This one won't have much in the way of pictures, it is more of a musing after my most recent BoLS article and the nearly 100 comments currently posted.
I wrote the article after being asked for about the thousandth time (slightly exaggerated) how a friend could convince his girl friend to participate in the hobby. So it was taking all the questions I had been asked over the years, all the answers I was given by the girl friends and wives I have talked to over the years. Overall the article was agreed with, and accepted. The odd comment was negative.
Now that I'm writing though, I want to write the kind of thing people want to read, answer the questions people do have. I could talk for days about the Chumphammer or Dwellers Below episodes, my games with my Brets, that new army that I started and haven't touched in at least a month, the other models I am painting....I get bored of that though ha ha ha so what do you want to hear?
Maybe you could talk about the different ways that women, like men, become involved in the hobby. My wife likes the models, paints them, helps run tournaments and actually just got awarded a lifetime membership of the club I belong to (only 4 other people, all guys, have that). Point is, although she showed a bit of an interest in playing at first, she doesn't play now, just collects and paints and gets involved. Its all good.
ReplyDeleteI liked the BoLS article, and came over because of it. I'm in a bit of a different situation than most. My girlfriend already plays, she's a geek like me, and loves tabletop and various other games. But she's slowly drifted away from warhammer, and always laments that she needs to play more.
ReplyDeleteI think it mostly has to do with intimidation. I can tell that going into an event, or playing in a new place, she feels intimidated because there aren't any other female gamers. She worries more about being seen as 'just a girl' than on how she's playing, and the entire game is skewed with that insecurity. I cannot even begin to count the number of times I've returned to a gaming venue without her and everyone asks where she is and talks up how fun the games were.
With that observation, I would love to be able read your articles with them targetting other women and the hurdles or expectations you encounter and how you deal with them, I think personally it would be the best for male games to get a meaningful insight of what we may be doing without knowing, and be able to point our significant other someplace that they can relate to.
I could give advice until I'm blue in the face, but all men know that the women in our lives think we are biased towards them(and we are), so until someone else can show them what we've been telling them is the truth, they will take it with a grain of salt.
Either way, keep up the great articles.
Thank you Mike, I have enjoyed reading all your comments. I appreciate your insight hear as well.
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