Why don't more girls play RTS games?

Another factor is that female units in the game are not a priority for the developer, even when they would be historically authentic. Relic removed female partisans because they didn't want to develop female voices for weapon teams, for instance.

Also recall all the gross stuff that people say about Cynthia? You would have to be wilfully ignorant to not acknowledge that women in this industry and in this community are subject to gender based harassment. It's completely revolting.

@Basileone if you are going to dismiss any kind of research that contradicts your pseudoscientific as the work of "genderstudy antiscientists" there is no point in even discussing this with you. I would rather argue with my grandmother about why all black people are not criminals.

I'm making this post because I'm tired of what gaming is like right now and I want it to change.

All competitive games are based on aggression of some kind (like any kind of sport really), and aggression is based on testosterone, which girls are lack off :-)

Is there any sport in the universe where women competing vs men? I guess not, and there is a biological reasons for that I believe :-)

If there would be some kind of offline tourney in coh2 where only girls could play with eachother, I bet we would see plenty of entries, but that's not gonna happen :-)

But that's not exactly the topic Machine meant, he meant that IN COMPARISON with MOBAS, RTS games have a smaller women playerbase, and tried to figure out why. And I guess his arguments are pretty solid.

@Basileone if you are going to dismiss any kind of research that contradicts your pseudoscientific as the work of "genderstudy antiscientists" there is no point in even discussing this with you. I would rather argue with my grandmother about why all black people are not criminals.

That first bit was so grammatically incorrect, good to know I won't have to endure any more of it. Men and women have different brains, bodies, hormones, interests, etc. That's not anti-science, that IS science, unless of course you get all your "facts" from delusional feminists like Anita Sarkeesian and Lena Dunham. If you want to refute anything I said, you better bring more compelling evidence than something your dumbass dyke of a gender-studies professor said.

That first bit was so grammatically incorrect, good to know I won't have to endure any more of it. Men and women have different brains, bodies, hormones, interests, etc. That's not anti-science, that IS science, unless of course you get all your "facts" from delusional feminists like Anita Sarkeesian and Lena Dunham. If you want to refute anything I said, you better bring more compelling evidence than something your dumbass dyke of a gender-studies professor said.

That is fact/science.

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Generally speaking girls are less competitive and/or less inclined to like cognitive activities, which is why there aren't very many girls at university getting degrees in physics or engineering but rather education or biology. The ones that are more competitive typically invest all their competitive drive in sports. How many guys that are in to athletics also like to game? A lot of them. Girls that are in to sports play very little if any video games.

that isn't.

since when is engineering competitive? a graduate with an engineering degree from a half decent college can get a 40-50k first year salary easy. engineering is a very safe career. I rather say Art is more competitive. You don't get a test that have straight questions and straight answers. Your grade is always relative to your classmates and your portfolio matters more than simple alphabetic grades. You work for yourself way more as an artist (especially due to lack of good job security... ) than if you are an engineer. Art schools, even most prestigious usually have 60-40 girls to boys ratio.

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If anything, i think it has to do with environment more than innate biology.

Hey guys lets tone this down a bit.

That is fact/science.



that isn't.

since when is engineering competitive? a graduate with an engineering degree from a half decent college can get a 40-50k first year salary easy. engineering is a very safe career. I rather say Art is more competitive. You don't get a test that have straight questions and straight answers. Your grade is always relative to your classmates and your portfolio matters more than simple alphabetic grades. You work for yourself way more as an artist (especially due to lack of good job security... ) than if you are an engineer. Art schools, even most prestigious usually have 60-40 girls to boys ratio.

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If anything, i think it has to do with environment more than innate biology.

I didn't mean engineering is competitive, I meant it is based on the type of problem solving that men excel at and are more drawn to. Competitiveness is a different aspect where men and women differ, and RTS is a combination of competition + strategic problem solving so thats why very few chicks play it.

And to whoever said this is some sort of social conditioning issue, thats a valid explanation why more men play videogames of all genres. But the competitive drive and mens outperforming in engineering/chess/coaching/standardized tests, etc. etc. is genetic.

Girls don't play games because women don't like games. Its as simple as that.

The notion that gender stereotypes are because of enviroment is complete and utter bogus.

The enviroment in general has very little to do with human intelligence, behaviour , or whatever. It is all in fact, genetics.

And so the shit slingfest has begun!

Just dont tell the feminazies about this so they come and ruin our community and game. Not going to go into details.

Anywho, I dont think strategic depth and pew pew vidya appeal very much to your general girl gamer, but then what do I know, I'm a dude.

Oh boy, here we go, the can of worms was opened.

We couldn't just all be here for the game? Now we need to get into this social-engineering political vomit.

I hope this is like the first and the last of these kind of articles here. I rather read a thousand "axis OP" or "RIP OKW" "UKF unplayable" "grenades are too micro intensive" threads then seeing a single of these threads/articles again.

woot? the onset starts at 12-14??? i dont know what "scientists" made that up, but the social pressure starts much earlier (the princess playing with barbies (age5), etc)

Im not writing a paper here; obviously I'm not including every possible pertinent fact. The difference is that between parental pressure and peer pressure.

12-14 is rather the point where puberty hits, so hormones come into play. but of course, most genderstudy antiscientists dont like the word hormones or anything that has to do with biology=real science

That of course is entirely untrue. Pleading "hormones" isn't going to get you anywhere, becuase hormones are not chunks of programming script.

That first bit was so grammatically incorrect, good to know I won't have to endure any more of it. Men and women have different brains, bodies, hormones, interests, etc.

Of course, the same is true AMONG men and women. Not every man gets the same dose of testosterone, and not every woman gets the same does of oestrogen. If these things were actually down to physical predetermination, there would be more variability than we see.

Moreover, if it were again biologically determined, there wouldn't be so much variation in history. Frex, around the C15th-C18th, it was usually men who wore bright colours, tights that showed off their legs, and cod-pieces, while women wore mainly earth tones and were very covered up. But today, its men wearing severe, even de-sexed and uniform suits, while women do display.

So again, this is a wholly inadequate explanation.

Im not writing a paper here; obviously I'm not including every possible pertinent fact. The difference is that between parental pressure and peer pressure.
That of course is entirely untrue. Pleading "hormones" isn't going to get you anywhere, becuase hormones are not chunks of programming script.

yeah, Peer pressure doesn't Start in Kindergarten or basic school. Lol.
Hormones are a kind of script. Prenatal development, puberty, love, a women's period, all rely heavily on hormones to "steer". How can you be so ignorant of biology?

Of course, the same is true AMONG men and women. Not every man gets the same dose of testosterone, and not every woman gets the same does of oestrogen. If these things were actually down to physical predetermination, there would be more variability than we see.

Moreover, if it were again biologically determined, there wouldn't be so much variation in history. Frex, around the C15th-C18th, it was usually men who wore bright colours, tights that showed off their legs, and cod-pieces, while women wore mainly earth tones and were very covered up. But today, its men wearing severe, even de-sexed and uniform suits, while women do display.

why would there be more variability?

And your second example is total bollocks. Cloth color? That has nothing to do with our basic instincts. Better talk about things like war. The only example I can think of where primarily women went to war instead of men are the Amazon's. That is pretty much zero variation. Even in cultures we didn't have contact with for ten thousand years, the basic principle is the same. Men are aggressive, dominant, go to war. Women are responsible for the kids and the household, so social and communicative.

Interesting fact: men and women have different eyesight. Men can see fast movements at the borders of the fow, while women can see the center better ( which explains why men often suck at searching). Examples like these show how different we really are!

Im not writing a paper here; obviously I'm not including every possible pertinent fact. The difference is that between parental pressure and peer pressure.



That of course is entirely untrue. Pleading "hormones" isn't going to get you anywhere, becuase hormones are not chunks of programming script.

Hormones are very much a programming script, hormones and other various chemicals are literally responsible for every single decision , thought, movement, in your body, and of which men and women have different quantities and types of.

yeah, Peer pressure doesn't Start in Kindergarten or basic school. Lol.
Hormones are a kind of script. Prenatal development, puberty, love, a women's period, all rely heavily on hormones to "steer". How can you be so ignorant of biology?

I'm not at all ignorant of biology, thank you very much. hormones are not remotely complicated enough to constitute a "script"; therefore they cannot be relied upon to explain things so complicated. That men wear trousers and women wear skirts is not a function of biological drives.

why would there be more variability?

Because it's quite easy for a given female baby to get a bigger testosterone dose than a male baby. If there were some sort of scale of testosterone response that determined enjoyment of ball sports, or whatever, then it would vary pretty widely across sex.

And not to mention that oestrogen is also used in fight/flight responses etc, undermining the correlation in the first place.

And your second example is total bollocks. Cloth color? That has nothing to do with our basic instincts.

Hahahaha..... really? But apparently, playing RTS's does? We've some instinctive drive to like or dislike RTS's, but not clothing? Hilarious.

Even better, you apparently didn't even understand what I was getting it. First of all, dress has a lot to do with sexual display, which is definitely something we have evolved, biological traits for. But more to the point was that what was considered normal and "natural" for men and women CHANGES, which shows that in fact it was neither normal nor natural.

Why should your claims about what is normal and therefore natural be regarded as any more reliable? I certainly don't think they are.

Better talk about things like war. The only example I can think of where primarily women went to war instead of men are the Amazon's. That is pretty much zero variation.

I don't recall anyone talking about women PRIMARILY going to war. That's a straw man. Doesn't look like this isn't going to go well for you.

So OK, lets look at those Amazons. AKA, Massagatae, Scythians. Scythian burials definitely show female as well as male skeletons buried with arms (note, not exclusively female, you're taking the legend as if it were real). One of the markers of Scythian culture is the "timber-grave" burial, which is also found among the "Celts", along with other typically Scythian traits such as horse-fetishism. Famously, of course, Caeser noted the propensity for violence of Celtic women.

Now, the Celts spread all the way from Britain to Turkey, and related cultural forms, like plaids, are also found with mummies in the Takla Makan desert. So what we've actually got, from the example you thought was the exception that proved the rule, is a cultural complex featuring horse-riding nomads and warrior women that stretches across the bulk of Eurasia.

Far from invoking an argument that shows how unusual female fighters are, it's actually a fantastic demonstration of how widespread it used to be.

Even in cultures we didn't have contact with for ten thousand years, the basic principle is the same. Men are aggressive, dominant, go to war. Women are responsible for the kids and the household, so social and communicative

There are several problems with your argument, the first of which is that you are going from the general to the specific. You can't go from such a broad (and as I've already shown, inaccurate) generalisation to saying that this specific woman won't like a specific something. Most people like tomatoes, but I knew someone who couldn't stand them. People are not stamped out of a factory machine.

If we assume that the audience of CoH2 is restricted to Europe and the USA - and it isn't, of course - then that's a combined population of a billion people, slightly more than half of whom are female... and yet apparently it is beyond your capacity to imagine that some of them might be interested in this game? That's a claim that beggars belief. Especially considering that the video, and a post upthread, both made the point that other games, even more closely associated with violence like FPS's, have a significantly larger female following.

The second problem is that in actual historical cultures, this generalisation of yours is only partially true. There are plenty of early societies which Europe encountered during the age of exploration which, say, involved men equally with child-raising. And even more damning for your position, that internal/external divide originally meant that men had little or not political power; it was women who made the decisions. Thus, the Iroquois had a war-leader, who was male, but he was appointed (and could be deposed) by a council formed of female elders; which means that while mean did most (but not all) of the fighting, it was women doing most of the strategy. And this is a strategy game, is it not?

Interesting fact: men and women have different eyesight. Men can see fast movements at the borders of the fow, while women can see the center better ( which explains why men often suck at searching). Examples like these show how different we really are!

Sure, I'm aware of this. You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that I, or anyone, has argued that there are "no differences". That isn't what I'm arguing, or indeed, anyone that I know of has. Instead the issue is that people should be treated as individuals. It is quite possible for THIS PARTICULAR man to have less effective motion tracking systems than THIS PARTICULAR woman, if that's the thing you want to measure. Hell, it's increasingly clear that body tissues don't all share the same sex, because there's a fair bit of variability in sex hormone exposure in utero.

Most women can bend their elbows back further than most men. But there are men who can bend their elbows back further than some women. It's just not the case that sex is any more of a fixed and totalising attribute than any other property that people have.

So even if it were true that the generalisation that MOST women may not be interested in this sort of thing holds, it;s not a sufficient explanation for the sheer scale of the polarisation we actually see.


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The Machine's video quite reasonably and intelligently attempted to steer clear of this very morass by dealing specifically with the issue of why RTS's specifically have a smaller female following than other topically similar games. However, as is always the case on the internet, there's always some arse who's got to pop up and make some absurd claim to biological essentialism, and for whom this is an issue that shouldn't even be discussed. That dog don't hunt.

Hormones are very much a programming script,

They are not, they don't carry enough data for the effects that are being attributed to them. This is akin to claiming that a single letter is a programme, because programmes are written with letters.

I'm not at all ignorant of biology, thank you very much. hormones are not remotely complicated enough to constitute a "script"

for all the examples i gave, hormones and their interaction with the nerve cells is the "script"

Because it's quite easy for a given female baby to get a bigger testosterone dose than a male baby. If there were some sort of scale of testosterone response that determined enjoyment of ball sports, or whatever, then it would vary pretty widely across sex.

but that is only the case if the testosterone dose would vary so highly, that many women reach mens levels and many men reach womens level. can you point me to a specific paper that shows that? because everything i have seen so far on that shows that the opposite is the case. yes, these women exist, but they are relatively rare

Hahahaha..... really? But apparently, playing RTS's does? We've some instinctive drive to like or dislike RTS's, but not clothing? Hilarious.

i would argue that a videogame and the emotions and mechanics it uses have a lot more to do with how our brain works than the wavelength of some light particles. clothing is a lot more about what your friend/partner/neighbour/etc wears. and i mean, how long do we have those kind of clothes. 2500 years? that is nothing on a gene scale

But more to the point was that what was considered normal and "natural" for men and women CHANGES, which shows that in fact it was neither normal nor natural.

Why should your claims about what is normal and therefore natural be regarded as any more reliable? I certainly don't think they are.

how do you know that we have a biological trait for cloth? well, my point is that clothes may change often, but the role of men and woman has not changed in the last 10000? 100000? years and evolution is very slow on those timescales

(note, not exclusively female, you're taking the legend as if it were real)

my information was that some of the tribes were female dominated, others male. therefore female-dominated=amazons. if that is wrong, im sorry

Now, the Celts [...]

did you just go from: "celts have some similarities with the scythes" to "female warriors were usual thoughout whole europe". if it were that easy to argue...
female fighters were uncommon, whether for the romans, the egyptians, in the middle ages, the mayans, american cvil war, 10000bc.

There are several problems with your argument, the first of which is that you are going from the general to the specific. You can't go from such a broad generalisation to saying that this specific woman won't like a specific something.
... and yet apparently it is beyond your capacity to imagine that some of them might be interested in this game?

i never said that. if i did, point me to it. there is variety, of course. that is why we have more than 0% women playing this game...

You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that I, or anyone, has argued that there are "no differences".

many people argue exactly that on a brain level

So even if it were true that the generalisation that MOST women may not be interested in this sort of thing holds, it;s not a sufficient explanation for the sheer scale of the polarisation we actually see.

how can you say that it is not a sufficient explanation? if you look at how many women like technical jobs or study something technical (=the mechanics of the game and pcs in general) and how many women like violence (high testosterone) and competetive nature (testosterone again), and then compare the amount of overlap with men, i would argue we come pretty close to the percentage that is shown here.

arse.... absurd claim

thank you very much for keeping this discussion mature, friendly and on-topic

and well, discussing the difference between men and women is a important aspect of the question, so steering clear of the difference is nice and all, but not helpfull for a real understanding.

snip

Some things have nothing to do with your genetic makeup, others do. Fashion or even something like music taste (men preferring something like Pink Floyd while girls rather hear One Direction) has nothing to do with biological gender differences. On the other hand behavior and in many cases interests are. Obviously there are outliers like Rhonda Rousey and some random 100lb beta male on twitch.tv, but outliers do not debunk a general rule.

for all the examples i gave, hormones and their interaction with the nerve cells is the "script"

Not really; hormones are the signal that triggers things, but it's that structure that contains the logic.

but that is only the case if the testosterone dose would vary so highly, that many women reach mens levels and many men reach womens level. can you point me to a specific paper that shows that? because everything i have seen so far on that shows that the opposite is the case. yes, these women exist, but they are relatively rare

Argument to and from papers doesn't really work for this sort of discussion, because we are not academics with access to journals, and so at best you end up reliant on what resources happen by chance to be easily accessible.

However the problem really rests with the term "many". Would 5% qualify as "many"? Because that's a small proportion, but would still be millions of people.

i would argue that a videogame and the emotions and mechanics it uses have a lot more to do with how our brain works than the wavelength of some light particles. clothing is a lot more about what your friend/partner/neighbour/etc wears. and i mean, how long do we have those kind of clothes. 2500 years? that is nothing on a gene scale

Well no, a good deal longer than that; we have evidence for textiles dating back at least 27,000 years. And even without that, you can look at the degree of display that went on in Zulu and Aztec cultures, which were both working with essentially stone age tech.

However,I'm not arguing that clothing has affected our evolution, I'm pointing to clothing as an expression... but not one which gives great evidence of fixed and eternal gender roles. Frex, the oldest industrial strike we know have occurred on the Pyramids, and involved a demand for mascara.

Clothing is certainly a venue where social status and sexual appeals are indicated, and if it really were the case that humans always instinctively performed their god-given gender roles, there would not be as much variability as there is. Most men through history wore dresses, after all, not trousers. The claim that you can just look at culture, and see nature expressing itself automatically, doesn't hold up.

my information was that some of the tribes were female dominated, others male. therefore female-dominated=amazons. if that is wrong, im sorry. did you just go from: "celts have some similarities with the scythes" to "female warriors were usual thoughout whole europe". if it were that easy to argue...

More accurately the very idea of there being sharply delineated "cultures" is in question. What we have instead is a complex of cultural features that are widespread, unlike the national cultures of later territorial states.

Incidentally, I'm not aware there ever having been any "female dominated" societies in the same way that there have been, and remain, male-dominated societies. Even matriarchal ones didn't make men second class citizens the what that patriarchal ones made women.

female fighters were uncommon, whether for the romans, the egyptians, in the middle ages, the mayans, american cvil war, 10000bc.

But 'uncommon' is all I've argued for. And 'uncommon' still means large numbers of individuals in populations as large as ours.

Even if something is 'uncommon', that doesn't mean that it is invented, or 'unnatural', or provide any argument for why people should be prevented from doing whatever they choose to do, no matter how unusual we may find it.

But lets look at the example you cite of the Romans. In Roman law, women had essentially no rights. When she was a child, she was the chattel property of her father, and when she got married, ownership of her was transferred to her husband. So no Roman woman was ever able to freely decide to join the army. To then cite the lack of women in the Roman army as evidence of the non-violent "nature" of women is absurd, because it was a society that expressly prevented them from being autonomous.

This is a classic demonstration of the 'is-ought' logical fallacy: the presumption that because something is a certain way, it *should* be that way.

many people argue exactly that on a brain level

Well, in a world where Flat Earthism still has adherents, and even Global Warming is hilariously rejected by some, I won't deny that someone, somewhere, has made such a claim. I will say that it has nothing to do with the serious argument.

how can you say that it is not a sufficient explanation? if you look at how many women like technical jobs or study something technical (=the mechanics of the game and pcs in general) and how many women like violence (high testosterone) and competetive nature (testosterone again), and then compare the amount of overlap with men, i would argue we come pretty close to the percentage that is shown here.

But this was the very point that The Machines videa addressed 0 not the incidence of women in combative gaming overall, but the difference in participation between RTS as a genre and the likes of FPS as a genre. And as for competition more generally, if you don't think there;s a huge amount of competition between women, you're missing the boat.

and well, discussing the difference between men and women is a important aspect of the question, so steering clear of the difference is nice and all, but not helpfull for a real understanding.

As I said, The Machine's videa tries not to deal with it by dealing only with contrasts between gaming genres, not the question of gaming overall. Which was an entirely reasonable and admirable decision.

My further point is that no matter how carefully these things are expressed, there;s always some cretin who pops up claiming the whole issue is just one of Political Correctness Gone Mad.

thank you very much for keeping this discussion mature, friendly and on-topic

Thanks and likewise, and to that end I won't be looking at this thread more than once per day, should the discussion continue.