For me, ever since the early 90s, there were a lot of female roleplayers I played RPGs with and they were treated with as much respect as their male counterparts.

Before the 90s, in my experience, I didn't play RPGs with women, although I just didn't know any female roleplayers.
I think probably as RPGs like Vampire, Werewolf and the general theatre of the min RPGs, which were more about Roleplaying than adventuring attracted more women.
Certainly when I ran Vampire and games like that in the 90s, there were at least as many women playing them as men.

In the 80s, I was a teenager and I hardly ever saw Female roleplayers. They just weren't there. I think where I lived at the time (Sydney Australia) it was a VERY niche hobby.
I remember one female roleplayer, who was the wife of a guy who ran an LGS.
although I never RP'd with her, she seemed very confident and happily chatted about RPGs and games she took part in.

I'm not saying sexist, abusive behaviour never happened anywhere in the world in the RPG community. But if you see such thing a happening, then you should be doing something about it then and there putting a stop to it, rather than whining about how bad it was and how much it went on.

The people I played with at the time (whether pre 90s or after) would have had no problem playing RPGs with women and if they had behaved in a sexist or crude manner towards female players, I would have put a stop to it.

Quote from: danskmacabre;820722For me, ever since the early 90s, there were a lot of female roleplayers I played RPGs with and they were treated with as much respect as their male counterparts.

Before the 90s, in my experience, I didn't play RPGs with women, although I just didn't know any female roleplayers.
I think probably as RPGs like Vampire, Werewolf and the general theatre of the min RPGs, which were more about Roleplaying than adventuring attracted more women.
Certainly when I ran Vampire and games like that in the 90s, there were at least as many women playing them as men.

In the 80s, I was a teenager and I hardly ever saw Female roleplayers. They just weren't there. I think where I lived at the time (Sydney Australia) it was a VERY niche hobby.
I remember one female roleplayer, who was the wife of a guy who ran an LGS.
although I never RP'd with her, she seemed very confident and happily chatted about RPGs and games she took part in.

I'm not saying sexist, abusive behaviour never happened anywhere in the world in the RPG community. But if you see such thing a happening, then you should be doing something about it then and there putting a stop to it, rather than whining about how bad it was and how much it went on.

The people I played with at the time (whether pre 90s or after) would have had no problem playing RPGs with women and if they had behaved in a sexist or crude manner towards female players, I would have put a stop to it.

This was largely my experience, except for knowing several female roleplayers in the 80s.

i have not been doing this for as long as the rest of you but i also have never seen any problems of the sort. i see the occasional creeper on /tg/ asking for advice on attracting the woman in there group but they are swiftly insulted with incredible ferocity so it sure as hell aint tolerated. even then its very rare to see that you might get it once every 3 or 4 months.

Quote from: danskmacabre;820722Before the 90s, in my experience, I didn't play RPGs with women, although I just didn't know any female roleplayers.

QuoteIn the 80s, I was a teenager and I hardly ever saw Female roleplayers. They just weren't there.

QuoteI'm not saying sexist, abusive behaviour never happened anywhere in the world in the RPG community. But if you see such thing a happening, then you should be doing something about it then and there putting a stop to it, rather than whining about how bad it was and how much it went on.

The people I played with at the time (whether pre 90s or after) would have had no problem playing RPGs with women and if they had behaved in a sexist or crude manner towards female players, I would have put a stop to it.

This is very close to "I didn't see it, so it must not have happened".

The one guy we kicked out of our group in the late 70s was the guy who thought gang rape of female PCs was a natural thing (among other issues). And we had a fair number of women, both players and DMs, in that group. But some women who joined related unpleasant experiences elsewhere, and I don't know how many might have played but didn't because of such experiences elsewhere. And it's not just the extreme examples; there are subtler forms of sexism which you might not have even noticed, and interrupting the game "to put a stop to it", even where feasible, could itself be a discouraging experience.

Quote from: TristramEvans;820642Gaze upon the misogyny of the 80s!

...are they using 8" action figures for minis? Thats hardcore!

A marketing picture is often different than the reality.

I knew women who were in the RPG scene in the 1980s. However, they were definitely a small minority.

As for actual data:

Gary Alan Fine published his sociological study "Shared Fantasy" in 1983, for example, and noted that readership surveys returned 2.4% women (The Dragon) and 0.4% women (The Space Gamer). He interviewed Gary Gygax who at the time estimated active females to be between 10% and 15% of the community. (I suspect that Gary may have over-estimated.)

The best data is the 1998 Wizards of the Coast survey (the only public study with a controlled representative sample rather than self-selected people writing in). That found 19% women in tabletop RPGs, eight years after Vampire: The Masquerade debuted.

I have always held that there are no Dwarven women. If some Dwarves want to *pretend* there are, well, who am I to judge?

-clash

As for dwarven women - I would have them with beards if it was a game in Middle Earth.

I'm fine with the without beards in D&D settings like Forgotten Realms - which seems to be how D&D is defining things now.

Quote from: rawma;821012This is very close to "I didn't see it, so it must not have happened".

No it's not, as I specifically said "I'm not saying it didn't happen, I'm just saying I didn't experience it"...
Read my posts properly..

Quote from: rawma;821012The one guy we kicked out of our group in the late 70s was the guy who thought gang rape of female PCs was a natural thing (among other issues). And we had a fair number of women, both players and DMs, in that group. But some women who joined related unpleasant experiences elsewhere, and I don't know how many might have played but didn't because of such experiences elsewhere. And it's not just the extreme examples; there are subtler forms of sexism which you might not have even noticed, and interrupting the game "to put a stop to it", even where feasible, could itself be a discouraging experience.

I can't speak much for the 70s, I was very young then, but I know there was a hell of a lot of sexism around in the 70s, so it wasn't specific to RPGs.

Still, it's better to do something about it than not, even if it breaks up a  gaming group.
That guy you're referring to sounds like a lunatic, even by 70s standards.

i would say its a lunatic by any time periods standards he sounds like one of those people who are convinced people in the past approved of rape

Quote from: danskmacabre;821063No it's not, as I specifically said "I'm not saying it didn't happen, I'm just saying I didn't experience it"...

And yet you were sure from your first post that a sexist discussion is no problem, apparently because it's too remote from your experience to be a concern.

Quote from: jhkim;821031As for dwarven women - I would have them with beards if it was a game in Middle Earth.

I'm fine with the without beards in D&D settings like Forgotten Realms - which seems to be how D&D is defining things now.

Pretty much my sentiments as well. In an established setting like Middle Earth, bearded Dwarven women is expected (though one can do whatever they want ultimately) and if I was playing in Middle Earth it's what I would accept. In the Forgotten Realms and my personal setting, Dwarven women are beardless, as that appeals more to my aesthetics than women with beards.

Quote from: rawma;821087And yet you were sure from your first post that a sexist discussion is no problem, apparently because it's too remote from your experience to be a concern.

Erm, I think you're going to have to clarify that some more.
I don't really understand what you're getting at.

Quote from: jhkim;821016A marketing picture is often different than the reality.

I knew women who were in the RPG scene in the 1980s. However, they were definitely a small minority.

True, women were a minority in all geeky endeavours back then. My experience suggests they were not as rare as suggested, but certainly not on par with guys. But, and this is a big but, my experience also leads me to believe this was largely due to choice on behalf of girls themselves, more than the male gamers. I do not think the hobby as whole was in any way unwelcoming to females, I think that instead society as a whole was incredibly prejudiced against geeks and anything associated with them. This was long before "geek chic" and the modern social acceptance of such things. Geeks in the 80s were socially ostracized. The term "Geek" may have been born as a badge of pride by those of us who took a path outside of what was socially acceptable, but to the majority of kids our age it was a pejorative. One not many girls would be willing to risk.

QuoteAs for actual data:

Gary Alan Fine published his sociological study "Shared Fantasy" in 1983, for example, and noted that readership surveys returned 2.4% women (The Dragon) and 0.4% women (The Space Gamer).

I'm not sure how much a readership survey counts as actual data. I never read either of those magazines and in 30 years of gaming, haven't met anyone who read The Space Gamer and maybe a fraction of roleplayers that picked up Dragon on anything close to a regular basis. My guess is that those results would be as askewed as a demographics poll on an rpg forum.

QuoteHe interviewed Gary Gygax who at the time estimated active females to be between 10% and 15% of the community. (I suspect that Gary may have over-estimated.)

I suspect Gary was not widely-travelled enough to make an estimation based on anything besides a few cons he attended.

QuoteThe best data is the 1998 Wizards of the Coast survey (the only public study with a controlled representative sample rather than self-selected people writing in). That found 19% women in tabletop RPGs, eight years after Vampire: The Masquerade debuted.

That sounds closer to the reality I grew up with in the 80s, I would say it probably doubled in the 90s.

But even if my experience was unusual, ultimately the accusation is that hobbyists were unwelcoming to female players, as if the ratio of female to male players represents this. My contention is this couldn't be further from the truth. The internet aside, on the whole, IRL, especially in the 80s, I've found that the geek subculture is one of the most welcoming, accepting subcultures around. The modern stereotype of the misogynistic geek @gatekeeper@ is purely an online invention. Which isnt to say there werent misogynistic gamers. But they never represented more of a percentage of the population than any other social clique, more likely far less. Social ostracisation led to a group that, across the 3 countries I grew up in, was incredibly welcoming to anyone willing to participate. One need look no further than the real life experiences of Warhammer Joey these days to show the reality I grew up with. Geeks were friendly, nonjudgemental, and above all else wanted to share their love of their hobbies with anyone who expressed an interest. What it came down to is, not many girls were interested. Even to this day, a flat poll of girls over guys will undoubtably find that far fewer women are interested in geeky subjects. More are willing now, than any point in history, to give such hobbies a chance, now that the social stigma is lifted, but we are still talking about activities that the majority of women in the world simply dont have any interest in.