Why Are There So Few Women in Wargaming?
Why Are There So Few Women in Wargaming?
Why Are There So Few Women in Wargaming?
By Luke Winkie
June 5, 2021
Summary
"They're all white men, all 50 and older. I'm doing what I think is normal. I'm walking around and checking in on the other games, the same thing that they do when they're not in a game. But when I go to their games, they start saying, 'Oh, are you here to see your dad?'" says Ensteness in an interview with WIRED. "I was with my wargaming group, and they were exhausted from saying, 'No, she's in our gaming group. We play with her every week.' So everyone just started saying, 'Yes, she's my daughter.' I briefly had a whole group of adopted wargaming dads."
There is an argument to be made that one of the most influential gamers in the culture remains Felicia Day, the actress of Supernatural fame, who founded the tabletop-centric media company Geek & Sundry in 2012.But despite all of that progress, for as much as the tabletop sector seems to have shed its reputation as a sanctum of inveterate masculinity, the wargaming space hasn't caught up with the mean.
According to the Great Wargaming Survey, a census-like questionnaire conducted by the magazine Wargames, Soldiers, and Strategy every year, the estimated makeup of women in the hobby was between 1.5 and 2 percent as of 2019.
Ostrander tells me that wargaming is a different beast than board gaming and pen-and-paper hobbies.
The same barriers exist in the other tabletop fields, but Ostrander notes that she's felt a higher degree of gatekeeping in wargaming than she's endured in board games or RPGs. Perhaps board games are simply more equipped to be approached casually-heavyweights in the tradition, like Pandemic, are cooperative, and a character-sheet adventure like Pathfinder is much more about the journey than the destination.
The issues at play here obviously transcend the constraints of a game store-there is a long tradition of discrimination that has pushed women away from geekdom-but that doesn't mean that these publishers couldn't start chipping away at the issues.
"One of the stepping stones that I saw helping more women feel comfortable in gaming spaces was the creation of groups that were explicitly safe spaces. This sometimes meant women-only or gender minority-only groups, or certain game nights that were aimed at beginners," says Ostrander.
Reference
Winkie, L. (2021, June 5). Why are there so few women in wargaming? Why Are There So Few Women in Wargaming? https://www.wired.com/story/women-wargaming-sexism-harassment/