriding issues we need to work to counter. I just wish I knew more and better solutions for that.
I wonder if it would be useful to anyone if we complied links to resources or books to learn more about such issues. Although it's pretty rare that people come into these kinds of threads asking directly: "Where can I learn about this?" and when it does happen it's more: "Where's there evidence of this?" so maybe framing it both ways? I don't know how interested people would be in something like that.
 
The truth is, I typically just ignore the one-off posts that gross me out and the full-on threads that aren't "meant for me." I'm only posting this stuff here because that's the topic of the thread. For the most part, this forum is amazing and I'm constantly surprised by how progressive many of the posters are. I've learned a lot and had to challenge myself on some of my beliefs and I'm better for it.

As far as gaming discussions, I know Zoe got upset that more people didn't respond the way she(?) wanted. I love reading the gaming side and I get most of my industry info from it. I've been fascinated and excited about the new generation, watched the Sony and MS unveilings live, watched a ton of E3 presentations, and was incredibly invested in the early discussions. My launch PS4 has been pre-ordered for a while (and I don't even know how I'm going to pay for it yet, but I will). Anyone who knows me would consider me a "hardcore gamer." I didn't visit OT for a couple of weeks because I only cared about the Gaming side. But, you won't find too many posts from me there. I don't really know why other than I don't care to change anyone's mind there. I don't care if someone buys an Xbone or a PS4, I'm not going to tell someone the game they're looking forward to looks like shit. I hated the features MS revealed with the Xbone and respected them less for changing them. I posted when appropriate why I was against Kinect 2.0 (when it was mandatory) but I didn't see any reason to tell someone who was excited that they were wrong and ruining gaming for the rest of us. I do avoid the gender threads there. They are almost Xboxlive.com levels of stupid and I rage while reading them. The Kickstarter thread about the mom and the little girl and the video game camp was amazing. But, the fact is that I don't post there often and I acknowledge that I'm not nearly as vested in those topics as the regular posters are. But, it's not a gender thing. There are plenty of guys who aren't as vested in those topics either yet no one questions them being "real gamers."
 
One the things that always drove me mad back in the day when I was playing magic was not just the treatment of women in general, but the fact that everyone automatically assumed I was stupid as a box of rocks because I was a reasonably attractive, ethnic looking woman. People would look at me like I was lost. I was ridiculous.

It's to the point that like Monkey, I am glad I've aged and gotten a bit softer in places because people aren't questioning my intelligence as much just looking at me.
 
One the things that always drove me mad back in the day when I was playing magic was not just the treatment of women in general, but the fact that everyone automatically assumed I was stupid as a box of rocks because I was a reasonably attractive, ethnic looking woman. People would look at me like I was lost. I was ridiculous.

It's to the point that like Monkey, I am glad I've aged and gotten a bit softer in places because people aren't questioning my intelligence as much just looking at me.

Honestly this is why I stopped playing paper Magic as soon as MODO came out. When i left college and my friends that played together locally (we all ended up going to VCU together) and was on my own I tried many times to go to other shops in whatever state I moved in. The climate was so hostile, hell still is, I tried to see about the Theros prerelease here in Atlanta and there's a shop near me and all the same tropes of "oh is the new guy" or "I'm sucha bad ass cardflopper who mouth breathes" or even the "I'm the GIRL of this group I hate all other women who try to claim this from me" of what I had to deal with even 20 years ago. At least online if someone tries to be a "man" and shittalk and gripe while they play I can mute them.

Actually you know I do want to bring this up because I'm curious of what you all's reactions are to it, but what are your thoughts on "that" woman. Not every clique has one, but in a lot of groups where it's predominantly male there's sometimes you will have one "accepted" woman of the group and will jealously guard that position against all other females. How often have you ran into this, have you been that person, and what do you think the reasoning is behind it?

When I used to work at gamestops (three different ones from South Dakota, Atlanta and in Albuquerque) I've ran into many shops where they had that "token" girl and played up to a stereotype that was not flattering at all. I'll admit it soured me on the whole idea of being friends with them and sadly made me generalize women at gamestop in general. In fact that woman I was talking about earlier, she was the first friend besides my best friend that I met when I moved here to atlanta three years ago, I wrongly assumed she was the token gamestop girl and I treated her like dirt but she kept being so nice to me the whole time, so after my transaction (I bought disgaea 3) I apologized greatly to her and even to this day I feel so bad, she says she didn't get dick vibes from me, just was happy I wasn't yet another COD/Halo guy, and she helped me get a job there when I was looking, now we're neighbors and she's one of my best friends, but I still regret treating her the way I did when we first met.

Granted I'm not perfect, two years back I was at another gamestop and this young lady was trying to sell me on Alice Madness returns, and I was just trying to buy Demon's Souls and she said that Demon's souls was too easy and it sucks and Alice was SOOO much better than the original PC game and then I quipped "What the hell are you sixteen!?" and I felt bad about it but I still didn't buy Alice Returns :p
 
Okay, so we've moved on from 'lol more boys play games than girls, obviously'

Even if that were 100% true, why does everyone* treat girls who do play videos so damned dismissively? Any mention of girls playing games elicits this knee jerk, defensive response about how they aren't really playing 'games', they are only playing because their boyfriends/husbands play, or they are just doing it for attention. With that in mind, it's not a big leap as to why there aren't more women on a video gaming forum.

*everyone in the sense that a mere mention of 40% of subscribers to XBox live being female elicits pages of these responses, along with the normal, not assholey responses.
Yeah, I don't get the outright antagonism. However the numbers get divided or whatever that still doesn't really change the fact everyone's an individual, nevermind that a low percentage of people still means those people exist, it's not like a winner take all election or something. Nevermind that even if the interest is very casual it's not going to help anyone to be dismissive of the person who just wants to play a little bit of whatever new game hits.
The problem with flippant jokes is rather like the problem with flippant "would/would not bang" comments. On any one individual level there's perhaps nothing to criticize too deeply because they're, well, flippant, but when they form an undercurrent of discussion it means that they're speaking to some concept running through the zeitgeist.
That's what I was trying to get at, kind of like when using homosexual slurs without actual antagonistic intent to homosexuals can still do damage just by keeping those words in vogue, at least so long as they're actually meant harmfully (why queer sort of became irrelevant there I imagine, it's STILL used normally at times and seems to have been co-opted as a mundane descriptor.) I imagine quite a few of those legitimately aren't homophobic, but it's still cultivating an unnecessarily negative atmosphere.
More on topic, that Jennifer Lawrence thread was a trainwreck.
I had had enough when I saw the "would plant my seed in her" post. I guess that could be intended as a form of admiration but it's a really creepy, fucked way of doing so.
 
I think another part of the issue is how it seems males are treated as being capable of holding any variation or combination of views and likes/dislikes, in other words as individual persons.

But when women are discussed, it seems they are often treated like something on discovery channel, mysterious creatures with a set package of behaviours and likes/dislikes that are observed based on a few anecdotal cases expanded onto a whole population. In other words, not like individual persons.

I don't believe it is quite that simple. People on NeoGAF have a way of generalizing everyone who isn't an enthusiast. Males are "dudebros" (very small area of populist taste, blamed for everything going wrong in AAA gaming or why favorite games don't sell well) and females are considered more uninvolved altogether (with games generally uninteresting to most enthusiasts being more their forte). If you post on NeoGAF or on a similar site, that is, read the same sites and are in the loop, male or female, you are seen as the exception. People can be just as presumptuous with "the guys who are buying Grand Theft Auto V" as they are with "the gals who are playing Farmville". If you want the "discovery channel" of treatment of male gamers, look at threads predicting sales of popular games and whatnot.

Btw, as rude as this sounds, I think generalization of the "masses" is done by everyone to some extent (I'm going to say anyone who tries to excuse themselves isn't being honest). It is at least somewhat reasonable to be a little dismissive of the taste of the masses in a conversation among enthusiasts. Stuff like "Justin Bieber lol", "Transformers lol", etc. is so common that people will sub them in for any attack on populism. If females, as pictured a generalized blob of people, are dismissed more or further in videogame discussion, it is likely because people think less of the associated social gaming, etc. than they do of Call of Duty, GTAV etc. I don't think people always mean every individual female gamer, e.g. people who post on GAF, when they are being dismissive like this.

I don't like the idea of basing serious discussion on generalizations, but sometimes they are all you have or what you need to use to communicate efficiently. I guess most conversations on the topic don't try to be serious though. "Flippant" as it was put. I think there are real grievances to be had with the way people talk about female gamers in such a careless manner, as there is differently a worst case scenarios where people attack the very idea of a female gamers (which means attacking GAF members and I find that in bad taste). I still don't like some of the conclusions people are trying to make in this thread though, as I explain below.

I disagree with the level of emphasis people put on NeoGAF's environment as a reason for the differences in gender. I'm especially unimpressed with how people want rebuke "it is a videogame forum" with "the actual reason is because people say 'it is a videogame forum" or some other way to say "this very thread proves why", more or less dismissing the idea that a videogame forum - especially a generalized videogame forum that isn't based on a single franchise/genre that can be shown to be more equalized - having more males isn't to be expected. That's not to say NeoGAF can't and won't scare off some female gamers of various beliefs and tolerances, but I just don't see that being the strongest reason by a long shot. It is a leap of logic that doesn't quite quell what is such an obvious answer (a lot more male gaming enthusiasts), using the fact the answer is treated as obvious as a counter-argument isn't much of one alone. I can't help but wonder this: NeoGAF tries enough to the point that I would question if every other major site with more equal populations (and this includes the lightly moderated social media) is more welcoming or even a quarter as much as GAF in some cases. I don't see a hypothetical where the mods go all-out and delete/ban every source of negative feelings concerning women and women gamers come pouring in to extent that proves this is actually a deciding factor.

Note this is entirely separate from the idea that GAF can't or shouldn't improve.
 
I had had enough when I saw the "would plant my seed in her" post. I guess that could be intended as a form of admiration but it's a really creepy, fucked way of doing so.

I think that was 100% tongue in cheek, like how teenage girls say they want to have Liam Payne's children.
 
I disagree with the level of emphasis people put on NeoGAF's environment as a reason for the differences in gender. I'm especially unimpressed with how people want rebuke "it is a videogame forum" with "the actual reason is because people say 'it is a videogame forum" or some other way to say "this very thread proves why", more or less dismissing the idea that a videogame forum - especially a generalized videogame forum that isn't based on a single franchise/genre that can be shown to be more equalized - having more males isn't to be expected. That's not to say NeoGAF can't and won't scare off some female gamers of various beliefs and tolerances, but I just don't see that being the strongest reason by a long shot. It is a leap of logic that doesn't quite quell what is such an obvious answer (a lot more male gaming enthusiasts), using the fact the answer is treated as obvious as a counter-argument isn't much of one alone. I can't help but wonder this: NeoGAF tries enough to the point that I would question if every other major site with more equal populations (and this includes the lightly moderated social media) is more welcoming or even a quarter as much as GAF in some cases. I don't see a hypothetical where the mods go all-out and delete/ban every source of negative feelings concerning women and women gamers come pouring in to extent that proves this is actually a deciding factor.

Note this is entirely separate from the idea that GAF can't or shouldn't improve.
No one has said that the alienating environment is the sole or major reason for why it's so predominately male, just that it accounts for a reason why the women who would otherwise be interested in discussing video games (and yes they exist, not to the extent where they would probably become the majority in a forum such as this one, but they're out there on other websites and irl) are choosing not to. Hell, you've had a majority of the women posting in this thread talk about how the alienation keeps them from posting in certain topics or had kept them from posting entirely.

People are getting frustrated with those that post: "Because it's a video game forum" since that was discussed pages ago and we moved on.
 
No one has said that the alienating environment is the sole or major reason for why it's so predominately male, just that it accounts for a reason why the women who would otherwise be interested in discussing video games (and yes they exist, not to the extent where they would probably become the majority in a forum such as this one, but they're out there on other websites and irl) are choosing not to. Hell, you've had a majority of the women posting in this thread talk about how the alienation keeps them from posting in certain topics or had kept them from posting entirely.

People are getting frustrated with those that post: "Because it's a video game forum" since that was discussed pages ago and we moved on.

Fair enough. I admit I may be taking people voicing these frustrations out of context.
 
I think that was 100% tongue in cheek, like how teenage girls say they want to have Liam Payne's children.

Regardless of their supposed intention, it was also 100% gross/alienating in that it suggested forced/unsolicited sexual contact with the woman being fetishized. Here is the quote for posterity:

I will seed my child in this woman, one day. Just you wait, Jennifer Lawrence. Just you wait.

We don't need those kinds of comments.
 
i sure don't know a single girl who would even consider joining a videogame-centric forum, but i know about 20 guys who would.

Because you're ignoring the historical oppression and dissuasion of girls that want to persue technical things, it's not an innate feature of vaginas

the numbers that say "there are as many woman gamers as men" are wack. sure there are a lot of girls who play CoD because they're boyfriends got them into it

So basically even with proof you don't want to believe that girls can be gamers. I like how Fiction being introduced to a game by a man is not a real gamer, but if I recommend Timedog a CoD, he would still be considered a real gamer

or maybe zelda because link is hot

And men can't play game solely because of sexy women in it? Look at the dudes that don't want to play the new Batman because a single female character in it isn't their idea of fap material.

but i have never met a girl who goes out of her way to be informed about video games the way men do. even gamer girls i've met online are never as informed as guys.

Never met a girl that was informed or met a girl that was informed in the same specific genres and games you were? "Informed" is subjective. I could tell you specific engine details of the Halo engine that not even 343 developers know. If you ask me something about Call of Duty, I wouldn't know it's engine tricks or even the name of the characters. If you asked me anything about God of War, I'd draw a blank.. I only know they star Kratos, and that's it. I have no idea how to sign up for a PSN account, nor do I know all the features of a Vita.

can we stop caring SO MUCH about video game politics? i'm not sure if it turns girls away, how much video game dudes get into console wars and "he said this" or "press release vaguely says thing that might be bad" but i sure am super apathetic to anything of the sort

Do you not want to care or does people bringing it up make uncomfortable with the idea that some people have been turned away and are attacked when they go ahead anyway for simply having a vagina?


i think girls might not be so grossed out by us
rock stars can attract the ladies to music, cool gaming dudes who aren't losers might be able to attract girls to video games a Tiny Bit More

.. you know you essentially said right here that women can only get into gaming if there's a man they like that's already a gamer, right

why do they need the male proxy/gatekeeper to get into gaming?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom