posted 07-20-99 12:48 AM ET            

I blame the neuromechanics of it, myself. Males seem more geared towards focusing on a single task than females, who tend to multitask better. Hence our ability to become completely absorbed in a game for 20 hours straight, and our inability to listen and concentrate at the same time. Or something like that. It's true. I read it in a magazine. It's all that testosterone at work...

posted 07-21-99 01:08 AM ET            

Women aren't 'meant' to play sport, either, but they do, and they love it - even (or especially) supposedly male only sports like rugby. So basicially I was sending the whole argument up, not agreeing with it. Females will play games when the social environment truly allows it - IMO not very far away.

posted 07-22-99 12:49 AM ET            

Nell is great, she's one of the best and most interesting posters on the forums. Eris and Rynn have occasionally turned up as well, and there are others who either mostly lurk or who post and then vanish. And Hello Kitty used to post here, but has moved to ACOL as a result of trippin daily getting banned for abuse of the forum rules (and the game, JKM, BR, and firaxis in general). She's also good value, especially when on attack .

Start a thread to flush out the female lurkers, if you want more educator/child rearer/gather company .

Shining1

posted 07-22-99 08:55 AM ET            

i didn't know that and i've read lots and lots of her posts in the spartan chronicles

posted 07-24-99 03:01 AM ET            

"edgecrusher" Spartan PRobe Team 'angelis'

posted 07-24-99 07:50 AM ET            

My theory is that most females don't understand the joys of PBing a persistent and dangerous enemy. Or even an innocent victim faction. In war situations, SMAC abounds with opportunities for comparisons like:

"My Singularity PB is bigger than your Fusion PB"

"My Elite Chaos Invaders have more movement points than your Chaos Invaders"

"My Research is bigger than yours"

Size comparisons are very male-oriented. And when you figure in the fact that the game keeps a score, it becomes important to "score big."

posted 07-24-99 02:02 PM ET            

Fungus blow! New volcano rises. Next turn volcano eruptions cause -1 energy/square for 10 years. Not enough psych energy anymore. With the UoP... =Drone Riots. Nerve stapled every citizen. Took me a long time. Very annoying.

posted 07-24-99 02:48 PM ET            

men and women are equal but they are different.

more men like computer games than do women.

One thing that always amazed me was that - whenever I went into an arcade - if there were girls there - they would always be playing "catepillar"

posted 07-26-99 07:43 AM ET            

Ace, men in women are inherently unequal based on their differences. We got it all over you boys. Take a bar scene for example, you walk up to me and touch me inappropriatly and I'll see the bouncer beating the crap out of you. But lets say I walk up to you and just for fun crush your funbags into a paste like substance everyone would assume you did something wrong, not that I am just plain cruel .

Women live longer, have a stronger immune and healing response, have brains much less effected by brain damage, and we are not furry (yuck). Who cares if you control buissness.

Oh and all the ladies are at ACOL, we are actually setting up an all girl PBEM so LV we would be happy to see you defect.

posted 07-27-99 04:22 AM ET            

It's true that men and women have very similar grey matter, but culture dictates that it's not "ladylike" to be an intense, Schwarzkopf-type person. And people change their way of life slowly, '90s or no '90s.

The pysiological differences between men and women are largely the result of breeding. As more women take on "human cannonball" roles, they'll pull closer to men in overall brute ability.

posted 07-27-99 10:36 AM ET            

I don't know about anywhere else, but in my geographical area, there's an unfortunate tendency for employers (many, but not all) to look at a woman's resume, see computer experience, and translate that to 'glorified secretary'. The occurrence of this has lessened over time, but there are still many fewer women working in technical fields here than men. Judging from my (mostly male) techie friends' reports, I'd put it somewhere around 15%. This fits with my experience in the field, too.

But it can't possibly be solely lack of interest on the part of women, judging from my female friends and acquaintances. I know one woman who has no real interest in doing computing for a living and two with no real interest in computer gaming, but /every other/ woman I'm friends with has at least /some/ interest in computers. Several work in computing: one is having a problem being taken seriously as an admin and so is stuck in tech support, one is in tech support on purpose (some of my friends are weird), one is a programmer, and I know a couple female admin-types.

So why does there seem to be a lack of female gamers?

Well, it's possible that some percentage of women just aren't into talking about the games. They play them and that's it. IME, men like bragging more. It's also possible that SMAC in specific doesn't appeal to many women, though I've got no theory why (other than most of the women I know are more interested in RPG and adventure games). Some may just not have the time to play something like SMAC -- /someone/ has to do the dishes, after all. (Given a choice between doing the dishes and playing SMAC, guys will play SMAC. Women will tend to realize that eventually, one runs out of dishes. )

(For the record, I hate doing dishes.)

So, the answer to the question is that there is no clear answer to the question. Wasn't that helpful?

posted 07-27-99 02:44 PM ET         

Women and men are different physiologically. Different organs. Different bone structure. Different biochemically. Different functionally.

These differences ensure different psychology from the get-go. Throw in a few aeons of social and genetic evolution and the differences ripen, the initial differences have deep repercussions over time.

Equal but different.

posted 07-27-99 06:13 PM ET            

Eris:
Dishes are dishes. Guy or girl, they still stack up with remorseless, grinding efficiency. I also hate dishes, but this is no excuse.

posted 08-26-99 05:34 PM ET         

I can answer the question in a single sentence: there are fewer female game-players because of the way computer games are marketed. The game industry targets males, 15 to 25 years old, and what a surprise - that's who buys and plays the games.

And to the armchair evolutionary biologists among you . . . in predatory mammals (including humans), females fight ferociously if something important is at stake - like territory or offspring. What females rarely do is fight for fun.

Female instincts appear to incorporate the game-theory concepts of cooperation and competition. Namely, if everybody cooperates then individual winnings are maximized for all, but if somebody starts competing then others are forced to compete in order to minimize their losses. This explains why females are less likely to initiate conflict.

For most females, the ideal competitive situation is to be allied with trusted members of a group/tribe and to be fighting an enemy who is threatening to take valuable resources. If computer games were designed to create such situations and were marketed to women, then there would be more female gamers.

Shining1, you're right about the single-task vs. multi-task abilities of male and female brains. The physiological explanation is differences in brain lateralization and temporal lobes - females have 11% more neurons in the temporal lobes (avg) and that gives us extra processing power for verbal and pattern-recognition tasks. The temporal lobes are why females tend to be more verbal and why we're better at tasks like reading faces. It also explains why I can sit in the kitchen and play SMAC and at the same time, carry on a conversation with my husband while he prepares dinner!

posted 08-26-99 08:23 PM ET         

Nell and Kitty may have different answers, but I think it's probably because it's not as much fun to flirt with a thirty-something married woman.

My two younger sisters call me an "old married lady" and the characterization fits. I'll also admit that I don't really seek that kind of attention and perhaps it shows.

Nell posts wonderfully interesting messages on many, many topics and naturally, that makes her very attractive. And Kitty is a lesbian and therefore unattainable, and to some men that makes her a 'challenge'.

posted 08-26-99 09:44 PM ET            

[y'all can fast forward now, where comes a rant]

Regarding evolution, it happened. I could give quite a lecture explaining the watered down Darwin, but I'm going to be less verbal here. Darwin's original observations were of animals, as I understand. I didn't mean to patently apply natural selection to people. That was probably a mistake. However, bear in mind that we're over 80% monkey, genetically speaking (sorry).

I don't take issue with my armchair status on many subjects. However, I caution everybody that credentials/skill alone can't get the public at large to see what the experts see. And seeing is believing. A great big void can open up when the Knows consider the Know-nots less than worthy of understanding.

Big deal? I think so. The schools have to teach something, and soft thinking can fill the void in a heartbeat. Self-esteem, creation science, arithmetic with calculators, you name it. That stuff can't fly you to the moon (or even to the supermarket). The same way science can't replace "right and wrong".

There may be a danger in watering down subject matter (for the masses), but the other extreme isn't much better (all-or-nothing). Better being more people who can visualize/understand/grasp what's really going on. Then again, I suppose that's my bias speaking. Maybe ignorance is bliss? I can't answer that, but I can say with more certainty that giving a small group infinite trust creates infinite possibilities for abuse/selfishness/bossing people around (i.e., creates royalty).

The "ivory tower" concept didn't just come out of the ether. It's existed for quite some time, with nerds and jocks (and cheerleaders) each trading shots with each other. Hell, even fascist dictators, communist leaders and religious fundamentalists have taken advantage of this less-than-perfect communication to rationalize their insane ideas. Despite the fact that many fears are dreamed up, can you help wondering who's next?

posted 08-27-99 08:41 AM ET            

Also, if you read my whole post, you'll see that I was (unsuccessfully) sending the whole thing up. I think you're correct about the marketing aspect, but the multitasking is highly debatable. Wallstreet seems to function okay, and sharetrading seems to consist of a 90%+ male groundforce doing six things at once for 10 hours a day.

posted 08-28-99 02:19 AM ET         

Shining1, sorry - I missed the ironic tone in your post. I should point out that your Wall-Street trader isn't a good example. I trade the financial markets and I can tell you that traders and specialists on the floor are *very* focused and they don't multi-task at all. During market hours, they typically live, eat, and breath a single issue.

posted 08-28-99 03:30 PM ET            

There isn't much meaning. It's the standard part 1/part 2 rant.

In part one, I describe a trend in "society (add music: dun-dun-dun!!)" where people are reluctant to "fiddle" before calling a mechanic.

Part two follows from part one. If people stay out of their "weak areas" then I see alot of quacks, dictators, and half-baked social experimenters (the lunatic fringe if you will) getting the status that belongs to "the real McCoy".

Why? If you didn't know a thing, you'd vote for a political candidate who tells you the world is flat. Or, you'd believe that there's no possibility for a socialist system to be corrupted. Or, you'd believe things that aren't necessarily true or possible to prove. Applied to worldly things, it clearly doesn't pass.

I bet that the Liberal Arts deans love me right now for giving their entire rap about being well-rounded, but I give credit where credit's due. One for the establishment. All the same, I wish I had to take fewer Gen. Ed. courses. You can get buried on subjective topics the moment you don't stay glued to the instructor.

Now that I remember, there is a Gore speech that mirrors me. Just replace "lunatic fringe" with "republican party". I found it some months ago at the White House website. I was trying to analyze it as a project for a communication theory class. I got a poor grade. I don't know how to make BS look like it fits into a theory. But what I said above could fit into Burke with some twisting and stretching (he even did a paper/essay on Hitler's rhetorical success at decrying the experts. That might explain where the dictator references come from).

The problem is stretching it to more than one page.

Anyway, Gore is pretty smart. If he writes his own speeches. Probably too smart for politics. What he did was basically re-hash "status quo is good"/"reassure the masses" in a way that the people wouldn't recognize as such. All while using a reverse Burke to paint the "bad guys" as people who would blow up your house if they could.

posted 08-28-99 03:41 PM ET            

http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/search/everything.html