In my on-going endeavours to push the “Woke Agenda” (copyright purple-faced buffoons of all ages) I bring the linked article to your attention.
https://www.wired.com/story/women-wargaming-sexism-harassment/
I have signally failed to interest my own daughters in wargaming. To put it into context, I’ve only been partly successful with my son (he’ll play a game but has rarely been known to lift a paint brush or read a book on the subject). Encouraging the girls to wargame wasn’t actually part of some right-on agenda*, but was simply to have opponents on hand without actually having to be sociable.
How have you got on in this respect?
* do they still say ‘right on’?
My son managed to get the eldest of his sisters to participate in a LOTR game at the Salisbury branch of Games Workshop about 10 years ago, but she never showed any more interest. Geekdom is not her thing. It is his though. He also got one of the twins to play a few games with him, and he passed his GW collection on to her when he went away to study his BSC in Geekology, but the toys never got touched again until I took it to a charity shop last year.
As for persuading my wife........I never want to provoke such a look of disdain again. It’d be a bit like the reaction this genius would get if he tried to interest Naomi Campbell in some horizontal exercise:
🤦♂️
Yeah, I read that article yesterday. One is either interested or not in wargaming and free to make up their own mind. It is not my job to force wargaming onto the masses. I have not fared well with trying to include my own family into my little hobby. The boys will play if pressed. The girls never. My wife announced today that she would be willing to help me run remote wargames, though. How about that?
ReplyDeleteI’d say that was a result!
DeleteAgree it’s not your job, or anyone’s, to force wargaming onto anyone. It is a hobby after all. I suppose the thing is, if someone is interested but feels unwelcome (whether that’s intentional or not) when young, then they’re less likely to carry on.
My experience has been similar to Jonathan’s, my son (25 now) will play occasionally but in the modern way of things his attention span is short so I am more likely to get a game of command and colours rather than a full on wargame. My daughter (23) would roll her eyes although a board game with zombies or LOTR is possible. My wife is actually quite encouraging in my hobby efforts, but I fear that is to humour me in my ageing process. She wouldn’t demean herself to actually play.
ReplyDeleteOh the rolled eyes! That 'there goes dad again with his weird pastime'. I think wargaming with figures was pretty much a minority interest 40-50 years ago, so it must seem very quaint now. It's almost a surprise it hasn't been picked up by the hipsters!
DeleteMy daughters will play some board games particularly the eldest. She likes seeing my vintage Britains and has had a wee go at painting in the past. None of them Wargame, never really showed interest. They tolerate my hobby but think too much lead comes into the house in terms of space issues. They feel it is a good diverting pastime for me so encourage it, much like Jan’s view of it. Jan new of my hobby from the start and having Airfix building brothers was not unaware of it. The girls have grown up in a Wargaming household. No converts made but tolerant individuals.
ReplyDeleteI thought the appeal to the creative side might help, but I've not managed to get even that to hook.
DeleteAnd my mother in law’s cross-stitch group is still 100% retired ladies… When Airfix and other war-related toys were freely available in the 60s and 70s I only knew one girl (my friend Jane) was happy to play with toy soldiers; her action man collection was bigger than mine! Now war toys are as rare as hen’s teeth I wonder how boys will get into the hobby, let alone girls. I have gamed with women at various clubs but it really is mostly a ‘man thing’. Unlike cross stitch. This does not excuse dickish behaviour, however, which is the main barrier to engaging with people of either sex.
ReplyDeleteIt (dickishness) is indeed a barrier. And you get dickish behaviour in all sorts of hobbies. In our street growing up, we had the reverse of the lone girl playing with toy soldiers. We had a boy who played with dolls (not Action Men). His mother was very enlightened for those days. The rest of us weren't.
DeleteNow this cross-stitch business, could the group be persuaded to do something on the Battle of Minden perhaps? If so, sign me up.
Occam's razor says it's likely the typical convention wargamers' B O that puts the ladies off?
ReplyDeleteNever mind Occam's Razor. Occam's Soap and Deodorant wouldn't go amiss.
DeleteApart from your middle one with his Lord of the Rings stuff (and not forgetting his paratroops of course*), none of your lads have shown much interest either have they?
* certainly the most left field approach to improvising parachutes.
Yes, only the middle one is interested at all. He salvaged some 10mm Pendraken WW2 stuff from my 'lead pile of shame' a few of years ago with the intention of painting them. Never heard any more about them since though. If we'd been in the same country I think he would have continued his interest.
DeleteHe could be another one spreading wargaming around the Black Sea littoral then?
DeleteI’d been pinning all my hopes on my grandson until last week. About 6 months ago he’d expressed a mild interest in what gramps was doing but having just bought a whole load of non fiddly Wofun for us both to dabble with I was politely informed that he was not really into war stuff ... ho hum. My 5 grand daughters will never be converts, though the eldest did concede that if wars were fought with toy soldiers rather than real people, then we’d all be better off for it! Both of my two sons are history / militarily inclined, but geography and lack of shared interest in a specific period has killed any chance of gaming per se. The Current Mrs Broom is very tolerant of my hobby, thank goodness, but I’ve become quite resigned, indeed accepting of my solo gaming environment.
ReplyDeleteYou will keep choosing strange foreign parts to live in.
Delete5 grand daughters, if my maths is right, is enough for a five-a-side team! Don't tell me they don't like football either.
Sounds like we are mostly in the same boat. When my son was about ten, I took him to one local show, where he and I rolled a few dice controlling a Union force on a small scale Blaclk Powder game and he came along to my mate Julian's once I think.....but when he asked me "Dad, why do you like soldiers so much?" I realised there wasn't much hope of him developing an interest.......he played rugby till he left school and became an apprentice builder...he still isn't even remotely interested, surprise, surprise. Ditto my daughter...and my wife tolerates it but would prefer I didn't spend money on yet more troops. Julian us the only one of my group if around ten gaming mates who had even a modicum of success with both his daughters...but it's mainly board games they will play, such as Game of Thrones, and the down side is they usually win!
ReplyDeleteThis boat is getting a bit crowded.
DeleteMy son played once, my daughter twice...she actually tried painting. My wife gave up threatening to vacuum the toys when I switched to lead.
ReplyDeleteHowever, my Grand daughters, they play Chosen Men, Mansions of Madness and I may get them on AD1666 this summer. There is no forcing it, either there's a light in the eyes about it or not.
Some success! I don’t know those games. Are they board or figure games?
DeleteLiterally every HMGS convention I've been to, Mrs. Enstennes mopes around their display area and literally "minds the store" in the dealer hall while her husband runs ESR demo games. I've not seen her once participate in a demo game, or enthusiastically engage in rules conversations, even when attempted. She appears at most times I've seen her, disinterested.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the sentiments here that you either want to wargame, or you dont. All are welcome in my eyes and advice and encouragement, thanks to the internet, are readily available. If people dont want to game, they wont.
In the eyes of the woke masses, it is easy to target this hobby because of the statistics, but the reality is so much more nuanced than what was discussed in this "article."
Interesting. Just shows that the old adage ‘two sides to every story’ is still valid. And the other one too. The one that goes something like ‘the truth is rarely pure and never simple.’
DeleteSo much to comment on.. my experience is the same as yours.. the ladies in my life (wife and two daughters) have no interest in wargaming at all - in fact probably less interest than that... my other interest is sailing.. one of the daughters has been out two or three times in 10 years... thoughts.. is there something in "men are from Mars, women from Venus" no idea as I've never read it, but I know enough at this stage to realise ladies are very very different to us blokes, and I don't mean just physiologically :o) As to the youngsters.. they are on the tail end of almost a lifetimes eduction and schooling that drums into them that 'war is bad' so playing at it to them is entirely alien.. my theory is that is why fantasy and science fiction are so popular with the youngsters.. because "it's not real".. good post!
ReplyDeleteI’ve never read that book either. I always avoided those shelves in bookshops. All that self-improvement . Yak 😆.
DeleteFunnily enough I think war is bad too, but it never stopped me playing with toy soldiers or playing at war.
Well that's the irritating fact that most of those opposed to wargaming as glorifying war seem to miss.. I don't believe any hobby gives a better perspective on how utterly awful and foul actual war is... and it never stopped me playing with toy soldiers either, LOL..
DeleteI took my wife along to a wargames show once as she was interested to find out more. She was really narked to be let in for free on the assumption that she was just there to give me a lift. I think it was kindly meant, but it did sort of give the wrong impression.
ReplyDelete(Difficult situation for a Yorkshireman, of course, the opportunity to save a couple of quid vs a possible new entrant to the hobby.)
I couldn’t possibly comment on your last sentence Chris. It would be wrong of me to stereotype people.
DeleteActually what you said about things being kindly meant might be the source of some of the irritation amongst the ‘non-woke’.
Actually, I'm not really clear what 'woke' means. I got the impression it's some sort of silly modern fashion, like trousers with torn knees and designer stubble, but if it's preventing people from wargaming maybe it's more like decorating.
DeleteMy youngest (most recent) son was quite interested in my battles when he was about 9 or 10. He liked the computer-managed rules (sorry about that) and he liked to balance the generals on the scenery. He was very keen on photography at the time, so we got some very unusual pictures. Eventually it just became something his dad did, and thus beneath contempt. That is the closest I came to involving a family member.
ReplyDeleteThe discussion of females being discriminated against at wargame clubs chimes all sorts of stereotypes to me. My experience (infrequent, and mostly reluctant) with clubs suggests that a lot of the guys who go to clubs do not handle normal social situations well. I'm also alarmed by the physical traditions of female fantasy figures - these are not the products of a healthy perception of ladies, I suggest...
You can't beat a good generalisation, I always say.
So stereotypical men stereotype women? Is that a good generalisation?
DeleteYeah - maybe so. Enormous boobs and a bow and arrow - just your typical girl around town.
DeleteBoth my nephew's play/ collect /paint/collect rulesets and are my regular opponent's, they're both in their 40s now and I encouraged them with 40k when they were young. My nieces husband also plays now but with lots of little children doesn't find time to paint much,it's okay because I have plenty of painted figures! My daughter came up to me a while ago and said "I can't believe you've never given me a game with your little men!" in that special teenager way,we've had a few Italian wars games she's enjoyed, she's pretty competitive and has won a few and also got her (history type) boyfriend to play as well, my 18 year old grand niece plays dungeons and dragons, alas without figures although she does keep trying to persuade her mates to try them! Her younger brother likes a game with figures or boardgames but I doubt if he will continue, my wife just about tolerates the hobby, " surely you don't need more figures? But it's a new period..." and she objects to me spending every evening painting but otherwise she's alright with it, sorry for the ramble!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Looks like you have been the most successful Iain! Having someone actually volunteer, in her teens!
DeleteNot a ramble at all. I get the same "do you really need more" question. Don't we all. And I don't have half the collections of most of you. I've screenshotted Graham's blog entry where he totalled his figures as evidence of my rectitude.