To start off and to hopefully ward off any hate, I'm not saying that I don't want, or that there shouldn't be top female gamers. The point of this thread is to discuss why there aren't more.
To begin, starcraft and other computer based games I think we can all agree do not have any built in disadvantages facing girls in the same way something like a bodybuilding tournament or an american football league would. In other words at least in my opinion there's no inherent advantage to being naturally stronger or anything like that. In my eyes it's similar to something like billiards or chess, the focus of the game has nothing to do with strength, it's about correct decision making and finesse.
Over the years there have been several successful pro gamers in BW most notably tossgirl. However once female only leagues were abolished in 2005, tossgirl generally underachieved. (Of course I don't mean underachieved compared to average players clearly, but underachieved compared to a lot of the established pros). In an interview tossgirl said
"If I were to advise someone that wants to be a female progamer, I'll just tell her to do her best. It's simple yet true. It's like that for any job, but as a progamer you can't survive if you don't do your best. More so for a female progamer. Many give up rather than put effort when they feel the gap from the male progamers. It's sad. As soon as possible, I wanna show that the gap can be overcome by effort. " (Taken from [Interview] TossGirl, 10/21/09 thread)
My question is, why is this the case? Why does this gap she mentions exist? Do you guys think that it is largely based on just a lack of player pool? A lack of interest in gaming from girls in general? Or something else?
A study performed in 2009 by the Entertainment Software Association found that about 40% of gamers are female, including 43-45% of online gamers. This of course doesn't take in to account the "competetiveness" of the games and unfortunately the study didn't contain any information on the genres of games the respondents played. But I still think it's worth pointing out that there really are a lot of female gamers out there. And probably a lot playing sc2.
I'd love sc2 to have top female pros, hopefully it'll happen over the lifetime of the game!
Edit: This thread was never intended to offend any of the ladies reading it! This is just a topic that I find interesting for whatever reason. As I said, greater variety in the kinds of people playing games and especially starcraft is a good thing in my eyes. If you don't think it's an interesting topic too, it's probably not the thread for you!
I'd also like to draw attention to a great post by Peanutsc (I hope you don't mind! PM me if you do) a lot of people seem to have overlooked in the middle of the comments.
On November 20 2010 04:21 Peanutsc wrote: Here are my thoughts, as a gamer, female, member of the StarCraft community, gaming industry professional, and as someone who has studied cognitive neuroscience and evolution of human behavior in college:
Observation: Generally speaking, I think men and women have different goals when they play games - they are satisfied by different outcomes, respectively. Men are focused on winning, while women are focused on increasing general happiness and enriching social bonds. Both tendencies obviously have great value in the maintenance of modern human civilization.
Causes: Biology and environment/society interact to make men feel more personally validated by some objective or subjective measure of dominance ("I scored x points" or "I'm better than you in x") than by social approval. If a typical guy had a choice between winning a basketball match against his sibling/friend/co-worker and losing on purpose so that the other party wouldn't lose face and/or get his/her feelings hurt, I think most Western men would take the former.
On the other hand, biology and environment/society interact to make women feel more personally validated by behaving in ways that support social stability and overall well being than by achieving dominance. Given the same hypothetical situation, your average woman would probably opt for losing on purpose or would say "it would depend on who I was playing against." Women are generally taught (and are generally biologically predisposed) to consider their role in the context of a group (couple, family, clique, etc.) and as dependent on or interdependent with the social whims of others. Women are - by and large - not islands. Women judge themselves by how they are perceived by others - it's a relational standard for self-approval or disapproval.
Effects: As a result, there is a huge disparity in female player preference/participation between games where you are rewarded for thinking contextually and enriching the relationships between different parties (The Sims) and games where you are, in essence, rewarded for making someone else feel bad (PvP-heavy games).
Women who truly enjoy PvP-heavy games like StarCraft (multiplayer) are in the minority. It means we actually enjoy actions which have the side effect of making other people feel bad about themselves (via losing) and therefore decreasing greater social happiness, which is a big no-no. I believe that this tendency is correlated to other behavioral leanings, as well: refusing to agree just for the sake of agreeing, for example, or feeling bad when you just sit there and nod instead of saying what you really think. Part of the reason I wrote up my socially awkward experience was to gather more data about this hypothesis from other females who frequent this site (and presumably have an interest in playing StarCraft), and so far I think I'm on the right track.
My prediction is that other women will never participate in the StarCraft scene in anything like the way they participate in WoW, Farmville, etc. unless they can see competitive StarCraft as a way to create and enrich social bonds and increase general happiness. This is why I support the SC2 Female Cups and why I don't think they should ever have a cash prize - it should appeal to women who want to bridge the gap between losing for the sake of saving someone else's face and cutting someone else down in the quest for personal dominance. In the Female Cup, you can win against someone else but still be friends with them (or even make a new friend)! Completely the best of both worlds.
Recommendation: If there are people who sincerely want to see more women in StarCraft (including pro gamers), there are a few things you can keep in mind. Not all of them are feasible - I certainly can't see TL turning into a community where people prioritize social harmony over the pursuit of personal dominance, nor would I want it to be that way. My more practical (and somewhat self-interested) recommendation would be this: value and respect the females that are already here for their contributions to the community. Whether that contribution is amazing art, or high level zerg play, or blog posts, or running an entire league, or just being interesting people to talk to - if women sense that this is a community where it is possible to be openly female and be appreciated as a human being and for what they can contribute, they will come.
I would not be here if I didn't know about lilsusie and mnm. Just food for thought.
They're just not that good. TossGirl destroyed the Female league, but couldn't hang with B teamers after the Female league was abolished.
There's really no sense of sexism that goes around, it's just plain and simple that they're just not as good. If along came a female gamer that was insanely good, then they'd be more than welcomed into the community.
SC2 is not a game that appeals to many girls -> there are less girls playing SC2 -> there are less girls with the potential to be A/S-class in the pool -> there are less girls on the stage. Fairly simple.
It's a matter of numbers first and arguably dedication/innate talent second. Without even considering the latter, imagine the thousands of amateurs fighting through courage over the years compared to the singular tossgirl and the handful of other girls who give it a try. Progaming culture leads more girls to become fans of the guys they watch, not their competitors.
silver hit the nail on the head there. males gaming is much more socially accpetable then women, who are sterotypically into makeup and gossip and all thos eother things. men are supposed to be into sports and video games.
To me, men are just more competitive by nature compared to women so they play more games against other players. The female "gamers" arent playing a lot of high skill games that require intensive micro and ultimately training to be able to compete at high levels.
However, for the few that gaming does appeal to and have been putting in the effort from the start, I dont think there is a gap at all. The gap is caused by lack of experience which is true (for SC2) of anyone with no RTS experience - male or female.
That said, any competitive gaming scene generally has far more guys than girls, so your top girl gamer is still only 30th overall or something just by sheer numbers.
On November 19 2010 23:40 masterbreti wrote: silver hit the nail on the head there. males gaming is much more socially accpetable then women, who are sterotypically into makeup and gossip and all thos eother things. men are supposed to be into sports and video games.
just gender sterotypes tbh
So why are there many successful female athletes in "other" sports then?
And give me a break, when women are stereotypically into makeup and gossip then men are into cars and bodybuilding....gender stereotypes go both ways, there's not really a stereotype that includes playing sc2 competitively. I don't really get it either, why competitive gaming seems not to be appealing to women at all.
On November 19 2010 23:39 deepfield1 wrote: In reality I think they just don't give a shit. In my entire life I haven't met one woman who even feigned interest in gaming. This includes my wife.
Plenty of women play FarmVille or WoW.
Isn't the best selling pc game ever (The Sims) a game mostly for womens ?
Because there are not many female games in the first place, and many women do not enjoy competition. They like it more to socialise, of course there are also others, but try finding those into the little gamer pool?
It's the sort of thing that will change with time. Girls are getting more and more into gaming into general. They're going to get more and more into competitive gaming. Then we'll see some girls be able to kick our asses in Starcraft.
Eh, probably like 5-10 years though.
Saying that women aren't competitive though? I disagree on that one. I think its just more about the gaming part than the competitive part.
The same reason why Chess tournaments are organized separately for men and women. From what I read, the number of women taking up Chess as a career is smaller and hence the average skill level is also lower, with a few exceptions (Judith Polgar comes to mind). It has nothing to do with gender - just the lower sample size , and consequently lower standards.
I would assume that the same reason would apply to starcraft as well.
Think there's a slight element where women gamers are still looked down on as a 'bit weird' by some idiots. Kinda like blokes were in the days before Playstation turned computer gaming into a 'normal' thing to do.
Hell, nowadays pretty much every bloke under 30 in my office owns a gaming PC and/or console and chat about what they're playing. But none of the women join in.... There must be at least a few closet gamers there.
Having said that, used to play WoW (a lot) and guilded with/knew some awesome lady gamers. Not sure what makes WoW different from SC2 in that regard?
It's just a case of fewer girls playing video games in general. If you take the female video game playing population, which is probably [i don't have any statistics at hand] a fraction of the male gaming population, and then try finding females playing a niche genre like RTS, you're just not going to have many that are "high level" SC2 gamers.
On November 19 2010 23:39 deepfield1 wrote: In reality I think they just don't give a shit. In my entire life I haven't met one woman who even feigned interest in gaming. This includes my wife.
Plenty of women play FarmVille or WoW.
Isn't the best selling pc game ever (The Sims) a game mostly for womens ?
Exactly, a large fraction of the WoW playerbase is female. However if you look at competitive PvP in WoW there are virtually no females at all. I think the extreme competitiveness of Sc2 is the reason why there are so few women playing.
On November 19 2010 23:50 Piledriver wrote: The same reason why Chess tournaments are organized separately for men and women. From what I read, the number of women taking up Chess as a career is smaller and hence the average skill level is also lower, with a few exceptions (Judith Polgar comes to mind). It has nothing to do with gender - just the lower sample size , and consequently lower standards.
I would assume that the same reason would apply to starcraft as well.
Judith Polgar is a pretty bad example for a woman that "took up Chess". Her father was a chessteacher who homeschooled her from her early childhood in mostly chess, as an experiment for his thesis that "geniuses are made, not born". Consequently, she wasn't affected at all by any kind of gender stereotypes.
On November 19 2010 23:39 deepfield1 wrote: In reality I think they just don't give a shit. In my entire life I haven't met one woman who even feigned interest in gaming. This includes my wife.
Plenty of women play FarmVille or WoW.
Isn't the best selling pc game ever (The Sims) a game mostly for womens ?
Exactly, a large fraction of the WoW playerbase is female. However if you look at competitive PvP in WoW there are virtually no females at all. I think the extreme competitiveness of Sc2 is the reason why there are so few women playing.
I don't know if there is data on this, but I would guess the percentage of female players for WoW has gone up over the years. I played WoW just after it was released, and at that point finding an actual female was still considered rare.
Sc2 is a men favoured game. It doesnt attract females. Simple as that. (Of course its waaaay more complex but to kinda get the whole of it, this is what I think)
wat about the emotional rollercoaster that is starcraft?
id assume the difference in hormones could affect male or female ability to practice for 8-10 hours a day. especially if you have a very bad losing streak. if you watch day[9] episode 100 the emotional strain of attempting to be a progamer is quite high.
On November 19 2010 23:54 Stuv wrote: Girls dont play RTS like boys dont play with ponies. Its really as simple as that, I dont think you need to look for complicated reasons.
Do you know how awesome ponies are? If you had ridden one as a child, you wouldn't be talking smack about em!
Ultimately I think it's simply a case of numbers, very few woman attempt to play SC competitively so therefore few ever succeed, just think of the millions of SC players out there and how only a few hundred ever become professional. This can also be extended to any competitive game.
On the other hand I don't really agree with the stereotype theory, many woman play video games today. The numbers of older woman gamers (like 30+) is significantly smaller than the number of older male game gamers, but for the younger age groups its close to 40/50 now. In my classes, which are typically 75%+ woman, I regularly see girls playing games. Usually its the more casual stuff like flash games, or i-phone games, but I've seen more than a few L4D and TF2 out there, and remember these girls are playing it publicly in class so I don't really buy the whole "culturally unacceptable" bit, at least among the younger generations (18-29ish).
I will admit though that a lot of girls hid their gaming habits during high school, I imagine there is probably a lot of pressure against games there, though to be fair there was also a lot of pressure against guys playing games as well, at least when I went. (Also, everything I'm stating is just from personal experience, I don't have any resources to quote and maybe things are drastically different here than in other places, though I doubt that)
As for why Starcraft itself isn't popular amongst woman? I'd have to say it's because of how competitive it is. This in itself is a stereotype I guess, but almost every female gamer I've met hates player vs player competition. Back when I played WoW the guild I was in was built around older gamers, I was considerably young being 19 at the time since the majority were in their late twenties, early thirties. We had a large amount of woman in our guild as a result that most of the guys had wives (many with children) or girlfriends who played regularly as well, this in itself brought in other woman gamers looking for female company, so in the end we had lots of girls playing and raiding with us.
Almost all of them loved raiding because of the social aspect of it, and a lot of them also really enjoyed the casual aspects of the game, collecting pets, doing quests, making gold, and anything else that could be done whilst chatting to the other members. I only know of a single female wow gamer who enjoyed pvp, the rest just didn't like the comparativeness of it all. When a large portion of my guild moved over to SC2 at release none of the woman changed over with us, they simply had no interest in RTS games where the focus is to play against other players.
As I said earlier, this is just merely my personal experience with female gamers, it is quite possible my experiences are the exception and not the rule, but judging by what others have written, I think it's pretty close to the norm.
On November 19 2010 23:40 masterbreti wrote: silver hit the nail on the head there. males gaming is much more socially accpetable then women, who are sterotypically into makeup and gossip and all thos eother things. men are supposed to be into sports and video games.
just gender sterotypes tbh
So why are there many successful female athletes in "other" sports then?
And give me a break, when women are stereotypically into makeup and gossip then men are into cars and bodybuilding....gender stereotypes go both ways, there's not really a stereotype that includes playing sc2 competitively. I don't really get it either, why competitive gaming seems not to be appealing to women at all.
No there are nearly no successful female athletes in other sports that could compete with men, they have their own separate competitions.
In some cases there are direct biological reasons. In e-sports there are in my opinion non-direct, but still mostly biological reasons, women basically do not have the same passion for direct competition as men. And I mean that statistically, which means there is smaller pool of women gamers to begin with, so much smaller chance of any rising to the top. There might also be other biological factors, like worse strategic thinking etc., but there might not, I don't know of any conclusive evidence. Social factors also play the role, especially probably in non-western and/or less developed countries where women are not so emancipated.
WoW has a stronger female base because it is a more social game. I know a few women who play SC2 but I rarely see them play 1v1. They're more into the team games because I think they're more wired to be social and use their gaming as more of a social gathering than a competitive atmosphere. This isn't to say that they are bad either (one of them is a diamond who rocks me whenever we 1v1) but she's the exception because she seems more focused then the other two at getting better.
I think you won't find many women RTS'rs because war is more of a man thing and RTS is more of a war kind of game then WoW which has more of a social, group kind of thing.
A study performed in 2009 by the Entertainment Software Association found that about 40% of gamers are female, including 43-45% of online gamers. This of course doesn't take in to account the "competetiveness" of the games. But I still think it's worth pointing out that there really are a lot of female gamers out there. And probably a lot playing sc2.
Most women I know play MMOs or platform games. Surely the survey asked those who took the survey, "Which games do you play?"
Anyway, RTS games are quite challenging and very competitive compared to other games. When I ask my female friends why they play certain games they usually answer with the following:
I think it's mainly because female gamers have to split their time between the kitchen and the computer... I think they might become comparable to males once they get computers in the kitchen.
On November 19 2010 23:54 Stuv wrote: Girls dont play RTS like boys dont play with ponies. Its really as simple as that, I dont think you need to look for complicated reasons.
No. Ponies suck. We want action and violence just as much as everyone else.
On November 20 2010 00:21 StarStruck wrote: Most women I know play MMOs or platform games. Surely the survey asked those who took the survey, "Which games do you play?"
You're right. I really wanted to find some numbers on what kinds of games they played before I posted this. I tried looking again but the only data I could find just seemed to ignore the type of game like it wasn't important :/
I think it's just because of the way society pushes people towards pre-determined roles. When a boy grows up he is generally urged to do things like join a sports team, which starts the competitive drive from a very young age. So to speak, when a boy wants to become a pro gamer, he's just going with the flow (or rather, the real battle starts long down the road). But when a girl wants to go into anything competitive, she has to walk against the current from the very start. This means that when a guy and a girl put in the same amount of effort into pro gaming, the guy will almost always come out on top just because the girl will have a lot more battles to face along the way starting from the beginning.
On the other side of it though, when a girl achieves half the feats of a male gamer, she gets twice the attention. As an example, one of my friends (girl) got an expense free invite to go to quakecon and play some show matches with Fatal1ty and such (it was her and like 7 other girls vs Fatal1ty), but she is hardly good at the game. I picked up Quake Live and in 2 or 3 days (with some previous FPS expirience, no quake though) I could beat her in a duel (though it was very close). A guy with my level of skill though would never get any attention at all though, because there are so so many people who are way better than me.
TL;DR : Guys are driven to be competitive, when girls are given no such push.
On November 19 2010 23:51 gozima wrote: It's just a case of fewer girls playing video games in general. If you take the female video game playing population, which is probably [i don't have any statistics at hand] a fraction of the male gaming population, and then try finding females playing a niche genre like RTS, you're just not going to have many that are "high level" SC2 gamers.
Yes , i have to agree . Female gamers ratio to male gamers is very low and prbability of good dedicated player with high skill and talent is very low too , a lot lower than males .
On November 19 2010 23:54 Stuv wrote: Girls dont play RTS like boys dont play with ponies. Its really as simple as that, I dont think you need to look for complicated reasons.
No. Ponies suck. We want action and violence just as much as everyone else.
Most Girls are just not as attracted to these sort of games/free time activity from the get go... How many 7 year old Girls do you know that want nothing more than a playstation?....
Oh, and afaik Girls are also worse than men in basically every competetive "sport/game"? No matter how much it has to do with physical capabilities?
On November 20 2010 00:25 Najda wrote: I think it's just because of the way society pushes people towards pre-determined roles. When a boy grows up he is generally urged to do things like join a sports team, which starts the competitive drive from a very young age. So to speak, when a boy wants to become a pro gamer, he's just going with the flow (or rather, the real battle starts long down the road). But when a girl wants to go into anything competitive, she has to walk against the current from the very start. This means that when a guy and a girl put in the same amount of effort into pro gaming, the guy will almost always come out on top just because the girl will have a lot more battles to face along the way starting from the beginning.
On the other side of it though, when a girl achieves half the feats of a male gamer, she gets twice the attention. As an example, one of my friends (girl) got an expense free invite to go to quakecon and play some show matches with Fatal1ty and such (it was her and like 7 other girls vs Fatal1ty), but she is hardly good at the game. I picked up Quake Live and in 2 or 3 days (with some previous FPS expirience, no quake though) I could beat her in a duel (though it was very close). A guy with my level of skill though would never get any attention at all though, because there are so so many people who are way better than me.
TL;DR : Guys are driven to be competitive, when girls are given no such push.
I don't think it is mainly society that is driving boys and not girls. Especially not in western world. It is our biology that manifests itself in societal rules.
Women haven't traditionally done as well as men in games like Chess either--the number of women who have become grandmasters at chess is extremely low compared to men.
I don't think its a matter of natural disadvantages, in terms of coordination and spatial reasoning or anything like that. I think that, if as many women played these games as men, and if they practiced as hard, they could be just as good.
But that's the thing. Fewer women play, and those that do tend to play much less.
I mean, let's face it, if you play Starcraft as much as IdrA, its going to be very, very hard to have much of a life beyond the game.
I just think that there are more male nerds who are willing to completely forego having much of a social life/other hobbies to obsess over a game than there are female nerds willing to do the same.
I know a lot of female nerds. They love the same shit guy nerds do, but they tend to be a bit more balanced about it. They'll collect comics, for instance, but they generally won't spend all of their time in a basement somewhere obsessively pouring over them in lieu of having an actual life. They'll get into games, but they won't be the sort who stop bathing because they spend so much damn time playing those games.
In general, i think this is actually an advantage for women. being passionate is one thing, being obsessive is another, and it usually isn't healthy to be obsessive about anything, let alone a game.
However, if you want to be the absolute best in the world at something, obsessiveness is likely what it will take.
Put another way, there's never been a woman as good at chess as Bobby Fischer was. But Bobby Fischer went completely nuts because he was so obsessed with chess. Being an emotionally imbalanced obsessive with no life may be helpful in one very small area, but it is detrimental in life at large. At a certain point, refusing to give up your entire life just to play a game isn't a sign of weakness, it's a sign of maturity and emotional health. Women just aren't silly enough to see "give up my entire life to get good at a video game" as being a worthwhile tradeoff. Not all guys are, either--Liquid.Tyler for instance used to be kind of an obsessive IdrA type, and then he grew up and got a life beyond the game. He probably won't even be the best Starcraft player in the world, but he's still damn good, plus he's got a life that's a lot more fulfilling in other ways.
SC2 and RTS in general is the ultimate version of "toy soldiers" that most of the boys play in childhood. Girls don't play soldiers, girls don't like to be competitive (I mean like sports, not the dirty tricks they are good at) and they are more socially oriented in general. It's just not interesting for them.
i think females by default are less into competitive hobbies than men are.
it lies deep down in our genes/biological roots that a man´s primary role is that of the warrior. competition is used to determine the hierarchy of the males, to separate them into winners and losers. the winners are rewarded with respect from the whole society and with sexual interest from the females.
this competitive nature of men translates into all their hobbies. who builds the fastest model car, who is the best in [insert any sport here], who is the strongest, the best fighter, the best in school, the best in his job, and so on. whatever men do, they compare themselves to their environment and make a fight out of it, trying to be the best in whatever they do.
as this stuff comes subconsciously, men even tend to be competitive in hobbies that neither grant them acceptance from society nor success with girls, like trading card games, video games, unpopular sports, and so on. the typical "nerd stuff".
women lack this kind of default competitiveness. women are rated by their looks and their social competence, not by their success in competition of any kind. therefore, it lies in the nature of females to tend to not make a competition out of any generic hobby they pursue. they just dont get the same amount of respect from other women and interest from men for being good at any hobby that men do get. therefore, the investment of free time and mental resources (determination etc.) into competing at hobbies that dont fit into the typical female role agenda doesnt provide women the same payoff as it does for men. thats why there are less women who are into competitive gaming.
Those were some great points awesomoecalypse. I agree that the female gamers I know are much less interested in practicing a lot to be good at one game. They tend to be more interested in dabbling in a lot of games.
I have a sister who plays fotball, and I really dont buy the "women are raised and stereotyped into being non-competive" part. My father just dont get it why she is kind of afraid of the ball, going 1on1 with the ball etc. He tries to encourage her, but it's like she just dont want to 1v1 with the ball.
You also have to realise, what do we men do when winning sc2? I can only speak for myself, and it goes like this: "FUUUUUUUUUCK YEEEEES, hell yeh bitch, take that motherfucker". I scream this, and it arouses me so much to win. I think you connect with your strong sexual energy when competing, and especially winning. Women may connect to their sexual energy in a different way, or just react different to winning then men.
On November 20 2010 00:42 crappen wrote: I have a sister who plays fotball, and I really dont buy the "women are raised and stereotyped into being non-competive" part. My father just dont get it why she is kind of afraid of the ball, going 1on1 with the ball etc. He tries to encourage her, but it's like she just dont want to 1v1 with the ball.
You also have to realise, what do we men do when winning sc2? I can only speak for myself, and it goes like this: "FUUUUUUUUUCK YEEEEES, hell yeh bitch, take that motherfucker". I scream this, and it arouses me so much to win. I think you connect with your strong sexual energy when competing, and especially winning. Women may connect to their sexual energy in a different way, or just react different to winning then men.
A lot of women (who already play games) would say that same line as well.
I have a sister who plays fotball, and I really dont buy the "women are raised and stereotyped into being non-competive" part. My father just dont get it why she is kind of afraid of the ball, going 1on1 with the ball etc. He tries to encourage her, but it's like she just dont want to 1v1 with the ball.
You also have to realise, what do we men do when winning sc2? I can only speak for myself, and it goes like this: "FUUUUUUUUUCK YEEEEES, hell yeh bitch, take that motherfucker". I scream this, and it arouses me so much to win. I think you connect with your strong sexual energy when competing, and especially winning. Women may connect to their sexual energy in a different way, or just react different to winning then men.
You get off on Starcraft?
I say this as a dude who loves Starcraft and plays it waaay too much.
That is fucking wierd, and I don't think its typical of anyone, male or female.
Next thing you'll be asking your girlfriend to dress up like a Zerg queen so you can "spawn some larvae"....
I have a sister who plays fotball, and I really dont buy the "women are raised and stereotyped into being non-competive" part. My father just dont get it why she is kind of afraid of the ball, going 1on1 with the ball etc. He tries to encourage her, but it's like she just dont want to 1v1 with the ball.
You also have to realise, what do we men do when winning sc2? I can only speak for myself, and it goes like this: "FUUUUUUUUUCK YEEEEES, hell yeh bitch, take that motherfucker". I scream this, and it arouses me so much to win. I think you connect with your strong sexual energy when competing, and especially winning. Women may connect to their sexual energy in a different way, or just react different to winning then men.
You get off on Starcraft?
I say this as a dude who loves Starcraft and plays it waaay too much.
That is fucking wierd, and I don't think its typical of anyone, male or female.
Next thing you'll be asking your girlfriend to dress up like a Zerg queen so you can "spawn some larvae"....
Last line was amazing :D.
In all seriousness, I used to play CSS with a few girls and they were just as competitive as the lads were in matches, to the point it would be them screaming and shouting at us, I also have friends that play the likes of COD, they may not be as good as people who play it 12 hours a day, but they enjoy it.
I guess Starcraft doesn't have any appeal unless they know someone who plays it or their boyfriend/husband plays it, the amount of times I've tried to get my girlfriend to watch games, and she's not having any of it
1 - Women are generally wiser and realize that other avenues in life are more meaningful/fulfilling 2 - Women generally prefer different occupations and pasttimes (EG: few are interested in mechanical engineering) 3 - ^ What Stuv said.
4 - Let's be honest. You want more female gamers so you can fantasize about having a relationship with a woman with passable looks and personality that is weird enough to like Starcraft 2. It will probably never happen. =)
I think that societal and social norms play a major factor in the prevalence of men in video . Studies(http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/06/are-men-really-more-competitive-than-women/) have shown that there are few biological differences in competitiveness between men and women.
Female sports are plenty competitive. If you have ever seen Women's soccer, those girls are viscous. I would imagine that if a female dominated game such as the Sims had a competitive scene, it would be dominated by women.
On November 19 2010 23:50 Floundering wrote: Having said that, used to play WoW (a lot) and guilded with/knew some awesome lady gamers. Not sure what makes WoW different from SC2 in that regard?
I know a lot of females who play WoW (my wife included), but very few of them are interested in PvP. I do know a couple of really good female PvPers.
I asked my wife to be healer in 2v2, she was good at it but she didn't enjoy the adrenaline levels at all.
On November 20 2010 00:57 0neder wrote: 1 - Women are generally wiser and realize that other avenues in life are more meaningful/fulfilling 2 - Women generally prefer different occupations and pasttimes (EG: few are interested in mechanical engineering) 3 - ^ What Stuv said.
4 - Let's be honest. You want more female games so you can fantasize about having a relationship with a woman with passable looks and personality that is weird enough to like Starcraft 2. It will probably never happen. =)
My girlfriend loves mechanical engineering as a matter of fact.. she was an aeroplane technician and loves engines and how they work. But even from 6000 miles away currently.. if i ever mention Starcraft I can hear her eyes rolling.
Not in starcraft, but I know quite a few female gamers. My former Aion guild of about 50 members was about half females. And they are competative as hell.
My 65 year old mother is a healer in an Everquest2 raidguild since 2005 My ex-gf, still a good friend, tries every new mmo and plays a lot of games like lol, hon, diablo.
But at birthday parties or other occasions where a lot of non-gamers are neither of them will talk about their gaming, because they are ashamed of talking about it because they think people will find them weird.
Another story: Me, a guy, not bad looking, 36, placed a photo of me on a datingsite, I had a lot of flirts within a day. Then I added some more info to my profile, which among a lot of other more social hobbies also had internet/computers/gaming. The day after I had 0, zero, flirts. So next day I didn't change anything besides removing "internet/computers/gaming" and the next day I had like 20 flirts again....
That was pretty astounding. Are women really that single minded? I have 1 hobby they don't like and because of that I fail as a potential candidate? So I have to lie and not mention my hobbies or females won't like me?
But still, when I do a search on the most popular dating site in my country about 10 of the 100000 women say they have gaming as hobby....
I'm so sure there are so many female gamers out there, but they are somehow ashamed of it, still in the closet. Somehow gaming is still seen as not done by the female population.
We don't see a lot of pro females because we don't see a lot of female gamers. With a much smaller sample, large deviations from the mean (i.e. pro skill) are less likely to show up. But even if there were equal numbers of female gamers, would top females be able to compete with top males? Male and female physical capabilities are different. Why should we assume that their mental capabilities are not different as well?
I have plenty of girlfriends who all play starcraft with me. We play to have fun and also to be competitive (especially on iCCup). I dislike farmville, I dislike WoW. And I mean, really dislike it. Couple of my friends will play that crap, but it's whatever. We still play StarCraft.
I'm not saying we win most of our games, but it's ridiculous that some of you think that we're not competent enough. Seriously. We feel that we're competitive. Whether or not that we decide to be in tournaments or try to be 'someone' in the 'pro-scene' is another ball game. It's sad that a lot of people think girl gamers do not exist, or do NOT have a fair chance to becoming a competitive/professional player. Oh, the sexism too. Can't forget about that.
I don't give a crap about statistics. I'm stating based on my own personal time to gaming and friends.
On November 20 2010 01:09 out4blood wrote: We don't see a lot of pro females because we don't see a lot of female gamers. With a much smaller sample, large deviations from the mean (i.e. pro skill) are less likely to show up. But even if there were equal numbers of female gamers, would top females be able to compete with top males? Male and female physical capabilities are different. Why should we assume that their mental capabilities are not different as well?
We don't assume that their mental capabilities are different because there is no evidence of it. Women currently outperform men in the US at most levels of education. There are less women in science and engineering, but the women do not under-perform compared to their male peers when external factors are accounted for.
It's more socially unacceptable for women to play video games than for men. the same applies to children -- girls don't grow up wanting to play games like boys do.
That's it. It has nothing to do with competitiveness or anything else.
On November 20 2010 01:09 out4blood wrote: We don't see a lot of pro females because we don't see a lot of female gamers. With a much smaller sample, large deviations from the mean (i.e. pro skill) are less likely to show up. But even if there were equal numbers of female gamers, would top females be able to compete with top males? Male and female physical capabilities are different. Why should we assume that their mental capabilities are not different as well?
On November 20 2010 01:14 hmunkey wrote: It's more socially unacceptable for women to play video games than for men. the same applies to children -- girls don't grow up wanting to play games like boys do.
That's it. It has nothing to do with competitiveness or anything else.
My wife, and a good number of other women I know play a ton of games.
There's nothing "socially unacceptable" about it. They just don't seem to enjoy certain types of games. Racing games come to mind.
It doesn't help that most games are heavily marketed towards men. It's all testosterone-laden giant biceps swinging giant guns, and any women are either damsels in distress or soft-core porn scenery.
On November 20 2010 01:14 hmunkey wrote: It's more socially unacceptable for women to play video games than for men. the same applies to children -- girls don't grow up wanting to play games like boys do.
That's it. It has nothing to do with competitiveness or anything else.
And you have anything to prove that other than I said so. There is a lot of research, mechanisms to explain why it is a biological thing, is there anything that really points to it being because it is socially unacceptable ? In many countries in a lot of social groups it is not unacceptable any more, yet girls still do not play games competitively as much as boys. Problem is the rate of emancipation highly exceeds the rate of increase in women's competitiveness.
On November 20 2010 01:08 Zandar wrote: friend, tries every new mmo and plays a lot of games like lol, hon, diablo.
But at birthday parties or other occasions where a lot of non-gamers are neither of them will talk about their gaming, because they are ashamed of talking about it because they think people will find them weird..
Uhm...
If you are talking about gaming at a party around people that probably have no clue of the game... Then your doing it WRONG.
Or would you discuss the latest Football results with someone that has absoluetly no interest in football?
Why should we assume that their mental capabilities are not different as well?
Because there isn't much evidence for it, and what evidence there is actually points to women having slightly higher IQs on average.
Mental capabilities do not equal IQ. There are different aspect to your psyche, and a lot of them is more important than IQ as far as RTS goes. There is a lot of evidence for women having different average abilities in a lot of areas, in some better, in some worse. I am not sure how this affects SC, but it definitely could, but I think it is unimportant compared to women's unwillingness to actually play the game.
On November 20 2010 00:40 Fa1nT wrote: Men have competitive hobbies, women are competitive in the real world and learning =/
This and everything awesomoecalypse said is also my opinion.
My opinion about ideas about different biology of the brain and mental capability:
Nowadays women go to university more than men and have overall better academic success (I think... I hope I'm not remembering wrong). This stems from the success of whatever feminism movement there was. From the time before that I heard stuff like: in the 1950s in Germany, the husband could quit the wife's job without her approval. A society with rules like that must have been pretty demotivational for a woman looking to accomplish something. And with academic results being behind men's, consensus could have been, that women's brains just weren't as good as men's for academics. I believe a "different biology" argument is idiotic.
On November 20 2010 00:38 Black Gun wrote: women lack this kind of default competitiveness. women are rated by their looks and their social competence, not by their success in competition of any kind. therefore, it lies in the nature of females to tend to not make a competition out of any generic hobby they pursue. they just dont get the same amount of respect from other women and interest from men for being good at any hobby that men do get. therefore, the investment of free time and mental resources (determination etc.) into competing at hobbies that dont fit into the typical female role agenda doesnt provide women the same payoff as it does for men. thats why there are less women who are into competitive gaming.
I think women are very much competitive in everything they deem important. Not any less than men. Also, I have the feeling, the rules for girls growing up, what behaviour is allowed and what is deemed unacceptable, are harsher than for boys. Playing BW every day after school for 10 hours and past midnight leads to "discussions" with the parents, and I'm betting a girl would hear more or a different, harsher type of nagging than a boy.
On November 20 2010 01:14 hmunkey wrote: It's more socially unacceptable for women to play video games than for men. the same applies to children -- girls don't grow up wanting to play games like boys do.
That's it. It has nothing to do with competitiveness or anything else.
And you have anything to prove that other than I said so. There is a lot of research, mechanisms to explain why it is a biological thing, is there anything that really points to it being because it is socially unacceptable ? In many countries in a lot of social groups it is not unacceptable any more, yet girls still do not play games competitively as much as boys. Problem is the rate of emancipation highly exceeds the rate of increase in women's competitiveness.
There's research on there being more innate competitiveness in males than females? Please give your sources on these research and mechanisms.
I CAN tell you that you're probably 99% wrong regarding biological coding for competition behaviour, but maybe I've missed something
Honestly guys its because women give up too easily. SC2 is a difficult and competitive game without a social aspect. My wife is a gamer girl straight up. She's logged more hours on world of warcraft than I have, played the sims and sid meier's alpha centauri but SC2 owned her. It's not that she couldn't grasp how to play or anything. It's that she lost interest almost immediately because of how difficult it was, despite grasping the fundamentals fairly quickly.
On November 20 2010 01:12 Rea-Rea wrote: I think most of you are a joke.
I have plenty of girlfriends who all play starcraft with me. We play to have fun and also to be competitive (especially on iCCup). I dislike farmville, I dislike WoW. And I mean, really dislike it. Couple of my friends will play that crap, but it's whatever. We still play StarCraft.
I'm not saying we win most of our games, but it's ridiculous that some of you think that we're not competent enough. Seriously. We feel that we're competitive. Whether or not that we decide to be in tournaments or try to be 'someone' in the 'pro-scene' is another ball game. It's sad that a lot of people think girl gamers do not exist, or do NOT have a fair chance to becoming a competitive/professional player. Oh, the sexism too. Can't forget about that.
I don't give a crap about statistics. I'm stating based on my own personal time to gaming and friends.
So are you saying that the reason we don't see more female progamers isn't because of any inherent difference in skill or motivation, but instead because you choose not to enter into tournaments and become known to the community as a result?
I have to admit I'm not convinced that argument is the fundamental reason why the vast majority of progamers are male. I can't see there being a very large number of girl gamers who put in the time and effort to reach the level of the top male gamers, but then decide not to enter tournaments. It just doesn't sound like a decision anyone would make.
I'm more convinced by the argument that the majority of girl gamers just don't feel the motivation to reach those standards in the first place, so far far fewer female gamers really try to get to the top.
On November 20 2010 01:31 Energin wrote: Honestly guys its because women give up too easily. SC2 is a difficult and competitive game without a social aspect. My wife is a gamer girl straight up. She's logged more hours on world of warcraft than I have, played the sims and sid meier's alpha centauri but SC2 owned her. It's not that she couldn't grasp how to play or anything. It's that she lost interest almost immediately because of how difficult it was, despite grasping the fundamentals fairly quickly.
Sweeping generalization on women based on your wife. Nice.
Too bad about your wife though, perhaps a little encouragement would have helped?
The clear advantage women have in starcraft 2 is multitasking. Its been scientifically proven that women are better at it than men. What is holding them back was mentioned by the original poster, its the hyper competitive nature of starcraft. That kind of mindset is unappealing to the average woman.
On November 19 2010 23:31 SilverPotato wrote: Simply put, In almost every society, gaming among women is looked down upon.
gaming is looked down upon in most societys. we are stereotyped as teenages who do not contribute or have serious issues to deal with. this compiled ontop of being a girl gamer doesnt float well if ur a girl. gaming is a a guy thing so its natural that girls dont play.
but things are changing rapidly, i wouldnt be surprised to see a bunch more pop up within the nxt 5 years
Why should we assume that their mental capabilities are not different as well?
Because there isn't much evidence for it, and what evidence there is actually points to women having slightly higher IQs on average.
There is thousands of studies about the difference in brains between genders. http://www.doctorhugo.org/brain4.html is a straight forward list of the broad differences but you can find thousands of articles on the subject by just typing "differences between the male and female brain" in google.
lets be fully honest to ourselves, progamer/gaming as a career will never (not in the future i can see anyway) be widely accepted by the real (human) society on earth. pro-scene in korea was a miracle, fact. lets just keep it simple to think that we are lucky enough to have the existence of the pro scene.
so yeh, if esport can be as popular as 'real sport' (eg Tennis etc), we will defo see some russian girls' pretty faces show up for the games :p
1. In the big five personality traits, women score higher in Agreeableness (tendency to be compassionate and cooperative) and Neuroticism (tendency to feel anxiety, anger, and depression).
2. Males are generally more aggressive than females (Coi & Dodge 1997, Maccoby & Jacklin 1974, Buss 2005). There is evidence that males are quicker to aggression (Frey et al. 2003) and more likely than females to express their aggression physically (Bjorkqvist et al. 1994). However, some researchers (such as Rachel Simmons) have suggested that females are not necessarily less aggressive, but that they tend to show their aggression in less overt, less physical ways (Bjorkqvist et al. 1994, Hines and Saudino 2003). For example, females may display more verbal and relational aggression, such as social rejection.
3. Girls score higher on self-report scales of empathy, on samples ranging from school-age children to adults. Empathy scales include measures of perspective taking, orientation towards another person, empathic concern, and personal distress. However, such measures are subjective and empathy may be more related to gender role rather than sex.
4. Many recent studies have concluded that IQ performances of men and women vary little.
5. Decoding can be defined as a "capacity to judge, to interpret and to identify others' emotions from nonverbal cues." (295)[23] Typically, women are more accurate in decoding nonverbal cues' emotional meaning than men. (read: better at interperating their opponents emotional state)
6. In an American study in 2005, the percentage of men using the Internet was very slightly ahead of the percentage of women, although this difference reversed in those under 30. Men logged on more often, spend more time online, and are more likely to be broadband users, whereas women tended to make more use of opportunities to communicate (such as email). Men were more likely to use the Internet to pay bills, participate in auctions, and for recreation such as downloading music and videos.
So statistically (and i'm not going to draw any real conclusions from this, just infering from what a quick ten minute search revealed) what I'm reading says that women are better at interperating what their opponent is doing (mind games), while men are more aggressive and competative.
Now obviously the differences in these are small enough it is unlikely to see any real correlation among actual starcraft players; theres going to be major outliers obviously. For real correlational studies we'll have to look at things like chess statistics, to see how and how often female chess players get to and win high levels of play.
anyway, interperate the data how you will, i just think this subject is interesting.
On November 20 2010 01:31 Energin wrote: Honestly guys its because women give up too easily. SC2 is a difficult and competitive game without a social aspect. My wife is a gamer girl straight up. She's logged more hours on world of warcraft than I have, played the sims and sid meier's alpha centauri but SC2 owned her. It's not that she couldn't grasp how to play or anything. It's that she lost interest almost immediately because of how difficult it was, despite grasping the fundamentals fairly quickly.
Sweeping generalization on women based on your wife. Nice.
Too bad about your wife though, perhaps a little encouragement would have helped?
The encouragement was there, but all she ever wanted to do was 2v2 against the computer. I'd quit playing wow due to it being boring and after a couple of months of sc2 she was asking me to come back to wow so that we could be back to playing the same game.
I don't think gaming being a guy thing is so much of a factor - it seems these days that girls doing things that were traditionally seen as "guy things" (construction work, the army, whatever) is seen as progressive and not generally looked down on.
On the other hand, gaming being looked down on in general and seen as a "loser" thing to do sounds like a very valid reason. I guess typically girls tend to care more about how their hobbies are seen by others than guys do.
There is a really issue for any girl trying to make into the top teir of sc2...
it's that the frist thing 97% of us want from her is a pic... not a replay, not a how did you get into sc2... in part becuase sc2 is a such a boys club + the good 'ol anomity of the internet you see peope get stupid around girls on the internet.
the fact that their is even a discussion around if girls can play sc2 as well... ya it's part of hte issue. Many studies have shown that girls have more aptidute for math and logic than boys, seriously look it up. But then start to seriously underperform in high school levels. Likely when the weight of social standards kick in, but of course it's almost impossible to prove that point scientificly.
Oh and people... really? women are not competitive by nature? are you insane? That's not it at all... in fact, have you ever seen to woman fight over anything? Actually you prob don't see becuase just like it's not 'acceptable' for a woman to be sexually aggressive, it's not acceptabe for a woman to be openly competative... you don't see woman go "BOOOOOOOOOOMSHAKALA I JUST RAPED YOU BIaaaaaaaTCH" because if they did... how do you think everyone else would look at her? For a guy's normal to win and hoot and holla. but don't fool yourself into thinking they don't care. Think about it, when was the last time you saw a movie where the woman was super competitive, and not evil? ya ya I'm sure you can name one or two but those are the exceptions
Just like I don't care if a sc2 pro is a fat, I'm going to follow him for his play and personality... when woman gamers can get close to the same treatment, you might see a few more. But until then many are giong to start to play, see the community and say fuck it. it's not worth it. Honestly. this thread would be enough to scare most of you off, if it was talking about you.
Most people are not pioneers, and mad props to those who are.
On November 20 2010 01:41 BurningSera wrote: lets be fully honest to ourselves, progamer/gaming as a career will never (not in the future i can see anyway) be widely accepted by the real (human) society on earth. pro-scene in korea was a miracle, fact. lets just keep it simple to think that we are lucky enough to have the existence of the pro scene.
so yeh, if esport can be as popular as 'real sport' (eg Tennis etc), we will defo see some russian girls' pretty faces show up for the games :p
I have faith in russian and polish girl gamers , I think most of the valid points about the topic have been made.We are just the generation that started E-sports , in a good 10-20 years time I surely think e-sports will be HUGE.
Honestly, the post referring to testosterone is pretty spot on. I live with a girl who plays...she's silver league and I give her a lot of credit for playing. She enjoys it but just doesn't have that killer instinct to crush someone. Same happened with WoW arena. Typically men are results driven and women are experience driven. Men want to win, women want to enjoy the experience of playing. Obviously a gross generalization, but one that I've found to be pretty accurate. If she knew she could win by cannon rushing/6 pooling someone, she wouldn't do it because she finds it to be distasteful.
On November 20 2010 01:09 out4blood wrote: We don't see a lot of pro females because we don't see a lot of female gamers. With a much smaller sample, large deviations from the mean (i.e. pro skill) are less likely to show up. But even if there were equal numbers of female gamers, would top females be able to compete with top males? Male and female physical capabilities are different. Why should we assume that their mental capabilities are not different as well?
We don't assume that their mental capabilities are different because there is no evidence of it. Women currently outperform men in the US at most levels of education. There are less women in science and engineering, but the women do not under-perform compared to their male peers when external factors are accounted for.
While you're right about the general trends, women and men do have differing mental capabilities in some tasks - there are specific tasks where men have innate advantages vs women and vice versa. That isn't some sexist view, it's based on years of solid research.
(Note: Links for each point are provided at the website, although a simple internet search, try google scholar for example, will find you plenty of medical journal articles about each thing)
These are some excepts of the ones I think tend to benefit men playing SC:
2.Left brain vs. both hemispheres. Men tend to process better in the left hemisphere of the brain while women tend to process equally well between the two hemispheres. This difference explains why men are generally stronger with left-brain activities and approach problem-solving from a task-oriented perspective while women typically solve problems more creatively and are more aware of feelings while communicating.
3.Mathematical abilities. An area of the brain called the inferior-parietal lobule (IPL) is typically significantly larger in men, especially on the left side, than in women. This section of the brain is thought to control mental mathematical ability, and probably explains why men frequently perform higher in mathematical tasks than do women. Interestingly, this is the same area of Einstein’s brain that was discovered to be abnormally large. The IPL also processes sensory information, and the larger right side in women allows them to focus on, "specific stimuli, such as a baby crying in the night."
9.Spatial ability. Men typically have stronger spatial abilities, or being able to mentally represent a shape and its dynamics, whereas women typically struggle in this area. Medical experts have discovered that women have a thicker parietal region of the brain, which hinders the ability to mentally rotate objects–an aspect of spatial ability. Research has shown this ability in babies as young as 5 months old, negating any ideas that these abilities were strengthened by environmental influences.
Of course, it's not all good for men. We get shafted on some other stuff:
5.Language. Two sections of the brain responsible for language were found to be larger in women than in men, indicating one reason that women typically excel in language-based subjects and in language-associated thinking. Additionally, men typically only process language in their dominant hemisphere, whereas women process language in both hemispheres. This difference offers a bit of protection in case of a stroke. Women may be able to recover more fully from a stroke affecting the language areas in the brain while men may not have this same advantage.
10.Susceptibility to disorders. Because of the way men and women use the two hemispheres of the brain differently, there are some disorders that men and women are susceptible to in different ways. Men are more apt to have dyslexia or other language problems. If women have dyslexia, they are more likely to compensate for it. Women, on the other hand, are more susceptible to mood disorders such as depression and anxiety. While handedness is not a disorder, these brain tendencies also explain why more men are left-handed than are women. Men are also more likely to be diagnosed with autism, ADHD, and Tourette’s Syndrome.
Regarding #10, the fact that men are more likely to have those disorders (which can in some cases be coupled with extreme specific talents in some areas e.g. bobby fischer) does explain why there are more male savants. Starcraft case in point: who hasn't seen Flash twitching? :D
Here's a snippet from another article about a different study:
... The results from this study may help explain why men and women excel at different types of tasks, said co-author and neuropsychologist Rex Jung of the University of New Mexico. For example, men tend to do better with tasks requiring more localized processing, such as mathematics, Jung said, while women are better at integrating and assimilating information from distributed gray-matter regions of the brain, which aids language skills.
Scientists find it very interesting that while men and women use two very different activity centers and neurological pathways, men and women perform equally well on broad measures of cognitive ability, such as intelligence tests.
This research also gives insight to why different types of head injuries are more disastrous to one sex or the other. For example, in women 84 percent of gray matter regions and 86 percent of white matter regions involved in intellectual performance were located in the frontal lobes, whereas the percentages of these regions in a man's frontal lobes are 45 percent and zero, respectively. This matches up well with clinical data that shows frontal lobe damage in women to be much more destructive than the same type of damage in men. ...
I could go on and on but yeah, there are differences. The ones I listed simply add to the other factors people have already listed such as lower number of gamers etc.
There are competitive women out there.. Trust me! All the girls at my Go club are competitive as shit! There are just a few but boy, do they make up for it! When i lose a Go game in a tournament i usually feel bad but i just shrug it off with some cognac or smth.. But when one of theese girls lose (especially agains a worse player) , some actually start crying and cursing for hours! It's unbelivable!
There are only a few competitive women because of social standards and indoctrination.. Even if you look at the television, commercials and such.. Men are allways depicted in some sort of competition, while women are not.. That kind of thing leaves a mark in the subconscious..
Guys are raised with strategical thinking games their entire life. Risk, chess, baseball, etc. Girls grow up playing some games (like softball) but most games are focused on community effort. It is possible for girls to overcome this conditioning and compete competitively, but the competitive spirit is found much more in guys than girls. My wife loves playing wow and doing dungeons, but she hates battlegrounds. She said "It's not fun killing other people". She enjoys overcoming obstacles in combination with others. This also makes me think there is a different understanding between guys and girls. The goal of a male competitor is to defeat his opponents, the goal of a female competitor is to overcome her obstacles. This isn't always true obviously. In golf for example, people are trying to beat their best score, but in general i believe this might be true.
The other thing is that sc2 lends itself to guys abilities naturally. Guys are very visual in nature and can focus on specific tasks. This is why day9 says things like APM will come to you when you just are constantly focused on things you need to do, ie, have a plan. Girls on the other hand are adept to more auditory or verbal tasks and are good at thinking about multiple scenarios at nearly the same time, however, this does not apply well to starcraft as you cannot physically control multiple objects at the same time and there is only 1 screen. Also sc2 requires a ton of focus, and focus is the opposite of multitasking. When someone talks about multitasking in sc2, they are actually saying focusing on 2-3 different things in succession, not at the same time. I would venture to say that if the best players took the focus vs multitask test, they would all score really high on the focus section.
On November 20 2010 01:31 Energin wrote: Honestly guys its because women give up too easily. SC2 is a difficult and competitive game without a social aspect. My wife is a gamer girl straight up. She's logged more hours on world of warcraft than I have, played the sims and sid meier's alpha centauri but SC2 owned her. It's not that she couldn't grasp how to play or anything. It's that she lost interest almost immediately because of how difficult it was, despite grasping the fundamentals fairly quickly.
read this and thought, did she married you because looking for someone better was too....
nah sorry thats just rude of me.
My point is more that, if you try to generalize all people based on the few people close to you, you have to realize it actually speaks more to what you want out of people that what people are. There are such a varity or dif personalites out there that those we choose to be with speak to us, not to the world.
On November 20 2010 01:44 Galleon.frigate wrote:Oh and people... really? women are not competitive by nature? are you insane? That's not it at all... in fact, have you ever seen to woman fight over anything? Actually you prob don't see becuase just like it's not 'acceptable' for a woman to be sexually aggressive, it's not acceptabe for a woman to be openly competative... you don't see woman go "BOOOOOOOOOOMSHAKALA I JUST RAPED YOU BIaaaaaaaTCH" because if they did... how do you think everyone else would look at her? For a guy's normal to win and hoot and holla. but don't fool yourself into thinking they don't care. Think about it, when was the last time you saw a movie where the woman was super competitive, and not evil? ya ya I'm sure you can name one or two but those are the exceptions
It sounds like you might be getting "drivenness" (if that's a word) and "competitiveness" mixed up?
I don't think anyone's arguing that women are less driven to achieve something that they want to achieve. I think it's more a case of not wanting to achieve "being a top SC player" in the first place, likely because they don't have the same urge for competitiveness in the sense of "beating/proving your superiority to another person" that guys do.
On November 20 2010 01:46 South wrote: Honestly, the post referring to testosterone is pretty spot on. I live with a girl who plays...she's silver league and I give her a lot of credit for playing. She enjoys it but just doesn't have that killer instinct to crush someone. Same happened with WoW arena. Typically men are results driven and women are experience driven. Men want to win, women want to enjoy the experience of playing. Obviously a gross generalization, but one that I've found to be pretty accurate. If she knew she could win by cannon rushing/6 pooling someone, she wouldn't do it because she finds it to be distasteful.
Just my experience.
That's correct from my experience too. For women its about the process/experience, for men its about the end result for many things.
In that case its truly different strengths. Men and women can work together to cover up many weakenesses of each gender. What people shouldn't pretend is that the genders are the same. SC simply isn't the kind of game that's going to appeal to women generally. It's generally unrewarding and stressful for them.
On November 20 2010 01:31 Energin wrote: Honestly guys its because women give up too easily. SC2 is a difficult and competitive game without a social aspect. My wife is a gamer girl straight up. She's logged more hours on world of warcraft than I have, played the sims and sid meier's alpha centauri but SC2 owned her. It's not that she couldn't grasp how to play or anything. It's that she lost interest almost immediately because of how difficult it was, despite grasping the fundamentals fairly quickly.
read this and thought, did she married you because looking for someone better was too....
nah sorry thats just rude of me.
That's kind of funny. I mean you're making a lot of assumptions about me as a person. Do you think I should be talking like a feminist like 80% of the other guys in this thread are? A big part of the reason why she married me instead of some other guy is because I'm honest. I don't try to tell her what she wants to hear. I appreciate her for the things that are legitimately good rather than trying to pretend like everything is perfect all the time. My compliments are genuine and she knows that, part of the reason being that if she asks my opinion and its not positive I won't try to pretend like it is. Maybe some of you guys who lavish praise on girls no matter what they're doing should think about that. Your compliments lose all meaning.
What do people think regarding the obvious physiological / evolutionary differences between men / women?
Males in the animal kingdom have intense sexual selection pressures - from the mighty ibix physically vying with other males for a harem of females, to the Bowerbirds whom create elaborate nests through which to court potential mates.
Physiologically the obvious variances between men and women are the hormones, testosterone for one correlating to ones competetive drive.
I am in no way implying that women can not be successful in starcraft, and I believe much of it has to do with various societal pressures mentioned in this thread. Women can certainly be competitive, i've met a fair share of them. However, one can not disregard the evolutionary / physiological disparities that effect the competitive drive of the genders.
The skill for a game is a bell curve. There's a ton of people in the middle, a few at the bottom, and a few at the top. Our pro gamers comprise pretty much the top 1% to top .1%. Anyone notable in a tournament is at most in the top 2-3% of the player population. We're talking about a really exclusive class of players. That's just the way it is, the top is always going to be a small % or they wouldn't be the top.
When you further divide up the player population by taking a specific segment you change the bell curve. It's just not going to extend as far out. There's a chance of there being outliers (like Tossgirl), but it's just that a chance and it's not really a likely one.
So I dont think thats just the men/women ratio So if you watch at WoW (probably one of the most played games by female gamers) There was just one outstanding competetive female gamer (Hafu) I think there was another woman participating in a tournement but I might be wrong. In the last time there was no female gamer playing in a huge tournemant (like MLG) And I highly doubt that there are just 1% female gamers in WoW
girls dont play video games... why the hell would u want there to be more pro girl gamers anyways? seems like a strange wish tbh... and i dont know where u found that "40% of gamers are girls" statistic but theres no way that is true.
Well at least here in Denmark girls really look down upon nerdish stuff such as gaming, and most of them just have no interest in it whatsoever and find it childish - there are exceptions however.. (obviously)
On November 20 2010 01:14 hmunkey wrote: It's more socially unacceptable for women to play video games than for men. the same applies to children -- girls don't grow up wanting to play games like boys do.
That's it. It has nothing to do with competitiveness or anything else.
And you have anything to prove that other than I said so. There is a lot of research, mechanisms to explain why it is a biological thing, is there anything that really points to it being because it is socially unacceptable ? In many countries in a lot of social groups it is not unacceptable any more, yet girls still do not play games competitively as much as boys. Problem is the rate of emancipation highly exceeds the rate of increase in women's competitiveness.
There's research on there being more innate competitiveness in males than females? Please give your sources on these research and mechanisms.
I CAN tell you that you're probably 99% wrong regarding biological coding for competition behaviour, but maybe I've missed something
Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
Competitors among women are outliers. Competitors among men are the norm. If there were a championship for co-op games, women would be all over that. Of course, there's no way to judge who's a better care-bear so... everybody wins! Yay! Rainbows and Unicorns.
On November 19 2010 23:25 MementoMori wrote: To start off and to hopefully ward off any hate, I'm not saying that I don't want, or that there shouldn't be top female gamers. The point of this thread is to discuss why there aren't more.
I think there is a simple reason for this: males and females of the species homo sapiens are DIFFERENT in their basic desires and aptitudes. This has nothing to do with society and education and it is generally ignored by people who like to think of both genders as "equal". Sadly this equality is generally interpreted in a way to have females behave like males so they get "more power". Only a part of the female population does this however (still too many IMO).
So the relatively low number of girls playing games like Starcraft is totally natural. It is natural. Deal with it and please dont try to make girls behave like boys and turn them into "males type 2".
Hate to sound sexist but it's true, there's a reason women are always behind men in mostly everything they do (when it comes to competition of any sort, academics, what not), and it's not just because "women are treated unfairly". Human women were designed to be the nurturers and optimal mate-finders, men were designed to protect and impress.
On November 20 2010 02:22 donut boi wrote: girls dont play video games... why the hell would u want there to be more pro girl gamers anyways? seems like a strange wish tbh... and i dont know where u found that "40% of gamers are girls" statistic but theres no way that is true.
There's a million games in the world. And the ones with big communities usually shun women, there's always this unwritten rule that telling people that you're female equals attention whoring, disregard of context. A bunch of people you stumbled upon could have been females, you just didn't know.
All the biological-talk makes me sigh. Unlike traditional sports, extra muscle mass isn't going to give males a tangible advantage. No matter how much testostorone is running through your veins, it's not going to make timing pushes any better :p
It has taken a long time for society to get to the point where it's socially acceptable for women to be good with computers. And it's only within the past 5-10 years that it's reached a point where it's become acceptable that women can play some games. I don't think it's much of a shock that women tend to gravitate towards stuff like MMOs over RTS, because MMO is more socially acceptable. Being a gamer girl MMO pushes modern limits already; gamer girl RTS can't even fall back on the "I'm only using this as a glorified chat channel so it's ok" justification. Most of the hardcore gamer girls I know are just as agressive as males too. For example, in mmos they're just as likily to roll dps as, say, a healer, in spite of the stereotype.
I'm certain with time though that things will improve. 10 years ago I would not have expected nearly as many women to play MMOs as seeiously as they do today. With time we will start seeing them in the competitive mmo scene, as well as other more male-stereotyped genres like shooter and rts.
It is just a numbers thing. For every navi or catreina there are hundreds of men, most of which would fail at a competitive level. How many super good recognizable players are there in any game, like maybe 40 or 50? The chances of one of those 50 being a girl is slim, certainly less than 25%. There certainly could be a female jae dong, but the chances against it are absolutely staggering due to the numbers on it.
That said, I've met several girls playing starcraft that could totally stomp me. A lot of them don't tell you they are female because they don't want to deal with harassment. I think there are more women playing than people realize.
Let's face it. The girls that do play videogames generally play the following.
MMO Puzzle Facebook games
Sure you'll see some play a FPS, racing game, or Nintendo games in general (think DS). But outside of these, it's rare to see girls play anything else. RTS? That's almost unthinkable in the general population, especially outside of Korea. However, I'm not saying girl RTS gamers don't exist because obviously they do. I know 3 girls personally that do play SC2, but they're rare needless to say.
On November 20 2010 02:54 RoboBob wrote: All the biological-talk makes me sigh. Unlike traditional sports, extra muscle mass isn't going to give males a tangible advantage. Most of the hardcore gamer girls I know are just as agressive as males too. For example, in mmos they're just as likily to roll dps as, say, a healer, in spite of the stereotype.
It has taken a long time for society to get to the point where it's socially acceptable for women to be good with computers. And it's only within the past 5-10 years that it's reached a point where it's become acceptable that women can play some games. I don't think it's much of a shock that women tend to gravitate towards stuff like MMOs over RTS, because MMO is more socially acceptable. Being a gamer girl MMO pushes modern limits already; gamer girl RTS can't even fall back on the "I'm only using this as a glorified chat channel" excuse.
I'm certain with time though that things will improve. 10 years ago I would not have expected nearly as many women to play MMOs as seeiously as they do today. With time we will start seeing them in the competitive mmo scene, as well as other more male-stereotyped genres like shooter and rts.
To deny the biological difference is extremely ignorant. Look anywhere in nature, look at early humans, are you going to tell me male lions fight while female lions stay home to care for cubs is a result of the complex and oppressive Lion Society? Go look up what "testosterone" is, and how men have it while women lack it, and what it does.
I have a sister who plays fotball, and I really dont buy the "women are raised and stereotyped into being non-competive" part. My father just dont get it why she is kind of afraid of the ball, going 1on1 with the ball etc. He tries to encourage her, but it's like she just dont want to 1v1 with the ball.
You also have to realise, what do we men do when winning sc2? I can only speak for myself, and it goes like this: "FUUUUUUUUUCK YEEEEES, hell yeh bitch, take that motherfucker". I scream this, and it arouses me so much to win. I think you connect with your strong sexual energy when competing, and especially winning. Women may connect to their sexual energy in a different way, or just react different to winning then men.
You get off on Starcraft?
I say this as a dude who loves Starcraft and plays it waaay too much.
That is fucking wierd, and I don't think its typical of anyone, male or female.
Next thing you'll be asking your girlfriend to dress up like a Zerg queen so you can "spawn some larvae"....
Okey maybe aroused is a wrong word? I simply ment arousing to mean to feel great, fantastic. It was not ment to be purely sexual like I want to fuck right now cause I have a huge boner after raping this guy in sc2 (that sounds weird but you get my point).
But when I have a good week, I get of course a lot more sexual then normal. You have success in sc2, and in other areas of your life that makes you fistpumping into the air cause of the awesomeness. I am 100% I am not alone in this, just 100% I did not explain myself good enough in the previous post. Sexual energy is more then just a boner
On November 20 2010 02:33 SovSov wrote: Hate to sound sexist but it's true, there's a reason women are always behind men in mostly everything they do (when it comes to competition of any sort, academics, what not), and it's not just because "women are treated unfairly". Human women were designed to be the nurturers and optimal mate-finders, men were designed to protect and impress.
On November 20 2010 02:54 RoboBob wrote: All the biological-talk makes me sigh. Unlike traditional sports, extra muscle mass isn't going to give males a tangible advantage. Most of the hardcore gamer girls I know are just as agressive as males too. For example, in mmos they're just as likily to roll dps as, say, a healer, in spite of the stereotype.
It has taken a long time for society to get to the point where it's socially acceptable for women to be good with computers. And it's only within the past 5-10 years that it's reached a point where it's become acceptable that women can play some games. I don't think it's much of a shock that women tend to gravitate towards stuff like MMOs over RTS, because MMO is more socially acceptable. Being a gamer girl MMO pushes modern limits already; gamer girl RTS can't even fall back on the "I'm only using this as a glorified chat channel" excuse.
I'm certain with time though that things will improve. 10 years ago I would not have expected nearly as many women to play MMOs as seeiously as they do today. With time we will start seeing them in the competitive mmo scene, as well as other more male-stereotyped genres like shooter and rts.
To deny the biological difference is extremely ignorant. Look anywhere in nature, look at early humans, are you going to tell me male lions fight while female lions stay home to care for cubs is a result of the complex and oppressive Lion Society? Go look up what "testosterone" is, and how men have it while women lack it, and what it does.
I've just gotta mention that lionesses do the majority of the hunting...
On November 20 2010 02:54 RoboBob wrote: All the biological-talk makes me sigh. Unlike traditional sports, extra muscle mass isn't going to give males a tangible advantage. Most of the hardcore gamer girls I know are just as agressive as males too. For example, in mmos they're just as likily to roll dps as, say, a healer, in spite of the stereotype.
It has taken a long time for society to get to the point where it's socially acceptable for women to be good with computers. And it's only within the past 5-10 years that it's reached a point where it's become acceptable that women can play some games. I don't think it's much of a shock that women tend to gravitate towards stuff like MMOs over RTS, because MMO is more socially acceptable. Being a gamer girl MMO pushes modern limits already; gamer girl RTS can't even fall back on the "I'm only using this as a glorified chat channel" excuse.
I'm certain with time though that things will improve. 10 years ago I would not have expected nearly as many women to play MMOs as seeiously as they do today. With time we will start seeing them in the competitive mmo scene, as well as other more male-stereotyped genres like shooter and rts.
To deny the biological difference is extremely ignorant. Look anywhere in nature, look at early humans, are you going to tell me male lions fight while female lions stay home to care for cubs is a result of the complex and oppressive Lion Society? Go look up what "testosterone" is, and how men have it while women lack it, and what it does.
I've just gotta mention that lionesses do the majority of the hunting...
Yea but it's the male lion who kills her cubs, replenishes the pride with his own seed, then sends her out to do his bidding. lewwwl
On November 20 2010 02:33 SovSov wrote: Hate to sound sexist but it's true, there's a reason women are always behind men in mostly everything they do (when it comes to competition of any sort, academics, what not), and it's not just because "women are treated unfairly". Human women were designed to be the nurturers and optimal mate-finders, men were designed to protect and impress.
Figured this would be brought up, I couldn't think of the word I actually wanted to use, and in haste used the wrong one. Though, I've already said enough wrong things to counter act anyone paying attention to the right things. So I accept looking like a fool and am done, since this will go no where anyways.
On November 20 2010 02:58 SovSov wrote: To deny the biological difference is extremely ignorant. Look anywhere in nature, look at early humans, are you going to tell me male lions fight while female lions stay home to care for cubs is a result of the complex and oppressive Lion Society? Go look up what "testosterone" is, and how men have it while women lack it, and what it does.
I am well aware what testostrone does to a persons body. Thus, I also know that no matter how much testostorone you pump into your body, it's not going to make you macro any better. If that were the case, all sc2 pros would be hopped up on steroids, and sc2 gamers would all look physically more like incontrol, rather than idra :p
I'm sure social norms and testosterone-driven competitiveness are big factors, but...
On November 20 2010 02:22 donut boi wrote: girls dont play video games... why the hell would u want there to be more pro girl gamers anyways? seems like a strange wish tbh... and i dont know where u found that "40% of gamers are girls" statistic but theres no way that is true.
...really I think most of it is shit like this that they have to wade through to even post on forums.
On November 20 2010 01:09 out4blood wrote: We don't see a lot of pro females because we don't see a lot of female gamers. With a much smaller sample, large deviations from the mean (i.e. pro skill) are less likely to show up. But even if there were equal numbers of female gamers, would top females be able to compete with top males? Male and female physical capabilities are different. Why should we assume that their mental capabilities are not different as well?
We don't assume that their mental capabilities are different because there is no evidence of it. Women currently outperform men in the US at most levels of education. There are less women in science and engineering, but the women do not under-perform compared to their male peers when external factors are accounted for.
There's TONS of evidence. Now you're just talking out of pure ignorance.
Let's consider testable IQ score - which arguably has nothing to do with Starcraft skill - women tend to have both a higher mean and a much lower standard deviation. Men as a group have a lower mean and a higher standard deviation. What you see is the average woman is smarter than the average man, but men are more likely to be geniuses (or morons) than women. So if you are just looking for the smartest people in the world - as measured by testable IQ score - statistically speaking, they are more likely to be male. Is that sexist or just nature?
Science has not determined what natural mental talents give someone the potential to be a top-tier starcraft player, but there is plenty of evidence that gender may have a possible impact. But to say there is "no evidence" that there are differences between male and female brains is just plain ignorant.
Oh hey its the weekly, "why are there so little girls in video games" thread.
We should make a thread every week asking why so little guys have tea parties.
It just doesn't hold their interest. Why it doesn't can be a multitude of reasons based on the smallest personal difference. It's the same reason many who are classified as jocks and old people don't play games. They didn't grow up around them, and they generally enjoy other things.
On November 20 2010 03:12 out4blood wrote: Science has not determined what natural mental talents give someone the potential to be a top-tier starcraft player, but there is plenty of evidence that gender may have a possible impact. But to say there is "no evidence" that there are differences between male and female brains is just plain ignorant.
Theres also a lot of evidence that shows that talent plays a minor role if any in becoming top-tier at anything.
On November 19 2010 23:25 MementoMori wrote: To start off and to hopefully ward off any hate, I'm not saying that I don't want, or that there shouldn't be top female gamers. The point of this thread is to discuss why there aren't more.
I think there is a simple reason for this: males and females of the species homo sapiens are DIFFERENT in their basic desires and aptitudes. This has nothing to do with society and education and it is generally ignored by people who like to think of both genders as "equal". Sadly this equality is generally interpreted in a way to have females behave like males so they get "more power". Only a part of the female population does this however (still too many IMO).
So the relatively low number of girls playing games like Starcraft is totally natural. It is natural. Deal with it and please dont try to make girls behave like boys and turn them into "males type 2".
So true. It's tough to fight a millions of years of evolution. Men and women evolved with different roles to fulfill: men hunt, women gather (in a nutshell). Up until the 1960's each gender has pretty much done things close to how nature intended them to do things. Then came Women's Lib and the slogan "whatever men can do, women can do better".
edit: mistakenly used sexual revolution instead of women's lib. oops
You guys talking about nature/nurture are really getting into a tangential debate. Women, as a group, are just less competitive period. That's the reason why there aren't more top female gamers, chess masters, race car drivers, etc (basically anything that doesn't require being physically gifted).
The few women that do make it don't prove anything about the rest. It's called anecdotal evidence. Sure, a woman COULD do it, but that's not the question. The lack of female gamers, as a whole, is because they lack competitiveness in games involving direct confrontation. Whether the few that do well possess an extra chromosome or were raised as tomboys seems superfluous to the argument.
On November 20 2010 02:54 RoboBob wrote: All the biological-talk makes me sigh. Unlike traditional sports, extra muscle mass isn't going to give males a tangible advantage. Most of the hardcore gamer girls I know are just as agressive as males too. For example, in mmos they're just as likily to roll dps as, say, a healer, in spite of the stereotype.
It has taken a long time for society to get to the point where it's socially acceptable for women to be good with computers. And it's only within the past 5-10 years that it's reached a point where it's become acceptable that women can play some games. I don't think it's much of a shock that women tend to gravitate towards stuff like MMOs over RTS, because MMO is more socially acceptable. Being a gamer girl MMO pushes modern limits already; gamer girl RTS can't even fall back on the "I'm only using this as a glorified chat channel" excuse.
I'm certain with time though that things will improve. 10 years ago I would not have expected nearly as many women to play MMOs as seeiously as they do today. With time we will start seeing them in the competitive mmo scene, as well as other more male-stereotyped genres like shooter and rts.
To deny the biological difference is extremely ignorant. Look anywhere in nature, look at early humans, are you going to tell me male lions fight while female lions stay home to care for cubs is a result of the complex and oppressive Lion Society? Go look up what "testosterone" is, and how men have it while women lack it, and what it does.
Ok, I agree that ignoring biology is the ignorant, especially when people go physically men and women are different, but to say that it is so also mentally is taboo. Why should we be the same ? Why physical differences are ok, but psychological, no way... But picking lions as an example, is not really a good idea. First because different species are different species, why should lion's behaviour have any similarity to ours, it might, but just saying lions do it is not enough. Second lions are especially bad examples as female lions actually hunt, whereas male lion often lets them do the hunting.
well being a girl isn't really difficult my bnet name screams female inside , and if i people say something genderish, its dude etc. Didn't had a pic request till now. But yeah this is a common question.
Playing sc mostly for fun, and find competition just annoying. (well not entirely true anymore, since if you play ro even when you are a girl you get competetiv xD (you'll only understand if you know ro :3 ))
But i just love siege tanks and other mech thingies <3. Banshee is one of my new favs. Don't have a lot of training time though. + sc2 is getting boring because terrans have to play bio so often xD. (or the games are really fast done if you play banshees ...) Hope some pro gamers will find out how to use mech only soon ^^. (loved when flash (don't hit me if i am wrong xD) showed mech play vs zerg *-* )
So playing sc mostly because i love the design/setting of the game ^^. Maybe if my pc wouldn't have a performance problem i would try tourneys x3.
And i think its mostly the lack of training that there aren't so much pro girls, due to girls being more socialized and not having so much free time that way. + alot girls playing games aren't into competition that much. So even if they are damn good, they won't play solo tourneys.
On November 20 2010 02:58 SovSov wrote: To deny the biological difference is extremely ignorant. Look anywhere in nature, look at early humans, are you going to tell me male lions fight while female lions stay home to care for cubs is a result of the complex and oppressive Lion Society? Go look up what "testosterone" is, and how men have it while women lack it, and what it does.
I am well aware what testostrone does to a persons body. Thus, I also know that no matter how much testostorone you pump into your body, it's not going to make you macro any better. If that were the case, all sc2 pros would be hopped up on steroids, and sc2 gamers would all look physically more like incontrol, rather than idra :p
I think the argument is not that testosterone will make you play better, but that it will actually make you play and make you play more, thus much bigger pool of male gamers and more male pros. I am not sure it is testosterone specifically, this would be too specific, since we know so little about this whole phenomena.
They are too busy playing Barbie Horse Adventures.
But in all seriousness, e-sports are just like real sports in this sense. Sure women do fine in their own leagues, but when put up against men who are top level in their leagues, they just can't compete. And I'm not being sexist, its just the way we are made genetically. Men are more aggressive, competitive, and are in general better suited for conflict. (Biologically, and yes there are exceptions) The chemicals in our body make us this way and we accept it. Men are more likely to sit at their computer training for SC for 14 hours a day than women. They can throw away social lives for goals (Sports related) more easily. A joke my sports performance teacher once told us is that Men's hormones make us Bigger, faster and stronger. While a women's makes them bleed out of their vagina every month haha. It just biologically, we have different tasks we were made to do.
We give girls dolls and boys video games as kids. When you give girls games also they will be gamers.
Overtime its shifting to be much more equal; due to gamers having kids too.
Things like 'The Frag Girls' harm the majority of womens impression of other female gamers.
Proper professional female gamers will attract more female interest; as token tourneys or team/players make women not respect those women and in turn the genre as a whole.
Its a game of skill and skill attracts more; just like money.
It's not that women are worse than men at SC2. I think it's just that women aren't as interested in SC2 as much as men. War movies are predominantly watched by men, just like war games are predominantly played by men.
I've been trying to get my girlfriend into starcraft for years. She just refuses to play it. She's a really talented gamer, too. She's great at dota (well maybe not "great" but she's certainly decent), and she kicks ass at rhythm games like guitar hero and easy console games like mario kart.
But she doesn't want to play starcraft because it scares her. She thinks it's too hard, and that she'll never be able to beat me, so why even play?
It sucks, but that's just how it goes. She's just not as competitive as I, and certainly not as competitive as most starcraft gamers.
On November 20 2010 03:50 Meta wrote: I've been trying to get my girlfriend into starcraft for years. She just refuses to play it. She's a really talented gamer, too. She's great at dota (well maybe not "great" but she's certainly decent), and she kicks ass at rhythm games like guitar hero and easy console games like mario kart.
But she doesn't want to play starcraft because it scares her. She thinks it's too hard, and that she'll never be able to beat me, so why even play?
It sucks, but that's just how it goes. She's just not as competitive as I, and certainly not as competitive as most starcraft gamers.
On November 20 2010 01:14 hmunkey wrote: It's more socially unacceptable for women to play video games than for men. the same applies to children -- girls don't grow up wanting to play games like boys do.
That's it. It has nothing to do with competitiveness or anything else.
And you have anything to prove that other than I said so. There is a lot of research, mechanisms to explain why it is a biological thing, is there anything that really points to it being because it is socially unacceptable ? In many countries in a lot of social groups it is not unacceptable any more, yet girls still do not play games competitively as much as boys. Problem is the rate of emancipation highly exceeds the rate of increase in women's competitiveness.
There's research on there being more innate competitiveness in males than females? Please give your sources on these research and mechanisms.
I CAN tell you that you're probably 99% wrong regarding biological coding for competition behaviour, but maybe I've missed something
Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
On November 20 2010 03:25 Zyphen wrote: You guys talking about nature/nurture are really getting into a tangential debate. Women, as a group, are just less competitive period. That's the reason why there aren't more top female gamers, chess masters, race car drivers, etc (basically anything that doesn't require being physically gifted).
The few women that do make it don't prove anything about the rest. It's called anecdotal evidence. Sure, a woman COULD do it, but that's not the question. The lack of female gamers, as a whole, is because they lack competitiveness in games involving direct confrontation. Whether the few that do well possess an extra chromosome or were raised as tomboys seems superfluous to the argument.
Women as a group are less competitive... interesting conclusion based on what? Your examples are all full of crap because they're all fields that have been typically male dominated and not encouraged for women to do in society. I'm not denying there's differences biologically between genders... it's what I study for a living.
But the wannabe scientists here saying how females "don't have" testosterone (which they do) probably don't even know its effects in cognition, because guess what... no one does. So how about a suggestion, before you pull out some hair-brained idea of how you think females are less innately "competitive" or whatever, get a clue.
ideally, this is not a discussion worth having when it comes to competitive sc2. playing sc2 is about having honed a certain array of skills better than others. who gives a shit about anything else?
On November 19 2010 23:30 Achilles wrote: (I mean, womens and mens curling is separate. what's with that?!)
because the swedish womens curling team is too amazing to watch to be ruined by men playing alongside.
And yet the norwegian men completely destroyed them with their pants of awesomeness at the olympics, even the danish women couldn't keep up with them, eventhough they had cute skirts. :p (it feels so nerdy to remember that stuff xD)
I think the main reason is, that girls are so focused on social skills and most of them detest competition, unless they get jealous, in which case girls get absolutely scary and have no problem to completely destroy the life of another girl that hits on their man.. ^^;
I guess it's because they want to be friends with everybody, want to be liked by everyone and think that if they beat someone in a game it could have consequences for their relationship. It's pretty ease to get a girl into a cute co-op game, but if you try the same with a arena fps they absolutely dislike it and don't want to touch it at all.
Another reason is, that a game like SC2 requires you to learn a $§&%load of theory to win at least sometimes.. Real sports are usually a physical challenge, working out is always good and they're easy to learn, but hard to master.
But investing that much time into a RTS just to play it, get into diamond or even become a pro is such a huge investment&risk, that doesn't really pay off. A girl can achieve way more if she focuses on her job, a real sport (which earns huge respect worldwide) or just their social network. Even WoW is more interesting, because you have a character you care about, lore, exploration and friends..while SC2 is just build more and more generic units to go and §$%$ing kill him and then do it again and again on even more generic maps without any meaning other than for points on the ladder.
You have to consider that most of them absolutely want to have kids pretty soon and want to raise them. Which means their career usually takes a huge dip, because they had to leave for 1-3 years or could only work part-time.
That's why they have to work harder and be more resposible to get into a position where they have a man, enough money and a safe future to ensure they will be able to raise a kid.
Men don't really care about that stuff, they can afford to 'waste' years to something like that even if it doesn't achieves something great. The only thing we need is B³ (beer, bacon, boobs) and we're happy.^^ We get more attractive with time and can still 'score', even if most relationships are short term. There just isn't as much pressure to create a huge social network and get married with children. While a girl dreams her whole life about that stuff and her window to get kids rapidly closes with time and it gets less and less responsible to get kids the older you get. If you get them with 45 you'll be over 60 when they're 18 and it will be so hard to even understand what's important to them, because there is this big ass generation gap.
That doesn't mean a women is in any way bad at gaming, it's just not a priority for most of them, because usually get most of their happiness from social stuff and building a family.
On a side note, there are probably way more girl gamers than we know of, but most of them don't get (or don't want to get) into the pro scene and that's why they disguise themselves as guys, because they don't want to get hit on all day long, when they just want to play a game for fun.
Now that I think of it..there were a lot of girls in my wow raiding guild and they were kickass. They were way better than most of the guys and it always was a lot of fun to bitch with them, because they actually knew what they were doing and were pissed of by those scrubs, who were to stupid to see that giant blue voidzone under their feet, as well.^^
there is nothing stopping women from practicing 8 hours a day. there is nothing stopping men either.
the only thing I could think of as being an issue is trying to go to a team house but that's not something foreigners do very often anyway.
women have a lot of real issues with trying to succeed in life but IMO they dont exist in "pro gaming" to nearly the same extent. pro gaming isnt a salaried job for the most part anyway; just be better than everyone else and win. there is no selection committee that thinks that women are bad at starcraft or anything like that.
if there was a woman as good at SC2 as nestea, foxer or genius they would have no problem finding a team.
btw, if there was a woman who was as good as Tom Brady at playing american football quarterback she'd be signing a 30 million dollar deal with the Dallas Cowboys tomorrow.
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
Here are my thoughts, as a gamer, female, member of the StarCraft community, gaming industry professional, and as someone who has studied cognitive neuroscience and evolution of human behavior in college:
Observation: Generally speaking, I think men and women have different goals when they play games - they are satisfied by different outcomes, respectively. Men are focused on winning, while women are focused on increasing general happiness and enriching social bonds. Both tendencies obviously have great value in the maintenance of modern human civilization.
Causes: Biology and environment/society interact to make men feel more personally validated by some objective or subjective measure of dominance ("I scored x points" or "I'm better than you in x") than by social approval. If a typical guy had a choice between winning a basketball match against his sibling/friend/co-worker and losing on purpose so that the other party wouldn't lose face and/or get his/her feelings hurt, I think most Western men would take the former.
On the other hand, biology and environment/society interact to make women feel more personally validated by behaving in ways that support social stability and overall well being than by achieving dominance. Given the same hypothetical situation, your average woman would probably opt for losing on purpose or would say "it would depend on who I was playing against." Women are generally taught (and are generally biologically predisposed) to consider their role in the context of a group (couple, family, clique, etc.) and as dependent on or interdependent with the social whims of others. Women are - by and large - not islands. Women judge themselves by how they are perceived by others - it's a relational standard for self-approval or disapproval.
Effects: As a result, there is a huge disparity in female player preference/participation between games where you are rewarded for thinking contextually and enriching the relationships between different parties (The Sims) and games where you are, in essence, rewarded for making someone else feel bad (PvP-heavy games).
Women who truly enjoy PvP-heavy games like StarCraft (multiplayer) are in the minority. It means we actually enjoy actions which have the side effect of making other people feel bad about themselves (via losing) and therefore decreasing greater social happiness, which is a big no-no. I believe that this tendency is correlated to other behavioral leanings, as well: refusing to agree just for the sake of agreeing, for example, or feeling bad when you just sit there and nod instead of saying what you really think. Part of the reason I wrote up my socially awkward experience was to gather more data about this hypothesis from other females who frequent this site (and presumably have an interest in playing StarCraft), and so far I think I'm on the right track.
My prediction is that other women will never participate in the StarCraft scene in anything like the way they participate in WoW, Farmville, etc. unless they can see competitive StarCraft as a way to create and enrich social bonds and increase general happiness. This is why I support the SC2 Female Cups and why I don't think they should ever have a cash prize - it should appeal to women who want to bridge the gap between losing for the sake of saving someone else's face and cutting someone else down in the quest for personal dominance. In the Female Cup, you can win against someone else but still be friends with them (or even make a new friend)! Completely the best of both worlds.
Recommendation: If there are people who sincerely want to see more women in StarCraft (including pro gamers), there are a few things you can keep in mind. Not all of them are feasible - I certainly can't see TL turning into a community where people prioritize social harmony over the pursuit of personal dominance, nor would I want it to be that way. My more practical (and somewhat self-interested) recommendation would be this: value and respect the females that are already here for their contributions to the community. Whether that contribution is amazing art, or high level zerg play, or blog posts, or running an entire league, or just being interesting people to talk to - if women sense that this is a community where it is possible to be openly female and be appreciated as a human being and for what they can contribute, they will come.
I would not be here if I didn't know about lilsusie and mnm. Just food for thought.
It's really all just numbers, just like the reason koreans dominate broodwar leagues. It's not because they have some inborn talent the rest of the world does not, it's because way more Koreans played brood war at a serious level so it would stand that more good players would come out of Korea then North America.
Competitive video games right now are dominated by men, and that's where the unbalance lies. I don't doubt the ratio of males:females playing starcraft is rather one sided. Give it 10 years and I think you will start to see a lot more females playing in competitive gaming leagues, but we just have to wait and see to be sure.
Simple fact is men tend to be quicker and have faster reactions. The women that have those factors on the level of men, well, how many are there? and how many of them play video games, and how many of them starcraft.
The sample size of female gamers is so small as is that to find one of them that would even play competitively or have the drive to player 8 hours a day to stay on that level, few and far between.
Every once in a while you'll find a girl like Haemonculus who DOES have the talent but she isn't going to play 8-10 hours a day like the pros, so how can you expect anyone, regardless of gender, to keep up with them.
On November 20 2010 04:21 Peanutsc wrote: If a typical guy had a choice between winning a basketball match against his sibling/friend/co-worker and losing on purpose so that the other party wouldn't lose face and/or get his/her feelings hurt, I think most Western men would take the former.
That was a great post peanutsc. Your analogy about basketball actually fits perfectly with my own experiences trying to get girlfriends into SC. Some of them have given it a shot when I offer to play some 2v2s with them. Probably because like you said it's basically a team building exercise which would (hopefully) bring us closer together in their eyes. But the concept that they get good at 1v1s and would have a chance of beating me seems to be a no no. The ironic thing is, if I had a gf who could beat me at starcraft, I'd actually like them more haha.
On November 20 2010 01:14 hmunkey wrote: It's more socially unacceptable for women to play video games than for men. the same applies to children -- girls don't grow up wanting to play games like boys do.
That's it. It has nothing to do with competitiveness or anything else.
And you have anything to prove that other than I said so. There is a lot of research, mechanisms to explain why it is a biological thing, is there anything that really points to it being because it is socially unacceptable ? In many countries in a lot of social groups it is not unacceptable any more, yet girls still do not play games competitively as much as boys. Problem is the rate of emancipation highly exceeds the rate of increase in women's competitiveness.
There's research on there being more innate competitiveness in males than females? Please give your sources on these research and mechanisms.
I CAN tell you that you're probably 99% wrong regarding biological coding for competition behaviour, but maybe I've missed something
Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
On November 20 2010 03:25 Zyphen wrote: You guys talking about nature/nurture are really getting into a tangential debate. Women, as a group, are just less competitive period. That's the reason why there aren't more top female gamers, chess masters, race car drivers, etc (basically anything that doesn't require being physically gifted).
The few women that do make it don't prove anything about the rest. It's called anecdotal evidence. Sure, a woman COULD do it, but that's not the question. The lack of female gamers, as a whole, is because they lack competitiveness in games involving direct confrontation. Whether the few that do well possess an extra chromosome or were raised as tomboys seems superfluous to the argument.
Women as a group are less competitive... interesting conclusion based on what? Your examples are all full of crap because they're all fields that have been typically male dominated and not encouraged for women to do in society. I'm not denying there's differences biologically between genders... it's what I study for a living.
But the wannabe scientists here saying how females "don't have" testosterone (which they do) probably don't even know its effects in cognition, because guess what... no one does. So how about a suggestion, before you pull out some hair-brained idea of how you think females are less innately "competitive" or whatever, get a clue.
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how I don't CARE whether it's nature or nurture that's the culprit for any behavorial differences. The facts are that they exist.
And you're asking me for proof? Really? It's already accepted fact that women are under-represented in starcraft 2 and just about every other competitive event listed in this thread. I think your position is the one that's more indefensible. The burden should lie with you. How about this. Find me a single instance of a direct competitive game/sport where women are equally represented at the top tier as men (i.e. they don't form their own separate league, actually play with and BEAT the boys, you look at a tournament bracket - half are women, half the time they even win it, etc.).
It'll take me longer to list all the things men dominate than for you to squeeze out that one exception (which, honestly, I'm dying to know).
I think that this has a lot to do with numbers and interest level. It's a cultural thing for males to grow up thinking about strategy and tactics in a lot of different things that they do. While the females interests tend to lie elsewhere (relationships [not just the male/female kind] etc) So males tend to be more predisposed to be interested in strategy and tactics, + males form a deeper understanding of these things by doing so much with them throughout their lives. So males have more vested interest in RTS games, as well as an innate advantage in that they are far more likely to have done a lot of strategy/tactics type things during their childhood/adolescence.
It's pretty easy to see why the player base from female's would be smaller. Just go look at the comments on the initial ESL all-female tournament threads or the threads about starting all female clans. Some absolutely disgusting comments. Hopefully this type of behavior will go away, but until it does the barrier for entry into the Starcraft community will remain very high and we won't even get to see girls (that would become amazing) pick up the game.
On November 20 2010 04:43 Kelsin wrote: It's pretty easy to see why the player base from female's would be smaller. Just go look at the comments on the initial ESL all-female tournament threads or the threads about starting all female clans. Some absolutely disgusting comments. Hopefully this type of behavior will go away, but until it does the barrier for entry into the Starcraft community will remain very high and we won't even get to see girls (that would become amazing) pick up the game.
Yeah and this kind of behavior I just don't understand. What difference does it honestly make to you (not you Kelsin) if you're playing against a girl or a guy. Seems like a lot of people are trying to scare away girls from getting in to it. Why? I have no idea.
On November 20 2010 04:43 Kelsin wrote: It's pretty easy to see why the player base from female's would be smaller. Just go look at the comments on the initial ESL all-female tournament threads or the threads about starting all female clans. Some absolutely disgusting comments. Hopefully this type of behavior will go away, but until it does the barrier for entry into the Starcraft community will remain very high and we won't even get to see girls (that would become amazing) pick up the game.
It's like anything else in life. You're not going to get taken seriously unless you aspire to be the best. Not the best "female" gamer, not the best "foreigner", but the absolute best period. Some of the stuff is straight juvenile horseshit, I agree, though. But even the well meaning are condescending with their encouragement. I respect someone like TossGirl because she at least actually TRIES to compete with the boys.
i know that this is gonna come over as incredibly sexist and offensive,
but i do believe (and i'm fully aware that this makes me a bad person) that
womens ability to abstract and think strategically is in average inferior to that of men. im pretty sure the worlds best female chess player, is no where near the 100th best male chess player. similar in starcraft.
Seems like a lot of people stubbornly refuse to believe that girls just are not as into gaming compared to guys. These people are dangerous. They are the same type of people that will borrow your pen and not return it the next day. /random
Then there is the lot who try to attribute gaming success in males to their intellectual superiority and reaction times. These are the people who are just patting themselves on the back. You do not need to be a genius or even remotely smart to do well in SC2.
I feel like the interest level/competitiveness argument pretty well sums it up. But also, I feel like there might be a little bit of the same phenomenon that might be holding foreigners back:
I have no proof, but I feel like for the majority of women interested in playing SC2 (just like the majority of foreigners playing SC2), are probably plagued with an "us vs. them" mentality. Foreign players may think "Man, there's no way I can be as super gosu as the koreans....", just like girls might be thinking, "man, there's no way I can beat the boys at this". And I feel like it's that kind of defeatism that's incredibly poisonous to one's thoughts.
I have no doubt in my mind that if a female decided to practice as much as IdrA, she'd become a super baller. Just like any foreigners who may be doubting themselves: just listen to incontrol's experience at GSL3. Sure he didn't qualify, but from SotG, he realized it's not the impossibility he used to think it was. If you listen to IdrA's reasoning on why Koreans are doing better than foreigners, he's not saying "because they have different hair", he's saying "because they practice more".
The thing is, the "foreigner vs. koreans" is a product of StarCraft, where "boys vs. girls" is a product of centuries upon centuries of human society. So while the first defeatist mentality is easier to overcome on a personal level, the second probably isn't. I would expect this is what's resulting in most interested female players getting themselves down mentally, where all they need to do is spend 8 million hours a day training like everyone else.
And I am by no means saying female players don't try hard enough. I'm just saying that this kind of thinking makes it much easier to give up altogether.
You say that there's no inherent disadvantage "like chess" yet there are male and female chess leagues, and the top male chess player is always better than the top female chess player.
Look at a socially acceptable competitive game that females play, such as basketball or tennis. Those women at the top simply don't have the physical ability to compete with the men. Even if they put in just as many hours and have been trained from a young age, you won't find females that are able to keep up with the top men in terms of power and speed. Obviously its not 100% of the reason why there aren't any women at the top of SC2, but I do believe it plays a much greater role than the game being "socially acceptable" or women being tactically inferior.
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
On November 20 2010 05:11 Phaded wrote: Females don't have the mechanical ability of men.
Look at a socially acceptable competitive game that females play, such as basketball or tennis. Those women at the top simply don't have the physical ability to compete with the men. Even if they put in just as many hours and have been trained from a young age, you won't find females that are able to keep up with the top men in terms of power and speed. Obviously its not 100% of the reason why there aren't any women at the top of SC2, but I do believe it plays a much greater role than the game being "socially acceptable" or women being tactically inferior.
This man has a point - I hate it when I don't have enough power and speed to move the mouse.
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
i think natural selection pretty much covers men being biologically more competitive.
Indeed - men need to compete with each other to impregnate women, whereas women need to develop positive relationships so they have a support structure when raising a child. These are not the only reproductive strategies for the two genders, but they're generally the most effective... and they influence our evolution + social structure.
You might think of the skill of SC players to follow a Gaussian Curve with the pros being at the top end. If we assume that the Gaussian probability plot looks about the same for female and male (basically, a determined female has the same chance of succeeding as a similar male), then the only variable in changing the number of high level players is the number of players to begin with
As is generally accepted, there are less female gamers so there for there are less female progamers. It is the same deal with why big school sports teams generally are much better than small school teams. Big schools have a larger pool from which to select its best players.
So the question is, how can we get more females interested in SC?
Women who truly enjoy PvP-heavy games like StarCraft (multiplayer) are in the minority. It means we actually enjoy actions which have the side effect of making other people feel bad about themselves (via losing) and therefore decreasing greater social happiness, which is a big no-no.
I would say that making other people feel bad is the lowest form of motivation for 1v1 gaming. I also hope that its not the majority
On November 20 2010 04:56 ganjazerg wrote: i know that this is gonna come over as incredibly sexist and offensive,
but i do believe (and i'm fully aware that this makes me a bad person) that
womens ability to abstract and think strategically is in average inferior to that of men. im pretty sure the worlds best female chess player, is no where near the 100th best male chess player. similar in starcraft.
:c
unleash the hate
that's pretty much a fact and personally i find people who claim that stance to be sexist, sexist themselves. Sexes are just different, and there is nothing wrong with that. They have different roles in society and instead of trying to ignorantly blur the lines why not appreciate the differences.
On November 20 2010 04:57 JoeSchmoe wrote:
Then there is the lot who try to attribute gaming success in males to their intellectual superiority and reaction times. These are the people who are just patting themselves on the back. You do not need to be a genius or even remotely smart to do well in SC2.
Patting yourself on the back would be saying that women are smarter and stronger and i still kick their ass in sports.
On November 20 2010 05:16 EnderPR wrote: The answer is FAR simpler than most make it.
You might think of the skill of SC players to follow a Gaussian Curve with the pros being at the top end. If we assume that the Gaussian probability plot looks about the same for female and male (basically, a determined female has the same chance of succeeding as a similar male), then the only variable in changing the number of high level players is the number of players to begin with
As is generally accepted, there are less female gamers so there for there are less female progamers. It is the same deal with why big school sports teams generally are much better than small school teams. Big schools have a larger pool from which to select its best players.
So the question is, how can we get more females interested in SC?
You would think so, but WoW doesn't have the problem of severe under-representation in the female player base. Yet, in competitive WoW 3v3 tournaments, there are little to no female participants.
Women favor immediate attention over recognized skill/achievements.
Easier for a girl to put on a skirt and go parade around than try to be recognized for an actual trait of talent.
There is also the biological approach in that women function primarily on emotions and feelings whereas men function on reason and logic; RTS falls under logic and strategy, thus indicating why men are better at them.
On November 20 2010 04:21 Peanutsc wrote: Here are my thoughts, as a gamer, female, member of the StarCraft community, gaming industry professional, and as someone who has studied cognitive neuroscience and evolution of human behavior in college:
Observation: Generally speaking, I think men and women have different goals when they play games - they are satisfied by different outcomes, respectively. Men are focused on winning, while women are focused on increasing general happiness and enriching social bonds. Both tendencies obviously have great value in the maintenance of modern human civilization.
Causes: Biology and environment/society interact to make men feel more personally validated by some objective or subjective measure of dominance ("I scored x points" or "I'm better than you in x") than by social approval. If a typical guy had a choice between winning a basketball match against his sibling/friend/co-worker and losing on purpose so that the other party wouldn't lose face and/or get his/her feelings hurt, I think most Western men would take the former.
On the other hand, biology and environment/society interact to make women feel more personally validated by behaving in ways that support social stability and overall well being than by achieving dominance. Given the same hypothetical situation, your average woman would probably opt for losing on purpose or would say "it would depend on who I was playing against." Women are generally taught (and are generally biologically predisposed) to consider their role in the context of a group (couple, family, clique, etc.) and as dependent on or interdependent with the social whims of others. Women are - by and large - not islands. Women judge themselves by how they are perceived by others - it's a relational standard for self-approval or disapproval.
Effects: As a result, there is a huge disparity in female player preference/participation between games where you are rewarded for thinking contextually and enriching the relationships between different parties (The Sims) and games where you are, in essence, rewarded for making someone else feel bad (PvP-heavy games).
Women who truly enjoy PvP-heavy games like StarCraft (multiplayer) are in the minority. It means we actually enjoy actions which have the side effect of making other people feel bad about themselves (via losing) and therefore decreasing greater social happiness, which is a big no-no. I believe that this tendency is correlated to other behavioral leanings, as well: refusing to agree just for the sake of agreeing, for example, or feeling bad when you just sit there and nod instead of saying what you really think. Part of the reason I wrote up my socially awkward experience was to gather more data about this hypothesis from other females who frequent this site (and presumably have an interest in playing StarCraft), and so far I think I'm on the right track.
My prediction is that other women will never participate in the StarCraft scene in anything like the way they participate in WoW, Farmville, etc. unless they can see competitive StarCraft as a way to create and enrich social bonds and increase general happiness. This is why I support the SC2 Female Cups and why I don't think they should ever have a cash prize - it should appeal to women who want to bridge the gap between losing for the sake of saving someone else's face and cutting someone else down in the quest for personal dominance. In the Female Cup, you can win against someone else but still be friends with them (or even make a new friend)! Completely the best of both worlds.
Recommendation: If there are people who sincerely want to see more women in StarCraft (including pro gamers), there are a few things you can keep in mind. Not all of them are feasible - I certainly can't see TL turning into a community where people prioritize social harmony over the pursuit of personal dominance, nor would I want it to be that way. My more practical (and somewhat self-interested) recommendation would be this: value and respect the females that are already here for their contributions to the community. Whether that contribution is amazing art, or high level zerg play, or blog posts, or running an entire league, or just being interesting people to talk to - if women sense that this is a community where it is possible to be openly female and be appreciated as a human being and for what they can contribute, they will come.
I would not be here if I didn't know about lilsusie and mnm. Just food for thought.
Thank you for sharing. (yes, I'm essentially bumping this post)
On November 20 2010 01:14 hmunkey wrote: It's more socially unacceptable for women to play video games than for men. the same applies to children -- girls don't grow up wanting to play games like boys do.
That's it. It has nothing to do with competitiveness or anything else.
And you have anything to prove that other than I said so. There is a lot of research, mechanisms to explain why it is a biological thing, is there anything that really points to it being because it is socially unacceptable ? In many countries in a lot of social groups it is not unacceptable any more, yet girls still do not play games competitively as much as boys. Problem is the rate of emancipation highly exceeds the rate of increase in women's competitiveness.
There's research on there being more innate competitiveness in males than females? Please give your sources on these research and mechanisms.
I CAN tell you that you're probably 99% wrong regarding biological coding for competition behaviour, but maybe I've missed something
Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
On November 20 2010 03:25 Zyphen wrote: You guys talking about nature/nurture are really getting into a tangential debate. Women, as a group, are just less competitive period. That's the reason why there aren't more top female gamers, chess masters, race car drivers, etc (basically anything that doesn't require being physically gifted).
The few women that do make it don't prove anything about the rest. It's called anecdotal evidence. Sure, a woman COULD do it, but that's not the question. The lack of female gamers, as a whole, is because they lack competitiveness in games involving direct confrontation. Whether the few that do well possess an extra chromosome or were raised as tomboys seems superfluous to the argument.
Women as a group are less competitive... interesting conclusion based on what? Your examples are all full of crap because they're all fields that have been typically male dominated and not encouraged for women to do in society. I'm not denying there's differences biologically between genders... it's what I study for a living.
But the wannabe scientists here saying how females "don't have" testosterone (which they do) probably don't even know its effects in cognition, because guess what... no one does. So how about a suggestion, before you pull out some hair-brained idea of how you think females are less innately "competitive" or whatever, get a clue.
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how I don't CARE whether it's nature or nurture that's the culprit for any behavorial differences. The facts are that they exist.
And you're asking me for proof? Really? It's already accepted fact that women are under-represented in starcraft 2 and just about every other competitive event listed in this thread. I think your position is the one that's more indefensible. The burden should lie with you. How about this. Find me a single instance of a direct competitive game/sport where women are equally represented at the top tier as men (i.e. they don't form their own separate league, actually play with and BEAT the boys, you look at a tournament bracket - half are women, half the time they even win it, etc.).
It'll take me longer to list all the things men dominate than for you to squeeze out that one exception (which, honestly, I'm dying to know).
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how you simply stated that women were less competitive, not about whether other biological differences exist. If you bothered to read on, it also mentioned that WHILE these biological differences exist, they haven’t been shown to have anything to do with better performance in a game like SC2. Why don’t you look in gender differences in attention, visual/spatial cognition, motor control and see if you can come up with an answer to that. But I can save you some time now and tell you that there is no evidence that would point one way or another.
Asking for proof was to the poster I quoted above, he has given me a draft of a paper and I’ll read it when I’m off work.
As for your obsession in male superiority over women in competitive sport – which in our society seems to be inherently correlated with physical ability, then of course males outperform females. Why don’t you look less in sport and more in a wider scope of activities? Can you honestly tell me that males are outperforming females in academia?
On November 20 2010 05:04 LolnoobInsanity wrote: You say that there's no inherent disadvantage "like chess" yet there are male and female chess leagues, and the top male chess player is always better than the top female chess player.
Throwing around those features of the chess world as "proof" of inherent disadvantage is faulty reasoning.
This is because of differences in participation. Let's say the ratio of serious male chess players to serious female chess players is about 10:1. As for how you define a "serious chess player," let's say, very roughly, it is someone who spends most, or a significant amount, of their free time practicing or studying chess, with the goal of competing in tournaments.
If both male and female populations of serious chess players have a standard distribution of skill, they can have the same average skill level--i.e. suggesting no inherent disadvantage--and you'll still see WAY more men at the top level.
To even compete with nationally-known players, you probably have to be in the top 0.1%, and just statistically speaking, if there are ten times as many men than women in the category of "serious chess players," then this difference will be EVEN MORE pronounced in the top 0.1%.
TL;DR Based on their relative levels of participation in chess/SC2, we would expect to see about as many top female players as we currently do, if we assume identical inherent ability/potential.
A lack of top female SC2 or chess players would only argue in favor of some gap in innate ability if the levels of participation were close to even, and they're not at all.
*Why* participation levels differ is a separate issue; I think Peanut addressed this question very well in her post.
On November 20 2010 05:16 EnderPR wrote: The answer is FAR simpler than most make it.
You might think of the skill of SC players to follow a Gaussian Curve with the pros being at the top end. If we assume that the Gaussian probability plot looks about the same for female and male (basically, a determined female has the same chance of succeeding as a similar male), then the only variable in changing the number of high level players is the number of players to begin with
As is generally accepted, there are less female gamers so there for there are less female progamers. It is the same deal with why big school sports teams generally are much better than small school teams. Big schools have a larger pool from which to select its best players.
So the question is, how can we get more females interested in SC?
You would think so, but WoW doesn't have the problem of severe under-representation in the female player base. Yet, in competitive WoW 3v3 tournaments, there are little to no female participants.
Perhaps it would do good to put further constraints on that population. Perhaps, this is true of the population of males and females who are interested in becoming competitive (more than just casual gaming). So MAYBE there are female gamers we don't know of, dun dun dun!
No, but seriously, I think that it is the case that the population of females that wish to become competitive is simply smaller than that of males.
Like the 9 pages of people saying the same thing. Its a video game you should chance the topic title to Lack of PRO Female Video gamers. i would dare say less than 5% of the female population plays any type of video game on a daily basis (Farmville doesnt count!). Now for pro femals would be less than 1%
On November 20 2010 05:16 EnderPR wrote: The answer is FAR simpler than most make it.
You might think of the skill of SC players to follow a Gaussian Curve with the pros being at the top end. If we assume that the Gaussian probability plot looks about the same for female and male (basically, a determined female has the same chance of succeeding as a similar male), then the only variable in changing the number of high level players is the number of players to begin with
As is generally accepted, there are less female gamers so there for there are less female progamers. It is the same deal with why big school sports teams generally are much better than small school teams. Big schools have a larger pool from which to select its best players.
So the question is, how can we get more females interested in SC?
You would think so, but WoW doesn't have the problem of severe under-representation in the female player base. Yet, in competitive WoW 3v3 tournaments, there are little to no female participants.
That doesn't say anything about skill, it just means that female players aren't playing PvP, they're playing PvE. So, in the pool of players that we're considering, they are severely underrepresented.
There are some interesting arguments but they all seem the same, even Peanut's is a lot like what is being argued by the guys so it seems people generally agree.
But I think, and some people have mentioned this point in passing, that it is 100% cultural. Girls are not brought up thinking they should like violent video games, or fast-paced strategy games. I'm going to make an absurd analogy and I'm not saying they're related in any way other than they both are cultural phenomena, but in a lot of ancient societies homosexuality was practiced openly by men and now it is highly controversial.
I think it's just that back then, you were cool if you did gay stuff and everyone did it. Now it's not. But people are not different genetically now from what I understand.
So if we lived in a society where girls were encouraged to like these kinds of things, there would be more girl gamers. And that society sounds very unlikely but again, I think it's because it's not what we're used to or what we expect.
On November 20 2010 05:04 LolnoobInsanity wrote: You say that there's no inherent disadvantage "like chess" yet there are male and female chess leagues, and the top male chess player is always better than the top female chess player.
That statement can be backed up pretty heavily by most researches and statistics. By design, males are better are pattern-recognition and logical thinking; Add to that the globally demonstrated statistic that males have an average IQ 9 points higher than females and you get the picture.
I think the lack of female gamers is two fold: First, starcraft is generally a male-appealing game. It has a bigger draw from that audience. When you figure the actual LAN tourny fairing "pros" are something like the 0.0001% of the community, your odds are much slimmer of having a female there.
Secondly, as a girl, I'll say something many people don't seem to understand; The internet is gross. I've been a gamer my whole life, and 85%+ of the time, I'd rather pretend I was a guy online, just to avoid the constant drabble and drooling on that you get by disclosing that. I'm sure there's a lot of girls that have been in Starcraft tournaments over battle.net for starcraft 2, but since it's not an LAN, and no one cares about gender, people just assume it's another guy.
I don't think there's any inherent difficulty in being a female gamer at a pro level (except maybe getting hit on constantly at an LAN o.<) so it has nothing really to do with gender, just that the game appeals to males more, and thus a wider audience.
I'd love to be a top level player--I think most of the people here would too--so there's no real discouragement because of gender.
As the illustrious Day[9] says: "Girls don't play video games"
However, I know a lot of girls who play starcraft, most of em think its really fun, they just don't really care about winning that much. Males are much more competitive creatures.
On November 20 2010 01:14 hmunkey wrote: It's more socially unacceptable for women to play video games than for men. the same applies to children -- girls don't grow up wanting to play games like boys do.
That's it. It has nothing to do with competitiveness or anything else.
And you have anything to prove that other than I said so. There is a lot of research, mechanisms to explain why it is a biological thing, is there anything that really points to it being because it is socially unacceptable ? In many countries in a lot of social groups it is not unacceptable any more, yet girls still do not play games competitively as much as boys. Problem is the rate of emancipation highly exceeds the rate of increase in women's competitiveness.
There's research on there being more innate competitiveness in males than females? Please give your sources on these research and mechanisms.
I CAN tell you that you're probably 99% wrong regarding biological coding for competition behaviour, but maybe I've missed something
Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
On November 20 2010 03:25 Zyphen wrote: You guys talking about nature/nurture are really getting into a tangential debate. Women, as a group, are just less competitive period. That's the reason why there aren't more top female gamers, chess masters, race car drivers, etc (basically anything that doesn't require being physically gifted).
The few women that do make it don't prove anything about the rest. It's called anecdotal evidence. Sure, a woman COULD do it, but that's not the question. The lack of female gamers, as a whole, is because they lack competitiveness in games involving direct confrontation. Whether the few that do well possess an extra chromosome or were raised as tomboys seems superfluous to the argument.
Women as a group are less competitive... interesting conclusion based on what? Your examples are all full of crap because they're all fields that have been typically male dominated and not encouraged for women to do in society. I'm not denying there's differences biologically between genders... it's what I study for a living.
But the wannabe scientists here saying how females "don't have" testosterone (which they do) probably don't even know its effects in cognition, because guess what... no one does. So how about a suggestion, before you pull out some hair-brained idea of how you think females are less innately "competitive" or whatever, get a clue.
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how I don't CARE whether it's nature or nurture that's the culprit for any behavorial differences. The facts are that they exist.
And you're asking me for proof? Really? It's already accepted fact that women are under-represented in starcraft 2 and just about every other competitive event listed in this thread. I think your position is the one that's more indefensible. The burden should lie with you. How about this. Find me a single instance of a direct competitive game/sport where women are equally represented at the top tier as men (i.e. they don't form their own separate league, actually play with and BEAT the boys, you look at a tournament bracket - half are women, half the time they even win it, etc.).
It'll take me longer to list all the things men dominate than for you to squeeze out that one exception (which, honestly, I'm dying to know).
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how you simply stated that women were less competitive, not about whether other biological differences exist. If you bothered to read on, it also mentioned that WHILE these biological differences exist, they haven’t been shown to have anything to do with better performance in a game like SC2. Why don’t you look in gender differences in attention, visual/spatial cognition, motor control and see if you can come up with an answer to that. But I can save you some time now and tell you that there is no evidence that would point one way or another.
Asking for proof was to the poster I quoted above, he has given me a draft of a paper and I’ll read it when I’m off work.
As for your obsession in male superiority over women in competitive sport – which in our society seems to be inherently correlated with physical ability, then of course males outperform females. Why don’t you look less in sport and more in a wider scope of activities? Can you honestly tell me that males are outperforming females in academia?
And I've posted twice stating that I don't really give a rat's ass as to the explanation of why females are less competitive. Would it be less offensive to your sensiblities if I instead stated that males are more competitive?
How is academia a direct competition? I don't really care about your other arguments with other posters. Stay on point. And I specifically said ANY directly competitive event (as in there's a winner and a loser) with tournaments. Forget sports.
The facts are, women are under-represented relative to their population size in virtually all directly competitive events. Sorry the truth offended you. I simply stated it. And then I said the explanation is an entirely separate argument. That might have gotten through your thick head if you didn't jump at my posts like a rabid wolverine.
I think female gamers tend to be more interested in casual games than male gamers. They are less likely to put "work" into a game and just see them as a fun way to pass the time or meet friends.
My wife, for example, will happily play MMOs with me but she will never "grind" things in them like I will. In Starcraft getting to a minimum level of competency is a kind of grind so its a hurtle few women are interested in overcoming. (note I say interested in, not capable of )
This leads to a small pool of female gamers which is why there aren't many amazing ones. If the same # of women played SC2 as men the numbers would probably be much closer to even.
This may sound extremely ignorant, and it is, but.... Women simply do not need to win a major tourney like GSL to get the same amount of attention as a male.
On November 20 2010 04:21 Peanutsc wrote: Here are my thoughts, as a gamer, female, member of the StarCraft community, gaming industry professional, and as someone who has studied cognitive neuroscience and evolution of human behavior in college:
Observation: Generally speaking, I think men and women have different goals when they play games - they are satisfied by different outcomes, respectively. Men are focused on winning, while women are focused on increasing general happiness and enriching social bonds. Both tendencies obviously have great value in the maintenance of modern human civilization.
Causes: Biology and environment/society interact to make men feel more personally validated by some objective or subjective measure of dominance ("I scored x points" or "I'm better than you in x") than by social approval. If a typical guy had a choice between winning a basketball match against his sibling/friend/co-worker and losing on purpose so that the other party wouldn't lose face and/or get his/her feelings hurt, I think most Western men would take the former.
On the other hand, biology and environment/society interact to make women feel more personally validated by behaving in ways that support social stability and overall well being than by achieving dominance. Given the same hypothetical situation, your average woman would probably opt for losing on purpose or would say "it would depend on who I was playing against." Women are generally taught (and are generally biologically predisposed) to consider their role in the context of a group (couple, family, clique, etc.) and as dependent on or interdependent with the social whims of others. Women are - by and large - not islands. Women judge themselves by how they are perceived by others - it's a relational standard for self-approval or disapproval.
Effects: As a result, there is a huge disparity in female player preference/participation between games where you are rewarded for thinking contextually and enriching the relationships between different parties (The Sims) and games where you are, in essence, rewarded for making someone else feel bad (PvP-heavy games).
Women who truly enjoy PvP-heavy games like StarCraft (multiplayer) are in the minority. It means we actually enjoy actions which have the side effect of making other people feel bad about themselves (via losing) and therefore decreasing greater social happiness, which is a big no-no. I believe that this tendency is correlated to other behavioral leanings, as well: refusing to agree just for the sake of agreeing, for example, or feeling bad when you just sit there and nod instead of saying what you really think. Part of the reason I wrote up my socially awkward experience was to gather more data about this hypothesis from other females who frequent this site (and presumably have an interest in playing StarCraft), and so far I think I'm on the right track.
My prediction is that other women will never participate in the StarCraft scene in anything like the way they participate in WoW, Farmville, etc. unless they can see competitive StarCraft as a way to create and enrich social bonds and increase general happiness. This is why I support the SC2 Female Cups and why I don't think they should ever have a cash prize - it should appeal to women who want to bridge the gap between losing for the sake of saving someone else's face and cutting someone else down in the quest for personal dominance. In the Female Cup, you can win against someone else but still be friends with them (or even make a new friend)! Completely the best of both worlds.
Recommendation: If there are people who sincerely want to see more women in StarCraft (including pro gamers), there are a few things you can keep in mind. Not all of them are feasible - I certainly can't see TL turning into a community where people prioritize social harmony over the pursuit of personal dominance, nor would I want it to be that way. My more practical (and somewhat self-interested) recommendation would be this: value and respect the females that are already here for their contributions to the community. Whether that contribution is amazing art, or high level zerg play, or blog posts, or running an entire league, or just being interesting people to talk to - if women sense that this is a community where it is possible to be openly female and be appreciated as a human being and for what they can contribute, they will come.
I would not be here if I didn't know about lilsusie and mnm. Just food for thought.
Quoted because I agree with everything you said and dont want people to overlook it
Female SC2 player here:
I think ultimately, it comes to the same idea of why we dont have foreigners winning Korean Tournaments, there just isn't as many girls playing this game. Will we see that eventually? I think so. It will just take time. I think for the most part, everyone just needs to calm down about the topic of female progamers. I know you guys mean well for the most part, but it's not that big of a deal. If the overwhelming opinion was that a woman CANT be a progamers because guys are better for some reason, then yes, I would make a big deal out of it, but thankfully, I don't think that's the case right now. Yes, I've seen people make stupid comments, but for the most part, there is a large portion of the community that supports female SC2 players and would like to see them compete.
The reason I would like people to calm down about the topic of female SC2 players, despite myself being of them, is that it's been getting to a point where people are just too over dramatic about it and skews the image of female competitors. Pikachu, who won the second female ESL cup on EU was widely praised, but I could tell from the threads, most people had not watched the games and it was just 'ZOMG HOT GIRL PLAYS SC2!' and in some of the ESL female threads, people just immediately ask for pictures of the players, rather than ranks and results.
What has happened is that Pikachu's threads got pages and pages of post of people praising her in someway, simply because she was a female SC2 who is amazingly pretty because she's model, but her level play isn't high at all and basic RTS mistakes were all over those games. Now let's take a look at the ESL NA Female cup, in which we dont have pictures of the female competitors and the interviews are focused on what happened in the actual matches: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=170047
Only 4 pages of comments because Navi, the winner of the NA female cup, doesn't have pictures plastered anywhere her on TL or the ESL sight. All you have to see of her is her games and I love that because she is a good player. Her games were actually interesting to watch and so was Awesome's games. These were players, who knew what they were doing, but go very little attention.
Now I'm not saying that it's bad that the NA female cup winner only got 4 pages of responses. It honestly isn't. What is bad is when you compare that to Pikachu's thread, when Navi is the 100x better player.
As for me, for the most part, school and work are preventing me from entering the female cups. I have accounts on both the EU and NA server. I almost did sign up for the recent EU cup, but I wasn't allowed to sign up because I didn't have a photo uploaded for my profile picture. Now, this wouldn't be a big deal if the ESL didn't require that the picture you upload be a photo of yourself. I initially had a cute icon of a cartoon character, but it got taken down and I was asked to upload a real picture of myself. Now, in the NA cups, we're not required to have a photo uploaded, but in the EU, we are. I can't stress how to me this is a problem. Flat out, I don't want to upload my photo to the internet. I don't want to upload my photo to a site in which 90% of the people that visit it are male and they would prefer to judge me by my looks instead of my gameplay. I don't want to be a Pikachu. I want to be a Navi. I would rather have 4 pages of quality posts on my games rather than 20+ pages of people just running around being 'ZOMG SC2 GIRL!!'
At this point, I don't even want to be a TossGirl. As a gamer, I want to be judged by my games.
That is why I ask of you guys to stop making a big deal about female SC2 players. If we're treated like regular players, we will become better players. Ultimately, we, women choose our role to play in the SC2 community. If any of us want to be top players, we will get there.
On November 20 2010 01:14 hmunkey wrote: It's more socially unacceptable for women to play video games than for men. the same applies to children -- girls don't grow up wanting to play games like boys do.
That's it. It has nothing to do with competitiveness or anything else.
And you have anything to prove that other than I said so. There is a lot of research, mechanisms to explain why it is a biological thing, is there anything that really points to it being because it is socially unacceptable ? In many countries in a lot of social groups it is not unacceptable any more, yet girls still do not play games competitively as much as boys. Problem is the rate of emancipation highly exceeds the rate of increase in women's competitiveness.
There's research on there being more innate competitiveness in males than females? Please give your sources on these research and mechanisms.
I CAN tell you that you're probably 99% wrong regarding biological coding for competition behaviour, but maybe I've missed something
Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
On November 20 2010 03:25 Zyphen wrote: You guys talking about nature/nurture are really getting into a tangential debate. Women, as a group, are just less competitive period. That's the reason why there aren't more top female gamers, chess masters, race car drivers, etc (basically anything that doesn't require being physically gifted).
The few women that do make it don't prove anything about the rest. It's called anecdotal evidence. Sure, a woman COULD do it, but that's not the question. The lack of female gamers, as a whole, is because they lack competitiveness in games involving direct confrontation. Whether the few that do well possess an extra chromosome or were raised as tomboys seems superfluous to the argument.
Women as a group are less competitive... interesting conclusion based on what? Your examples are all full of crap because they're all fields that have been typically male dominated and not encouraged for women to do in society. I'm not denying there's differences biologically between genders... it's what I study for a living.
But the wannabe scientists here saying how females "don't have" testosterone (which they do) probably don't even know its effects in cognition, because guess what... no one does. So how about a suggestion, before you pull out some hair-brained idea of how you think females are less innately "competitive" or whatever, get a clue.
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how I don't CARE whether it's nature or nurture that's the culprit for any behavorial differences. The facts are that they exist.
And you're asking me for proof? Really? It's already accepted fact that women are under-represented in starcraft 2 and just about every other competitive event listed in this thread. I think your position is the one that's more indefensible. The burden should lie with you. How about this. Find me a single instance of a direct competitive game/sport where women are equally represented at the top tier as men (i.e. they don't form their own separate league, actually play with and BEAT the boys, you look at a tournament bracket - half are women, half the time they even win it, etc.).
It'll take me longer to list all the things men dominate than for you to squeeze out that one exception (which, honestly, I'm dying to know).
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how you simply stated that women were less competitive, not about whether other biological differences exist. If you bothered to read on, it also mentioned that WHILE these biological differences exist, they haven’t been shown to have anything to do with better performance in a game like SC2. Why don’t you look in gender differences in attention, visual/spatial cognition, motor control and see if you can come up with an answer to that. But I can save you some time now and tell you that there is no evidence that would point one way or another.
Asking for proof was to the poster I quoted above, he has given me a draft of a paper and I’ll read it when I’m off work.
As for your obsession in male superiority over women in competitive sport – which in our society seems to be inherently correlated with physical ability, then of course males outperform females. Why don’t you look less in sport and more in a wider scope of activities? Can you honestly tell me that males are outperforming females in academia?
while females college graduation rates are far higher than males and females are now a majority of law degree recipients and women have made big strides in equality over the last 20 years, men still dominate the top of almost every field. especially when you look at the more 'nerdy' professions that involve a lot of analysis etc... you'll see that's true. males are the overwhelming recipients of tech degrees and anything related to math & science. females perform better on average, but males have a much wider range and perform on average better in the top %.
most games (competitive ones anyways) involve fast reaction time/thinking etc... (mostly war type games), which men are naturally better at.
On November 20 2010 05:29 Alay wrote: Wow, there's a lot of sexism in this thread.
Secondly, as a girl, I'll say something many people don't seem to understand; The internet is gross. I've been a gamer my whole life, and 85%+ of the time, I'd rather pretend I was a guy online, just to avoid the constant drabble and drooling on that you get by disclosing that.
Yeah, seriously guys I started this topic because I find this topic interesting. If you have a real argument then great I'd like to hear it as many of the posters have done. But if the point you're trying to make is 'men are just better than females' at least try to back it up with an argument. I'm the last person to sit around and cry 'sexist!!!' But, really, it is sexist if you don't have any argument along with it.
On November 20 2010 05:04 LolnoobInsanity wrote: You say that there's no inherent disadvantage "like chess" yet there are male and female chess leagues, and the top male chess player is always better than the top female chess player.
That statement can be backed up pretty heavily by most researches and statistics. By design, males are better are pattern-recognition and logical thinking; Add to that the globally demonstrated statistic that males have an average IQ 9 points higher than females and you get the picture.
Good point except the example is irrelevant because it relies on the assumption that being good at Starcraft requires higher intelligence/cognition. It doesn't.
On November 20 2010 05:36 JoeSchmoe wrote: Good point except the example is irrelevant because it relies on the assumption that being good at Starcraft requires higher intelligence/cognition. It doesn't.
On November 20 2010 05:04 LolnoobInsanity wrote: You say that there's no inherent disadvantage "like chess" yet there are male and female chess leagues, and the top male chess player is always better than the top female chess player.
That statement can be backed up pretty heavily by most researches and statistics. By design, males are better are pattern-recognition and logical thinking; Add to that the globally demonstrated statistic that males have an average IQ 9 points higher than females and you get the picture.
Good point except the example is irrelevant because it relies on the assumption that being good at Starcraft requires higher intelligence/cognition. It doesn't.
Lack of female gamers in male dominated games are probably because there is a complete lack of sensibility over the internet. The men act like men on the internet, and dont really restrain themselves like when it comes to conversing with women in the real world. Fact is, every man is a horny dog at heart.The internet just removes the need for a barrier. In the past the internet was almost solely used by males, and they kept up the behaviour they have when they're with the boys.
So the internet is a pretty vile place for a woman to openly pronounce themselves, and probably why they dont come out so much for starcraft.
On November 20 2010 05:16 EnderPR wrote: The answer is FAR simpler than most make it.
You might think of the skill of SC players to follow a Gaussian Curve with the pros being at the top end. If we assume that the Gaussian probability plot looks about the same for female and male (basically, a determined female has the same chance of succeeding as a similar male), then the only variable in changing the number of high level players is the number of players to begin with
As is generally accepted, there are less female gamers so there for there are less female progamers. It is the same deal with why big school sports teams generally are much better than small school teams. Big schools have a larger pool from which to select its best players.
So the question is, how can we get more females interested in SC?
You would think so, but WoW doesn't have the problem of severe under-representation in the female player base. Yet, in competitive WoW 3v3 tournaments, there are little to no female participants.
That doesn't say anything about skill, it just means that female players aren't playing PvP, they're playing PvE. So, in the pool of players that we're considering, they are severely underrepresented.
True. But, wouldn't that mean getting more females interested in Starcraft wouldn't necessarily help all that much? They're more likely to just play campaign or custom. It's not all that simple a problem after all because the numbers game would mean a very diluted pool. I think a better question would be, "how do we get the current female gamers to actually compete in some SC2 tournaments?". They're probably around but just not visible and a chunk of them probably moved on to the next game by now after beating the campaign.
Wow, reading this thread is like listening to army grunts discussing avant garde fashion...
Maybe you should pay attention in a non-science/maths based class before you voice your opinion on gender issues.. or just.. be friends with normal people who realize Disney movies aren't exactly politically correct and listen to what they have to say.
Just because you're booksmart doesn't mean you know sh*t about life and peoples potential.
Edit: to make this abundantly clear: the people who argue "men are born better at chess" are the same retards who are gonna raise their daughters to be little princesses and thus ensure the survival of these [nonsense] ideas for another generation.
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
I like how you say things with such conviction, it's a good trait to have
The paper you've provided is an interesting piece of work, but the methodology is a bit weird. My big problem with it is that the children are not naïve to this procedure, and it’s plainly stated in the methods but not elaborated on. If they’ve been through these races before and are aware of the faster/slower children, you can’t argue that the effects seen are based on intrinsic motivation or competitiveness. For example, you can argue that there is no motivation for the girl to run faster against another boy or girl in the absence of any offered compensation if they may have known from previous experience that the other kid will always come out ahead.
Generally speaking, I think men and women have different goals when they play games - they are satisfied by different outcomes, respectively. Men are focused on winning, while women are focused on increasing general happiness and enriching social bonds. Both tendencies obviously have great value in the maintenance of modern human civilization.
I guess I am the minority in men's group. I prefer co-op games over anything else, especially against AIs.
Even though I am the best gamer among my friends, I like to put myself in minor role such as a resource or support guy. It actually makes me happy if my friends enjoyed the game, and winning isn't important to me.
I also prefer games that are designed around team role elements, where every player is specialized, and only by working together the team will win. Arma2 is a good example.
On November 20 2010 01:14 hmunkey wrote: It's more socially unacceptable for women to play video games than for men. the same applies to children -- girls don't grow up wanting to play games like boys do.
That's it. It has nothing to do with competitiveness or anything else.
And you have anything to prove that other than I said so. There is a lot of research, mechanisms to explain why it is a biological thing, is there anything that really points to it being because it is socially unacceptable ? In many countries in a lot of social groups it is not unacceptable any more, yet girls still do not play games competitively as much as boys. Problem is the rate of emancipation highly exceeds the rate of increase in women's competitiveness.
There's research on there being more innate competitiveness in males than females? Please give your sources on these research and mechanisms.
I CAN tell you that you're probably 99% wrong regarding biological coding for competition behaviour, but maybe I've missed something
Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
On November 20 2010 03:25 Zyphen wrote: You guys talking about nature/nurture are really getting into a tangential debate. Women, as a group, are just less competitive period. That's the reason why there aren't more top female gamers, chess masters, race car drivers, etc (basically anything that doesn't require being physically gifted).
The few women that do make it don't prove anything about the rest. It's called anecdotal evidence. Sure, a woman COULD do it, but that's not the question. The lack of female gamers, as a whole, is because they lack competitiveness in games involving direct confrontation. Whether the few that do well possess an extra chromosome or were raised as tomboys seems superfluous to the argument.
Women as a group are less competitive... interesting conclusion based on what? Your examples are all full of crap because they're all fields that have been typically male dominated and not encouraged for women to do in society. I'm not denying there's differences biologically between genders... it's what I study for a living.
But the wannabe scientists here saying how females "don't have" testosterone (which they do) probably don't even know its effects in cognition, because guess what... no one does. So how about a suggestion, before you pull out some hair-brained idea of how you think females are less innately "competitive" or whatever, get a clue.
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how I don't CARE whether it's nature or nurture that's the culprit for any behavorial differences. The facts are that they exist.
And you're asking me for proof? Really? It's already accepted fact that women are under-represented in starcraft 2 and just about every other competitive event listed in this thread. I think your position is the one that's more indefensible. The burden should lie with you. How about this. Find me a single instance of a direct competitive game/sport where women are equally represented at the top tier as men (i.e. they don't form their own separate league, actually play with and BEAT the boys, you look at a tournament bracket - half are women, half the time they even win it, etc.).
It'll take me longer to list all the things men dominate than for you to squeeze out that one exception (which, honestly, I'm dying to know).
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how you simply stated that women were less competitive, not about whether other biological differences exist. If you bothered to read on, it also mentioned that WHILE these biological differences exist, they haven’t been shown to have anything to do with better performance in a game like SC2. Why don’t you look in gender differences in attention, visual/spatial cognition, motor control and see if you can come up with an answer to that. But I can save you some time now and tell you that there is no evidence that would point one way or another.
Asking for proof was to the poster I quoted above, he has given me a draft of a paper and I’ll read it when I’m off work.
As for your obsession in male superiority over women in competitive sport – which in our society seems to be inherently correlated with physical ability, then of course males outperform females. Why don’t you look less in sport and more in a wider scope of activities? Can you honestly tell me that males are outperforming females in academia?
And I've posted twice stating that I don't really give a rat's ass as to the explanation of why females are less competitive. Would it be less offensive to your sensiblities if I instead stated that males are more competitive?
How is academia a direct competition? I don't really care about your other arguments with other posters. Stay on point. And I specifically said ANY directly competitive event (as in there's a winner and a loser) with tournaments. Forget sports.
The facts are, women are under-represented relative to their population size in virtually all directly competitive events. Sorry the truth offended you. I simply stated it. And then I said the explanation is an entirely separate argument. That might have gotten through your thick head if you didn't jump at my posts like a rabid wolverine.
Getting pretty defensive now aren't we? Let's not forget you're the one throwing insults at me, not the other way around. You don't give a crap why females are less competitive, but you simply state it without any proof? Well that's certainly convincing. What I'm implying here about your argument through sarcasm is also a fact.
Academia is not direct competition? Lol. Seems like you know nothing about it and you probably won't read my explanation anyways.
You also state again that women are under-represented in all competitive events, but yet you challenge me to name them. Hey, I'm not the one stating random "factoids" here, you're the one who needs to back that up with some actual events.
A study performed in 2009 by the Entertainment Software Association found that about 40% of gamers are female, including 43-45% of online gamers. This of course doesn't take in to account the "competetiveness" of the games and unfortunately the study didn't contain any information on the genres of games the respondents played. But I still think it's worth pointing out that there really are a lot of female gamers out there. And probably a lot playing sc2.
I wouldn't look into these surveys too much. The main issue is the demographic in either competitive games and RTS games, which is terribly skewed.
Even then, if you were to take the tip top of that demographic (female gamers who are also very competitive at SC2 and that could theoretically compete with the best of the guys) the priorities of such people might be drastically different that might not lend itself to the Pro Scene. (18-30 year old women may have one very specific preoccupation that can come up)
The good news though is that there is litterally nothing that could stop women who are dedicated enough from becoming a top contender. Here's to hoping Esport keeps growing .
On November 19 2010 23:35 Roffles wrote: They're just not that good. TossGirl destroyed the Female league, but couldn't hang with B teamers after the Female league was abolished.
There's really no sense of sexism that goes around, it's just plain and simple that they're just not as good. If along came a female gamer that was insanely good, then they'd be more than welcomed into the community.
you saying, they are just not as good.... is 100% ignorant in every single way. i can guarantee you that there are woman gamers that are better at playing video games than even Fruit-dealer, i am using him as an example. would they be welcomed? yes and no, yes they would be but i highly doubt they would have any semblance of respect from their peers for at least a while till she proved herself. also how many horny nerds would be trying to hump her leg, ask yourself if you would want to deal with that.
On November 20 2010 05:04 LolnoobInsanity wrote: You say that there's no inherent disadvantage "like chess" yet there are male and female chess leagues, and the top male chess player is always better than the top female chess player.
That statement can be backed up pretty heavily by most researches and statistics. By design, males are better are pattern-recognition and logical thinking; Add to that the globally demonstrated statistic that males have an average IQ 9 points higher than females and you get the picture.
Good point except the example is irrelevant because it relies on the assumption that being good at Starcraft requires higher intelligence/cognition. It doesn't.
To get to a top level it kind of does.
I think this sums up pretty well:
On September 21 2010 15:28 IdrA wrote: not really, intelligence can make learning faster and you need a base level of intelligence to be able to understand everything, like if you're fayth level retarded you're never gonna be good, but its more about thinking quickly than thinking well. 99% of the time in games you've experienced similar situations before, no one good is really coming up with entirely new creative responses on the spot. its just about how quickly you can call up and execute knowledge from similar situations in the past.
of course you can't be a complete dunderhead but I don't think there's a tremendous advantage to being "intellectually superior".
On November 20 2010 01:14 hmunkey wrote: It's more socially unacceptable for women to play video games than for men. the same applies to children -- girls don't grow up wanting to play games like boys do.
That's it. It has nothing to do with competitiveness or anything else.
And you have anything to prove that other than I said so. There is a lot of research, mechanisms to explain why it is a biological thing, is there anything that really points to it being because it is socially unacceptable ? In many countries in a lot of social groups it is not unacceptable any more, yet girls still do not play games competitively as much as boys. Problem is the rate of emancipation highly exceeds the rate of increase in women's competitiveness.
There's research on there being more innate competitiveness in males than females? Please give your sources on these research and mechanisms.
I CAN tell you that you're probably 99% wrong regarding biological coding for competition behaviour, but maybe I've missed something
Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
On November 20 2010 03:25 Zyphen wrote: You guys talking about nature/nurture are really getting into a tangential debate. Women, as a group, are just less competitive period. That's the reason why there aren't more top female gamers, chess masters, race car drivers, etc (basically anything that doesn't require being physically gifted).
The few women that do make it don't prove anything about the rest. It's called anecdotal evidence. Sure, a woman COULD do it, but that's not the question. The lack of female gamers, as a whole, is because they lack competitiveness in games involving direct confrontation. Whether the few that do well possess an extra chromosome or were raised as tomboys seems superfluous to the argument.
Women as a group are less competitive... interesting conclusion based on what? Your examples are all full of crap because they're all fields that have been typically male dominated and not encouraged for women to do in society. I'm not denying there's differences biologically between genders... it's what I study for a living.
But the wannabe scientists here saying how females "don't have" testosterone (which they do) probably don't even know its effects in cognition, because guess what... no one does. So how about a suggestion, before you pull out some hair-brained idea of how you think females are less innately "competitive" or whatever, get a clue.
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how I don't CARE whether it's nature or nurture that's the culprit for any behavorial differences. The facts are that they exist.
And you're asking me for proof? Really? It's already accepted fact that women are under-represented in starcraft 2 and just about every other competitive event listed in this thread. I think your position is the one that's more indefensible. The burden should lie with you. How about this. Find me a single instance of a direct competitive game/sport where women are equally represented at the top tier as men (i.e. they don't form their own separate league, actually play with and BEAT the boys, you look at a tournament bracket - half are women, half the time they even win it, etc.).
It'll take me longer to list all the things men dominate than for you to squeeze out that one exception (which, honestly, I'm dying to know).
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how you simply stated that women were less competitive, not about whether other biological differences exist. If you bothered to read on, it also mentioned that WHILE these biological differences exist, they haven’t been shown to have anything to do with better performance in a game like SC2. Why don’t you look in gender differences in attention, visual/spatial cognition, motor control and see if you can come up with an answer to that. But I can save you some time now and tell you that there is no evidence that would point one way or another.
Asking for proof was to the poster I quoted above, he has given me a draft of a paper and I’ll read it when I’m off work.
As for your obsession in male superiority over women in competitive sport – which in our society seems to be inherently correlated with physical ability, then of course males outperform females. Why don’t you look less in sport and more in a wider scope of activities? Can you honestly tell me that males are outperforming females in academia?
while females college graduation rates are far higher than males and females are now a majority of law degree recipients and women have made big strides in equality over the last 20 years, men still dominate the top of almost every field. especially when you look at the more 'nerdy' professions that involve a lot of analysis etc... you'll see that's true. males are the overwhelming recipients of tech degrees and anything related to math & science. females perform better on average, but males have a much wider range and perform on average better in the top %.
most games (competitive ones anyways) involve fast reaction time/thinking etc... (mostly war type games), which men are naturally better at.
Oh yea, let's forget that enrollment in these programs is predominantly male. Which goes back to some original argument that there's a mostly social aspect in this rather than it being biological.
Games like SC involve reaction time, focused attention, multi-tasking ability, motor control, visual feedback, spacial/visual cognition, and a whole slew of other things. Can you say for certain that men are better at those? Don't hold your breath.
I liked Peanuts post, and LittleAtari's argument about being hot directly correlating to Pikachu's popularity which totally makes sense.
but, peanut, I love winning, I love getting better. I love the feeling of awesome nerdage that happens when I win because I macroed harder, or made the correct unit choice because of a scout. The social aspect for sc2 is far less appealing for me than it was for rpg based games. It's actually more about intellectual choices and understanding, which is weird, because I am not a very intelligent person, (probably why I find winning gratifying.)
No real argument as to why a pro girl couldnt compete with the guys. Having enough practice time and comprehension should be the biggest factor. Plus, most girls can probably click mice faster if they had to. (girlfap reference.)
Only 4 pages of comments because Navi, the winner of the NA female cup, doesn't have pictures plastered anywhere her on TL or the ESL sight. All you have to see of her is her games and I love that because she is a good player. Her games were actually interesting to watch and so was Awesome's games. These were players, who knew what they were doing, but go very little attention.
Now I'm not saying that it's bad that the NA female cup winner only got 4 pages of responses. It honestly isn't. What is bad is when you compare that to Pikachu's thread, when Navi is the 100x better player.
[...]
I don't want to upload my photo to a site in which 90% of the people that visit it are male and they would prefer to judge me by my looks instead of my gameplay. I don't want to be a Pikachu. I want to be a Navi. I would rather have 4 pages of quality posts on my games rather than 20+ pages of people just running around being 'ZOMG SC2 GIRL!!'
At this point, I don't even want to be a TossGirl. As a gamer, I want to be judged by my games.
That is why I ask of you guys to stop making a big deal about female SC2 players. If we're treated like regular players, we will become better players. Ultimately, we, women choose our role to play in the SC2 community. If any of us want to be top players, we will get there.
Thank you for your post, and for quoting mine . I think you expressed yourself very clearly.
The bolded sentences carry a sentiment that supports my recommendation: respect the female gamers who are in the community already so that they can serve as role models for other females who are on the fence about getting involved.
On November 20 2010 05:16 EnderPR wrote: The answer is FAR simpler than most make it.
You might think of the skill of SC players to follow a Gaussian Curve with the pros being at the top end. If we assume that the Gaussian probability plot looks about the same for female and male (basically, a determined female has the same chance of succeeding as a similar male), then the only variable in changing the number of high level players is the number of players to begin with
As is generally accepted, there are less female gamers so there for there are less female progamers. It is the same deal with why big school sports teams generally are much better than small school teams. Big schools have a larger pool from which to select its best players.
So the question is, how can we get more females interested in SC?
You would think so, but WoW doesn't have the problem of severe under-representation in the female player base. Yet, in competitive WoW 3v3 tournaments, there are little to no female participants.
That doesn't say anything about skill, it just means that female players aren't playing PvP, they're playing PvE. So, in the pool of players that we're considering, they are severely underrepresented.
True. But, wouldn't that mean getting more females interested in Starcraft wouldn't necessarily help all that much? They're more likely to just play campaign or custom. It's not all that simple a problem after all because the numbers game would mean a very diluted pool. I think a better question would be, "how do we get the current female gamers to actually compete in some SC2 tournaments?". They're probably around but just not visible and a chunk of them probably moved on to the next game by now after beating the campaign.
Re: gametypes, that's a good point, even if the ratio of men:women in SC2 approaches the parity you see in WoW, we might see a similar gap in what gametypes they choose (just based on what we saw happen in WoW PvP).
For both men and women, I think the real difference is that casual players play mostly team games/customs/campaign, and serious players focus on 1v1. Players become more serious when they start finding places like TL and become a real part of the SC community.
Therefore, I think making places like TL.net more welcoming towards women will do a lot. It seems like the mods have been really cracking down on sexism lately, which I applaud. Next up is for users to stop making sexist jokes (even if you say "j/k" afterwards, they're still hurtful/unhelpful), and just in general, to stop making a big deal out of the presence of women.
We'll know we've made progress when a woman competes at an event like MLG or the GSL and no one mentions her gender or something crass about her appearance.
I feel like gender stereotypes is probably the best example of one of those points that were made. Woman are valued in today's society (on the whole) to be hot barbie dolls, not gamers. Its an irritating stigma that sets female gamers back. When you see a commercial for a game, unless its some useless work out game for the Wii, where are all the females...not present. It was sort of shocking to see women in that Call of Duty commercial.
On November 20 2010 05:16 EnderPR wrote: The answer is FAR simpler than most make it.
You might think of the skill of SC players to follow a Gaussian Curve with the pros being at the top end. If we assume that the Gaussian probability plot looks about the same for female and male (basically, a determined female has the same chance of succeeding as a similar male), then the only variable in changing the number of high level players is the number of players to begin with
As is generally accepted, there are less female gamers so there for there are less female progamers. It is the same deal with why big school sports teams generally are much better than small school teams. Big schools have a larger pool from which to select its best players.
So the question is, how can we get more females interested in SC?
You would think so, but WoW doesn't have the problem of severe under-representation in the female player base. Yet, in competitive WoW 3v3 tournaments, there are little to no female participants.
That doesn't say anything about skill, it just means that female players aren't playing PvP, they're playing PvE. So, in the pool of players that we're considering, they are severely underrepresented.
True. But, wouldn't that mean getting more females interested in Starcraft wouldn't necessarily help all that much? They're more likely to just play campaign or custom. It's not all that simple a problem after all because the numbers game would mean a very diluted pool. I think a better question would be, "how do we get the current female gamers to actually compete in some SC2 tournaments?". They're probably around but just not visible and a chunk of them probably moved on to the next game by now after beating the campaign.
Therefore, I think making places like TL.net more welcoming towards women will do a lot. It seems like the mods have been really cracking down on sexism lately, which I applaud.
Not really, the surge of sc2 has made moderators less stringent than they were.
We'll know we've made progress when a woman competes at an event like MLG or the GSL and no one mentions her gender or something crass about her appearance.
I don't understand how ignoring gender makes progress. I think it warrants notice if a woman performs well at MLG or GSL; it's similar to pointing out foreigners when competing in Korea.
But yeah, it really hurts the female community and gaming in general when men are like "hurr iz dat a gurl? omgz!"
On November 20 2010 05:16 EnderPR wrote: The answer is FAR simpler than most make it.
You might think of the skill of SC players to follow a Gaussian Curve with the pros being at the top end. If we assume that the Gaussian probability plot looks about the same for female and male (basically, a determined female has the same chance of succeeding as a similar male), then the only variable in changing the number of high level players is the number of players to begin with
As is generally accepted, there are less female gamers so there for there are less female progamers. It is the same deal with why big school sports teams generally are much better than small school teams. Big schools have a larger pool from which to select its best players.
So the question is, how can we get more females interested in SC?
You would think so, but WoW doesn't have the problem of severe under-representation in the female player base. Yet, in competitive WoW 3v3 tournaments, there are little to no female participants.
That doesn't say anything about skill, it just means that female players aren't playing PvP, they're playing PvE. So, in the pool of players that we're considering, they are severely underrepresented.
True. But, wouldn't that mean getting more females interested in Starcraft wouldn't necessarily help all that much? They're more likely to just play campaign or custom. It's not all that simple a problem after all because the numbers game would mean a very diluted pool. I think a better question would be, "how do we get the current female gamers to actually compete in some SC2 tournaments?". They're probably around but just not visible and a chunk of them probably moved on to the next game by now after beating the campaign.
Good point, even if the ratio of men:women in SC2 approaches the parity you see in WoW, we might see a similar gap in what gametypes they choose.
For both men and women, I think the real difference is that casual players play mostly team games/customs/campaign, and serious players focus on 1v1. Players become more serious when they start finding places like TL and become a real part of the SC community.
Therefore, I think making places like TL.net more welcoming towards women will do a lot. It seems like the mods have been really cracking down on sexism lately, which I applaud. Next up is for users to stop making sexist jokes (even if you say "j/k" afterwards, they're still hurtful/unhelpful), and just in general, to stop making a big deal out of the presence of women.
We'll know we've made progress when a woman competes at an event like MLG or the GSL and no one mentions her gender or something crass about her appearance.
there is no way that is ever going to happen. with the anonymity of the internet and the fact that the SC/SC2 community is mostly male dominated, any female ANYTHING will be instantly sexualized. Take the MLG map vids, I did voiceovers for shits and giggles and the first thing people post is that my voice sounds hot? I could look like a cave troll guys.
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
i think natural selection pretty much covers men being biologically more competitive.
Yea...no. Sexual selection would seem to go both ways in homo sapiens.
Well first of all what youre thinking is a very modern development. Second of all general consensus is that this development in fact works against natural selection as the less intelligent women tend to become better spouses and produce more offsprings.
On November 20 2010 06:01 Ariwa wrote: but, peanut, I love winning, I love getting better. I love the feeling of awesome nerdage that happens when I win because I macroed harder, or made the correct unit choice because of a scout. The social aspect for sc2 is far less appealing for me than it was for rpg based games. It's actually more about intellectual choices and understanding, which is weird, because I am not a very intelligent person, (probably why I find winning gratifying.)
I am like that too! I think anyone - male or female - who is here or who is a competitive gamer in any game is like that. The issue is that there aren't as many of us in the female gender as there are in the male gender. But I do believe that there are women out there who could be really great StarCraft players and really great members of the worldwide community if they just knew how great the game is and that they wouldn't automatically be controversial figures for being openly female.
For girls, fun stuff (like video games) should be fun all the way through. They do not want to go through boring and unfunny practice/thinking sessions for something that should be just fun in the first place.
Guys on the other hand have no problem going through hours of dull practice as long as they feel it will make them better. They will even enjoy doing it.
Just look around you. Surely you know a lot of girls that enjoy playing games, it's pretty common nowadays. But you will notice that they mostly play games that are fun all the way from the moment they press Start until the moment they turn off whatever they're playing on.
Yesterday, my gf immediately enjoyed playing SF4 on her first try. But if she wants to get good, she'll have to pick a char and stick to it and spend hours practicing the basics over and over again in the training room. And that's where it's gonna hurt. She's probably going to get bored out of her mind and drop it. But me, I love practicing. If I feel that I lack practice, then I'll probably have more fun just practicing for three hours straight and getting that fixed, rather than playing vs people and feeling annoyed because I keep dropping combos that I know I shouldn't.
Girls can have awesome focus and dedication. But it seems they keep it for "serious" stuff like work or studies, and have a very clear line separating it from "fun" stuff like video games. Fun stuff should be just that - fun, and if you have to do boring shit to get good at it, then what's the point?
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
i think natural selection pretty much covers men being biologically more competitive.
Yea...no. Sexual selection would seem to go both ways in homo sapiens.
Well first of all what youre thinking is a very modern development. Second of all general consensus is that this development in fact works against natural selection as the less intelligent women tend to become better spouses and produce more offsprings.
No, there is no general consensus that women are dumb creatures and men are smart creatures due to natural selection. That is literally the dumbest and most vile thing I've read on this forum recently; the comment alone disproves your assertion. Relegate your 1800's mentality to someplace else.
On November 20 2010 06:01 Ariwa wrote: Plus, most girls can probably click mice faster if they had to. (girlfap reference.)
is it still sexist if I'm a girl?
I lol'ed.
All this "girls just aren't as strategic, etc" crap is just so nonsensical.
It's 2010, for crying out loud. Are people still really saying stuff like this?
Females = equal opportunity to males = equal potential.
The only reason there aren't more girls playing are cultural reasons, things that Peanut pointed out.
More and more females are starting to play competitive, agressive video games across the board - not just SC2. Halo, CoD, etc all have a large female contingent.
You just need to look at Peanut's last "socially awkward" post to see why girls are put off playing. It's just not seen as accepted by the majority of other women as a worthy past-time. But it's getting there.
Some posts in this very thread would put a lot of females off also.
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
i think natural selection pretty much covers men being biologically more competitive.
Yea...no. Sexual selection would seem to go both ways in homo sapiens.
Well first of all what youre thinking is a very modern development. Second of all general consensus is that this development in fact works against natural selection as the less intelligent women tend to become better spouses and produce more offsprings.
No, there is no general consensus that women are dumb creatures and men are smart creatures due to natural selection. That is literally the dumbest and most vile thing I've read on this forum recently; the comment alone disproves your assertion. Relegate your 1800's mentality to someplace else.
On November 20 2010 05:16 EnderPR wrote: The answer is FAR simpler than most make it.
You might think of the skill of SC players to follow a Gaussian Curve with the pros being at the top end. If we assume that the Gaussian probability plot looks about the same for female and male (basically, a determined female has the same chance of succeeding as a similar male), then the only variable in changing the number of high level players is the number of players to begin with
As is generally accepted, there are less female gamers so there for there are less female progamers. It is the same deal with why big school sports teams generally are much better than small school teams. Big schools have a larger pool from which to select its best players.
So the question is, how can we get more females interested in SC?
You would think so, but WoW doesn't have the problem of severe under-representation in the female player base. Yet, in competitive WoW 3v3 tournaments, there are little to no female participants.
That doesn't say anything about skill, it just means that female players aren't playing PvP, they're playing PvE. So, in the pool of players that we're considering, they are severely underrepresented.
True. But, wouldn't that mean getting more females interested in Starcraft wouldn't necessarily help all that much? They're more likely to just play campaign or custom. It's not all that simple a problem after all because the numbers game would mean a very diluted pool. I think a better question would be, "how do we get the current female gamers to actually compete in some SC2 tournaments?". They're probably around but just not visible and a chunk of them probably moved on to the next game by now after beating the campaign.
Good point, even if the ratio of men:women in SC2 approaches the parity you see in WoW, we might see a similar gap in what gametypes they choose.
For both men and women, I think the real difference is that casual players play mostly team games/customs/campaign, and serious players focus on 1v1. Players become more serious when they start finding places like TL and become a real part of the SC community.
Therefore, I think making places like TL.net more welcoming towards women will do a lot. It seems like the mods have been really cracking down on sexism lately, which I applaud. Next up is for users to stop making sexist jokes (even if you say "j/k" afterwards, they're still hurtful/unhelpful), and just in general, to stop making a big deal out of the presence of women.
We'll know we've made progress when a woman competes at an event like MLG or the GSL and no one mentions her gender or something crass about her appearance.
there is no way that is ever going to happen. with the anonymity of the internet and the fact that the SC/SC2 community is mostly male dominated, any female ANYTHING will be instantly sexualized. Take the MLG map vids, I did voiceovers for shits and giggles and the first thing people post is that my voice sounds hot? I could look like a cave troll guys.
i hate to say it but your correct and that's the problem and main reason i think that not very many woman get into pro gaming, this makes me sad because i would love to see more woman in pro gaming.
On November 20 2010 05:16 EnderPR wrote: The answer is FAR simpler than most make it.
You might think of the skill of SC players to follow a Gaussian Curve with the pros being at the top end. If we assume that the Gaussian probability plot looks about the same for female and male (basically, a determined female has the same chance of succeeding as a similar male), then the only variable in changing the number of high level players is the number of players to begin with
As is generally accepted, there are less female gamers so there for there are less female progamers. It is the same deal with why big school sports teams generally are much better than small school teams. Big schools have a larger pool from which to select its best players.
So the question is, how can we get more females interested in SC?
You would think so, but WoW doesn't have the problem of severe under-representation in the female player base. Yet, in competitive WoW 3v3 tournaments, there are little to no female participants.
That doesn't say anything about skill, it just means that female players aren't playing PvP, they're playing PvE. So, in the pool of players that we're considering, they are severely underrepresented.
True. But, wouldn't that mean getting more females interested in Starcraft wouldn't necessarily help all that much? They're more likely to just play campaign or custom. It's not all that simple a problem after all because the numbers game would mean a very diluted pool. I think a better question would be, "how do we get the current female gamers to actually compete in some SC2 tournaments?". They're probably around but just not visible and a chunk of them probably moved on to the next game by now after beating the campaign.
Therefore, I think making places like TL.net more welcoming towards women will do a lot. It seems like the mods have been really cracking down on sexism lately, which I applaud.
Not really, the surge of sc2 has made moderators less stringent than they were.
We'll know we've made progress when a woman competes at an event like MLG or the GSL and no one mentions her gender or something crass about her appearance.
I don't understand how ignoring gender makes progress. I think it warrants notice if a woman performs well at MLG or GSL; it's similar to pointing out foreigners when competing in Korea.
But yeah, it really hurts the female community and gaming in general when men are like "hurr iz dat a gurl? omgz!"
Fair enough, I only joined in June 2010, so hard for me to say hehe. I just feel like I've noticed more bans being handed out in the last few weeks due to sexist remarks, but that's just my general impression. Maybe I'm just optimistic!
Perhaps I should rephrase re: mentioning gender. We should respond positively to women making progress in any field, and show our support, definitely.
I just think it is unfortunate when people like Navi or Tossgirl are treated as women first, and players second. I think it devalues their accomplishments. My girlfriend is a composer, and she has experienced this kind of thing. It's a classically male-dominated field (though this is beginning to change), and it is frustrating to both her and me when teachers or other composers think of her as a "female composer" instead of just a "composer."
I.e. I want to see the day where it isn't a big deal for a woman to be a pro-gamer/composer/president or whatever. To get there, we need to show lots of support for the trailblazers, which yes, will involve mentioning their gender. I just want to get to the point where we don't need to do that any longer.
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
i think natural selection pretty much covers men being biologically more competitive.
Yea...no. Sexual selection would seem to go both ways in homo sapiens.
Well first of all what youre thinking is a very modern development. Second of all general consensus is that this development in fact works against natural selection as the less intelligent women tend to become better spouses and produce more offsprings.
No, there is no general consensus that women are dumb creatures and men are smart creatures due to natural selection. That is literally the dumbest and most vile thing I've read on this forum recently; the comment alone disproves your assertion. Relegate your 1800's mentality to someplace else.
Do mods find it appropriate to spout overt and unfounded sexism under the guise of science? If not, can he please get a warning.
Yea I've been in science for years and never seemed to have heard of or reached such a conclusion that intelligence is inversely correlated with the ability to produce offspring.
As for the post itself, there are far more far fetched "scientific" facts spouted in these threads than what he's said. Read: "women are less competitive."
On November 20 2010 05:04 LolnoobInsanity wrote: You say that there's no inherent disadvantage "like chess" yet there are male and female chess leagues, and the top male chess player is always better than the top female chess player.
That statement can be backed up pretty heavily by most researches and statistics. By design, males are better are pattern-recognition and logical thinking; Add to that the globally demonstrated statistic that males have an average IQ 9 points higher than females and you get the picture.
I've read studies that show the opposite is true. Please link this study to your comment. From what I've read about that it was based on the fact that there is more men in genius bracket than women. But that doesn't effect the average because there are lots more men it the mentally handicapped catagory. It averages out the same but men have more intelligence in the extremes. http://www.aboutintelligence.co.uk/who-smarter-men-women.html
On November 20 2010 05:16 EnderPR wrote: The answer is FAR simpler than most make it.
You might think of the skill of SC players to follow a Gaussian Curve with the pros being at the top end. If we assume that the Gaussian probability plot looks about the same for female and male (basically, a determined female has the same chance of succeeding as a similar male), then the only variable in changing the number of high level players is the number of players to begin with
As is generally accepted, there are less female gamers so there for there are less female progamers. It is the same deal with why big school sports teams generally are much better than small school teams. Big schools have a larger pool from which to select its best players.
So the question is, how can we get more females interested in SC?
You would think so, but WoW doesn't have the problem of severe under-representation in the female player base. Yet, in competitive WoW 3v3 tournaments, there are little to no female participants.
That doesn't say anything about skill, it just means that female players aren't playing PvP, they're playing PvE. So, in the pool of players that we're considering, they are severely underrepresented.
True. But, wouldn't that mean getting more females interested in Starcraft wouldn't necessarily help all that much? They're more likely to just play campaign or custom. It's not all that simple a problem after all because the numbers game would mean a very diluted pool. I think a better question would be, "how do we get the current female gamers to actually compete in some SC2 tournaments?". They're probably around but just not visible and a chunk of them probably moved on to the next game by now after beating the campaign.
Good point, even if the ratio of men:women in SC2 approaches the parity you see in WoW, we might see a similar gap in what gametypes they choose.
For both men and women, I think the real difference is that casual players play mostly team games/customs/campaign, and serious players focus on 1v1. Players become more serious when they start finding places like TL and become a real part of the SC community.
Therefore, I think making places like TL.net more welcoming towards women will do a lot. It seems like the mods have been really cracking down on sexism lately, which I applaud. Next up is for users to stop making sexist jokes (even if you say "j/k" afterwards, they're still hurtful/unhelpful), and just in general, to stop making a big deal out of the presence of women.
We'll know we've made progress when a woman competes at an event like MLG or the GSL and no one mentions her gender or something crass about her appearance.
there is no way that is ever going to happen. with the anonymity of the internet and the fact that the SC/SC2 community is mostly male dominated, any female ANYTHING will be instantly sexualized. Take the MLG map vids, I did voiceovers for shits and giggles and the first thing people post is that my voice sounds hot? I could look like a cave troll guys.
i hate to say it but your correct and that's the problem and main reason i think that not very many woman get into pro gaming, this makes me sad because i would love to see more woman in pro gaming.
be it sad but true, I dont entirely see it as something that should put women off from doing nerdy things. Girls who grew up in the 'net generation' (like myself) and are familiar with the disgustingness of the internet should be prepared for this kind of thing. I haven't got a huge issue with instantly being sexualized as long as the fappers stay in the recesses and cracks of the internet and dont intrude on my daily life or well being.
On November 20 2010 05:16 EnderPR wrote: The answer is FAR simpler than most make it.
You might think of the skill of SC players to follow a Gaussian Curve with the pros being at the top end. If we assume that the Gaussian probability plot looks about the same for female and male (basically, a determined female has the same chance of succeeding as a similar male), then the only variable in changing the number of high level players is the number of players to begin with
As is generally accepted, there are less female gamers so there for there are less female progamers. It is the same deal with why big school sports teams generally are much better than small school teams. Big schools have a larger pool from which to select its best players.
So the question is, how can we get more females interested in SC?
You would think so, but WoW doesn't have the problem of severe under-representation in the female player base. Yet, in competitive WoW 3v3 tournaments, there are little to no female participants.
That doesn't say anything about skill, it just means that female players aren't playing PvP, they're playing PvE. So, in the pool of players that we're considering, they are severely underrepresented.
True. But, wouldn't that mean getting more females interested in Starcraft wouldn't necessarily help all that much? They're more likely to just play campaign or custom. It's not all that simple a problem after all because the numbers game would mean a very diluted pool. I think a better question would be, "how do we get the current female gamers to actually compete in some SC2 tournaments?". They're probably around but just not visible and a chunk of them probably moved on to the next game by now after beating the campaign.
Good point, even if the ratio of men:women in SC2 approaches the parity you see in WoW, we might see a similar gap in what gametypes they choose.
For both men and women, I think the real difference is that casual players play mostly team games/customs/campaign, and serious players focus on 1v1. Players become more serious when they start finding places like TL and become a real part of the SC community.
Therefore, I think making places like TL.net more welcoming towards women will do a lot. It seems like the mods have been really cracking down on sexism lately, which I applaud. Next up is for users to stop making sexist jokes (even if you say "j/k" afterwards, they're still hurtful/unhelpful), and just in general, to stop making a big deal out of the presence of women.
We'll know we've made progress when a woman competes at an event like MLG or the GSL and no one mentions her gender or something crass about her appearance.
there is no way that is ever going to happen. with the anonymity of the internet and the fact that the SC/SC2 community is mostly male dominated, any female ANYTHING will be instantly sexualized. Take the MLG map vids, I did voiceovers for shits and giggles and the first thing people post is that my voice sounds hot? I could look like a cave troll guys.
People say that about tons of commentators, usually male. I think the unique thing is actually not that it happened, but your reaction to it.
On November 20 2010 05:04 LolnoobInsanity wrote: You say that there's no inherent disadvantage "like chess" yet there are male and female chess leagues, and the top male chess player is always better than the top female chess player.
That statement can be backed up pretty heavily by most researches and statistics. By design, males are better are pattern-recognition and logical thinking; Add to that the globally demonstrated statistic that males have an average IQ 9 points higher than females and you get the picture.
I've read studies that show the opposite is true. Please link this study to your comment. From what I've read about that it was based on the fact that there is more men in genius bracket than women. But that doesn't effect the average because there are lots more men it the mentally handicapped catagory. It averages out the same but men have more intelligence in the extremes. http://www.aboutintelligence.co.uk/who-smarter-men-women.html
That website has no sources. What (and most importantly WHO - were they male? ) defines a "genius"? When was this genius count started?
IQ is a joke in the academic field, so let's not talk about that. Brain matter doesn't equal intelligence - neanderthals had larger brains than we did - food for thought.
On November 20 2010 01:14 hmunkey wrote: It's more socially unacceptable for women to play video games than for men. the same applies to children -- girls don't grow up wanting to play games like boys do.
That's it. It has nothing to do with competitiveness or anything else.
And you have anything to prove that other than I said so. There is a lot of research, mechanisms to explain why it is a biological thing, is there anything that really points to it being because it is socially unacceptable ? In many countries in a lot of social groups it is not unacceptable any more, yet girls still do not play games competitively as much as boys. Problem is the rate of emancipation highly exceeds the rate of increase in women's competitiveness.
There's research on there being more innate competitiveness in males than females? Please give your sources on these research and mechanisms.
I CAN tell you that you're probably 99% wrong regarding biological coding for competition behaviour, but maybe I've missed something
Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
On November 20 2010 03:25 Zyphen wrote: You guys talking about nature/nurture are really getting into a tangential debate. Women, as a group, are just less competitive period. That's the reason why there aren't more top female gamers, chess masters, race car drivers, etc (basically anything that doesn't require being physically gifted).
The few women that do make it don't prove anything about the rest. It's called anecdotal evidence. Sure, a woman COULD do it, but that's not the question. The lack of female gamers, as a whole, is because they lack competitiveness in games involving direct confrontation. Whether the few that do well possess an extra chromosome or were raised as tomboys seems superfluous to the argument.
Women as a group are less competitive... interesting conclusion based on what? Your examples are all full of crap because they're all fields that have been typically male dominated and not encouraged for women to do in society. I'm not denying there's differences biologically between genders... it's what I study for a living.
But the wannabe scientists here saying how females "don't have" testosterone (which they do) probably don't even know its effects in cognition, because guess what... no one does. So how about a suggestion, before you pull out some hair-brained idea of how you think females are less innately "competitive" or whatever, get a clue.
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how I don't CARE whether it's nature or nurture that's the culprit for any behavorial differences. The facts are that they exist.
And you're asking me for proof? Really? It's already accepted fact that women are under-represented in starcraft 2 and just about every other competitive event listed in this thread. I think your position is the one that's more indefensible. The burden should lie with you. How about this. Find me a single instance of a direct competitive game/sport where women are equally represented at the top tier as men (i.e. they don't form their own separate league, actually play with and BEAT the boys, you look at a tournament bracket - half are women, half the time they even win it, etc.).
It'll take me longer to list all the things men dominate than for you to squeeze out that one exception (which, honestly, I'm dying to know).
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how you simply stated that women were less competitive, not about whether other biological differences exist. If you bothered to read on, it also mentioned that WHILE these biological differences exist, they haven’t been shown to have anything to do with better performance in a game like SC2. Why don’t you look in gender differences in attention, visual/spatial cognition, motor control and see if you can come up with an answer to that. But I can save you some time now and tell you that there is no evidence that would point one way or another.
Asking for proof was to the poster I quoted above, he has given me a draft of a paper and I’ll read it when I’m off work.
As for your obsession in male superiority over women in competitive sport – which in our society seems to be inherently correlated with physical ability, then of course males outperform females. Why don’t you look less in sport and more in a wider scope of activities? Can you honestly tell me that males are outperforming females in academia?
And I've posted twice stating that I don't really give a rat's ass as to the explanation of why females are less competitive. Would it be less offensive to your sensiblities if I instead stated that males are more competitive?
How is academia a direct competition? I don't really care about your other arguments with other posters. Stay on point. And I specifically said ANY directly competitive event (as in there's a winner and a loser) with tournaments. Forget sports.
The facts are, women are under-represented relative to their population size in virtually all directly competitive events. Sorry the truth offended you. I simply stated it. And then I said the explanation is an entirely separate argument. That might have gotten through your thick head if you didn't jump at my posts like a rabid wolverine.
Getting pretty defensive now aren't we? Let's not forget you're the one throwing insults at me, not the other way around. You don't give a crap why females are less competitive, but you simply state it without any proof? Well that's certainly convincing. What I'm implying here about your argument through sarcasm is also a fact.
Academia is not direct competition? Lol. Seems like you know nothing about it and you probably won't read my explanation anyways.
You also state again that women are under-represented in all competitive events, but yet you challenge me to name them. Hey, I'm not the one stating random "factoids" here, you're the one who needs to back that up with some actual events.
Some cognitive dissonance here? You perceive insult and then find nothing wrong with calling me "full of crap". Then you presume to know anything about me.
Yes, I can see how you would love to broaden my narrow definition of what it means to be competitive in starcraft 2. It would push me neatly into a corner where I would have to accept academia, love, and fashion as things where girls can be competitive. But how is that applicable exactly? It gets into a semantics argument that completely derails from the original intent of the OP.
Since you insist, here are some events similar to Starcraft that females have no physical barrier to entry for: Chess, Weiqi(Go), Poker, Billiards, Archery, Competitive Shooting, Auto racing, Curling, Majong, Croquet, Marbles, Ballooning, Bowling, Motorboat racing, Horse Racing, all other video games w/ tournament scene.
You'll probably ask for a more complete list but you'll have to be satisfied w/ the above since I'm not in the habit of arguing w/ people that obviously aren't going to concede cornerstone points by basically asking:
1)What do I mean by being competitive in the current context? 2)What are all these things that women can't compete in?
Question number 2 seems to be just out of spite since if you weren't aware of such things, you wouldn't even bother saying they're "male dominated" in the first place. Doesn't that in of itself imply under-representation of females?
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
i think natural selection pretty much covers men being biologically more competitive.
Yes it seems so, but the problem is proving it. Oftentimes in evolutionary biology things that seem reasonable are not so easily proven and sometimes the logic behind that reasoning is full of holes and even false. So yes, evolutionary argument is a good one I think in this case, but you need more supporting evidence.
On November 20 2010 05:16 EnderPR wrote: The answer is FAR simpler than most make it.
You might think of the skill of SC players to follow a Gaussian Curve with the pros being at the top end. If we assume that the Gaussian probability plot looks about the same for female and male (basically, a determined female has the same chance of succeeding as a similar male), then the only variable in changing the number of high level players is the number of players to begin with
As is generally accepted, there are less female gamers so there for there are less female progamers. It is the same deal with why big school sports teams generally are much better than small school teams. Big schools have a larger pool from which to select its best players.
So the question is, how can we get more females interested in SC?
You would think so, but WoW doesn't have the problem of severe under-representation in the female player base. Yet, in competitive WoW 3v3 tournaments, there are little to no female participants.
That doesn't say anything about skill, it just means that female players aren't playing PvP, they're playing PvE. So, in the pool of players that we're considering, they are severely underrepresented.
True. But, wouldn't that mean getting more females interested in Starcraft wouldn't necessarily help all that much? They're more likely to just play campaign or custom. It's not all that simple a problem after all because the numbers game would mean a very diluted pool. I think a better question would be, "how do we get the current female gamers to actually compete in some SC2 tournaments?". They're probably around but just not visible and a chunk of them probably moved on to the next game by now after beating the campaign.
Good point, even if the ratio of men:women in SC2 approaches the parity you see in WoW, we might see a similar gap in what gametypes they choose.
For both men and women, I think the real difference is that casual players play mostly team games/customs/campaign, and serious players focus on 1v1. Players become more serious when they start finding places like TL and become a real part of the SC community.
Therefore, I think making places like TL.net more welcoming towards women will do a lot. It seems like the mods have been really cracking down on sexism lately, which I applaud. Next up is for users to stop making sexist jokes (even if you say "j/k" afterwards, they're still hurtful/unhelpful), and just in general, to stop making a big deal out of the presence of women.
We'll know we've made progress when a woman competes at an event like MLG or the GSL and no one mentions her gender or something crass about her appearance.
there is no way that is ever going to happen. with the anonymity of the internet and the fact that the SC/SC2 community is mostly male dominated, any female ANYTHING will be instantly sexualized. Take the MLG map vids, I did voiceovers for shits and giggles and the first thing people post is that my voice sounds hot? I could look like a cave troll guys.
People say that about tons of commentators, usually male. I think the unique thing is actually not that it happened, but your reaction to it.
that I think its silly to think I could be hot from the sound of my voice?
On November 20 2010 05:22 fush wrote: As for your obsession in male superiority over women in competitive sport – which in our society seems to be inherently correlated with physical ability, then of course males outperform females. Why don’t you look less in sport and more in a wider scope of activities? Can you honestly tell me that males are outperforming females in academia?
Depends what you mean outperforming. As far as top scientists and mathematicians go (and I mean hard sciences) yes they are, as someone already pointed out, there are more geniuses among men, but also more morons.
On November 20 2010 01:14 hmunkey wrote: It's more socially unacceptable for women to play video games than for men. the same applies to children -- girls don't grow up wanting to play games like boys do.
That's it. It has nothing to do with competitiveness or anything else.
And you have anything to prove that other than I said so. There is a lot of research, mechanisms to explain why it is a biological thing, is there anything that really points to it being because it is socially unacceptable ? In many countries in a lot of social groups it is not unacceptable any more, yet girls still do not play games competitively as much as boys. Problem is the rate of emancipation highly exceeds the rate of increase in women's competitiveness.
There's research on there being more innate competitiveness in males than females? Please give your sources on these research and mechanisms.
I CAN tell you that you're probably 99% wrong regarding biological coding for competition behaviour, but maybe I've missed something
Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
On November 20 2010 03:25 Zyphen wrote: You guys talking about nature/nurture are really getting into a tangential debate. Women, as a group, are just less competitive period. That's the reason why there aren't more top female gamers, chess masters, race car drivers, etc (basically anything that doesn't require being physically gifted).
The few women that do make it don't prove anything about the rest. It's called anecdotal evidence. Sure, a woman COULD do it, but that's not the question. The lack of female gamers, as a whole, is because they lack competitiveness in games involving direct confrontation. Whether the few that do well possess an extra chromosome or were raised as tomboys seems superfluous to the argument.
Women as a group are less competitive... interesting conclusion based on what? Your examples are all full of crap because they're all fields that have been typically male dominated and not encouraged for women to do in society. I'm not denying there's differences biologically between genders... it's what I study for a living.
But the wannabe scientists here saying how females "don't have" testosterone (which they do) probably don't even know its effects in cognition, because guess what... no one does. So how about a suggestion, before you pull out some hair-brained idea of how you think females are less innately "competitive" or whatever, get a clue.
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how I don't CARE whether it's nature or nurture that's the culprit for any behavorial differences. The facts are that they exist.
And you're asking me for proof? Really? It's already accepted fact that women are under-represented in starcraft 2 and just about every other competitive event listed in this thread. I think your position is the one that's more indefensible. The burden should lie with you. How about this. Find me a single instance of a direct competitive game/sport where women are equally represented at the top tier as men (i.e. they don't form their own separate league, actually play with and BEAT the boys, you look at a tournament bracket - half are women, half the time they even win it, etc.).
It'll take me longer to list all the things men dominate than for you to squeeze out that one exception (which, honestly, I'm dying to know).
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how you simply stated that women were less competitive, not about whether other biological differences exist. If you bothered to read on, it also mentioned that WHILE these biological differences exist, they haven’t been shown to have anything to do with better performance in a game like SC2. Why don’t you look in gender differences in attention, visual/spatial cognition, motor control and see if you can come up with an answer to that. But I can save you some time now and tell you that there is no evidence that would point one way or another.
Asking for proof was to the poster I quoted above, he has given me a draft of a paper and I’ll read it when I’m off work.
As for your obsession in male superiority over women in competitive sport – which in our society seems to be inherently correlated with physical ability, then of course males outperform females. Why don’t you look less in sport and more in a wider scope of activities? Can you honestly tell me that males are outperforming females in academia?
And I've posted twice stating that I don't really give a rat's ass as to the explanation of why females are less competitive. Would it be less offensive to your sensiblities if I instead stated that males are more competitive?
How is academia a direct competition? I don't really care about your other arguments with other posters. Stay on point. And I specifically said ANY directly competitive event (as in there's a winner and a loser) with tournaments. Forget sports.
The facts are, women are under-represented relative to their population size in virtually all directly competitive events. Sorry the truth offended you. I simply stated it. And then I said the explanation is an entirely separate argument. That might have gotten through your thick head if you didn't jump at my posts like a rabid wolverine.
Getting pretty defensive now aren't we? Let's not forget you're the one throwing insults at me, not the other way around. You don't give a crap why females are less competitive, but you simply state it without any proof? Well that's certainly convincing. What I'm implying here about your argument through sarcasm is also a fact.
Academia is not direct competition? Lol. Seems like you know nothing about it and you probably won't read my explanation anyways.
You also state again that women are under-represented in all competitive events, but yet you challenge me to name them. Hey, I'm not the one stating random "factoids" here, you're the one who needs to back that up with some actual events.
Some cognitive dissonance here? You perceive insult and then find nothing wrong with calling me "full of crap". Then you presume to know anything about me.
Yes, I can see how you would love to broaden my narrow definition of what it means to be competitive in starcraft 2. It would push me neatly into a corner where I would have to accept academia, love, and fashion as things where girls can be competitive. But how is that applicable exactly? It gets into a semantics argument that completely derails from the original intent of the OP.
Since you insist, here are some events similar to Starcraft that females have no physical barrier to entry for: Chess, Weiqi(Go), Poker, Billiards, Archery, Competitive Shooting, Auto racing, Curling, Majong, Croquet, Marbles, Ballooning, Bowling, Motorboat racing, Horse Racing, all other video games w/ tournament scene.
You'll probably ask for a more complete list but you'll have to be satisfied w/ the above since I'm not in the habit of arguing w/ people that obviously aren't going to concede cornerstone points by basically asking:
1)What do I mean by being competitive in the current context? 2)What are all these things that women can't compete in?
Question number 2 seems to be just out of spite since if you weren't aware of such things, you wouldn't even bother saying they're "male dominated" in the first place. Doesn't that in of itself imply under-representation of females?
But sir, your statement was "Women, as a group, are just less competitive period." All I asked for were facts that back your assertion. You have provided none.
Your definition of "competitive" seems to be performance in something with a winner and a loser - okay. You listed all those things, most having to do with physical exertion - okay. Do you have direct interactions in these events between men and women showing significantly better performance in men? Please show me. Otherwise, you can't say women are "less competitive" based on your definition of the word "competitive". Period.
My definition of competitive if you're talking in an innate sense (which was what my original post was referring to) is not tournaments or winning or losing. It's the motivation to perform better than others. Has anyone in the world offered convincing and definitive results that would prove women have less of this motivation? Don't think so.
Now you can sidestep this all you want, but perhaps you should realize that you are accountable for what you say. And what you said (as I've quoted in my first sentence) was complete garbage.
Those of you saying natural selection covers men being more competitive, you've obviously never been a girl in high school. Or in life. Ever. Or ever seen a movie about being a teenage girl in high school.
Girls will crucify other girls over status without blinking.
Funnily, I don't think those are the kind of girls who play SC2. I guess we take our competitiveness out in other ways.
On November 20 2010 05:04 LolnoobInsanity wrote: You say that there's no inherent disadvantage "like chess" yet there are male and female chess leagues, and the top male chess player is always better than the top female chess player.
Throwing around those features of the chess world as "proof" of inherent disadvantage is faulty reasoning.
This is because of differences in participation. Let's say the ratio of serious male chess players to serious female chess players is about 10:1. As for how you define a "serious chess player," let's say, very roughly, it is someone who spends most, or a significant amount, of their free time practicing or studying chess, with the goal of competing in tournaments.
If both male and female populations of serious chess players have a standard distribution of skill, they can have the same average skill level--i.e. suggesting no inherent disadvantage--and you'll still see WAY more men at the top level.
To even compete with nationally-known players, you probably have to be in the top 0.1%, and just statistically speaking, if there are ten times as many men than women in the category of "serious chess players," then this difference will be EVEN MORE pronounced in the top 0.1%.
TL;DR Based on their relative levels of participation in chess/SC2, we would expect to see about as many top female players as we currently do, if we assume identical inherent ability/potential.
A lack of top female SC2 or chess players would only argue in favor of some gap in innate ability if the levels of participation were close to even, and they're not at all.
*Why* participation levels differ is a separate issue; I think Peanut addressed this question very well in her post.
Actually there is deficiency of women at the absolute top even if we consider participation. And it actually is so in many activities.
On November 20 2010 05:22 fush wrote: As for your obsession in male superiority over women in competitive sport – which in our society seems to be inherently correlated with physical ability, then of course males outperform females. Why don’t you look less in sport and more in a wider scope of activities? Can you honestly tell me that males are outperforming females in academia?
Depends what you mean outperforming. As far as top scientists and mathematicians go (and I mean hard sciences) yes they are, as someone already pointed out, there are more geniuses among men, but also more morons.
I'll ask the same questions.
What is a genius? Number of publications? Impact on current knowledge and theory? Who designates that someone is a genius? Men? Women? What fields are they "geniuses" in? Physics and Mathematics are hard sciences, but there are other natural sciences that are larger fields and more balanced. When did this genius count begin? Are we looking at Newtonian times? Darwinian times? Or more modern times? I believe the ratio may be more even the closer to the present we look.
On November 20 2010 05:16 EnderPR wrote: The answer is FAR simpler than most make it.
You might think of the skill of SC players to follow a Gaussian Curve with the pros being at the top end. If we assume that the Gaussian probability plot looks about the same for female and male (basically, a determined female has the same chance of succeeding as a similar male), then the only variable in changing the number of high level players is the number of players to begin with
As is generally accepted, there are less female gamers so there for there are less female progamers. It is the same deal with why big school sports teams generally are much better than small school teams. Big schools have a larger pool from which to select its best players.
So the question is, how can we get more females interested in SC?
You would think so, but WoW doesn't have the problem of severe under-representation in the female player base. Yet, in competitive WoW 3v3 tournaments, there are little to no female participants.
That doesn't say anything about skill, it just means that female players aren't playing PvP, they're playing PvE. So, in the pool of players that we're considering, they are severely underrepresented.
True. But, wouldn't that mean getting more females interested in Starcraft wouldn't necessarily help all that much? They're more likely to just play campaign or custom. It's not all that simple a problem after all because the numbers game would mean a very diluted pool. I think a better question would be, "how do we get the current female gamers to actually compete in some SC2 tournaments?". They're probably around but just not visible and a chunk of them probably moved on to the next game by now after beating the campaign.
Good point, even if the ratio of men:women in SC2 approaches the parity you see in WoW, we might see a similar gap in what gametypes they choose.
For both men and women, I think the real difference is that casual players play mostly team games/customs/campaign, and serious players focus on 1v1. Players become more serious when they start finding places like TL and become a real part of the SC community.
Therefore, I think making places like TL.net more welcoming towards women will do a lot. It seems like the mods have been really cracking down on sexism lately, which I applaud. Next up is for users to stop making sexist jokes (even if you say "j/k" afterwards, they're still hurtful/unhelpful), and just in general, to stop making a big deal out of the presence of women.
We'll know we've made progress when a woman competes at an event like MLG or the GSL and no one mentions her gender or something crass about her appearance.
there is no way that is ever going to happen. with the anonymity of the internet and the fact that the SC/SC2 community is mostly male dominated, any female ANYTHING will be instantly sexualized. Take the MLG map vids, I did voiceovers for shits and giggles and the first thing people post is that my voice sounds hot? I could look like a cave troll guys.
People say that about tons of commentators, usually male. I think the unique thing is actually not that it happened, but your reaction to it.
Well, let's not ignore context here; jokingly saying "oh wow, you're really turning me on" to a male friend is very different from jokingly saying it to a female friend, for example.
Males generally have much better hand eye coordination than females (not sure if this is environmental or innate) and I think that might be an important factor with Starcraft. However, even at games like Chess that have no physical dexterity required, the top players have always been male with only a few notable females. So, I'm sure there are other social factors involved as others have mentioned.
Men and women's brains are very different. I'm not using this for this argument specifically, but I would be shocked if men and women weren't vastly superior to each other in different roles.
In fact, I claim for this game, one sex would have to have an innate advantage, unfortunately there aren't nearly enough women, especially those who are serious about getting good to be able to even have an idea which one has the advantage. That's why for example tossgirl isn't a good argument, there are tons of serious korean sc gamers who never reached her skill level, we don't know that she is actually the best possible sc player in korea, potential female jaedongs could have pursed a different career entirely and we'll never know.
On November 20 2010 05:16 EnderPR wrote: The answer is FAR simpler than most make it.
You might think of the skill of SC players to follow a Gaussian Curve with the pros being at the top end. If we assume that the Gaussian probability plot looks about the same for female and male (basically, a determined female has the same chance of succeeding as a similar male), then the only variable in changing the number of high level players is the number of players to begin with
As is generally accepted, there are less female gamers so there for there are less female progamers. It is the same deal with why big school sports teams generally are much better than small school teams. Big schools have a larger pool from which to select its best players.
So the question is, how can we get more females interested in SC?
You would think so, but WoW doesn't have the problem of severe under-representation in the female player base. Yet, in competitive WoW 3v3 tournaments, there are little to no female participants.
That doesn't say anything about skill, it just means that female players aren't playing PvP, they're playing PvE. So, in the pool of players that we're considering, they are severely underrepresented.
True. But, wouldn't that mean getting more females interested in Starcraft wouldn't necessarily help all that much? They're more likely to just play campaign or custom. It's not all that simple a problem after all because the numbers game would mean a very diluted pool. I think a better question would be, "how do we get the current female gamers to actually compete in some SC2 tournaments?". They're probably around but just not visible and a chunk of them probably moved on to the next game by now after beating the campaign.
Good point, even if the ratio of men:women in SC2 approaches the parity you see in WoW, we might see a similar gap in what gametypes they choose.
For both men and women, I think the real difference is that casual players play mostly team games/customs/campaign, and serious players focus on 1v1. Players become more serious when they start finding places like TL and become a real part of the SC community.
Therefore, I think making places like TL.net more welcoming towards women will do a lot. It seems like the mods have been really cracking down on sexism lately, which I applaud. Next up is for users to stop making sexist jokes (even if you say "j/k" afterwards, they're still hurtful/unhelpful), and just in general, to stop making a big deal out of the presence of women.
We'll know we've made progress when a woman competes at an event like MLG or the GSL and no one mentions her gender or something crass about her appearance.
there is no way that is ever going to happen. with the anonymity of the internet and the fact that the SC/SC2 community is mostly male dominated, any female ANYTHING will be instantly sexualized. Take the MLG map vids, I did voiceovers for shits and giggles and the first thing people post is that my voice sounds hot? I could look like a cave troll guys.
People say that about tons of commentators, usually male. I think the unique thing is actually not that it happened, but your reaction to it.
Well, let's not ignore context here; jokingly saying "oh wow, you're really turning me on" to a male friend is very different from jokingly saying it to a female friend, for example.
I dont see how I reacted funnily, I just think finding my voice appealing is fine, equating my voice to how I look is stupid.
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
i think natural selection pretty much covers men being biologically more competitive.
Yea...no. Sexual selection would seem to go both ways in homo sapiens.
Well first of all what youre thinking is a very modern development. Second of all general consensus is that this development in fact works against natural selection as the less intelligent women tend to become better spouses and produce more offsprings.
No, there is no general consensus that women are dumb creatures and men are smart creatures due to natural selection. That is literally the dumbest and most vile thing I've read on this forum recently; the comment alone disproves your assertion. Relegate your 1800's mentality to someplace else.
Do mods find it appropriate to spout overt and unfounded sexism under the guise of science? If not, can he please get a warning.
i already addressed your sexism bullshit in one of the previous posts. Women and men are different and i am able to appreciate both alike even with all their differences. Trying to say that everyone is the same even though its obvious that theyre not is just a modern and unfortunately widely accepted form of discrimination.
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
i think natural selection pretty much covers men being biologically more competitive.
Yea...no. Sexual selection would seem to go both ways in homo sapiens.
Well first of all what youre thinking is a very modern development. Second of all general consensus is that this development in fact works against natural selection as the less intelligent women tend to become better spouses and produce more offsprings.
No, there is no general consensus that women are dumb creatures and men are smart creatures due to natural selection. That is literally the dumbest and most vile thing I've read on this forum recently; the comment alone disproves your assertion. Relegate your 1800's mentality to someplace else.
Do mods find it appropriate to spout overt and unfounded sexism under the guise of science? If not, can he please get a warning.
Yea I've been in science for years and never seemed to have heard of or reached such a conclusion that intelligence is inversely correlated with the ability to produce offspring.
On November 20 2010 01:20 mcc wrote: [quote] And you have anything to prove that other than I said so. There is a lot of research, mechanisms to explain why it is a biological thing, is there anything that really points to it being because it is socially unacceptable ? In many countries in a lot of social groups it is not unacceptable any more, yet girls still do not play games competitively as much as boys. Problem is the rate of emancipation highly exceeds the rate of increase in women's competitiveness.
There's research on there being more innate competitiveness in males than females? Please give your sources on these research and mechanisms.
I CAN tell you that you're probably 99% wrong regarding biological coding for competition behaviour, but maybe I've missed something
Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
On November 20 2010 03:25 Zyphen wrote: You guys talking about nature/nurture are really getting into a tangential debate. Women, as a group, are just less competitive period. That's the reason why there aren't more top female gamers, chess masters, race car drivers, etc (basically anything that doesn't require being physically gifted).
The few women that do make it don't prove anything about the rest. It's called anecdotal evidence. Sure, a woman COULD do it, but that's not the question. The lack of female gamers, as a whole, is because they lack competitiveness in games involving direct confrontation. Whether the few that do well possess an extra chromosome or were raised as tomboys seems superfluous to the argument.
Women as a group are less competitive... interesting conclusion based on what? Your examples are all full of crap because they're all fields that have been typically male dominated and not encouraged for women to do in society. I'm not denying there's differences biologically between genders... it's what I study for a living.
But the wannabe scientists here saying how females "don't have" testosterone (which they do) probably don't even know its effects in cognition, because guess what... no one does. So how about a suggestion, before you pull out some hair-brained idea of how you think females are less innately "competitive" or whatever, get a clue.
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how I don't CARE whether it's nature or nurture that's the culprit for any behavorial differences. The facts are that they exist.
And you're asking me for proof? Really? It's already accepted fact that women are under-represented in starcraft 2 and just about every other competitive event listed in this thread. I think your position is the one that's more indefensible. The burden should lie with you. How about this. Find me a single instance of a direct competitive game/sport where women are equally represented at the top tier as men (i.e. they don't form their own separate league, actually play with and BEAT the boys, you look at a tournament bracket - half are women, half the time they even win it, etc.).
It'll take me longer to list all the things men dominate than for you to squeeze out that one exception (which, honestly, I'm dying to know).
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how you simply stated that women were less competitive, not about whether other biological differences exist. If you bothered to read on, it also mentioned that WHILE these biological differences exist, they haven’t been shown to have anything to do with better performance in a game like SC2. Why don’t you look in gender differences in attention, visual/spatial cognition, motor control and see if you can come up with an answer to that. But I can save you some time now and tell you that there is no evidence that would point one way or another.
Asking for proof was to the poster I quoted above, he has given me a draft of a paper and I’ll read it when I’m off work.
As for your obsession in male superiority over women in competitive sport – which in our society seems to be inherently correlated with physical ability, then of course males outperform females. Why don’t you look less in sport and more in a wider scope of activities? Can you honestly tell me that males are outperforming females in academia?
And I've posted twice stating that I don't really give a rat's ass as to the explanation of why females are less competitive. Would it be less offensive to your sensiblities if I instead stated that males are more competitive?
How is academia a direct competition? I don't really care about your other arguments with other posters. Stay on point. And I specifically said ANY directly competitive event (as in there's a winner and a loser) with tournaments. Forget sports.
The facts are, women are under-represented relative to their population size in virtually all directly competitive events. Sorry the truth offended you. I simply stated it. And then I said the explanation is an entirely separate argument. That might have gotten through your thick head if you didn't jump at my posts like a rabid wolverine.
Getting pretty defensive now aren't we? Let's not forget you're the one throwing insults at me, not the other way around. You don't give a crap why females are less competitive, but you simply state it without any proof? Well that's certainly convincing. What I'm implying here about your argument through sarcasm is also a fact.
Academia is not direct competition? Lol. Seems like you know nothing about it and you probably won't read my explanation anyways.
You also state again that women are under-represented in all competitive events, but yet you challenge me to name them. Hey, I'm not the one stating random "factoids" here, you're the one who needs to back that up with some actual events.
Some cognitive dissonance here? You perceive insult and then find nothing wrong with calling me "full of crap". Then you presume to know anything about me.
Yes, I can see how you would love to broaden my narrow definition of what it means to be competitive in starcraft 2. It would push me neatly into a corner where I would have to accept academia, love, and fashion as things where girls can be competitive. But how is that applicable exactly? It gets into a semantics argument that completely derails from the original intent of the OP.
Since you insist, here are some events similar to Starcraft that females have no physical barrier to entry for: Chess, Weiqi(Go), Poker, Billiards, Archery, Competitive Shooting, Auto racing, Curling, Majong, Croquet, Marbles, Ballooning, Bowling, Motorboat racing, Horse Racing, all other video games w/ tournament scene.
You'll probably ask for a more complete list but you'll have to be satisfied w/ the above since I'm not in the habit of arguing w/ people that obviously aren't going to concede cornerstone points by basically asking:
1)What do I mean by being competitive in the current context? 2)What are all these things that women can't compete in?
Question number 2 seems to be just out of spite since if you weren't aware of such things, you wouldn't even bother saying they're "male dominated" in the first place. Doesn't that in of itself imply under-representation of females?
But sir, your statement was "Women, as a group, are just less competitive period." All I asked for were facts that back your assertion. You have provided none.
Your definition of "competitive" seems to be performance in something with a winner and a loser - okay. You listed all those things, most having to do with physical exertion - okay. Do you have direct interactions in these events between men and women showing significantly better performance in men? Please show me. Otherwise, you can't say women are "less competitive" based on your definition of the word "competitive". Period.
My definition of competitive if you're talking in an innate sense (which was what my original post was referring to) is not tournaments or winning or losing. It's the motivation to perform better than others. Has anyone in the world offered convincing and definitive results that would prove women have less of this motivation? Don't think so.
Now you can sidestep this all you want, but perhaps you should realize that you are accountable for what you say. And what you said (as I've quoted in my first sentence) was complete garbage.
Yes, I see you're the type of person that will ask me to prove 1+1=2 before I can go on to 2+1=3. It's fair, it's fair. But I have neither the time nor inclination to write a proper research paper with proper headings and sources and wait for your critique of my methodology.
This is a message board. I offered my OPINION backed up by what I thought were commonly accepted "factoids" (as you call them). But since you don't accept any of them, then I suppose it's up to me to dig and try to convince you otherwise. But here's the rub: I don't really care to. Yes, I realize I've committed the horrible crime of offering an assertion without proper annotated evidence but my original intent wasn't to get into a drawn out debate but simply offer my thoughts.
So, I'll concede to you. I haven't proven anything and I probably won't even try. Good day to you madam.
On November 20 2010 05:04 LolnoobInsanity wrote: You say that there's no inherent disadvantage "like chess" yet there are male and female chess leagues, and the top male chess player is always better than the top female chess player.
That statement can be backed up pretty heavily by most researches and statistics. By design, males are better are pattern-recognition and logical thinking; Add to that the globally demonstrated statistic that males have an average IQ 9 points higher than females and you get the picture.
I've read studies that show the opposite is true. Please link this study to your comment. From what I've read about that it was based on the fact that there is more men in genius bracket than women. But that doesn't effect the average because there are lots more men it the mentally handicapped catagory. It averages out the same but men have more intelligence in the extremes. http://www.aboutintelligence.co.uk/who-smarter-men-women.html
That website has no sources. What (and most importantly WHO - were they male? ) defines a "genius"? When was this genius count started?
IQ is a joke in the academic field, so let's not talk about that. Brain matter doesn't equal intelligence - neanderthals had larger brains than we did - food for thought.
That website is the source. A genius is a individual with an IQ above 150. It was probibly started around the 1940s when the phycological feild became very serious about empirical evidence.
IQ (a percent compaired to the average human's intelligence) is constantly evolving and the scientific community has been constantly trying to mesure it better. Its not perfect now but its much better then its historically. So although IQ test results might not matter that much the concept is still very importiant. Brain matter is also very importiant for intelligence as there has to be a critical mass of it for intelligence to exist. What is more importiant is how the neurons are connected aka how dence the axons between the brain cells are. Neanderthals might have had 10% bigger brains and have gone extinct 100 000s of years ago but more food for thought is there is evidence that they were a much more civilized and peaceful culture than the humans of the time. Mended bones that could only result from others taking care of the sick have been found in much older neanderthal bones than homo sepien ones.
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
i think natural selection pretty much covers men being biologically more competitive.
Yes it seems so, but the problem is proving it. Oftentimes in evolutionary biology things that seem reasonable are not so easily proven and sometimes the logic behind that reasoning is full of holes and even false. So yes, evolutionary argument is a good one I think in this case, but you need more supporting evidence.
Why not disregard evolution as a whole then. lets go with creationalism.
I'm female, I love to play Starcraft, and I'm not bad at it.
But the answer why there are not many female gamers is very simple. Most of them just don't like to play games. That's it. It's the same with cheerleading, dancing, design & fashion. It's not like men aren't good in those things, they just aren't interested in those things too much.
It has nothing to do with lack of talent or competitive spirit, the reason why girls don't do as good as men is simpley because there are less female gamers, it's the same in chess.
On November 20 2010 05:16 EnderPR wrote: The answer is FAR simpler than most make it.
You might think of the skill of SC players to follow a Gaussian Curve with the pros being at the top end. If we assume that the Gaussian probability plot looks about the same for female and male (basically, a determined female has the same chance of succeeding as a similar male), then the only variable in changing the number of high level players is the number of players to begin with
As is generally accepted, there are less female gamers so there for there are less female progamers. It is the same deal with why big school sports teams generally are much better than small school teams. Big schools have a larger pool from which to select its best players.
So the question is, how can we get more females interested in SC?
You would think so, but WoW doesn't have the problem of severe under-representation in the female player base. Yet, in competitive WoW 3v3 tournaments, there are little to no female participants.
That doesn't say anything about skill, it just means that female players aren't playing PvP, they're playing PvE. So, in the pool of players that we're considering, they are severely underrepresented.
True. But, wouldn't that mean getting more females interested in Starcraft wouldn't necessarily help all that much? They're more likely to just play campaign or custom. It's not all that simple a problem after all because the numbers game would mean a very diluted pool. I think a better question would be, "how do we get the current female gamers to actually compete in some SC2 tournaments?". They're probably around but just not visible and a chunk of them probably moved on to the next game by now after beating the campaign.
Good point, even if the ratio of men:women in SC2 approaches the parity you see in WoW, we might see a similar gap in what gametypes they choose.
For both men and women, I think the real difference is that casual players play mostly team games/customs/campaign, and serious players focus on 1v1. Players become more serious when they start finding places like TL and become a real part of the SC community.
Therefore, I think making places like TL.net more welcoming towards women will do a lot. It seems like the mods have been really cracking down on sexism lately, which I applaud. Next up is for users to stop making sexist jokes (even if you say "j/k" afterwards, they're still hurtful/unhelpful), and just in general, to stop making a big deal out of the presence of women.
We'll know we've made progress when a woman competes at an event like MLG or the GSL and no one mentions her gender or something crass about her appearance.
there is no way that is ever going to happen. with the anonymity of the internet and the fact that the SC/SC2 community is mostly male dominated, any female ANYTHING will be instantly sexualized. Take the MLG map vids, I did voiceovers for shits and giggles and the first thing people post is that my voice sounds hot? I could look like a cave troll guys.
People say that about tons of commentators, usually male. I think the unique thing is actually not that it happened, but your reaction to it.
Well, let's not ignore context here; jokingly saying "oh wow, you're really turning me on" to a male friend is very different from jokingly saying it to a female friend, for example.
I dont see how I reacted funnily, I just think finding my voice appealing is fine, equating my voice to how I look is stupid.
I didn't follow the drama but did they equate your voice to your looks? Because if they just said your voice sounds sexy it's perfectly fine. A voice can sound sexy on its own.
On November 20 2010 05:04 LolnoobInsanity wrote: You say that there's no inherent disadvantage "like chess" yet there are male and female chess leagues, and the top male chess player is always better than the top female chess player.
Throwing around those features of the chess world as "proof" of inherent disadvantage is faulty reasoning.
This is because of differences in participation. Let's say the ratio of serious male chess players to serious female chess players is about 10:1. As for how you define a "serious chess player," let's say, very roughly, it is someone who spends most, or a significant amount, of their free time practicing or studying chess, with the goal of competing in tournaments.
If both male and female populations of serious chess players have a standard distribution of skill, they can have the same average skill level--i.e. suggesting no inherent disadvantage--and you'll still see WAY more men at the top level.
To even compete with nationally-known players, you probably have to be in the top 0.1%, and just statistically speaking, if there are ten times as many men than women in the category of "serious chess players," then this difference will be EVEN MORE pronounced in the top 0.1%.
TL;DR Based on their relative levels of participation in chess/SC2, we would expect to see about as many top female players as we currently do, if we assume identical inherent ability/potential.
A lack of top female SC2 or chess players would only argue in favor of some gap in innate ability if the levels of participation were close to even, and they're not at all.
*Why* participation levels differ is a separate issue; I think Peanut addressed this question very well in her post.
Actually there is deficiency of women at the absolute top even if we consider participation. And it actually is so in many activities.
I'm not saying that if participation was 50-50, we'd definitely have just as many female pro-gamers as male pro-gamers. No one could possibly know if this would be true. But I think it's reasonable to assume that we'd see a whole hell of a lot more.
The main point I was trying to make is that given current participation levels, the relative lack of female pro-gamers (or top chess players) really doesn't indicate anything, one way or another.
although I 90% agree with "women = men" and I completely agree with treating people fairly, it's not a secret that men and women are not created completely equal. Obviously the most noticeable differences are physical (which is why there are both mens/womens sports teams,) there's also mental differences. I'm not saying one is smarter than the other but it's proven that men and women do not think completely alike. How much of that transfers over to Starcraft, I have no idea.
In the end though, those little differences in a strategy game can't make a HUGE difference and I think I'm going to fall in the "less girls = less chances to be a top player" category. My girlfriend is quite good at FPS games, she's been on a number of pretty good competitive counter strike teams (NOT AS GOOD AS MINE, I MIGHT ADD *flex*) I've been trying to get her into starcraft. She saw me playing it the first few days I had it and asked me to buy it for her so of course I did right away but so far she just "wants to build stuff" and if I try to help her really improve and point things out to her and she ends up losing that game, she gets pissed and won't play it again for days. Although she does love watching day 9 with me but I think that's more because she just likes day 9 oO Maybe I should play terran for a while so she'll be more interested in watching / learning from me.
Also - anyone saying girls aren't as competitive hasn't met enough girls.
On November 20 2010 05:49 Thrill wrote: Wow, reading this thread is like listening to army grunts discussing avant garde fashion...
Maybe you should pay attention in a non-science/maths based class before you voice your opinion on gender issues.. or just.. be friends with normal people who realize Disney movies aren't exactly politically correct and listen to what they have to say.
Just because you're booksmart doesn't mean you know sh*t about life and peoples potential.
Edit: to make this abundantly clear: the people who argue "men are born better at chess" are the same retards who are gonna raise their daughters to be little princesses and thus ensure the survival of these [nonsense] ideas for another generation.
Frankly I could care less about most of what is called gender issues as it is mostly nonsense. Not many people are actually voicing opinion on "gender issues", we are talking about biology/psychology. You may not understand it, but it is possible to think that men and women are better/worse in different things (as supported by real sciences) and still be for gender equality in everything. Because gender equality is about same opportunities, same political representation, same education,.... and not about proving that both genders differ in nothing else than physical appearance. Yes there are some sexist posts in this thread, but most are just arguing about biology.
Your edit comment is actually the most offensive statement in this thread. Seems you cannot separate neutral factual statement (like "men are born better at chess"), and valuation statements (like "women are good only for cooking and making babies"). First statement is about the nature of reality and says nothing about value of any person, second is ignorant immoral statement that is defintely sexist. Try not to mix those two.
On November 20 2010 05:16 EnderPR wrote: The answer is FAR simpler than most make it.
You might think of the skill of SC players to follow a Gaussian Curve with the pros being at the top end. If we assume that the Gaussian probability plot looks about the same for female and male (basically, a determined female has the same chance of succeeding as a similar male), then the only variable in changing the number of high level players is the number of players to begin with
As is generally accepted, there are less female gamers so there for there are less female progamers. It is the same deal with why big school sports teams generally are much better than small school teams. Big schools have a larger pool from which to select its best players.
So the question is, how can we get more females interested in SC?
You would think so, but WoW doesn't have the problem of severe under-representation in the female player base. Yet, in competitive WoW 3v3 tournaments, there are little to no female participants.
That doesn't say anything about skill, it just means that female players aren't playing PvP, they're playing PvE. So, in the pool of players that we're considering, they are severely underrepresented.
True. But, wouldn't that mean getting more females interested in Starcraft wouldn't necessarily help all that much? They're more likely to just play campaign or custom. It's not all that simple a problem after all because the numbers game would mean a very diluted pool. I think a better question would be, "how do we get the current female gamers to actually compete in some SC2 tournaments?". They're probably around but just not visible and a chunk of them probably moved on to the next game by now after beating the campaign.
Good point, even if the ratio of men:women in SC2 approaches the parity you see in WoW, we might see a similar gap in what gametypes they choose.
For both men and women, I think the real difference is that casual players play mostly team games/customs/campaign, and serious players focus on 1v1. Players become more serious when they start finding places like TL and become a real part of the SC community.
Therefore, I think making places like TL.net more welcoming towards women will do a lot. It seems like the mods have been really cracking down on sexism lately, which I applaud. Next up is for users to stop making sexist jokes (even if you say "j/k" afterwards, they're still hurtful/unhelpful), and just in general, to stop making a big deal out of the presence of women.
We'll know we've made progress when a woman competes at an event like MLG or the GSL and no one mentions her gender or something crass about her appearance.
there is no way that is ever going to happen. with the anonymity of the internet and the fact that the SC/SC2 community is mostly male dominated, any female ANYTHING will be instantly sexualized. Take the MLG map vids, I did voiceovers for shits and giggles and the first thing people post is that my voice sounds hot? I could look like a cave troll guys.
People say that about tons of commentators, usually male. I think the unique thing is actually not that it happened, but your reaction to it.
Well, let's not ignore context here; jokingly saying "oh wow, you're really turning me on" to a male friend is very different from jokingly saying it to a female friend, for example.
I dont see how I reacted funnily, I just think finding my voice appealing is fine, equating my voice to how I look is stupid.
I didn't follow the drama but did they equate your voice to your looks? Because if they just said your voice sounds sexy it's perfectly fine. A voice can sound sexy on its own.
oh there wasnt much posted drama anyway. i think some were about physical correlations between voice and face, which is what I think is silly. but most were about 'soothing voice' ect.
1. as several people mentioned, this is simple evolutionary biology. men compete, and brag with their victories. men have a natural impulse to compete with eachother, in every imaginable way. boys play soccer, girls play with dolls. that's just the way it has always been. and anyone claiming it's only due to cultural indoctrination is either deluded or not educated enough to understand the concept of evolution.
2. i'm not talking about sports, men's physical superiority is not up for debate (anyone denying this i simply cannot take seriously). i'm talking about the ability to abstract, think efficience-oriented and plan long-term. i used chess as an example in a previous post and its a perfect example. the fact that women can't compete with men in chess proves this point. it's also a fact that the requirements to be an above-average sc player, are similar to the requirements of being an above-average chess player.
3. "you don't need to be bright to be good at starcraft" is just plain bullshit. you definitely DO need to be bright. what are you doing, if not constantly obtaining and processing information? calculating probabilities and possibilities? adapting and making decisions under pressure?
do you know this feeling when you are about to engage in a game-deciding battle, and you KNOW your positioning is very bad, and you KNOW you could retreat with minimal losses and force a fight with way better positioning, but in your mind you are like "meh lets get it over with"? and then you engage the battle, and lose the game. what just happened was... you got lazy. you got lazy because starcraft on a high level is mentally exhausting. it requires mental stamina, just like chess.
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
i think natural selection pretty much covers men being biologically more competitive.
Yea...no. Sexual selection would seem to go both ways in homo sapiens.
Well first of all what youre thinking is a very modern development. Second of all general consensus is that this development in fact works against natural selection as the less intelligent women tend to become better spouses and produce more offsprings.
No, there is no general consensus that women are dumb creatures and men are smart creatures due to natural selection. That is literally the dumbest and most vile thing I've read on this forum recently; the comment alone disproves your assertion. Relegate your 1800's mentality to someplace else.
Do mods find it appropriate to spout overt and unfounded sexism under the guise of science? If not, can he please get a warning.
i already addressed your sexism bullshit in one of the previous posts. Women and men are different and i am able to appreciate both alike even with all their differences. Trying to say that everyone is the same even though its obvious that theyre not is just a modern and unfortunately widely accepted form of discrimination.
You said that women are less intelligent than men because of natural selection. I said that was backwards, sexist, and patently untrue. I don't think anyone is claiming men and women are the exact same...
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
I like how you say things with such conviction, it's a good trait to have
The paper you've provided is an interesting piece of work, but the methodology is a bit weird. My big problem with it is that the children are not naïve to this procedure, and it’s plainly stated in the methods but not elaborated on. If they’ve been through these races before and are aware of the faster/slower children, you can’t argue that the effects seen are based on intrinsic motivation or competitiveness. For example, you can argue that there is no motivation for the girl to run faster against another boy or girl in the absence of any offered compensation if they may have known from previous experience that the other kid will always come out ahead.
It is not like it is the only paper about this(google for more I found about 20 saying this easily, the only thing they actually argue about is the nature vs nurture thing), I just picked it because it had some interesting insights apart from confirming my point. But your criticism is kind of empty, because they tested different groups with different gender makeup and if your objection was true, why was this effect not observed on boys.
On November 20 2010 07:04 LunaBrightStar wrote: I'm female, I love to play Starcraft, and I'm not bad at it.
But the answer why there are not many female gamers is very simple. Most of them just don't like to play games. That's it. It's the same with cheerleading, dancing, design & fashion. It's not like men aren't good in those things, they just aren't interested in those things too much.
It has nothing to do with lack of talent or competitive spirit, the reason why girls don't do as good as men is simpley because there are less female gamers, it's the same in chess.
There's research on there being more innate competitiveness in males than females? Please give your sources on these research and mechanisms.
I CAN tell you that you're probably 99% wrong regarding biological coding for competition behaviour, but maybe I've missed something
Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
On November 20 2010 03:25 Zyphen wrote: You guys talking about nature/nurture are really getting into a tangential debate. Women, as a group, are just less competitive period. That's the reason why there aren't more top female gamers, chess masters, race car drivers, etc (basically anything that doesn't require being physically gifted).
The few women that do make it don't prove anything about the rest. It's called anecdotal evidence. Sure, a woman COULD do it, but that's not the question. The lack of female gamers, as a whole, is because they lack competitiveness in games involving direct confrontation. Whether the few that do well possess an extra chromosome or were raised as tomboys seems superfluous to the argument.
Women as a group are less competitive... interesting conclusion based on what? Your examples are all full of crap because they're all fields that have been typically male dominated and not encouraged for women to do in society. I'm not denying there's differences biologically between genders... it's what I study for a living.
But the wannabe scientists here saying how females "don't have" testosterone (which they do) probably don't even know its effects in cognition, because guess what... no one does. So how about a suggestion, before you pull out some hair-brained idea of how you think females are less innately "competitive" or whatever, get a clue.
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how I don't CARE whether it's nature or nurture that's the culprit for any behavorial differences. The facts are that they exist.
And you're asking me for proof? Really? It's already accepted fact that women are under-represented in starcraft 2 and just about every other competitive event listed in this thread. I think your position is the one that's more indefensible. The burden should lie with you. How about this. Find me a single instance of a direct competitive game/sport where women are equally represented at the top tier as men (i.e. they don't form their own separate league, actually play with and BEAT the boys, you look at a tournament bracket - half are women, half the time they even win it, etc.).
It'll take me longer to list all the things men dominate than for you to squeeze out that one exception (which, honestly, I'm dying to know).
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how you simply stated that women were less competitive, not about whether other biological differences exist. If you bothered to read on, it also mentioned that WHILE these biological differences exist, they haven’t been shown to have anything to do with better performance in a game like SC2. Why don’t you look in gender differences in attention, visual/spatial cognition, motor control and see if you can come up with an answer to that. But I can save you some time now and tell you that there is no evidence that would point one way or another.
Asking for proof was to the poster I quoted above, he has given me a draft of a paper and I’ll read it when I’m off work.
As for your obsession in male superiority over women in competitive sport – which in our society seems to be inherently correlated with physical ability, then of course males outperform females. Why don’t you look less in sport and more in a wider scope of activities? Can you honestly tell me that males are outperforming females in academia?
And I've posted twice stating that I don't really give a rat's ass as to the explanation of why females are less competitive. Would it be less offensive to your sensiblities if I instead stated that males are more competitive?
How is academia a direct competition? I don't really care about your other arguments with other posters. Stay on point. And I specifically said ANY directly competitive event (as in there's a winner and a loser) with tournaments. Forget sports.
The facts are, women are under-represented relative to their population size in virtually all directly competitive events. Sorry the truth offended you. I simply stated it. And then I said the explanation is an entirely separate argument. That might have gotten through your thick head if you didn't jump at my posts like a rabid wolverine.
Getting pretty defensive now aren't we? Let's not forget you're the one throwing insults at me, not the other way around. You don't give a crap why females are less competitive, but you simply state it without any proof? Well that's certainly convincing. What I'm implying here about your argument through sarcasm is also a fact.
Academia is not direct competition? Lol. Seems like you know nothing about it and you probably won't read my explanation anyways.
You also state again that women are under-represented in all competitive events, but yet you challenge me to name them. Hey, I'm not the one stating random "factoids" here, you're the one who needs to back that up with some actual events.
Some cognitive dissonance here? You perceive insult and then find nothing wrong with calling me "full of crap". Then you presume to know anything about me.
Yes, I can see how you would love to broaden my narrow definition of what it means to be competitive in starcraft 2. It would push me neatly into a corner where I would have to accept academia, love, and fashion as things where girls can be competitive. But how is that applicable exactly? It gets into a semantics argument that completely derails from the original intent of the OP.
Since you insist, here are some events similar to Starcraft that females have no physical barrier to entry for: Chess, Weiqi(Go), Poker, Billiards, Archery, Competitive Shooting, Auto racing, Curling, Majong, Croquet, Marbles, Ballooning, Bowling, Motorboat racing, Horse Racing, all other video games w/ tournament scene.
You'll probably ask for a more complete list but you'll have to be satisfied w/ the above since I'm not in the habit of arguing w/ people that obviously aren't going to concede cornerstone points by basically asking:
1)What do I mean by being competitive in the current context? 2)What are all these things that women can't compete in?
Question number 2 seems to be just out of spite since if you weren't aware of such things, you wouldn't even bother saying they're "male dominated" in the first place. Doesn't that in of itself imply under-representation of females?
But sir, your statement was "Women, as a group, are just less competitive period." All I asked for were facts that back your assertion. You have provided none.
Your definition of "competitive" seems to be performance in something with a winner and a loser - okay. You listed all those things, most having to do with physical exertion - okay. Do you have direct interactions in these events between men and women showing significantly better performance in men? Please show me. Otherwise, you can't say women are "less competitive" based on your definition of the word "competitive". Period.
My definition of competitive if you're talking in an innate sense (which was what my original post was referring to) is not tournaments or winning or losing. It's the motivation to perform better than others. Has anyone in the world offered convincing and definitive results that would prove women have less of this motivation? Don't think so.
Now you can sidestep this all you want, but perhaps you should realize that you are accountable for what you say. And what you said (as I've quoted in my first sentence) was complete garbage.
Yes, I see you're the type of person that will ask me to prove 1+1=2 before I can go on to 2+1=3. It's fair, it's fair. But I have neither the time nor inclination to write a proper research paper with proper headings and sources and wait for your critique of my methodology.
This is a message board. I offered my OPINION backed up by what I thought were commonly accepted "factoids" (as you call them). But since you don't accept any of them, then I suppose it's up to me to dig and try to convince you otherwise. But here's the rub: I don't really care to. Yes, I realize I've committed the horrible crime of offering an assertion without proper annotated evidence but my original intent wasn't to get into a drawn out debate but simply offer my thoughts.
So, I'll concede to you. I haven't proven anything and I probably won't even try. Good day to you sir.
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
i think natural selection pretty much covers men being biologically more competitive.
Yea...no. Sexual selection would seem to go both ways in homo sapiens.
Well first of all what youre thinking is a very modern development. Second of all general consensus is that this development in fact works against natural selection as the less intelligent women tend to become better spouses and produce more offsprings.
No, there is no general consensus that women are dumb creatures and men are smart creatures due to natural selection. That is literally the dumbest and most vile thing I've read on this forum recently; the comment alone disproves your assertion. Relegate your 1800's mentality to someplace else.
Do mods find it appropriate to spout overt and unfounded sexism under the guise of science? If not, can he please get a warning.
Yea I've been in science for years and never seemed to have heard of or reached such a conclusion that intelligence is inversely correlated with the ability to produce offspring.
I dont see how that relates to any of my posts.
"Second of all general consensus is that this development in fact works against natural selection as the less intelligent women tend to become better spouses and produce more offsprings."
On November 20 2010 05:04 LolnoobInsanity wrote: You say that there's no inherent disadvantage "like chess" yet there are male and female chess leagues, and the top male chess player is always better than the top female chess player.
That statement can be backed up pretty heavily by most researches and statistics. By design, males are better are pattern-recognition and logical thinking; Add to that the globally demonstrated statistic that males have an average IQ 9 points higher than females and you get the picture.
I've read studies that show the opposite is true. Please link this study to your comment. From what I've read about that it was based on the fact that there is more men in genius bracket than women. But that doesn't effect the average because there are lots more men it the mentally handicapped catagory. It averages out the same but men have more intelligence in the extremes. http://www.aboutintelligence.co.uk/who-smarter-men-women.html
That website has no sources. What (and most importantly WHO - were they male? ) defines a "genius"? When was this genius count started?
IQ is a joke in the academic field, so let's not talk about that. Brain matter doesn't equal intelligence - neanderthals had larger brains than we did - food for thought.
That website is the cource. A genius is a individual with an IQ above 150. It was probibly started around the 1940s when the phycological feild became very serious about empirical evidence.
IQ (a percent compaired to the average human's intelligence) is constantly evolving and the scientific community has been constantly trying to mesure it better. Its not perfect now but its much better then its historically. So although IQ test results might not matter that much the concept is still very importiant. Brain matter is also very importiant for intelligence as there has to be a critical mass of it for intelligence to exist. What is more importiant is how the neurons are connected aka how dence the axons between the brain cells are. Neanderthals might have had 10% bigger brains and have gone extinct 100 000s of years ago but more food for thought is there is evidence that they were a much more civilized and peaceful culture than the humans of the time. Mended bones that could only result from others taking care of the sick have been found in much older neanderthal bones than homo sepien ones.
Touche on the IQ tests, I'm sure they're working on it. As is, tests for "intelligence" is outdated. There are too many variables and too many different "intelligences" to be aptly measured by a single - or even dozens of tests.
Don't agree with the rest though, you seem to have at least some understanding in how the brain works but size doesn't matter. You're right about connections but it's not the number of connections at all - rather the appropriate connections need to be made. We have many times more connections and neurons to boot when we're fetuses than we do in adulthood, but that doesn't mean fetuses are more "intelligent". Size is limited by the skull, and the skull can't be too big for obvious anatomical and biomechanical reasons. I've heard of burial sites of neanderthal origin, but that doesn't mean anything about brain size vs "intelligence" other than that they developed emotional and higher level cognitive centers in the brain.
On November 20 2010 07:04 LunaBrightStar wrote: I'm female, I love to play Starcraft, and I'm not bad at it.
But the answer why there are not many female gamers is very simple. Most of them just don't like to play games. That's it. It's the same with cheerleading, dancing, design & fashion. It's not like men aren't good in those things, they just aren't interested in those things too much.
It has nothing to do with lack of talent or competitive spirit, the reason why girls don't do as good as men is simpley because there are less female gamers, it's the same in chess.
Tim Gunn would beg to differ with the bolded parts.
In general I agree with your assertion, but I think most reasonable adults here came to the conclusion that it wasn't as though girl gamers are less common because they're worse at it. It was, in fact, exactly what you are saying. They just aren't interested in it. I don't think there is a person here who would disagree that women are extremely competitive, if only in social pecking order.
Most of the discussion here, then is why aren't they interested in it? Why are some things interesting to compete at for women, but not others - same question for men? The answer is probably much more subtle than what most people here are proposing.
Edit: and yes, there are people here who were saying that women are inherently worse at gaming and less capable and some other laundry list of things that likely epitomizes their frustration at all that is feminine. But please, do try to ignore them.
This thread has way too many stereotypes that can be dis-proven, in actuality it all depends on the person and their dedication towards gaming.
One of the best gamers I know (hafu) happens to be a female, for some reason she's just innately or magically fucking good at anything involving hand-eye coordination.
In essense high level gaming requires 3 abilities - dexterous hand-eye coordination, dedication with higher learning curve, ability to adapt or problem solve. Obviously this equals intelligence and in some cases talent, but I frankly recall that every person has the ability to be good at video games if they have true confidence in themselves.
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
i think natural selection pretty much covers men being biologically more competitive.
Yea...no. Sexual selection would seem to go both ways in homo sapiens.
On November 20 2010 04:21 mcc wrote:
On November 20 2010 03:59 fush wrote:
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
I like how you say things with such conviction, it's a good trait to have
The paper you've provided is an interesting piece of work, but the methodology is a bit weird. My big problem with it is that the children are not naïve to this procedure, and it’s plainly stated in the methods but not elaborated on. If they’ve been through these races before and are aware of the faster/slower children, you can’t argue that the effects seen are based on intrinsic motivation or competitiveness. For example, you can argue that there is no motivation for the girl to run faster against another boy or girl in the absence of any offered compensation if they may have known from previous experience that the other kid will always come out ahead.
It is not like it is the only paper about this(google for more I found about 20 saying this easily, the only thing they actually argue about is the nature vs nurture thing), I just picked it because it had some interesting insights apart from confirming my point. But your criticism is kind of empty, because they tested different groups with different gender makeup and if your objection was true, why was this effect not observed on boys.
Well if my objection is true, it doesn't matter that the effect is not seen in boys, the method is systematically flawed and not designed to accurately measure these differences.
This is the only direct comparison between male and female "competitiveness" in a medical journal... based on questionnaires. Here's the abstract (bolded my point): + Show Spoiler +
Br J Soc Psychol. 1998 Jun;37 ( Pt 2):213-29. Are men more competitive than women? Cashdan E. King's College Research Centre, Cambridge, UK.
This study uses competition diaries to see whether women and men differ in (a) what they compete over, (b) whom they compete with, and (c) their competitive tactics, including use of aggression. In Study 1, university students kept diaries of their competitive interactions during the term. Sex differences, few overall, were as follows: (a) men's diaries contained more same-sex competition, (b) women competed more about looking attractive whereas men competed more about sports, and (c) men used physical (but not verbal) aggression more frequently than women. In Study 2 strength of competition was also measured by questionnaire. Women and men felt equally competitive overall, but men felt more competitive about athletics and sexual attention whereas women felt more competitive about looking attractive. In men, but not women, competitiveness for financial success was correlated with various aspects of mating competition. Young men were more competitive than older men in a variety of domains and were also more physically and verbally aggressive, but no age difference in aggression was found for women.
On November 20 2010 07:10 ganjazerg wrote: how can people deny these following facts
1. men are more competitive in nature than women
2. men are better strategic thinkers than women
3. starcraft does infact require "intelligence"
honestly the amount of people stating the opposite is surprising...
1. as several people mentioned, this is simple evolutionary biology. men compete, and brag with their victories. men have a natural impulse to compete with eachother, in every imaginable way. boys play soccer, girls play with dolls. that's just the way it has always been. and anyone claiming it's only due to cultural indoctrination is either deluded or not educated enough to understand the concept of evolution.
2. i'm not talking about sports, men's physical superiority is not up for debate (anyone denying this i simply cannot take seriously). i'm talking about the ability to abstract, think efficience-oriented and plan long-term. i used chess as an example in a previous post and its a perfect example. the fact that women can't compete with men in chess proves this point. it's also a fact that the requirements to be an above-average sc player, are similar to the requirements of being an above-average chess player.
3. "you don't need to be bright to be good at starcraft" is just plain bullshit. you definitely DO need to be bright. what are you doing, if not constantly obtaining and processing information? calculating probabilities and possibilities? adapting and making decisions under pressure?
do you know this feeling when you are about to engage in a game-deciding battle, and you KNOW your positioning is very bad, and you KNOW you could retreat with minimal losses and force a fight with way better positioning, but in your mind you are like "meh lets get it over with"? and then you engage the battle, and lose the game. what just happened was... you got lazy. you got lazy because starcraft on a high level is mentally exhausting. it requires mental stamina, just like chess.
Wow, you sure are ready to put down people who have obviously given more thought into this than you. There are so many flaws in your long version arguments that I don't know where to begin. I won't even bother unless you feel the need to ask for specifics... but let me get this straight...
1. men are more competitive because of simple evolutionary biology (false), because they play soccer (lol), and females are less competitive because they play with dolls (lol). 2. physical superiority not for debate (okay), ability to think abstract, think efficiently, plan long term... based on sample size of women not competing with men in chess (lol). above average sc player require similar skillset of above average chess player (let's ask how pro tyler, incontrol, idra and the likes are at chess shall we?) 3. with this point, are you implying that because you need to be intelligent to play SC, since there are fewer women in SC, that men are more "intelligent" than women? ouch.
i get it though, you're probably pretty good at chess, kudos.
On November 20 2010 05:22 fush wrote: As for your obsession in male superiority over women in competitive sport – which in our society seems to be inherently correlated with physical ability, then of course males outperform females. Why don’t you look less in sport and more in a wider scope of activities? Can you honestly tell me that males are outperforming females in academia?
Depends what you mean outperforming. As far as top scientists and mathematicians go (and I mean hard sciences) yes they are, as someone already pointed out, there are more geniuses among men, but also more morons.
I'll ask the same questions.
What is a genius? Number of publications? Impact on current knowledge and theory? Who designates that someone is a genius? Men? Women? What fields are they "geniuses" in? Physics and Mathematics are hard sciences, but there are other natural sciences that are larger fields and more balanced. When did this genius count begin? Are we looking at Newtonian times? Darwinian times? Or more modern times? I believe the ratio may be more even the closer to the present we look.
Unlike your statement that IQ is not used in science and considered joke, it is used, and there is no problem with it if it is used knowing limitations it has. So one measure of genius could be high IQ. You could propose other measures, but that does not really matter. Also nice picking some fields and discounting others.
Also, I don't think many people posted about this on TL, but there was a very decent female SC2 player at MLG DC. I'm not going to post her name for her privacy because I know she was trying to be anonymous as possible when she was in the tournament, but she had decent APM and was impressive watching her play - edit: she posted in this thread, she's a 2000+ rated player named Shiver.
Good SC2 female players are out there, but in this sexist gaming environment a lot of females wish to stay anonymous or away of the eyes of trolls.
On November 20 2010 07:37 trancey wrote: Also, I don't think many people posted about this on TL, but there was a very decent female SC2 player at MLG DC. I'm not going to post her name for her privacy because I know she was trying to be anonymous as possible when she was in the tournament, but she had decent APM and was impressive watching her play - she was roughly a 1500 rated random player, but I'll leave the details at that.
Good SC2 female players are out there, but in this sexist gaming environment a lot of females wish to stay anonymous or away of the eyes of trolls.
if millies pwns me I'm gonna cry so fucking hard.
and I meant to quote your first post. No idea who the anon fem was at DC.
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
i think natural selection pretty much covers men being biologically more competitive.
Yes it seems so, but the problem is proving it. Oftentimes in evolutionary biology things that seem reasonable are not so easily proven and sometimes the logic behind that reasoning is full of holes and even false. So yes, evolutionary argument is a good one I think in this case, but you need more supporting evidence.
Why not disregard evolution as a whole then. lets go with creationalism.
Try to learn some written text comprehension lessons, it might help you, since it seems you fail at that. I have not uttered even a word against evolution. I said that it often happens (especially to people that are not biologists) that they use evolutionary explanation that is in fact false or the logic is so full of unfounded assumptions that it cannot be taken seriously.
On November 20 2010 05:04 LolnoobInsanity wrote: You say that there's no inherent disadvantage "like chess" yet there are male and female chess leagues, and the top male chess player is always better than the top female chess player.
Throwing around those features of the chess world as "proof" of inherent disadvantage is faulty reasoning.
This is because of differences in participation. Let's say the ratio of serious male chess players to serious female chess players is about 10:1. As for how you define a "serious chess player," let's say, very roughly, it is someone who spends most, or a significant amount, of their free time practicing or studying chess, with the goal of competing in tournaments.
If both male and female populations of serious chess players have a standard distribution of skill, they can have the same average skill level--i.e. suggesting no inherent disadvantage--and you'll still see WAY more men at the top level.
To even compete with nationally-known players, you probably have to be in the top 0.1%, and just statistically speaking, if there are ten times as many men than women in the category of "serious chess players," then this difference will be EVEN MORE pronounced in the top 0.1%.
TL;DR Based on their relative levels of participation in chess/SC2, we would expect to see about as many top female players as we currently do, if we assume identical inherent ability/potential.
A lack of top female SC2 or chess players would only argue in favor of some gap in innate ability if the levels of participation were close to even, and they're not at all.
*Why* participation levels differ is a separate issue; I think Peanut addressed this question very well in her post.
Actually there is deficiency of women at the absolute top even if we consider participation. And it actually is so in many activities.
I'm not saying that if participation was 50-50, we'd definitely have just as many female pro-gamers as male pro-gamers. No one could possibly know if this would be true. But I think it's reasonable to assume that we'd see a whole hell of a lot more.
The main point I was trying to make is that given current participation levels, the relative lack of female pro-gamers (or top chess players) really doesn't indicate anything, one way or another.
And my main point was also not that women are worse at SC, I actually don't know, because I don't think anyone knows, I am open to all three possibilities. Main point was that the reasons behind lack of women participation might actually not be societal, therefore here to stay.
1. as several people mentioned, this is simple evolutionary biology. men compete, and brag with their victories. men have a natural impulse to compete with eachother, in every imaginable way. boys play soccer, girls play with dolls. that's just the way it has always been. and anyone claiming it's only due to cultural indoctrination is either deluded or not educated enough to understand the concept of evolution.
2. i'm not talking about sports, men's physical superiority is not up for debate (anyone denying this i simply cannot take seriously). i'm talking about the ability to abstract, think efficience-oriented and plan long-term. i used chess as an example in a previous post and its a perfect example. the fact that women can't compete with men in chess proves this point. it's also a fact that the requirements to be an above-average sc player, are similar to the requirements of being an above-average chess player.
3. "you don't need to be bright to be good at starcraft" is just plain bullshit. you definitely DO need to be bright. what are you doing, if not constantly obtaining and processing information? calculating probabilities and possibilities? adapting and making decisions under pressure?
do you know this feeling when you are about to engage in a game-deciding battle, and you KNOW your positioning is very bad, and you KNOW you could retreat with minimal losses and force a fight with way better positioning, but in your mind you are like "meh lets get it over with"? and then you engage the battle, and lose the game. what just happened was... you got lazy. you got lazy because starcraft on a high level is mentally exhausting. it requires mental stamina, just like chess.
Your only chance for supporting 1 and 2 is arguing by gender, not by sex. Gender meaning "the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex" and sex meaning biologically male or female. There is no significant scientific evidence supporting the claims that men are more competitive than women or men are better "strategic thinkers" than women. If those things are true, it's because of cultural/behavioral/psychological traits -- how we raise boys and how we raise girls.
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: [quote] Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
On November 20 2010 03:25 Zyphen wrote: You guys talking about nature/nurture are really getting into a tangential debate. Women, as a group, are just less competitive period. That's the reason why there aren't more top female gamers, chess masters, race car drivers, etc (basically anything that doesn't require being physically gifted).
The few women that do make it don't prove anything about the rest. It's called anecdotal evidence. Sure, a woman COULD do it, but that's not the question. The lack of female gamers, as a whole, is because they lack competitiveness in games involving direct confrontation. Whether the few that do well possess an extra chromosome or were raised as tomboys seems superfluous to the argument.
Women as a group are less competitive... interesting conclusion based on what? Your examples are all full of crap because they're all fields that have been typically male dominated and not encouraged for women to do in society. I'm not denying there's differences biologically between genders... it's what I study for a living.
But the wannabe scientists here saying how females "don't have" testosterone (which they do) probably don't even know its effects in cognition, because guess what... no one does. So how about a suggestion, before you pull out some hair-brained idea of how you think females are less innately "competitive" or whatever, get a clue.
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how I don't CARE whether it's nature or nurture that's the culprit for any behavorial differences. The facts are that they exist.
And you're asking me for proof? Really? It's already accepted fact that women are under-represented in starcraft 2 and just about every other competitive event listed in this thread. I think your position is the one that's more indefensible. The burden should lie with you. How about this. Find me a single instance of a direct competitive game/sport where women are equally represented at the top tier as men (i.e. they don't form their own separate league, actually play with and BEAT the boys, you look at a tournament bracket - half are women, half the time they even win it, etc.).
It'll take me longer to list all the things men dominate than for you to squeeze out that one exception (which, honestly, I'm dying to know).
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how you simply stated that women were less competitive, not about whether other biological differences exist. If you bothered to read on, it also mentioned that WHILE these biological differences exist, they haven’t been shown to have anything to do with better performance in a game like SC2. Why don’t you look in gender differences in attention, visual/spatial cognition, motor control and see if you can come up with an answer to that. But I can save you some time now and tell you that there is no evidence that would point one way or another.
Asking for proof was to the poster I quoted above, he has given me a draft of a paper and I’ll read it when I’m off work.
As for your obsession in male superiority over women in competitive sport – which in our society seems to be inherently correlated with physical ability, then of course males outperform females. Why don’t you look less in sport and more in a wider scope of activities? Can you honestly tell me that males are outperforming females in academia?
And I've posted twice stating that I don't really give a rat's ass as to the explanation of why females are less competitive. Would it be less offensive to your sensiblities if I instead stated that males are more competitive?
How is academia a direct competition? I don't really care about your other arguments with other posters. Stay on point. And I specifically said ANY directly competitive event (as in there's a winner and a loser) with tournaments. Forget sports.
The facts are, women are under-represented relative to their population size in virtually all directly competitive events. Sorry the truth offended you. I simply stated it. And then I said the explanation is an entirely separate argument. That might have gotten through your thick head if you didn't jump at my posts like a rabid wolverine.
Getting pretty defensive now aren't we? Let's not forget you're the one throwing insults at me, not the other way around. You don't give a crap why females are less competitive, but you simply state it without any proof? Well that's certainly convincing. What I'm implying here about your argument through sarcasm is also a fact.
Academia is not direct competition? Lol. Seems like you know nothing about it and you probably won't read my explanation anyways.
You also state again that women are under-represented in all competitive events, but yet you challenge me to name them. Hey, I'm not the one stating random "factoids" here, you're the one who needs to back that up with some actual events.
Some cognitive dissonance here? You perceive insult and then find nothing wrong with calling me "full of crap". Then you presume to know anything about me.
Yes, I can see how you would love to broaden my narrow definition of what it means to be competitive in starcraft 2. It would push me neatly into a corner where I would have to accept academia, love, and fashion as things where girls can be competitive. But how is that applicable exactly? It gets into a semantics argument that completely derails from the original intent of the OP.
Since you insist, here are some events similar to Starcraft that females have no physical barrier to entry for: Chess, Weiqi(Go), Poker, Billiards, Archery, Competitive Shooting, Auto racing, Curling, Majong, Croquet, Marbles, Ballooning, Bowling, Motorboat racing, Horse Racing, all other video games w/ tournament scene.
You'll probably ask for a more complete list but you'll have to be satisfied w/ the above since I'm not in the habit of arguing w/ people that obviously aren't going to concede cornerstone points by basically asking:
1)What do I mean by being competitive in the current context? 2)What are all these things that women can't compete in?
Question number 2 seems to be just out of spite since if you weren't aware of such things, you wouldn't even bother saying they're "male dominated" in the first place. Doesn't that in of itself imply under-representation of females?
But sir, your statement was "Women, as a group, are just less competitive period." All I asked for were facts that back your assertion. You have provided none.
Your definition of "competitive" seems to be performance in something with a winner and a loser - okay. You listed all those things, most having to do with physical exertion - okay. Do you have direct interactions in these events between men and women showing significantly better performance in men? Please show me. Otherwise, you can't say women are "less competitive" based on your definition of the word "competitive". Period.
My definition of competitive if you're talking in an innate sense (which was what my original post was referring to) is not tournaments or winning or losing. It's the motivation to perform better than others. Has anyone in the world offered convincing and definitive results that would prove women have less of this motivation? Don't think so.
Now you can sidestep this all you want, but perhaps you should realize that you are accountable for what you say. And what you said (as I've quoted in my first sentence) was complete garbage.
Yes, I see you're the type of person that will ask me to prove 1+1=2 before I can go on to 2+1=3. It's fair, it's fair. But I have neither the time nor inclination to write a proper research paper with proper headings and sources and wait for your critique of my methodology.
This is a message board. I offered my OPINION backed up by what I thought were commonly accepted "factoids" (as you call them). But since you don't accept any of them, then I suppose it's up to me to dig and try to convince you otherwise. But here's the rub: I don't really care to. Yes, I realize I've committed the horrible crime of offering an assertion without proper annotated evidence but my original intent wasn't to get into a drawn out debate but simply offer my thoughts.
So, I'll concede to you. I haven't proven anything and I probably won't even try. Good day to you sir.
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
i think natural selection pretty much covers men being biologically more competitive.
Yea...no. Sexual selection would seem to go both ways in homo sapiens.
Well first of all what youre thinking is a very modern development. Second of all general consensus is that this development in fact works against natural selection as the less intelligent women tend to become better spouses and produce more offsprings.
No, there is no general consensus that women are dumb creatures and men are smart creatures due to natural selection. That is literally the dumbest and most vile thing I've read on this forum recently; the comment alone disproves your assertion. Relegate your 1800's mentality to someplace else.
Do mods find it appropriate to spout overt and unfounded sexism under the guise of science? If not, can he please get a warning.
Yea I've been in science for years and never seemed to have heard of or reached such a conclusion that intelligence is inversely correlated with the ability to produce offspring.
I dont see how that relates to any of my posts.
"Second of all general consensus is that this development in fact works against natural selection as the less intelligent women tend to become better spouses and produce more offsprings."
On November 20 2010 05:04 LolnoobInsanity wrote: You say that there's no inherent disadvantage "like chess" yet there are male and female chess leagues, and the top male chess player is always better than the top female chess player.
That statement can be backed up pretty heavily by most researches and statistics. By design, males are better are pattern-recognition and logical thinking; Add to that the globally demonstrated statistic that males have an average IQ 9 points higher than females and you get the picture.
I've read studies that show the opposite is true. Please link this study to your comment. From what I've read about that it was based on the fact that there is more men in genius bracket than women. But that doesn't effect the average because there are lots more men it the mentally handicapped catagory. It averages out the same but men have more intelligence in the extremes. http://www.aboutintelligence.co.uk/who-smarter-men-women.html
That website has no sources. What (and most importantly WHO - were they male? ) defines a "genius"? When was this genius count started?
IQ is a joke in the academic field, so let's not talk about that. Brain matter doesn't equal intelligence - neanderthals had larger brains than we did - food for thought.
That website is the cource. A genius is a individual with an IQ above 150. It was probibly started around the 1940s when the phycological feild became very serious about empirical evidence.
IQ (a percent compaired to the average human's intelligence) is constantly evolving and the scientific community has been constantly trying to mesure it better. Its not perfect now but its much better then its historically. So although IQ test results might not matter that much the concept is still very importiant. Brain matter is also very importiant for intelligence as there has to be a critical mass of it for intelligence to exist. What is more importiant is how the neurons are connected aka how dence the axons between the brain cells are. Neanderthals might have had 10% bigger brains and have gone extinct 100 000s of years ago but more food for thought is there is evidence that they were a much more civilized and peaceful culture than the humans of the time. Mended bones that could only result from others taking care of the sick have been found in much older neanderthal bones than homo sepien ones.
Touche on the IQ tests, I'm sure they're working on it. As is, tests for "intelligence" is outdated. There are too many variables and too many different "intelligences" to be aptly measured by a single - or even dozens of tests.
Don't agree with the rest though, you seem to have at least some understanding in how the brain works but size doesn't matter. You're right about connections but it's not the number of connections at all - rather the appropriate connections need to be made. We have many times more connections and neurons to boot when we're fetuses than we do in adulthood, but that doesn't mean fetuses are more "intelligent". Size is limited by the skull, and the skull can't be too big for obvious anatomical and biomechanical reasons. I've heard of burial sites of neanderthal origin, but that doesn't mean anything about brain size vs "intelligence" other than that they developed emotional and higher level cognitive centers in the brain.
The more brain cells the higher the potential for intelligence. I'm sure you could fit the same intelligence in a brain half the size if the cells were wired well enough but there is limits. There is no way you could get a human to function at high levels with a brain the size of a rat. I'm not saying there is a direct compairson between brain size and intellect but just the larger the surface area of the brain the higher the potential to encode thought.
On November 20 2010 07:37 trancey wrote: Also, I don't think many people posted about this on TL, but there was a very decent female SC2 player at MLG DC. I'm not going to post her name for her privacy because I know she was trying to be anonymous as possible when she was in the tournament, but she had decent APM and was impressive watching her play - she was roughly a 1500 rated random player, but I'll leave the details at that.
Good SC2 female players are out there, but in this sexist gaming environment a lot of females wish to stay anonymous or away of the eyes of trolls.
Shiver has posted on this subject a few times (and she was 2k+ diamond):
We are not raised the same way you are. When was the last time you saw a 6 year old girl given a chemistry or erector set for her birthday or Christmas? What do you think promotes more healthy brain development? A barbie doll, (which we are then told is how we are supposed to look like), or a K'nex set?
It's my belief that we have just as much *potential* as far as esports go. But as long as society tells us that our looks are our most important asset, or that games are for boys, or that competition isn't "feminine"... then we're obviously not going to perform as well.
You've got to realize that a lot of girls are actively *discouraged* from playing video or computer games.
I feel it's pretty unfair to say that we're somehow inherently worse at certain things, when we are raised to avoid them. Until society changes, you are probably not going to see a lot of competitive female players.
I think it's more that gaming in general is less appealing to women => much less women play => much less good, or even decent female players exist. The females that could potentially be amazing at SC choose not to play SC.
1. as several people mentioned, this is simple evolutionary biology. men compete, and brag with their victories. men have a natural impulse to compete with eachother, in every imaginable way. boys play soccer, girls play with dolls. that's just the way it has always been. and anyone claiming it's only due to cultural indoctrination is either deluded or not educated enough to understand the concept of evolution.
2. i'm not talking about sports, men's physical superiority is not up for debate (anyone denying this i simply cannot take seriously). i'm talking about the ability to abstract, think efficience-oriented and plan long-term. i used chess as an example in a previous post and its a perfect example. the fact that women can't compete with men in chess proves this point. it's also a fact that the requirements to be an above-average sc player, are similar to the requirements of being an above-average chess player.
3. "you don't need to be bright to be good at starcraft" is just plain bullshit. you definitely DO need to be bright. what are you doing, if not constantly obtaining and processing information? calculating probabilities and possibilities? adapting and making decisions under pressure?
do you know this feeling when you are about to engage in a game-deciding battle, and you KNOW your positioning is very bad, and you KNOW you could retreat with minimal losses and force a fight with way better positioning, but in your mind you are like "meh lets get it over with"? and then you engage the battle, and lose the game. what just happened was... you got lazy. you got lazy because starcraft on a high level is mentally exhausting. it requires mental stamina, just like chess.
Wow then by your standards you must be a girl because you are a dumbfuck.
How many women play chess? Hm? Is it because they cant or just dont want too? Women dont seem to be completive i give you that. That is why they could care less about gaming too, Its simple because there is so few women that give a shit about games and work harder in other things.
Hey? Dont most top end colleges have a majority of women? Your argument is pathetic
The real secret is that Girls play Protoss !!! (like Tossgirl, and that girl we saw in artosises video). And,as we all know, There are almost no Toss players in GSL !
On November 20 2010 07:52 Gotmog wrote: The real secret is that Girls play Protoss !!! (like Tossgirl, and that girl we saw in artosises video). And,as we all know, There are almost no Toss players in GSL !
On November 20 2010 07:52 Gotmog wrote: The real secret is that Girls play Protoss !!! (like Tossgirl, and that girl we saw in artosises video). And,as we all know, There are almost no Toss players in GSL !
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
[quote]
Women as a group are less competitive... interesting conclusion based on what? Your examples are all full of crap because they're all fields that have been typically male dominated and not encouraged for women to do in society. I'm not denying there's differences biologically between genders... it's what I study for a living.
But the wannabe scientists here saying how females "don't have" testosterone (which they do) probably don't even know its effects in cognition, because guess what... no one does. So how about a suggestion, before you pull out some hair-brained idea of how you think females are less innately "competitive" or whatever, get a clue.
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how I don't CARE whether it's nature or nurture that's the culprit for any behavorial differences. The facts are that they exist.
And you're asking me for proof? Really? It's already accepted fact that women are under-represented in starcraft 2 and just about every other competitive event listed in this thread. I think your position is the one that's more indefensible. The burden should lie with you. How about this. Find me a single instance of a direct competitive game/sport where women are equally represented at the top tier as men (i.e. they don't form their own separate league, actually play with and BEAT the boys, you look at a tournament bracket - half are women, half the time they even win it, etc.).
It'll take me longer to list all the things men dominate than for you to squeeze out that one exception (which, honestly, I'm dying to know).
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how you simply stated that women were less competitive, not about whether other biological differences exist. If you bothered to read on, it also mentioned that WHILE these biological differences exist, they haven’t been shown to have anything to do with better performance in a game like SC2. Why don’t you look in gender differences in attention, visual/spatial cognition, motor control and see if you can come up with an answer to that. But I can save you some time now and tell you that there is no evidence that would point one way or another.
Asking for proof was to the poster I quoted above, he has given me a draft of a paper and I’ll read it when I’m off work.
As for your obsession in male superiority over women in competitive sport – which in our society seems to be inherently correlated with physical ability, then of course males outperform females. Why don’t you look less in sport and more in a wider scope of activities? Can you honestly tell me that males are outperforming females in academia?
And I've posted twice stating that I don't really give a rat's ass as to the explanation of why females are less competitive. Would it be less offensive to your sensiblities if I instead stated that males are more competitive?
How is academia a direct competition? I don't really care about your other arguments with other posters. Stay on point. And I specifically said ANY directly competitive event (as in there's a winner and a loser) with tournaments. Forget sports.
The facts are, women are under-represented relative to their population size in virtually all directly competitive events. Sorry the truth offended you. I simply stated it. And then I said the explanation is an entirely separate argument. That might have gotten through your thick head if you didn't jump at my posts like a rabid wolverine.
Getting pretty defensive now aren't we? Let's not forget you're the one throwing insults at me, not the other way around. You don't give a crap why females are less competitive, but you simply state it without any proof? Well that's certainly convincing. What I'm implying here about your argument through sarcasm is also a fact.
Academia is not direct competition? Lol. Seems like you know nothing about it and you probably won't read my explanation anyways.
You also state again that women are under-represented in all competitive events, but yet you challenge me to name them. Hey, I'm not the one stating random "factoids" here, you're the one who needs to back that up with some actual events.
Some cognitive dissonance here? You perceive insult and then find nothing wrong with calling me "full of crap". Then you presume to know anything about me.
Yes, I can see how you would love to broaden my narrow definition of what it means to be competitive in starcraft 2. It would push me neatly into a corner where I would have to accept academia, love, and fashion as things where girls can be competitive. But how is that applicable exactly? It gets into a semantics argument that completely derails from the original intent of the OP.
Since you insist, here are some events similar to Starcraft that females have no physical barrier to entry for: Chess, Weiqi(Go), Poker, Billiards, Archery, Competitive Shooting, Auto racing, Curling, Majong, Croquet, Marbles, Ballooning, Bowling, Motorboat racing, Horse Racing, all other video games w/ tournament scene.
You'll probably ask for a more complete list but you'll have to be satisfied w/ the above since I'm not in the habit of arguing w/ people that obviously aren't going to concede cornerstone points by basically asking:
1)What do I mean by being competitive in the current context? 2)What are all these things that women can't compete in?
Question number 2 seems to be just out of spite since if you weren't aware of such things, you wouldn't even bother saying they're "male dominated" in the first place. Doesn't that in of itself imply under-representation of females?
But sir, your statement was "Women, as a group, are just less competitive period." All I asked for were facts that back your assertion. You have provided none.
Your definition of "competitive" seems to be performance in something with a winner and a loser - okay. You listed all those things, most having to do with physical exertion - okay. Do you have direct interactions in these events between men and women showing significantly better performance in men? Please show me. Otherwise, you can't say women are "less competitive" based on your definition of the word "competitive". Period.
My definition of competitive if you're talking in an innate sense (which was what my original post was referring to) is not tournaments or winning or losing. It's the motivation to perform better than others. Has anyone in the world offered convincing and definitive results that would prove women have less of this motivation? Don't think so.
Now you can sidestep this all you want, but perhaps you should realize that you are accountable for what you say. And what you said (as I've quoted in my first sentence) was complete garbage.
Yes, I see you're the type of person that will ask me to prove 1+1=2 before I can go on to 2+1=3. It's fair, it's fair. But I have neither the time nor inclination to write a proper research paper with proper headings and sources and wait for your critique of my methodology.
This is a message board. I offered my OPINION backed up by what I thought were commonly accepted "factoids" (as you call them). But since you don't accept any of them, then I suppose it's up to me to dig and try to convince you otherwise. But here's the rub: I don't really care to. Yes, I realize I've committed the horrible crime of offering an assertion without proper annotated evidence but my original intent wasn't to get into a drawn out debate but simply offer my thoughts.
So, I'll concede to you. I haven't proven anything and I probably won't even try. Good day to you sir.
Fixed that minor typo for you.
On November 20 2010 07:00 Sfydjklm wrote:
On November 20 2010 06:32 fush wrote:
On November 20 2010 06:22 _Darwin_ wrote:
On November 20 2010 06:14 Sfydjklm wrote:
On November 20 2010 05:50 fush wrote:
On November 20 2010 05:14 Sfydjklm wrote:
On November 20 2010 04:21 mcc wrote:
On November 20 2010 03:59 fush wrote: [quote]
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
i think natural selection pretty much covers men being biologically more competitive.
Yea...no. Sexual selection would seem to go both ways in homo sapiens.
Well first of all what youre thinking is a very modern development. Second of all general consensus is that this development in fact works against natural selection as the less intelligent women tend to become better spouses and produce more offsprings.
No, there is no general consensus that women are dumb creatures and men are smart creatures due to natural selection. That is literally the dumbest and most vile thing I've read on this forum recently; the comment alone disproves your assertion. Relegate your 1800's mentality to someplace else.
Do mods find it appropriate to spout overt and unfounded sexism under the guise of science? If not, can he please get a warning.
Yea I've been in science for years and never seemed to have heard of or reached such a conclusion that intelligence is inversely correlated with the ability to produce offspring.
I dont see how that relates to any of my posts.
"Second of all general consensus is that this development in fact works against natural selection as the less intelligent women tend to become better spouses and produce more offsprings."
On November 20 2010 07:01 SCdinner wrote:
On November 20 2010 06:37 fush wrote:
On November 20 2010 06:32 SCdinner wrote:
On November 20 2010 05:28 Shinkugami wrote:
On November 20 2010 05:04 LolnoobInsanity wrote: You say that there's no inherent disadvantage "like chess" yet there are male and female chess leagues, and the top male chess player is always better than the top female chess player.
That statement can be backed up pretty heavily by most researches and statistics. By design, males are better are pattern-recognition and logical thinking; Add to that the globally demonstrated statistic that males have an average IQ 9 points higher than females and you get the picture.
I've read studies that show the opposite is true. Please link this study to your comment. From what I've read about that it was based on the fact that there is more men in genius bracket than women. But that doesn't effect the average because there are lots more men it the mentally handicapped catagory. It averages out the same but men have more intelligence in the extremes. http://www.aboutintelligence.co.uk/who-smarter-men-women.html
That website has no sources. What (and most importantly WHO - were they male? ) defines a "genius"? When was this genius count started?
IQ is a joke in the academic field, so let's not talk about that. Brain matter doesn't equal intelligence - neanderthals had larger brains than we did - food for thought.
That website is the cource. A genius is a individual with an IQ above 150. It was probibly started around the 1940s when the phycological feild became very serious about empirical evidence.
IQ (a percent compaired to the average human's intelligence) is constantly evolving and the scientific community has been constantly trying to mesure it better. Its not perfect now but its much better then its historically. So although IQ test results might not matter that much the concept is still very importiant. Brain matter is also very importiant for intelligence as there has to be a critical mass of it for intelligence to exist. What is more importiant is how the neurons are connected aka how dence the axons between the brain cells are. Neanderthals might have had 10% bigger brains and have gone extinct 100 000s of years ago but more food for thought is there is evidence that they were a much more civilized and peaceful culture than the humans of the time. Mended bones that could only result from others taking care of the sick have been found in much older neanderthal bones than homo sepien ones.
Touche on the IQ tests, I'm sure they're working on it. As is, tests for "intelligence" is outdated. There are too many variables and too many different "intelligences" to be aptly measured by a single - or even dozens of tests.
Don't agree with the rest though, you seem to have at least some understanding in how the brain works but size doesn't matter. You're right about connections but it's not the number of connections at all - rather the appropriate connections need to be made. We have many times more connections and neurons to boot when we're fetuses than we do in adulthood, but that doesn't mean fetuses are more "intelligent". Size is limited by the skull, and the skull can't be too big for obvious anatomical and biomechanical reasons. I've heard of burial sites of neanderthal origin, but that doesn't mean anything about brain size vs "intelligence" other than that they developed emotional and higher level cognitive centers in the brain.
The more brain cells the higher the potential for intelligence. I'm sure you could fit the same intelligence in a brain half the size if the cells were wired well enough but there is limits. There is no way you could get a human to function at high levels with a brain the size of a rat. I'm not saying there is a direct compairson between brain size and intellect but just the larger the surface area of the brain the higher the potential to encode thought.
Okay, I really don't know about this "potential". Maybe it's possible, but it will take tens of thousands of years before any of this potential is realized in our phenotype, so we won't have to worry about that for now
1. as several people mentioned, this is simple evolutionary biology. men compete, and brag with their victories. men have a natural impulse to compete with eachother, in every imaginable way. boys play soccer, girls play with dolls. that's just the way it has always been. and anyone claiming it's only due to cultural indoctrination is either deluded or not educated enough to understand the concept of evolution.
2. i'm not talking about sports, men's physical superiority is not up for debate (anyone denying this i simply cannot take seriously). i'm talking about the ability to abstract, think efficience-oriented and plan long-term. i used chess as an example in a previous post and its a perfect example. the fact that women can't compete with men in chess proves this point. it's also a fact that the requirements to be an above-average sc player, are similar to the requirements of being an above-average chess player.
3. "you don't need to be bright to be good at starcraft" is just plain bullshit. you definitely DO need to be bright. what are you doing, if not constantly obtaining and processing information? calculating probabilities and possibilities? adapting and making decisions under pressure?
do you know this feeling when you are about to engage in a game-deciding battle, and you KNOW your positioning is very bad, and you KNOW you could retreat with minimal losses and force a fight with way better positioning, but in your mind you are like "meh lets get it over with"? and then you engage the battle, and lose the game. what just happened was... you got lazy. you got lazy because starcraft on a high level is mentally exhausting. it requires mental stamina, just like chess.
Your only chance for supporting 1 and 2 is arguing by gender, not by sex. Gender meaning "the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex" and sex meaning biologically male or female. There is no significant scientific evidence supporting the claims that men are more competitive than women or men are better "strategic thinkers" than women. If those things are true, it's because of cultural/behavioral/psychological traits -- how we raise boys and how we raise girls.
Thank you (and many others) for a refreshing dose of sanity.
On November 20 2010 07:32 fush wrote: Well if my objection is true, it doesn't matter that the effect is not seen in boys, the method is systematically flawed and not designed to accurately measure these differences.
This is the only direct comparison between male and female "competitiveness" in a medical journal... based on questionnaires. Here's the abstract (bolded my point): + Show Spoiler +
Br J Soc Psychol. 1998 Jun;37 ( Pt 2):213-29. Are men more competitive than women? Cashdan E. King's College Research Centre, Cambridge, UK.
This study uses competition diaries to see whether women and men differ in (a) what they compete over, (b) whom they compete with, and (c) their competitive tactics, including use of aggression. In Study 1, university students kept diaries of their competitive interactions during the term. Sex differences, few overall, were as follows: (a) men's diaries contained more same-sex competition, (b) women competed more about looking attractive whereas men competed more about sports, and (c) men used physical (but not verbal) aggression more frequently than women. In Study 2 strength of competition was also measured by questionnaire. Women and men felt equally competitive overall, but men felt more competitive about athletics and sexual attention whereas women felt more competitive about looking attractive. In men, but not women, competitiveness for financial success was correlated with various aspects of mating competition. Young men were more competitive than older men in a variety of domains and were also more physically and verbally aggressive, but no age difference in aggression was found for women.
I said that your objection is in fact not true, and even if it was then if the boys don't display this effect they are in fact more competitive, because they are not deterred even by this knowledge that deters girl from competing.
Also you are questioning methodology of that study while presenting this one As I said google is your friend (of course you need some critical judgement to filter things google throws at you) and if you really do not want to I will post you links, but it's no like this is some obscure controversial finding. What is unsure is how nature vs society works in this.
1. as several people mentioned, this is simple evolutionary biology. men compete, and brag with their victories. men have a natural impulse to compete with eachother, in every imaginable way. boys play soccer, girls play with dolls. that's just the way it has always been. and anyone claiming it's only due to cultural indoctrination is either deluded or not educated enough to understand the concept of evolution.
2. i'm not talking about sports, men's physical superiority is not up for debate (anyone denying this i simply cannot take seriously). i'm talking about the ability to abstract, think efficience-oriented and plan long-term. i used chess as an example in a previous post and its a perfect example. the fact that women can't compete with men in chess proves this point. it's also a fact that the requirements to be an above-average sc player, are similar to the requirements of being an above-average chess player.
3. "you don't need to be bright to be good at starcraft" is just plain bullshit. you definitely DO need to be bright. what are you doing, if not constantly obtaining and processing information? calculating probabilities and possibilities? adapting and making decisions under pressure?
do you know this feeling when you are about to engage in a game-deciding battle, and you KNOW your positioning is very bad, and you KNOW you could retreat with minimal losses and force a fight with way better positioning, but in your mind you are like "meh lets get it over with"? and then you engage the battle, and lose the game. what just happened was... you got lazy. you got lazy because starcraft on a high level is mentally exhausting. it requires mental stamina, just like chess.
Wow, you sure are ready to put down people who have obviously given more thought into this than you. There are so many flaws in your long version arguments that I don't know where to begin. I won't even bother unless you feel the need to ask for specifics... but let me get this straight...
1. men are more competitive because of simple evolutionary biology (false), because they play soccer (lol), and females are less competitive because they play with dolls (lol). 2. physical superiority not for debate (okay), ability to think abstract, think efficiently, plan long term... based on sample size of women not competing with men in chess (lol). above average sc player require similar skillset of above average chess player (let's ask how pro tyler, incontrol, idra and the likes are at chess shall we?) 3. with this point, are you implying that because you need to be intelligent to play SC, since there are fewer women in SC, that men are more "intelligent" than women? ouch.
i get it though, you're probably pretty good at chess, kudos.
yes, that 3rd is really interesting, what is he trying to say by stating it. The 2. is pretty stupid assertion, and trying to use "common sense" evolutionary biology as ultimate proof of 1, grr, how I hate when some people are saying the same thing as me, but use bad arguments
1. as several people mentioned, this is simple evolutionary biology. men compete, and brag with their victories. men have a natural impulse to compete with eachother, in every imaginable way. boys play soccer, girls play with dolls. that's just the way it has always been. and anyone claiming it's only due to cultural indoctrination is either deluded or not educated enough to understand the concept of evolution.
2. i'm not talking about sports, men's physical superiority is not up for debate (anyone denying this i simply cannot take seriously). i'm talking about the ability to abstract, think efficience-oriented and plan long-term. i used chess as an example in a previous post and its a perfect example. the fact that women can't compete with men in chess proves this point. it's also a fact that the requirements to be an above-average sc player, are similar to the requirements of being an above-average chess player.
3. "you don't need to be bright to be good at starcraft" is just plain bullshit. you definitely DO need to be bright. what are you doing, if not constantly obtaining and processing information? calculating probabilities and possibilities? adapting and making decisions under pressure?
do you know this feeling when you are about to engage in a game-deciding battle, and you KNOW your positioning is very bad, and you KNOW you could retreat with minimal losses and force a fight with way better positioning, but in your mind you are like "meh lets get it over with"? and then you engage the battle, and lose the game. what just happened was... you got lazy. you got lazy because starcraft on a high level is mentally exhausting. it requires mental stamina, just like chess.
Your only chance for supporting 1 and 2 is arguing by gender, not by sex. Gender meaning "the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex" and sex meaning biologically male or female. There is no significant scientific evidence supporting the claims that men are more competitive than women or men are better "strategic thinkers" than women. If those things are true, it's because of cultural/behavioral/psychological traits -- how we raise boys and how we raise girls.
Why ? I don't agree with him on 2,3, and even on his "proof" of 1. But there is no evidence that competitiveness is determined purely by social factors. Actually there is pretty strong evidence that reasonable part of it is determined by biology, the contention is mostly how big of a part.
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
i think natural selection pretty much covers men being biologically more competitive.
Yea...no. Sexual selection would seem to go both ways in homo sapiens.
Well first of all what youre thinking is a very modern development. Second of all general consensus is that this development in fact works against natural selection as the less intelligent women tend to become better spouses and produce more offsprings.
No, there is no general consensus that women are dumb creatures and men are smart creatures due to natural selection. That is literally the dumbest and most vile thing I've read on this forum recently; the comment alone disproves your assertion. Relegate your 1800's mentality to someplace else.
Do mods find it appropriate to spout overt and unfounded sexism under the guise of science? If not, can he please get a warning.
i already addressed your sexism bullshit in one of the previous posts. Women and men are different and i am able to appreciate both alike even with all their differences. Trying to say that everyone is the same even though its obvious that theyre not is just a modern and unfortunately widely accepted form of discrimination.
You said that women are less intelligent than men because of natural selection. I said that was backwards, sexist, and patently untrue. I don't think anyone is claiming men and women are the exact same...
On November 20 2010 07:32 fush wrote: Well if my objection is true, it doesn't matter that the effect is not seen in boys, the method is systematically flawed and not designed to accurately measure these differences.
This is the only direct comparison between male and female "competitiveness" in a medical journal... based on questionnaires. Here's the abstract (bolded my point): + Show Spoiler +
Br J Soc Psychol. 1998 Jun;37 ( Pt 2):213-29. Are men more competitive than women? Cashdan E. King's College Research Centre, Cambridge, UK.
This study uses competition diaries to see whether women and men differ in (a) what they compete over, (b) whom they compete with, and (c) their competitive tactics, including use of aggression. In Study 1, university students kept diaries of their competitive interactions during the term. Sex differences, few overall, were as follows: (a) men's diaries contained more same-sex competition, (b) women competed more about looking attractive whereas men competed more about sports, and (c) men used physical (but not verbal) aggression more frequently than women. In Study 2 strength of competition was also measured by questionnaire. Women and men felt equally competitive overall, but men felt more competitive about athletics and sexual attention whereas women felt more competitive about looking attractive. In men, but not women, competitiveness for financial success was correlated with various aspects of mating competition. Young men were more competitive than older men in a variety of domains and were also more physically and verbally aggressive, but no age difference in aggression was found for women.
I said that your objection is in fact not true, and even if it was then if the boys don't display this effect they are in fact more competitive, because they are not deterred even by this knowledge that deters girl from competing.
Also you are questioning methodology of that study while presenting this one As I said google is your friend (of course you need some critical judgement to filter things google throws at you) and if you really do not want to I will post you links, but it's no like this is some obscure controversial finding. What is unsure is how nature vs society works in this.
Well you said they tested different groups with different gender makeups. How does that validate the flaw in the methodology? My problem is that they mentioned the children were familiar with the procedure. Basic of any behavioural test where you're trying to get at intrinsic activity is to have the subjects be naive to the performance task. These children were not. Having them run races simply is not a good measure of competition when they knew who they were competing against and how well the others were going to perform from previous history. Besides, this paper was published in an economics journal... hardly convincing when trying to tackle this problem.
I haven't looked at others in google... only a simple pubmed search. You can link me others if you'd like.
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
i think natural selection pretty much covers men being biologically more competitive.
Yea...no. Sexual selection would seem to go both ways in homo sapiens.
Well first of all what youre thinking is a very modern development. Second of all general consensus is that this development in fact works against natural selection as the less intelligent women tend to become better spouses and produce more offsprings.
No, there is no general consensus that women are dumb creatures and men are smart creatures due to natural selection. That is literally the dumbest and most vile thing I've read on this forum recently; the comment alone disproves your assertion. Relegate your 1800's mentality to someplace else.
Do mods find it appropriate to spout overt and unfounded sexism under the guise of science? If not, can he please get a warning.
Yea I've been in science for years and never seemed to have heard of or reached such a conclusion that intelligence is inversely correlated with the ability to produce offspring.
I dont see how that relates to any of my posts.
"Second of all general consensus is that this development in fact works against natural selection as the less intelligent women tend to become better spouses and produce more offsprings."
On November 20 2010 02:23 mcc wrote: Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
i think natural selection pretty much covers men being biologically more competitive.
Yes it seems so, but the problem is proving it. Oftentimes in evolutionary biology things that seem reasonable are not so easily proven and sometimes the logic behind that reasoning is full of holes and even false. So yes, evolutionary argument is a good one I think in this case, but you need more supporting evidence.
Why not disregard evolution as a whole then. lets go with creationalism.
Try to learn some written text comprehension lessons, it might help you, since it seems you fail at that. I have not uttered even a word against evolution. I said that it often happens (especially to people that are not biologists) that they use evolutionary explanation that is in fact false or the logic is so full of unfounded assumptions that it cannot be taken seriously.
no it seems you fail at that. If you disregard generally accepted scientific theories you might as well disregard evolution.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
No you asked for sources that prove that men are innately(I hope by that we both mean biologically) more competitive than women. And in point two I agreed with you there is no research that can solve it, so. In lack of direct data, I pointed some arguments for this to be true.
i think natural selection pretty much covers men being biologically more competitive.
Yea...no. Sexual selection would seem to go both ways in homo sapiens.
Well first of all what youre thinking is a very modern development. Second of all general consensus is that this development in fact works against natural selection as the less intelligent women tend to become better spouses and produce more offsprings.
No, there is no general consensus that women are dumb creatures and men are smart creatures due to natural selection. That is literally the dumbest and most vile thing I've read on this forum recently; the comment alone disproves your assertion. Relegate your 1800's mentality to someplace else.
Do mods find it appropriate to spout overt and unfounded sexism under the guise of science? If not, can he please get a warning.
Yea I've been in science for years and never seemed to have heard of or reached such a conclusion that intelligence is inversely correlated with the ability to produce offspring.
I dont see how that relates to any of my posts.
"Second of all general consensus is that this development in fact works against natural selection as the less intelligent women tend to become better spouses and produce more offsprings."
you're misunderstanding what i said.
No explanation? I don't see how else to take that sentence.
Abit too many opinions without facts or research to back it up, but an interesting thread nontheless(And your OP post was good Peanut).
Why are men more competetive? Because it has been(and still is but not to the same extent) crucial to spread your genes. This has its roots in evolution. Our bodies are coded to survive and pass on our genes. Let's think about the passing on genes aspect.
How often can a woman create a child versus how often can a man create a child? A woman that gets impregnated must carry the baby for 9 months, and she has no ability whatsoever to create more babies with her genes during this time. A man can create a new baby every 5~ min.
Robert Pattinson(The twilight guy) could make babies with every fan he has. Jessica Alba could never get anywhere close at all to having babies with all her fans. Who has the most fanatic fans?
Just in general, the whole creating a baby process is alot more expensive for a women. And therefor they are going to be alot more picky when it comes to mating than males that in our early days could just leave an impregnated women and go hunt for a new lay.
Now one can object and say "Hey man, look, that may have worked a hundred thousand years ago but today we have obligatory shared parenting(mostly) and birth control which makes most sex not an act of mating anymore." Yes this is true, but we are still very locked in the mating mentality when it comes to sex with or without mating as a cause.
And the conclusion of this, is evolution has encouraged men to be competetive and strive to be the best because then they can spread their genes alot more. And if they don't they often get left with nothing at all.
Women can't get babies more than every 9 month -> competetiveness in your genes doesn't work as good as in males when it comes to passing on your genes optimally -> other traits are more likely to be passed on at an equal or more often rate in women.
This makes really competetive females less common but they could definitely pop up. And when they do that's great!
I'm too tired to make sure this post has 100% perfect sentences, but if you really want to get an insight in what I'm talking about(and by a really good teacher at that) I advice you to watch the lecture What motivates us:Sex on youtube from a yale pscyhology class.
On November 19 2010 23:54 Stuv wrote: Girls dont play RTS like boys dont play with ponies. Its really as simple as that, I dont think you need to look for complicated reasons.
It's really just this. Nobody expects girls to play SC2 seriously, so they don't do it. People go crazy over the ones that do find marginal success, and in a way, that also discourages them by insisting it's abnormal.
This thread is ridiculous for the sole reason that nearly no one in this thread has any knowledge of any competitive female players besides Tossgirl. Hafu won a MLG with fnatic (WoW). Vanessa won a WCG Pan-America, taking out Master in the finals (DoA). SK Gaming (CS 1.6) has won multiple ESWC's and female CS has been going on for a long time now. Succubus and Killcreek led the way for female Quake players 10 years ago.
There are several legitimate arguments against female gamers at the very top of the competitive circuit (which I have mentioned on Lo3), but none of them have displayed here. Many of you need history lessons and fact-checking.
On November 20 2010 01:14 hmunkey wrote: It's more socially unacceptable for women to play video games than for men. the same applies to children -- girls don't grow up wanting to play games like boys do.
That's it. It has nothing to do with competitiveness or anything else.
And you have anything to prove that other than I said so. There is a lot of research, mechanisms to explain why it is a biological thing, is there anything that really points to it being because it is socially unacceptable ? In many countries in a lot of social groups it is not unacceptable any more, yet girls still do not play games competitively as much as boys. Problem is the rate of emancipation highly exceeds the rate of increase in women's competitiveness.
There's research on there being more innate competitiveness in males than females? Please give your sources on these research and mechanisms.
I CAN tell you that you're probably 99% wrong regarding biological coding for competition behaviour, but maybe I've missed something
Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
On November 20 2010 03:25 Zyphen wrote: You guys talking about nature/nurture are really getting into a tangential debate. Women, as a group, are just less competitive period. That's the reason why there aren't more top female gamers, chess masters, race car drivers, etc (basically anything that doesn't require being physically gifted).
The few women that do make it don't prove anything about the rest. It's called anecdotal evidence. Sure, a woman COULD do it, but that's not the question. The lack of female gamers, as a whole, is because they lack competitiveness in games involving direct confrontation. Whether the few that do well possess an extra chromosome or were raised as tomboys seems superfluous to the argument.
Women as a group are less competitive... interesting conclusion based on what? Your examples are all full of crap because they're all fields that have been typically male dominated and not encouraged for women to do in society. I'm not denying there's differences biologically between genders... it's what I study for a living.
But the wannabe scientists here saying how females "don't have" testosterone (which they do) probably don't even know its effects in cognition, because guess what... no one does. So how about a suggestion, before you pull out some hair-brained idea of how you think females are less innately "competitive" or whatever, get a clue.
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how I don't CARE whether it's nature or nurture that's the culprit for any behavorial differences. The facts are that they exist.
And you're asking me for proof? Really? It's already accepted fact that women are under-represented in starcraft 2 and just about every other competitive event listed in this thread. I think your position is the one that's more indefensible. The burden should lie with you. How about this. Find me a single instance of a direct competitive game/sport where women are equally represented at the top tier as men (i.e. they don't form their own separate league, actually play with and BEAT the boys, you look at a tournament bracket - half are women, half the time they even win it, etc.).
It'll take me longer to list all the things men dominate than for you to squeeze out that one exception (which, honestly, I'm dying to know).
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how you simply stated that women were less competitive, not about whether other biological differences exist. If you bothered to read on, it also mentioned that WHILE these biological differences exist, they haven’t been shown to have anything to do with better performance in a game like SC2. Why don’t you look in gender differences in attention, visual/spatial cognition, motor control and see if you can come up with an answer to that. But I can save you some time now and tell you that there is no evidence that would point one way or another.
Asking for proof was to the poster I quoted above, he has given me a draft of a paper and I’ll read it when I’m off work.
As for your obsession in male superiority over women in competitive sport – which in our society seems to be inherently correlated with physical ability, then of course males outperform females. Why don’t you look less in sport and more in a wider scope of activities? Can you honestly tell me that males are outperforming females in academia?
while females college graduation rates are far higher than males and females are now a majority of law degree recipients and women have made big strides in equality over the last 20 years, men still dominate the top of almost every field. especially when you look at the more 'nerdy' professions that involve a lot of analysis etc... you'll see that's true. males are the overwhelming recipients of tech degrees and anything related to math & science. females perform better on average, but males have a much wider range and perform on average better in the top %.
most games (competitive ones anyways) involve fast reaction time/thinking etc... (mostly war type games), which men are naturally better at.
Oh yea, let's forget that enrollment in these programs is predominantly male. Which goes back to some original argument that there's a mostly social aspect in this rather than it being biological.
Games like SC involve reaction time, focused attention, multi-tasking ability, motor control, visual feedback, spacial/visual cognition, and a whole slew of other things. Can you say for certain that men are better at those? Don't hold your breath.
Yes, except for multitasking ability, he can say for certain that men are better at those things. It's scientific fact that men have better a) reaction time, b) motor control, c) visual feedback, d) spacial/visual cognition. (You can find 5 studies for each of those in 10 minutes or less if you'd like.)
The only thing I on that list that women have been shown to be better at is 'multi-tasking ability'. However, as someone previously explained, multitasking isn't what we're doing when playing SC. What we're doing is focusing attention on one thing (the game) in which we execute steps of actions.
This is exactly what Day9 talks about when he talks about his viewing triangle, moving back and forth between checking minimap and supply and stuff. It's the same for me, I have the same mental checklist, except I also have another one "larva .. creep .. upgrades".
On a more sexist sounding note, however, Dreamsmasher is right about men dominating the top of every field. This includes not only the nerdy and 'male' professions/intellectual endeavors, but gender neutral/female ones as well. Not only are the top people in art, cooking, etc. men, but also the best designers/hairdressers/pageant coaches/etc. are gay men. In literature, I'd say men have the edge but you can argue it's for historical reasons or whatever, so we'll leave that a toss-up.
(To be fair, though, men also dominate the 'worst' in a lot of those categories. We're overrepresented at the extremes.)
On November 19 2010 23:35 Roffles wrote: They're just not that good. TossGirl destroyed the Female league, but couldn't hang with B teamers after the Female league was abolished.
There's really no sense of sexism that goes around, it's just plain and simple that they're just not as good. If along came a female gamer that was insanely good, then they'd be more than welcomed into the community.
This times a million. There's not some male conspiracy of keeping women down in video games. I'm sure 99% of guys who play games you ask would not mind more girls playing games competitively.
What bothers me is that people who are not sociologists or scientists or experts in any field related to the matter feel the need to explain 'why' women don't perform as well in games. None of you know, so unless you have some sort of research or citation to back up your claims, stop making baseless arguments.
1. as several people mentioned, this is simple evolutionary biology. men compete, and brag with their victories. men have a natural impulse to compete with eachother, in every imaginable way. boys play soccer, girls play with dolls. that's just the way it has always been. and anyone claiming it's only due to cultural indoctrination is either deluded or not educated enough to understand the concept of evolution.
2. i'm not talking about sports, men's physical superiority is not up for debate (anyone denying this i simply cannot take seriously). i'm talking about the ability to abstract, think efficience-oriented and plan long-term. i used chess as an example in a previous post and its a perfect example. the fact that women can't compete with men in chess proves this point. it's also a fact that the requirements to be an above-average sc player, are similar to the requirements of being an above-average chess player.
3. "you don't need to be bright to be good at starcraft" is just plain bullshit. you definitely DO need to be bright. what are you doing, if not constantly obtaining and processing information? calculating probabilities and possibilities? adapting and making decisions under pressure?
do you know this feeling when you are about to engage in a game-deciding battle, and you KNOW your positioning is very bad, and you KNOW you could retreat with minimal losses and force a fight with way better positioning, but in your mind you are like "meh lets get it over with"? and then you engage the battle, and lose the game. what just happened was... you got lazy. you got lazy because starcraft on a high level is mentally exhausting. it requires mental stamina, just like chess.
Your only chance for supporting 1 and 2 is arguing by gender, not by sex. Gender meaning "the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex" and sex meaning biologically male or female. There is no significant scientific evidence supporting the claims that men are more competitive than women or men are better "strategic thinkers" than women. If those things are true, it's because of cultural/behavioral/psychological traits -- how we raise boys and how we raise girls.
I don't necessarily expect you to read more than the abstracts, or entirely understand the articles, i just wanted to point out that men are in fact not only statistically more aggressive than women, but they have also evolved to be that way, thus the different sexual responses to testosterone and other hormones, not to mention a large amount of neuroscience evidence I'll spare you.
Now i'm not saying one way or another, certainly not using science to try and justify something that isn't completely understood. But at least the science should be straight set as far as what we know thus far.
On November 20 2010 01:14 hmunkey wrote: It's more socially unacceptable for women to play video games than for men. the same applies to children -- girls don't grow up wanting to play games like boys do.
That's it. It has nothing to do with competitiveness or anything else.
And you have anything to prove that other than I said so. There is a lot of research, mechanisms to explain why it is a biological thing, is there anything that really points to it being because it is socially unacceptable ? In many countries in a lot of social groups it is not unacceptable any more, yet girls still do not play games competitively as much as boys. Problem is the rate of emancipation highly exceeds the rate of increase in women's competitiveness.
There's research on there being more innate competitiveness in males than females? Please give your sources on these research and mechanisms.
I CAN tell you that you're probably 99% wrong regarding biological coding for competition behaviour, but maybe I've missed something
Ok, I will split my answer. 1) The original poster said it has nothing about competitiveness, to that the answer is men in big majority of societies are more competitive than women. Research for that exists and is pretty conclusive. 2) I made stronger(in mathematical sense of stronger) statement, which said that this competetiveness difference is biological in nature. That statement is not so conclusive, but there are a lot of indirect indices. As far as I know there has been no direct research that points one way or another. The indirect indices are : There is biological component to competetiveness in general, because males raised in equal environments differ in it, so considering all the other biological differences between males and females and considering evolutionary mechanisms for human species it not big stretch to assume that there is in fact some innate difference between men and women.
What I asked for was sources for your statement that men are more competitive than women. You say the research exists and is conclusive. I asked, where?
On November 20 2010 03:25 Zyphen wrote: You guys talking about nature/nurture are really getting into a tangential debate. Women, as a group, are just less competitive period. That's the reason why there aren't more top female gamers, chess masters, race car drivers, etc (basically anything that doesn't require being physically gifted).
The few women that do make it don't prove anything about the rest. It's called anecdotal evidence. Sure, a woman COULD do it, but that's not the question. The lack of female gamers, as a whole, is because they lack competitiveness in games involving direct confrontation. Whether the few that do well possess an extra chromosome or were raised as tomboys seems superfluous to the argument.
Women as a group are less competitive... interesting conclusion based on what? Your examples are all full of crap because they're all fields that have been typically male dominated and not encouraged for women to do in society. I'm not denying there's differences biologically between genders... it's what I study for a living.
But the wannabe scientists here saying how females "don't have" testosterone (which they do) probably don't even know its effects in cognition, because guess what... no one does. So how about a suggestion, before you pull out some hair-brained idea of how you think females are less innately "competitive" or whatever, get a clue.
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how I don't CARE whether it's nature or nurture that's the culprit for any behavorial differences. The facts are that they exist.
And you're asking me for proof? Really? It's already accepted fact that women are under-represented in starcraft 2 and just about every other competitive event listed in this thread. I think your position is the one that's more indefensible. The burden should lie with you. How about this. Find me a single instance of a direct competitive game/sport where women are equally represented at the top tier as men (i.e. they don't form their own separate league, actually play with and BEAT the boys, you look at a tournament bracket - half are women, half the time they even win it, etc.).
It'll take me longer to list all the things men dominate than for you to squeeze out that one exception (which, honestly, I'm dying to know).
Lol. Some reading comprehension please? My entire post was about how you simply stated that women were less competitive, not about whether other biological differences exist. If you bothered to read on, it also mentioned that WHILE these biological differences exist, they haven’t been shown to have anything to do with better performance in a game like SC2. Why don’t you look in gender differences in attention, visual/spatial cognition, motor control and see if you can come up with an answer to that. But I can save you some time now and tell you that there is no evidence that would point one way or another.
Asking for proof was to the poster I quoted above, he has given me a draft of a paper and I’ll read it when I’m off work.
As for your obsession in male superiority over women in competitive sport – which in our society seems to be inherently correlated with physical ability, then of course males outperform females. Why don’t you look less in sport and more in a wider scope of activities? Can you honestly tell me that males are outperforming females in academia?
while females college graduation rates are far higher than males and females are now a majority of law degree recipients and women have made big strides in equality over the last 20 years, men still dominate the top of almost every field. especially when you look at the more 'nerdy' professions that involve a lot of analysis etc... you'll see that's true. males are the overwhelming recipients of tech degrees and anything related to math & science. females perform better on average, but males have a much wider range and perform on average better in the top %.
most games (competitive ones anyways) involve fast reaction time/thinking etc... (mostly war type games), which men are naturally better at.
Oh yea, let's forget that enrollment in these programs is predominantly male. Which goes back to some original argument that there's a mostly social aspect in this rather than it being biological.
Games like SC involve reaction time, focused attention, multi-tasking ability, motor control, visual feedback, spacial/visual cognition, and a whole slew of other things. Can you say for certain that men are better at those? Don't hold your breath.
Yes, except for multitasking ability, he can say for certain that men are better at those things. It's scientific fact that men have better a) reaction time, b) motor control, c) visual feedback, d) spacial/visual cognition. (You can find 5 studies for each of those in 10 minutes or less if you'd like.)
The only thing I on that list that women have been shown to be better at is 'multi-tasking ability'. However, as someone previously explained, multitasking isn't what we're doing when playing SC. What we're doing is focusing attention on one thing (the game) in which we execute steps of actions.
This is exactly what Day9 talks about when he talks about his viewing triangle, moving back and forth between checking minimap and supply and stuff. It's the same for me, I have the same mental checklist, except I also have another one "larva .. creep .. upgrades".
On a more sexist sounding note, however, Dreamsmasher is right about men dominating the top of every field. This includes not only the nerdy and 'male' professions/intellectual endeavors, but gender neutral/female ones as well. Not only are the top people in art, cooking, etc. men, but also the best designers/hairdressers/pageant coaches/etc. are gay men. In literature, I'd say men have the edge but you can argue it's for historical reasons or whatever, so we'll leave that a toss-up.
(To be fair, though, men also dominate the 'worst' in a lot of those categories. We're overrepresented at the extremes.)
True to an extent. To be honest I listed those things on purpose to bait the original poster but he never took it. Females have actually been shown to be better performing in focused attention tasks as you've mentioned. But my overall point was: Despite knowing these differences in individual tests, can you say that starcraft (or any other activity for that fact) is 10% visual cognition, 20% motor control, 20% attention... etc? No. Hence, this is all just speculative and we really have no proof whatsoever for males being able to perform better at stuff like SC2 or chess or whatever based on biological factors.
1. as several people mentioned, this is simple evolutionary biology. men compete, and brag with their victories. men have a natural impulse to compete with eachother, in every imaginable way. boys play soccer, girls play with dolls. that's just the way it has always been. and anyone claiming it's only due to cultural indoctrination is either deluded or not educated enough to understand the concept of evolution.
2. i'm not talking about sports, men's physical superiority is not up for debate (anyone denying this i simply cannot take seriously). i'm talking about the ability to abstract, think efficience-oriented and plan long-term. i used chess as an example in a previous post and its a perfect example. the fact that women can't compete with men in chess proves this point. it's also a fact that the requirements to be an above-average sc player, are similar to the requirements of being an above-average chess player.
3. "you don't need to be bright to be good at starcraft" is just plain bullshit. you definitely DO need to be bright. what are you doing, if not constantly obtaining and processing information? calculating probabilities and possibilities? adapting and making decisions under pressure?
do you know this feeling when you are about to engage in a game-deciding battle, and you KNOW your positioning is very bad, and you KNOW you could retreat with minimal losses and force a fight with way better positioning, but in your mind you are like "meh lets get it over with"? and then you engage the battle, and lose the game. what just happened was... you got lazy. you got lazy because starcraft on a high level is mentally exhausting. it requires mental stamina, just like chess.
Your only chance for supporting 1 and 2 is arguing by gender, not by sex. Gender meaning "the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex" and sex meaning biologically male or female. There is no significant scientific evidence supporting the claims that men are more competitive than women or men are better "strategic thinkers" than women. If those things are true, it's because of cultural/behavioral/psychological traits -- how we raise boys and how we raise girls.
I don't necessarily expect you to read more than the abstracts, or entirely understand the articles, i just wanted to point out that men are in fact not only statistically more aggressive than women, but they have also evolved to be that way, thus the different sexual responses to testosterone and other hormones, not to mention a large amount of neuroscience evidence I'll spare you.
Now i'm not saying one way or another, certainly not using science to try and justify something that isn't completely understood. But at least the science should be straight set as far as what we know thus far.
The second article you posted concludes with this: Inter-individual differences in testosterone and cortisol were rarely associated with dominance or competitiveness.
I don't necessarily expect you to read the entire article, but if you are posting something in favor of your position then you could at least read the abstract.
I'm not sure what we're particularly focusing on in this discussion. The original post seemed to specifically be referring to top level progamers (like those in the proleague, or GSL Ro64). It seems the discussion, though, is largely about high level female players and the skill of female players in general.
As for the discussion on the general skill of female players, I'm questioning whether there is any statistical basis for why we seem to be assuming there is a significant trend of high level players being male. I think it'd be premature to have a discussion on why females are less successful in competing in Starcraft in general before we know that is even the case.
On November 20 2010 08:43 Befree wrote: As for the discussion on the general skill of female players, I'm questioning whether there is any statistical basis for why we seem to be assuming there is a significant trend of high level players being male. I think it'd be premature to have a discussion on why females are less successful in competing in Starcraft in general before we know that is even the case.
The statistical basis is that 100% every major competition in the history of broodwar and starcraft 2 was won by a man. Let me know if this was not your question.
On November 20 2010 07:39 mcc wrote: Try to learn some written text comprehension lessons, it might help you, since it seems you fail at that. I have not uttered even a word against evolution. I said that it often happens (especially to people that are not biologists) that they use evolutionary explanation that is in fact false or the logic is so full of unfounded assumptions that it cannot be taken seriously.
no it seems you fail at that. If you disregard generally accepted scientific theories you might as well disregard evolution.
What generally accepted scientific theory have I disregarded ? If you are using evolutionary explanations, it is not enough that they "make sense", I could create evolutionary explanations for many things that are not true. You have to provide more than just the mechanism if you want proof. Mechanism is good starting point, but it is not enough. Incidentally I think the evolutionary explanation in this case is correct, but I have not seen proof of this yet.
On November 20 2010 08:26 Slasher wrote: This thread is ridiculous for the sole reason that nearly no one in this thread has any knowledge of any competitive female players besides Tossgirl. Hafu won a MLG with fnatic (WoW). Vanessa won a WCG Pan-America, taking out Master in the finals (DoA). SK Gaming (CS 1.6) has won multiple ESWC's and female CS has been going on for a long time now. Succubus and Killcreek led the way for female Quake players 10 years ago.
There are several legitimate arguments against female gamers at the very top of the competitive circuit (which I have mentioned on Lo3), but none of them have displayed here. Many of you need history lessons and fact-checking.
It's a bit of a stretch to say that this thread is completely without value because we don't discuss other esports here. Although there are competitive gaming scenes with notable female players, and some with a substantial number of them, there's still a significant gender imbalance across the board. I met Hafu at the Blizzard North American WoW and WC3 Regional Finals in 2008, and she was the only female player in the whole tournament, I believe.
StarCraft in particular is interesting because it's so incredibly devoid of female presence at top competitive levels. The stuff we talk about here can't necessarily be generalized to all esports, but I think it's useful to look at extreme cases when trying to evaluate situations like this. You're right - most of us don't know about all the female gamers in all the esports in the world, or even all the female gamers in this one particular game we're discussing. That doesn't mean we have no basis for examining the gender gap we see in front of us.
1. as several people mentioned, this is simple evolutionary biology. men compete, and brag with their victories. men have a natural impulse to compete with eachother, in every imaginable way. boys play soccer, girls play with dolls. that's just the way it has always been. and anyone claiming it's only due to cultural indoctrination is either deluded or not educated enough to understand the concept of evolution.
2. i'm not talking about sports, men's physical superiority is not up for debate (anyone denying this i simply cannot take seriously). i'm talking about the ability to abstract, think efficience-oriented and plan long-term. i used chess as an example in a previous post and its a perfect example. the fact that women can't compete with men in chess proves this point. it's also a fact that the requirements to be an above-average sc player, are similar to the requirements of being an above-average chess player.
3. "you don't need to be bright to be good at starcraft" is just plain bullshit. you definitely DO need to be bright. what are you doing, if not constantly obtaining and processing information? calculating probabilities and possibilities? adapting and making decisions under pressure?
do you know this feeling when you are about to engage in a game-deciding battle, and you KNOW your positioning is very bad, and you KNOW you could retreat with minimal losses and force a fight with way better positioning, but in your mind you are like "meh lets get it over with"? and then you engage the battle, and lose the game. what just happened was... you got lazy. you got lazy because starcraft on a high level is mentally exhausting. it requires mental stamina, just like chess.
Your only chance for supporting 1 and 2 is arguing by gender, not by sex. Gender meaning "the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex" and sex meaning biologically male or female. There is no significant scientific evidence supporting the claims that men are more competitive than women or men are better "strategic thinkers" than women. If those things are true, it's because of cultural/behavioral/psychological traits -- how we raise boys and how we raise girls.
I don't necessarily expect you to read more than the abstracts, or entirely understand the articles, i just wanted to point out that men are in fact not only statistically more aggressive than women, but they have also evolved to be that way, thus the different sexual responses to testosterone and other hormones, not to mention a large amount of neuroscience evidence I'll spare you.
Now i'm not saying one way or another, certainly not using science to try and justify something that isn't completely understood. But at least the science should be straight set as far as what we know thus far.
If you're going to pose as an educated individual who's making an informed judgement after evaulating all the facts, at least link to articles that don't require a $31.50 sign up fee to see the contents that you undoubtedly shelled out just to justify a post on a thread.
1. as several people mentioned, this is simple evolutionary biology. men compete, and brag with their victories. men have a natural impulse to compete with eachother, in every imaginable way. boys play soccer, girls play with dolls. that's just the way it has always been. and anyone claiming it's only due to cultural indoctrination is either deluded or not educated enough to understand the concept of evolution.
2. i'm not talking about sports, men's physical superiority is not up for debate (anyone denying this i simply cannot take seriously). i'm talking about the ability to abstract, think efficience-oriented and plan long-term. i used chess as an example in a previous post and its a perfect example. the fact that women can't compete with men in chess proves this point. it's also a fact that the requirements to be an above-average sc player, are similar to the requirements of being an above-average chess player.
3. "you don't need to be bright to be good at starcraft" is just plain bullshit. you definitely DO need to be bright. what are you doing, if not constantly obtaining and processing information? calculating probabilities and possibilities? adapting and making decisions under pressure?
do you know this feeling when you are about to engage in a game-deciding battle, and you KNOW your positioning is very bad, and you KNOW you could retreat with minimal losses and force a fight with way better positioning, but in your mind you are like "meh lets get it over with"? and then you engage the battle, and lose the game. what just happened was... you got lazy. you got lazy because starcraft on a high level is mentally exhausting. it requires mental stamina, just like chess.
Your only chance for supporting 1 and 2 is arguing by gender, not by sex. Gender meaning "the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex" and sex meaning biologically male or female. There is no significant scientific evidence supporting the claims that men are more competitive than women or men are better "strategic thinkers" than women. If those things are true, it's because of cultural/behavioral/psychological traits -- how we raise boys and how we raise girls.
I don't necessarily expect you to read more than the abstracts, or entirely understand the articles, i just wanted to point out that men are in fact not only statistically more aggressive than women, but they have also evolved to be that way, thus the different sexual responses to testosterone and other hormones, not to mention a large amount of neuroscience evidence I'll spare you.
Now i'm not saying one way or another, certainly not using science to try and justify something that isn't completely understood. But at least the science should be straight set as far as what we know thus far.
The second article you posted concludes with this: Inter-individual differences in testosterone and cortisol were rarely associated with dominance or competitiveness.
I don't necessarily expect you to read the entire article, but if you are posting something in favor of your position then you could at least read the abstract.
Yea... that's the only one that's really relevant to what Tyler and some of us have been alluding to. And it pretty much says there seems to be no difference in endocrine responses under what they perceive to be a "competitive" setting.
I skipped a bunch of pages so I dont know if anybody mentioned my point here yet or not. But I think the most.. affecting reason is the social pressures. By that I mean people of both genders are competitive by nature, but what most people overlook is that this competitiveness is actually within each gender instead of between. For example, its universally agreed upon that men work out to impress women. But practically speaking, women only care to a certain extent - they dont care that your body fat percentage is 10% and not 11% or a difference of centimeters of your bicep size. So why do men take working out so seriously? Its because of the competition between men - Bob can benchpress 200lb so I must hit the gym until I can get 205 NOT because that chick across the gym will be any more impressed but rather because I want to beat Bob.
Likewise, an example for women is makeup and dressing up. Yeah when girls go out they spend a lot of time on makeup and dressing up. But how many of us guys really notice that new eyeshadow technique or where she got that dress from? Girls for the most part do it because they're in competition with the other girls, the ones who would actually care and notice. Some of us are good to go if shes got titties and we're drunk enough, but girls compete and compare the way we go "oh you overclocked your i7 to 3.5ghz? well mines at 3.7 on AIR"
So to answer your question, I think a major factor is if a girl plays starcraft, this is a thing that gets looked down upon by society for girls, and therefore she "loses" in her never ending comparison with other girls. What sounds better (between girls): "Oh I'm a model at Abercrombie" or "Oh I play Starcraft" Confidence and security are definitely factors too of course.
I dont really know where Im going with this anymore, but this was the biggest thing on my mind after reading about half this thread so I just wanted to leave it here and see if other people could expand upon what I've started.
I have just done a cast of the ESL's Ladies Starcraft 2 Cup for my youtube channel specifically because it was the first match that I have seen that was girls playing. I cast the final and its played by Pikachu and Dzejna. Pikachu is the real life, Linda Laio - who not only is a top diamond player but is also a model, actress, tv show host and singer.....
But in relation to the point, I would like to see more girls playing at top level. Ive only seen one at a "mainstream" tournament so far and I think that was MLG DC?
1. as several people mentioned, this is simple evolutionary biology. men compete, and brag with their victories. men have a natural impulse to compete with eachother, in every imaginable way. boys play soccer, girls play with dolls. that's just the way it has always been. and anyone claiming it's only due to cultural indoctrination is either deluded or not educated enough to understand the concept of evolution.
2. i'm not talking about sports, men's physical superiority is not up for debate (anyone denying this i simply cannot take seriously). i'm talking about the ability to abstract, think efficience-oriented and plan long-term. i used chess as an example in a previous post and its a perfect example. the fact that women can't compete with men in chess proves this point. it's also a fact that the requirements to be an above-average sc player, are similar to the requirements of being an above-average chess player.
3. "you don't need to be bright to be good at starcraft" is just plain bullshit. you definitely DO need to be bright. what are you doing, if not constantly obtaining and processing information? calculating probabilities and possibilities? adapting and making decisions under pressure?
do you know this feeling when you are about to engage in a game-deciding battle, and you KNOW your positioning is very bad, and you KNOW you could retreat with minimal losses and force a fight with way better positioning, but in your mind you are like "meh lets get it over with"? and then you engage the battle, and lose the game. what just happened was... you got lazy. you got lazy because starcraft on a high level is mentally exhausting. it requires mental stamina, just like chess.
Your only chance for supporting 1 and 2 is arguing by gender, not by sex. Gender meaning "the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex" and sex meaning biologically male or female. There is no significant scientific evidence supporting the claims that men are more competitive than women or men are better "strategic thinkers" than women. If those things are true, it's because of cultural/behavioral/psychological traits -- how we raise boys and how we raise girls.
I don't necessarily expect you to read more than the abstracts, or entirely understand the articles, i just wanted to point out that men are in fact not only statistically more aggressive than women, but they have also evolved to be that way, thus the different sexual responses to testosterone and other hormones, not to mention a large amount of neuroscience evidence I'll spare you.
Now i'm not saying one way or another, certainly not using science to try and justify something that isn't completely understood. But at least the science should be straight set as far as what we know thus far.
If you're going to pose as an educated individual who's making an informed judgement after evaulating all the facts, at least link to articles that don't require a $31.50 sign up fee to see the contents that I you undoubtedly shelled out just to justify a post on a thread.
He probably gets access to that through a university or other educational/research institution... not through his own pocket. Stuff indexed on pubmed is published, most likely through a peer review process. Much more convincing than stuff you find on random websites on the internet I'd say
women don't get hardcore into things the same way men do, in general. also women who do play get called bad and get so many trolls thinking they're clever with outdated misogyny jokes that it really discourages them from 1) revealing that they are female or 2) playing at all.
if you think women just arent as good at video games look at WoW arena. there are females at the top even though there arent many. There are some.
Then compare the number of women at the top with the number of women who play competitively or hardcore at all.
1. as several people mentioned, this is simple evolutionary biology. men compete, and brag with their victories. men have a natural impulse to compete with eachother, in every imaginable way. boys play soccer, girls play with dolls. that's just the way it has always been. and anyone claiming it's only due to cultural indoctrination is either deluded or not educated enough to understand the concept of evolution.
2. i'm not talking about sports, men's physical superiority is not up for debate (anyone denying this i simply cannot take seriously). i'm talking about the ability to abstract, think efficience-oriented and plan long-term. i used chess as an example in a previous post and its a perfect example. the fact that women can't compete with men in chess proves this point. it's also a fact that the requirements to be an above-average sc player, are similar to the requirements of being an above-average chess player.
3. "you don't need to be bright to be good at starcraft" is just plain bullshit. you definitely DO need to be bright. what are you doing, if not constantly obtaining and processing information? calculating probabilities and possibilities? adapting and making decisions under pressure?
do you know this feeling when you are about to engage in a game-deciding battle, and you KNOW your positioning is very bad, and you KNOW you could retreat with minimal losses and force a fight with way better positioning, but in your mind you are like "meh lets get it over with"? and then you engage the battle, and lose the game. what just happened was... you got lazy. you got lazy because starcraft on a high level is mentally exhausting. it requires mental stamina, just like chess.
Your only chance for supporting 1 and 2 is arguing by gender, not by sex. Gender meaning "the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex" and sex meaning biologically male or female. There is no significant scientific evidence supporting the claims that men are more competitive than women or men are better "strategic thinkers" than women. If those things are true, it's because of cultural/behavioral/psychological traits -- how we raise boys and how we raise girls.
I don't necessarily expect you to read more than the abstracts, or entirely understand the articles, i just wanted to point out that men are in fact not only statistically more aggressive than women, but they have also evolved to be that way, thus the different sexual responses to testosterone and other hormones, not to mention a large amount of neuroscience evidence I'll spare you.
Now i'm not saying one way or another, certainly not using science to try and justify something that isn't completely understood. But at least the science should be straight set as far as what we know thus far.
The second article you posted concludes with this: Inter-individual differences in testosterone and cortisol were rarely associated with dominance or competitiveness.
I don't necessarily expect you to read the entire article, but if you are posting something in favor of your position then you could at least read the abstract.
Your only considering the analysis as an overall study of gender differences, but the paper is actually about college level competitive rowers, specifically looking at fixed time points before, during, and after the event. The primary study was not inter-individual but intra. Whats noteworthy are the gender differences in response to androgens as well as differing patterns of increased testosterone and cortisol levels. The papers are actually in a specific order outlining current popular understanding if considered correctly. With a name like Darwin I'd expect your part of or at least hoping to enter the biology field, but what makes biology so unbelievably expansive is the fact that unlike physics and chemistry there is no closed system fully understood yet beyond a few very specific in vitro protocols. You must always keep in mind the environment and subjects of a test in order to draw any meaningful conclusion from the data whatsoever.
There are probably fewer female sc2 players/pros because people think like this thread.
Has it ever been the case that a woman has gone through the same sort of training regiment as the korean pro-gamers do? I honestly don't know.
Even reading ToSsGirL's page on the wiki it sounds like she had to go through a lot of personal trouble in order to get where she did.
Nobody ever thinks that Male players are bad because there are guys who can't get out of Gold League. The best players are those who have had everything line up for them, and have been committed to being the absolute best. I mean, most guys have in general more practice playing computer games to start, so they are ahead. When a guy wants to play a game like Starcraft, he's far less likely to be discouraged by friends and family. If a guy begins to become very good at a game like starcraft, he is encouraged. If a girl were to get very good at it, she'd be looked at like an oddity.
As a guy, I've played RTS games since I was very young. I've had no impediments to playing video games. If I were to have wanted to start competing in tournaments, nobody would hold it against me. But even if I were to decide right now that I want to be an SC2 pro, there's no telling that I'd actually ever be able to accomplish that goal.
If you can honestly claim that women aren't SC2 players because they're just mentally not as good at things like SC2 as men, you could also claim on the same grounds that American SC players aren't as good at SC as Koreans because they're brain composition is different.
In reality, the reason there's fewer woman pro gamers is simply because there's fewer opportunities for women to become pro gamers, and more barriers to them trying, in the same way there were fewer opportunities for foreign players to be come SC pros. It's not because Americans or Women have feeble brains, it's just because it's easier for guys to find social support like practice partners and encouragement from peers than women, and it's easier for korean players to explain to their social circle that they're training to become an SC pro than it is americans.
More people trying to be pros, and more access to peers playing at or above your level is what allows people to become pros themselves. If you are from a community that is going to make fun of you for trying to be a professional video game player, and you have a hard time getting serious practice time in with top level players because they find you more of a curiosity than a valid partner, you're going to be less likely to try in the first place, and then when you do try, you're going to have a harder time succeeding, if it's even possible at all.
Do you really think if there was a woman to win say MGL out of nowhere, that she wouldn't attract a far different type of attention than if I showed up and won it? This would give her a very different reaction from other players.
For me, I might get some notice, and maybe some respect from other high level players. Maybe they'd be impressed with my play and would have the opportunity to practice with them. Other than that things would be pretty normal.
The girl would get instant fan-pages, people critiquing her on her looks and weight, saying whether they'd hit it, commenting on her play like she was from another planet, using her to prove theories on balance of the sexes. She would get a different kind of attention from pro gamers. Some would hate her for being an attention-whore even though she may not actually try to call attention to herself. Some might user her to get more exposure themselves. Some might play with her because they have a crush on her because, "Hey, she's a girl and she can beat me in starcraft!"
I don't think that women are mentally predisposed towards being bad at starcraft. I think that social norms discourage women from playing starcraft professionally moreso than they do men. I think that the fact that a high level female starcraft player would be just treated very differently than a guy.
Just look at that interview, you have glamour shots with blowing hair, questions about who her ideal boyfriend would be, questions about whether her or her sister is prettier. The first comments in the thread are:
"I should have known she didn't like guys..." "Tossgirl looks really pretty in those pictures!"
and then a bunch of patronizing comments about how IdrA made her cry.
There's just a very different standard we'd hold a female progamer to, and I think that just makes the environment different enough that it is kind of like a different ladder they have to climb.
I think that's why things like female leagues and female tournaments are a good thing. Because at least in those cases, women can develop the sport and play against people that have had similar circumstances as their own. Doing that can bring legitimacy to their playing in the first place, and maybe at some point they could be parallel and the leagues could be merged. This is similar to having, say, regional SC tournaments to promote north american players rather than having only established korean pros dominate every tournament. Not because the NA players have feeble brains, only because the sport is less developed in that community. In that way, female players are from a different community than male players.
Well what exactly was your point with Tyler's post then? He never really disputed the fact that males display more aggressive behaviour, but only said there's no evidence for men being more "competitive" and are better "strategic thinkers".
I don't have access to the full article at home, but measuring a larger increase in androgens and cortisol in males in an activity involving heavy exercise isn't too surprising. As such, it doesn't really further the assertion of the poster that Tyler was replying to that males are more "competitive" than females.
honestly I think this thread has devolved into something of a gender superiority debate in which the winner will most likely be decided by whoever can google up more impressive scientific shit to backup their claims. Notably a girl posted her opinions a few pages back on this topic but no one gives a shit because this thread is about the lack of top female starcraft gamers right?
On November 20 2010 07:32 fush wrote: Well if my objection is true, it doesn't matter that the effect is not seen in boys, the method is systematically flawed and not designed to accurately measure these differences.
This is the only direct comparison between male and female "competitiveness" in a medical journal... based on questionnaires. Here's the abstract (bolded my point): + Show Spoiler +
Br J Soc Psychol. 1998 Jun;37 ( Pt 2):213-29. Are men more competitive than women? Cashdan E. King's College Research Centre, Cambridge, UK.
This study uses competition diaries to see whether women and men differ in (a) what they compete over, (b) whom they compete with, and (c) their competitive tactics, including use of aggression. In Study 1, university students kept diaries of their competitive interactions during the term. Sex differences, few overall, were as follows: (a) men's diaries contained more same-sex competition, (b) women competed more about looking attractive whereas men competed more about sports, and (c) men used physical (but not verbal) aggression more frequently than women. In Study 2 strength of competition was also measured by questionnaire. Women and men felt equally competitive overall, but men felt more competitive about athletics and sexual attention whereas women felt more competitive about looking attractive. In men, but not women, competitiveness for financial success was correlated with various aspects of mating competition. Young men were more competitive than older men in a variety of domains and were also more physically and verbally aggressive, but no age difference in aggression was found for women.
I said that your objection is in fact not true, and even if it was then if the boys don't display this effect they are in fact more competitive, because they are not deterred even by this knowledge that deters girl from competing.
Also you are questioning methodology of that study while presenting this one As I said google is your friend (of course you need some critical judgement to filter things google throws at you) and if you really do not want to I will post you links, but it's no like this is some obscure controversial finding. What is unsure is how nature vs society works in this.
Well you said they tested different groups with different gender makeups. How does that validate the flaw in the methodology? My problem is that they mentioned the children were familiar with the procedure. Basic of any behavioural test where you're trying to get at intrinsic activity is to have the subjects be naive to the performance task. These children were not. Having them run races simply is not a good measure of competition when they knew who they were competing against and how well the others were going to perform from previous history. Besides, this paper was published in an economics journal... hardly convincing when trying to tackle this problem.
I haven't looked at others in google... only a simple pubmed search. You can link me others if you'd like.
This was not a test of a drug, they were not trying to eliminate placebo effect or other psychological effect by using double blind or even blind trial. They were in fact measuring said psychological effects. Subjects have to be naive of the procedure in some cases, but not in others. Competitiveness in this scenario is on of those that actually do not require it. Why is the relative competition performance not a good measure of competitiveness. It starts to look like we operate with different definitions of competitiveness.
Well I agree that economic journal is not the most promising source , but so is medical one(on this topic, on medical topics medical journals are great, unlike economical on economical topics ). My preference would be biological one, or at least psychological.
I also found interesting link (again economical) , that mentions that in most of the world men are more competitive than women, and has some references for those claims, but also mentions that there are matriarchal societies that have the opposite. If true this is pretty interesting and shows that simple evolutionary explanation is definitely not enough and social setup plays at least significant role : [link]http://www.iza.org/en/papers/1545_29062007.pdf[/link] Also this, only abstract, unfortunately : [link]http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138(05)00033-4/abstract[/link]
Females overall just don't have the same goals or the same type of drive that males have in this particular field.
In the early BW days how many nameless koreans shacked up in apartments living a terrible quality of life playing 12+ hours a day just hoping to make it big?
How many girls would have subjected themselves to such living conditions?
Does that mean females don't have the tools to become a top caliber player? No... It just means it isn't something that commonly resonates with how they think.
I think before you get into the nuances of starcraft itself as a game, you should first look at the broader picture because there are factors that impact how many girls try to play SC competitively that are not exclusively related to SC itself.
I think the biggest factor with sc itself is just the motivation to develop the best mechanics. The strategical aspect of these games is not so complex that someone with above avg intelligence can't grasp them.
It's the dedication to having polished and top notch mechanics that put some above the rest, and perhaps the path you travel in developing such mechanics is simply not something that a lot of females would find worthwhile.
On November 20 2010 07:10 mcc wrote: Seems you cannot separate neutral factual statement (like "men are born better at chess"), and valuation statements
1. The statement is not neutral. This is obvious in that it takes a very specific side in an argumentative debate, nature v nurture - which is impossible to settle without the use of unethical and - by societies modern standards - inhuman research.
2. The statement is not factual. It's not backed up by any factual study. The statement "men of age X generally show a higher aptitude for success in chess than women of age X/Y" would be factually accurate if a study did indeed support such findings. It is the notion that an individuals ability to succeed in a game constructed by humans raised in a normative society is determined by said individuals mix of genes, that strikes myself (and anyone who dares question commonly accepted beliefs) as so thoroughly unsubstantial.
On November 20 2010 09:20 fush wrote: Well what exactly was your point with Tyler's post then? He never really disputed the fact that males display more aggressive behaviour, but only said there's no evidence for men being more "competitive" and are better "strategic thinkers".
I don't have access to the full article at home, but measuring a larger increase in androgens and cortisol in males in an activity involving heavy exercise isn't too surprising. As such, it doesn't really further the assertion of the poster that Tyler was replying to that males are more "competitive" than females.
Aggression is currently the most correct way of saying competitive in an attempt to best define the most basic aspect of the trait. People can be competitive in a wide variety of different situations for many different reasons. Clearly someone's "competitive" attitude regarding anything is variable, a casual chess player is naturally far more competitive if he was placed in a situation where suddenly the winner was given a large amount of money, or if the loser was killed. Therefore to analyze competitiveness across any significant sample size what can only reliably be tested is the likelihood to show increased interest/aggression/dominance. Its not really trying to compare just how competitive a man or a woman is when they are competing at something. It is trying show that men are more likely cross the threshold of mild casual interest/aggression and therefore spend more resources pursuing dominance in a situation compared to women.
This paper published this month in Hormonal Behavior takes a look at a proposed competitive molecular system which casts the Testosterone/Cortisol comparisons of the 2nd paper I linked earlier in a modified light.
Again I'm not trying to say this is actually the reason there are or aren't more high level female SC2 players, simply that Tyler could've been mistaken and that the whole thread might see the importance of actually referencing published papers when attempting to argue something scientifically. Male aggression may be an unlinked correlation, it may be an indirect factor in what constitutes a great player, or it may be causative in that fewer female players statistically are likely to become heavily involved in this 1v1 form of competition, and that affects female success akin to foreigner success in the GSLs. I could probably argue all three sides convincingly, simply showing that there is no truly correct answer, but before people even begin rampant speculation it serves to have a reasonable starting place.
I don't wanna sound like I'm trolling, but men are just better at everything, naturally, yes some woman are very good at certain thongs, and not all men are better than all woman, but take the olympics for example, the mens events are bigger, longer, more contact allowed, as well as more exciting. So at the top levels a man can just reach higher than a woman could. After watching the mens halfpipe snowboarding in the olympics, and seeing so many amazing runs, and than shaun white, it was incredible. Than I watched the womans, smaller run, could barely do a 360 let alone anything with a trick, it was either a grab or a 360, no cool stuff. So I just believe that at the top of evrything there is a man. You may disagree but look at, chefs, scientists, athletes, gamers........................ need I go on.
again I'm not trying to be sexists it's just what I've observed
On November 20 2010 09:18 zeidrichthorene wrote: I think that's why things like female leagues and female tournaments are a good thing. Because at least in those cases, women can develop the sport and play against people that have had similar circumstances as their own. Doing that can bring legitimacy to their playing in the first place, and maybe at some point they could be parallel and the leagues could be merged. This is similar to having, say, regional SC tournaments to promote north american players rather than having only established korean pros dominate every tournament. Not because the NA players have feeble brains, only because the sport is less developed in that community. In that way, female players are from a different community than male players.
Thanks for your post, zeid - I agreed with pretty much all of it, particularly its spirit. I particularly appreciated this part because I think having StarCraft events for female players to play against each other is an important part of bringing more women to the game. I liked your analogy with North American vs. Korean players - it's not perfect, but it fits in many ways.
1. as several people mentioned, this is simple evolutionary biology. men compete, and brag with their victories. men have a natural impulse to compete with eachother, in every imaginable way. boys play soccer, girls play with dolls. that's just the way it has always been. and anyone claiming it's only due to cultural indoctrination is either deluded or not educated enough to understand the concept of evolution.
2. i'm not talking about sports, men's physical superiority is not up for debate (anyone denying this i simply cannot take seriously). i'm talking about the ability to abstract, think efficience-oriented and plan long-term. i used chess as an example in a previous post and its a perfect example. the fact that women can't compete with men in chess proves this point. it's also a fact that the requirements to be an above-average sc player, are similar to the requirements of being an above-average chess player.
3. "you don't need to be bright to be good at starcraft" is just plain bullshit. you definitely DO need to be bright. what are you doing, if not constantly obtaining and processing information? calculating probabilities and possibilities? adapting and making decisions under pressure?
do you know this feeling when you are about to engage in a game-deciding battle, and you KNOW your positioning is very bad, and you KNOW you could retreat with minimal losses and force a fight with way better positioning, but in your mind you are like "meh lets get it over with"? and then you engage the battle, and lose the game. what just happened was... you got lazy. you got lazy because starcraft on a high level is mentally exhausting. it requires mental stamina, just like chess.
Your only chance for supporting 1 and 2 is arguing by gender, not by sex. Gender meaning "the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex" and sex meaning biologically male or female. There is no significant scientific evidence supporting the claims that men are more competitive than women or men are better "strategic thinkers" than women. If those things are true, it's because of cultural/behavioral/psychological traits -- how we raise boys and how we raise girls.
One can argue that ultimately there's no distinction between gender and sex traits. Culture doesn't exist in a vacuum. How did it get this way?
Honestly though, it's just in particular that StarCraft is predominantly played by a male audience by trends alone - when in fact other games which have better ratios of female players (console games, MMOs, FPS games) mainly because the learning curve and difficulty factor for StarCraft is higher than majority, if not all video games out there. It's just a validity of numbers and ratios, which depict an extremely smaller female player population in SC2 compared to other games .. I'm sure in time though a "female champion" will emerge, aka ToSsGiRL 2.0
Your only chance for supporting 1 and 2 is arguing by gender, not by sex. Gender meaning "the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex" and sex meaning biologically male or female. There is no significant scientific evidence supporting the claims that men are more competitive than women or men are better "strategic thinkers" than women. If those things are true, it's because of cultural/behavioral/psychological traits -- how we raise boys and how we raise girls.
Not true, while he fails to provide any evidence for his claims, neither really do you. It's certainly not obvious that cultural factors triumph in a debate which has raged on for ages. Heck, most philosophers and psychologists have turned pretty hard in favour of nature within the past few decades, since the decline of behaviorism in favour of more neuro-sciencesque responses to the questions.
You'll find neuroscientists and many philosophers aren't exactly in agreement with many other thinkers particularly your leftist sociologists. It's one of the biggest debates in the history of mankind, but it's far from obvious at this point where the hatchet falls.
In my own opinion, I think there's a reason why men make up 99% of Grandmaster chess players, that goes beyond cultural factors, but the reality is there has been no solid conclusions either way.
1. as several people mentioned, this is simple evolutionary biology. men compete, and brag with their victories. men have a natural impulse to compete with eachother, in every imaginable way. boys play soccer, girls play with dolls. that's just the way it has always been. and anyone claiming it's only due to cultural indoctrination is either deluded or not educated enough to understand the concept of evolution.
2. i'm not talking about sports, men's physical superiority is not up for debate (anyone denying this i simply cannot take seriously). i'm talking about the ability to abstract, think efficience-oriented and plan long-term. i used chess as an example in a previous post and its a perfect example. the fact that women can't compete with men in chess proves this point. it's also a fact that the requirements to be an above-average sc player, are similar to the requirements of being an above-average chess player.
3. "you don't need to be bright to be good at starcraft" is just plain bullshit. you definitely DO need to be bright. what are you doing, if not constantly obtaining and processing information? calculating probabilities and possibilities? adapting and making decisions under pressure?
do you know this feeling when you are about to engage in a game-deciding battle, and you KNOW your positioning is very bad, and you KNOW you could retreat with minimal losses and force a fight with way better positioning, but in your mind you are like "meh lets get it over with"? and then you engage the battle, and lose the game. what just happened was... you got lazy. you got lazy because starcraft on a high level is mentally exhausting. it requires mental stamina, just like chess.
Your only chance for supporting 1 and 2 is arguing by gender, not by sex. Gender meaning "the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex" and sex meaning biologically male or female. There is no significant scientific evidence supporting the claims that men are more competitive than women or men are better "strategic thinkers" than women. If those things are true, it's because of cultural/behavioral/psychological traits -- how we raise boys and how we raise girls.
Wellllllllllllllllllll... there is some evolutionary evidence via evolutionary psychology that would suggest that there are biological differences in gender that would suggest 1 and 2 to a very minor degree
Even without considering scientific or biological reasons, there is a huge disparity between the number of males playing games like Starcraft and the number of females playing it. Naturually, that means that there's less chance to find a really good player in that group and when you consider the pro scene really focuses on about the top 200 players or so out of the millions that are playing, it's pretty easy to see why we generally don't see too many female gamers in the spotlight. That having been said, there definitely are noteable females in professional gaming in all genres so it's not like they don't exist... There's just not a whole lot of them.
On November 20 2010 07:10 mcc wrote: Seems you cannot separate neutral factual statement (like "men are born better at chess"), and valuation statements
1. The statement is not neutral. This is obvious in that it takes a very specific side in an argumentative debate, nature v nurture - which is impossible to settle without the use of unethical and - by societies modern standards - inhuman research.
2. The statement is not factual. It's not backed up by any factual study. The statement "men of age X generally show a higher aptitude for success in chess than women of age X/Y" would be factually accurate if a study did indeed support such findings. It is the notion that an individuals ability to succeed in a game constructed by humans raised in a normative society is determined by said individuals mix of genes, that strikes myself (and anyone who dares question commonly accepted beliefs) as so thoroughly unsubstantial.
No it does not require necessarily any immoral research to settle nature v nurture debate in this and probably in any case. Yes it takes sides, but by neutral factual statement i mean that by stating it I am not saying it is good or bad, I am no assigning any moral value to it, I am also not implying by it any valuation of women or men as members of society.
So by factual part in this context I do not mean that it is necessarily true, but that it does not contain any moral valuation. Whether it is true or not it will not change my moral opinion about anybody.
I think the main cause is that there are generally waaay fewer girls/women that are interessted in "war- and actiongames". Obviously there are females that are interessted in all sorts of game genres. But it seem that most of them are more into peaceful management/puzzle/adventure/etc than action or fast paced rts genres. And out of that small pool available you now have to find the ones that are capable of beeing a progamer. It is just an insanely small number. Maybe your very own girlfriend has the best foundation of beeing the one and only empress that would be hailed for years, but if she doesn't try or simply has no interesst in it we will never know. So the best thing we all can do is just let everybody try out SC2, maybe we are lucky and find somebody great (and obviously support the found persons)
Your only chance for supporting 1 and 2 is arguing by gender, not by sex. Gender meaning "the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex" and sex meaning biologically male or female. There is no significant scientific evidence supporting the claims that men are more competitive than women or men are better "strategic thinkers" than women. If those things are true, it's because of cultural/behavioral/psychological traits -- how we raise boys and how we raise girls.
Not true, while he fails to provide any evidence for his claims, neither really do you. It's certainly not obvious that cultural factors triumph in a debate which has raged on for ages. Heck, most philosophers and psychologists have turned pretty hard in favour of nature within the past few decades, since the decline of behaviorism in favour of more neuro-sciencesque responses to the questions.
You'll find neuroscientists and many philosophers aren't exactly in agreement with many other thinkers particularly your leftist sociologists. It's one of the biggest debates in the history of mankind, but it's far from obvious at this point where the hatchet falls.
In my own opinion, I think there's a reason why men make up 99% of Grandmaster chess players, that goes beyond cultural factors, but the reality is there has been no solid conclusions either way.
In serious circles it is more like million little debates about specific issues, and everyone is pretty sure that in most of them the hatchet falls somewhere in-between, they just argue exactly where. Yes, in social sciences and philosophy there are few that argue nurture all the way, but we can ignore them, they are harmless mostly
Of course in the end you can argue that even things that are called nurture are controlled by nature, because how much you can be influenced by society is again controlled by genes , but this approach to defining the problem is pointless, so really the hatchet falls somewhere in-between, except some rare cases.
On November 20 2010 09:55 Slago wrote: I don't wanna sound like I'm trolling, but men are just better at everything, naturally, yes some woman are very good at certain thongs, and not all men are better than all woman, but take the olympics for example, the mens events are bigger, longer, more contact allowed, as well as more exciting. So at the top levels a man can just reach higher than a woman could. After watching the mens halfpipe snowboarding in the olympics, and seeing so many amazing runs, and than shaun white, it was incredible. Than I watched the womans, smaller run, could barely do a 360 let alone anything with a trick, it was either a grab or a 360, no cool stuff. So I just believe that at the top of evrything there is a man. You may disagree but look at, chefs, scientists, athletes, gamers........................ need I go on.
again I'm not trying to be sexists it's just what I've observed
You have not observed this in an objective way whatsoever and frankly it's more stupid than it is sexist. We live in a paternal society. All over the world women live the subservient role. If you don't take taht into account it doesnt matter if you conclude that women are better, men are better, or everyone is the same, you don't have information enough to conclude anything
..by neutral factual statement i mean that by stating it I am not saying it is good or bad, I am no assigning any moral value to it..
So by factual part in this context I do not mean that it is necessarily true, but that it does not contain any moral valuation. Whether it is true or not it will not change my moral opinion about anybody.
You say that it won't change your moral opinion about anybody. You say that the statement is not morally charged.
Allow me to present a similar statement:
"Men of African decent are more likely to engage in gang related violence than men of Caucasian decent."
This is an equally true statement - backed up by facts and numbers: statistics. No moral value assigned or attached?
What you fail to realize is that both statements are highly provocative. Saying genetic cocktail X is more lightly to attract skin cancer than genetic cocktail Y is a [mostly] neutral statement. Saying genetic cocktail X is more likely to behave in a certain way than genetic cocktail Y is an inflammatory statement which can't be proved or disproved without isolating a genetically diverse test group from all formative influences of society. Such a study can not be conducted in an ethically sound way therefor the debate is futile and a statement in favor of either camp can only be regarded as an unsubstantiated opinion.
If we allow free room for unsubstantiated opinions in the defining of norms for society and science, we'll inevitably end up reverting to very popular opinions being voiced, such as those advocating racial biology and nationalism because they sound so damn good and right.
What you're of course free to say is "i believe men are born better at chess than women" as everyone is entitled to follow their own religion. You'll be just as right as those claiming the world was created 7000 years ago and no less right than those claiming humans are born with an inherit will to do good and a soul.
..by neutral factual statement i mean that by stating it I am not saying it is good or bad, I am no assigning any moral value to it..
So by factual part in this context I do not mean that it is necessarily true, but that it does not contain any moral valuation. Whether it is true or not it will not change my moral opinion about anybody.
You say that it won't change your moral opinion about anybody. You say that the statement is not morally charged.
Allow me to present a similar statement:
"Men of African decent are more likely to engage in gang related violence than men of Caucasian decent."
This is an equally true statement - backed up by facts and numbers: statistics. No moral value assigned or attached?
As with my previous example, also in this example neutral factuality depends on the context. So if someone said the statement (btw african descent may mean north african and i am not sure that for them that statement is actually true) above in discussion about social problems of black minority in US (also note that this statement is specific to US) this statement is absolutely neutral. Of course said on a racist forum it would be pretty different story.
On November 20 2010 11:37 Thrill wrote: What you fail to realize is that both statements are highly provocative. Saying genetic cocktail X is more lightly to attract skin cancer than genetic cocktail Y is a [mostly] neutral statement. Saying genetic cocktail X is more likely to behave in a certain way than genetic cocktail Y is an inflammatory statement which can't be proved or disproved without isolating a genetically diverse test group from all formative influences of society. Such a study can not be conducted in an ethically sound way therefor the debate is futile and a statement in favor of either camp can only be regarded as an unsubstantiated opinion.
The only difference as far as neutrality goes is it seems people's sensibility, because for different biological reasons people are unable to take such statements for what they are, but are actually imputing the moral judgment into them, even if none was there to begin with. I would say tough luck, but it is not worth censuring science because of it. And there are many ways in which such statements can be "proved" (as far as there are any proofs in science). Yes most of them are much harder than doing studies on groups of people. You can for example actually find a gene(s), map all its influences and just describe the mechanism how it produces brain that is better for chess and then find out if it is more prevalent/active in men(yes this is very simplified description). Or you can do indirect observation, how better fare women in chess in more "emancipated" societies compared to others, and so on. And even if there would be no way to "prove" it rigorously, you still can have indices that point one way more than the other, so it would be substantiated opinion.
On November 20 2010 11:37 Thrill wrote: If we allow free room for unsubstantiated opinions in the defining of norms for society and science, we'll inevitably end up reverting to very popular opinions being voiced, such as those advocating racial biology and nationalism because they sound so damn good and right.
What you're of course free to say is "i believe men are born better at chess than women" as everyone is entitled to follow their own religion. You'll be just as right as those claiming the world was created 7000 years ago and no less right than those claiming humans are born with an inherit will to do good and a soul.
Who said anything about defining norms for society and science ? Wtf are you talking about ? And no I am actually free to say nearly anything I want, what I should not do is pass unsubstantiated opinions as facts and even opinions that have supporting evidence as scientific facts, I did neither, I think I was pretty careful not to label them as such, and when in error I said so. Unlike you, who called anyone thinking that "chess talent" has biological component basically a retard and (potential) abusive parent.
Starcraft is war. Warfare is a dominantly male characteristic. Same thing with football. Not many women play football because they have no initiative to play war games. Women can be just as competitive in things especially when it comes to the social market, so it's not a competitiveness concern. Starcraft is antitethical to the nurturing instinct while pandering more to visuospacial killing instincts most men have.
Just to make one thing clear, person saying that statement about gang violence with the subtext that it is an inherent trait of black people to engage in gang violence should have pretty solid data to back it up, because otherwise he is pretty clearly a racist. So everything in context. Also comparing this to the statement about chess is pretty bad, because playing chess is in itself also neutral act, whereas gang violence clearly is not, just to point this small distinction between those two that you did not mention/notice.
I would like to attribute the lack of female gamers, namely Korean female gamers, to the general disinterest in video games. Games are typically male centric activities and females tend to gravitate towards games that are geared towards them, like a lot of the dance studio games or RPGs. Just my two KRW.
On November 20 2010 05:02 WinterNightz wrote: I feel like the interest level/competitiveness argument pretty well sums it up. But also, I feel like there might be a little bit of the same phenomenon that might be holding foreigners back:
I have no proof, but I feel like for the majority of women interested in playing SC2 (just like the majority of foreigners playing SC2), are probably plagued with an "us vs. them" mentality. Foreign players may think "Man, there's no way I can be as super gosu as the koreans....", just like girls might be thinking, "man, there's no way I can beat the boys at this". And I feel like it's that kind of defeatism that's incredibly poisonous to one's thoughts.
I have no doubt in my mind that if a female decided to practice as much as IdrA, she'd become a super baller. Just like any foreigners who may be doubting themselves: just listen to incontrol's experience at GSL3. Sure he didn't qualify, but from SotG, he realized it's not the impossibility he used to think it was. If you listen to IdrA's reasoning on why Koreans are doing better than foreigners, he's not saying "because they have different hair", he's saying "because they practice more".
The thing is, the "foreigner vs. koreans" is a product of StarCraft, where "boys vs. girls" is a product of centuries upon centuries of human society. So while the first defeatist mentality is easier to overcome on a personal level, the second probably isn't. I would expect this is what's resulting in most interested female players getting themselves down mentally, where all they need to do is spend 8 million hours a day training like everyone else.
And I am by no means saying female players don't try hard enough. I'm just saying that this kind of thinking makes it much easier to give up altogether.
repping this post cause of the validity of its claims. human beings regardless of gender and sex can do anything we set our minds to. sounds corny but it's true.
Didn't read the thread but my guess is girls lack competitiviness. Men tend to do better in almost every sport even if it doesn't come down to muscular strength (shooting, billiards, chess, poker..). Ofc, there are some exceptions, but they are just exceptions..
Funny thing is I know at least know 20 female gamers, who have no problem talking about gaming with fellow gamers and love every single thing about gaming, but as soon as a non gamers "outsiders" ask them about their gaming hobby they quickly change the subject. "People who don't game won't understand, they will judge me"
That shit still needs some kind of revolution. The same kind of revolution that caused people born before the 80s to finally admit in public they are still enjoying games. Without feeling ashamed.
I would love to see a girl/woman win a tournament like the gsl, if even to give my gaming mum or mrs Plott the self esteem to admit outside gaming communities that they love gaming
Yeah sure... women and men are very different.. .... but also very equal. We often achieve goals in different ways, but we are still the only apes that can drive a car, understand complex math, play starcraft Even if slightly different, both our brains are the most complex structures in the whole known universe, Nothing else comes even close. Dolphins? Apes? Sure pal sure...
(by the way, a personal side note: a big fuck you to all countries, goverments that treat women as lesser than men)
Anyway...
There are millions of female gamers, and when a non gamer asks them if they like gaming, they will deny. (not all of them but 90% at least)
THAT is the real problem. Not skills. Not testosteron. Not competivity.
The problem is shame.
Power to the gaming girls. I don't care how you look. I don't care how others judge you. If you are a girl and proud to be a gamer I love you. Ignore the general public's opinion. Ignore the trolls. Continue to do what you love to do, hopefully for many many years, and you will pave the way for next generations
Zandar, reading that made me very proud to be a girl gamer. I actually read it at work and swelled with pride, then explained to my workmates (mostly female non-gamers) what you had said and how much it means. They were happy for me, coz they're awesome people.
You're very right. I don't deny I game, but I don't go out of my way to bring it up if I'm not with like-minded people (read: often). I'm not ashamed, but I do try to hide my gender in game, in forums, just because I don't want the associated shit that comes with it.
That said, Team Liquid is the first place I've felt I could even bring up my gender.
Thank you so much. May others eventually follow your lead.
Games are considered as a boys only club, same goes for cars. Sure there are females that like to do these kind of things, but they are rare.
As for the 40% statistics, the count the number of people playing free online games.. so yeah, farmville, bejeweled ect.
Also consider how many men are into Horses, makeup and clothes, which are pretty much a girl club.
And for some reason, males focus/try harder and are less likely to give up when put up with a hard advanced task. I'm not saying girls are stupid, just less competitive in nature than men. Basically, men like to fight and prove their skills, by nature.
On November 20 2010 14:39 Zandar wrote: THAT is the real problem. Not skills. Not testosteron. Not competivity.
The problem is shame.
If that was the only reason then we wouldn't have such a discrepancy between the amount of girls playing rts/fighting games on one hand and mmos/casual games on the other hand. I don't see why girls would feel ashamed saying they play SC or SF4 three hours every day, but suddenly it's ok if it's WoW or Aion. Ok maybe with mmos they can bullshit their way out by speaking about the social aspects of the game but that's it.
Most girls just aren't interested in games where you have to spend a lot of time practicing boring stuff (apm / macro / bo timings etc) over and over to get good. Granted, the grinding @ mmos is pretty dull too but you're often in a group and chatting with other people, it's very different from having to sit alone in the practice room of a fighting game for 3 hours straight just practicing your combos over and over, which is something you need to do if you want to get good.
TL;DR girls are less interested in rts/fighting games than in other kinds of games, and the few ones who do are less willing than guys to go through the boring training sessions that are required to make them great players.
TL;DR² girls don't enjoy practicing as much as guys do
It has been great to hear girls weigh in on this subject and I think this thread has reached a number of reasonable conclusions. Namely: the environment for gamer girls is a lot tougher than it is for guys.
I don't think the discussion is going anywhere anymore (and the whole biological argument is seriously annoying me), so perhaps it's time to take the next step and actually do something. I think TL ought to properly recognize and take pride in its female community and highlight all their contributions, whether it be tournament success, fan art, news/blog posts, tournament coverage/interviews, &c. There are a lot of ways girls contribute to the community aside from being "top players." Maybe start a Girl Power club? I TL is in a great position to promote female gaming since it is such a large and canonical part of the sc community, and having a strong girl community here shows that it can be part of the larger community rather than a separate community (as all-girl game sites are).
I hope to hear more from TL girls in the future. You guys are awesome. ^_^
On November 20 2010 18:49 mangoloid wrote: It has been great to hear girls weigh in on this subject and I think this thread has reached a number of reasonable conclusions. Namely: the environment for gamer girls is a lot tougher than it is for guys.
I don't think the discussion is going anywhere anymore (and the whole biological argument is seriously annoying me), so perhaps it's time to take the next step and actually do something.
I agree that this thread is probably winding down. Never expected to get so many replies especially from the ladies. Lots of interesting points in the midst of some less interesting ones as well. Thanks to a lot of the ladies who did post quite honestly about their experiences. It's actually been quite interesting hearing from people about the topic. I hope that if you're a girl and reading this and the rest of the thread that you realize for every guy who's gonna make inappropriate comments there's plenty of others who welcome you as part of the community! And I hope some of you do make it to some major tournaments in the future! I guess that's pretty much all I've got to say.
And of course.. If you guys have more to say don't let me stop you haha. But it seems that we've got to a point where basically the same arguments are being brought up just in a slightly different manner each time.
Just an observation I had tonight. Got a few co-workers together to play on the free-play weekend. One of which female, whom I also count as one of my best friends. I played with her (2v2 vs comp) as she seemed determined to play Zerg as her brother made her play Terran when she was little. Whilst Zerg giving her the hardest path of all the other who opted for Terran, she learned remarkably fast and quickly figured out how the tech paths worked and the mechanics she had to keep in mind such as creep spread and lava inject. Basically went from first game "okay now build drones, and an overlord and now try a spawning pool", too "build Anti air, BC's incoming" by the 3rd.
And to be honest, if she had the time, she could get very good very fast. But then again, as many other people there found, some people just liked building their base and making a cool army, the actual fighting bit just didn't appeal to them. As such I think it more depends on the person, rather than any actual gender as some males didn't like fighting to much either.
Kinda late adding in here, but just something I thought of when I saw this thread.
Harder to get a practice house for women too. Serious men usually turn them away because they tend to cause drama either intentionally or unintentionally. Can't provide source, but I remember reading a translated article for a korean clan (maybe TSL? don't know) that said in the header that women need not apply because they are distractions etc. obvious reasons.
I read a new scientist article that investigated gender stereotypes. They found that baby boys naturally played with cars and girls naturally played with colourful dolls. Without any outside intervention they usually choose those toys. Boys then grow up with better spacial awareness (linked to the ability to map an area in your head) which is a very strong advantage in maths too.
The brain is too complex to fully understand yet but there is definitely something about the male brain that makes it better at video games and it's not stereotypes; it's linked to differences in the brain from birth.
Now that's not to say Girls can't be good at video games. It's just far less likely.
On November 20 2010 21:13 gakkgakk wrote: Not to be sexist or anything. But is there anything that girls are better than boys at? I can't think of anything that girls beat boys in.
In Sweden at least, the girls have better grades in almost all subjects. I think the one exception is P.E.
On November 20 2010 21:13 gakkgakk wrote: Not to be sexist or anything. But is there anything that girls are better than boys at? I can't think of anything that girls beat boys in.
In Sweden at least, the girls have better grades in almost all subjects. I think the one exception is P.E.
Since when do grades realistically show something?
Girls just don't put enough time I guess.Have you ever seen a girl that plays 6+ hours a day and tries to improve constantly?If a lot of guys do it and not many(let's just assume there are some) then of course guys would be dominating.
On November 20 2010 21:13 gakkgakk wrote: Not to be sexist or anything. But is there anything that girls are better than boys at? I can't think of anything that girls beat boys in.
Plus, girls have cooties. I mean, GROSS.
More seriously, I think a lot of it comes down to simple numbers. Maybe 1% (.1%? .01%?) of all SC2 players are good enough and interested enough to try to become pro gamers. Boys (males? men?) playing SC2 outnumber girls (women?) by a margin in the thousands, probably. Maybe only hundreds. It makes sense that male progamers should outnumber female ones by a similar margin.
On November 20 2010 20:41 Frozenhelfire wrote: Harder to get a practice house for women too. Serious men usually turn them away because they tend to cause drama either intentionally or unintentionally. Can't provide source, but I remember reading a translated article for a korean clan (maybe TSL? don't know) that said in the header that women need not apply because they are distractions etc. obvious reasons.
I think that was WeRRa and it was pretty funny in a tasteless way, when that scandal came about.
In serious circles it is more like million little debates about specific issues, and everyone is pretty sure that in most of them the hatchet falls somewhere in-between, they just argue exactly where. Yes, in social sciences and philosophy there are few that argue nurture all the way, but we can ignore them, they are harmless mostly
Of course in the end you can argue that even things that are called nurture are controlled by nature, because how much you can be influenced by society is again controlled by genes , but this approach to defining the problem is pointless, so really the hatchet falls somewhere in-between, except some rare cases.
I'm kind of confused by your post, are you agreeing with me or arguing? My entire point was that in the nature vs nurture debate (in pop culture) people just assume there's an obvious answer to the question in favour of themselves. Where as the proper academic debate on the subject is as you've said.
I maybe have some other interesting addition to this discussion. My mother is a very good checkers player. It was played in her family almost every day amongst her brothers and her father. She played really competitively against them, always wanting to win. She took part in a childeren tournament and won the 1st prize. The local newspaper heard of it and contacted my mothers' parents. The reporters asked if their child would persue playing checkers more seriously and try some other tournaments. But the parents said "No" because they thought girls, at that time (+-1970) shoudnt be doing this kinda stuff.
Later, when my mother was around 18 years old, free of her parents restrictions and still very good at checkers, she joined a checkers-club. Even tho she did very well in the club, beating senior members frequently, there was one thing that eventually caused her to leave the club: The male players just couldnt be serious when playing her. Many would try to ask her out all the time instead of focussing on the game. But the worst thing is, most players just couldnt handle being pummeled by a girl. They would laugh and talk smack when somebody lost to her: "Hah, being beaten by a girl, loser".
So another reason for the few female sc players to leave, is i think because male gamers don't accept them and don't take them serious.
The Polgar sisters are a great example of why more women don't do well in competitive games. Of course one of the reason is that women don't have the same competitive "spirit" as men, but that simply means there are less potential women gamers, not that there can't be. In the case of the Polgar sisters, their father decided to develop a way to bring up genius, quite literally. His approach to teaching Chess was based on pattern recognition (recognizing "good" and "bad" positions on parts of the board of various sizes) instead of series of sequential moves and general strategies. Of course, you need to know opening moves and endgame sequences, but these are more rote memory and experience, areas in which women are not inferior to men. But in pattern recognition, women are actually better in general. So the Polgar sisters did great. The oldest though maybe lacked the competitive spirit of the youngest and as such she stopped competing after being the first female to achieve the title of grandmaster.
Now, one may look at this and think, if women can do great in Chess with the right education, why not in other games? Let's take Go for example. Go is also heavily dependent on pattern recognition, but is much more complex than Chess. Opening sequences cannot be memorized as easily and the end game is pure mathematical heuristics (i.e. lots of calculation). Maybe, if someone could devise for Go a teaching system like Lazlo Polgar did for Chess (not going to happen anytime soon by the way), some women could get really strong at Go ; but I doubt it considering the end game that is pure calculation, for women are generally weaker than men in this regard as much as they are better at pattern recognition.
So this takes us to Starcraft. What are the defining characteristics of RTS games that make them different than Chess and Go? First, like the name says they take place in real time. Second, you do not have perfect information. Third, you need to manage both a static base and a moving army (divide time between macro and micro if you like). Base management should be no problem for women and with TossGirl we see that if it's not Flash like at least it isn't a problem. Micro shouldn't be a problem either on it's own. Women are known to be great at detailed work. After all, they've had thousands of years of experience sewing us men clothes. But we will see later how juggling the two can be very bad for women gamers.
So all right, before taking on the real-time aspects, let's get this information conundrum out the way first. This is where I think women really get the evolutionary short end of the proverbial stick. Who hunts food? Men. Who contends with dangerous situations day-to-day? Men. Who doesn't know when or where his next kill will to be or even if he'll come back in one piece? Men. Men have lots of experience with unknown situations and pressure situations. In general they will secrete lots of adrenaline at the dimmest hint of danger. They have evolved to cope with unknowns. This is why men can orient themselves better than women without a map. With a map, the playing field is leveled (as long as you know how to use it properly, which is a pitfall many women encounter simply because they never had an opportunity to learn). It is no wonder either that men are better at advanced math (real math, not simple equation solving which has more to do with pattern recognition). You could say the difference here is that women like to match known quantities together, whereas men extrapolate better (or simply more readily) based on incomplete information, while also having the added advantage that they aren't as uncomfortable with unknown situations as women are in general. Hence men take more risks. How many successful female VCs or traders have you seen lately? It's not like women are not trying to make a quick buck too. But like Virgil said, "fortune favors the bold".
Next, RTS games are real-time, another area where women must give the evolutionary edge to men, albeit not as much as with coping with imperfect information. Many mistakenly believe that real-time means multitasking, but that is false. What it means, in an RTS game, is task-switching (in fact, I am not sure you could design a competitive RTS game designed around multitasking playable only with mouse and keyboard. Maybe some form of management game like The Sims, but not an RTS and neither an FPS for that matter. No wonder both recreate situations of war). So, in RTS games in general and in Starcraft in particular you have to switch between macro mode and micro mode and do it fast. Men are good at that. For example, here's the daily routine of the primitive man : stalk the prey, get caught, now switch to run-for-your-life mode pronto ; and don't forget to yell and warn others on your way out! Or, switch to kill mode if you have the opportunity: load the bow, don't lose the tail, watch where your clan mates are, check for possible obstacles, plan retreat route just in case, make dinner plans, shoot the arrow, miss, pursue while reloading, hop over a fallen tree and wham! right in the thing you were hunting. Good. Now take it back to camp with you 10 miles somewhere in that general direction while the sun is setting down. Don't forget wood for the fire and a flower for the missus on your way. Alright, now you can play Starcraft and win some games for once! Now, ask a women to play WoW and talk to you at the same time. She will be glad to gossip and recount her whole day while organizing a raid and crafting things and watching auctions, etc. She may even be able to do all that while playing Starcraft, but then don't be surprised when she loses.
The Polgar sisters are a great example of why more women don't do well in competitive games. Of course one of the reason is that women don't have the same competitive "spirit" as men, but that simply means there are less potential women gamers, not that there can't be. In the case of the Polgar sisters, their father decided to develop a way to bring up genius, quite literally. His approach to teaching Chess was based on pattern recognition (recognizing "good" and "bad" positions on parts of the board of various sizes) instead of series of sequential moves and general strategies. Of course, you need to know opening moves and endgame sequences, but these are more rote memory and experience, areas in which women are not inferior to men. But in pattern recognition, women are actually better in general. So the Polgar sisters did great. The oldest though maybe lacked the competitive spirit of the youngest and as such she stopped competing after being the first female to achieve the title of grandmaster.
Now, one may look at this and think, if women can do great in Chess with the right education, why not in other games? Let's take Go for example. Go is also heavily dependent on pattern recognition, but is much more complex than Chess. Opening sequences cannot be memorized as easily and the end game is pure mathematical heuristics (i.e. lots of calculation). Maybe, if someone could devise for Go a teaching system like Lazlo Polgar did for Chess (not going to happen anytime soon by the way), some women could get really strong at Go ; but I doubt it considering the end game that is pure calculation, for women are generally weaker than men in this regard as much as they are better at pattern recognition.
So this takes us to Starcraft. What are the defining characteristics of RTS games that make them different than Chess and Go? First, like the name says they take place in real time. Second, you do not have perfect information. Third, you need to manage both a static base and a moving army (divide time between macro and micro if you like). Base management should be no problem for women and with TossGirl we see that if it's not Flash like at least it isn't a problem. Micro shouldn't be a problem either on it's own. Women are known to be great at detailed work. After all, they've had thousands of years of experience sewing us men clothes. But we will see later how juggling the two can be very bad for women gamers.
So all right, before taking on the real-time aspects, let's get this information conundrum out the way first. This is where I think women really get the evolutionary short end of the proverbial stick. Who hunts food? Men. Who contends with dangerous situations day-to-day? Men. Who doesn't know when or where his next kill will to be or even if he'll come back in one piece? Men. Men have lots of experience with unknown situations and pressure situations. In general they will secrete lots of adrenaline at the dimmest hint of danger. They have evolved to cope with unknowns. This is why men can orient themselves better than women without a map. With a map, the playing field is leveled (as long as you know how to use it properly, which is a pitfall many women encounter simply because they never had an opportunity to learn). It is no wonder either that men are better at advanced math (real math, not simple equation solving which has more to do with pattern recognition). You could say the difference here is that women like to match known quantities together, whereas men extrapolate better (or simply more readily) based on incomplete information, while also having the added advantage that they aren't as uncomfortable with unknown situations as women are in general. Hence men take more risks. How many successful female VCs or traders have you seen lately? It's not like women are not trying to make a quick buck too. But like Virgil said, "fortune favors the bold".
Next, RTS games are real-time, another area where women must give the evolutionary edge to men, albeit not as much as with coping with imperfect information. Many mistakenly believe that real-time means multitasking, but that is false. What it means, in an RTS game, is task-switching (in fact, I am not sure you could design a competitive RTS game designed around multitasking playable only with mouse and keyboard. Maybe some form of management game like The Sims, but not an RTS and neither an FPS for that matter. No wonder both recreate situations of war). So, in RTS games in general and in Starcraft in particular you have to switch between macro mode and micro mode and do it fast. Men are good at that. For example, here's the daily routine of the primitive man : stalk the prey, get caught, now switch to run-for-your-life mode pronto ; and don't forget to yell and warn others on your way out! Or, switch to kill mode if you have the opportunity: load the bow, don't lose the tail, watch where your clan mates are, check for possible obstacles, plan retreat route just in case, make dinner plans, shoot the arrow, miss, pursue while reloading, hop over a fallen tree and wham! right in the thing you were hunting. Good. Now take it back to camp with you 10 miles somewhere in that general direction while the sun is setting down. Don't forget wood for the fire and a flower for the missus on your way. Alright, now you can play Starcraft and win some games for once! Now, ask a women to play WoW and talk to you at the same time. She will be glad to gossip and recount her whole day while organizing a raid and crafting things and watching auctions, etc. She may even be able to do all that while playing Starcraft, but then don't be surprised when she loses.
I just can't believe that whatever biological factor there may be won't be washed away through practice. If you find someone who won't run away from a Kespa BW slave house and will diligently practice each day for years, this training will make the brain do whatever it needs to do for Starcraft.
There will of course be a difference between players in the end, but my gut feeling is, the percentage of impressive players would be comparable between genders. That gut feeling comes from... in discussing science stuff in work groups at university, I occasionally find someone that makes me think, "crap... what he/she just now said was genius... I need to make sure to not miss anything of his/her ideas in the future." I don't see a significant difference between men and women in finding someone to latch onto for inspiration at work. Looking at a persons character is most important, imho.
Imagine if the thread title would instead be "Discussing the lack of top black starcraft gamers". What would you write then? What would be your explanation?
Girls aren't stupid. Most of them play games of fun instead of trying to be competitive.
My GF (playfully) mocks me every time I care about my ladder performance and comments on me "taking a game much too seriously". And you know what? She's right. I could do so much more useful stuff in the time I spend with honing my build timings or practicing a certain matchup.
And while I'm usually good at the games I play - meaning I could beat most other people playing them or perform better - my GF has more fun playing the games she plays, because she doesn't mind others being "better" than her (WoW) or others winning (racing/sports games on the Wii).
Deep inside us we all know that, yeah, we love our hobby, but in the end it's a timewaster like all other games. And except for the likes of Day9 or IdrA, gaming will never change our life, will never be something else than a past-time activity. Most girls seem to know this inherently and will never prioritize games the way guys do.
On November 20 2010 02:33 SovSov wrote: Hate to sound sexist but it's true, there's a reason women are always behind men in mostly everything they do (when it comes to competition of any sort, academics, what not), and it's not just because "women are treated unfairly". Human women were designed to be the nurturers and optimal mate-finders, men were designed to protect and impress.
You have to realize that shooting, war, strategical thinking and shit is a boys hobby, not that many girls are into it, and even fewer are so into it that they want to be good, and even fewer get that far.
Also, girls grow up fast, mature faster, games just isn't as appealing, it's childish.
1) they would be extremley bm during their period 2)they would lose because they are watching grey's anatomy at the same time 3)who would do the dishes? 4)we would have to abolish chat in order for them to become effective
I believe the most important factor here is social, not biological. Yes, biologically boys are more inclined to play certain games and girls different girls, but this is an average of sorts, not an absolute. In the measure that it becomes socially acceptable, those girls that are outside the "average" in terms of games they like to play (say, 15%-20% of women), will start doing so without any problem whatsoever. Nowadays it is socially acceptable for a woman to do almost any sport without being looked down upon, but this is not yet true for gaming, hopefully some day it will be, it would be a lot of fun to have more girl gamers imo.
If they can be just as good as men? I'd dare say that with enough practice they can definitely make it, although, just as there will always be a fewer proportion of females in gaming, there will be a lesser proportion of females in pro-gaming. There's no reason for it to be any different.
On November 21 2010 01:24 mordk wrote: I believe the most important factor here is social, not biological. Yes, biologically boys are more inclined to play certain games and girls different girls, but this is an average of sorts, not an absolute. In the measure that it becomes socially acceptable, those girls that are outside the "average" in terms of games they like to play (say, 15%-20% of women), will start doing so without any problem whatsoever. Nowadays it is socially acceptable for a woman to do almost any sport without being looked down upon, but this is not yet true for gaming, hopefully some day it will be, it would be a lot of fun to have more girl gamers imo.
If they can be just as good as men? I'd dare say that with enough practice they can definitely make it, although, just as there will always be a fewer proportion of females in gaming, there will be a lesser proportion of females in pro-gaming. There's no reason for it to be any different.
The social factor is also huge, id say probably teh biggest, alot of teh girls that play games in my observations are "boys-girls" that spend alot of time with boys and have alot of male friends, even as young
On November 21 2010 01:22 ETHANOL wrote: If girls played starcraft
1) they would be extremley bm during their period 2)they would lose because they are watching grey's anatomy at the same time 3)who would do the dishes? 4)we would have to abolish chat in order for them to become effective
On November 21 2010 01:22 ETHANOL wrote: If girls played starcraft
1) they would be extremley bm during their period 2)they would lose because they are watching grey's anatomy at the same time 3)who would do the dishes? 4)we would have to abolish chat in order for them to become effective
hurr hurr ima so funny herba derp
This is the kind of reason that I can't be playing games with a Kate or Ashley.
I for one would love to see some more diversity, it wouldn't harm anyone at all.
The Polgar sisters are a great example of why more women don't do well in competitive games. Of course one of the reason is that women don't have the same competitive "spirit" as men, but that simply means there are less potential women gamers, not that there can't be. In the case of the Polgar sisters, their father decided to develop a way to bring up genius, quite literally. His approach to teaching Chess was based on pattern recognition (recognizing "good" and "bad" positions on parts of the board of various sizes) instead of series of sequential moves and general strategies. Of course, you need to know opening moves and endgame sequences, but these are more rote memory and experience, areas in which women are not inferior to men. But in pattern recognition, women are actually better in general. So the Polgar sisters did great. The oldest though maybe lacked the competitive spirit of the youngest and as such she stopped competing after being the first female to achieve the title of grandmaster.
Now, one may look at this and think, if women can do great in Chess with the right education, why not in other games? Let's take Go for example. Go is also heavily dependent on pattern recognition, but is much more complex than Chess. Opening sequences cannot be memorized as easily and the end game is pure mathematical heuristics (i.e. lots of calculation). Maybe, if someone could devise for Go a teaching system like Lazlo Polgar did for Chess (not going to happen anytime soon by the way), some women could get really strong at Go ; but I doubt it considering the end game that is pure calculation, for women are generally weaker than men in this regard as much as they are better at pattern recognition.
So this takes us to Starcraft. What are the defining characteristics of RTS games that make them different than Chess and Go? First, like the name says they take place in real time. Second, you do not have perfect information. Third, you need to manage both a static base and a moving army (divide time between macro and micro if you like). Base management should be no problem for women and with TossGirl we see that if it's not Flash like at least it isn't a problem. Micro shouldn't be a problem either on it's own. Women are known to be great at detailed work. After all, they've had thousands of years of experience sewing us men clothes. But we will see later how juggling the two can be very bad for women gamers.
So all right, before taking on the real-time aspects, let's get this information conundrum out the way first. This is where I think women really get the evolutionary short end of the proverbial stick. Who hunts food? Men. Who contends with dangerous situations day-to-day? Men. Who doesn't know when or where his next kill will to be or even if he'll come back in one piece? Men. Men have lots of experience with unknown situations and pressure situations. In general they will secrete lots of adrenaline at the dimmest hint of danger. They have evolved to cope with unknowns. This is why men can orient themselves better than women without a map. With a map, the playing field is leveled (as long as you know how to use it properly, which is a pitfall many women encounter simply because they never had an opportunity to learn). It is no wonder either that men are better at advanced math (real math, not simple equation solving which has more to do with pattern recognition). You could say the difference here is that women like to match known quantities together, whereas men extrapolate better (or simply more readily) based on incomplete information, while also having the added advantage that they aren't as uncomfortable with unknown situations as women are in general. Hence men take more risks. How many successful female VCs or traders have you seen lately? It's not like women are not trying to make a quick buck too. But like Virgil said, "fortune favors the bold".
Next, RTS games are real-time, another area where women must give the evolutionary edge to men, albeit not as much as with coping with imperfect information. Many mistakenly believe that real-time means multitasking, but that is false. What it means, in an RTS game, is task-switching (in fact, I am not sure you could design a competitive RTS game designed around multitasking playable only with mouse and keyboard. Maybe some form of management game like The Sims, but not an RTS and neither an FPS for that matter. No wonder both recreate situations of war). So, in RTS games in general and in Starcraft in particular you have to switch between macro mode and micro mode and do it fast. Men are good at that. For example, here's the daily routine of the primitive man : stalk the prey, get caught, now switch to run-for-your-life mode pronto ; and don't forget to yell and warn others on your way out! Or, switch to kill mode if you have the opportunity: load the bow, don't lose the tail, watch where your clan mates are, check for possible obstacles, plan retreat route just in case, make dinner plans, shoot the arrow, miss, pursue while reloading, hop over a fallen tree and wham! right in the thing you were hunting. Good. Now take it back to camp with you 10 miles somewhere in that general direction while the sun is setting down. Don't forget wood for the fire and a flower for the missus on your way. Alright, now you can play Starcraft and win some games for once! Now, ask a women to play WoW and talk to you at the same time. She will be glad to gossip and recount her whole day while organizing a raid and crafting things and watching auctions, etc. She may even be able to do all that while playing Starcraft, but then don't be surprised when she loses.
I just can't believe that whatever biological factor there may be won't be washed away through practice. If you find someone who won't run away from a Kespa BW slave house and will diligently practice each day for years, this training will make the brain do whatever it needs to do for Starcraft.
There will of course be a difference between players in the end, but my gut feeling is, the percentage of impressive players would be comparable between genders. That gut feeling comes from... in discussing science stuff in work groups at university, I occasionally find someone that makes me think, "crap... what he/she just now said was genius... I need to make sure to not miss anything of his/her ideas in the future." I don't see a significant difference between men and women in finding someone to latch onto for inspiration at work. Looking at a persons character is most important, imho.
Imagine if the thread title would instead be "Discussing the lack of top black starcraft gamers". What would you write then? What would be your explanation?
What do blacks have to do with the topic at hand? That's a pretty inflammatory remark if you ask me.
Anyway, you do realize that human females do not have a Y chromosome right? That's pretty biological. Nothing I saw in any research shows that this changes things much in the higher cerebral functions, but the whole hormonal balance is different in males vs. females and this is bound to have pretty drastic consequences in the way the lower-brain functions develop and react to external and even internal stimuli. Research supports the fact that some behavioral differences are biological. To what extent these differences can be suppressed by education is still debated today, but I would think most of it would be pretty firm without some neural remodeling (especially things like adrenaline response to fear/pressure). Again this does not apply to everything, like language for example: even though men and women use language differently their ability to learn/use it does not differ as far as we know. These differences can also be more or less pronounced depending on the individual, hence why you see many more homosexual women in the army than heterosexual women: they simply have a different hormonal balance than heterosexual women and thus their brain develop differently.
Trying to overlook the obvious in your quest to be politically correct (that's how it looks, especially since you seem to want to equate sex - or "gender"? - with "race") seems to me like intellectual hypocrisy at worst and ideological blindness at best.
The Polgar sisters are a great example of why more women don't do well in competitive games. Of course one of the reason is that women don't have the same competitive "spirit" as men, but that simply means there are less potential women gamers, not that there can't be. In the case of the Polgar sisters, their father decided to develop a way to bring up genius, quite literally. His approach to teaching Chess was based on pattern recognition (recognizing "good" and "bad" positions on parts of the board of various sizes) instead of series of sequential moves and general strategies. Of course, you need to know opening moves and endgame sequences, but these are more rote memory and experience, areas in which women are not inferior to men. But in pattern recognition, women are actually better in general. So the Polgar sisters did great. The oldest though maybe lacked the competitive spirit of the youngest and as such she stopped competing after being the first female to achieve the title of grandmaster.
Now, one may look at this and think, if women can do great in Chess with the right education, why not in other games? Let's take Go for example. Go is also heavily dependent on pattern recognition, but is much more complex than Chess. Opening sequences cannot be memorized as easily and the end game is pure mathematical heuristics (i.e. lots of calculation). Maybe, if someone could devise for Go a teaching system like Lazlo Polgar did for Chess (not going to happen anytime soon by the way), some women could get really strong at Go ; but I doubt it considering the end game that is pure calculation, for women are generally weaker than men in this regard as much as they are better at pattern recognition.
So this takes us to Starcraft. What are the defining characteristics of RTS games that make them different than Chess and Go? First, like the name says they take place in real time. Second, you do not have perfect information. Third, you need to manage both a static base and a moving army (divide time between macro and micro if you like). Base management should be no problem for women and with TossGirl we see that if it's not Flash like at least it isn't a problem. Micro shouldn't be a problem either on it's own. Women are known to be great at detailed work. After all, they've had thousands of years of experience sewing us men clothes. But we will see later how juggling the two can be very bad for women gamers.
So all right, before taking on the real-time aspects, let's get this information conundrum out the way first. This is where I think women really get the evolutionary short end of the proverbial stick. Who hunts food? Men. Who contends with dangerous situations day-to-day? Men. Who doesn't know when or where his next kill will to be or even if he'll come back in one piece? Men. Men have lots of experience with unknown situations and pressure situations. In general they will secrete lots of adrenaline at the dimmest hint of danger. They have evolved to cope with unknowns. This is why men can orient themselves better than women without a map. With a map, the playing field is leveled (as long as you know how to use it properly, which is a pitfall many women encounter simply because they never had an opportunity to learn). It is no wonder either that men are better at advanced math (real math, not simple equation solving which has more to do with pattern recognition). You could say the difference here is that women like to match known quantities together, whereas men extrapolate better (or simply more readily) based on incomplete information, while also having the added advantage that they aren't as uncomfortable with unknown situations as women are in general. Hence men take more risks. How many successful female VCs or traders have you seen lately? It's not like women are not trying to make a quick buck too. But like Virgil said, "fortune favors the bold".
Next, RTS games are real-time, another area where women must give the evolutionary edge to men, albeit not as much as with coping with imperfect information. Many mistakenly believe that real-time means multitasking, but that is false. What it means, in an RTS game, is task-switching (in fact, I am not sure you could design a competitive RTS game designed around multitasking playable only with mouse and keyboard. Maybe some form of management game like The Sims, but not an RTS and neither an FPS for that matter. No wonder both recreate situations of war). So, in RTS games in general and in Starcraft in particular you have to switch between macro mode and micro mode and do it fast. Men are good at that. For example, here's the daily routine of the primitive man : stalk the prey, get caught, now switch to run-for-your-life mode pronto ; and don't forget to yell and warn others on your way out! Or, switch to kill mode if you have the opportunity: load the bow, don't lose the tail, watch where your clan mates are, check for possible obstacles, plan retreat route just in case, make dinner plans, shoot the arrow, miss, pursue while reloading, hop over a fallen tree and wham! right in the thing you were hunting. Good. Now take it back to camp with you 10 miles somewhere in that general direction while the sun is setting down. Don't forget wood for the fire and a flower for the missus on your way. Alright, now you can play Starcraft and win some games for once! Now, ask a women to play WoW and talk to you at the same time. She will be glad to gossip and recount her whole day while organizing a raid and crafting things and watching auctions, etc. She may even be able to do all that while playing Starcraft, but then don't be surprised when she loses.
I just can't believe that whatever biological factor there may be won't be washed away through practice. If you find someone who won't run away from a Kespa BW slave house and will diligently practice each day for years, this training will make the brain do whatever it needs to do for Starcraft.
There will of course be a difference between players in the end, but my gut feeling is, the percentage of impressive players would be comparable between genders. That gut feeling comes from... in discussing science stuff in work groups at university, I occasionally find someone that makes me think, "crap... what he/she just now said was genius... I need to make sure to not miss anything of his/her ideas in the future." I don't see a significant difference between men and women in finding someone to latch onto for inspiration at work. Looking at a persons character is most important, imho.
Imagine if the thread title would instead be "Discussing the lack of top black starcraft gamers". What would you write then? What would be your explanation?
What do blacks have to do with the topic at hand? That's a pretty inflammatory remark if you ask me.
Anyway, you do realize that human females do not have a Y chromosome right? That's pretty biological. Nothing I saw in any research shows that this changes things much in the higher cerebral functions, but the whole hormonal balance is different in males vs. females and this is bound to have pretty drastic consequences in the way the lower-brain functions develop and react to external and even internal stimuli. Research supports the fact that some behavioral differences are biological. To what extent these differences can be suppressed by education is still debated today, but I would think most of it would be pretty firm without some neural remodeling (especially things like adrenaline response to fear/pressure). Again this does not apply to everything, like language for example: even though men and women use language differently their ability to learn/use it does not differ as far as we know. These differences can also be more or less pronounced depending on the individual, hence why you see many more homosexual women in the army than heterosexual women: they simply have a different hormonal balance than heterosexual women and thus their brain develop differently.
Trying to overlook the obvious in your quest to be politically correct (that's how it looks, especially since you seem to want to equate sex - or "gender"? - with "race") seems to me like intellectual hypocrisy at worst and ideological blindness at best.
I tried thinking about if I'm only trying to be politically correct, and if I'm only being stupid and influenced by the media or what-have-you, and I seem to be able to convince myself, that this is not the case.
I'm a big fan of trying to mix people from as many different backgrounds as possible in the workplace (with the needed qualifications for the job of course). I find the work environment more interesting for me, and I have the feeling, the chance to find the best possible solution for a problem seems to be better, because the team comes up with a wider range of proposals. I'm afraid I'm missing out on some great revelations, if I approach people with prejudice and don't listen to what they are saying. I'm not trying to be a saint: the bastard part of me agrees because it smells profit.
Also, in my experience, if people don't believe that you respect them, they seem to be holding back with the best possible stuff they could bring to the table. And this is my opinion of what's happening. The best possible Starcraft player is probably not playing because of how society judges gaming. I believe there is a good enough chance that this player is female, and we will never know it.
What you're saying about the Y chromosome: I don't feel confident in the biology stuff I remember from school, but does the Y chromosome even do anything? I only remember that females have an increased chance to not suffer from diseases stemming from some broken part in the X chromosome because they have a second different copy from their father. Also, from the last world championships with the doping tests of that South African runner, there were some pop-science articles in the papers about how there can be males with XX chromosomes and females with XY chromosome pairs, when there is something off with the hormonal balance.
Of course men are more competitive, it's genetic (anyone who doesn't believe this is a fool).
In practically EVERY species (mammals at least). There are always males trying to be the dominant "alpha" male and females following whoever is in charge. Males are way more aggressive, females are way more passive, it's a fact of life that has evolved over millions of years. This has been true in humanity for THOUSANDS of years, it's just how it is. Granted now with more enlightened people there are tons of women who try to fight their natural tendencies and cross the lines (some with great success, the majority not so much).
That's just how it is, no sexism, just facts. Of course there are always exceptions to every rule, but for the majority this holds true. Not to mention that most girls do not like video games beyond farmville, the sims, and nintendogs, further skewing things.
One thing that may deter women from gaming: I don't know how many of you have played something like MW2 on Xbox Live, but if a female says anything into a mic, the amount of crap she will get back is unbelievable, which I would think would deter them from playing. This does not mean they receive the same kind of treatment in a game like SC2, but in general, I think it has an impact.
The Polgar sisters are a great example of why more women don't do well in competitive games. Of course one of the reason is that women don't have the same competitive "spirit" as men, but that simply means there are less potential women gamers, not that there can't be. In the case of the Polgar sisters, their father decided to develop a way to bring up genius, quite literally. His approach to teaching Chess was based on pattern recognition (recognizing "good" and "bad" positions on parts of the board of various sizes) instead of series of sequential moves and general strategies. Of course, you need to know opening moves and endgame sequences, but these are more rote memory and experience, areas in which women are not inferior to men. But in pattern recognition, women are actually better in general. So the Polgar sisters did great. The oldest though maybe lacked the competitive spirit of the youngest and as such she stopped competing after being the first female to achieve the title of grandmaster.
Now, one may look at this and think, if women can do great in Chess with the right education, why not in other games? Let's take Go for example. Go is also heavily dependent on pattern recognition, but is much more complex than Chess. Opening sequences cannot be memorized as easily and the end game is pure mathematical heuristics (i.e. lots of calculation). Maybe, if someone could devise for Go a teaching system like Lazlo Polgar did for Chess (not going to happen anytime soon by the way), some women could get really strong at Go ; but I doubt it considering the end game that is pure calculation, for women are generally weaker than men in this regard as much as they are better at pattern recognition.
So this takes us to Starcraft. What are the defining characteristics of RTS games that make them different than Chess and Go? First, like the name says they take place in real time. Second, you do not have perfect information. Third, you need to manage both a static base and a moving army (divide time between macro and micro if you like). Base management should be no problem for women and with TossGirl we see that if it's not Flash like at least it isn't a problem. Micro shouldn't be a problem either on it's own. Women are known to be great at detailed work. After all, they've had thousands of years of experience sewing us men clothes. But we will see later how juggling the two can be very bad for women gamers.
So all right, before taking on the real-time aspects, let's get this information conundrum out the way first. This is where I think women really get the evolutionary short end of the proverbial stick. Who hunts food? Men. Who contends with dangerous situations day-to-day? Men. Who doesn't know when or where his next kill will to be or even if he'll come back in one piece? Men. Men have lots of experience with unknown situations and pressure situations. In general they will secrete lots of adrenaline at the dimmest hint of danger. They have evolved to cope with unknowns. This is why men can orient themselves better than women without a map. With a map, the playing field is leveled (as long as you know how to use it properly, which is a pitfall many women encounter simply because they never had an opportunity to learn). It is no wonder either that men are better at advanced math (real math, not simple equation solving which has more to do with pattern recognition). You could say the difference here is that women like to match known quantities together, whereas men extrapolate better (or simply more readily) based on incomplete information, while also having the added advantage that they aren't as uncomfortable with unknown situations as women are in general. Hence men take more risks. How many successful female VCs or traders have you seen lately? It's not like women are not trying to make a quick buck too. But like Virgil said, "fortune favors the bold".
Next, RTS games are real-time, another area where women must give the evolutionary edge to men, albeit not as much as with coping with imperfect information. Many mistakenly believe that real-time means multitasking, but that is false. What it means, in an RTS game, is task-switching (in fact, I am not sure you could design a competitive RTS game designed around multitasking playable only with mouse and keyboard. Maybe some form of management game like The Sims, but not an RTS and neither an FPS for that matter. No wonder both recreate situations of war). So, in RTS games in general and in Starcraft in particular you have to switch between macro mode and micro mode and do it fast. Men are good at that. For example, here's the daily routine of the primitive man : stalk the prey, get caught, now switch to run-for-your-life mode pronto ; and don't forget to yell and warn others on your way out! Or, switch to kill mode if you have the opportunity: load the bow, don't lose the tail, watch where your clan mates are, check for possible obstacles, plan retreat route just in case, make dinner plans, shoot the arrow, miss, pursue while reloading, hop over a fallen tree and wham! right in the thing you were hunting. Good. Now take it back to camp with you 10 miles somewhere in that general direction while the sun is setting down. Don't forget wood for the fire and a flower for the missus on your way. Alright, now you can play Starcraft and win some games for once! Now, ask a women to play WoW and talk to you at the same time. She will be glad to gossip and recount her whole day while organizing a raid and crafting things and watching auctions, etc. She may even be able to do all that while playing Starcraft, but then don't be surprised when she loses.
I just can't believe that whatever biological factor there may be won't be washed away through practice. If you find someone who won't run away from a Kespa BW slave house and will diligently practice each day for years, this training will make the brain do whatever it needs to do for Starcraft.
There will of course be a difference between players in the end, but my gut feeling is, the percentage of impressive players would be comparable between genders. That gut feeling comes from... in discussing science stuff in work groups at university, I occasionally find someone that makes me think, "crap... what he/she just now said was genius... I need to make sure to not miss anything of his/her ideas in the future." I don't see a significant difference between men and women in finding someone to latch onto for inspiration at work. Looking at a persons character is most important, imho.
Imagine if the thread title would instead be "Discussing the lack of top black starcraft gamers". What would you write then? What would be your explanation?
What do blacks have to do with the topic at hand? That's a pretty inflammatory remark if you ask me.
Anyway, you do realize that human females do not have a Y chromosome right? That's pretty biological. Nothing I saw in any research shows that this changes things much in the higher cerebral functions, but the whole hormonal balance is different in males vs. females and this is bound to have pretty drastic consequences in the way the lower-brain functions develop and react to external and even internal stimuli. Research supports the fact that some behavioral differences are biological. To what extent these differences can be suppressed by education is still debated today, but I would think most of it would be pretty firm without some neural remodeling (especially things like adrenaline response to fear/pressure). Again this does not apply to everything, like language for example: even though men and women use language differently their ability to learn/use it does not differ as far as we know. These differences can also be more or less pronounced depending on the individual, hence why you see many more homosexual women in the army than heterosexual women: they simply have a different hormonal balance than heterosexual women and thus their brain develop differently.
Trying to overlook the obvious in your quest to be politically correct (that's how it looks, especially since you seem to want to equate sex - or "gender"? - with "race") seems to me like intellectual hypocrisy at worst and ideological blindness at best.
I tried thinking about if I'm only trying to be politically correct, and if I'm only being stupid and influenced by the media or what-have-you, and I seem to be able to convince myself, that this is not the case.
I'm a big fan of trying to mix people from as many different backgrounds as possible in the workplace (with the needed qualifications for the job of course). I find the work environment more interesting for me, and I have the feeling, the chance to find the best possible solution for a problem seems to be better, because the team comes up with a wider range of proposals. I'm afraid I'm missing out on some great revelations, if I approach people with prejudice and don't listen to what they are saying. I'm not trying to be a saint: the bastard part of me agrees because it smells profit.
Also, in my experience, if people don't believe that you respect them, they seem to be holding back with the best possible stuff they could bring to the table. And this is my opinion of what's happening. The best possible Starcraft player is probably not playing because of how society judges gaming. I believe there is a good enough chance that this player is female, and we will never know it.
What you're saying about the Y chromosome: I don't feel confident in the biology stuff I remember from school, but does the Y chromosome even do anything? I only remember that females have an increased chance to not suffer from diseases stemming from some broken part in the X chromosome because they have a second different copy from their father. Also, from the last world championships with the doping tests of that South African runner, there were some pop-science articles in the papers about how there can be males with XX chromosomes and females with XY chromosome pairs, when there is something off with the hormonal balance.
Regarding the Y chromosome, yes it does something, but it does small, very specific things (in the grand scheme of all things chromosomal). It replaces one X chromosome and supersedes many functions related to men anatomy. But it also doesn't code for some important things, hence why it is shorter and takes the shape of a Y instead of an X. For example, the defective gene for color blindness in an affected X chromosome cannot be compensated by a healthy Y chromosome because the Y chromosome does not contain the genetic code for color vision: this is why men are affected more often by color blindness that women. There are cases of females with XY chromosomes and hermaphrodites, etc. with XXY and XXX and such, but they are fairly rare and the arithmetic of the sexual chromosomes are not fully understood yet so we can only look at the macro-somatic effects of XY vs XX, etc. in relation to the individual genes they contain and which genes they activate or deactivate in specific cases while trying to build a statistical, more general model of interactions/interferences (although when a Y chromosome is involved it almost always results in a male). Also, XX males are females with one X chromosome having accidentally copied the SRY (Sex-determining Region Y, makes your testis grow) gene from a Y chromosome during meiosis. It is an accident, not something intended to endure and be passed on (these "men" are infertile). In XY females, the SRY gene is damaged.
Anyway, what we are interested in are general tendencies, not individual cases. Also, I am discussing the possibilities of the average prototypical female being as good at RTS games than the average prototypical male, all social opportunities being otherwise equal. You might say this is a far-fetched premise. Of course it is. What I am proposing is a thought experiment, not a real-world case study. Also, what I am saying is that thinking like you do, that it is simply society that do not give everyone an equal chance to do what they want because of peer pressure, education, etc. is quite puerile, idealistic and utopian. It is based much more on your own prejudiced education (i.e. skewed towards the "gender" equality ideology) than on science and hard facts. I am male and therefore cannot have babies. On the other hand, my body is flowing with testosterone, giving me the ability to naturally put on muscle much more easily than 98% of females. To think that such broad differences have no repercussion in the brain is, again, puerile, idealistic and utopian, since it ignores many years of psychological and neurological research. Like I said earlier, we can debate how these differences influence the relative abilities of the two sexes in different types of games. What we cannot debate is the fact that there are differences.
But of course, if you want to be puerile, idealistic and utopian - and stay that way - well, good for you I guess.
Guys are d-bags when it comes to competitive games. Many people, including myself, are completely turned off by the online banter (shit-talking) that happens.
Saying that girls are just not good enough, that games are not "socially accepted" for females is completely ignoring how we, the guys, behave in game.
No fucking wonder why The Sims or Farmville are so popular with women. They are not zero-sum games. There's no chat feature, no "fuck you noob"s.
On November 21 2010 03:56 phant wrote: Of course men are more competitive, it's genetic (anyone who doesn't believe this is a fool).
In practically EVERY species (mammals at least). There are always males trying to be the dominant "alpha" male and females following whoever is in charge. Males are way more aggressive, females are way more passive, it's a fact of life that has evolved over millions of years. This has been true in humanity for THOUSANDS of years, it's just how it is. Granted now with more enlightened people there are tons of women who try to fight their natural tendencies and cross the lines (some with great success, the majority not so much).
That's just how it is, no sexism, just facts. Of course there are always exceptions to every rule, but for the majority this holds true. Not to mention that most girls do not like video games beyond farmville, the sims, and nintendogs, further skewing things.
This is absolutely ridiculous. The typical "alpha males" I see are those I see who date rape and roofie women at college parties.
Going along with your logic, if I was a guy and I wasn't competitive, does that mean I'm not a "real man". That's fucking stupid. Stop using evolution as a way to justify modern social behavior. If you've taken any real discussion courses, you would know that these arguments are just stupid. We are not cavemen.
There is no gender binary. Men are not all competitive. Women don't just follow whoever is in charge because it's in their biological. Get a grip.
On November 21 2010 03:56 phant wrote: Of course men are more competitive, it's genetic (anyone who doesn't believe this is a fool).
In practically EVERY species (mammals at least). There are always males trying to be the dominant "alpha" male and females following whoever is in charge. Males are way more aggressive, females are way more passive, it's a fact of life that has evolved over millions of years. This has been true in humanity for THOUSANDS of years, it's just how it is. Granted now with more enlightened people there are tons of women who try to fight their natural tendencies and cross the lines (some with great success, the majority not so much).
That's just how it is, no sexism, just facts. Of course there are always exceptions to every rule, but for the majority this holds true. Not to mention that most girls do not like video games beyond farmville, the sims, and nintendogs, further skewing things.
This is absolutely ridiculous. The typical "alpha males" I see are those I see who date rape and roofie women at college parties.
Going along with your logic, if I was a guy and I wasn't competitive, does that mean I'm not a "real man". That's fucking stupid. Stop using evolution as a way to justify modern social behavior. If you've taken any real discussion courses, you would know that these arguments are just stupid. We are not cavemen.
There is no gender binary. Men are not all competitive. Women don't just follow whoever is in charge because it's in their biological. Get a grip.
perfectly said. i honestly hate how people try and use biology and social darwinism to try and shoehorn humans and human behavior into black or white. life is full of greys there is very little universal truths that apply cross culturally across all human societies. some people need to open their eyes and see that life is pretty confusing and there is no real answer other then that people are truly capable of doing ANYTHING that they put their mind to regardless of sex, gender, and race.
and btw sexuality and human behaviors within society are social constructs meaning that they are created by people for people. there is no natural law or god that dictates this to us. we have created our own laws, acceptable behaviors, sexuality, etc.
Girls DONT play RTS because their female friends DONT play them. Even if there is a girl who plays it because she has male friend that play SC2, she won't play it AS MUCH, and takes it AS SERIOUS, because it's a GAME.
Jenny - "Hey Sarah ! I've managed to get first of my division playing non stop starcraft 2 for 20 weeks ! During that time, I did no cleaning, and not a lot of cooking, eating a lot of pizza, or always in the same plate I don't wash" Sarah - "are you retarded Jenny?"
As some of you said : few girl gamers, extremely rare hardcore gamers, and insanely rare skilled hardcore gamers.
Now, there are some really skilled guys, like blur, who are not that famous, and who are still less skilled than the GSL players. Even if a girl could reach that level, she would still not appear in the GSL or win a Major tournament. she will be like the top 0,001% best player, but you have to be the 0,000001% best player to be really famous at starcraft.
So it would take a miracle to have a girl that (by order) : 1) Plays RTS 2) Bought Starcraft 1 or frozen throne 3) Played hardcore on it, wanting to improve 4) bought starcraft 2 5) played hardcore on it, wanting to improve 6) succeed becoming very skilled 7) succeed becoming a "class A" player 8) succeed becoming a "class S" player.
% by order to illustrate (of course false, but supposed stats) : 1) 0,1% ? 2) half of them : 0,05% 3) 1% of them : 0,0005% 4) 80% of them : 0,0004% 5) 50% of them : 0,0002% 6) 0,1% of them : 0,0000002% 7) 1% of them : 0,0000002% -> 2 for 100 billions girls (so 1 for 100 billions people, as there is one guy for 1 girl) 8) 1% of them : 1 for 1000 billions human born.
For male gamers it would be more like : 1) 25% 2) 80% of them : 20% 3) 50% of them : 10% 4) 80% of them : 8% 5) 80% of them : 6,4% 6) 0,16% of them : 1% 7) 1% of them : 0,01% 8) 1% of them : 0,001%
of course it's not that, we would have much more class A players, but the idea is here ^^
On November 21 2010 14:25 Tonyoh wrote: Best way to explain that :
Girls DONT play RTS because their female friends DONT play them. Even if there is a girl who plays it because she has male friend that play SC2, she won't play it AS MUCH, and takes it AS SERIOUS, because it's a GAME.
Now you have the answer. Not enough pool.
umm, my female relatives living in korea and their friends were all better than me at SC:BW. your argument doesn't explain why even the korean females who got progamer contracts couldn't compete with the male progamers.
On November 21 2010 14:25 Tonyoh wrote: Best way to explain that :
Girls DONT play RTS because their female friends DONT play them. Even if there is a girl who plays it because she has male friend that play SC2, she won't play it AS MUCH, and takes it AS SERIOUS, because it's a GAME.
Now you have the answer. Not enough pool.
umm, my female relatives living in korea and their friends were all better than me at SC:BW. your argument doesn't explain why even the korean females who got progamer contracts couldn't compete with the male progamers.
Much more korean girls who play starcraft (in % of Korea) that americanwomen (in% of America)
On November 21 2010 14:25 Tonyoh wrote: Best way to explain that :
Girls DONT play RTS because their female friends DONT play them. Even if there is a girl who plays it because she has male friend that play SC2, she won't play it AS MUCH, and takes it AS SERIOUS, because it's a GAME.
Now you have the answer. Not enough pool.
umm, my female relatives living in korea and their friends were all better than me at SC:BW. your argument doesn't explain why even the korean females who got progamer contracts couldn't compete with the male progamers.
Much more korean girls who play starcraft (in % of Korea) that americanwomen (in% of America)
that doesn't answer question. why are even the female korean pros at such a lower level than the male korean pros? the skill gap isn't that wide in other genres such as WoW arena (Hafu won MLG) or fighting games (Vanessa Arteaga), but TossGirl isn't at the same skill level as the top 10 SC:BW players.
ESL has female tournaments. why are the best females in europe not at the same level as the top males? why is starcraft different?
On November 21 2010 14:43 keV. wrote: Because the vast majority of females aren't interested in this competitive RTS. It's just numbers.
it's not about majorities, it's about the top 10. the vast majority of females aren't interested in fighting games. Vanessa Arteaga is in the top 10. what makes starcraft different? it's not a rhetorical question. i'm not saying "all games should be the same so there should be no reason why there's no top girl." im literally asking what it is about starcraft that makes it so there are no top females.
On November 21 2010 14:43 keV. wrote: Because the vast majority of females aren't interested in this competitive RTS. It's just numbers.
it's not about majorities, it's about the top 10. the vast majority of females aren't interested in fighting games. Vanessa Arteaga is in the top 10. what makes starcraft different? it's not a rhetorical question. i'm not saying "all games should be the same so there should be no reason why there's no top girl." im literally asking what it is about starcraft that makes it so there are no top females.
There is no genetic rule that states women can't be as good at SC2 as men. They are just not interested or are not working hard enough.
On November 21 2010 14:43 keV. wrote: Because the vast majority of females aren't interested in this competitive RTS. It's just numbers.
it's not about majorities, it's about the top 10. the vast majority of females aren't interested in fighting games. Vanessa Arteaga is in the top 10. what makes starcraft different? it's not a rhetorical question. i'm not saying "all games should be the same so there should be no reason why there's no top girl." im literally asking what it is about starcraft that makes it so there are no top females.
There is no genetic rule that states women can't be as good at SC2 as men. They are just not interested or are not working hard enough.
so you don't think even the best female player in the world isn't working hard enough?
On November 21 2010 14:43 keV. wrote: Because the vast majority of females aren't interested in this competitive RTS. It's just numbers.
it's not about majorities, it's about the top 10. the vast majority of females aren't interested in fighting games. Vanessa Arteaga is in the top 10. what makes starcraft different? it's not a rhetorical question. i'm not saying "all games should be the same so there should be no reason why there's no top girl." im literally asking what it is about starcraft that makes it so there are no top females.
There is no genetic rule that states women can't be as good at SC2 as men. They are just not interested or are not working hard enough.
so you don't think even the best female player in the world isn't working hard enough?
On November 21 2010 14:43 keV. wrote: Because the vast majority of females aren't interested in this competitive RTS. It's just numbers.
it's not about majorities, it's about the top 10. the vast majority of females aren't interested in fighting games. Vanessa Arteaga is in the top 10. what makes starcraft different? it's not a rhetorical question. i'm not saying "all games should be the same so there should be no reason why there's no top girl." im literally asking what it is about starcraft that makes it so there are no top females.
There is no genetic rule that states women can't be as good at SC2 as men. They are just not interested or are not working hard enough.
so you don't think even the best female player in the world isn't working hard enough?
No.
so maybe the issue is that the skill cap for starcraft is just much higher than other genres/games that females have excelled in (FPS, fighting, WoW, guitar hero)
On November 21 2010 14:43 keV. wrote: Because the vast majority of females aren't interested in this competitive RTS. It's just numbers.
it's not about majorities, it's about the top 10. the vast majority of females aren't interested in fighting games. Vanessa Arteaga is in the top 10. what makes starcraft different? it's not a rhetorical question. i'm not saying "all games should be the same so there should be no reason why there's no top girl." im literally asking what it is about starcraft that makes it so there are no top females.
There is no genetic rule that states women can't be as good at SC2 as men. They are just not interested or are not working hard enough.
so you don't think even the best female player in the world isn't working hard enough?
No.
so maybe the issue is that the skill cap for starcraft is just much higher than other genres/games that females have excelled in (FPS, fighting, WoW, guitar hero)
I would say you're half right. It's not that women aren't capable of playing even the hardest game; the problem is finding the woman who will play that game itself. The learning curve on an RTS is steep and finding anybody willing to work at it who isn't already a fan of the genre or series will make it even less likely for a person to take the game seriously. Couple that with all of the odds stacked against anybody being noticed, regardless of gender, and you see why it's so small.
Seriously, go find anybody who hasn't play sc2 before or many RTS and let them play. Some might enjoy it, but the % who will actually like it enough to put in effort to try to legitimately be good would be very, very small. The smaller female player base makes it even less likely to find that person.
On November 21 2010 14:43 keV. wrote: Because the vast majority of females aren't interested in this competitive RTS. It's just numbers.
it's not about majorities, it's about the top 10. the vast majority of females aren't interested in fighting games. Vanessa Arteaga is in the top 10. what makes starcraft different? it's not a rhetorical question. i'm not saying "all games should be the same so there should be no reason why there's no top girl." im literally asking what it is about starcraft that makes it so there are no top females.
I think it has something to do with the genre, and the demands that SC places on you.
I'm not necessarily saying that the fighting game scene is less competitive, but it's definitely less developed and it doesn't have the same infrastructure as SC does. Guys like Daigo and Jwong probably DO put in the time required to stay at the top, but they don't live in team houses and have strict 8-10 hour practice schedules. They might be sponsored, and they might play a LOT, but they also have lives outside of gaming. How is this possible? It's because they don't NEED to invest as much time and energy to stay ahead of the competition.
In the world of SC it's different. If you're not a true "pro" then you don't really have a chance. To be in the top 10 in the world you most definitely need to be part of a top team, living, eating and breathing Starcraft 24/7. Hell, this probably applies to the top 50 or even the top 200. If you're just some random high level Diamond guy (or girl) who practices for a few hours a day at home, in the end you're never going to be able to compete with people who have made Starcraft their entire life.
So how many girls are in top Starcraft teams? Well, one. And she doesn't even live with the team or show up to their Proleague matches =/
If we're ever going to see any female gamers enjoy the success that Tossgirl has enjoyed (and I use the term "success" to mean relative to other female gamers) then they first have to be recruited by teams so that they can become part of the infrastructure which will train them and turn them into the kind of players who can compete at the highest level. This is why tournaments like the ESL Female Cup are good, because they allow good players to gain exposure and possibly be recruited or offered sponsorship deals.
Perfect example, playing pool. Requires absolutely no physical strength and you dont get a bonus for having a dick. Women are just not as good. Same goes for bowling, women are not as good.
worlds strongest man competition.. er nvm.. hell even guys are better at gymnastics, it's just 10,000 years of evolution are large family breeding.
edit: no sexist part here, just a simple fact. Now if we were to go into cooking or doing laundry..
You know. I really want to see a babe in that sc2 tournament GSL booth instead of a handsome nerd. I'm a guy after all. You hot girls out there. Start investing your life into sc2 seriously and make that happen please. If you win GSL 4, you'll be a star. You'll be rich. You'll be know as the hottest first female winner of the GSL. .........Now put those books down. Turn on your PC and play some sc2 games.
On November 21 2010 15:48 Rickilicious wrote: edit: no sexist part here, just a simple fact. Now if we were to go into cooking or doing laundry..
...
Yeah, I laughed at that.
In terms of the topic, it's simple: The percentage of males who are willing to spend large amounts of time refining their gaming ability is much, much larger than the percentage of females willing to do the same. This isn't really about genetics or biology. It's about the size of the talent pool. It's the main reason Koreans whoop everybody at Brood War.
I think it contributes that guys more often grow up with games. I'd wager that a good chunk of the competitive SC community played a significant amount of video games in their youth and teens. Like any other skill, building that familiarity when you're young gives you a significant advantage. A girl might still have the ability to reach an equal peak ability, but it's going to be much harder for her to do so. The learning curve is going to be much, much higher. I know plenty of girls who game quite a bit, but a large percentage of them didn't start until college, once they had gotten past the need to conform to gender stereotypes. Those who did play games often at a younger age played the games more associated with their gender, which tend to be low skill games (the Sims for example). These girls enjoy gaming, but they have a very hard time with high skill cap games.
Obviously, you can't deal completely in absolutes. There are plenty of girls out there who were gamers in their youth, but the number pales in comparison to men. I think that's at least part of the reason you see a large amount of women playing games, but for the most part, playing low skill games.
Women are generally less competitive than men, its to do with evolution. Because there are less highly competitive women, less are attracted to something that is by its nature highly competitive like professional gaming.
Starcraft requires independent decision making in every single game. That, coupled with the actual practice needed to excel mechanically makes it extremely difficult for both males and females to reach a pro status. Since there are a lot less female RTS gamers than male, the chance of seeing one on top is less likely.
It is more likely to see females excel at more basic games like FPS because there is less training needed. Even though they might be vastly outnumbered by men, they can still shine because it is faster to reach top level mechanics in FPS.
It really has nothing to do with gender besides the fact they are grossly outnumbered.
It's pretty clear that there are a lot of possible explanations for why there are very few competitive female SC players, and any opinion anyone could possibly have for which of those factors is more important is based purely on conjecture and not upon established fact. In this thread people have raised the possibility that genetic differences make women less likely to be good at Starcraft, but since we have no data on this point and since neuroscience doesn't have anything clear to say about cognitive differences between men and women, there's no need to say anything further on the subject. However it is clear that women are less likely to play SC then men and also feel more embarassment acknowledging their skill. This will also make them less likely to try to develop their skill. At the very least there are a number of social factors that prevent or make it less likely for female gamers to reach the upper eschelon of SC.
Regardless of the underlying factors, if we believe it is important to see more women competing at high levels in SC, and I do believe it is, there are things we can do to reduce the disparity. We can show support and encouragement for female gamers and recognize the hard work and contributions of top female players. We can also give more coverage and attention to female tournaments.
Unlike most physical sports, e-sports are unique because there is no a priori reason to believe that elite women will not be able to reach the same level of performance as elite men. For that reason e-sports creates the exciting opportunity to see the genders meet eachother as equal competitors. I hope that that can happen some day.
i don't get it! "discussing the lack of top female starcraft gamers" ?
what is there to discuss? there are a lot top female starcraft gamers! not so many known, most of them smart enough to not draw attention (and i really mean smart, not in a sarcasm way) i mean if some wanna be top then they'll get there if not than not! ok...maybe not a lot but let's say there are some... at least in the female leagues and cups there are some top players amongst casuals (if those leagues make sense is another thread )
what i especially don't get is the "lack" i wasn't aware that anyone is missing more of one specific gender ingame?!
i mean i don't care ingame if someone is one or the other...not even if i am watching games... what gender is behind someone's id is maybe interesting outta game but does really not make any difference while playing and if not mentioned by casters would not even be known! or would it make ingame a difference if dimaga or fruitdealer or whoever (just in theory - sry dmytro and kim but i guess you guys aren't reading this anyway) would be actually a girl? outside of the battlefields, on lans or big offline events where you meet someone face-to face - maybe - but that's another thing...
now that i think about it - why would it even make a difference outside the game? if someone's cool and nice i don't give anything about stuff like their gender! not in the game, not in teamspeaks or skype or whatever you use, not in anything related to gaming! if i want a date i get out and find me one (also just in theory ) but that has absolutely nothing to do with your gaming experience...
either way i'm just saying if it comes to gaming it should not make a difference! so this whole "lack of top female sc gamers" should not exist (not saying the thread shouldn't exist - unfortunately this whole thing seems to be an issue for people, so i guess t's ok ) was already surprised that the "female only leagues" and "less women competing" is a hot topic and i'm kinda surprised that stuff like this is also an important thing nowadays...
On November 21 2010 03:56 phant wrote: Of course men are more competitive, it's genetic (anyone who doesn't believe this is a fool).
In practically EVERY species (mammals at least). There are always males trying to be the dominant "alpha" male and females following whoever is in charge. Males are way more aggressive, females are way more passive, it's a fact of life that has evolved over millions of years. This has been true in humanity for THOUSANDS of years, it's just how it is. Granted now with more enlightened people there are tons of women who try to fight their natural tendencies and cross the lines (some with great success, the majority not so much).
That's just how it is, no sexism, just facts. Of course there are always exceptions to every rule, but for the majority this holds true. Not to mention that most girls do not like video games beyond farmville, the sims, and nintendogs, further skewing things.
This is absolutely ridiculous. The typical "alpha males" I see are those I see who date rape and roofie women at college parties.
Going along with your logic, if I was a guy and I wasn't competitive, does that mean I'm not a "real man". That's fucking stupid. Stop using evolution as a way to justify modern social behavior. If you've taken any real discussion courses, you would know that these arguments are just stupid. We are not cavemen.
There is no gender binary. Men are not all competitive. Women don't just follow whoever is in charge because it's in their biological. Get a grip.
I just call it as I see it. We are hardly any different evolutionary then we were 5,000 years ago. Where did I say not being competitive made you "not a real man"?. Also, yes, there are exceptions to every rule, not all men are competitive, not all women are passive, exactly as I mentioned in my post which I'm assuming you ignored half of. HOWEVER go find a random man and a random women, anywhere on the planet, I will bet my life savings (and my life)that a vast majority of the time the man is more competitive, we're different, period. Men and women ARE NOT equal, don't let society fool you (note i'm not saying which of these two is smarter, I firmly believe both to be perfectly equal in that regard).
If a woman REALLY wanted to be a progamer, there is nothing holding them back in the slightest. However, why are there no women in progaming? because there is an incredibly small percentage who REALLY want to get good at a game, goes back to what I said in my first post, women (in general) lack the same kind competitive drive men do. I know what you are going to say next "I bet it's because women just don't like video games!" Yes this is true, why is it true? obviously there are some clear differences in the sexes as far as their taste for video games, but that's not only it, this is behavior seen EVERYWHERE in the world not just video games. Look at any job position in the world that requires a huge competitive edge to get on top, the majority are men. In my engineering classes I haven't seen a woman in 4 years. I go over to the liberal arts building and I don't see a single guy, our tastes are different.In fact it was so bad that now they will purposely hire someone just because they are a woman (or some ethnicity) just so they don't have a predominantly male staff. This isn't because women are dumber, far from it, this isn't because employers are sexist, far from it, it all comes down to the drive.
They told me way back in high school that everybody was equal, nobody is smarter than anyone else, everybody has an equal chance to follow their dream, everybody was a blank slate starting at the same point. This couldn't be further from the truth. There are individuals who are smart, individuals who aren't so much, people who are amazingly talented with art, some who are amazingly good at math. If I wanted to be an artist, no matter how hard I tried I could not reach the level of those who are even somewhat talented, my brain doesn't think that way, am I dumb? no, but there are differences.
Men and women are different, period, no discussion. Men think differently than women, anyone can tell you this.
first...i think i might go slightly off topic and if so i'm sorry for that...but i think it's definitely part of this here second...i mostly agree with you!
On November 22 2010 08:06 phant wrote: They told me way back in high school that everybody was equal, nobody is smarter than anyone else, everybody has an equal chance to follow their dream, everybody was a blank slate starting at the same point. This couldn't be further from the truth. There are individuals who are smart, individuals who aren't so much, people who are amazingly talented with art, some who are amazingly good at math. If I wanted to be an artist, no matter how hard I tried I could not reach the level of those who are even somewhat talented, my brain doesn't think that way, am I dumb? no, but there are differences.
but i don't see what this has to do with...
On November 22 2010 08:06 phant wrote: Men and women are different, period, no discussion. Men think differently than women, anyone can tell you this.
..this! not that it's completely wrong but i mean you said, and i'm totally on your side
There are individuals who are smart, individuals who aren't so much, people who are amazingly talented with art, some who are amazingly good at math
as you said...it's a individual thing, and not a gender thing! the different sex may be reinforcing some individual advantages and disadvantages but the gender is not the reason for talents and abilities!
because there is an incredibly small percentage who REALLY want to get good at a game, goes back to what I said in my first post, women (in general) lack the same kind competitive drive men do.
Background: I'm a biology PhD student who has spent many years studying genetics.
While there may be marginal gender differences in competitiveness, I do not find that these can in any way come close to accounting for the lack of female progamers.
The most obvious, blatant, and logical reason why there are so few female progamers is because females in general are vastly underepresented in RTS games -- for social reasons. Gaming started out, culturally, as a male-dominated activity, and intense computer gaming (like FPSs and RTSs) have still not been established as standard female activities in any society I know of. There are plenty of extremely hyper-competitive females who participate in many other realms of life, so to use this argument is to ignore the evidence all around you and make a mockery of the actual genetic differences between males and females (which could account for a slim percent of variance, if any at all).
If a young female is trying to decide what to do with her time, even if she likes video games, why would she look at a male-dominated SC2 tournament and have any desire to want to be good at that? There is no societal drive among females to be really good at videogames as there is among males, do not try to explain this with genetics.
On November 21 2010 03:56 phant wrote: Of course men are more competitive, it's genetic (anyone who doesn't believe this is a fool).
In practically EVERY species (mammals at least). There are always males trying to be the dominant "alpha" male and females following whoever is in charge. Males are way more aggressive, females are way more passive, it's a fact of life that has evolved over millions of years. This has been true in humanity for THOUSANDS of years, it's just how it is. Granted now with more enlightened people there are tons of women who try to fight their natural tendencies and cross the lines (some with great success, the majority not so much).
That's just how it is, no sexism, just facts. Of course there are always exceptions to every rule, but for the majority this holds true. Not to mention that most girls do not like video games beyond farmville, the sims, and nintendogs, further skewing things.
This is absolutely ridiculous. The typical "alpha males" I see are those I see who date rape and roofie women at college parties.
Going along with your logic, if I was a guy and I wasn't competitive, does that mean I'm not a "real man". That's fucking stupid. Stop using evolution as a way to justify modern social behavior. If you've taken any real discussion courses, you would know that these arguments are just stupid. We are not cavemen.
There is no gender binary. Men are not all competitive. Women don't just follow whoever is in charge because it's in their biological. Get a grip.
perfectly said. i honestly hate how people try and use biology and social darwinism to try and shoehorn humans and human behavior into black or white. life is full of greys there is very little universal truths that apply cross culturally across all human societies. some people need to open their eyes and see that life is pretty confusing and there is no real answer other then that people are truly capable of doing ANYTHING that they put their mind to regardless of sex, gender, and race.
and btw sexuality and human behaviors within society are social constructs meaning that they are created by people for people. there is no natural law or god that dictates this to us. we have created our own laws, acceptable behaviors, sexuality, etc.
Please, no more of this social construct nonsense, especially when it comes to sexuality. There are so few pure social constructs that it is not even funny. Nearly anything in human societies has biological boundaries. The question in most of those things is how much is social and how much biological, you should use your own advice and not paint things in black and white. Also 90% of people would not be able to prove Fermats theorem(already proven) even if they spent all their lives on it. Person with IQ 70 also won't contribute to theoretical physics. There are limits for each of us in every field. This PC nonsense that everyone can do everything and the only limit is time spent is the biggest bs that circles western world.
On November 22 2010 09:41 mcc wrote: Person with IQ 70 also won't contribute to theoretical physics. There are limits for each of us in every field. This PC nonsense that everyone can do everything and the only limit is time spent is the biggest bs that circles western world.
agreed on that
but it's not because of your sexuality, it's because of your individuality
And a very sad and important point is, that a lot of male players don't accept female players at competitive level. When you see such a girl playing, be sure every third comment will be b*tch or 8===D---.
there will be many many more in the future im pretty sure of that! we've just seen a few girls, and one girl who just won a tournament? if im not mistaken btw i heard that QXC's girlfriend plays and shes nearly diamond player atm so
I know a lot of girls who game don't like to give away the fact they are a girl. A lot of guys are very immature on the internet and treat girls pretty dam poorly.
I think everyone in this thread fails to realize that there are a lot of surface issues as well as underlying issues that are present that separates males and females.
Competitiveness is one of them; evolutionarily speaking women had no necessary need to compete with me throughout the ages. They stayed up in the trees while men down below, protected, hunted and wooed those in the trees above. While overall this may only be minutely related as it's clear that there are a multitude of competitive females these days (e.g., see college) we can't blame the lack of starcraft girl gamers on the lack of competitive females while even though there's evidence to suggest that females have LESS of a reason to compete not that they are unwilling or aren't competitive.
Next you have biology: men have larger bodies, thus they have larger hands. Larger hands make it easier to reach keys, easier to hit buttons more accurately if less stretching needs to be done. Also with the larger hands comes more muscle definition which allows for more room to have precise and dexterous digits placed more accurately to execute proper button commands. Obviously this isn't entirely true across the board either as there are clearly girls with incredibly dexterous hand moments (see any famous female musician). Even still there are a minority of females with the proper biology to support their hand habits.
Finally the social aspect that has been beaten to death in this thread already. Since the 80s when games started becoming more "violent" it was frowned upon for girls who were parented in an attempt to remain "dainty" were steered away from this. If your grandparents taught your parents these things you can expect them to enact the same parenting dynamic on women of our generation. There's a stigma that comes when girls play video games, although that stigma has been slowly lifting over the past decade.
Obviously a lot more can be said about the overall above topics as I attempted to just touch on each one and avoid getting into too much depth although I'd be more than willing to expand on them if people are interested.
You can expect girls to become more and more involved as time goes along and video gaming becomes more and more accepted. I see people in this thread that still consider video gaming a waste of time; if there's still a stigma with guys wasting their lives how can we expect girls to jump on the boat (especially after the recent future where women are becoming more modernized and thus more is expected from them society wise)? I'm not sure what things aren't a waste of time other than assuring yourself a degree from whatever level of college you're in. Some people like watching football, I like watching starcraft.
Just to add : There are some wow female players, and most of them either : 1) have their boyfriend who bring them into the game 2)) are attention whore
It's purely a matter of no female gamers are at the same level. There was a female gamer at the GSL3 qualifiers. Nothing stopping them (aside from an ignorant and narrow-minded society).
That's not biological at any part but rather a social phenonomon I would say.
The whole "Sims" game thing isn't neccerly true either, I loved Manhunt/Painkiller with both are mindless and brutal, whilst I also enjoy Sims 3. Ofcourse most girls will play games like Sims 3, but I do not think this is because they are genetically programmed to be wussies who are dependant on their surroundings: New research suggest that the whole "caveman hunter" is bullshit and that humanity as a species would never had managed if only half our popelous would help out with the hunting and gathering whilst the other tended the children... women were badass aswell, just not as strong as men.
To frame what I mean in an example; Woman are almost always underpayed in regards to men, and people defend this by saying "Yeah but girls are worse at debating their salery with their bosses, it's a proven fact" I do not disagree here, but my point is; Why are they worse? Not because they're programmed so, that's as retarded as saying males are programmed to be more violent and thus make better wife beaters.
Also this topic and how godamn backwards some guys are is the reason girls don't find games as a medium attractive... oh and the fact that any girl in games is a retard and/or a whore because most developers are male and make games/characters they think males would like. Why would anyone want to identify with that.
Prime example otherwise; Bioware who has a female lead designer for Mass Effect... what do we get? Believable women, great storyline and characters/romances you can relate to.
because there is an incredibly small percentage who REALLY want to get good at a game, goes back to what I said in my first post, women (in general) lack the same kind competitive drive men do.
Background: I'm a biology PhD student who has spent many years studying genetics.
While there may be marginal gender differences in competitiveness, I do not find that these can in any way come close to accounting for the lack of female progamers.
The most obvious, blatant, and logical reason why there are so few female progamers is because females in general are vastly underepresented in RTS games -- for social reasons. Gaming started out, culturally, as a male-dominated activity, and intense computer gaming (like FPSs and RTSs) have still not been established as standard female activities in any society I know of. There are plenty of extremely hyper-competitive females who participate in many other realms of life, so to use this argument is to ignore the evidence all around you and make a mockery of the actual genetic differences between males and females (which could account for a slim percent of variance, if any at all).
If a young female is trying to decide what to do with her time, even if she likes video games, why would she look at a male-dominated SC2 tournament and have any desire to want to be good at that? There is no societal drive among females to be really good at videogames as there is among males, do not try to explain this with genetics.
I like the biology student act of trying not to sound like a biologist, because we all know biologists are all behaviorists and geneticists that leave no place to the social, nurturing aspects of child development. That's probably why Dawkins invented the concept of memes... wait, no!
But anyway for a PhD student you seem awfully daft. The question is not why there are so few female progamers but rather why there are so few top female progamers that can compete with men even in Korea where there was a budding female progaming scene. You are right though on the competitive aspect. Some females can be just as competitive as males, but it doesn't give them any advantage over them, only over uncompetitive females. So it still doesn't explain why those hyper-competitive females can't cut it when they try competing with men. In some sports the reason is obvious: they just don't have the physical abilities to do so (i.e. the testosterone). Of course that doesn't mean they can't compete with males at all, only that they will never beat the best males. For example, if Venus Williams would play tennis on the men's circuit she would of course beat some of them, maybe even make it into the top 100. But just like TossGirl she would never win anything because she doesn't have the matching strength/stamina/recovery ability that the top male athletes have. Same thing with the Polgar sisters in Chess, but I would argue that with chess it could be possible one day to have a female champion on the men's circuit if you teach them chess in a more stimulating manner for their brain.
So I do believe like Lazlo Polgar that geniuses are made, though I would argue that not everyone can be a genius at everything or anything, but that everyone can be a genius at something or many similar things, and that a small minority can be geniuses at many different things (like polymaths of old). The potential to be a genius exists in almost everyone, and education has a role in bringing it out and orientating it. But education certainly is not a panacea that can transcend every biological differences, especially between the sexes.
For example, even a man castrated before he was five and brought up like a girl still acted like a boy in girl's clothing: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11814300 Imagine if he still had his testosterone producing testicles at puberty!
Long-time silent TL browser here - I created an account just to add my 2c.
Some comments here are fruity, some sad, and others on point. I may be the minority exception, but I'm posting to add my name to the list.
- I am female. - I started playing warcraft 2 as a kid. - I introduced sc2 to my man, not vice versa. - I don't ever lose purposely. If you're not playing to win, don't play. - I don't play farmville or sims3.
"Girls play to socialize, guys play to win" has not been my experience, whether in sc1/2 or wc2/3. For ex., my man often plays team with my gaming friends while I'm playing my own sc2 games. I'll join in later. I introduced the guys to each other, and they play together whenever they can. All mention wanting more sc2 friends.
Re: Memento's original questions - I do think it's the lack of player pool more than lack of interest. Most people I know - male & female gamers - started young, being introduced to various games by friends or older relatives. The guy gamers I know are more likely to spawn new players in teen boys than teen girls - for sheer comfort level with teen boys vs girls, rather than for any specifically sexist reasons against women.
To get more women to play? Introduce it to more girls. I know a 10-year old who watches her 22-yo sister (who beats *her* boyfriend) play sc2 avidly, and will make a great gamer. She relishes giving commentary about her sister's gameplay.
Re: Peanutsc's post, I also have a degree in cognitive science and studied neuroscience, and I don't see anything that I have ever personally studied - in the study of cognitive neuroscience - that supports Peanutsc's opinions about biological predisposition - whatever truths about environmental socialization are present. I also strongly disagree with her prediction about what it would take to get more women into the game - social bonds and increasing general happiness.
Also, personally, I wouldn't be caught dead in a female cup. It implies special treatment women don't need. It would be nice to see the sexist hostility in the community toned down though - that's just common decency, and should be inappropriate anywhere.
Its surprising how many people here are going for the biological determinism cop-out. Eg "genes tell men to play more games than women" "men are genetically better at playing games"
False. Beyond a certain physical limit for raw muscle mass, differences at birth are minimal for both sexes. A newborn's brain structure is unfinished and male and female brain patterns only differentiate and appear after external input.
Genes code for things like muscle mass or metabolism. Complex neurological structures such as "competitiveness" are not coded in DNA, they emerge as the brain adapts to external input post-birth. There are several documented societies where men sit at home combing their hair because "they are too fragile" while women do most physical work.
Why most societies went the other way is always difficult to explain, but it probably had more to do with making efficient use of men's abundant muscular resources. Modern machinery has of course made that argument irrelevant, but cultural steroptypes are remarkably long-lived.
If anyone, we here at TL know how damaging negative sterotypes are, so I was really surprised to see that so many people actually believe in those 18th century misinterpretations of darwinism.
It's really sad that you feel the need to edit in several disclaimers stating that you don't want to offend anyone when all you are doing is just stating facts. Instead of trying to tip-toe around peoples feelings all the time we as a society would be far better off if everyone just had the balls to say "STFU" to people with unreasonable complains. Any female gamer offended by you stating the fact that there are only few female gamers shouldn't be offended in the first place and I find it very offending that you are trying so hard to not offend them. ( :D )
On topic: In "normal" sports there are pretty obvious genetic advantages for males over females. Males just run faster (on average). For SC / SC2 the difference is more subtle but it is still there: Hand-eye coordination is part of our genetic code and for several thousand years hunting (done by males) was our main food source for which a good hand-eye coordination is mandatory. Strong hand-eye coordination for females on the other hand was not really an evolutionary advantage. SC / SC2 are not about multitasking or decision making, they are about processing audio-visual input very fast and then reacting / clicking very fast. It's pretty much a test of your reflexes on SciFi steroids and I'm not really surprised that males are significantly better at this than females, just like running / swimming / throwing stuff very far / etc.
I personally would not want there to be a female pro gamer. It's not because I don't want one, it's because of the nerd community. Despite if she was better than everyone else or just decent people would take what she says as gospel because, shes a girl. People would what her and talk about her more often, because she is a girl.
The nerd community honestly can't show composer when I girl comes into the scene, there is really no questioning it. So tl;dr I would enjoy diversity, just not enjoy seeing every forum comment going to shit because we want to make irrelevant topics about, OMG, A GIRL.
On November 25 2010 21:57 MegaVolt wrote: It's really sad that you feel the need to edit in several disclaimers stating that you don't want to offend anyone when all you are doing is just stating facts. Instead of trying to tip-toe around peoples feelings all the time we as a society would be far better off if everyone just had the balls to say "STFU" to people with unreasonable complains. Any female gamer offended by you stating the fact that there are only few female gamers shouldn't be offended in the first place and I find it very offending that you are trying so hard to not offend them. ( :D )
On topic: In "normal" sports there are pretty obvious genetic advantages for males over females. Males just run faster (on average). For SC / SC2 the difference is more subtle but it is still there: Hand-eye coordination is part of our genetic code and for several thousand years hunting (done by males) was our main food source for which a good hand-eye coordination is mandatory. Strong hand-eye coordination for females on the other hand was not really an evolutionary advantage. SC / SC2 are not about multitasking or decision making, they are about processing audio-visual input very fast and then reacting / clicking very fast. It's pretty much a test of your reflexes on SciFi steroids and I'm not really surprised that males are significantly better at this than females, just like running / swimming / throwing stuff very far / etc.
This guy nailed it, I think.
1. Stop apologizing. 2. Males are fighters. Competitive battles (including games) are really our strong point. It's not that women can't do it, it's that they have no reason to. We, on the other hand, have a biological need to fight things.
On November 25 2010 21:57 MegaVolt wrote: It's really sad that you feel the need to edit in several disclaimers stating that you don't want to offend anyone when all you are doing is just stating facts. Instead of trying to tip-toe around peoples feelings all the time we as a society would be far better off if everyone just had the balls to say "STFU" to people with unreasonable complains. Any female gamer offended by you stating the fact that there are only few female gamers shouldn't be offended in the first place and I find it very offending that you are trying so hard to not offend them. ( :D )
On topic: In "normal" sports there are pretty obvious genetic advantages for males over females. Males just run faster (on average). For SC / SC2 the difference is more subtle but it is still there: Hand-eye coordination is part of our genetic code and for several thousand years hunting (done by males) was our main food source for which a good hand-eye coordination is mandatory. Strong hand-eye coordination for females on the other hand was not really an evolutionary advantage. SC / SC2 are not about multitasking or decision making, they are about processing audio-visual input very fast and then reacting / clicking very fast. It's pretty much a test of your reflexes on SciFi steroids and I'm not really surprised that males are significantly better at this than females, just like running / swimming / throwing stuff very far / etc.
This guy nailed it, I think.
1. Stop apologizing. 2. Males are fighters. Competitive battles (including games) are really our strong point. It's not that women can't do it, it's that they have no reason to. We, on the other hand, have a biological need to fight things.
Disagree. It's more likely a #'s game. More guys play=more likely the top players are men. Women are attributed to having better dexterity and multitasking skills in general. This should lead, at the very least, some female macro monsters.
Every person knows this reason, only reason why people aren't saying it is because u don't want to be sexist. nuf said. there's a reason why Fotball any other sport has diffrent leagues for Female/male. even non physical ones.
On November 25 2010 21:57 MegaVolt wrote: SC / SC2 are not about multitasking or decision making, they are about processing audio-visual input very fast and then reacting / clicking very fast. It's pretty much a test of your reflexes on SciFi steroids and I'm not really surprised that males are significantly better at this than females, just like running / swimming / throwing stuff very far / etc.
Isnt this like saying that there is no such thing as decision making/multitasking in life? It's just processing light/sound/touch inputs and reacting? Just because the medium used to interface video games is light/sound, doesnt mean our brain doesnt interpret those same mediums the same way it does the world around us.
I wouldn't look for reasons like Starcraft 2 is supposedly more competitive compared to other games. Just a more general reason like Strategy games might not be appealing to women, in the same way that CoD/halo kids are despising on Starcraft.
On November 25 2010 21:57 MegaVolt wrote: It's really sad that you feel the need to edit in several disclaimers stating that you don't want to offend anyone when all you are doing is just stating facts. Instead of trying to tip-toe around peoples feelings all the time we as a society would be far better off if everyone just had the balls to say "STFU" to people with unreasonable complains. Any female gamer offended by you stating the fact that there are only few female gamers shouldn't be offended in the first place and I find it very offending that you are trying so hard to not offend them. ( :D )
On topic: In "normal" sports there are pretty obvious genetic advantages for males over females. Males just run faster (on average). For SC / SC2 the difference is more subtle but it is still there: Hand-eye coordination is part of our genetic code and for several thousand years hunting (done by males) was our main food source for which a good hand-eye coordination is mandatory. Strong hand-eye coordination for females on the other hand was not really an evolutionary advantage. SC / SC2 are not about multitasking or decision making, they are about processing audio-visual input very fast and then reacting / clicking very fast. It's pretty much a test of your reflexes on SciFi steroids and I'm not really surprised that males are significantly better at this than females, just like running / swimming / throwing stuff very far / etc.
This guy nailed it, I think.
1. Stop apologizing. 2. Males are fighters. Competitive battles (including games) are really our strong point. It's not that women can't do it, it's that they have no reason to. We, on the other hand, have a biological need to fight things.
Disagree. It's more likely a #'s game. More guys play=more likely the top players are men. Women are attributed to having better dexterity and multitasking skills in general. This should lead, at the very least, some female macro monsters.
That's not a disagreement :/ That's just saying the same thing but less. You haven't bothered to explain why more guys play.
I think it's all about the numbers and eventually we will see a female prodigy come along
people talk about tossgirl not being very good in bw. However, tossgirl really only came into the limelight of forign fans later in her career. As we know...progamers tend to lose there edge over time. She really shined more in the early days in tournaments unrecorded on TLPD in like 2002 or so. back then she held her own against the guys better.
As a female gamer, I wanted to add my few cents to the thread.
Yes, there is no denying that there are biological differences between genders; however, I don't think that has much in the way of influencing competitive natures, aside from testosterone levels. Gender expectations play a much larger role.
The biggest reason for girls not getting into games is societal pressure. I feel constantly pressured to not mention my gaming habits to friends, for fear that I'll be looked down upon. Yes, I have a few friends that are girls that play videogames, like most people, but we are few and far between.
First of all, playing competitive video games is considered masculine. If you play those types of video games, your femininity gets questioned, without a doubt.
This is because women care about how they are perceived by men a lot. We have been conditioned to accept that even though we have the freedom to do whatever a man can do, we have to accept that we are the "weaker" sex, and that its just not "right" if we're dominating males in any sort of competitive hobby or game. Traditionally, if we beat a guy at a game, we understand that we're seen as less sexually desirable, and that is a huge no-no in the world of women. We know that being attractive is what matters to most men, so normally, women do less than okay to impress you. We don't intentionally lose at Super Smash Bros to give you an ego boost, we do it so we are still seen as desirable to you.
The nail that sticks out gets hammered down. I love gaming, and I am extremely competitive. Probably even more so than my fiancee. It really does start to hurt when all you ever hear playing online against other people is harassment. Sexual harassment is a huge issue on the internet, particularly in video games, where you can say whatever you want without consequence, under the guise of anonymity. I can't tell you how many "go make a sandwhich", "A/S/L??", "lesbian?", "are you hot??" messages I've gotten when I play competitive games like LoL, HoN and the like. Even logging into vent to play those games, about 90% of the time I get "OMG A GIRL!" Women aren't judged by their ability to succeed, but by how sexually attractive they are. This is both environmental, and biological for obvious evolutionary reasons. That doesn't mean I am okay with being judged like a piece of meat, however.
Yes, there are many of female WoW players, but mostly because its become more socially acceptable in recent years, and most girls play with their boyfriends/husbands, as I do. And the gender atmosphere in video games is always progressing, but I have no false hopes about people eventually being nice to girls online. The internet is made of douchebags.
Finally, I think someone made a point about how women "don't like competition" in an earlier post, and this is the biggest BS that we have ever given men to swallow. Here's a cute little Cracked article excerpt [yes, I know, its Cracked, but they have legit sources posted.] Particularly this passage is what I wanted to bring up "When we grow up, women are more likely to be penalized for displaying too much aggression, while men are rewarded for the exact same behavior. When actually ...
Women might be the more aggressive of the genders.
Researchers found that when you deindividuate a person--or place the person in a situation where he or she doesn't have an individual identity--aggressive attitudes are amplified. This makes sense. It's probably why Marines are required to wear the same uniform, and hipsters are such pussies. Well, they tested this in the lab by having men and women play an interactive video game that required killing other players by dropping bombs on them.
They found that under normal circumstances, men dropped far more bombs than women. But in the deindividuated groups, women out-attacked the men every time, with an average of about five more bombs dropped per session. Putting people, particularly women, in a situation where they are anonymous and don't have to conform to societal expectations is very powerful psychologically. And by very powerful, we mean it turns them into an unfeeling murder machines."
Sillyness aside, I love PvPing in WoW, nothing brings me greater joy than corpse camping an opposing faction for way too long. I must be an unfeeling murder machine!
yeah 40% play, but how many of that 40% play on any hardcore/competitive level? I know girl gamers, yeah, but most play xbox/halo/CoD or single player games, for whatever cultural reasons most don't like dedicating time to getting good at 1 multiplayer game the way a lot of guys do. It's just a combination of a gender perception thing and the fact that not a lot of girls are willing to put in the time to become good.
On November 25 2010 21:57 MegaVolt wrote: Hand-eye coordination is part of our genetic code and for several thousand years hunting (done by males) was our main food source for which a good hand-eye coordination is mandatory. Strong hand-eye coordination for females on the other hand was not really an evolutionary advantage. SC / SC2 are not about multitasking or decision making, they are about processing audio-visual input very fast and then reacting / clicking very fast. It's pretty much a test of your reflexes on SciFi steroids and I'm not really surprised that males are significantly better at this than females, just like running / swimming / throwing stuff very far / etc.
This is completely uninformed nonsense. This is like a 30 year old understanding of how the brain works. There's cultures and animals where the females do the hunting and modern neuroscience has found that women use more parts of their brains when doing hand-eye motor tasks.
Also, just to drop a bit more SCIENCE on people, testosterone does not cause aggression and may actually do the opposite in complex human social structures. The only thing found to cause aggression is the stigma around it. It's entirely a placebo effect based on social understandings.
Things like decreased spatial awareness or motor controls are more likely due to socialization, more than any genetic differences.
On November 25 2010 21:57 MegaVolt wrote: Hand-eye coordination is part of our genetic code and for several thousand years hunting (done by males) was our main food source for which a good hand-eye coordination is mandatory. Strong hand-eye coordination for females on the other hand was not really an evolutionary advantage. SC / SC2 are not about multitasking or decision making, they are about processing audio-visual input very fast and then reacting / clicking very fast. It's pretty much a test of your reflexes on SciFi steroids and I'm not really surprised that males are significantly better at this than females, just like running / swimming / throwing stuff very far / etc.
This is completely uninformed nonsense. This is like a 30 year old understanding of how the brain works. There's cultures and animals where the females do the hunting and modern neuroscience has found that women use more parts of their brains when doing hand-eye motor tasks.
Also, just to drop a bit more SCIENCE on people, testosterone does not cause aggression and may actually do the opposite in complex human social structures. The only thing found to cause aggression is the stigma around it. It's entirely a placebo effect based on social understandings.
Things like decreased spatial awareness or motor controls are more likely due to socialization, more than any genetic differences.
even if what he said was true I doubt that is the reason why female players are inferior at sc2(gaming in general), I honest think if the number of male and female players are on equal ground, girls could just be as good as us at every genre of video games.
The lack of interest plays a huge part , i mean you can't be good at something if you arent interested in it, can't ignore the fact that there are simply more male players in almost every gaming scene.
On November 21 2010 15:48 Rickilicious wrote: Plain and simple women are just not as good.
Perfect example, playing pool. Requires absolutely no physical strength and you dont get a bonus for having a dick. Women are just not as good. Same goes for bowling, women are not as good.
worlds strongest man competition.. er nvm.. hell even guys are better at gymnastics, it's just 10,000 years of evolution are large family breeding.
edit: no sexist part here, just a simple fact. Now if we were to go into cooking or doing laundry..
User was temp banned for this post.
This is really sad that you were temp banned for this post for stating the truth.
Now hear me out please before I get the same, if you actually looked at it objectively there are SEPERATE leagues for men and women in
Chess, Sports (Even in gymnastics and tennis ffs), Army (women are not allowed to be in the infantry or any combat related MOS),
This isn't to say that there aren't women that are very good at their respective fields, but at the highest tier men win out.
Ya we try to be, "Above" all that and say we are all equal, which is fine and dandy when you're being formal and stuff but I'am taking a stand by answering the OP's question when I say
On November 21 2010 15:48 Rickilicious wrote: Plain and simple women are just not as good.
Perfect example, playing pool. Requires absolutely no physical strength and you dont get a bonus for having a dick. Women are just not as good. Same goes for bowling, women are not as good.
worlds strongest man competition.. er nvm.. hell even guys are better at gymnastics, it's just 10,000 years of evolution are large family breeding.
edit: no sexist part here, just a simple fact. Now if we were to go into cooking or doing laundry..
User was temp banned for this post.
This is really sad that you were temp banned for this post for stating the truth.
Now hear me out please before I get the same, if you actually looked at it objectively there are SEPERATE leagues for men and women in
Chess, Sports (Even in gymnastics and tennis ffs), Army (women are not allowed to be in the infantry or any combat related MOS),
This isn't to say that there aren't women that are very good at their respective fields, but at the highest tier men win out.
Ya we try to be, "Above" all that and say we are all equal, which is fine and dandy when you're being formal and stuff but I'am taking a stand by answering the OP's question when I say
Men > Women
Well, yes and no.
At least, what I read was that as far as mind sports going, women dwell more along the middle, while men feature more extremes. Men feature more brilliant scientists, but also more psychopathic killers, women are more 'stable', perhaps some trick of natural selection so that when the best man gets the girl, he's really the best? It seems to go like that with a lot of mammals that females are all some-what 'average', and men feature more extremes from extremely strong to extremely weak.
That the user was banned for that post I agree is ridiculous, it's a reasonable position, science is not, and should never answer to the quills of political correctness, reality isn't a politically correct dream. Asians are smarter on average, and Nigerians have superior stamina, and there's nothing you can do about it. It would be evolutionary inexplicable if races and sexes did not have differing properties, they evolved in a different climate and evolved to fulfil different roles so naturally they adapt some-what towards that.
On December 06 2010 18:49 Jibba wrote: This is completely uninformed nonsense. This is like a 30 year old understanding of how the brain works. There's cultures and animals where the females do the hunting
Such as?
As far as I know, there are currently very few cultures out there were anyone does 'hunting', the few I know where it does still happen, males tend to do the hunting associated with brute force more.
Talking about other animals is nonsensical in perspective to human beings.
and modern neuroscience has found that women use more parts of their brains when doing hand-eye motor tasks.
Can you cite me that research? I'm quite sceptical of any modern neuroscience existing which would claim anything about 'using more parts of the brain', neuroscientists typically avoid such phrasing because you use your entire brain for every single task you do, and what defines a 'part' is quite vague.
How high the activity lits up is another story of course.
Also, just to drop a bit more SCIENCE on people, testosterone does not cause aggression and may actually do the opposite in complex human social structures. The only thing found to cause aggression is the stigma around it. It's entirely a placebo effect based on social understandings.
As far as I know, this is contrary to modern neuroscientific understanding. Testosterone is associated with special awareness.
Things like decreased spatial awareness or motor controls are more likely due to socialization, more than any genetic differences.
Maybe they are, maybe they're not. But neither of these is 'more likely', at this point this question is completely open and unresolved as ar as I know.
Might want to keep politics a bit more out of science here, in any case, most researches and claims you will find in humanties and so called 'soft sciences' are not conclusive. The researches themselves correctly are very liberal with their use of words like 'suggests' n lieu of a hard scientists's 'demonstrates' or 'proves'.
Here's the one reason. Women don't have the same dedication as men. They've got an easier time being mediocre at lots of things while men focus all of their energy on one or a few things.
In general, the idea of winning and dominating is probably not as appealing to females as it is to males, especially within the context of a competitive RTS.
That is all.
You know, all of the comments in this thread may be scientific and shit, but they're also pretty borderline sexist because they assume so many things without stressing that these observations are all general trends.
Blanket statements are the bane of intelligent thought.
On December 06 2010 20:12 simme123 wrote: Here's the one reason. Women don't have the same dedication as men. They've got an easier time being mediocre at lots of things while men focus all of their energy on one or a few things.
No I am not sexist it's just how it is.
Actually, that is sexist.
A less sexist way of wording the same sentiment would be that women are generally seeking balance or success in multiple areas of their life, while men tend to strive to become experts at one or two things to the detriment of others.
I thought I should also mention, that anyone that points to the lack of female pro-gamers as some indicator of gender inferiority is a knucklehead.
Women don't play games professionally for the same reason that 99% of men don't play games professionally -- it's an extremely difficult goal which requires in insane investment of time with little or no benefit. There are probably 10 million-plus people that have bought Starcraft and about 100 people in the world that can make a living off of it.
The only thing that the lack of female professional gamers proves is that all women are less dumb than the people that frequent this board, myself included.
On December 06 2010 20:21 LunarC wrote: You know, all of the comments in this thread may be scientific and shit, but they're also pretty borderline sexist because they assume so many things without stressing that these observations are all general trends.
Every observation is a general trend, when a biology book says that dogs have four legs, do they really need to mention that it's a general trend and cases of dogs born with three or even two legs are documented?
Typically it works in reverse, in the absence of words like 'all', it can be assumed to be merely a general trend, because general trends are far more common than absolutes.
Political correctness and people confusing what is reasonably true with what they want to be true is the bane of intelligent thought no doubt. I'm a woman myself and vote socialist. But people who claim that testosterone is not associated with spatial orientation or are unwilling to acknowledge the plausibility of men and women having different attributes to suit a different evolutionary role in my opinion ignore scientific evidence because it scares them, and are thus no better than people unwilling to believe that the earth is more than 6 000 years old despite formidable evidence because it scares them.
Also, science is pretty sexist I fear, human beings are a sexually dimorphic species, women are less tall, have a different bone structure, don't grow facial hair as much, are better at multitasking, worse at spatial orientation, have a better memory but a slower reaction time. Humans are no exception, I'm not saying the differences are absolute, but I'm saying it's a significant correlation and more often than not a plausible evolutionary explanation to why this might have evolved. Truth is seldom how we like it to be, and indeed, human beings are most likely evolved to deny truth when it displeases them, for that, see the hypothesis of pessimistic realism.
On December 06 2010 20:35 Defacer wrote: The only thing that the lack of female professional gamers proves is that all women are less dumb than the people that frequent this board, myself included.
And this is not only sexist, it's also not backed up by anything at all.
Which displays an interesting phenomenon, of how this works in reverse, I'm sure we all remember Moore's book 'stupid white men', think someone could pull it off naming a book 'stupid black men'?
As a further disclaimer, apart from being a woman, I'm also not white, so yeah.
Females in general aren't as strategic aligned when it comes to games like Starcraft 2 and others.
Furthermore, they aren't interested in the same gaming compassion that guys are, and they are simply outnumbered by the guy:girl ratio
All of this boils down to the fact that I believe, men are more competitively oriented, and more aggressive than woman.
We pursue something competitively, we want an answer, a solution, we have harder times trying to "negotiate" or accept unsolvable solutions or hard times..
We want to win. And we get aggressive and focused getting there.
Just the same reason as why it's mostly men who start and fight in wars.
We want to win over the other guy and kill him, because we fear his dick might be bigger than ours.
All of this boils down to the fact that I believe, men are more competitively oriented, and more aggressive than woman.
We pursue something competitively, we want an answer, a solution, we have harder times trying to "negotiate" or accept unsolvable solutions or hard times..
Probably, men are more aggressive, also, men as a trend tend to 'shoot before asking questions', women have a tendency to do the latter first.
I mean, how often do you read about a woman murdering someone out of a fit of rage?
Or murder in general? Has very little to do with physical strength, murder nowadays is committed with firearms, not with brute strength.
All of this boils down to the fact that I believe, men are more competitively oriented, and more aggressive than woman.
We pursue something competitively, we want an answer, a solution, we have harder times trying to "negotiate" or accept unsolvable solutions or hard times..
Probably, men are more aggressive, also, men as a trend tend to 'shoot before asking questions', women have a tendency to do the latter first.
I mean, how often do you read about a woman murdering someone out of a fit of rage?
Or murder in general? Has very little to do with physical strength, murder nowadays is committed with firearms, not with brute strength.
Well you're probaly right. With the help of our good friend, Testosterone, men will keep losing their head from time to time, but also channeling that focus, rage and instinct into winning at most forefronts of life.
A) Sheer numbers. Less women play Starcraft 2 than men. According to the law of averages, men are more likely to be at the top.
B) Less desire to compete. This has been said many, many times in this thread, so I won't go over it any further.
C) The community. If the community in up-and-coming SC2 players is near-exclusively male, it's less likely that women will join it in the first place. I know this from experience, being a male going into childcare, an overwhelmingly female dominated field (There are over 50 childcare centres in my districts, and I can count the number of male workers there on one hand)
D) Perception. Because few women have the potential to go pro, for the above reasons, they're more likely to be dissuaded from it, or less likely to be picked up by progaming teams.
I'll admit, I have no evidence for D, that's merely my opinion, but A, B, and C are all solid reasons, and this is, after all, a discussion thread.
first of all 40% of SC2 gamers are not female. Females tend to play less violent games so dont go thinking that 40% of starcraft players are female.
Secondly "The Gap" you are talking about its not Because they are female, it is the gap between High level player and pro gamer, this is not an easy step, no matter what sex you are.
I have been running a hardcore WoW raiding guild for 5 years, and we have had plenty of female players amongst us. Players equally and in many cases more skilled than the next person. In our guild however we have had a strict policy of not discriminating on gender. We don't expect anything less or more from our female players. And they delivered on par with males because they were treated like they could. Almost 99% of the time a person will respond in the way you expect them to respond, or to put it differently: People become what you expect of them.
In the end it comes down to the community. And a lot of times when people learn it's a girl sitting on the other end of the copper wire they spazz out and say "omgz girlz....boooobs!!!!". Of course this kind of behaivor won't attract girls. Have you ever been at a bar and gone when a girl walks in and said that? If you did, I am sure she didn't talk to you the rest of the night.
In addition I think the reason why there is so few girls now is because there hasn't been that many girls before. When there is a girl that is good she is looked at from so many people that it must be pretty nerve wracking experience. Hence she might choose to withdraw because of all the attention.
Day9 said in his 100th episode that the pro-gamers became good because they played and talked to each other. So I do wonder who the women practice with, and who they talk too. For me that is a big part because you don't become a pro without playing against other pros. When I think about that I think about the days when I was training Taekwondo pretty hardcore. Our club had a lot of women in it, and on combat practice we practiced against each other. And my god you could get your ass kicked from the women there. But in physical sports men do have an advantage because our body is build differently. But that only comes in play at the higher levels. I bet no one here could even dream of beating one of the world champions in Taekwondo in a match unless you are a at that stage yourself. And I don't think this limitation comes into play in "mind-games". I think it falls back on the number of women playing, hence statistics take care of the rest.
On December 06 2010 20:54 MasterFischer wrote: What is intelligence? How do you define that?
A formidable and currently unresolved question. One of the reasons why I cannot call humanities sciences in the same way I call physics or chemistry a science.
Theorists believe that there are up to and possible more than 7 different intelligences of the human mind.
Theorists also believe no man has ever landed on the moon, or once that people subconsciously fantasize about their dad. And what is 'subconscious' anyway?
You might bad a something, and really good at another. Great at all, great at few.. it's all very individual and does not relate to this debate
Define 'good at something' really?
The real point is that this elusive 'intelligence' most likely does not exist, and certainly not as something you can just put a metre on. But hey, soft scientists eh, they have a hard time accepting that naïve realism doesn't always hold and categories and objects which may exist colloquially, prima facie, to a human observer may in fact not exist in a mereologically scientific perspective.
Maybe you should read a bit on mereological nihilism, quite fascinating stuff.
On November 21 2010 15:48 Rickilicious wrote: Plain and simple women are just not as good.
Perfect example, playing pool. Requires absolutely no physical strength and you dont get a bonus for having a dick. Women are just not as good. Same goes for bowling, women are not as good.
worlds strongest man competition.. er nvm.. hell even guys are better at gymnastics, it's just 10,000 years of evolution are large family breeding.
edit: no sexist part here, just a simple fact. Now if we were to go into cooking or doing laundry..
User was temp banned for this post.
That is so stupid.
I am a female gamer, and I am quite good at Starcraft 2. It's all just a matter of statistics.
Theorists also believe no man has ever landed on the moon, or once that people subconsciously fantasize about their dad. And what is 'subconscious' anyway?
If by "subconscious" you mean "unconscious," then a Psych 101 class might be helpful. Suffice it to say that most processes of your everyday life, from regulation of your heartbeat to emotional impulses to gestures, are unconscious.
And comparing Howard Gardner and other theorists of multiple intelligences to moon hoaxers is beyond absurd, as it confuses the scientific definition of a theory for its colloquial understanding. You might as well compare Feynman or Einstein--among other famous theorists--to believers in phlogiston.
If you want to attack the underpinnings of any academic field without being dismissed out of hand, you're going to need to begin with a firm foundation in that discipline's fundamentals. Like all branches of natural philosophy, Psych is a legitimate target of criticism. The issue is that you have to possess a basic education in scientific terms and philosophical training before you launch your first salvo.
As for the larger question of gender abilities, I'd imagine it has more to do with populations. If 1 in every 10,000 players ends up a progamer and males outnumber females 200:1 among competitive players, it shouldn't surprise us that there are very few top-level female progamers. Factor in social considerations and it becomes even more overwhelming.
It's like asking why there are so few award-winning male cheerleaders on high school squads. Self-selecting populations and social factors can account for a lot.
Also, just to drop a bit more SCIENCE on people, testosterone does not cause aggression and may actually do the opposite in complex human social structures. The only thing found to cause aggression is the stigma around it. It's entirely a placebo effect based on social understandings.
As far as I know, this is contrary to modern neuroscientific understanding. Testosterone is associated with special awareness.
I heard that to. I cant remember the source, but in a project with girls they gave some testosterone and others "fake stuff". The testosterone girls were better, nicer and friendlier in a sport environment. They beat the other girls that did not take testosterone and were less aggressive.
On November 21 2010 15:48 Rickilicious wrote: Plain and simple women are just not as good.
Perfect example, playing pool. Requires absolutely no physical strength and you dont get a bonus for having a dick. Women are just not as good. Same goes for bowling, women are not as good.
worlds strongest man competition.. er nvm.. hell even guys are better at gymnastics, it's just 10,000 years of evolution are large family breeding.
edit: no sexist part here, just a simple fact. Now if we were to go into cooking or doing laundry..
User was temp banned for this post.
That is so stupid.
I am a female gamer, and I am quite good at Starcraft 2. It's all just a matter of statistics.
Question is, how good is 'quite good'?
Also disappointed at the lack of pictures in this thread
theres nothing preventing females from being as good as males at starcraft.
but if like 23085729385720835 men competing and only a couple thousand females the chances of them breaking through to the upper echelons is just not very high
On December 06 2010 22:17 TyPsi5 wrote: theres nothing preventing females from being as good as males at starcraft.
but if like 23085729385720835 men competing and only a couple thousand females the chances of them breaking through to the upper echelons is just not very high
those numbers are way off, and doesn't explain why the current top females (ESL female winners or top korean females) aren't as good as the top males (GSL/MLG/ESL winners). your numbers only make sense if you assume all players have equal skill level in the game. then pure statistics would be a factor. but it doesn't matter how hundreds of thousands of bronze-platinum league males play the game, because they aren't a factor in the discussion of TOP players.
On November 21 2010 15:48 Rickilicious wrote: Plain and simple women are just not as good.
Perfect example, playing pool. Requires absolutely no physical strength and you dont get a bonus for having a dick. Women are just not as good. Same goes for bowling, women are not as good.
worlds strongest man competition.. er nvm.. hell even guys are better at gymnastics, it's just 10,000 years of evolution are large family breeding.
edit: no sexist part here, just a simple fact. Now if we were to go into cooking or doing laundry..
User was temp banned for this post.
That is so stupid.
I am a female gamer, and I am quite good at Starcraft 2. It's all just a matter of statistics.
Question is, how good is 'quite good'?
Also disappointed at the lack of pictures in this thread
I am Diamond, beating about 2000-2400 Diamond players. I'm not even close to be a pro, but I don't think that I am handicaped at this game, just because I'm a girl.
On November 21 2010 15:48 Rickilicious wrote: Plain and simple women are just not as good.
Perfect example, playing pool. Requires absolutely no physical strength and you dont get a bonus for having a dick. Women are just not as good. Same goes for bowling, women are not as good.
worlds strongest man competition.. er nvm.. hell even guys are better at gymnastics, it's just 10,000 years of evolution are large family breeding.
edit: no sexist part here, just a simple fact. Now if we were to go into cooking or doing laundry..
User was temp banned for this post.
That is so stupid.
I am a female gamer, and I am quite good at Starcraft 2. It's all just a matter of statistics.
Question is, how good is 'quite good'?
Also disappointed at the lack of pictures in this thread
This is what I talked about in my previous post on page 22. The second there is a female posting, saying they are female people spazz out "PICS PLZ!!" and other really dumb statements that brings nothing to a good debate. It's that kind of mindset that scares the female gamers away from the community, and the community is what creates good gamers.
On December 06 2010 22:17 TyPsi5 wrote: theres nothing preventing females from being as good as males at starcraft.
but if like 23085729385720835 men competing and only a couple thousand females the chances of them breaking through to the upper echelons is just not very high
those numbers are way off, and doesn't explain why the current top females (ESL female winners or top korean females) aren't as good as the top males (GSL/MLG/ESL winners). your numbers only make sense if you assume all players have equal skill level in the game. then pure statistics would be a factor. but it doesn't matter how hundreds of thousands of bronze-platinum league males play the game, because they aren't a factor in the discussion of TOP players.
His numbers were just silly exaggerations, but his point is perfectly valid: the smaller the player pool, the smaller the chance of someone truly exceptional emerging. This is true in any sport. Another way to think about it is to say there probably are women out there with the potential to match the top-level male pros - but they may not even play SC2.
On December 06 2010 22:17 TyPsi5 wrote: theres nothing preventing females from being as good as males at starcraft.
but if like 23085729385720835 men competing and only a couple thousand females the chances of them breaking through to the upper echelons is just not very high
those numbers are way off, and doesn't explain why the current top females (ESL female winners or top korean females) aren't as good as the top males (GSL/MLG/ESL winners). your numbers only make sense if you assume all players have equal skill level in the game. then pure statistics would be a factor. but it doesn't matter how hundreds of thousands of bronze-platinum league males play the game, because they aren't a factor in the discussion of TOP players.
His numbers were just silly exaggerations, but his point is perfectly valid: the smaller the player pool, the smaller the chance of someone truly exceptional emerging. This is true in any sport. Another way to think about it is to say there probably are women out there with the potential to match the top-level male pros - but they may not even play SC2.
that doesn't mean anything. i have the same potential to match male pros, too. i have the same motor skills and physical and cognitive ability. i simply don't practice or take the game as seriously.
there are females who dedicate their lives to playing basketball competitively. they play in pee-wee leagues as kids then keep playing through to ranked college teams and then play in the WNBA. but they aren't as good as the men. but basketball is a physical sport and is influenced by body structure.
so the question is why are the top starcraft2 females who practice as hard and take the game as seriously not as good as the males? can't blame it on physical limitations like in basketball. and if you say there aren't any females sc2 pros who practice as hard as male pros, then the question is why don't they?
On December 06 2010 22:58 eggs wrote: that doesn't mean anything. i have the same potential to match male pros, too. i have the same motor skills and physical and cognitive ability. i simply don't practice or take the game as seriously.
On December 06 2010 22:35 DoubleRainbow wrote: any women in the NBA, NHL, MLB?
you're a moron. maybe if you were capable of thinking for about 1 minute before you write, this shit wouldn't be all over this thread.
i do research in neuroscience, in the field of attention but admittedly not doing work with sex hormones or motor control, but i do know my fundamentals and i'm loving some of these "male>female" homers thinking they can conclude anything through a couple of wiki sources. of course i had my say on how wrong some of these kids are earlier in this thread, but it's posts like this that just made me stop caring/bothering.
On December 06 2010 22:58 eggs wrote:that doesn't mean anything. i have the same potential to match male pros, too. i have the same motor skills and physical and cognitive ability. i simply don't practice or take the game as seriously.
That's not necessarily the case. And even if you can match the motor control of the top pros, when I talk about potential I'm also referring to their determination to succeed, which you've admitted you lack.
On December 06 2010 22:35 DoubleRainbow wrote: any women in the NBA, NHL, MLB?
you're a moron. maybe if you were capable of thinking for about 1 minute before you write, this shit wouldn't be all over this thread.
i do research in neuroscience, in the field of attention but admittedly not doing work with sex hormones or motor control, but i do know my fundamentals and i'm loving some of these "male>female" homers thinking they can conclude anything through a couple of wiki sources. of course i had my say on how wrong some of these kids are earlier in this thread, but it's posts like this that just made me stop caring/bothering.
wiki sources aren't bad. not telling you how to do your job, but when you research something you check the sources. wiki pages cite sources at the bottom of the page. the internet isn't that hard, it's not neuroscience!
it's because women realize, for the most part anyways, that there's much more important stuff to do in life than play videogames teenage boys, on the other hand, do not (I'm a videogame programmer but that doesn't mean I can't be realistic)
On December 06 2010 22:35 DoubleRainbow wrote: any women in the NBA, NHL, MLB?
you're a moron. maybe if you were capable of thinking for about 1 minute before you write, this shit wouldn't be all over this thread.
i do research in neuroscience, in the field of attention but admittedly not doing work with sex hormones or motor control, but i do know my fundamentals and i'm loving some of these "male>female" homers thinking they can conclude anything through a couple of wiki sources. of course i had my say on how wrong some of these kids are earlier in this thread, but it's posts like this that just made me stop caring/bothering.
wiki sources aren't bad. not telling you how to do your job, but when you research something you check the sources. wiki pages cite sources at the bottom of the page. the internet isn't that hard, it's not neuroscience!
it's not bad when you are posting on an internet forum to seem smart or you actually have 5 minutes to cram some basic knowledge before an exam (i'm talking exclusively about modern neuroscience, which is a newer field in comparison to a lot of others). sources in wiki for neuroscience are typically literature from random journals or from 20-30 years ago in most cases (from my experience in the field - admitted i don't rely on it too much), and usually not updated for recent developments at all. when people in turn use this to dispute facts that we now know based on more well-reviewed publications or more current research, it kinda hits a chord.
On November 21 2010 15:48 Rickilicious wrote: Plain and simple women are just not as good.
Perfect example, playing pool. Requires absolutely no physical strength and you dont get a bonus for having a dick. Women are just not as good. Same goes for bowling, women are not as good.
worlds strongest man competition.. er nvm.. hell even guys are better at gymnastics, it's just 10,000 years of evolution are large family breeding.
edit: no sexist part here, just a simple fact. Now if we were to go into cooking or doing laundry..
User was temp banned for this post.
This is really sad that you were temp banned for this post for stating the truth.
Now hear me out please before I get the same, if you actually looked at it objectively there are SEPERATE leagues for men and women in
Chess, Sports (Even in gymnastics and tennis ffs), Army (women are not allowed to be in the infantry or any combat related MOS),
This isn't to say that there aren't women that are very good at their respective fields, but at the highest tier men win out.
Ya we try to be, "Above" all that and say we are all equal, which is fine and dandy when you're being formal and stuff but I'am taking a stand by answering the OP's question when I say
Men > Women
Well, yes and no.
At least, what I read was that as far as mind sports going, women dwell more along the middle, while men feature more extremes. Men feature more brilliant scientists, but also more psychopathic killers, women are more 'stable', perhaps some trick of natural selection so that when the best man gets the girl, he's really the best? It seems to go like that with a lot of mammals that females are all some-what 'average', and men feature more extremes from extremely strong to extremely weak.
It's called learned helplessness. It's the primary reason boys hit the extremes on math scores while girls stay in the middle. When boys succeed, they usually believe it's because they're naturally talented at math, and when they do poorly, it's because they didn't try hard. When girls succeed, it's because they believe they worked hard to earn it, and when they do poorly, it's because they simply "can't do math." It's a type of arrogance that the elites of any field usually possess that protects them during failure.
That the user was banned for that post I agree is ridiculous, it's a reasonable position, science is not, and should never answer to the quills of political correctness, reality isn't a politically correct dream. Asians are smarter on average, and Nigerians have superior stamina, and there's nothing you can do about it. It would be evolutionary inexplicable if races and sexes did not have differing properties, they evolved in a different climate and evolved to fulfil different roles so naturally they adapt some-what towards that.
It was obviously a sexist and offensive post, and cydial's is only slightly better, although equally idiotic. Prove Asians are smarter. Because before 1960, the education system in every E. Asian and SE. Asian country was terrible, and they couldn't manufacture things or conduct scientific research to save their lives. So please, explain how the evolutionary superior brain of an Asian somehow lapsed for the thousands of years that the Japanese lived in the stone age.
On December 06 2010 18:49 Jibba wrote: This is completely uninformed nonsense. This is like a 30 year old understanding of how the brain works. There's cultures and animals where the females do the hunting
Such as?
As far as I know, there are currently very few cultures out there were anyone does 'hunting', the few I know where it does still happen, males tend to do the hunting associated with brute force more.
Talking about other animals is nonsensical in perspective to human beings.
[/quote]He made an evolutionary psychology argument, and there were civilizations where women did hunting. I also fail to see why discussing another animal is irrelevant when the nature of his point is that males are naturally more talented because their predecessors hunt.
and modern neuroscience has found that women use more parts of their brains when doing hand-eye motor tasks.
Can you cite me that research? I'm quite sceptical of any modern neuroscience existing which would claim anything about 'using more parts of the brain', neuroscientists typically avoid such phrasing because you use your entire brain for every single task you do, and what defines a 'part' is quite vague.
How high the activity lits up is another story of course.
Also, just to drop a bit more SCIENCE on people, testosterone does not cause aggression and may actually do the opposite in complex human social structures. The only thing found to cause aggression is the stigma around it. It's entirely a placebo effect based on social understandings.
As far as I know, this is contrary to modern neuroscientific understanding. Testosterone is associated with special awareness.
Testosterone is associated with awareness of status which, in most animals, may be gained through aggression; however, in humans, it is usually gained through non-aggressive behavior.
Things like decreased spatial awareness or motor controls are more likely due to socialization, more than any genetic differences.
Maybe they are, maybe they're not. But neither of these is 'more likely', at this point this question is completely open and unresolved as ar as I know.
Might want to keep politics a bit more out of science here, in any case, most researches and claims you will find in humanties and so called 'soft sciences' are not conclusive. The researches themselves correctly are very liberal with their use of words like 'suggests' n lieu of a hard scientists's 'demonstrates' or 'proves'.
As opposed to biology, and especially evolutionary explanations for the way things are in 2010?
On November 21 2010 15:48 Rickilicious wrote: Plain and simple women are just not as good.
Perfect example, playing pool. Requires absolutely no physical strength and you dont get a bonus for having a dick. Women are just not as good. Same goes for bowling, women are not as good.
worlds strongest man competition.. er nvm.. hell even guys are better at gymnastics, it's just 10,000 years of evolution are large family breeding.
edit: no sexist part here, just a simple fact. Now if we were to go into cooking or doing laundry..
User was temp banned for this post.
That is so stupid.
I am a female gamer, and I am quite good at Starcraft 2. It's all just a matter of statistics.
Question is, how good is 'quite good'?
Also disappointed at the lack of pictures in this thread
I am Diamond, beating about 2000-2400 Diamond players. I'm not even close to be a pro, but I don't think that I am handicaped at this game, just because I'm a girl.
Thats a lie! Girls cant play starcraft!!! /sarcasm
I'm not sure if anyone mentioned this before, but becoming a "top level" pro gamer clearly requires an incredible amount of hard work and practice. I think most females would be discouraged by friends and family if they were spending upwards of six hours a day playing the same online game, whereas with guys there is not nearly so much social stigma. I can hardly imagine the reaction of a girl's mom if she was told by her daughter that she wanted to pursue pro gaming as a career.
Add this to the fact that most females prefer not to play PvP games in the first place, and there's your answer. For sure there are a lot of female gamers out there, and female Starcraft gamers too, but the odds against them are too high! Hopefully in the future we will see more female players overcoming these odds.
On November 19 2010 23:35 Roffles wrote: They're just not that good. TossGirl destroyed the Female league, but couldn't hang with B teamers after the Female league was abolished.
There's really no sense of sexism that goes around, it's just plain and simple that they're just not as good. If along came a female gamer that was insanely good, then they'd be more than welcomed into the community.
The OP is inquiring as to why "they're just not as good."
On December 07 2010 00:30 Koneko wrote: I'm not sure if anyone mentioned this before, but becoming a "top level" pro gamer clearly requires an incredible amount of hard work and practice. I think most females would be discouraged by friends and family if they were spending upwards of six hours a day playing the same online game, whereas with guys there is not nearly so much social stigma. I can hardly imagine the reaction of a girl's mom if she was told by her daughter that she wanted to pursue pro gaming as a career.
Add this to the fact that most females prefer not to play PvP games in the first place, and there's your answer. For sure there are a lot of female gamers out there, and female Starcraft gamers too, but the odds against them are too high! Hopefully in the future we will see more female players overcoming these odds.
I agree to this, females seem to have a far more difficult social surrounding when it comes to gaming like we see it.
What many posts are missing is the fact, that what we describe as gaming is actually competetive gaming - or some would say "hardcore" gaming. We see us playing Starcraft rather like some people are playing chess. It is a sport in the sense that you have a wide range of skill and an exponentially climbing effort to achieve the next step. Often you see numbers like "the majority of gamers is actually female". This is true, there are many girls that are attracted to the Nintendo DS, Anime games, Wii and also MMORPGs. There is only a rather small piece of the cake that is actually playing RTS games, and even less that are playing it competetivly. Now imagine how many male players make it to popularity out of all male players out there? Propably a few hundred. So how big is the chance having a female player "celebrity" who is capable of competing at a high level constatly - also taking the limitation stated above into account.
But to be honest I think that there are far more female players out there than we actually assume. I would hide were I can, too in such a male dominated play ground just to avoid stupid chitchat that is disturbing my game. We will see what the future brings and I'd love to see more females making a name in our beloved community.
From a shear marketing standpoint any team that hires someone like Tossgirl and puts the effort into training her will have an instant money making superstar on their hands. Who wouldn't tune in to see how Tossgirl is doing. Tossgirl could be the Anna Kournikova of Starcraft 2. Which would also attract more women and sponsorship into the sport.
Though a good backup plan would be to just put some lipstick and good wig on INcontroL.
As a whole, I think the biggest difference is that because fewer women attempt to play competitively, you won't see nearly as many top players among them. (because only a very small portion of players who attempt to make the jump to pro-level play will succeed, regardless of gender)
Not everyone has the potential to be as good as Fruit Dealer or whoever, either - but if the person who has that hidden potential doesn't even approach the game competitively, nobody will ever know.
Anecdote - my GF and I have roughly equal skill in some games (strategic board games, MMOs, etc) but she's not even remotely interested in playing starcraft 2.
On December 06 2010 18:37 TIgerjaw wrote: Hey everyone,
As a female gamer, I wanted to add my few cents to the thread.
Yes, there is no denying that there are biological differences between genders; however, I don't think that has much in the way of influencing competitive natures, aside from testosterone levels. Gender expectations play a much larger role.
The biggest reason for girls not getting into games is societal pressure. I feel constantly pressured to not mention my gaming habits to friends, for fear that I'll be looked down upon. Yes, I have a few friends that are girls that play videogames, like most people, but we are few and far between.
First of all, playing competitive video games is considered masculine. If you play those types of video games, your femininity gets questioned, without a doubt.
This is because women care about how they are perceived by men a lot. We have been conditioned to accept that even though we have the freedom to do whatever a man can do, we have to accept that we are the "weaker" sex, and that its just not "right" if we're dominating males in any sort of competitive hobby or game. Traditionally, if we beat a guy at a game, we understand that we're seen as less sexually desirable, and that is a huge no-no in the world of women. We know that being attractive is what matters to most men, so normally, women do less than okay to impress you. We don't intentionally lose at Super Smash Bros to give you an ego boost, we do it so we are still seen as desirable to you.
The nail that sticks out gets hammered down. I love gaming, and I am extremely competitive. Probably even more so than my fiancee. It really does start to hurt when all you ever hear playing online against other people is harassment. Sexual harassment is a huge issue on the internet, particularly in video games, where you can say whatever you want without consequence, under the guise of anonymity. I can't tell you how many "go make a sandwhich", "A/S/L??", "lesbian?", "are you hot??" messages I've gotten when I play competitive games like LoL, HoN and the like. Even logging into vent to play those games, about 90% of the time I get "OMG A GIRL!" Women aren't judged by their ability to succeed, but by how sexually attractive they are. This is both environmental, and biological for obvious evolutionary reasons. That doesn't mean I am okay with being judged like a piece of meat, however.
Yes, there are many of female WoW players, but mostly because its become more socially acceptable in recent years, and most girls play with their boyfriends/husbands, as I do. And the gender atmosphere in video games is always progressing, but I have no false hopes about people eventually being nice to girls online. The internet is made of douchebags.
Finally, I think someone made a point about how women "don't like competition" in an earlier post, and this is the biggest BS that we have ever given men to swallow. Here's a cute little Cracked article excerpt [yes, I know, its Cracked, but they have legit sources posted.] Particularly this passage is what I wanted to bring up "When we grow up, women are more likely to be penalized for displaying too much aggression, while men are rewarded for the exact same behavior. When actually ...
Women might be the more aggressive of the genders.
Researchers found that when you deindividuate a person--or place the person in a situation where he or she doesn't have an individual identity--aggressive attitudes are amplified. This makes sense. It's probably why Marines are required to wear the same uniform, and hipsters are such pussies. Well, they tested this in the lab by having men and women play an interactive video game that required killing other players by dropping bombs on them.
They found that under normal circumstances, men dropped far more bombs than women. But in the deindividuated groups, women out-attacked the men every time, with an average of about five more bombs dropped per session. Putting people, particularly women, in a situation where they are anonymous and don't have to conform to societal expectations is very powerful psychologically. And by very powerful, we mean it turns them into an unfeeling murder machines."
Sillyness aside, I love PvPing in WoW, nothing brings me greater joy than corpse camping an opposing faction for way too long. I must be an unfeeling murder machine!
Scroll back to a few posts cause there are biological factors that are associated with competition (see women being the choosier sex).
Also mentioned most things you said already :-\
Edit: I also learned fairly recently that in regards to 'courtship displays' and 'talents' (in this case a talent being starcraft 2 playing ability) can all be synonimized together as being a man's attempt to have creativity and finesse in order to impress women. As I said before women are the choosier sex so they have less need to perform at the highest level. You can see the trend that men are more likely to be the ones to perform musically, artistically, literarilly and in our case starcraft skillz.
On December 06 2010 23:59 Jibba wrote: It's called learned helplessness. It's the primary reason boys hit the extremes on math scores while girls stay in the middle. When boys succeed, they usually believe it's because they're naturally talented at math, and when they do poorly, it's because they didn't try hard. When girls succeed, it's because they believe they worked hard to earn it, and when they do poorly, it's because they simply "can't do math." It's a type of arrogance that the elites of any field usually possess that protects them during failure.
The 'primary' reason you say? How can you even show this is a reason, let alone the 'primary' reason?
A column written by someone, what am I to make of this?
It was obviously a sexist and offensive post
I not felt discrimated, objectified, nor offended by it. It was a reasonable position, maybe I don't see the obvious here?
if science can demonstrate such bizarre things that for instance Jews all have some magic gene that makes people lazy, no matter how controversial this may be, it will still be the truth and people who defend this research then are not per se anti-Semitic, (though quite possibly they are)
Prove Asians are smarter.
Bold words for one who's been theorycrafting a lot so far with little evidence to back it up.
Because before 1960, the education system in every E. Asian and SE. Asian country was terrible, and they couldn't manufacture things or conduct scientific research to save their lives.
That's probably why 80% of the most basic principles and technologies we nowadays use for warfare originate from China and they there already had complex architecture and mathematical results in number theory and astronomy that maths students still learn to this day at universities. All the while germanic people were practically still living in caves.
Also, some would by your own logic interpret that comment from you above as 'obviously racist and offensive'
Apart from that, this graph here:
Lists IQ versus locus, purple is the highest.
So please, explain how the evolutionary superior brain of an Asian somehow lapsed for the thousands of years that the Japanese lived in the stone age.
I can't remember I ever claimed asians have an 'evolutionary superior' brain, there is more in the brain than intelligence.
On December 06 2010 18:49 Jibba wrote: He made an evolutionary psychology argument, and there were civilizations where women did hunting.
Give me an example, I'm not saying that they don't exist, I'm saying I don't know of any and the burden of proof is yours.
I also fail to see why discussing another animal is irrelevant when the nature of his point is that males are naturally more talented because their predecessors hunt.
Because the discussion is about human beings and you can't extend that from other species. In some other animals, females hunt, in some males, in some both, in some neither (herbivores eh).
That still doesn't factor on how the animals hunt, which is also significant, a lot of animals hunt solitary. Humans did not, humans actually have developed a lot of intricate ways to communicate and coordinate without using sounds. Ever noticed that humans are the only apes with white in their eyes? You immediately notice what another person is looking at. Other apes thus far have not been shown to realize immediately to what other members of their species are looking, unlike human beings.
Women may recover from strokes more easily because they use their entire brain to do those tasks.
Maybe you shouldn't misquote articles. The article at no point says that women use 'more parts' of their brain, it says they use both hemispheres.. A completely different thing, if nothing else, it implies that women are less specialized and more broadly-oriented.
Which is by the way nothing new, it's known that females are sooner to be ambidextrous and have less dominance in brain hemispheres. Whereas males more often have one dominant hemisphere.
Testosterone is associated with awareness of status which, in most animals, may be gained through aggression; however, in humans, it is usually gained through non-aggressive behavior.
Please, you do not honestly believe that this study completely disproves established thought by the experiment conducted?
There could be multiple explanations for the obtained results. Saying that it's about status, or that aggression is tantamount to being a bad negotiator is just one of the many. This study may be quite interesting, but the conclusions linked to it are overstated.
As opposed to biology, and especially evolutionary explanations for the way things are in 2010?
I would not call myself a fan of biology in this respect either, as well as evolutionary psychology which comes down too much to 'anything goes, logic'. I favour the rigour of physics.
Regardless, one study does not a fact make in sociology, the results of the study above could have multiple explanations to it other than status and competition.
On December 06 2010 18:37 TIgerjaw wrote: Hey everyone,
As a female gamer, I wanted to add my few cents to the thread.
Yes, there is no denying that there are biological differences between genders; however, I don't think that has much in the way of influencing competitive natures, aside from testosterone levels. Gender expectations play a much larger role.
The biggest reason for girls not getting into games is societal pressure. I feel constantly pressured to not mention my gaming habits to friends, for fear that I'll be looked down upon. Yes, I have a few friends that are girls that play videogames, like most people, but we are few and far between.
First of all, playing competitive video games is considered masculine. If you play those types of video games, your femininity gets questioned, without a doubt.
This is because women care about how they are perceived by men a lot. We have been conditioned to accept that even though we have the freedom to do whatever a man can do, we have to accept that we are the "weaker" sex, and that its just not "right" if we're dominating males in any sort of competitive hobby or game. Traditionally, if we beat a guy at a game, we understand that we're seen as less sexually desirable, and that is a huge no-no in the world of women. We know that being attractive is what matters to most men, so normally, women do less than okay to impress you. We don't intentionally lose at Super Smash Bros to give you an ego boost, we do it so we are still seen as desirable to you.
The nail that sticks out gets hammered down. I love gaming, and I am extremely competitive. Probably even more so than my fiancee. It really does start to hurt when all you ever hear playing online against other people is harassment. Sexual harassment is a huge issue on the internet, particularly in video games, where you can say whatever you want without consequence, under the guise of anonymity. I can't tell you how many "go make a sandwhich", "A/S/L??", "lesbian?", "are you hot??" messages I've gotten when I play competitive games like LoL, HoN and the like. Even logging into vent to play those games, about 90% of the time I get "OMG A GIRL!" Women aren't judged by their ability to succeed, but by how sexually attractive they are. This is both environmental, and biological for obvious evolutionary reasons. That doesn't mean I am okay with being judged like a piece of meat, however.
Yes, there are many of female WoW players, but mostly because its become more socially acceptable in recent years, and most girls play with their boyfriends/husbands, as I do. And the gender atmosphere in video games is always progressing, but I have no false hopes about people eventually being nice to girls online. The internet is made of douchebags.
Finally, I think someone made a point about how women "don't like competition" in an earlier post, and this is the biggest BS that we have ever given men to swallow. Here's a cute little Cracked article excerpt [yes, I know, its Cracked, but they have legit sources posted.] Particularly this passage is what I wanted to bring up "When we grow up, women are more likely to be penalized for displaying too much aggression, while men are rewarded for the exact same behavior. When actually ...
Women might be the more aggressive of the genders.
Researchers found that when you deindividuate a person--or place the person in a situation where he or she doesn't have an individual identity--aggressive attitudes are amplified. This makes sense. It's probably why Marines are required to wear the same uniform, and hipsters are such pussies. Well, they tested this in the lab by having men and women play an interactive video game that required killing other players by dropping bombs on them.
They found that under normal circumstances, men dropped far more bombs than women. But in the deindividuated groups, women out-attacked the men every time, with an average of about five more bombs dropped per session. Putting people, particularly women, in a situation where they are anonymous and don't have to conform to societal expectations is very powerful psychologically. And by very powerful, we mean it turns them into an unfeeling murder machines."
Sillyness aside, I love PvPing in WoW, nothing brings me greater joy than corpse camping an opposing faction for way too long. I must be an unfeeling murder machine!
Scroll back to a few posts cause there are biological factors that are associated with competition (see women being the choosier sex).
Also mentioned most things you said already :-\
Edit: I also learned fairly recently that in regards to 'courtship displays' and 'talents' (in this case a talent being starcraft 2 playing ability) can all be synonimized together as being a man's attempt to have creativity and finesse in order to impress women. As I said before women are the choosier sex so they have less need to perform at the highest level. You can see the trend that men are more likely to be the ones to perform musically, artistically, literarilly and in our case starcraft skillz.
those encompass a huge spectrum of things. what does the word "talent" entail in this research? by associating sc2 to "talents" in a piece of research that probably had nothing to do with sc2, you're implying that i can simply take this research and associate it with anything that i perceive to be a talent?
frankly the competition debate is bs. there haven't been conclusive studies done showing males are more competitive than females. the papers you refer to a few pages back were published in some random economics journal in a restricted sample of non-naive children, which isn't exactly convincing. in fact, i've seen research that has shown the opposite (not that i necessarily subscribe to methods they used - as i've yet to read the paper at work, but i'm just saying, it's not a settled topic - and the anecdotal "evidence" to say men are more competitive than women as the reason why we aren't seeing female progamers are absurd.
Nurs Adm Q. 1997 Summer;21(4):69-76. Competitive styles in men and women. Reed S, Reed RC, Lantz J. Competition is a function intrinsic to current clinical practice. Of the two competitive styles, goal competitiveness is found by both men and women to be more worthy of respect. Interpersonal competitiveness is manifested more by highly competitive women than by highly competitive men, especially in relationships with female co-workers, representing a significant problem for organizations and employees. The styles and their effects are described, their possible sources discussed, additional research outlined, and recommendations proposed.
If anyone took the time to hang out in the real world the answer would be plain as day.
Believe it or not, outside this online community, anyone that is outside the 18 to 25 year old male demographic for this game have absolutely no social or financial incentive to spend 8+ hours on this game.
I'm a 30 year-old male, and trust me, whenever I bring up Starcraft with anyone in my social sphere people look at me cross-eyed.
On December 06 2010 18:37 TIgerjaw wrote: The nail that sticks out gets hammered down. I love gaming, and I am extremely competitive. Probably even more so than my fiancee. It really does start to hurt when all you ever hear playing online against other people is harassment. Sexual harassment is a huge issue on the internet, particularly in video games, where you can say whatever you want without consequence, under the guise of anonymity. I can't tell you how many "go make a sandwhich", "A/S/L??", "lesbian?", "are you hot??" messages I've gotten when I play competitive games like LoL, HoN and the like. Even logging into vent to play those games, about 90% of the time I get "OMG A GIRL!" Women aren't judged by their ability to succeed, but by how sexually attractive they are. This is both environmental, and biological for obvious evolutionary reasons. That doesn't mean I am okay with being judged like a piece of meat, however.
Yes, there are many of female WoW players, but mostly because its become more socially acceptable in recent years, and most girls play with their boyfriends/husbands, as I do. And the gender atmosphere in video games is always progressing, but I have no false hopes about people eventually being nice to girls online. The internet is made of douchebags.
Ah yes, this is what I meant with my own posts earlier. Glad to see my theory comfirmed by a woman, The worst story about this that I've heard when a friend of mine let her guildes know she was a girl and the first question in the guild chat was "Do you raid naked?" In my own guild that members would not be a member long, but it's sad to see it's so widely common.
On December 06 2010 18:37 TIgerjaw wrote: Hey everyone,
As a female gamer, I wanted to add my few cents to the thread.
Yes, there is no denying that there are biological differences between genders; however, I don't think that has much in the way of influencing competitive natures, aside from testosterone levels. Gender expectations play a much larger role.
The biggest reason for girls not getting into games is societal pressure. I feel constantly pressured to not mention my gaming habits to friends, for fear that I'll be looked down upon. Yes, I have a few friends that are girls that play videogames, like most people, but we are few and far between.
First of all, playing competitive video games is considered masculine. If you play those types of video games, your femininity gets questioned, without a doubt.
This is because women care about how they are perceived by men a lot. We have been conditioned to accept that even though we have the freedom to do whatever a man can do, we have to accept that we are the "weaker" sex, and that its just not "right" if we're dominating males in any sort of competitive hobby or game. Traditionally, if we beat a guy at a game, we understand that we're seen as less sexually desirable, and that is a huge no-no in the world of women. We know that being attractive is what matters to most men, so normally, women do less than okay to impress you. We don't intentionally lose at Super Smash Bros to give you an ego boost, we do it so we are still seen as desirable to you.
The nail that sticks out gets hammered down. I love gaming, and I am extremely competitive. Probably even more so than my fiancee. It really does start to hurt when all you ever hear playing online against other people is harassment. Sexual harassment is a huge issue on the internet, particularly in video games, where you can say whatever you want without consequence, under the guise of anonymity. I can't tell you how many "go make a sandwhich", "A/S/L??", "lesbian?", "are you hot??" messages I've gotten when I play competitive games like LoL, HoN and the like. Even logging into vent to play those games, about 90% of the time I get "OMG A GIRL!" Women aren't judged by their ability to succeed, but by how sexually attractive they are. This is both environmental, and biological for obvious evolutionary reasons. That doesn't mean I am okay with being judged like a piece of meat, however.
Yes, there are many of female WoW players, but mostly because its become more socially acceptable in recent years, and most girls play with their boyfriends/husbands, as I do. And the gender atmosphere in video games is always progressing, but I have no false hopes about people eventually being nice to girls online. The internet is made of douchebags.
Finally, I think someone made a point about how women "don't like competition" in an earlier post, and this is the biggest BS that we have ever given men to swallow. Here's a cute little Cracked article excerpt [yes, I know, its Cracked, but they have legit sources posted.] Particularly this passage is what I wanted to bring up "When we grow up, women are more likely to be penalized for displaying too much aggression, while men are rewarded for the exact same behavior. When actually ...
Women might be the more aggressive of the genders.
Researchers found that when you deindividuate a person--or place the person in a situation where he or she doesn't have an individual identity--aggressive attitudes are amplified. This makes sense. It's probably why Marines are required to wear the same uniform, and hipsters are such pussies. Well, they tested this in the lab by having men and women play an interactive video game that required killing other players by dropping bombs on them.
They found that under normal circumstances, men dropped far more bombs than women. But in the deindividuated groups, women out-attacked the men every time, with an average of about five more bombs dropped per session. Putting people, particularly women, in a situation where they are anonymous and don't have to conform to societal expectations is very powerful psychologically. And by very powerful, we mean it turns them into an unfeeling murder machines."
Sillyness aside, I love PvPing in WoW, nothing brings me greater joy than corpse camping an opposing faction for way too long. I must be an unfeeling murder machine!
Scroll back to a few posts cause there are biological factors that are associated with competition (see women being the choosier sex).
Also mentioned most things you said already :-\
Edit: I also learned fairly recently that in regards to 'courtship displays' and 'talents' (in this case a talent being starcraft 2 playing ability) can all be synonimized together as being a man's attempt to have creativity and finesse in order to impress women. As I said before women are the choosier sex so they have less need to perform at the highest level. You can see the trend that men are more likely to be the ones to perform musically, artistically, literarilly and in our case starcraft skillz.
those encompass a huge spectrum of things. what does the word "talent" entail in this research? by associating sc2 to "talents" in a piece of research that probably had nothing to do with sc2, you're implying that i can simply take this research and associate it with anything that i perceive to be a talent?
frankly the competition debate is bs. there haven't been conclusive studies done showing males are more competitive than females. the papers you refer to a few pages back were published in some random economics journal in a restricted sample of non-naive children, which isn't exactly convincing. in fact, i've seen research that has shown the opposite (not that i necessarily subscribe to methods they used - as i've yet to read the paper at work, but i'm just saying, it's not a settled topic - and the anecdotal "evidence" to say men are more competitive than women as the reason why we aren't seeing female progamers are absurd.
Nurs Adm Q. 1997 Summer;21(4):69-76. Competitive styles in men and women. Reed S, Reed RC, Lantz J. Competition is a function intrinsic to current clinical practice. Of the two competitive styles, goal competitiveness is found by both men and women to be more worthy of respect. Interpersonal competitiveness is manifested more by highly competitive women than by highly competitive men, especially in relationships with female co-workers, representing a significant problem for organizations and employees. The styles and their effects are described, their possible sources discussed, additional research outlined, and recommendations proposed.
Obviously this evidence is going to be generally anecdotal as there's no empirical data to suggest one way or the other. Just a lot of correlations to prove a causation; there's no competitive gland to say a male's is larger than the other.
Also in regards to the talent definition anything that you're good at is considered a talent. You can define it liberally as I have or specifically as I also have. Giving a broad definition while also providing a few examples proves the scope of what a talent can encompass. So in answer to your question yes I'm saying you can take any talent you have and have displayed publicly as a mating strategy that has either proved successful or not.
One answer to why there are so few if no female progamers:
Women generally dislike competitive (violent) and territorial based games including but not limited to: -RTS -FPS
These games are made by men, for men and played by men because men are evolutionairy territorial and take pleasure in competing with other men.
Now most progaming is done in the RTS and FPS genres, leaving those 40% of female gamers who play stuff like sims (just an example) out of the progaming picture no matter how good they are at playing sims.
Nobody cares about watching someone own in sims.
If nobody cares, there are no sponsors for it and if there are no sponsors for it, there is no progamer league possible.
On December 06 2010 18:37 TIgerjaw wrote: The biggest reason for girls not getting into games is societal pressure. I feel constantly pressured to not mention my gaming habits to friends, for fear that I'll be looked down upon. Yes, I have a few friends that are girls that play videogames, like most people, but we are few and far between.
First of all, playing competitive video games is considered masculine. If you play those types of video games, your femininity gets questioned, without a doubt.
This is because women care about how they are perceived by men a lot. We have been conditioned to accept that even though we have the freedom to do whatever a man can do, we have to accept that we are the "weaker" sex, and that its just not "right" if we're dominating males in any sort of competitive hobby or game. Traditionally, if we beat a guy at a game, we understand that we're seen as less sexually desirable, and that is a huge no-no in the world of women. We know that being attractive is what matters to most men, so normally, women do less than okay to impress you. We don't intentionally lose at Super Smash Bros to give you an ego boost, we do it so we are still seen as desirable to you.
This baffles me. I find the complete opposite, that women defeat gamer guys in videogames are found to be more sexually attractive than those who cannot. Of course it's not the whole picture, as body type and personality still play a big role, but it's still there.
I will agree 100% that the level of sexual harassment in the gaming community sucks. However the sexual harassment would not exist if gamer guys found gamer girls unattractive. It's quite the opposite actually, Im sure there's thousands of gamer guys out there who wish their significant other were a gamer as well. Gaming, in general, is not a sexually attractive hobby, and that means that the gaming community has a higher-than-average level of sexual frustration. (and thus, higher-than-average douchebags) Even if there isn't any women around there's still plenty of sexual harassment being thrown around the gaming community; the language simply switches from misogynistic to homophobic.
I've dated non-gamers who were very beatiful physically, and every single one has 10+ sexual harassment stories. But Ive also dated gamer girls who were not as attractive physically, and while they had fewer "real life" harassment stories, if you added online encounters then they easily doubled, if not tripled, that of the more physically attractive women.
That level of harassment could easily turn anyone away from gaming. But again, I am baffled that you believe gaming will make you less attractive. To non-gamer guys, perhaps, as gamer girls suffer many of the stereotypes gamers guy do. However to most gamer guys the "gorgeous gamer girl" is the holy grail of sexual success.
On December 07 2010 02:14 LittleeD wrote: Im absolutely baffled by the amount of Sexism going in this thread. Think it might be time to close it now ...
I think this thread is dumb overall to be honest. The sexism is depressing, and even the people trying to intellectualize the lack of female SC2 players are strawman arguments.
Believe it or not, it's not just women that find SC2 frustrating, anti-social, over-difficult and boring. A LOT OF PEOPLE DO. And some of the sexist comments on this thread are indicative of how far removed the average SC2 nerd-alpha-male is from the understanding the thoughts and opinions of the majority of society.
On December 07 2010 03:33 RoboBob wrote: But again, I am baffled that you believe gaming will make you less attractive. To non-gamer guys, perhaps, as gamer girls suffer many of the stereotypes gamers guy do. However to most gamer guys the "gorgeous gamer girl" is the holy grail of sexual success.
I don't think turning a girl that plays videogames into a fucking unicorn is going to make them feel anymore comfortable in the gaming community.
On December 07 2010 02:14 LittleeD wrote: Im absolutely baffled by the amount of Sexism going in this thread. Think it might be time to close it now ...
I think this thread is dumb overall to be honest. The sexism is depressing, and even the people trying to intellectualize the lack of female SC2 players are strawman arguments.
Believe it or not, it's not just women that find SC2 frustrating, anti-social, over-difficult and boring. A LOT OF PEOPLE DO. And some of the sexist comments on this thread are indicative of how far removed the average SC2 nerd-alpha-male is from the understanding the thoughts and opinions of the majority of society.
statements like this are what's ruining the thread. you don't even understand what the question is. it's not about the majority of society; it's not even about the majority of the SC2 player base. it's about the absolute minority, the top 0.1% of the people who play the game. it doesn't matter what the average IQ of someone in China vs the average IQ of someone in Africa is, when the top SC2 progamers aren't your average Chinese or African. it doesn't matter what the average person finds anti-social/over-difficult/boring about SC2 when we're discussing SC2 pros.
On December 07 2010 02:14 LittleeD wrote: Im absolutely baffled by the amount of Sexism going in this thread. Think it might be time to close it now ...
I think this thread is dumb overall to be honest. The sexism is depressing, and even the people trying to intellectualize the lack of female SC2 players are strawman arguments.
Believe it or not, it's not just women that find SC2 frustrating, anti-social, over-difficult and boring. A LOT OF PEOPLE DO. And some of the sexist comments on this thread are indicative of how far removed the average SC2 nerd-alpha-male is from the understanding the thoughts and opinions of the majority of society.
statements like this are what's ruining the thread. you don't even understand what the question is. it's not about the majority of society; it's not even about the majority of the SC2 player base. it's about the absolute minority, the top 0.1% of the people who play the game. it doesn't matter what the average IQ of someone in China vs the average IQ of someone in Africa is, when the top SC2 progamers aren't your average Chinese or African. it doesn't matter what the average person finds anti-social/over-difficult/boring about SC2 when we're discussing SC2 pros.
Thank you for setting him straight. His direct insult to us and this thread was obnoxious and snide at best.
On December 06 2010 23:59 Jibba wrote: It's called learned helplessness. It's the primary reason boys hit the extremes on math scores while girls stay in the middle. When boys succeed, they usually believe it's because they're naturally talented at math, and when they do poorly, it's because they didn't try hard. When girls succeed, it's because they believe they worked hard to earn it, and when they do poorly, it's because they simply "can't do math." It's a type of arrogance that the elites of any field usually possess that protects them during failure.
The 'primary' reason you say? How can you even show this is a reason, let alone the 'primary' reason?
I not felt discrimated, objectified, nor offended by it. It was a reasonable position, maybe I don't see the obvious here?
if science can demonstrate such bizarre things that for instance Jews all have some magic gene that makes people lazy, no matter how controversial this may be, it will still be the truth and people who defend this research then are not per se anti-Semitic, (though quite possibly they are)
Because before 1960, the education system in every E. Asian and SE. Asian country was terrible, and they couldn't manufacture things or conduct scientific research to save their lives.
That's probably why 80% of the most basic principles and technologies we nowadays use for warfare originate from China and they there already had complex architecture and mathematical results in number theory and astronomy that maths students still learn to this day at universities. All the while germanic people were practically still living in caves.
Also, some would by your own logic interpret that comment from you above as 'obviously racist and offensive'
I also fail to see why discussing another animal is irrelevant when the nature of his point is that males are naturally more talented because their predecessors hunt.
Because the discussion is about human beings and you can't extend that from other species. In some other animals, females hunt, in some males, in some both, in some neither (herbivores eh).
That still doesn't factor on how the animals hunt, which is also significant, a lot of animals hunt solitary. Humans did not, humans actually have developed a lot of intricate ways to communicate and coordinate without using sounds. Ever noticed that humans are the only apes with white in their eyes? You immediately notice what another person is looking at. Other apes thus far have not been shown to realize immediately to what other members of their species are looking, unlike human beings.
Women may recover from strokes more easily because they use their entire brain to do those tasks.
Maybe you shouldn't misquote articles. The article at no point says that women use 'more parts' of their brain, it says they use both hemispheres.. A completely different thing, if nothing else, it implies that women are less specialized and more broadly-oriented.
Which is by the way nothing new, it's known that females are sooner to be ambidextrous and have less dominance in brain hemispheres. Whereas males more often have one dominant hemisphere.
Testosterone is associated with awareness of status which, in most animals, may be gained through aggression; however, in humans, it is usually gained through non-aggressive behavior.
Please, you do not honestly believe that this study completely disproves established thought by the experiment conducted?
There could be multiple explanations for the obtained results. Saying that it's about status, or that aggression is tantamount to being a bad negotiator is just one of the many. This study may be quite interesting, but the conclusions linked to it are overstated.
As opposed to biology, and especially evolutionary explanations for the way things are in 2010?
I would not call myself a fan of biology in this respect either, as well as evolutionary psychology which comes down too much to 'anything goes, logic'. I favour the rigour of physics.
Regardless, one study does not a fact make in sociology, the results of the study above could have multiple explanations to it other than status and competition.
You do realize the post you're referring to contains this, right?
edit: no sexist part here, just a simple fact. Now if we were to go into cooking or doing laundry..
And your argument boils down to science = objective and provable therefore it should be believed, except that science is also used to reinforce myths and create oppressive forces. Science is not just a series of fields, it's rooted in its method and part of the method includes acknowledging faults such as selection bias. Even in physics, there's a whole lot of uncertainty and you're working through inferences, not deductions. The science of Asians being naturally smarter or Africans being naturally less intelligent is exactly that (by the way, are you really trying to argue intelligence based on IQ? That argument is peeled straight from The Bell Curve >.>)
Your argument of China and scientific advancement is akin to arguing Koreans are naturally superior at Starcraft, and as proof there have been 19 Korean OSL winners and only 1 foreigner. That last part is a completely true, objective fact but it does nothing to show why Koreans are better at Starcraft. We know the answer is their environment, which is the exact same reason women do worse in gaming or why China (as well as the Greeks, Romans, Arab, Ottoman and European) empires excelled and then stalled.
On November 19 2010 23:40 masterbreti wrote: silver hit the nail on the head there. males gaming is much more socially accpetable then women, who are sterotypically into makeup and gossip and all thos eother things. men are supposed to be into sports and video games.
just gender sterotypes tbh
So why are there many successful female athletes in "other" sports then?
And give me a break, when women are stereotypically into makeup and gossip then men are into cars and bodybuilding....gender stereotypes go both ways, there's not really a stereotype that includes playing sc2 competitively. I don't really get it either, why competitive gaming seems not to be appealing to women at all.
Women compete against other women. However, when you put women up against men, invariably they fall short. For example, the world-record 100 meter sprint time for women wouldn't even qualify for the men's 100 meter sprint. You can literally go down the list of elite athletes and find that men's events showcase far superior talent than women's event. When it comes to the elite of the elite, men dominate this end of the spectrum for reasons of biology. On most tasks, most men and women are relatively equal. However, we aren't talking about most men/women, we are talking about the best of the best. That's why there are very few women progamers (f any). Shaving off 2/10ths of a second in a sprint will do nothing for me in a race against my peers, but 2/10ths is the difference between 1st place and going home a loser in the Olympics.
On December 07 2010 01:51 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote: Apart from that, this graph here:
Lists IQ versus locus, purple is the highest.
Interpreting graphs fail. Your graph is about the relation of GDP with IQ, which explains China doing so well, it has a massive GDP. Here is the correct graph of national IQ estimates. (From the same study.) This graph makes a lot more sense, you will see that people are about equally "intelligent" and by "intelligent" I mean "good at doing IQ tests" everywhere where there is a good standard of education and literacy.
Please no arguments about one race being more intelligent than another, aside from being completely off topic (and racist) it just makes you look ignorant and stupid to anyone with a clue.
On December 07 2010 02:10 Defacer wrote: If anyone took the time to hang out in the real world the answer would be plain as day.
Believe it or not, outside this online community, anyone that is outside the 18 to 25 year old male demographic for this game have absolutely no social or financial incentive to spend 8+ hours on this game.
I'm a 30 year-old male, and trust me, whenever I bring up Starcraft with anyone in my social sphere people look at me cross-eyed.
This is basicly the answer folks no need to go any deeper than that. This thread is attracting so many filthy commentents that its tarnishing my good image of the TL community. Can we please have this closed?
There is to many "Women is less intelligent" shit going on in here its quite sad
Also all these arguments about hunting and stone age are just stupid.
Just because main literatur is filled with stupid books like "Why men don't listen and women can't drive" which just try to explain every detail of modern life with the stone age (and having no proofs or studies for most of the arguments made in the books) everybody thinks he knows exactly whats going on...
Look i can make these arguments too:
--- Men are more intelligent than women because it required new ideas and tactics to be successfull at hunting for the family.
Women are more intelligent than men because they had to farm food. Also they had to care and teach the children about life. Men only needed strength and endurance to bring meat to the family. --- Men are better at starcraft because they competed against each other in stone age to feed their families. Also men had to learn strategies and tactics for hunting, so naturally they are better at strategy games
Women are better at starcraft because they competed each other for men (while men did team work at hunting). Also women are better at multitasking because they had to care for the family while men can only focus at one thing at a time.
You can argue what you want, you can always "prove" it with stone age stuff. its just stupid
On December 07 2010 02:14 LittleeD wrote: Im absolutely baffled by the amount of Sexism going in this thread. Think it might be time to close it now ...
I think this thread is dumb overall to be honest. The sexism is depressing, and even the people trying to intellectualize the lack of female SC2 players are strawman arguments.
Believe it or not, it's not just women that find SC2 frustrating, anti-social, over-difficult and boring. A LOT OF PEOPLE DO. And some of the sexist comments on this thread are indicative of how far removed the average SC2 nerd-alpha-male is from the understanding the thoughts and opinions of the majority of society.
statements like this are what's ruining the thread. you don't even understand what the question is. it's not about the majority of society; it's not even about the majority of the SC2 player base. it's about the absolute minority, the top 0.1% of the people who play the game. it doesn't matter what the average IQ of someone in China vs the average IQ of someone in Africa is, when the top SC2 progamers aren't your average Chinese or African. it doesn't matter what the average person finds anti-social/over-difficult/boring about SC2 when we're discussing SC2 pros.
Thank you for setting him straight. His direct insult to us and this thread was obnoxious and snide at best.
I'm glad you found my response obnoxious. And you've set nothing straight.
I too, find the majority of the arguments on this thread so laffably sophmoric and overwrought with pseudo-science and racist/sexist research that they are offensive.
Sometimes the answer is dead simple. The reason why there are not that many SC2 female pros is not that many women, or people in general play SC2.
WHY, YOU ASK?
It is not a casual game, or even a game that is accessible to most people.
It's a highly stressful strategy game, designed for e-sport enthusiasts and highly competitive nerds, that requires an abnormal amount of motor skills and a huge investment to even be competitive.
It is about as easy and straight-forward as playing Spanish Guitar with your left hand while playing Chess with your right.
The story, lore and design of the game itself is meant to appeal directly to young men, and young men only, borrowing heavily from Starship Troopers and James Cameron movies.
Unlike other contemporary games, such as Rock Band, Mario Party or even World of Warcraft -- which are responsible for the rising popularity of gaming among women -- it is comparitively anti-social, and you are forced to play the game on it's own terms. It is not "a sandbox game" that people can customize, and has one of the most counter-intuitive interfaces/controls of any mainstream game.
SC2 is a game designed specifically for male, OCD nerds. There is no incentive for women, or most people, to play it unless they really want to hang out with these OCD nerds. Luckily for Blizzard, there's about ten million of us in the world.
I see no reason why there needs to be a more complicated sociological, anthropological or historical reason.
On December 06 2010 18:37 TIgerjaw wrote: The biggest reason for girls not getting into games is societal pressure. I feel constantly pressured to not mention my gaming habits to friends, for fear that I'll be looked down upon. Yes, I have a few friends that are girls that play videogames, like most people, but we are few and far between.
First of all, playing competitive video games is considered masculine. If you play those types of video games, your femininity gets questioned, without a doubt.
This is because women care about how they are perceived by men a lot. We have been conditioned to accept that even though we have the freedom to do whatever a man can do, we have to accept that we are the "weaker" sex, and that its just not "right" if we're dominating males in any sort of competitive hobby or game. Traditionally, if we beat a guy at a game, we understand that we're seen as less sexually desirable, and that is a huge no-no in the world of women. We know that being attractive is what matters to most men, so normally, women do less than okay to impress you. We don't intentionally lose at Super Smash Bros to give you an ego boost, we do it so we are still seen as desirable to you.
This baffles me. I find the complete opposite, that women defeat gamer guys in videogames are found to be more sexually attractive than those who cannot. Of course it's not the whole picture, as body type and personality still play a big role, but it's still there.
I will agree 100% that the level of sexual harassment in the gaming community sucks. However the sexual harassment would not exist if gamer guys found gamer girls unattractive. It's quite the opposite actually, Im sure there's thousands of gamer guys out there who wish their significant other were a gamer as well. Gaming, in general, is not a sexually attractive hobby, and that means that the gaming community has a higher-than-average level of sexual frustration. (and thus, higher-than-average douchebags) Even if there isn't any women around there's still plenty of sexual harassment being thrown around the gaming community; the language simply switches from misogynistic to homophobic.
I've dated non-gamers who were very beatiful physically, and every single one has 10+ sexual harassment stories. But Ive also dated gamer girls who were not as attractive physically, and while they had fewer "real life" harassment stories, if you added online encounters then they easily doubled, if not tripled, that of the more physically attractive women.
That level of harassment could easily turn anyone away from gaming. But again, I am baffled that you believe gaming will make you less attractive. To non-gamer guys, perhaps, as gamer girls suffer many of the stereotypes gamers guy do. However to most gamer guys the "gorgeous gamer girl" is the holy grail of sexual success.
Hey RoboBob, thanks for your reply.
When I was mentioning being "sexually desirable" I didn't mean to say that gaming "makes" you physically less attractive in the eyes of a man. I meant to say that competing against them, rather than playing the traditionally submissive role that is both conditioned and associated with femininity, risks making you seem less feminine. And for most men, less feminine=less sexually desirable. I don't know any guys that would prefer to date a girl who seemed butch, lol.
I definitely agree that there are exceptions to this rule, especially among the TL hardcore gaming community. I know my fiancee, who is a hardcore competitive gamer in every respect, definitely thinks he found the holy grail when he met me at a Go club ;] We love competing against each other, and he loves that I'm great at what we play. There is no doubt in my mind that many of you would love to have a gamer girlfriend, but I think what I mentioned relates more towards men unfamiliar with competitive gaming, as they're more likely to view competitive women as abnormal and "unladylike".
While playing SC doesn't necessarily correlate to being less feminine, the fostering of competition among females from a young age doesn't exist like it does for males, because being competitive is frowned upon in society for women, as the article I posted says. It is conditioned out of us, but there are some exceptions to the rule, as Tossgirl and many other amazing female amateur and pro players show. Us girls love to compete just as much as the boys, if only society didn't tell us that displaying aggression and showing drive to succeed were meant to be the "man's job".
On December 07 2010 06:20 Jibba wrote: You do realize the post you're referring to contains this, right?
Contains what?
edit: no sexist part here, just a simple fact. Now if we were to go into cooking or doing laundry..
This quote wasn't mine by the way , no idea what it's doing here.
And your argument boils down to science = objective and provable therefore it should be believed, except that science is also used to reinforce myths and create oppressive forces.
Except that then it's not science.
The beautiful thing about science is transparency, you have to also publish the methods you use to obtain your results, such as in the case of the money-negotiation, then anyone can review those methods and asses their correctness.
Science is not just a series of fields, it's rooted in its method and part of the method includes acknowledging faults such as selection bias.
Even in physics, there's a whole lot of uncertainty and you're working through inferences, not deductions.
Actually physics is purely mathematical deduction. Physics is mathematics, physics is a bunch of soulless formulae. All other things around it is just some nice interpretation in popular media to translate it into something that people can grasp more easily than tensor calculus and Hilbert spaces.
The science of Asians being naturally smarter or Africans being naturally less intelligent is exactly that (by the way, are you really trying to argue intelligence based on IQ? That argument is peeled straight from The Bell Curve >.>)
Where did I ever used the word 'natural', I said 'averagely'.
I never read that book by the way, you've seen the chart, note that it also holds for immigrants, Asians immigrating to other countries are on average more intelligent than natives of that country.
Your argument of China and scientific advancement is akin to arguing Koreans are naturally superior at Starcraft
I never made an argument of China, I was producing counter-examples to your (some would say racist) claim that China had no scientific advancement.
and as proof there have been 19 Korean OSL winners and only 1 foreigner. That last part is a completely true, objective fact but it does nothing to show why Koreans are better at Starcraft. We know the answer is their environment, which is the exact same reason women do worse in gaming or why China (as well as the Greeks, Romans, Arab, Ottoman and European) empires excelled and then stalled.
That is simply theorycrafting and neither verifiable nor falsifiable at this point. There is no way you can prove or even investigate that this is the 'exact reason'.
Like I said, look a little bit more to the available evidence and don't be afraid to accept that the world isn't an ideal paradise and a little less to what you want to be true. Given the evidence, saying that Africans have more stamina, Europeans more bloodthirst, Austronesians higher reflexes and Asians more intelligence is a reasonable positional.
Given the evidence, saying that Africans have more stamina, Europeans more bloodthirst, Austronesians higher reflexes and Asians more intelligence is a reasonable positional.
Dude read my post above, your graph doesn't show what you think it does. In no way are asians more intelligent than any other race. Asia has an equal national IQ to the West, e.g. Europe, America and any other country where there is a decent standard of education. In many African countries a lot of people don't get a chance to go to school, hence why most countries in Africa have a lower "national IQ". Europeans have more bloodthirst? I... I don't even... I hope you are trolling.
This is a fascinating question. I've experienced the same lack of females in another field: breakdancing.
In that field there are distinct differences between the two genders, typically running along the less strength more flexibility line which changes the way they _should_ approach the art form. The interesting thing about breaking is that girls tend not to play to their strengths and instead copy the males in this field resulting in targeting "strength moves" but not having the sufficient strength to hit the same heights as the males. This results in the females effectively just being a "worse" version of the males. It's sad, but true.
This is probably because the "strength techniques" are much more developed as the art form has typically been male in the past. So there are many more "resources" out there documenting the way to adopt strength moves.
However females that apply their own take on breakdancing and utilise their flexibility and underplay the values of strength can be phenomenal. Unfortunately there have been few examples of this due to the fact that females more or less have to pioneer these styles themselves and the rigid framework that most breakdancing religious zealots adopt usually look unfavourably toward people trying different and new styles.
With this in mind I was absolutely astonished to see such a divide in e-sports. I think we all should appreciate that gaming IS becoming a more gender equal interest. As a 29 year old I can already see the huge difference between the girls nearer my age or nearer their early twenties in their approach towards games. More girls are growing up with games (and not The Sims, proper ones ) and I hope this trend will continue in the future.
Men have a VERY big role to play in this transformation. We must NOT and we must RALLY AGAINST those that attempt to sexualise their involvement, bear prejudices and deal in stereotypes.
Furthermore we should _not_ segregate. E-Sports are _not_ physical sports. Female tennis and female football exist due to to the PHYSICAL differences between the genders. E-Sports should _not_ copy this pattern as it makes NO SENSE in gaming. Introducing female only competitions LOWERS the bar for the entrants and provides a false sense of achievement on both sides. It makes people think that its good for female gamers (it's worth noting that the GSL is _not_ men only) and it makes the female gamers believe they have "made it" which can reduce their desire to improve further. Instead we should be looking at creating more tournaments for those at a lower skill bracket which overtime will provide new blood into the community of both the male and female kind.
Finally: NO EASY PROPS Remind yourself that it is insulting to provide a compliment to a female that a male would not be given in the same scenario. One of the main things females have to battle with in the breaking scene is that ANYTHING they do will result in the crowd going wild. These easy props are very harmful to the ego and being able to gauge your own skill level.
EDIT: WTF is up with the eugenics in this thread? That's pretty scary stuff. You should back off that stuff as it is rarely helpful. The physical and genetic differences between the various races of humans are so small and the diversity between people within the same race so very vast that its a nonsense to speak in such generalisations.
EDIT 2: IQ is also a terrible gauge to use. I've met super high IQ people that lack volition, will, independence and determination. Essentially smart retards. Additionally I think we can all agree that in terms of becoming a pro gamer determination and effort are probably much more important than IQ.
Given the evidence, saying that Africans have more stamina, Europeans more bloodthirst, Austronesians higher reflexes and Asians more intelligence is a reasonable positional.
Dude read my post above, your graph doesn't show what you think it does. In no way are asians more intelligent than any other race. Asia has an equal national IQ to the West, e.g. Europe, America and any other country where there is a decent standard of education.
Even if it doesn't (which the context I found the graph in doesn't say that, I'm also not sure what 'intelligence in relation to GDP would mean'. I drew a line for you to make it clearer, the colour differences are quire subtle, one of the reasons they often don't use mono-hue but shift hues:
As you can see more clearly now the CJK countries are of lighter shade.
I also, again, never said 'natural', I never said that they were born smarter, though it's a possibility.
In many African countries a lot of people don't get a chance to go to school, hence why most countries in Africa have a lower "national IQ".
Maybe, maybe not, how can you know this? All we know their national IQ is lower.
A good IQ test by the way is designed to ignore education, though this is a theoretical ideal.
Europeans have more bloodthirst? I... I don't even... I hope you are trolling.
As long as we're going on the axiom that testosterone -> aggression. Indeed European males have been shown to have more testosterone than males of other ethnicities. Let us not forget for instance that many ethnicities have less facial hair, and of some the males do not grow facial hair at all.
However throughout history, no ethno-linguistic group seems to have shown the same lust for conquest as Indo-Europeans.
I'm just saying that it's a reasonable position, the only reason people are cautious about such positions is that they are 'politically incorrect'.
Please no arguments about one race being more intelligent than another, aside from being completely off topic (and racist) it just makes you look ignorant and stupid to anyone with a clue.
This though highlights your slavery to the vaunt of political correctness, what if it's simply true? Have you ever once in your life seen a proof that all races are exactly on the same aptitude in intelligence?
Like I said, I'm a socialist, I'm a woman, I'm a blend of European, native American and North African, but I don't deny stuff I don't want to be true.
It would be completely unlikely anyway if all races had the exact same genetic intelligence. Races adapt to their climate, some climates would require more intelligence than others to survive in, races have differently formed bones, skin tone, blood composition, finger length, strength, all to adapt to the climate they grew up in. Races that live high in the mountains have evolved to be able to make due with less oxygen, races that have evolved in drought actually pee less as to preserve more water. There are simple differences in qualities that are undeniable, you've already made up your mind before you reviewed the evidence.
Defacer I too, find the majority of the arguments on this thread so laffably sophmoric and overwrought with pseudo-science and racist/sexist research that they are offensive.
I fail to see what the offensiveness of some idea has to do with the veracity thereof, after all, offensive is a subjective quality.
Sometimes the answer is dead simple. The reason why there are not that many SC2 female pros is not that many women, or people in general play SC2.
WHY, YOU ASK?
It is not a casual game, or even a game that is accessible to most people.
It's a highly stressful strategy game, designed for e-sport enthusiasts and highly competitive nerds, that requires an abnormal amount of motor skills and a huge investment to even be competitive.
It is about as easy and straight-forward as playing Spanish Guitar with your left hand while playing Chess with your right.
The story, lore and design of the game itself is meant to appeal directly to young men, and young men only, borrowing heavily from Starship Troopers and James Cameron movies.
Unlike other contemporary games, such as Rock Band, Mario Party or even World of Warcraft -- which are responsible for the rising popularity of gaming among women -- it is comparitively anti-social, and you are forced to play the game on it's own terms. It is not "a sandbox game" that people can customize, and has one of the most counter-intuitive interfaces/controls of any mainstream game.
SC2 is a game designed specifically for male, OCD nerds. There is no incentive for women, or most people, to play it unless they really want to hang out with these OCD nerds. Luckily for Blizzard, there's about ten million of us in the world.
I see no reason why there needs to be a more complicated sociological, anthropological or historical reason.
The 'reason' is that your explanation here is theorycrafting and 'aesthetic reasoning' but without any backing of why this would be the one true explanation.
Of course, it's an explanation that you want to be true because it's not 'offensive'.
How many posts about female players are there going to be on TL? Seriously?
Every time, it's the same.
I'll sum up every single post that could possibly occur in this thread:
a) I welcome female gamers and female leagues. b) Girls just don't like games/aren't strategic c) LOL I THROW SCIENCE AT YOU d) LOL GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN/DO MY LAUNDRY/MAKE ME A SAMMICH LOL
Seriously. Every. Single. Time.
There are plenty of females on TL, covering all divisions.
As a female, here's what I wish would happen: That we stopped talking about it, looked around, realise there are females everywhere on TL, and let it go. And stfu with the stupid kitchen jokes.
There will be female progamers, mark my words.
Let's just let it go and play some freakin' SC2.
edit: for the record, I don't mind the word 'baller'. I actually like it. As for 'rape', it doesn't bother me as such, but doesn't make me feel good either. I don't think that's because I'm female though.
On December 08 2010 11:01 SunriseSEA wrote: How many posts about female players are there going to be on TL? Seriously?
Every time, it's the same.
I'll sum up every single post that could possibly occur in this thread:
a) I welcome female gamers and female leagues. b) Girls just don't like games/aren't strategic c) LOL I THROW SCIENCE AT YOU d) LOL GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN/DO MY LAUNDRY/MAKE ME A SAMMICH LOL
Seriously. Every. Single. Time.
There are plenty of females on TL, covering all divisions.
As a female, here's what I wish would happen: That we stopped talking about it, looked around, realise there are females everywhere on TL, and let it go. And stfu with the stupid kitchen jokes.
There will be female progamers, mark my words.
Let's just let it go and play some freakin' SC2.
edit: for the record, I don't mind the word 'baller'. I actually like it. As for 'rape', it doesn't bother me as such, but doesn't make me feel good either. I don't think that's because I'm female though.
While I respect that this topic might be beating a dead horse, I don't feel it is because (although the thread has not evolved in totally the same way) the original intent of the thread was to discuss the lack of females at the highest levels of the game and also a perceived gap between the top women and the top men. I do understand the fact there are many ladies here on team liquid, but however many there are doesn't change the original question of the thread.
I didn't make this thread to discuss whether or not there are less female gamers in general in SC! Like someone else pointed out here:
On December 07 2010 00:33 Bluetea wrote: The OP is inquiring as to why "they're just not as good." Therefore it is not "plain and simple."
The point is, people like TossGirl and others did put in relatively equal time and effort as the top men did. Yet she herself mentioned the perceived gap between the top men and women which I quoted in the OP. The question is really why does that gap exist? Because I don't see any great reasons why it should/does.
There really have actually been quite a few insightful posts buried in here and I've enjoyed reading everybody's opinion.
On November 19 2010 23:54 Achilles wrote: My girlfriend hates Starcraft but fucking loves the Sims, but if I were to play it as much as her I'd get 5 babies and a 6 fig salary in no time.
This is the answer to why women are bad at competitive games. They play for fun to a much larger extent, while men are more driven towards "beating the game", which in a competitive game such as Starcraft means to compete with others.
On December 08 2010 11:01 SunriseSEA wrote: How many posts about female players are there going to be on TL? Seriously?
Every time, it's the same.
I'll sum up every single post that could possibly occur in this thread:
a) I welcome female gamers and female leagues. b) Girls just don't like games/aren't strategic c) LOL I THROW SCIENCE AT YOU d) LOL GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN/DO MY LAUNDRY/MAKE ME A SAMMICH LOL
Seriously. Every. Single. Time.
There are plenty of females on TL, covering all divisions.
As a female, here's what I wish would happen: That we stopped talking about it, looked around, realise there are females everywhere on TL, and let it go. And stfu with the stupid kitchen jokes.
There will be female progamers, mark my words.
Let's just let it go and play some freakin' SC2.
edit: for the record, I don't mind the word 'baller'. I actually like it. As for 'rape', it doesn't bother me as such, but doesn't make me feel good either. I don't think that's because I'm female though.
I like this post. Tell it like it is, lady.
Instead of asking why there are so few women (relatively) in the SC2 scene -- as if womankind somehow has a problem -- we should be asking ourselves why we, on TL, are investing so much time playing and obsessing over such a masochistic, stressful, and challenging game.
As much as I hate to tangent so wildly I find it difficult to let some of the information in this post stand without effective rebuke. This section:
Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:
However throughout history, no ethno-linguistic group seems to have shown the same lust for conquest as Indo-Europeans.
I'm just saying that it's a reasonable position, the only reason people are cautious about such positions is that they are 'politically incorrect'.
is a complete bastardisation of the rich tapestry of the history of our species crowbarred into a forum sized sound bite to fulfill your "political correctness gone mad" stance. You mis-represent history to serve your point and in doing so perform a complete dis-service to the history of our ancestors. Frankly, it's a disgrace. The Lord's Resistance Army, Columbian drug wars, Manchuria, The Mongols, The Hittites, The Aztecs. Hell why not even throw a blood-thirsty chap such as Paul Pot into the mix. These are examples of non Indo-Europeans who are about as blood-thirsty as they get.
It is _not_ a reasonable position. It is a ridiculous position that bizarrely ignores the vast majority of human history to only focus on the colonisation efforts of the europeans during the past 200 years. Empire building is a very long and complex topic but the short of it is that it requires certain technologies to be in certain hands at certain times. For example, Africa was not conquered by the europeans until the nineteenth centuary. This was not because Europe lacked sufficient testosterone at that time but because they lacked quinnine. Without this drug the entirety of West Africa was off limits due to yellow fever and malaria. Warships, advanced firearms (specifically: repeating rifles), China's absurd isolationist policy at that time. All of these are factors as to why the Europeans sailed around the globe gobbling up all the countries they desired through the medium of warfare. Are we to assume that if these technologies were, for example in Indonesian hands they would have not done the same due their testosterone deficiencies?
I personally would place more credence for colonisation in "The Enlightenment" and how that enabled Europe to break free of the shackles of religious thought and develop new and powerful technologies. It's an interesting subject that demonstrates how, despite war, the Indo-Europeans were able to share, accumulate and improve their knowledge from the Greeks to the Arab Empire and then back into Europe via Southern Spain (the Moors).
On December 08 2010 20:01 DustyShelf wrote: As much as I hate to tangent so wildly I find it difficult to let some of the information in this post stand without effective rebuke. This section:
However throughout history, no ethno-linguistic group seems to have shown the same lust for conquest as Indo-Europeans.
I'm just saying that it's a reasonable position, the only reason people are cautious about such positions is that they are 'politically incorrect'.
is a complete bastardisation of the rich tapestry of the history of our species crowbarred into a forum sized sound bite to fulfill your "political correctness gone mad" stance. You mis-represent history to serve your point and in doing so perform a complete dis-service to the history of our ancestors. Frankly, it's a disgrace. The Lord's Resistance Army, Columbian drug wars, Manchuria, The Mongols, The Hittites, The Aztecs. Hell why not even throw a blood-thirsty chap such as Paul Pot into the mix. These are examples of non Indo-Europeans who are about as blood-thirsty as they get.
Except the Mongels and the Aztecs, all those people were Indo-European.
Do you know what Indo-European means?
It is _not_ a reasonable position. It is a ridiculous position that bizarrely ignores the vast majority of human history to only focus on the colonisation efforts of the europeans during the past 200 years.
No, it focusses on the Romans, the Greeks, the plundering of the Vikings, the conflicts between the celts and neighbouring tribes, the vast Persian empire, the wars fought by the Hittites (who are Indo-European, I suggest you look up the term, Hittites are a prominent example of Indo-Europeans), the Avestan, Russian and Indian conquest.
Empire building is a very long and complex topic but the short of it is that it requires certain technologies to be in certain hands at certain times. For example, Africa was not conquered by the europeans until the nineteenth centuary. This was not because Europe lacked sufficient testosterone at that time but because they lacked quinnine. Without this drug the entirety of West Africa was off limits due to yellow fever and malaria. Warships, advanced firearms (specifically: repeating rifles), China's absurd isolationist policy at that time. All of these are factors as to why the Europeans sailed around the globe gobbling up all the countries they desired through the medium of warfare. Are we to assume that if these technologies were, for example in Indonesian hands they would have not done the same due their testosterone deficiencies?
I personally would place more credence for colonisation in "The Enlightenment" and how that enabled Europe to break free of the shackles of religious thought and develop new and powerful technologies. It's an interesting subject that demonstrates how, despite war, the Indo-Europeans were able to share, accumulate and improve their knowledge from the Greeks to the Arab Empire and then back into Europe via Southern Spain (the Moors).
You know what, I'm going to ignore all this until you read up on the term 'indo-european', it isn't what you seem to think it is. For instances Hittites fall under it, but Fins do not, Spanish do, but Basques do not, so do the Iranians (Persians) and the Afghans (Pashtuns) by the way.
it has just nothing to do with intelligence.... there are just less women in sc2. there are just less women who try to play competetive.
look at games like wow, there are a lot more women than in sc2.. rts games just seem not to attract a lot of women. and among men, there are just a lot more who want to compete vs other men. most women dont give a shit, if they can play better than someone else... they just play for their own fun.
thats also the main reason why men are genereally more interested in sports. the thought about being the best in something is just not that popular among women.
Yes Hittites were Indo-European my bad. Mongols weren't, Aztecs weren't, Lords Resistance Army isn't (Uganda, although I guess one could debate that), Manchuria was all about the Japans, Columbians are again debatable depending on the ethnic make up post Spanish colonisation. Paul Pot was Cambodian.
So I misplaced one at least one. Apologies.
So the ravenging of Europe and Asia by the Mongols.... that's not important right? Cause I mentioned one example that was accidentally Indo-European. So therefore the Mongols don't exist anymore?
If we're going to debate then please do so properly. If we're just going to argue and split hairs over minor details of each others text as opposed to answering the assertions then I would suggest we move this over to PMs.
I would also be fascinated to hear about your knowledge of the incredibly peaceful period of time for the non Indo-Europeans between the years 0 AD - Present.
Personally, I'll admit to playing UMS maps moreso than "real" games or laddering and that's just because I don't have the time to invest in it. Every now and then I think about what it would be like if I did spend as much time playing this game as it would take to be competitive enough to even have a place in like an MLG tournament:
I could list off many reasons why I shouldn't bother with it, but what it really comes down to is that my life goals are more geared towards building a nurturing family environment because having friends and a spouse(s) to hug is better and more fulfilling than hugging a glass trophy to me.
A second note is that I wouldn't be comfortable with all the drama, stress, and pressure that would come of being in the spotlight as a pro-level female gamer. It's just not worth it.
That said, I'll be going home soon where I will play a couple of rounds of Nexus Wars before getting in bed next to my honey.
Given the evidence, saying that Africans have more stamina, Europeans more bloodthirst, Austronesians higher reflexes and Asians more intelligence is a reasonable positional.
Dude read my post above, your graph doesn't show what you think it does. In no way are asians more intelligent than any other race. Asia has an equal national IQ to the West, e.g. Europe, America and any other country where there is a decent standard of education.
Even if it doesn't (which the context I found the graph in doesn't say that, I'm also not sure what 'intelligence in relation to GDP would mean'. I drew a line for you to make it clearer, the colour differences are quire subtle, one of the reasons they often don't use mono-hue but shift hues:
As you can see more clearly now the CJK countries are of lighter shade.
I also, again, never said 'natural', I never said that they were born smarter, though it's a possibility.
Oh I think you're right, if I stare very hard at that graph, it looks like China is a tiny shade lighter than North America. This is obviously very significant. Do you think that the IQ testers got an accurate sample of the entire population, including rural China and Japan? Do you think that the survey was conducted in a fair and accurate way identically in both the US and in China? Do you think that there is any randomness in the sampling, or did they get the entire population in both countries to do the same IQ test in the same conditions?
Unless you think the answer to all those is yes, then you shouldn't be surprised if there are some small variations in colour. Also, IQ tests suck.
In many African countries a lot of people don't get a chance to go to school, hence why most countries in Africa have a lower "national IQ".
Maybe, maybe not, how can you know this? All we know their national IQ is lower.
Most IQ tests I ever saw involve basic mathematics and the ability to read the test paper always helps. ;D
On December 08 2010 09:18 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote: A good IQ test by the way is designed to ignore education, though this is a theoretical ideal.
Education increases intelligence, helps improve logical thought etc. Hence this argument is invalid. I don't think that there aren't any differences between races, but those differences are definitely much too small to matter, compared to normal variation within a population and there is no way that any race is less intelligent than another, intelligence is something we have all evolved to need, no matter which society or which place we were in.
Oh and Indo-Europeans can be bloodthirsty for sure, look at Hitler or Stalin, but what about Mao Zedong? "Mao's policies and political purges from 1949 to 1976 are widely believed to have caused the deaths of between 40 to 70 million people." - (Source: Wikipedia)
Or Pol Pot, nothing bloodthirsty about big piles of skulls right? (Source: Wikipedia)
Final word: look at famous and influential Physicists and Mathematicians of the last few centuries and I think you will find that most of them were English, French, German, i.e. European. Is this because Europeans are more intelligent than other races? No, it's because of the culture of learning and experimentation that developed in Europe, starting with the industrial revolution, or arguably the Renaissance.
I'm not being politically correct, I'm just telling it how I see it. If you want to convince me that asian people are smarter than africans, or europeans, or any other racial group, then you are going to have to try a lot harder than that!
Wow, that was a powerful and insightful response from PeanutSC added to the OP, it rings true logically as well as being rather educational. She really has a knack for bridging the gap between Mars and Venus and is an asset to this community.
When I was mentioning being "sexually desirable" I didn't mean to say that gaming "makes" you physically less attractive in the eyes of a man. I meant to say that competing against them, rather than playing the traditionally submissive role that is both conditioned and associated with femininity, risks making you seem less feminine. And for most men, less feminine=less sexually desirable. I don't know any guys that would prefer to date a girl who seemed butch, lol.
Oh ok, I guess that I can understand that. I don't nessarily agree that there is a link between submissive and feminine behavior, but I do understand that it's a perception issue. I believe it will change over time though, much in the same way women have made headways into the job market and athletics...heck even to a certain extent, MMOs as well.
To take a stab at it social barriers and males tend to have stronger spatial reasoning skills which would lend them to be able to immerse themselves more fully in the virtual world and have to struggle less to develop map awareness on tue average ofc.
Given the evidence, saying that Africans have more stamina, Europeans more bloodthirst, Austronesians higher reflexes and Asians more intelligence is a reasonable positional.
Dude read my post above, your graph doesn't show what you think it does. In no way are asians more intelligent than any other race. Asia has an equal national IQ to the West, e.g. Europe, America and any other country where there is a decent standard of education.
Even if it doesn't (which the context I found the graph in doesn't say that, I'm also not sure what 'intelligence in relation to GDP would mean'. I drew a line for you to make it clearer, the colour differences are quire subtle, one of the reasons they often don't use mono-hue but shift hues:
As you can see more clearly now the CJK countries are of lighter shade.
I also, again, never said 'natural', I never said that they were born smarter, though it's a possibility.
Europeans have more bloodthirst? I... I don't even... I hope you are trolling.
As long as we're going on the axiom that testosterone -> aggression. Indeed European males have been shown to have more testosterone than males of other ethnicities. Let us not forget for instance that many ethnicities have less facial hair, and of some the males do not grow facial hair at all.
However throughout history, no ethno-linguistic group seems to have shown the same lust for conquest as Indo-Europeans.
I'm just saying that it's a reasonable position, the only reason people are cautious about such positions is that they are 'politically incorrect'.
Please no arguments about one race being more intelligent than another, aside from being completely off topic (and racist) it just makes you look ignorant and stupid to anyone with a clue.
This though highlights your slavery to the vaunt of political correctness, what if it's simply true? Have you ever once in your life seen a proof that all races are exactly on the same aptitude in intelligence?
Like I said, I'm a socialist, I'm a woman, I'm a blend of European, native American and North African, but I don't deny stuff I don't want to be true.
It would be completely unlikely anyway if all races had the exact same genetic intelligence. Races adapt to their climate, some climates would require more intelligence than others to survive in, races have differently formed bones, skin tone, blood composition, finger length, strength, all to adapt to the climate they grew up in. Races that live high in the mountains have evolved to be able to make due with less oxygen, races that have evolved in drought actually pee less as to preserve more water. There are simple differences in qualities that are undeniable, you've already made up your mind before you reviewed the evidence.
Defacer I too, find the majority of the arguments on this thread so laffably sophmoric and overwrought with pseudo-science and racist/sexist research that they are offensive.
I fail to see what the offensiveness of some idea has to do with the veracity thereof, after all, offensive is a subjective quality.
Sometimes the answer is dead simple. The reason why there are not that many SC2 female pros is not that many women, or people in general play SC2.
WHY, YOU ASK?
It is not a casual game, or even a game that is accessible to most people.
It's a highly stressful strategy game, designed for e-sport enthusiasts and highly competitive nerds, that requires an abnormal amount of motor skills and a huge investment to even be competitive.
It is about as easy and straight-forward as playing Spanish Guitar with your left hand while playing Chess with your right.
The story, lore and design of the game itself is meant to appeal directly to young men, and young men only, borrowing heavily from Starship Troopers and James Cameron movies.
Unlike other contemporary games, such as Rock Band, Mario Party or even World of Warcraft -- which are responsible for the rising popularity of gaming among women -- it is comparitively anti-social, and you are forced to play the game on it's own terms. It is not "a sandbox game" that people can customize, and has one of the most counter-intuitive interfaces/controls of any mainstream game.
SC2 is a game designed specifically for male, OCD nerds. There is no incentive for women, or most people, to play it unless they really want to hang out with these OCD nerds. Luckily for Blizzard, there's about ten million of us in the world.
I see no reason why there needs to be a more complicated sociological, anthropological or historical reason.
The 'reason' is that your explanation here is theorycrafting and 'aesthetic reasoning' but without any backing of why this would be the one true explanation.
Of course, it's an explanation that you want to be true because it's not 'offensive'.
I'm sorry, but all you're doing is looking for some kind of deep-seeded, psychological, biological or anthropological reason to rationalize a niche obsession.
It's like trying to find a scientific reason as to why there aren't more men interested in Days of our Lives, or not more women interested in restoring old trolleys and buses.
You can couch it in as many pie charts and graphs as you want, but if you asked any researcher or scientist worth their salt would admit that these representations are also highly flawed, non-exhaustive, and contain gross generalizations.
Don't mask you insecurity about your obsession by pretending I care about what is offensive or what isn't. I'm not the one trying to rationalize my biases with pseudo-scientific evidence in order to appear LESS offensive.
On December 08 2010 21:39 DustyShelf wrote: Yes Hittites were Indo-European my bad. Mongols weren't, Aztecs weren't, Lords Resistance Army isn't (Uganda, although I guess one could debate that), Manchuria was all about the Japans, Columbians are again debatable depending on the ethnic make up post Spanish colonisation. Paul Pot was Cambodian.
So I misplaced one at least one. Apologies.
So the ravenging of Europe and Asia by the Mongols.... that's not important right? Cause I mentioned one example that was accidentally Indo-European. So therefore the Mongols don't exist anymore?
If we're going to debate then please do so properly. If we're just going to argue and split hairs over minor details of each others text as opposed to answering the assertions then I would suggest we move this over to PMs.
I would also be fascinated to hear about your knowledge of the incredibly peaceful period of time for the non Indo-Europeans between the years 0 AD - Present.
Okay, maybe I should finally start to learn that when I say 'it's a reasonable position' that other's don't see that I mean 'it's a reasonable position' and not that I share it. For some reason I keep forgetting that people find it incomprehension-able that people might point out the reasonableness of opinions they do not share.
I'm just saying, saying this is no more unreasonable than saying that being extremely good at StarCraft requires the sacrifice of a social life. It's not proven, but to think that in light of the evidence is 'reasonable'.
The difference of course being that StarCraft isn't as loaded with political stigma.
Koneko Oh I think you're right, if I stare very hard at that graph, it looks like China is a tiny shade lighter than North America. This is obviously very significant. Do you think that the IQ testers got an accurate sample of the entire population, including rural China and Japan? Do you think that the survey was conducted in a fair and accurate way identically in both the US and in China? Do you think that there is any randomness in the sampling, or did they get the entire population in both countries to do the same IQ test in the same conditions?
Unless you think the answer to all those is yes, then you shouldn't be surprised if there are some small variations in colour. Also, IQ tests suck.
I would say that the fact that the CJK countries top the chart, together with the fact that they have three unrelated school systems, differently functioning economies, but indeed a known genetic relationship is at the very least a coincidence not worth ignoring?
Most IQ tests I ever saw involve basic mathematics and the ability to read the test paper always helps. ;D
Not those used in research, there is no natural language. Basically almost every part of it is that you get 8 figures and you have to fill in the ninth.
Education increases intelligence, helps improve logical thought etc. Hence this argument is invalid. I don't think that there aren't any differences between races, but those differences are definitely much too small to matter, compared to normal variation within a population and there is no way that any race is less intelligent than another, intelligence is something we have all evolved to need, no matter which society or which place we were in.
Now where the hell did I say that any race is more intelligent than the other?
You realize that the difference between dark and light on that chart is like 5 points right? And this is an average.
I can't recall ever claiming that these differences were extremely high.
Final word: look at famous and influential Physicists and Mathematicians of the last few centuries and I think you will find that most of them were English, French, German, i.e. European. Is this because Europeans are more intelligent than other races? No, it's because of the culture of learning and experimentation that developed in Europe, starting with the industrial revolution, or arguably the Renaissance.
I'm not being politically correct, I'm just telling it how I see it. If you want to convince me that asian people are smarter than africans, or europeans, or any other racial group, then you are going to have to try a lot harder than that!
I'm not trying to convince you of that, I'm saying that it's a ""reasonable position"", I don't think you can get angry at people who believe that in light of the evidence. It's a lot more credible than believing in homoeopathy for sure.
Defacer I'm sorry, but all you're doing is looking for some kind of deep-seeded, psychological, biological or anthropological reason to rationalize a niche obsession.
It's like trying to find a scientific reason as to why there aren't more men interested in Days of our Lives, or not more women interested in restoring old trolleys and buses.
You can couch it in as many pie charts and graphs as you want, but if you asked any researcher or scientist worth their salt would admit that these representations are also highly flawed, non-exhaustive, and contain gross generalizations.
Don't mask you insecurity about your obsession by pretending I care about what is offensive or what isn't. I'm not the one trying to rationalize my biases with pseudo-scientific evidence in order to appear LESS offensive.
What possible reasons would I have to defend the reasonableness of this position? I am not east-asian, neither am I a man? I'm just saying that seeing the evidence, it's reasonable.
On December 07 2010 02:14 LittleeD wrote: Im absolutely baffled by the amount of Sexism going in this thread. Think it might be time to close it now ...
I think this thread is dumb overall to be honest. The sexism is depressing, and even the people trying to intellectualize the lack of female SC2 players are strawman arguments.
Believe it or not, it's not just women that find SC2 frustrating, anti-social, over-difficult and boring. A LOT OF PEOPLE DO. And some of the sexist comments on this thread are indicative of how far removed the average SC2 nerd-alpha-male is from the understanding the thoughts and opinions of the majority of society.
statements like this are what's ruining the thread. you don't even understand what the question is. it's not about the majority of society; it's not even about the majority of the SC2 player base. it's about the absolute minority, the top 0.1% of the people who play the game. it doesn't matter what the average IQ of someone in China vs the average IQ of someone in Africa is, when the top SC2 progamers aren't your average Chinese or African. it doesn't matter what the average person finds anti-social/over-difficult/boring about SC2 when we're discussing SC2 pros.
Thank you for setting him straight. His direct insult to us and this thread was obnoxious and snide at best.
I'm glad you found my response obnoxious. And you've set nothing straight.
I too, find the majority of the arguments on this thread so laffably sophmoric and overwrought with pseudo-science and racist/sexist research that they are offensive.
Sometimes the answer is dead simple. The reason why there are not that many SC2 female pros is not that many women, or people in general play SC2.
WHY, YOU ASK?
It is not a casual game, or even a game that is accessible to most people.
It's a highly stressful strategy game, designed for e-sport enthusiasts and highly competitive nerds, that requires an abnormal amount of motor skills and a huge investment to even be competitive.
It is about as easy and straight-forward as playing Spanish Guitar with your left hand while playing Chess with your right.
The story, lore and design of the game itself is meant to appeal directly to young men, and young men only, borrowing heavily from Starship Troopers and James Cameron movies.
Unlike other contemporary games, such as Rock Band, Mario Party or even World of Warcraft -- which are responsible for the rising popularity of gaming among women -- it is comparitively anti-social, and you are forced to play the game on it's own terms. It is not "a sandbox game" that people can customize, and has one of the most counter-intuitive interfaces/controls of any mainstream game.
SC2 is a game designed specifically for male, OCD nerds. There is no incentive for women, or most people, to play it unless they really want to hang out with these OCD nerds. Luckily for Blizzard, there's about ten million of us in the world.
I see no reason why there needs to be a more complicated sociological, anthropological or historical reason.
Long live Starcraft 2.
You need to over look the s****y posts that people have made and focus on the coherent arguments that the majority of us have presented. That's what this discussion is about. Not some sexist agenda.
On December 07 2010 02:14 LittleeD wrote: Im absolutely baffled by the amount of Sexism going in this thread. Think it might be time to close it now ...
I think this thread is dumb overall to be honest. The sexism is depressing, and even the people trying to intellectualize the lack of female SC2 players are strawman arguments.
Believe it or not, it's not just women that find SC2 frustrating, anti-social, over-difficult and boring. A LOT OF PEOPLE DO. And some of the sexist comments on this thread are indicative of how far removed the average SC2 nerd-alpha-male is from the understanding the thoughts and opinions of the majority of society.
statements like this are what's ruining the thread. you don't even understand what the question is. it's not about the majority of society; it's not even about the majority of the SC2 player base. it's about the absolute minority, the top 0.1% of the people who play the game. it doesn't matter what the average IQ of someone in China vs the average IQ of someone in Africa is, when the top SC2 progamers aren't your average Chinese or African. it doesn't matter what the average person finds anti-social/over-difficult/boring about SC2 when we're discussing SC2 pros.
Thank you for setting him straight. His direct insult to us and this thread was obnoxious and snide at best.
I'm glad you found my response obnoxious. And you've set nothing straight.
I too, find the majority of the arguments on this thread so laffably sophmoric and overwrought with pseudo-science and racist/sexist research that they are offensive.
Sometimes the answer is dead simple. The reason why there are not that many SC2 female pros is not that many women, or people in general play SC2.
WHY, YOU ASK?
It is not a casual game, or even a game that is accessible to most people.
It's a highly stressful strategy game, designed for e-sport enthusiasts and highly competitive nerds, that requires an abnormal amount of motor skills and a huge investment to even be competitive.
It is about as easy and straight-forward as playing Spanish Guitar with your left hand while playing Chess with your right.
The story, lore and design of the game itself is meant to appeal directly to young men, and young men only, borrowing heavily from Starship Troopers and James Cameron movies.
Unlike other contemporary games, such as Rock Band, Mario Party or even World of Warcraft -- which are responsible for the rising popularity of gaming among women -- it is comparitively anti-social, and you are forced to play the game on it's own terms. It is not "a sandbox game" that people can customize, and has one of the most counter-intuitive interfaces/controls of any mainstream game.
SC2 is a game designed specifically for male, OCD nerds. There is no incentive for women, or most people, to play it unless they really want to hang out with these OCD nerds. Luckily for Blizzard, there's about ten million of us in the world.
I see no reason why there needs to be a more complicated sociological, anthropological or historical reason.
Long live Starcraft 2.
You need to over look the s****y posts that people have made and focus on the coherent arguments that the majority of us have presented. That's what this discussion is about. Not some sexist agenda.
You know what, to be fair to you and others I haven't read ALL the posts in detail. There may very well be some good arguments in here that I just missed, or have been misinterpreted grossly by others.
Final word: look at famous and influential Physicists and Mathematicians of the last few centuries and I think you will find that most of them were English, French, German, i.e. European. Is this because Europeans are more intelligent than other races? No, it's because of the culture of learning and experimentation that developed in Europe, starting with the industrial revolution, or arguably the Renaissance.
I'm not being politically correct, I'm just telling it how I see it. If you want to convince me that asian people are smarter than africans, or europeans, or any other racial group, then you are going to have to try a lot harder than that!
Here's a example of a guy misrepresenting history ... I've quite positive that there have been plenty of significant cultural and scientific contributions from non-European cultures in the past few centuries (um, Japan anyone?) and than subtlely accusing someone else of racism.
This thread has gone south and ain't going anywhere anytime soon.
Well to get back to the point of this thread we had Effka going far in craftcup, beating pros like EmpireKas, aAaKenzy and Beastyqt. She is an Ita girl... kinda startled me to see her very aggressive and smooth style.
Imagine all the stereotypes and jokes made at the expense of computer nerds and gamers, about how they are dirty, smelly, anti-social and irresponsible. Girls have to deal with magnified versions of that because society places far more restrictions upon girls than it does upon boys (U.S. society, at least). Most girls are closet gamers for the most part because they really don't want to see their social life impacted when people learn that they game for fun. Guys are generally more comfortable neglecting their social ties than girls are in addition to the "boys will be boys" mantra that allows most men to do whatever they like for fun and mostly avoid ostracization by their peers. Until girls attain a more equitable life-enjoyment expectancy with boys, there will be low amounts of genuine female gamers (as opposed to the fakes who just pretend so they can get attention from lots of awkward boys, that's another issue altogether).
That's my 2c from a male perspective.
Edit: I just remembered a really interesting survey I read once from a graduate student who was conducting research on gaming and its affects on society, and vice versa. I don't remember the website's exact name, and the research has long since concluded, but the name of the research was "The Daedalus Project". One of his surveys revealed that women typically play games with more of a focus on developing social ties and relationships, whereas men are more focused on raw competition. Without delving too much farther into the obvious, I believe the complete lack of social interaction on Starcraft is easily a large contributing factor to the absence of female gamers in a game like Starcraft. He never attempts to explain why these surveys presented this evidence though, probably because that's where all the sexist assumptions begin to occur. Sometimes it's difficult to tell which came first, the chicken or the egg, and perspective makes all the difference. Hopefully the addition of more social features such as chat channels will increase SC2's popularity with the female gamer crowd.
On January 05 2011 07:30 SolidusR wrote: Imagine all the stereotypes and jokes made at the expense of computer nerds and gamers, about how they are dirty, smelly, anti-social and irresponsible. Girls have to deal with magnified versions of that because society places far more restrictions upon girls than it does upon boys (U.S. society, at least). Most girls are closet gamers for the most part because they really don't want to see their social life impacted when people learn that they game for fun. Guys are generally more comfortable neglecting their social ties than girls are in addition to the "boys will be boys" mantra that allows most men to do whatever they like for fun and mostly avoid ostracization by their peers. Until girls attain a more equitable life-enjoyment expectancy with boys, there will be low amounts of genuine female gamers (as opposed to the fakes who just pretend so they can get attention from lots of awkward boys, that's another issue altogether).
That's my 2c from a male perspective.
My wife plays video games and is not too embarrassed about it. I still feel kinda embarrassed around certain friends, but in general I don't care about that too much. My wife enjoys games but for a completely different reason than i do. She enjoys achievement and companionship which is why she likes wow a lot. I don't think I could ever get her to play starcraft because she wouldn't think it's fun because it's too competitive. She also doesn't like pvp in wow that much for similar reasons. I think competition in something that comes from the male aggressiveness as we seek to be better than everyone else. Girls for the most part don't have this motivation and even the top female gamers seem to do it more for fun than for being super competitive.
I only ready OP + a few pages since I hit this thread late. Someone may have brought up this perspective but when she dropped it on me it was pretty interesting.
My wife is an avid gamer. But she definitely is geared more towards intelligent, puzzle, reaction type games. Some of them casual, but she's also been known to dip into the hardcore. She can't play an FPS (could just never get it), she can't wait for Diablo 3, and she wrecks everyone in those Facebook games she plays where the high score resets each week.
When SC2 came out, my wife was all over it. She didn't have amazing APM, but she organizes like crazy in her head and that translated well to the game. She never laddered but she played some team games and generally did well. I always told her, "Honey, if you put some time into the game you could be really good..."
Those words coming out of my mouth then sounded right... but it was what she said next that made me realize how happy I was that she didn't play SC2 like I do.
"But who's gonna take care of James (miniWHEAT) when we're both nose deep in SC2?"
I felt like half of one of those couples I read about that neglect their kids cause of an MMO. Not that she could have gone PRO, but it always feels good to excel at something. She doesn't get into SC2... so I can. And I love her for that!
The bright side to this is that in her journey of SC2 and her eSports OSMOSIS, she learned to appreciate the game and we enjoy GSL every night, tournament streams on the weekend, etc.
Anyway, this probably applies to no one... but it's why MY WIFE isn't shooting for the stars :D
I have a box with 10,000 ants. I choose the strongest ant in that box, calling it ant A.
I have a box with 10 ants. I choose the strongest ant in that box, calling it ant B.
Probabilistically ant A will nearly always kill ant B. This probability is even magnified if I were to choose the top 5 ants in each box and pit them against each other in a team death match, since a larger sampling will smooth out the probability that ant B was a superant outlier.
On January 05 2011 09:44 MicroJFox wrote: It's quite simple.
I have a box with 10,000 ants. I choose the strongest ant in that box, calling it ant A.
I have a box with 10 ants. I choose the strongest ant in that box, calling it ant B.
Probabilistically ant A will nearly always kill ant B. This probability is even magnified if I were to choose the top 5 ants in each box and pit them against each other in a team death match, since a larger sampling will smooth out the probability that ant B was a superant outlier.
On January 05 2011 09:19 link0 wrote: Go Effka. Represent
Any proof that Effka is in fact a girl and not just a troll?
No idea, I actually find it quite unbelievable that she's so good. What are the chances that a TINY TINY player population pool contains such a good player? Very small.
Effica just totaly roflstomped EmpireDiestar in the finals... just very good how she just avoided his tank line and just went into his natural on xel naga... very solid play she had 3 base while he had 2 .... denying 3rd with a suply depot and a engy bay... clear game plan = win
Women don't have the same level of hand-eye coordination, reflexes, and many other innate qualities of a level to compete with men at video games. It's simple biology, to claim perfect equality in the interest of being politically correct is stupid. Also, their brains are not wired for video games, and especially playing them competitively, like ours are. I don't understand how it's even a question of why there is a "lack" of top female, gamers, it seems obvious to me.
I stopped taking OP seriously when he linked to a science article in the Daily Mail.
The Daily 'facebook causes cancer' Mail.
In seriousness though, I think a lot of females are just less competitive. I know girl gamers but I sincerely doubt they could ever be convinced to take up SC2.
Afaik Effka winning the Craftcup Lite was the first win by a female player and adding her ranking of 3500(?) points shes probably the best female player in the world.
Would be nice with a more in depth interview with her, about practice habits and what not and if she does something different than the norm when approaching the game or if shes just mass gaming or what not.
In my household, me and the lads get together online most nights for some 4v4 fun, whilst our girlfriends come in every now and then and stand behind us whilst sighing loudly. Almost the exact opposite happens during the day when we're dragged out shopping. I think it's pretty much the social norm! Female gamers just don't exist round our way, but I'd love to meet one.
On November 19 2010 23:40 masterbreti wrote: silver hit the nail on the head there. males gaming is much more socially accpetable then women, who are sterotypically into makeup and gossip and all thos eother things. men are supposed to be into sports and video games.
just gender sterotypes tbh
So why are there many successful female athletes in "other" sports then?
Pages ago, but aside from tennis and golf, what other sport are women even remotely close to earning as much money as men? They are maybe more successful in gymnastics and figure skating in terms of fame, but those sports have no money in them.
I feel i may have a valid opinion on this. I apologize if this point was made before, i skipped through most of the thread to begin typing this.
I believe a general lack of female competitive gamers is down to the basic differences between the male and female mind. Games like starcraft, or any other fps, rts or tbs games involve a high requirement for quick reflex thinking involving spatial awareness, and situational and strategical thinking. This is much more in keeping with the male psyche, based predominantly around thinking in terms of systems of logic and inter-relating aspects of things. Whereas the female psyche is much more based around matters of human interrelations, emotion and expressiveness.
To solidify this point, it has actually been proven that the male and female minds have even at a neurological level these basic differences in nature:
"One of the most interesting differences appear in the way men and women estimate time, judge speed of things, carry out mental mathematical calculations, orient in space and visualize objects in three dimensions, etc. In all these tasks, women and men are strikingly different, as they are too in the way their brains process language. This may account, scientists say, for the fact that there are many more male mathematicians, airplane pilots, bush guides, mechanical engineers, architects and race car drivers than female ones.
On the other hand, women are better than men in human relations, recognizing emotional overtones in others and in language, emotional and artistic expressiveness, aesthetic appreciation, verbal language and carrying out detailed and pre-planned tasks."
Observing this point in respect to the gaming culture in general, 'competitive' games will naturally appeal to the male populous as these types of games are most often based on some form of dynamic, robust system of interdependent specifics, requiring ongoing calculative assessment by the player to manage properly.
The basic nature of this design will reward the male mind for performing well at the game. For it is within the basic nature of men to find being competent at these tasks rewarding.
On the other hand females will not find this sort of engagement appealing as they find dealing with the nature of such games more difficult, especially in the naturally competitive environment of a multiplayer scenario requiring a higher level of competence overall, ergo the cost (stress increase while playing) will far outweigh the reward for women so they stay away from these types of culture in favor of playing games more in keeping with their specific motivations for entertainment.
Games like the Sims involve tasks that women will find much more rewarding to carry out: "empathy, verbal skills, social skills and security-seeking" not to mentioned the before quoted " ...carrying out detailed and pre-planned tasks." All of these things are clear correlations between the female mind and games that are more popular in the female gaming community.
While: "independence, dominance, spatial and mathematical skills and rank-related aggression" are also correlations between the male mind and the nature of the male gaming community.
As you can see there are many elements in games men find appealing that do the exact opposite to women, for various reasons. Which is why we two types tend to play distinctly different types of games and have developed different cultures around them
In my opinion though it is this basic underlying nature of raw competition driving the male gaming community that deters women the most, while at the same time drives the male community to become much more structured and ultimately more highly skilled and professional than that of an equivalent female gaming community. As it is the basic nature of competition that pushes the overall skill level of any form of collaborative effort. Which in itself further increases the difficulty or basic plausibility of women entering to any large degree communities surrounding games like starcraft as the skill level required already falls above what is in large applicable from female gaming ability, nor is it particularly appealing to them.
So a rift exists. Do not think women do not play games, they arguably play as much as men but they play games of a different nature and of a different culture to ones such as this which is why you will hardly come across female starcraft players, ergo have any high level female starcraft pros performing in tournaments.
On January 05 2011 21:26 nK)Duke wrote: it's just because womens are less likely to be fuckiny skinny nerds
well, women love being skinny, many of em are half-way there already. all they have to do is NERD-UP... like effka. Srsly, just look at her esl profile... doesn't look healthy at all.
As the wife of a competative gamer I can tell you why I dont play competatively. We have two young children, I have recently started playing a bit of starcraft along side my husband. The only time I get time to really play is after the kids go to bed, so by then I am generally a bit tired. I also generally play against the computer because my kids are still at the age where they wake up allot and I would feel bad if I left the game if I were playing another person. I also feel guilty if I spend too much time playing, I think it is partly social expectations and partly me knowing how many things need to get done in the house. I would ask those who play competatively how much of the work around the house you do? Is someone in your house picking up a bit of the slack? Even before we had the kids, and we were both working the same hours of paid work, I still did the vast majority of housework, so I never felt like I had enough time to commit to playing computer games competatively. I have constantly got a list of things that I shoud be doing in my head, so spending hours on the computer, means allot of things would fall behind. I read a comment asking why if women are meant to be multitaskers, why arent they better at gaming, I kind of think that If I am playing games on the computer, it stops me multitasking, its a case of priority, I could either multitask on the computer, or I could multitask in real life and feed my family (including my husband, who is probably playing starcraft , wash their clothes, clean the house, mow the lawn.... and the list goes on. Now that we have kids, I dont think its fair on them to be on the computer all the time. In terms of competativeness, that some beleive that women dont have. I disagree, I have always been competative, and I get a great kick out of winning just as much as my husband. He also learnt not to ask me to be a medic because I would much rather be playing in a role that I can go and kill things, than sit behind and heal others. I also think that most computer games are marketed to males, almost all of the female characters that you see in computer games are near naked and have their boobs hanging out, so where males might enjoy that, it kind of puts me off. By the way I have never liked sims either, I have enough people and pets to take care of in my own life, I dont need to sit on a computer at the end of the day and do virtual cleaning and cooking. Thats all I have time to write as my daughter is crying, real life is interrupting.
Hi, I'm a girl that plays Starcraft. I'm not crazy good (yet:p) but maybe I can share my perspective. I think there are more social pressures on girls to be beautiful/superficial. When I was in junior high school I stopped caring about that b.s. so I hung out with my guy friends and geeked out. I'm so glad I did, because I never had any female friends that wanted to play RTS games with me before.
I do feel like there is something different going on in guy's heads compared to girls (like what Xios was saying about the stress vs. reward) but its not as huge as it seems. Most girls don't get fed video games as much as guys do when they're young, so they're not already acquainted with the games by the time the guys are good at it, and that makes it more difficult (and even scary) to try to break into playing, especially competitively.
And to ennaenna's post above me...WHY are you doing all the housework and child-rearing while your husband plays SC? I really don't understand what makes people think that women have to have a martyr-like role as a mother figure. If the husband finds time to play games, can't you make him do the dishes while you play games sometimes? Sorry, I just really don't get that.
Also, there's probably more girls playing real games (ie. not The Sims) than you realise, but its a bit awkward for a girl to make herself known in a game. Either she has to say "hey everyone I'm a girl" which is demeaning and pointless, or she just keeps quiet. I have met several SC friends online that think I'm a guy for sure.
I feel like I should do a quick follow up post regarding what I said to ennaenna. It is easier for guys (especially boys who still live at home and have parents taking care of them) to spend all day playing video games. I'm not a mom, so I can't comment fully in that regard. But I do like to keep my apartment looking nice and make sure I have enough proper things to eat in my fridge (which requires going grocery shopping etc) and obviously to pay for that I have to work. The guys that I've known that have dedicated themselves to be amazing at a game have neglected some part of their life. Whether it was social (RL social, not online social) stuff they gave up (or didnt have to begin with) or if it was more to do with home stuff (keeping house clean, groceries etc), whatever it was, they gave up something. I don't think most girls are prepared to spend copious amounts of time behind their computer screen while the pepsi cans and chip bags add up in their room. Though I've done it
As usual people are giving way too much credit to things that are probably not of greatest importance (cultural acceptance etc.).
The variance among males is simply higher. This is true regardless of where you look: math, cooking, sports, playing games. The very best and the very worst are always males.
If all cultural barriers were removed there would surely be a lot more female players in diamond and masters. But the tournaments would almost always end with a male winner. That's just how it is.
I can't help but to simply agree that certain differences between men and women simply inhibit women to play it more than it does with men. And ofcourse I mean biological differences, not "oh I like my house to look fancy or take care of the kids" kind of "difference"
My wife just recently got into play world of warcraft about 4 months ago. It is the first computer game (other than farmville, etc) that she enjoys. She says the aspects she enjoys the most are playing with other people, completing achievements, and conquering objectives with people. For example, we like to do dungeons and stuff, and we can even do arenas together, but she doesn't like battlegrounds or dueling. For her, computer games are meant to be fun, and starcraft for her seemed more like work than fun. If you look at starcraft objectively, it is a very competitive game and at times can be extremely frustrating. For me, the frustration is overcome with the joy of victory, but for my wife, the victory isn't worth the effort, especially if done alone. I might try to get her to play 4v4s with my friend and I, but I don't think I could ever convince her to do 1v1.
I think the advantage that guys have in playing games due to their higher visual aptitude can be overcome with practice, but there simply aren't enough girls that desire to be competitive in starcraft. You can also say things like "Why aren't there any 50 year old pro gamers?" or "Why aren't there many japanese pro gamers?" and "Why are there so many awesome swedish pro gamers?". It's a combination of cultural expectations, etc. This is why I think it would be cool to have specialized leagues for girls and for young people (under 16) and older people (over 35) to encourage more people to play. We already have leagues based on nationality and geography, we should just extend it.
Also, if there are any girls reading this thread that want someone to practice with or what not, PM me and I'll give you my info to add me. I am having the hardest time actually finding a group of females to play with. I only have one girl on my list of friends and I know her IRL.
well i think that they could be good it's just, as mentioned, the social issues aren't really conducive to that. hopefully in some years it'll change and we'll start seeing top female gamers.
On January 26 2011 03:18 ParasitJonte wrote: As usual people are giving way too much credit to things that are probably not of greatest importance (cultural acceptance etc.).
The variance among males is simply higher. This is true regardless of where you look: math, cooking, sports, playing games. The very best and the very worst are always males.
If all cultural barriers were removed there would surely be a lot more female players in diamond and masters. But the tournaments would almost always end with a male winner. That's just how it is.
how can you show that cultural limitations are less important than biological ones? you claim at the end that the removal of these barriers would see more female players in a hypothetical situation, right after you say they aren't important? a little logical loophole there imo.
and even with all these studies showing some form of "advantage" in males in some performance task, we are still missing the developmental angle where perhaps the development of such skills are hindered by activities that aren't encouraged in females at younger ages. can you say for sure that a woman raised under no social/cultural limitations with a man will be biologically less capable of playing sc2 than her counterpart?
On January 05 2011 21:16 MerciLess wrote: Women don't have the same level of hand-eye coordination, reflexes, and many other innate qualities of a level to compete with men at video games. It's simple biology, to claim perfect equality in the interest of being politically correct is stupid. Also, their brains are not wired for video games, and especially playing them competitively, like ours are. I don't understand how it's even a question of why there is a "lack" of top female, gamers, it seems obvious to me.
the problem is that it seems obvious to you. you're just restating a widespread belief. we can find cases where females have better hand eye coordination than males.
"to claim perfect equality in the interest of being politically correct is stupid." ?_? what does being politically correct have to do with this?
On January 05 2011 21:16 MerciLess wrote: Women don't have the same level of hand-eye coordination, reflexes, and many other innate qualities of a level to compete with men at video games. It's simple biology, to claim perfect equality in the interest of being politically correct is stupid. Also, their brains are not wired for video games, and especially playing them competitively, like ours are. I don't understand how it's even a question of why there is a "lack" of top female, gamers, it seems obvious to me.
the problem is that it seems obvious to you. you're just restating a widespread belief. we can find cases where females have better hand eye coordination than males.
"to claim perfect equality in the interest of being politically correct is stupid." ?_? what does being politically correct have to do with this?
i love how quotes like this pop up as if they know it for sure after reading some wrongly interpreted article online. if you ask the scientists who conduct those studies, they will tell you that while they found certain differences, they can't say that it can be directly translated into anything - in this case sc2. if they do, they better have some damn well controlled proof (and probably a nature or science paper) to say women are "innately" inferior to men in those attributes. innate is a pretty strong word, far too casually used in this thread.
If you just look at society you can see your answer. The reason why these cultural barriers exist is because the grand majority of women are not interested in competitive things. Males on the other hand have a need to be competitive thats biologically driven. If this was false do you believe that society would have developed the way it has? Stereotypes and cultural barriers don't develop without reason. Men did not force women to avoid competitive sports or games. Just biologically women were never predisposed to competitiveness and thus when an exception appears they are usually singled out as being strange and labelled maybe as a tom boy.
On January 26 2011 05:50 vicg wrote: If you just look at society you can see your answer. The reason why these cultural barriers exist is because the grand majority of women are not interested in competitive things. Males on the other hand have a need to be competitive thats biologically driven. If this was false do you believe that society would have developed the way it has? Stereotypes and cultural barriers don't develop without reason. Men did not force women to avoid competitive sports or games. Just biologically women were never predisposed to competitiveness and thus when an exception appears they are usually singled out as being strange and labelled maybe as a tom boy.
biologically predisposed to be less competitive? really? and you make it sound so easy. why don't you prove it? before that, how about you define competition? frankly i think you have a huge misunderstanding of what it means to be able to make a statement like that.
men did not force women to avoid competitive sports and games? actually.... up until maybe 100 years ago, they did.
On January 26 2011 05:50 vicg wrote: If you just look at society you can see your answer. The reason why these cultural barriers exist is because the grand majority of women are not interested in competitive things. Males on the other hand have a need to be competitive thats biologically driven. If this was false do you believe that society would have developed the way it has? Stereotypes and cultural barriers don't develop without reason. Men did not force women to avoid competitive sports or games. Just biologically women were never predisposed to competitiveness and thus when an exception appears they are usually singled out as being strange and labelled maybe as a tom boy.
rofl "men did not force women to avoid competitive sports or games." i find that statement hilarious. we've been repressing females for millennia. you're expressing the common misconception that things are the way they are for a reason. people need to stop using this tired biology argument.
On January 26 2011 05:50 vicg wrote: If you just look at society you can see your answer. The reason why these cultural barriers exist is because the grand majority of women are not interested in competitive things. Males on the other hand have a need to be competitive thats biologically driven. If this was false do you believe that society would have developed the way it has? Stereotypes and cultural barriers don't develop without reason. Men did not force women to avoid competitive sports or games. Just biologically women were never predisposed to competitiveness and thus when an exception appears they are usually singled out as being strange and labelled maybe as a tom boy.
rofl "men did not force women to avoid competitive sports or games." i find that statement hilarious. we've been repressing females for millennia. you're expressing the common misconception that things are the way they are for a reason. people need to stop using this tired biology argument.
I don't think you understand what I am trying to say, men have not oppressed women since the dawn of time, these things developed as a result of our biological characteristics. Now that everyone is becoming more educated we are realizing how some of our past practices are ridiculous.
Esports hardly exists. A female league within that esports exists even hardlier. And without a seperate womens league they cannot compete. Because if they were to be put within the male league they would get roflstomped. Face it, just like in all sports, women don't have what it takes to excel.
Women are definitely competitive. Just their competitive outlet tends to be different based on society's gender roles. In fact, they can get down right vicious. I mean look at a high school girls, comparing all manner of accessory or clothing, grades, stuff like that. Social status is another good example. I'm sure someone more informed then I can give the complex reasons that lead them to use these and other things as their competitive outlets (its branching more now), but women are as competitive as men are.
Also, yeah, unless you have a degree in Biology or Genetics or something, don't run to that. Biology is a very tricky thing to pin down as a cause and more often then not, isn't even a factor so much as societal pressures and norms.
*Edit*
Another note on the biology thing, your interpretation of gender has been developed by your societal influences. There are many cultures in Asia, Africa and the like, where they are totally matriarchal and women call the shots. Being of female sex does not automatically denote weakness in our species or any other.
On January 26 2011 06:12 Torpedo.Vegas wrote: Women are definitely competitive. Just their competitive outlet tends to be different based on society's gender roles. In fact, they can get down right vicious. I mean look at a high school girls, comparing all manner of accessory or clothing, grades, stuff like that. Social status is another good example. I'm sure someone more informed then I can give the complex reasons that lead them to use these and other things as their competitive outlets (its branching more now), but women are as competitive as men are.
Also, yeah, unless you have a degree in Biology or Genetics or something, don't run to that. Biology is a very tricky thing to pin down as a cause and more often then not, isn't even a factor so much as societal pressures and norms.
exactly. i agree 100%. the brain is too plastic to have been hard coded for competitiveness, hand-eye coordination, and what not as many people tend to wrongfully believe. these things all start piecing together developmentally, and societal pressures and cultural factors play a big role in the things we do when young that help develop these traits.
On January 26 2011 06:12 Torpedo.Vegas wrote: Women are definitely competitive. Just their competitive outlet tends to be different based on society's gender roles. In fact, they can get down right vicious. I mean look at a high school girls, comparing all manner of accessory or clothing, grades, stuff like that. Social status is another good example. I'm sure someone more informed then I can give the complex reasons that lead them to use these and other things as their competitive outlets (its branching more now), but women are as competitive as men are.
Also, yeah, unless you have a degree in Biology or Genetics or something, don't run to that. Biology is a very tricky thing to pin down as a cause and more often then not, isn't even a factor so much as societal pressures and norms.
exactly. i agree 100%. the brain is too plastic to have been hard coded for competitiveness, hand-eye coordination, and what not as many people tend to wrongfully believe. these things all start piecing together developmentally, and societal pressures and cultural factors play a big role in the things we do when young that help develop these traits.
Furthermore, your very DNA and what is represented is heavily influenced by your environment, to the point where you can even display traits not hard coded into the DNA. Check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics
i know one female who is like a respectable rating in Master League and i am shocked because i was 100% positive girls would not ever want to play sc2 that much
she's also quite good/logical at understanding the game, better than me (sometimes? often times?) and i have a superior Y chromosome!
I think there are fundamental differences in the way men and women's brains work that play a large role in this. I mean, there are lots of women chess players. But the very top female chess player, the absolute best top prodigy female chess player. Where does she rank compared to men?
Chess is just one example.
Now I am not saying that women might be more represented at high levels if there were more women competing in things like chess or starcraft, but I think it should be clear that men have faculties that women rarely can match when it comes to these things.
It quite simple I think, the atmosphere of a pro-gamer doesn't appeal to females. Likely most female gamers are gamers to have fun, not to win money. This has nothing to do with gender, and even less to do with genetics, and all to do with society. Societies views on video games in general are that they are a waste of time, and the bulk of gamers realize this and don't care. The ones that go pro do so because they can get paid to do something they would be doing for fun anyways, and therefore can make a career out of it. As Tossgirl said in her interview, it is the fact that most females do not HAVE the desire to become a pro-gamer. This has nothing to do with competitive spirit, just personal goals.
On January 26 2011 06:34 travis wrote: I think there are fundamental differences in the way men and women's brains work that play a large role in this. I mean, there are lots of women chess players. But the very top female chess player, the absolute best top prodigy female chess player. Where does she rank compared to men?
Chess is just one example.
Now I am not saying that women might be more represented at high levels if there were more women competing in things like chess or starcraft, but I think it should be clear that men have faculties that women rarely can match when it comes to these things.
I would agree with you if it came to something like lifting weights, but nothing is the brain is really all that clear. When it comes to mental challenges, I have never come across a problem and woman couldn't do but a man could. Think about it, in grade school boys and girls are treated virtually the same and their worlds allow for very selective influences to engender them. They are capable of the same things, but as time progresses, they are engendered and split, with different values and goals imbued upon them by society.
On January 26 2011 06:34 travis wrote: I think there are fundamental differences in the way men and women's brains work that play a large role in this. I mean, there are lots of women chess players. But the very top female chess player, the absolute best top prodigy female chess player. Where does she rank compared to men?
Chess is just one example.
Now I am not saying that women might be more represented at high levels if there were more women competing in things like chess or starcraft, but I think it should be clear that men have faculties that women rarely can match when it comes to these things.
I would agree with you if it came to something like lifting weights, but nothing is the brain is really all that clear. When it comes to mental challenges, I have never come across a problem and woman couldn't do but a man could. Think about it, in grade school boys and girls are treated virtually the same and their worlds allow for very selective influences to engender them. They are capable of the same things, but as time progresses, they are engendered and split, with different values and goals imbued upon them by society.
It's pretty clear even from grade school that boys have different strong suits than girls...
You're just ignoring blatant strong evidence to the contrary. Boys, in general, are better at math. Right from the start.
They also are more competitive in sports and games, right from the start.
On January 26 2011 06:52 travis wrote: You're just ignoring blatant strong evidence to the contrary. Boys, in general, are better at math. Right from the start.
They also are more competitive in sports and games, right from the start.
Right and this of course has everything to do with genetics and nothing at all to do with the way parents raise their children and set their expectations, am i right?
On January 26 2011 06:34 travis wrote: I think there are fundamental differences in the way men and women's brains work that play a large role in this. I mean, there are lots of women chess players. But the very top female chess player, the absolute best top prodigy female chess player. Where does she rank compared to men?
Chess is just one example.
Now I am not saying that women might be more represented at high levels if there were more women competing in things like chess or starcraft, but I think it should be clear that men have faculties that women rarely can match when it comes to these things.
I would agree with you if it came to something like lifting weights, but nothing is the brain is really all that clear. When it comes to mental challenges, I have never come across a problem and woman couldn't do but a man could. Think about it, in grade school boys and girls are treated virtually the same and their worlds allow for very selective influences to engender them. They are capable of the same things, but as time progresses, they are engendered and split, with different values and goals imbued upon them by society.
It's pretty clear even from grade school that boys have different strong suits than girls...
You're just ignoring blatant strong evidence to the contrary. Boys, in general, are better at math. Right from the start.
They also are more competitive in sports and games, right from the start.
Historically that is correct, boys trended higher grade wise in the mathematics and sciences. But is that biological or socially driven? How often do you see women actively being encouraged to pursue math or the sciences over english or history? There is no known biological reason for men obtaining a higher average or benefit. I know from my experience women made up the majority of my Calc courses in High School. Times, they are a changing.
On January 26 2011 06:52 travis wrote: You're just ignoring blatant strong evidence to the contrary. Boys, in general, are better at math. Right from the start.
They also are more competitive in sports and games, right from the start.
Right and this of course has everything to do with genetics and nothing at all to do with the way parents raise their children and set their expectations, am i right?
You're sarcastic but yes, that is correct. Most parents aren't teaching their boys math between ages 2 and 5 while ignoring their girls.
Plenty of people would love to be white knights but this is reality and men and women are not the same.
I think it partially has to do with image. When you think of esports/gaming in gereral you dont picture a female, you more likely picture a male playing. This comes down to so many years of males being in this position. You look at knitting for example and what do you picutre? A female, not male, and its because thats what seems 'correct' to you. If women had participated from the beginning of gaming in general in an equal amount like men did, im sure they outcome of male to female ratios in the gaming scene would be much different and we would see many more pro-female gamers.
On January 26 2011 06:34 travis wrote: I think there are fundamental differences in the way men and women's brains work that play a large role in this. I mean, there are lots of women chess players. But the very top female chess player, the absolute best top prodigy female chess player. Where does she rank compared to men?
Chess is just one example.
Now I am not saying that women might be more represented at high levels if there were more women competing in things like chess or starcraft, but I think it should be clear that men have faculties that women rarely can match when it comes to these things.
I would agree with you if it came to something like lifting weights, but nothing is the brain is really all that clear. When it comes to mental challenges, I have never come across a problem and woman couldn't do but a man could. Think about it, in grade school boys and girls are treated virtually the same and their worlds allow for very selective influences to engender them. They are capable of the same things, but as time progresses, they are engendered and split, with different values and goals imbued upon them by society.
It's pretty clear even from grade school that boys have different strong suits than girls...
You're just ignoring blatant strong evidence to the contrary. Boys, in general, are better at math. Right from the start.
They also are more competitive in sports and games, right from the start.
Historically that is correct, boys trended higher grade wise in the mathematics and sciences. But is that biological or socially driven? How often do you see women actively being encouraged to pursue math or the sciences over english or history? There is no known biological reason for men obtaining a higher average or benefit. I know from my experience women made up the majority of my Calc courses in High School. Times, they are a changing.
women are perfectly capable of learning and perfectly capable of hard work. but hard work alone will not make you a top chess (or starcraft) player
On January 26 2011 06:52 travis wrote: You're just ignoring blatant strong evidence to the contrary. Boys, in general, are better at math. Right from the start.
They also are more competitive in sports and games, right from the start.
Right and this of course has everything to do with genetics and nothing at all to do with the way parents raise their children and set their expectations, am i right?
You're sarcastic but yes, that is correct. Most parents aren't teaching their boys math between ages 2 and 5 while ignoring their girls.
Please point to studies proving that among children aged 2 to 5, boys are more tilted towards performing better at math given the same environment for both.
On January 26 2011 06:34 travis wrote: I think there are fundamental differences in the way men and women's brains work that play a large role in this. I mean, there are lots of women chess players. But the very top female chess player, the absolute best top prodigy female chess player. Where does she rank compared to men?
Chess is just one example.
Now I am not saying that women might be more represented at high levels if there were more women competing in things like chess or starcraft, but I think it should be clear that men have faculties that women rarely can match when it comes to these things.
I would agree with you if it came to something like lifting weights, but nothing is the brain is really all that clear. When it comes to mental challenges, I have never come across a problem and woman couldn't do but a man could. Think about it, in grade school boys and girls are treated virtually the same and their worlds allow for very selective influences to engender them. They are capable of the same things, but as time progresses, they are engendered and split, with different values and goals imbued upon them by society.
It's pretty clear even from grade school that boys have different strong suits than girls...
You're just ignoring blatant strong evidence to the contrary. Boys, in general, are better at math. Right from the start.
They also are more competitive in sports and games, right from the start.
Historically that is correct, boys trended higher grade wise in the mathematics and sciences. But is that biological or socially driven? How often do you see women actively being encouraged to pursue math or the sciences over english or history? There is no known biological reason for men obtaining a higher average or benefit. I know from my experience women made up the majority of my Calc courses in High School. Times, they are a changing.
women are perfectly capable of learning and perfectly capable of hard work. but hard work alone will not make you a top chess (or starcraft) player
Judit Polgár would own you like did she Kasparov yes, a women is more intelligent than you
On January 26 2011 06:52 travis wrote: You're just ignoring blatant strong evidence to the contrary. Boys, in general, are better at math. Right from the start.
They also are more competitive in sports and games, right from the start.
Right and this of course has everything to do with genetics and nothing at all to do with the way parents raise their children and set their expectations, am i right?
You're sarcastic but yes, that is correct. Most parents aren't teaching their boys math between ages 2 and 5 while ignoring their girls.
Please point to studies proving that among children aged 2 to 5, boys are more tilted towards performing better at math given the same environment for both.
really? you're really going to make me look for studies, which may or may not have done, on something that is already generally accepted as truth and has been seen time and time again? you're actually claiming it isn't the case that boys who are initially being taught math, in general, perform better than girls?
On January 26 2011 06:34 travis wrote: I think there are fundamental differences in the way men and women's brains work that play a large role in this. I mean, there are lots of women chess players. But the very top female chess player, the absolute best top prodigy female chess player. Where does she rank compared to men?
Chess is just one example.
Now I am not saying that women might be more represented at high levels if there were more women competing in things like chess or starcraft, but I think it should be clear that men have faculties that women rarely can match when it comes to these things.
I would agree with you if it came to something like lifting weights, but nothing is the brain is really all that clear. When it comes to mental challenges, I have never come across a problem and woman couldn't do but a man could. Think about it, in grade school boys and girls are treated virtually the same and their worlds allow for very selective influences to engender them. They are capable of the same things, but as time progresses, they are engendered and split, with different values and goals imbued upon them by society.
It's pretty clear even from grade school that boys have different strong suits than girls...
You're just ignoring blatant strong evidence to the contrary. Boys, in general, are better at math. Right from the start.
They also are more competitive in sports and games, right from the start.
define start. i've heard of these stats showing boys getting higher marks in school at math. but when are they actually comparing these marks? kindergarten? early grade school? early high school? that has a huge impact on what we're trying to say here. also, if they can even do a questionnaire with each student regarding the activities they do at home, and correspond the responses with marks, i wonder if such a sex difference will be so obvious once controlled.
boys are more competitive in sports and games, okay... and you're saying there isn't a major societal factor in that? i find it a bit farfetched that we were biologically coded to be more "competitive" than females in something as arbitrary as sports or games when these were non factors in our evolutionary history.
On January 26 2011 06:52 travis wrote: You're just ignoring blatant strong evidence to the contrary. Boys, in general, are better at math. Right from the start.
They also are more competitive in sports and games, right from the start.
Right and this of course has everything to do with genetics and nothing at all to do with the way parents raise their children and set their expectations, am i right?
You're sarcastic but yes, that is correct. Most parents aren't teaching their boys math between ages 2 and 5 while ignoring their girls.
Please point to studies proving that among children aged 2 to 5, boys are more tilted towards performing better at math given the same environment for both.
really? you're really going to make me look for studies, which may or may not have done, on something that is already generally accepted as truth and has been seen time and time again? you're actually claiming it isn't the case that boys who are initially being taught math, in general, perform better than girls?
fine, i'll see if I can find anything
EDIT: added this in so i don't double post
well.. accepted as truth doesn't exactly mean anything does it. hardly justifies the many posts here claiming men are biologically at an advantage to women. there's really no way to test this "innate" hypothesis without some ridiculous experiment that controls for so many factors that can skew the development of cognitive functions in the brain.
On January 26 2011 06:34 travis wrote: I think there are fundamental differences in the way men and women's brains work that play a large role in this. I mean, there are lots of women chess players. But the very top female chess player, the absolute best top prodigy female chess player. Where does she rank compared to men?
Chess is just one example.
Now I am not saying that women might be more represented at high levels if there were more women competing in things like chess or starcraft, but I think it should be clear that men have faculties that women rarely can match when it comes to these things.
I would agree with you if it came to something like lifting weights, but nothing is the brain is really all that clear. When it comes to mental challenges, I have never come across a problem and woman couldn't do but a man could. Think about it, in grade school boys and girls are treated virtually the same and their worlds allow for very selective influences to engender them. They are capable of the same things, but as time progresses, they are engendered and split, with different values and goals imbued upon them by society.
It's pretty clear even from grade school that boys have different strong suits than girls...
You're just ignoring blatant strong evidence to the contrary. Boys, in general, are better at math. Right from the start.
They also are more competitive in sports and games, right from the start.
Historically that is correct, boys trended higher grade wise in the mathematics and sciences. But is that biological or socially driven? How often do you see women actively being encouraged to pursue math or the sciences over english or history? There is no known biological reason for men obtaining a higher average or benefit. I know from my experience women made up the majority of my Calc courses in High School. Times, they are a changing.
women are perfectly capable of learning and perfectly capable of hard work. but hard work alone will not make you a top chess (or starcraft) player
Judit Polgár would own you like did she Kasparov yes, a women is more intelligent than you
and SHE HELPS PROVE MY POINT
she is the most exceptional female chess player of all time, by far the greatest.... and what was her top rating in the world compared to men? how many men were above her? you just made no point whatsoever u only helped what I was saying. and I love how u turn this into some issue of sexism like im offended that there are hundreds of thousands or even millions of women more intelligent than I am.
On January 26 2011 06:52 travis wrote: You're just ignoring blatant strong evidence to the contrary. Boys, in general, are better at math. Right from the start.
They also are more competitive in sports and games, right from the start.
Right and this of course has everything to do with genetics and nothing at all to do with the way parents raise their children and set their expectations, am i right?
You're sarcastic but yes, that is correct. Most parents aren't teaching their boys math between ages 2 and 5 while ignoring their girls.
Please point to studies proving that among children aged 2 to 5, boys are more tilted towards performing better at math given the same environment for both.
really? you're really going to make me look for studies, which may or may not have done, on something that is already generally accepted as truth and has been seen time and time again? you're actually claiming it isn't the case that boys who are initially being taught math, in general, perform better than girls?
fine, i'll see if I can find anything
Sorry Travis, but I just googled "boys better than girls at math" and google came back exploding with article after article about how researchers have proven this to be a myth.
The studies essentially show that countries that have gender equality(say, Sweden), show no difference in math abilities. In countries that do not have gender equality(Turkey), boys had higher math scores. Some of the articles I looked at were looking at 15 year olds and some going younger. The consensus seems to be that nothing biological makes girls have weaker math abilities. I highly doubt that girls 2-5 are worse at math than boys 2-5. You will have to cite at least SOME evidence before going on about how it is "already generally accepted as truth".
On January 26 2011 06:34 travis wrote: I think there are fundamental differences in the way men and women's brains work that play a large role in this. I mean, there are lots of women chess players. But the very top female chess player, the absolute best top prodigy female chess player. Where does she rank compared to men?
Chess is just one example.
Now I am not saying that women might be more represented at high levels if there were more women competing in things like chess or starcraft, but I think it should be clear that men have faculties that women rarely can match when it comes to these things.
I would agree with you if it came to something like lifting weights, but nothing is the brain is really all that clear. When it comes to mental challenges, I have never come across a problem and woman couldn't do but a man could. Think about it, in grade school boys and girls are treated virtually the same and their worlds allow for very selective influences to engender them. They are capable of the same things, but as time progresses, they are engendered and split, with different values and goals imbued upon them by society.
It's pretty clear even from grade school that boys have different strong suits than girls...
You're just ignoring blatant strong evidence to the contrary. Boys, in general, are better at math. Right from the start.
They also are more competitive in sports and games, right from the start.
Historically that is correct, boys trended higher grade wise in the mathematics and sciences. But is that biological or socially driven? How often do you see women actively being encouraged to pursue math or the sciences over english or history? There is no known biological reason for men obtaining a higher average or benefit. I know from my experience women made up the majority of my Calc courses in High School. Times, they are a changing.
Scientific evidence shows that men are better at math and perception of space. Just as women are better at other activities.
There is a Discovery Channel program showing a woman who wanted to become a man. She performed strength tests and tests of logic and mathematics before taking male hormones (testosterone). After weeks of taking the hormone, in addition to being physically stronger, it was significantly better in math and logic tests.
On January 26 2011 06:52 travis wrote: You're just ignoring blatant strong evidence to the contrary. Boys, in general, are better at math. Right from the start.
They also are more competitive in sports and games, right from the start.
Right and this of course has everything to do with genetics and nothing at all to do with the way parents raise their children and set their expectations, am i right?
You're sarcastic but yes, that is correct. Most parents aren't teaching their boys math between ages 2 and 5 while ignoring their girls.
Please point to studies proving that among children aged 2 to 5, boys are more tilted towards performing better at math given the same environment for both.
really? you're really going to make me look for studies, which may or may not have done, on something that is already generally accepted as truth and has been seen time and time again? you're actually claiming it isn't the case that boys who are initially being taught math, in general, perform better than girls?
fine, i'll see if I can find anything
Sorry Travis, but I just googled "boys better than girls at math" and google came back exploding with article after article about how researchers have proven this to be a myth.
The studies essentially show that countries that have gender equality(say, Sweden), show no difference in math abilities. In countries that do not have gender equality(Turkey), boys had higher math scores. Some of the articles I looked at were looking at 15 year olds and some going younger. The consensus seems to be that nothing biological makes girls have weaker math abilities. I highly doubt that girls 2-5 are worse at math than boys 2-5. You will have to cite at least SOME evidence before going on about how it is "already generally accepted as truth".
yeah, and it's almost all the exact same article that clearly already had the agenda of proving that women are just as good as men. did u even read those studies? they aren't measuring aptitude, they are measuring knowledge (what you've learned)
it's not that easy to wade through these pages and just "find studies on the brains of babies in regards to math". I found this:
Neuroscience research, including MRI studies of male and female brains, suggests that brain function -- along with related hormonal differences -- creates a tendency for males to have better spatial thinking skills, and females to be stronger in some realms of verbal expression. Females even tend to use verbal strategies in spatial thinking, whereas in most male brains, verbal and spatial thinking are more distinct. Liben and colleagues published a study in 2008 suggesting that babies as young as three months old show gender differences in spatial thinking. For the study, researchers showed babies images of the number 1 at various angles. Then, each baby was simultaneously shown two new images, the number 1 at an angle they hadn’t seen before, and a mirror image of the number 1.
but I think it goes deeper than that. men and women's brains are not the same... we already knew that. why do people act like they are.
and just so it's clear.... I never wanted to suggest that environment/society didn't play a role in what women have accomplished! certainly it does. but we aren't talking about just anything here, we are talking about being up at the very top of something that is very competitive and requires a very specific skillset.
They are capable of the same things, but as time progresses, they are engendered and split, with different values and goals imbued upon them by society.
Well, when the first civilizations developed nobody sat down designing gender or talking about it, yet gender existed and expressed itself naturally in the way early civilizations were organized.
There are biological differences in body and brain, obviously. Where else would character and talent come from if not from our biology? So gender is a natural thing because culture is a natural thing. Thinking is biologically founded, so if the biology is different, so is thinking, is it not?
The former World Champion Garry Kasparov wrote that, based upon her games, "if to 'play like a girl' meant anything in chess, it would mean relentless aggression.
If any of you actually think that the science around whether men or women are better at math, spatial reasoning, etc. is actually worth founding an opinion on, then I question your sanity. The male/female thing insofar as predispositions to academic achievement go is such a hotly contested issue that it has, like most of global warming "science," transcended any hope of objective study. Right now the mood is such that if you say "we have shown in this specific instance that one gender is slightly better at a thing than another," people will read it and go "Zomg so sexist" if it says guys are better at a thing but "ah ha I knew it, girl power for lyfe!" if women do better.
The only thing we can say with certainty is that it's irrelevant for this discussion. Does it matter whether society or genetics makes women not play games as much, or do more math, or what have you? No, the only thing that matters is simply the fact that they don't, regardless of cause. It is easily demonstrable that women, for one reason or another, don't play as much StarCraft as men. Perhaps its due to a lack of ability, perhaps due to societal discouragement. In any case, if you don't have a lot of women playing, you can't expect them to achieve very much. There's simply too small a population to have much of a chance of producing someone truly outstanding.
On January 26 2011 06:52 travis wrote: You're just ignoring blatant strong evidence to the contrary. Boys, in general, are better at math. Right from the start.
They also are more competitive in sports and games, right from the start.
Right and this of course has everything to do with genetics and nothing at all to do with the way parents raise their children and set their expectations, am i right?
You're sarcastic but yes, that is correct. Most parents aren't teaching their boys math between ages 2 and 5 while ignoring their girls.
Please point to studies proving that among children aged 2 to 5, boys are more tilted towards performing better at math given the same environment for both.
really? you're really going to make me look for studies, which may or may not have done, on something that is already generally accepted as truth and has been seen time and time again? you're actually claiming it isn't the case that boys who are initially being taught math, in general, perform better than girls?
fine, i'll see if I can find anything
Sorry Travis, but I just googled "boys better than girls at math" and google came back exploding with article after article about how researchers have proven this to be a myth.
The studies essentially show that countries that have gender equality(say, Sweden), show no difference in math abilities. In countries that do not have gender equality(Turkey), boys had higher math scores. Some of the articles I looked at were looking at 15 year olds and some going younger. The consensus seems to be that nothing biological makes girls have weaker math abilities. I highly doubt that girls 2-5 are worse at math than boys 2-5. You will have to cite at least SOME evidence before going on about how it is "already generally accepted as truth".
yeah, and it's almost all the exact same article that clearly already had the agenda of proving that women are just as good as men. did u even read those studies? they aren't measuring aptitude, they are measuring knowledge (what you've learned)
it's not that easy to wade through these pages and just "find studies on the brains of babies in regards to math". I found this:
Neuroscience research, including MRI studies of male and female brains, suggests that brain function -- along with related hormonal differences -- creates a tendency for males to have better spatial thinking skills, and females to be stronger in some realms of verbal expression. Females even tend to use verbal strategies in spatial thinking, whereas in most male brains, verbal and spatial thinking are more distinct. Liben and colleagues published a study in 2008 suggesting that babies as young as three months old show gender differences in spatial thinking. For the study, researchers showed babies images of the number 1 at various angles. Then, each baby was simultaneously shown two new images, the number 1 at an angle they hadn’t seen before, and a mirror image of the number 1.
but I think it goes deeper than that. men and women's brains are not the same... we already knew that. why do people act like they are.
and just so it's clear.... I never wanted to suggest that environment/society didn't play a role in what women have accomplished! certainly it does. but we aren't talking about just anything here, we are talking about being up at the very top of something that is very competitive and requires a very specific skillset.
no one's suggesting there aren't any sex differences. there obviously are, because we have different sex hormones going around.
the question is, do these differences in function in a very specific experiment (such as their test in your article mentioning "spacial thinking") make up the difference in performance in a fully functional organism? no scientist will claim that performance in this spacial thinking test encompasses x % of the total performance when doing math - because we don't know. it's just ONE of many ways to test a very ambiguous behavioural trait, and it cannot be used to generalize that men are just better than females at math.
most of the angst in this thread is directed at people who are claiming the end-all variable that results in so few female progamers is that they are simply biologically less "competitive" or just inferior to males. no one's being a white knight when arguing against that, it's simply arguing against a bunch of misinformed bs.
So what about sports, physical sports, men are different than women and because their bodies are made a different way they can do things women can't. So why is it suddenly so far fetched that men, in general, could do things mentally that women can't, or at least that they don't? (IN GENERAL) I mean, we've already agreed that men and women have different brains.
Honestly have none of you noticed the general differences in the way men and women think about things...? The general differences between their focuses and interests?
I don't want to piss women off, I am not saying it's good or bad, and I am not saying there aren't exceptions. I just can't believe people's ability to deny what is obvious and right in front of their face. Women aren't top starcraft players because they aren't built in a way that promotes that. It's not society. Society isn't keeping women from playing starcraft. Jeeeeesus christ.
and again, yes, there are exceptions. plenty of exceptions.
Oh, hell, was that heavy. Here, let me try again: gender biasing is why the statistics say that men are better at math than women.
For fuck's sake, is there any way this can be articulated clearly? Why, yes. Yes there is.
Contrary to Benbow and Stanley's conclusion, our data suggest that social and attitudinal factors have a greater influence on junior and high school students' grades and enrollment in mathematics courses than do variations in mathematical aptitude. Further, our data suggest that sex differences in mathematical achievement and attitudes are largely due to sex differences in math anxiety; the gender-stereotyped beliefs of parents, especially mothers; and the value students attach to mathematics.
Social Forces Shape Math Attitudes and Performance Jacquelynne S. Eccles and Janis E. Jacobs Signs Vol. 11, No. 2 (Winter, 1986), pp. 367-380 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3174058
Essentially, it's the phenomenon of suggestion: if someone believes that their gender is worse at math, they will do worse at math... as a direct consequence.
Social conditioning thus plays an effing huge role.
On January 26 2011 07:35 travis wrote: So what about sports, physical sports, men are different than women and because their bodies are made a different way they can do things women can't. So why is it suddenly so far fetched that men, in general, could do things mentally that women can't, or at least that they don't? (IN GENERAL) I mean, we've already agreed that men and women have different brains.
Honestly have none of you noticed the general differences in the way men and women think about things...? The general differences between their focuses and interests?
I don't want to piss women off, I am not saying it's good or bad, and I am not saying there aren't exceptions. I just can't believe people's ability to deny what is obvious and right in front of their face. Women aren't top starcraft players because they aren't built in a way that promotes that. It's not society. Society isn't keeping women from playing starcraft. Jeeeeesus christ.
and again, yes, there are exceptions. plenty of exceptions.
i'm not saying men/women aren't different, of course they are. some biological, some societal. but how can you say they're not built in a way to play games when games like sc2 are non factors in how how body develops or evolved over time?
like i said, all these experimental results that show one thing or another in specific behavioural tests don't mean anything until they're integrated to show that this factor x in men is what gives them an advantage in y, which is necessary for z. just showing isolated papers with spacial ability, or reflex, or what not doesn't mean anything because you're not playing sc2 or doing any daily activity in the conditions that you're put in when you're doing those tests - i guarantee you. at the end of the day there's not enough evidence to say that these differences even mean anything when it comes to performance.
but what's right in our faces is that it seems to be a social taboo when girls are playing games, while it's less so when guys are doing it - and this is coming from several female posters in this thread. can't that be a more plausible reason to explain the opening question?
but what's right in our faces is that it seems to be a social taboo when girls are playing games, while it's less so when guys are doing it - and this is coming from several female posters in this thread. can't that be a more plausible reason to explain the opening question?
I don't think so. It might be somewhat of a social taboo for girls to be gamers, but that's not keeping millions of them from playing WoW and Farmville. Why? Because they actually want to.
The amount of people countering each others arguments with anecdotal evidence is very depressing. Saying your calc class was all girls or there was this girl chess player once who was exceptional says nothing except it is possible. It says absolutely 0 about if it is likely or the potential causes so please try to avoid statements like that no matter what point you are trying to make.
If you want to use an individual example you do it like this; looking at the data there are not many great female chess players as compared to males however there is this one exceptional one who is an outlier. What characteristics both in terms of biology and experience does she posses (or not posses) that the average female ( we would probably tighten "average female" to females in a similar age range and possibly more) does not. Once we have found those characteristics we can focus on what causes the average female not to posses them. Even then our research is only based around the skill-set for chess which you would have to do additional research (you could use both genders for this one though) to define.
Someone mentioned Einstein earlier and he can be used in the same way. What differentiates Einstein from the average human male? In his case it is both biology and experience that were different from most, now saying to what degree each affected his outcome is not really possible to do with great precision in modern science, all we somewhat know is they both had a degree of affect.
Also in terms of data averages are tricky especially when you are focusing your study on a question involving outliers specifically. I think a few posters already pointed this out but the standard deviation is very important in a study like that because even if two populations have the same average (say the average US Master League player has the same skill however we chose to define it as the average Korean Master League Player) there could be only one or two US players among the top 30 most skilled in the world. A statement like "Females on average have only slightly higher IQs than males so there is little to no biological difference in IQ" is incorrect.
On January 26 2011 07:35 travis wrote: Women aren't top starcraft players because they aren't built in a way that promotes that. It's not society. Society isn't keeping women from playing starcraft. Jeeeeesus christ.
I'm not a biologist so my post isnt going to have hard data in it. However, the above quote has a point and yet is so narrow-minded. Take a wider look a the world. Don't just see it from your perspective, or from your sister/mother's perspective. In "developed" countries, women have come a long way and it almost feels equal sometimes to be a girl. But remember that this is brand new. Women have been struggling to achieve the kind of equality we have now for a long and arduous time. Only twenty years ago even, women were still fighting with second-wave feminist goals (ie. trying to prevent the image that women have to be housewives, understanding all the politcal ways in which we are/were oppressed). To put it into a more visual picture, if any of you have seen Mad Men, thats actually what it was like up until very recently. Even today in year 2011 I have problems with my work dress code because almost all "business" shoes for women are high heeled. The remains of an extremely patriarchal society are everywhere, but because we're all used to it, you don't notice it.
Now to relate this to Starcraft/competition/inherent ability vs boys/men, its obvious that there's not some big man somewhere saying "no! we can't let women play Starcraft!", so in that sense you are correct Travis, society is not directly telling women not to play or compete.
Instead, society puts out TV shows where girls compete for their beauty, society fills magazines full of advertisements with "advice" on how to achieve the "perfect look". Society expects women to be pretty and to be dateable. If no one tells young girls "hey, did you know you can pursue what youre actually interested in? Did you know its actually okay to play video games tonight instead of going to the school dance?", girls will follow what they've been pushed into until they realise its not actually rewarding or useful to their life. Some girls are lucky and have super cool parents (like me) or they have older siblings who mentor them positively. But considering the vast amount of girls who are pushed into other activities, and considering how much practice it takes people to get really good at something, its no surprise they aren't at the top level.
All I can say is that I hope as society slowly grows up more and more there will be a more positive environment for which girls can grow up in and choose what they really want to do well at, rather than chasing glamourous ideals at the expense of their self-esteem while companies make money by selling them these pointless products.
but what's right in our faces is that it seems to be a social taboo when girls are playing games, while it's less so when guys are doing it - and this is coming from several female posters in this thread. can't that be a more plausible reason to explain the opening question?
I don't think so. It might be somewhat of a social taboo for girls to be gamers, but that's not keeping millions of them from playing WoW and Farmville. Why? Because they actually want to.
What's the boy:girl ratio in wow? If it's nowhere near 50:50, can you still say it's not taboo?
On January 26 2011 06:12 Torpedo.Vegas wrote: Women are definitely competitive. Just their competitive outlet tends to be different based on society's gender roles. In fact, they can get down right vicious. I mean look at a high school girls, comparing all manner of accessory or clothing, grades, stuff like that. Social status is another good example. I'm sure someone more informed then I can give the complex reasons that lead them to use these and other things as their competitive outlets (its branching more now), but women are as competitive as men are.
Also, yeah, unless you have a degree in Biology or Genetics or something, don't run to that. Biology is a very tricky thing to pin down as a cause and more often then not, isn't even a factor so much as societal pressures and norms.
*Edit*
Another note on the biology thing, your interpretation of gender has been developed by your societal influences. There are many cultures in Asia, Africa and the like, where they are totally matriarchal and women call the shots. Being of female sex does not automatically denote weakness in our species or any other.
Another myth. No society with reversed gender roles or unambiguous matriarchy has ever been found.
Edit: last time I checked thoroughly was 2006 in a work I did. Who knows, might've changed. Odds are, it hasn't.
On January 26 2011 03:18 ParasitJonte wrote: As usual people are giving way too much credit to things that are probably not of greatest importance (cultural acceptance etc.).
The variance among males is simply higher. This is true regardless of where you look: math, cooking, sports, playing games. The very best and the very worst are always males.
If all cultural barriers were removed there would surely be a lot more female players in diamond and masters. But the tournaments would almost always end with a male winner. That's just how it is.
how can you show that cultural limitations are less important than biological ones? you claim at the end that the removal of these barriers would see more female players in a hypothetical situation, right after you say they aren't important? a little logical loophole there imo.
and even with all these studies showing some form of "advantage" in males in some performance task, we are still missing the developmental angle where perhaps the development of such skills are hindered by activities that aren't encouraged in females at younger ages. can you say for sure that a woman raised under no social/cultural limitations with a man will be biologically less capable of playing sc2 than her counterpart?
No. You have to read all of what I write first.
The question is: "Why is there a lack of female top players?"
Now, the word top is of course ambigous. But as you see in my text, I interpret it as people who win tournaments (still ambigous but I think you are smart enough to get it).
This is explained by the fact that the variance among males as a group is higher than that of females as a group. As a result, almost wherever you look you will find that a male knows most, has done most, is the best and so on.
Results on IQ tests are a good example. I haven't seen much evidence for their actually being a difference between mean scores, but the variance among males is higher. That's why nobel prizes go to men (that and the fact that women don't seem to be as interested in hard sciences as much as men are).
Note that while these sentiments may appear extreme, they really are not. They just, for the third time, express the same thing: variance among males as a group is higher than variance among females.
On January 26 2011 07:35 travis wrote: Women aren't top starcraft players because they aren't built in a way that promotes that. It's not society. Society isn't keeping women from playing starcraft. Jeeeeesus christ.
I'm not a biologist so my post isnt going to have hard data in it. However, the above quote has a point and yet is so narrow-minded. Take a wider look a the world. Don't just see it from your perspective, or from your sister/mother's perspective. In "developed" countries, women have come a long way and it almost feels equal sometimes to be a girl. But remember that this is brand new. Women have been struggling to achieve the kind of equality we have now for a long and arduous time. Only twenty years ago even, women were still fighting with second-wave feminist goals (ie. trying to prevent the image that women have to be housewives, understanding all the politcal ways in which we are/were oppressed). To put it into a more visual picture, if any of you have seen Mad Men, thats actually what it was like up until very recently. Even today in year 2011 I have problems with my work dress code because almost all "business" shoes for women are high heeled. The remains of an extremely patriarchal society are everywhere, but because we're all used to it, you don't notice it.
Now to relate this to Starcraft/competition/inherent ability vs boys/men, its obvious that there's not some big man somewhere saying "no! we can't let women play Starcraft!", so in that sense you are correct Travis, society is not directly telling women not to play or compete.
Instead, society puts out TV shows where girls compete for their beauty, society fills magazines full of advertisements with "advice" on how to achieve the "perfect look". Society expects women to be pretty and to be dateable. If no one tells young girls "hey, did you know you can pursue what youre actually interested in? Did you know its actually okay to play video games tonight instead of going to the school dance?", girls will follow what they've been pushed into until they realise its not actually rewarding or useful to their life. Some girls are lucky and have super cool parents (like me) or they have older siblings who mentor them positively. But considering the vast amount of girls who are pushed into other activities, and considering how much practice it takes people to get really good at something, its no surprise they aren't at the top level.
All I can say is that I hope as society slowly grows up more and more there will be a more positive environment for which girls can grow up in and choose what they really want to do well at, rather than chasing glamourous ideals at the expense of their self-esteem while companies make money by selling them these pointless products.
This is a good representation of the common consensus of understanding of gender roles and (almost always) lack of female representation in category XYZ most well-educated people in western societies seem to have.
I take offense to it for two reasons mainly.
Number one. The historical background. People seem to have this image that men have led lives full of privileges while women have been oppressed. The truth is of course that most of mankind has been oppressed for most of all time by the people in power and their privileged friends. It's only now, since liberalism invaded our world, that many of us are free in any real sense.
Number 2. The unsupported, should-be-accepted-just-because-it-should-be-accepted, arguments from social constructivism. It's society's fault with all the magazines and TV shows!
Well. What is society? Society consists of people. People make society. It is no coincidence that hunter and gatherer societies are the same when it comes to female and male wherever you go around the world. Society will reflect how people are.
On January 26 2011 03:18 ParasitJonte wrote: As usual people are giving way too much credit to things that are probably not of greatest importance (cultural acceptance etc.).
The variance among males is simply higher. This is true regardless of where you look: math, cooking, sports, playing games. The very best and the very worst are always males.
If all cultural barriers were removed there would surely be a lot more female players in diamond and masters. But the tournaments would almost always end with a male winner. That's just how it is.
how can you show that cultural limitations are less important than biological ones? you claim at the end that the removal of these barriers would see more female players in a hypothetical situation, right after you say they aren't important? a little logical loophole there imo.
and even with all these studies showing some form of "advantage" in males in some performance task, we are still missing the developmental angle where perhaps the development of such skills are hindered by activities that aren't encouraged in females at younger ages. can you say for sure that a woman raised under no social/cultural limitations with a man will be biologically less capable of playing sc2 than her counterpart?
No. You have to read all of what I write first.
The question is: "Why is there a lack of female top players?"
Now, the word top is of course ambigous. But as you see in my text, I interpret it as people who win tournaments (still ambigous but I think you are smart enough to get it).
This is explained by the fact that the variance among males as a group is higher than that of females as a group. As a result, almost wherever you look you will find that a male knows most, has done most, is the best and so on.
Results on IQ tests are a good example. I haven't seen much evidence for their actually being a difference between mean scores, but the variance among males is higher. That's why nobel prizes go to men (that and the fact that women don't seem to be as interested in hard sciences as much as men are).
Note that while these sentiments may appear extreme, they really are not. They just, for the third time, express the same thing: variance among males as a group is higher than variance among females.
Your answer to the question is that men have higher variance in a measurement of success in some areas... Okay. I'm down with that if you've done the research. How does that distinguish between cultural or biological influences at all? You use iq tests or "most" other fields as an example, but you can't account for developmental impact on these measurements at all with a variance. So how can you exactly disregard cultural impact as irrelevant?
In "developed" countries, women have come a long way and it almost feels equal sometimes to be a girl. But remember that this is brand new. Women have been struggling to achieve the kind of equality we have now for a long and arduous time.
In our "developed countries" women are taught to behave like men ... so we are actually turning them into "men type 2". Is that a good thing and what would actually be needed for equal rights? No on both accounts IMO.
Men and women are different ... not only in their bodies, but also in their mindsets. I think this is pretty obvious (and not totally due to the society and its education) and unless you disagree with me there I ask another question: With two different beings of different strengths and weaknesses do you try to negate weaknesses or support strengths when you try to teach them something (i.e. in the education)? In our societies it seems that we are trying to negate the weaknesses (i.e. enabling everyone to be able to do every job for the sake of "equality"). But does that really make sense or is it part of the reason why there are so many divorces? People do not need a partner of the other sex to form a fully functional family ... they can live on their own and be self-sufficient.
Thus the whole "women have been struggling to achieve equality" is a load of crap which some hippies cooked up in 1968 and which creates a load of misconceptions. Just accept that female gamers are the exception and dont try to force any quotas. Since it is a purely mental game with minimal reliance on bodily fitness I do not see the point of having a separate female league in any eSport.
[The biggest step in the wrong direction is the recent decision of the french government to require a 40% quota for female managers in their biggest companies. Forcing equality with a crowbar is bad and you cant force men to have babies in the same way.]
On January 27 2011 05:21 ParasitJonte wrote: It's only now, since liberalism invaded our world, that many of us are free in any real sense.
Only very very few people are actually free, because freedom requires that you are able to form your own opinion and with the increasing influence of mass media and the "limited mental capacity of the masses" most are not actually free. Just check your ads on TV with a very critical eye and you will see lots of really unnecessary stuff which sells a lot. Ringtones, new mobile phones (even though you already have one), new digital camera with more megapixels (even though the pictures will be worse), yoghurts to support your digestion, .... the list goes on and on.
On January 27 2011 05:21 ParasitJonte wrote: Well. What is society? Society consists of people. People make society. It is no coincidence that hunter and gatherer societies are the same when it comes to female and male wherever you go around the world. Society will reflect how people are.
In reality we are more or less at the same stage the cavemen were ... "might makes right" and if you werent lucky just rob your neighbors food by clubbing him when he isnt looking. Sure we call ourselves "civilized" because we dont use clubs or even guns anymore, but for centuries money has ruled and people with money have absolute control over what they do with it. Altruism - caring for the welfare of others - is not something we are taught but rather to beat your competition in any way you can. This is possible because the penalties for "mental violence" (misusing the power of your money or job to make the lives of others worse) are pretty much negligent.
If female gamers were encouraged and accepted equivocally to the male counterpart (i.e. no sexual division or discrimination) I believe they could win a GSL as well if not better then players we have seen so far. Until society changes this probably won't happen, although it would be pretty damn awesome if Team Liquid, EG or the like found a really high level female gamer willing to go to Korea, because I think it would explode the SC community and encourage more female gamers to step up and publicly bring the pain. There are many women interested in SC, no doubt, but I don't think they are given the same encouragement or acceptance as a male gamer. I would argue many of them even play under our assumption they are male since SC is all type and no voice.
On January 26 2011 06:12 Torpedo.Vegas wrote: Women are definitely competitive. Just their competitive outlet tends to be different based on society's gender roles. In fact, they can get down right vicious. I mean look at a high school girls, comparing all manner of accessory or clothing, grades, stuff like that. Social status is another good example. I'm sure someone more informed then I can give the complex reasons that lead them to use these and other things as their competitive outlets (its branching more now), but women are as competitive as men are.
Also, yeah, unless you have a degree in Biology or Genetics or something, don't run to that. Biology is a very tricky thing to pin down as a cause and more often then not, isn't even a factor so much as societal pressures and norms.
*Edit*
Another note on the biology thing, your interpretation of gender has been developed by your societal influences. There are many cultures in Asia, Africa and the like, where they are totally matriarchal and women call the shots. Being of female sex does not automatically denote weakness in our species or any other.
Another myth. No society with reversed gender roles or unambiguous matriarchy has ever been found.
Edit: last time I checked thoroughly was 2006 in a work I did. Who knows, might've changed. Odds are, it hasn't.
Well, I took a course in Chinese ecology (by no means am I an expert) and there is a culture that developed in southeast (I'm trying to find the name) where the females of the society were held in higher regard and the family lines are traced through the mother and not the father, also its the females that tend to lead the household. Since then it has become a bit of a tourist trap since their walking marriage style has been exploited and turned into some exotic event.
Also, I had a teacher who immigrated from Africa and who made a profession studying gender roles in global societies. Apparently in Africa there are many societies and tribes where gender isn't even acknowledged directly and its all about age and status. What gender you are is means far less, so women are held in equivocal regard to men, not for the sake of equality, but because they value the life experience associated with age over biology.
Gender roles and beliefs are modeled heavily around society rather then biology, and many early scientists went into their work under the influence of these biases. There is actually a pretty serious movement to re-evaluate many scientific studies that used only men as the absolute analog for comparison for things like medicine because there is a biological difference, but one that has been both completely ignored and marginalized and one whose importance is inflated way more then we appreciate.
In our "developed countries" women are taught to behave like men ... so we are actually turning them into "men type 2". ...
Thus the whole "women have been struggling to achieve equality" is a load of crap which some hippies cooked up in 1968...
What are you talking about? What do you mean "women are taught to behave like men"? I honestly don't know what you are referring to, unless you mean that women are taught to be more ambitious and believe in themselves. I for one was never "taught to behave like a man", that is completely ridiculous and based on nothing.
And your second thing there...are you saying that the struggle for equal rights is a myth? That "some hippies" put out a myth to cover up the fact that....no it doesn't even make sense enough to be a conspiracy, I can't even conceive what they'd be trying to cover up. Therefore nothing needs to be "cooked up" and the arbitrary use of "1968" is laughable considering what I'm referencing is still occurring and has been occurring well since after the 60s.
I never implied that men have every privilege possible, or that guys don't have their own struggles. Of course they do, life in general is a struggle. What I'm trying to say is that the level on which girls and boys are put on and their differences in society (yes by "society" I mean people) were a lot bigger and much more contrasting in the past, and they are slowly coming closer together.
Also I don't support the decision that there must be a quota to fill to create equality. I don't support that 50% of staff have to be women. If there are better and more skilled male candidates than girls, then there should be more males in the role. That doesn't mean that we can't teach girls to become better and give them more power in the future, though.
There have been a couple of threads on this, and I believe most reached a similar conclusion: Women don't normally have the same primal, competitive drive that men have. Women typically play more for fun than men, who are more likely to care about winning more. That attitude is a drive that helps top players continue practicing, and drives them to be better. Without it, practicing long and hard is VERy difficult.
EDIT: I hardly think that this is a physical problem. Starcraft fitness (as far as I can tell) is restricted purely to cardiovascular and just overall health (no muscle, strength, or size required). If you're a healthy person, regardless of gender, you have the physical capability to play SC just as well as anyone else.
On January 26 2011 06:12 Torpedo.Vegas wrote: Women are definitely competitive. Just their competitive outlet tends to be different based on society's gender roles. In fact, they can get down right vicious. I mean look at a high school girls, comparing all manner of accessory or clothing, grades, stuff like that. Social status is another good example. I'm sure someone more informed then I can give the complex reasons that lead them to use these and other things as their competitive outlets (its branching more now), but women are as competitive as men are.
Also, yeah, unless you have a degree in Biology or Genetics or something, don't run to that. Biology is a very tricky thing to pin down as a cause and more often then not, isn't even a factor so much as societal pressures and norms.
*Edit*
Another note on the biology thing, your interpretation of gender has been developed by your societal influences. There are many cultures in Asia, Africa and the like, where they are totally matriarchal and women call the shots. Being of female sex does not automatically denote weakness in our species or any other.
Another myth. No society with reversed gender roles or unambiguous matriarchy has ever been found.
Edit: last time I checked thoroughly was 2006 in a work I did. Who knows, might've changed. Odds are, it hasn't.
What about Native Americans? The Iroquois and Algonquins were both matriarchies at one point or another. Or do you mean currently? Because then you'd be right.
On January 27 2011 07:21 TALegion wrote: There have been a couple of threads on this, and I believe most reached a similar conclusion: Women don't normally have the same primal, competitive drive that men have. Women typically play more for fun than men, who are more likely to care about winning more. That attitude is a drive that helps top players continue practicing, and drives them to be better. Without it, practicing long and hard is VERy difficult.
EDIT: I hardly think that this is a physical problem. Starcraft fitness (as far as I can tell) is restricted purely to cardiovascular and just overall health (no muscle, strength, or size required). If you're a healthy person, regardless of gender, you have the physical capability to play SC just as well as anyone else.
I would modify this slightly though by saying that females are not encouraged to use gaming as an acceptable outlet of competitiveness. This is changing but the aggressive and graphic "hardcore" games fell into society's definition of masculine, so men were encouraged and subsequently became the target audience. Again this is changing and I hope to see pro-female gamers in the GSL at some point. Because I do think for this whole e-sports thing to really work, we need to be as encouraging and inclusive as we can without identifying a gamer by their stereotypical gender definitions.
This thread is so depressing, I can't believe so many people actually believe men are innately more intelligent and "capable at gaming" than women. They ignore the scientific studies posted which show no innate math skill gap between sexes, and somehow think a study about spatial visualization translates to limited math abilities and SC2 skills.
@ travis and others-
How can you say culture is not the driving force between more men currently being gamers than women? Do you look at things other cultures are known for and first thought is they must have different genetics that make them "better" at those activities? French and Italian people have innate genetics for cooking, or Canadians are genetically optimized for skating and playing hockey? Or, do you think they are dominant in those fields because that activity is popular in their culture and the culture supports and drives many people to do that activity, providing a large talent pool? Do you think Hawaiians are genetically inferior hockey players or competitors, since there are few or no Hawaiian pro hockey players?
There are no famous black racecar drivers, that must mean black people are bad drivers and have no competitive instincts! Or....culturally, more midwest/southern white people grow up with the NASCAR culture and are encouraged to take part in it, and there is a self-supporting CULTURE which naturally cultivates white racecar drivers. Most black people are not part of that culture, so it may not even occur to them to partake in the sport. Or, if some did, they would be actively DISCOURAGED by their self-identified culture, lowering the participation numbers, and hence the talent pool of black racecar drivers would be very small, and perhaps too small to find top talents.
Similarly, in intellectual fields, there have historically been many social barriers keeping women from even competing in academics, sports...and people wonder why there are less women in gaming as well?
Women in the U.S. were not legally able to vote until 1920 (this means men had a head start since 1776 in experience and cultural acceptance of discussing politics). Women were not legally guaranteed access to birth control until 1972 (not abortion, talking birth control, the ability to control whether or not sex results in children ). Do you realize it has only been 40 years that women have been able to completely legally control how many children they have, and whether they would be stuck at home all day taking care of 10 kids, and you think it's genetics, not culture that many didn't have time to be academics and aren't gaming at the same proportion as men?
For the record, I'm a girl that graduated from a top engineering college, and half my graduating class was women, and we are all capable and smart and working top professional engineering jobs now. My women friends work at Google, Microsoft, consulting firms, etc. I'm in grad school for CS now, and there are still more men in grad school, it will take time for the % of women to even out as my generation grows up, moves up, and the next one comes in.
Also, I recommend the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (author of Blink, and the Tipping Point), where he researched and analyzes people like Bill Gates who are so successful they are considered "outliers" compared to everyone else. One main point of the book is that these outliers are all a somewhat circumstantial product of the CULTURE they grew up in- they all had some level of talent/skills/drive, but they were made possible by their family, resources, and culture. Another major factor in the success of "outliers" (they used the Beatles as their example) is putting in the 10,000 hours of practice. It takes about 10,000 hours of conscious practice (not passive participation, focused practice to try and improve) to master any difficult skill. Outsiders may think a person is a "genius" or has innate talent, but they have almost certainly spent 8 hours a day doing that skill and have put in their 10,000 hours.
Those 2 things right there explain CULTURALLY how most women have not had as much opportunity to become highly skilled at gaming while many men have had the opportunity. Even if girls have the skill/talent, it is still highly likely they don't have a supportive family/culture/resources in that many parents discourage girls from gaming and give them dolls and makeup to play with, movies/magazines/internet says women are supposed to do makeup/shopping for clothes and spend all their time on that, they will get 10,000 hours experience in makeup application and making friends, and resources wise they will not get random gameboys etc. as presents lying around the house thus not allowing them to get their 10,000 hours gaming experience, while boys will probably get some game system as a present as a young child and begin putting in that 10,000 hours probably before they are even in college. As a counterpoint I had a friend that had a gameboy, always wanted one as a kid but parents no game system; when I had a younger brother they couldn't fight us both and we were finally able to get a N64 and I was able to start gaming. Compared to my bf now, who never played video games growing up, he would have to play a lot of catch up to just basic mario kart/super smash bros/"move around and not fall off cliffs" skills.
For the record, I'm a girl that graduated from a top engineering college, and half my graduating class was women, and we are all capable and smart and working top professional engineering jobs now. My women friends work at Google, Microsoft, consulting firms, etc. I'm in grad school for CS now, and there are still more men in grad school, it will take time for the % of women to even out as my generation grows up, moves up, and the next one comes in.
Aside from this paragraph the rest of what you wrote is a great argument but this paragraph is nothing more than another useless anecdotal argument the kind of which has been cluttering up this whole discussion (and shame on you for making it as an engineer!). I could tell you my background too, only 3 girls in an engineering class of 35 with 2 of them at the bottom of the class and the other in the middle. Does that say anything useful? Absolutely not.
They don't want to play, it's that simple. It's not even a taboo, the majority of the times in which I have tried to induce some woman into gaming, or seen women try some games, they just get bored quickly, especially in games like starcraft.
Games that are more popular with women are those in which there is some sort of involvement with your character, as in wow, sims games, etc, highly sociable games are also more popular with women. Both genders have different tendencies in the books they read, the forums they visit, the things they talk about, the sports they play as well as the videogames they play, it has no relationship at all with the skill they can get, since we've seen many times in many disciplines women can become just as skilled as men, however, that won't happen in a great number if those numbers aren't attracted to playing in the first place.
In conclusion, if 50% of SC2 gamers were women, a large percentage of pro SC2 gamers would probably be women, since most don't like playing SC2, they can't get skilled, thus there are/will be very few female pro gamers.
I don't think gender matters....if you're a good player then you should be able to compete with everyone else. If not, so be it. Skill is what matters, and nothing else.
In our "developed countries" women are taught to behave like men ... so we are actually turning them into "men type 2". ...
Thus the whole "women have been struggling to achieve equality" is a load of crap which some hippies cooked up in 1968...
What are you talking about? What do you mean "women are taught to behave like men"? I honestly don't know what you are referring to, unless you mean that women are taught to be more ambitious and believe in themselves. I for one was never "taught to behave like a man", that is completely ridiculous and based on nothing.
And your second thing there...are you saying that the struggle for equal rights is a myth? That "some hippies" put out a myth to cover up the fact that....no it doesn't even make sense enough to be a conspiracy, I can't even conceive what they'd be trying to cover up. Therefore nothing needs to be "cooked up" and the arbitrary use of "1968" is laughable considering what I'm referencing is still occurring and has been occurring well since after the 60s.
I never implied that men have every privilege possible, or that guys don't have their own struggles. Of course they do, life in general is a struggle. What I'm trying to say is that the level on which girls and boys are put on and their differences in society (yes by "society" I mean people) were a lot bigger and much more contrasting in the past, and they are slowly coming closer together.
Also I don't support the decision that there must be a quota to fill to create equality. I don't support that 50% of staff have to be women. If there are better and more skilled male candidates than girls, then there should be more males in the role. That doesn't mean that we can't teach girls to become better and give them more power in the future, though.
The basic question you have to ask yourself is: Do I think that men and women think and feel the same way about things or are they different regardless of society? If the answer is "they are different" then your last sentence kinda explains what I mean with "women are taught to behave like men". You are saing that women should be taught "better" to "give them more power". Chasing after "power" is something men do, because they come from the competing and war side of society and have always struggled with nature and each other to survive. Is that really a good thing to teach every human being as the core thing or do our societies need a counterweight for peace and cooperation?
For the answer to that question I would like to remind you that in the history of humanity peaceful societies have always been killed of by more aggressive ones(*1), BUT can we still allow this kind of aggression in the days of biological weapons, terrorism, easily constructed bombs and such? Isnt todays greed - excellently displayed by Halliburton and BP by sacrificing safety for some more money and an oil spill in the gulf of mexico or those bank managers who caused the financial crisis two years ago - just an extreme way of "getting more power" (at the cost of everything else)?
Wisdom and Altruism is what we need to be taught more in these dangerous times and if we look at equal rights for women it isnt the women who need to be taught to behave differently, but the men to respect the "female side of society" more and to give up their power and domination.
(*1) This also explains why men have more power ... they just took what they wanted from the women because they were stronger.
I think women are different from men and no one should wonder too much about there not being many females around in SC2 or eSport in general. It is good to have other people be interested in other things but those females which are around should compete in the same tournaments the men do and not be separated from them.
On January 27 2011 09:55 redpandas wrote: For the record, I'm a girl that graduated from a top engineering college, and half my graduating class was women, and we are all capable and smart and working top professional engineering jobs now. My women friends work at Google, Microsoft, consulting firms, etc. I'm in grad school for CS now, and there are still more men in grad school, it will take time for the % of women to even out as my generation grows up, moves up, and the next one comes in.
That's cute and all. In my CS classes we're usually 20-30 guys and 0-1 girls. Anecdots to rule them all.
On January 27 2011 09:55 redpandas wrote: Even if girls have the skill/talent, it is still highly likely they don't have a supportive family/culture/resources in that many parents discourage girls from gaming and give them dolls and makeup to play with, movies/magazines/internet says women are supposed to do makeup/shopping for clothes and spend all their time on that, they will get 10,000 hours experience in makeup application and making friends, and resources wise they will not get random gameboys etc. as presents lying around the house thus not allowing them to get their 10,000 hours gaming experience, while boys will probably get some game system as a present as a young child and begin putting in that 10,000 hours probably before they are even in college. As a counterpoint I had a friend that had a gameboy, always wanted one as a kid but parents no game system; when I had a younger brother they couldn't fight us both and we were finally able to get a N64 and I was able to start gaming. Compared to my bf now, who never played video games growing up, he would have to play a lot of catch up to just basic mario kart/super smash bros/"move around and not fall off cliffs" skills.
Do you believe my parents encouraged me to play starcraft 2? Do you believe they encouraged most people here? No! Quite the opposite!
You just use cultural acceptance and imagined societal barriers as comforting explanations.
On January 26 2011 03:18 ParasitJonte wrote: As usual people are giving way too much credit to things that are probably not of greatest importance (cultural acceptance etc.).
The variance among males is simply higher. This is true regardless of where you look: math, cooking, sports, playing games. The very best and the very worst are always males.
If all cultural barriers were removed there would surely be a lot more female players in diamond and masters. But the tournaments would almost always end with a male winner. That's just how it is.
how can you show that cultural limitations are less important than biological ones? you claim at the end that the removal of these barriers would see more female players in a hypothetical situation, right after you say they aren't important? a little logical loophole there imo.
and even with all these studies showing some form of "advantage" in males in some performance task, we are still missing the developmental angle where perhaps the development of such skills are hindered by activities that aren't encouraged in females at younger ages. can you say for sure that a woman raised under no social/cultural limitations with a man will be biologically less capable of playing sc2 than her counterpart?
No. You have to read all of what I write first.
The question is: "Why is there a lack of female top players?"
Now, the word top is of course ambigous. But as you see in my text, I interpret it as people who win tournaments (still ambigous but I think you are smart enough to get it).
This is explained by the fact that the variance among males as a group is higher than that of females as a group. As a result, almost wherever you look you will find that a male knows most, has done most, is the best and so on.
Results on IQ tests are a good example. I haven't seen much evidence for their actually being a difference between mean scores, but the variance among males is higher. That's why nobel prizes go to men (that and the fact that women don't seem to be as interested in hard sciences as much as men are).
Note that while these sentiments may appear extreme, they really are not. They just, for the third time, express the same thing: variance among males as a group is higher than variance among females.
Your answer to the question is that men have higher variance in a measurement of success in some areas... Okay. I'm down with that if you've done the research. How does that distinguish between cultural or biological influences at all? You use iq tests or "most" other fields as an example, but you can't account for developmental impact on these measurements at all with a variance. So how can you exactly disregard cultural impact as irrelevant?
I haven't really done the research but...
the argument goes that their is a higher evolutionary selection pressure on males due to the fact that "successfull" women can rear say 0-20 children (tops) while men can easily have thousands of offspring.
I'm not 100% sure how everything fits together but it's the only plausible explanation I've heard. There's no reasonable cultural explanation to explain variance in e.g. IQ scores. That's why I don't believe it's the key issue.
On January 26 2011 06:12 Torpedo.Vegas wrote: Women are definitely competitive. Just their competitive outlet tends to be different based on society's gender roles. In fact, they can get down right vicious. I mean look at a high school girls, comparing all manner of accessory or clothing, grades, stuff like that. Social status is another good example. I'm sure someone more informed then I can give the complex reasons that lead them to use these and other things as their competitive outlets (its branching more now), but women are as competitive as men are.
Also, yeah, unless you have a degree in Biology or Genetics or something, don't run to that. Biology is a very tricky thing to pin down as a cause and more often then not, isn't even a factor so much as societal pressures and norms.
*Edit*
Another note on the biology thing, your interpretation of gender has been developed by your societal influences. There are many cultures in Asia, Africa and the like, where they are totally matriarchal and women call the shots. Being of female sex does not automatically denote weakness in our species or any other.
Another myth. No society with reversed gender roles or unambiguous matriarchy has ever been found.
Edit: last time I checked thoroughly was 2006 in a work I did. Who knows, might've changed. Odds are, it hasn't.
What about Native Americans? The Iroquois and Algonquins were both matriarchies at one point or another. Or do you mean currently? Because then you'd be right.
Some sources:
1.^ Steven Goldberg, The Inevitability of Patriarchy, (William Morrow & Company, 1973). 2.^ Joan Bamberger,'The Myth of Matriarchy: Why Men Rule in Primitive Society', in M Rosaldo and L Lamphere, Women, Culture, and Society, (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1974), pp. 263-280. 3.^ Donald E. Brown, Human Universals (Philadelphia: Temple University Press), 1991. 4.^ Cynthia Eller, The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Won't Give Women a Future, (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001). 5.^ Jonathan Marks, 'Essay 8: Primate Behavior', in The Un-Textbook of Biological Anthropology, (Unpublished, 2007), p. 11. 6.^ Encyclopaedia Britannica describes this view as "consensus", listing matriarchy as a hypothetical social system. 'Matriarchy' Encyclopædia Britannica, 2007."
There may well be societies where women have certain privileges but that's no different from how it is today in any western society. How often have you heard: "save the women and children first!". It's not a joke you know. And who gets custody of children in parental disputes?
But there's no matriarchy as there is and has been patriarchies.
I think it's pretty obvious there are less females at the eSports top because there are way less females actually playing games than there are men, let alone competetively. I also think it's safe to say that girl gaming isn't really the norm in most societies since it isn't considered a "girly" thing to do.
And arguing that females are genetically less fit to play games? -_-' I thought we were past those times.
On January 27 2011 17:08 Saechiis wrote: I think it's pretty obvious there are less females at the eSports top because there are way less females actually playing games than there are men, let alone competetively. I also think it's safe to say that girl gaming isn't really the norm in most societies since it isn't considered a "girly" thing to do.
And arguing that females are genetically less fit to play games? -_-' I thought we were past those times.
Ding ding ding ding. Pretty much this seems like explanation number 1.
On November 20 2010 04:21 Peanutsc wrote: Here are my thoughts, as a gamer, female, member of the StarCraft community, gaming industry professional, and as someone who has studied cognitive neuroscience and evolution of human behavior in college:
Observation: Generally speaking, I think men and women have different goals when they play games - they are satisfied by different outcomes, respectively. Men are focused on winning, while women are focused on increasing general happiness and enriching social bonds. Both tendencies obviously have great value in the maintenance of modern human civilization.
Causes: Biology and environment/society interact to make men feel more personally validated by some objective or subjective measure of dominance ("I scored x points" or "I'm better than you in x") than by social approval. If a typical guy had a choice between winning a basketball match against his sibling/friend/co-worker and losing on purpose so that the other party wouldn't lose face and/or get his/her feelings hurt, I think most Western men would take the former.
On the other hand, biology and environment/society interact to make women feel more personally validated by behaving in ways that support social stability and overall well being than by achieving dominance. Given the same hypothetical situation, your average woman would probably opt for losing on purpose or would say "it would depend on who I was playing against." Women are generally taught (and are generally biologically predisposed) to consider their role in the context of a group (couple, family, clique, etc.) and as dependent on or interdependent with the social whims of others. Women are - by and large - not islands. Women judge themselves by how they are perceived by others - it's a relational standard for self-approval or disapproval.
Hahaha how bias. Seriously, modern way of thinking is like dressing false and easy judgement with smooth, clean and very polished language and "logic". The use of "biology" is somehow very clear that it is an ideology / a judgement of value that is behind your reasonning. Like having mamal and vagina is pushing you to be "kind" to others and less attracted by competition. It's my penis that make me wanting to win a SC2 game. Plus, just read some history, like for exemple the history of the anarchist movement in early twentith century in France, Spane or Russia and explain us how is it possible that so many guys actually suicide themselves, give their life away at 20 for some kind of friendship / community. They must have mamal.
You are confonding what the society teach us to be feminine or masculine (being frail for exemple is more feminine, despite the fact that there is a lot of frail male) and what is actually masculine and feminine in terms of biology (different physiologies, maybe a different biological link with their children, even if I think it's not true).
This is an interesting thread. Haha. Yes there is a clear gender bias in technology/gaming. But like everyone said it's due to past context. From my experience there isn't much of a social stigma associated with playing Starcraft. I played in the recent UCSD gamefest and saw 7ish females out of the ~128-person bracket. Pretty good turnout, right? The guys I played said "gg," shook hands, showed respect, and treated me like any other competitor. Some females were doing really well, and people weren't all like, "omg I got beat by a girl.... gender-biased-sexist-rant-blah." Instead they reacted with, "FFUUU I hate marauders." Or "$@#!% she nydus wormed me."
Playing Starcraft does not make anyone less kind/caring/friendly/feminine. Just saying. Maybe female priorities are different though because although I used to secretly want to be a pro WC3-er back in high school, I would never ever abandon my current career path to do that.
On January 27 2011 09:55 redpandas wrote: For the record, I'm a girl that graduated from a top engineering college, and half my graduating class was women, and we are all capable and smart and working top professional engineering jobs now. My women friends work at Google, Microsoft, consulting firms, etc. I'm in grad school for CS now, and there are still more men in grad school, it will take time for the % of women to even out as my generation grows up, moves up, and the next one comes in.
That's cute and all. In my CS classes we're usually 20-30 guys and 0-1 girls. Anecdots to rule them all.
All right, I was giving an example that if given encouragement and support growing up there's no reason girls are not capable of being high achievers. But it has only been the last 40 years or so where SOME and now more and more girls are given those same conditions growing up. Most grad and even undergrad colleges didn't even allow women to apply until the 60s. Princeton for example had its first women undergrads start in 1969, that is only 40 years ago!
How can you say that is an "imaginary" social barrier, women were not ALLOWED to get college educations until 40 years ago??? And you think that is not accompanied by social expectations, you think people change that quickly and completely discard their gender biases from 40 years ago? You say I'm quick to look for social reasons, why are you so quick to dismiss them, when there were clearly laws holding women back, and it has been only a generation since women were completely expected to stay home and only raise children?
On January 27 2011 09:55 redpandas wrote: Even if girls have the skill/talent, it is still highly likely they don't have a supportive family/culture/resources in that many parents discourage girls from gaming and give them dolls and makeup to play with, movies/magazines/internet says women are supposed to do makeup/shopping for clothes and spend all their time on that, they will get 10,000 hours experience in makeup application and making friends, and resources wise they will not get random gameboys etc. as presents lying around the house thus not allowing them to get their 10,000 hours gaming experience, while boys will probably get some game system as a present as a young child and begin putting in that 10,000 hours probably before they are even in college. As a counterpoint I had a friend that had a gameboy, always wanted one as a kid but parents no game system; when I had a younger brother they couldn't fight us both and we were finally able to get a N64 and I was able to start gaming. Compared to my bf now, who never played video games growing up, he would have to play a lot of catch up to just basic mario kart/super smash bros/"move around and not fall off cliffs" skills.
Do you believe my parents encouraged me to play starcraft 2? Do you believe they encouraged most people here? No! Quite the opposite!
You just use cultural acceptance and imagined societal barriers as comforting explanations.
Right, and whenever you go on the internet for any of your interests, you have tons of people saying you shouldn't play games/go into x field because you're a guy right, and aren't physically/neurologically capable?
Just because they aren't legal barriers now, doesn't mean the same sentiments (that caused the legal barriers in the first place) don't largely hinder people's tendencies. Look at people's hobbies, they don't randomly choose hobbies that they don't have friends already doing, or see lots of people like them doing. People are very normative- there are lots of things they don't make conscious decisions about, they just do what is expected and what they see everyone else doing. If you grow up in a small town, and everyone you know works blue collar jobs, it is highly unlikely you out of the blue decide to be a wall street analyst or work in the tech sector. And yes, there is additional negative pressure where some hobbies get you made fun of growing up, and why do you think it would be the same level of pressure for boys and girls for a given hobby? Do you think boys wouldn't be negatively pressured not to play with easy-bake oven/barbies, and comparatively for girls and video games that are traditionally seen as boys' games?
Also, I think that the current generation is getting better at accepting women going into academics and playing video games. But to completely ignore why they didn't start out at the same level is ignorant. I don't know why you want to ignore all the many ways women have been discouraged (legally and culturally) and say oh, they were not legally guaranteed any sports teams in high schools until 1972 (Title IX), and women playing sports and competing was considered unladlylike (guys- would you do something society judged you for as less of a man?), but they don't play video games because they have 20ns worse neurological reaction times and don't like to compete!! Just give us time...
I'm risking a Necro here, but this really needs to be restated. Everything I said was ignored in further posts. It usually means you've made a good point. Discuss.
On November 25 2010 18:58 Sueco wrote: Its surprising how many people here are going for the biological determinism cop-out. Eg "genes tell men to play more games than women" "men are genetically better at playing games"
False. Beyond a certain physical limit for raw muscle mass, physical differences at birth are minimal for both sexes. A newborn's brain structure looks the same on both sexes, unfinished. Male and female brain patterns only differentiate and appear after external input. Genes code for things like muscle mass and metabolism. What makes us who we are, our brain, is not a preset stored anywhere in our genes. The brain forms itself from a series of simple and repetitive cell instructions.
Complex neurological structures, concepts such as "competitiveness" are not coded in DNA, they emerge as the brain adapts to external input post-birth. There are documented societies where men sit at home combing their hair because "they are too fragile" while women do most physical work.
Why most societies went the other way is complicated to explain, but it probably has to do with making efficient use of men's more abundant muscular resources. Modern machinery has of course made that argument irrelevant, but cultural steroptypes are remarkably long-lived.
If anyone, we here at TL know how damaging negative sterotypes are, so I was really surprised to see that so many people actually believe in those 18th century misinterpretations of darwinism.
On February 15 2011 04:58 Sueco wrote: I'm risking a Necro here, but this really needs to be restated. Everything I said was ignored in further posts. It usually means you've made a good point. Discuss.
On November 25 2010 18:58 Sueco wrote: Its surprising how many people here are going for the biological determinism cop-out. Eg "genes tell men to play more games than women" "men are genetically better at playing games"
False. Beyond a certain physical limit for raw muscle mass, physical differences at birth are minimal for both sexes. A newborn's brain structure looks the same on both sexes, unfinished. Male and female brain patterns only differentiate and appear after external input. Genes code for things like muscle mass and metabolism. What makes us who we are, our brain, is not a preset stored anywhere in our genes. The brain forms itself from a series of simple and repetitive cell instructions.
Complex neurological structures, concepts such as "competitiveness" are not coded in DNA, they emerge as the brain adapts to external input post-birth. There are documented societies where men sit at home combing their hair because "they are too fragile" while women do most physical work.
Why most societies went the other way is complicated to explain, but it probably has to do with making efficient use of men's more abundant muscular resources. Modern machinery has of course made that argument irrelevant, but cultural steroptypes are remarkably long-lived.
If anyone, we here at TL know how damaging negative sterotypes are, so I was really surprised to see that so many people actually believe in those 18th century misinterpretations of darwinism.
If you're trying to argue that men and women think the same way except for the psychological affects of society than your argument leaves much to be desired.
From a scientific standpoint, your statement that men and women only display different brain patterns after "external input" is pure bullshit. The only way we would know for sure if the brain patterns of men and women remained identical throughout their lives is to observe them in complete isolation from other human beings after reaching maturation. This is impossible, so it cannot be known whether or not men and women would display differences in brain function without society's influence.
Also, one function of DNA (which essentially governs all of the body's functions) that you conveniently omitted was the production of hormones and other chemicals that are unique to one's sex. These have a very clear and documented impact on the way people think. I'm no expert on the subject, but it seems very possible that the differences in hormones could lead to a more competitive nature in men, particularly when engaged in contests with other men. In nature, for example, it is common for males to fight over particular females with whom they would like to mate. Therefore, your statement that competitiveness is developed exclusively after birth and solely as a result of human society is questionable at best and plain wrong at worst.
I will not argue that society does have a large part to play in the way we are made/taught to behave, but I have a very hard time believing that it is responsible for all of it.
And for the record, you say that the brain "forms itself from series of simple and repetitive cell instructions." And where do you think those instructions come from? Oh that's right, from DNA, the stuff that tells EVERY cell in your body what it becomes and what it does.
On February 15 2011 04:58 Sueco wrote: I'm risking a Necro here, but this really needs to be restated. Everything I said was ignored in further posts. It usually means you've made a good point. Discuss.
On November 25 2010 18:58 Sueco wrote: Its surprising how many people here are going for the biological determinism cop-out. Eg "genes tell men to play more games than women" "men are genetically better at playing games"
False. Beyond a certain physical limit for raw muscle mass, physical differences at birth are minimal for both sexes. A newborn's brain structure looks the same on both sexes, unfinished. Male and female brain patterns only differentiate and appear after external input. Genes code for things like muscle mass and metabolism. What makes us who we are, our brain, is not a preset stored anywhere in our genes. The brain forms itself from a series of simple and repetitive cell instructions.
Complex neurological structures, concepts such as "competitiveness" are not coded in DNA, they emerge as the brain adapts to external input post-birth. There are documented societies where men sit at home combing their hair because "they are too fragile" while women do most physical work.
Why most societies went the other way is complicated to explain, but it probably has to do with making efficient use of men's more abundant muscular resources. Modern machinery has of course made that argument irrelevant, but cultural steroptypes are remarkably long-lived.
If anyone, we here at TL know how damaging negative sterotypes are, so I was really surprised to see that so many people actually believe in those 18th century misinterpretations of darwinism.
If you're trying to argue that men and women think the same way except for the psychological affects of society than your argument leaves much to be desired.
From a scientific standpoint, your statement that men and women only display different brain patterns after "external input" is pure bullshit. The only way we would know for sure if the brain patterns of men and women remained identical throughout their lives is to observe them in complete isolation from other human beings after reaching maturation. This is impossible, so it cannot be known whether or not men and women would display differences in brain function without society's influence.
so based on this, how can you conclusively say that external factors have no influence on anything? you've essentially only pointed out that it's impossible to conduct the ideal experiment to test this out.
On February 17 2011 17:52 barkles wrote:Also, one function of DNA (which essentially governs all of the body's functions) that you conveniently omitted was the production of hormones and other chemicals that are unique to one's sex. These have a very clear and documented impact on the way people think.
we all have genes coding for the same hormones. DNA only facilitates differentiation of sexual organs in gestation, it has little to no role in determining level of hormonal production past that point.
On February 17 2011 17:52 barkles wrote:I'm no expert on the subject, but it seems very possible that the differences in hormones could lead to a more competitive nature in men, particularly when engaged in contests with other men. In nature, for example, it is common for males to fight over particular females with whom they would like to mate. Therefore, your statement that competitiveness is developed exclusively after birth and solely as a result of human society is questionable at best and plain wrong at worst.
testosterone hasn't been linked with competition. "competitiveness" is a complex behavior that isn't so easily modelled or explained, so not sure where you got that idea. association by a few observations as to male sexual "competition" (which is just a coined term btw, not necessarily directly related to "competitiveness" in this sense) doesn't justify causation by testosterone. hence, your last conclusion in this quote is wrong - or at least completely unjustified with current data.
On February 17 2011 17:52 barkles wrote: I will not argue that society does have a large part to play in the way we are made/taught to behave, but I have a very hard time believing that it is responsible for all of it.
And for the record, you say that the brain "forms itself from series of simple and repetitive cell instructions." And where do you think those instructions come from? Oh that's right, from DNA, the stuff that tells EVERY cell in your body what it becomes and what it does.
DNA isn't the end all. that line of thought ended maybe 20 years ago. fact of the matter is DNA gives you the blueprint for all the structures you need to build a "city" (ie. your body), but the actual building depends heavily on other factors (ie. maternal condition in gestation, plastic learning in youth). you won't find anyone today in developmental science that will contend that.
so based on this, how can you conclusively say that external factors have no influence on anything? you've essentially only pointed out that it's impossible to conduct the ideal experiment to test this out.
That's all that i was trying to say. I was just pointing out that his statement doesn't make any sense.
we all have genes coding for the same hormones. DNA only facilitates differentiation of sexual organs in gestation, it has little to no role in determining level of hormonal production past that point.
Uhhh...what? So women produce more estrogen than men because of...external factors? Don't be ridiculous. DNA -> sex -> hormone production. DNA governs the level of hormone production, not in a direct way. but in the formation of organs that do directly create hormones.
testosterone hasn't been linked with competition. "competitiveness" is a complex behavior that isn't so easily modelled or explained, so not sure where you got that idea. association by a few observations as to male sexual "competition" (which is just a coined term btw, not necessarily directly related to "competitiveness" in this sense) doesn't justify causation by testosterone. hence, your last conclusion in this quote is wrong - or at least completely unjustified with current data.
First of all, I believe the correct spelling is "modeled." Just so you know. And you are condemning my lack of data (even though I identify myself as not being an expert), and then you make very bold claims with no data to back it up. Point me to a journal article that reinforces your claims and then we can talk.
And there have been many links between testosterone levels and social standing or levels of aggression. A simple search in JSTOR or another article database will show you these findings, which are far too numerous to list here. These may not be exactly what people think of as "competitiveness," but I think that most would agree that they are related.
DNA isn't the end all. that line of thought ended maybe 20 years ago. fact of the matter is DNA gives you the blueprint for all the structures you need to build a "city" (ie. your body), but the actual building depends heavily on other factors (ie. maternal condition in gestation, plastic learning in youth). you won't find anyone today in developmental science that will contend that.
I won't argue with you here, because I don't keep up to date on current biology research. However, all I said is that the instructions for cell reproduction for every cell is coded within one's DNA, and I believe that statement is still correct. All I was trying to do was correct the original author's complete disassociation between DNA and brain formation.