There are a lot of women into geek things, the idea that women don’t like SF or comic books or games is just a myth. There are generally more guys, but it’s like a 60-40 split, not the 95-5 split some people talk about, which is a lot more balanced than the split on something like football or Nascar or antique auto restoration. From personal experience, eight out of the last ten women that I’ve dated either were either into Doctor Who before I met them, or loved it after I introduced them to it.
Ten years ago I visited Zombie Planet, the local comic book shop, and I was immediately accosted by the shop guy, who then proceeded to follow me around the shop and ask if I needed help repeatedly. When I bought some paint for my miniatures, some young men looked at me snottily and told me that that wasn’t the “right” paint to play the game that the miniatures went with. I politely informed them that I didn’t play with them, I just enjoyed painting them.
This summer I went into Zombie Planet again. I have gone now and then over the years. I’ve noticed them changing. Now there is a woman behind the counter sometimes, and they are much nicer. They let me wander now, and don’t ask questions unless I need help.
Geekdom does get the girls but you have to be welcoming to the girls. I am with a guy who plays D&D and video games and is kind of a geek, but he always was welcoming to girl players, which has not always been my experience. Lots of geek guys have this idea that the only girls who play are someone’s girlfriends. Things like GamerGate don’t exactly help either! And when everything is a sausage fest, you have to be braver than usual to enter it.
From what I hear, things are changing now. Here’s hoping.
It’s getting better with each successive generation of geekdom, I think.
The current crop of 30-something nerds (and I am in that group) are probably the last generation that grew up in the the repressive world of nerd bullying. They’re also made up, in large proportions, of man-children who never learned how to be sociable about their hobby. These are the guys who cry bloody murder about “fake gamer girls,” and so on. They’re also the primary reason why I do not interact with my local gaming community.
Today’s young nerds, boys and girls alike, are growing up in a much more inclusive environment; an environment where gender has nothing to do with nerdery. They’re reading comic books and playing games across gender lines, and when they get older they won’t have suffered at the hands of the “cool kids” in quite the same way older nerds did.
As time goes on, more and more young geeks will grow up to be well-adjusted geeks, and as that continues to trend you’ll see more girls being actively involved in these things because there will be fewer social barriers to that sort of integration.
I’ll give you guys an older perspective also. I was working on my CS degree in the 1990’s, so I dove into geekdom just as the IBM PC was launched and just a few years before the World Wide Web. Back then, the Internet was Usenet - all text. So, that’s the setting. I fell totally in love with the computer world because then it was inclusive. Even though there were more boys than girls in my classes, when I looked at the trade mags and catalogs like the gigantic Computer Shopper, all of the merchandise photos were… computer hardware. Compared to car mags at the time, which always featured bikini bimbos draped over them, the computer media was a breath of fresh air.
Only about ten years later, all the computer ads also featured bikini bimbos draped over the hardware. Color me very disappointed. It’s been downhill ever since. The last computer conference I attended, in something like 2003, one of the vendors had hired a model to dress up like Marilyn Monroe in the obligatory short white dress, to work their booth. Yeah, that sells me on the product… NOT!
I think, from what I’ve seen, various “groups”, the sales and marketing industries and employers have really latched onto the 14-year old boy mentality and milked it for all it’s worth. I hate to offend anybody here, but it looks to me like the boys/men just didn’t realize how thoroughly they’ve been manipulated, to everybody’s detriment. Women are smarter than to put up with sexually-charged environments and opt out. It’s one of the main reasons I quit my career as a software engineer and moved over to the business side of things. Things like Gamergate make me very sad.
Heh. “No offense, but…” never palliated any offences.
This however hits the nail squarely on the head. Some there are who can think in terms of the attractiveness of their desired dates/mates/whatever. Some there are who strictly cannot. They need to recognise the “true beauty{that} is on the inside” and that they certainly can’t set their sights on anything else. It also helps if they can avoid asking inconvenient questions like “So why is Ms Hottie not also being asked to realize that ‘true beauty is on the inside’?”
Well, computers went mainstream. They were “inclusive” thirty years ago in that they catered to geeks of either sex, but not otherwise: The average Joe had little use for a computer, lacked the expertise to use one, and had a zillion better things to spend his money on, including dates with hot chix. But now computers can be used by anyone with the wit to plug one in and so the marketing’s directed to about the same demographic as the cars were back in the 1980s.
Use of the word “cream” might be a clue. I mean, is that still really used? Yeeech.
Anyway, I quit hanging out with geeky-gamer-computer types when I walked into a BBS party, which included a site on which I’d been posting for a couple of years, and was promptly relegated to “the pretty girl” instead of someone with some geek chops of her own (I built that computer I was using, bitches).
It seems that one could be geeky, but not (traditionally) pretty; or (traditionally) pretty, but not geeky. And certainly not a goth geek. No such thing as that in 1988.
I see reports of current conventions and Cons, and have hope for the future. But my age of interest is passing damn quickly.
I have to say that the old place where I always felt uncomfortable (even if there was the woman at the register because she was so hostile, probably for good reason) seems to be circling the drain, not selling new comics anymore, etc. Which is sad, but now there’s a new place we go where they’re so freaking friendly and “like” pictures of our baby on Facebook.
I don’t like the inventory as much - it’s a good bit narrower, they’re also a used record store and sell DVDs and games and all, which is nice, but they don’t have the big long boxes to paw through and not a lot of used stuff. No board games or miniatures. But they’re so nice that our loyalty is firmly there. Scratch n’ Spin in West Columbia, SC dopers.
I have a minor quibble, actually. While it is certainly true that approximately 40% of the people who purchase product and/or report playing at least occasionally are female, the percentage of players who participate in organized play (at any level) is much, much lower - considerably more akin to the 80/20 or 90/10 split. To be fair, Wizards of the Coast (who make MtG) are aware of this disparity, aren’t happy about it (very publicly aren’t happy about it, refreshingly), and have been actively attempting (to the loud and published disgust of part of the player base) to get the percentages a little closer to equilibrium.
I will posit, though, that a primary reason you do not see as many ladies involved in geeky pursuits is frankly “because they don’t feel welcome and/or safe”.
I sort of mentally refer to this as “Only Girl In The Room Syndrome”. It stinks to be the only anything in a crowded room - it stinks a lot more if you’re the only anything and the rest of the crowd is (either thoughtlessly or deliberately) anti-you. Either you get a lot of hostility, or you get treated like a talking dog or a dancing bear - neither is especially fun or relaxing, though.
Take a poll of women who play online games - the percentage of them either a) never mention their gender if they can help it or b) have had seriously uncomfortable or even frightening experiences at the hands of a fellow gamer directly because of their gender is really quite high.
I’ll post a recent personal example by way of illustration. I actually do play Magic the Gathering organized events on a regular basis. In a major metropolitan area. In probably three-quarters of the tournaments I play in (which is a conservative estimate), I am the only woman playing. I played in a tournament a couple of months ago. After the match, as we were chatting, my opponent asked me “So did your husband teach you how to play?” I told him the truth - that I learned to play a good 10 years before I met my husband. He looked at me with a look of total and complete astonishment and said “You got this good all by yourself?!? But you’re a girl!*”
After about 30 seconds, he realized he’d been a freaking tool right there and apologized profusely (to his credit). But that interaction, right there, is a fine example of why geekdom so rarely gets the girl.
- I am old enough to be his mother, without it being even marginally remarkable.
I’ve been playing Magic the Gathering for decades, and I’ve heard that statistic (38% is the official number from Wizards of the Coast), and I’m suspicious that it accurately reflects Magic players. Wizards of the Coast has an interest in growing the game and making it feel more accessible to women (and I hope they succeed), but I believe they’ve chosen the broadest possible definition (“Have you ever played a game of Magic?”) in order to make the gender mix look more balanced than it is.
Magic players in any kind of organized play or competition are more than 90% male. Significantly more, in most cases. Obviously, there are many players who don’t participate in organized play. But I’d be really surprised if there are as many active women players as the quoted statistic would suggest.
I know lots of guys who’ve taught their wives, girlfriends, and daughters to play. I expect that casual players like this, who play because a man that they care about is deeply into the game, make up a majority of the 38%. Not all, certainly. Aangelica, way to rock it, and sorry for the way that many of the men who play Magic treat you.
This is changing, slowly (I think). There’s an active awareness by many players that we need to make the environment more comfortable for women, and that includes not making comments like “you’re pretty good for a girl”. Things are certainly better now than fifteen years ago when I attended a PTQ with 200 people where the head judge began his tournament announcement with “Lady and Gentlemen…”
That’s what’s happening, and it seems to be picking up speed as more gamers are becoming vocal about either their experiences, or telling the assholes to stop treating the women like “fake gamer girls” or some freak to gawk at. Our circle of friends isn’t so much into card games as we are miniatures and video games, and it’s noticeably improving. Video game communities are improving more quickly because of how widespread they are, but it’s all getting better. There will always be sleazy jerks, they’ll never completely go away, but it’s a lot more comfortable to be a female gamer than it was when I started.
It is most definitely changing for the better - it is certainly a significant amount better just in the past five years or so actually. For starters, a goodly number of guys who’ve just managed to stick their foot in notice that they’ve done so and have the grace to be really embarrassed about it. 
I’ve noticed that I also see more women at tournaments - and more women at a second tournament. I’ve also noticed a distinct drop off in the number of patently ridiculous sexist comments (at least where I can hear them - hilariously, my husband hears more of them than I do these days. A couple of weeks ago, someone waited until I’d gone to the ladies’ room to tell him I was a good player for a girl - which at least demonstrates some baseline awareness that the sentiment probably wasn’t totally kosher, you know?
It helps a fair bit that there are now some female pros and streamers, and that both the folks who broadcast the large tournament events and the people sponsoring streams are making it a point to try and broadcast matches featuring female players. It’s hard enough to be at your local game store and not see any other women present - worse if you don’t even have any pro or public role models, you know?
That’s a good point. Organized play is definitely more lopsided. Even at more relaxed organized play like FNM and pre-releases the attendance is male-heavy.
Keep in mind that the majority of players never attend a tournament, or do so very rarely. I can’t find actual numbers at the moment but I recall MaRo stating that by far the most popular “format” is “casual / kitchen table”. I can easily believe that the number is 38%, but that women are less likely to attend organized events.
If men and women are having fun, socializing and pursuing a common interest, all the while looking askance at a small minority of “man children”. Then congratulations, you are one of the popular groups.
Nothing against what you’re saying Johnny but it amazes me sometimes how this board can create an infinite variety of nerds or geeks but everything else is a monolithic wall of “cool kids”.
Ugh. Lost a long post.
Geek women have always been among you, and we’re growing in number every year.
And we do, generally, prefer to date geek men - after all, they’re the ones we have common interests with. However, like geek men, we tend to value our own intellect over our own appearance - which means that, like geek men, we’re more likely to go out in clothes that are chosen because they’re comfortable rather than attractive. We’re also less likely to be wearing makeup and doing all the time-consuming grooming rituals that non-geeky women do. However, unlike geek men, we’re still judged for being dateworthy or not based almost entirely on our appearance, so even the geek guys we want to date will overlook us.
In other words, we’d love to date you, but you need to look at the mousy girl wearing the too-big T-shirt under a hoodie, the one whose hair is always a bit frazzled, who could probably stand to lose 20 lbs, who is just as scared to flirt with boys as you are to flirt with girls. If you expect women to look past your shell - entirely reasonable - you’d do well to look past ours.
There was more, but that was the gist.
I was discussing this on another board recently, and the consensus is that those numbers are probably looking at purchasers of Magic product, not players. A significant source of direct sales nowadays is impulse buys at big-box stores like Target and Wal-Mart, so kids whose moms are buying them packs at the check-out are counted as female players under that survey.
That said, geekdom in general sure feels like it’s a lot more gender-equal than it was 10 or 20 years ago. My wife and I like to sit and people-watch at comic cons, and we’ve been noticing how balanced cons are (at least in the NW, can’t speak for anything else). Anecdotes are not data, but that’s my observation.
What gaming conventions have you ever been to? Pax East is certainly not 50-50. If more than 1/3rd of us who go are female, I’d be shocked. My best friend (also female) and I have gone every year since 2010 and we’re always in the minority.
It depends on the con. From my personal experience:
San Diego ComicCon is close, nowadays. The Sherlock convention I went to in Maryland in August was about 90% female-bodied (though with a large trans/genderqueer componenent). Anime Expo in Los Angeles is about 50/50, too. Seattle has GeekGirlCon, which is exactly what it says on the tin. Gallifrey One, also in L.A., is at least 50/50, maybe a slight female majority. WisCon (which I haven’t been to, but would love to one day) is a SF con that is specifically, explicitly for feminist women SF fans.
I haven’t been to specifically SF or Gaming cons (except Gallifrey, which is Dr. Who-specific, and E3 once, about 15 years ago, which was pretty sausage-heavy at the time), but in my experience almost all the cons I’ve been to have been hella mixed.
OTOH, it might be self-selection on my part. I’ve never been to PAX, because I’m a casual video gamer at most so a gaming-specific con isn’t much interest to me.
Actually, speaking of gaming cons - back in the early-mid 90’s I used to volunteer for OrcCon, which was a RPG/Tabletop gaming con here in LA. When I started, it was almost all menfolk, but when Vampire: The Masquerade hit big it changed the dynamics a LOT. Lots more women of all ages, lots more interest in LARPing, lot more people who showered regularly. (Seriously, the funk was BAD in Open Gaming, and in the Miniatures Gaming room which stayed an almost-all-male bastion, it never improved.) There were always a handful of women playing D&D or Champions or whatnot, but it seemed to go from maybe 10% to about 33% almost overnight.
HeroesCon in Charlotte is the one we don’t miss, and I wouldn’t say it’s 50/50 but it’s pretty even and except for the boobulous art it’s not gross at all. That’s why I like it, it’s never uncomfortable and the nakeder female cosplayers seem to feel very safe.
This is so sad. 
My 13 year old son started playing D&D about a year ago, and I frequently tag along. We are fortunate to have a very nice local shop to play in. While yes, most of the players are geeky guys (not me, of course!), the environment has been respectful to the few women players there, and some serve as DM’s. So, anyway, I can only hope this is changing, if ever so slowly.
Your comment also re-emphasizes some comments made up-thread already:
socially awkward “geeks” tend to push girls away rather than draw them in, for a lot of reasons, but possibly including that rejection is a dynamic they know and understand.