Female ASL players

ActionBurk

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The whole time I played ASL I only played one female and that's stretching it quite a bit because I know she/he was transsexual. Not that I give a rat's ass as long as you leave kids and animals alone. Why do you think there aren't more female ASL players/gamers? One of the best chess players in our HS league was female. Her and her brother were a force to be reckoned with. The wife was a top notch backgammon player so I know the talent is there.
 

Carln0130

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The whole time I played ASL I only played one female and that's stretching it quite a bit because I know she/he was transsexual. Not that I give a rat's ass as long as you leave kids and animals alone. Why do you think there aren't more female ASL players/gamers? One of the best chess players in our HS league was female. Her and her brother were a force to be reckoned with. The wife was a top notch backgammon player so I know the talent is there.
The interest is not. In all the time I have been playing ASL in New England, we had one female player who had geniune interest in the game. Unfortunately, her husband didn't appreciate the fact her new hobby involved playing boardgames with exclusively male participation, so that was that. The only other games I have ever seen played normally involved women who were just currious what their SO was enamored of and after trying it a couple of times, decided they had enough info and that was that.
 

davegin

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Not to be sexist, but just to be realistic: The female gender is not nor ever has been interested in history or war.
 

witchbottles

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since 1989, I've met one woman who enjoyed ASL - and she was a very outspoken woman overall, who could hold her own in any shoot the breeze with a bunch of guys. The lady in question lived with her wife here in the SF Bay area, and was a IT network designer.

I have only ever heard of one other, and that through very old references to the UK players association putting on the War Oboe Sword Beach monster game a long while ago.

As for wargames in general, I know of a few more. My own wife enjoys Storm over Arnhem - but none of the other area movement games that came later. She also plays 1830 from the old AH quite often.

One of my closest ASL buddies for a long time was married to a woman who enjoyed the old 1964 Midway.

So there are a few who find wargames interesting at some level. Just as I am sure there are a few men in this world who actually enjoy going out with the ladies so they can pick a new summer dress fashion for their circle of friends this spring. ( Not me, I assure you, but still......)

KRL, Jon H
 

hongkongwargamer

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Sitting together over a small grid pushing little cardboard squares, saying things like "I will take the resid, gimme a 1 down 2" and making funny sounds when pushing your Panzer along is not exactly a "normal" person's idea of cool.

Let's face it - it's one step below Monopoly.

Women are WAAAYY smarter than this. I know my wife and daughter are. They let me do it because it's harmless, as long as we don't start sniffing the glue in those counters.

Rgds Jack

PS And my daughter's into history.
 
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Michael Dorosh

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LMAO Ain't it the truth.
There was a female active in the Combat Mission computer game community long ago. I traded her a replica SS panzer crew jacket for a copy of Squad Leader (the original) she had in her collection (apparently she played it growing up). Her website featured images of SS troopers with hamster heads photoshopped in. Lost track of her about a decade ago, she was in school learning to be a chef.

Honestly, it's nice to have some hobbies where you can go and guys don't change their entire behaviour just because there is a girl in the room.
 

daniel zucker

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Not to be sexist, but just to be realistic: The female gender is not nor ever has been interested in history or war.
but David that is a sexist statement. because you just made a blanket statement regarding the 'female gender', I will presume that what you were getting at is the empirical evidence would suggest that the largest majority of female's, or to put it the other way a very small percentage of females are interested in the history of war.

I know a great number of females who are interested in history, just not military history. Having once worked at a historical museum Village about half of the full time staff were female, and in the summer time the number of females would increase dramatically. They seemed to like to get dressed up in lots of layers of cloths (17TH & 18TH & 19th century women's cloths have quite a lot of layers :)).

daniel
 

Matt Book

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but David that is a sexist statement. because you just made a blanket statement regarding the 'female gender', I will presume that what you were getting at is the empirical evidence would suggest that the largest majority of female's, or to put it the other way a very small percentage of females are interested in the history of war.

I know a great number of females who are interested in history, just not military history. Having once worked at a historical museum Village about half of the full time staff were female, and in the summer time the number of females would increase dramatically. They seemed to like to get dressed up in lots of layers of cloths (17TH & 18TH & 19th century women's cloths have quite a lot of layers :)).

daniel
My undergrad military history teacher was female.....

It isn't that that aren't smart women who can't do the analytics of ASL, I think that 99.99 % of women and a vast majority of men don't want to invest the mental energy into something as complex as ASL. I know there are female Chess Players and female Chess leagues, but I don't know of one female grand master who was top in the world. Just like when I was in a graduate political theory course, there wasn't one female student, they all shied away from it. Whether evolution or hardwiring, I think women aim their analytics at what they are interested in whether career or social. I do know of two women who played ASL, one was listed online in the 90's on a game list, the other I saw who was at ASLOK who was there with her husband I think-oh I don't have their phone numbers either guys...sorry.

Oh wait, how can we forget Uncle and the Two Nieces....they played all the time !!!!!! Bwahahaha
 
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davegin

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I amend my former statement. It is certainly true that "the female gender" is not interested in the history "of war". That is not to say they aren't interested in the "social" aspects of history. Dressing up at colonial Williamsburg and the like is about social history, not war. Women are interested in anthropology and the like as it pertains to the "social" aspects of history. I still say that war history is an uninteresting subject to women in general. Minoring in history back at Marquette in the late sixties there was not one female in any of the classes for junior and senior year. Not one.
 

sunoftzu

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I've never known of any women who play ASL.........its one of the reasons my GF is so encouraging of my interest in this hobby. Her reasoning is that the chances of me encountering an attractive, intelligent young woman whilst playing ASL are virtually zero. She used to have a similar attitude towards my scuba diving until she discovered that quite a number of young Taiwanese woman are into scuba diving these days......

However, I do remember back in Wellington that a number of women were quite keen on "Up Front", the old Avalon Hill card game. In fact, interest often exceeded the number of game sets available.....

".....hey John, can I borrow your Up Front set?..."

"....um, sorry, but I've already lent it to Trudy...."

"....yeah John, sure you have. Good one..."

"...no, really, Trudy has it. You'll need to ask her..."

"....really ? Wow, fancy that !!...."
 

skarper

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My ex-wife used to play. Her dad was a keen gamer and got her interested as a teenager. She was pretty good. Easily able to beat me [though I was never a strong player].

Women do play games and are as good as men on average. There are fewer female ASL players because the game is difficult and time consuming to learn. They could learn it but the reward does not repay the effort. Young women have other things to do - for example young women get a lot of interest from men - unlike young men who get much less interest from young women. They also have to work harder in their careers to make progress.

Ergo - I think it's generational. ASL players are older, post 50s if not 60s in most cases. Younger players are not getting involved at a high rate. It ASL appealed to younger players then we would see many more young women involved.

Does it matter that younger people are not attracted to ASL - hardly. We've had this discussion before and there are enough oldies around to keep ASL going strong for 20+ years.

Finally, and in a way this runs counter to my points above, ASL is highly immersive. Immersive hobbies seem to appeal less to women than men. You don't see many female train spotters or obsessive sports fans. They do exist but it's less.
 

hongkongwargamer

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You are likely to see one or two next year at the tourney. :)


I've never known of any women who play ASL.........its one of the reasons my GF is so encouraging of my interest in this hobby. Her reasoning is that the chances of me encountering an attractive, intelligent young woman whilst playing ASL are virtually zero. She used to have a similar attitude towards my scuba diving until she discovered that quite a number of young Taiwanese woman are into scuba diving these days......

However, I do remember back in Wellington that a number of women were quite keen on "Up Front", the old Avalon Hill card game. In fact, interest often exceeded the number of game sets available.....

".....hey John, can I borrow your Up Front set?..."

"....um, sorry, but I've already lent it to Trudy...."

"....yeah John, sure you have. Good one..."

"...no, really, Trudy has it. You'll need to ask her..."

"....really ? Wow, fancy that !!...."
 

witchbottles

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I amend my former statement. It is certainly true that "the female gender" is not interested in the history "of war". That is not to say they aren't interested in the "social" aspects of history. Dressing up at colonial Williamsburg and the like is about social history, not war. Women are interested in anthropology and the like as it pertains to the "social" aspects of history. I still say that war history is an uninteresting subject to women in general. Minoring in history back at Marquette in the late sixties there was not one female in any of the classes for junior and senior year. Not one.
My Colonial Era Grad school Professor was a National Park archivist at Gettysburg Battlefield, and a regular participant in a revolutionary war re-enactment group.
 
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