Following a recent post on this blog regarding a Slate article about Wingspan, I received a message about a problematic element of the article I hadn’t explored in my post: gender stereotypes.
I replied to the person who sent the message, Natascha, to applaud her insights and offer her this platform to speak more in detail about the issue. I’m honored that she took extensive time and effort to write the following guest post.
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Guest post by Natascha Bezdenejnih-Snyder
A few weeks ago, I found myself in an uncomfortable situation while reading an online discussion thread. At first, I stayed on the sidelines, absorbing points made by passionate members from the two most prominent sides of the conversation – among them, several individuals sharing opinions aligned with my own thoughts. I don’t enjoy debating online, but as I continued reading the exchanges, and noticed a gradual heatedness in the tones of responders, I felt that by not participating – by not adding my voice, as a woman – I would be doing more harm than good, quietly watching a discussion become a debate, and then an argument, with my “side” embodied by like-minded strangers representing me, while I was fully capable of sticking up for myself.
The discussion in question: Perpetuation of gender assumptions within the board gaming community, through an examination of the rising popularity of Wingspan.
I must admit, I have conflicting feelings when I see Wingspan mentioned in the mainstream media. On the one hand, I am excited whenever I see one of my favorite games broadly recognized outside of typical online board game forums. Inwardly, I cheer when Wingspan is the focus of a newspaper or magazine article, be it digital or physical, not only as a fan of the game itself, but as someone inspired by the story of Elizabeth Hargrave, the game’s designer – one in which someone, in this particular case a woman, took a chance in trying something outside their chosen career path, resulting in a successful outcome adored by many.On the other hand, the recognition of Wingspan by mainstream media often includes assumptions and invites discussions about gender roles and preferences within the board game community. They are discussions that can easily turn biased despite the participants’ best intentions. Such was the discussion I found myself getting involved in just a few weeks ago.
Wingspan and Gender Assumptions
The following list contains several gender assumptions I have noticed individuals use when trying to explain Wingspan’s popularity. My counterarguments are my own opinions, and I am not claiming to represent the thoughts of all women, or anyone but myself, in fact, which is the point. Every person is unique in their preferences, and I see no benefit in individuals – be they journalists or members of an online discussion forum – making generalized statements about what any gender likes or .
- Women like pretty games.
Some people may consider aesthetics a key criterion in selecting which board games to play. That being said, individuals have different opinions in what they may find attractive in a game based on personal preferences. I have observed men on board game discussion threads state that they find Wingspan to be a pretty game. This is probably the appropriate time to admit that I, too, find Wingspan to be a pretty game.
Aesthetics, however, holds little to no bearing on my decision as to whether a game is fit to play. The key criteria most important to me in selecting a game are the following: How does the gameplay scale at 2 players (as my husband and I are frequently one another’s only opponents)?; does the game have a solo variant?; what are the primary mechanics of the game?; is the gameplay strategic or tactical?; if I am purchasing the game, does it have high replayability?; etc. If a game does not meet my defined criteria of what I consider to be quality gameplay, pretty artwork will not sway me toward playing – let alone purchasing – that game.
- Women like birds; or, stated more broadly, “Wingspan has a female-friendly theme.”
I think birds are fine. In fact, I even find them to be pretty and/or cute at times (see above regarding aesthetics). And it is refreshing to see one board game themed on birds versus another myriad based around dungeons, dragons, castles, and trains. (That is not to say I have not enjoyed similarly-themed games, but rather that Wingspan flies in the face of the many key tropes of board game theming. No pun intended.)
Similarly, if someone approached me with several different themes to choose from, depending on my mood at that point in time (and underlying gameplay mechanics, etc.), I might prefer to, say, don an exosuit and search for Neutronium to power a time machine (Anachrony). Or, I might prefer to search and destroy Xenomorphs, and maybe one of these days(?), survive and escape from my spaceship (Legendary Encounters: Alien). Or, I might prefer to travel Europa in an alternative 1920s, experiencing encounters with the local citizens, and deciding whether to be a positive, neutral, or sinister leader (Scythe).
My husband, who is my main gaming partner, might have suggestions of his own, as far as what to play, depending on what his interests are at that moment, completely independent of gender stereotypes. He has been known to want to make and sell wine in a Tuscan vineyard (Viticulture); and, play matchmaker between the lovely Elizabeth Fairchild (or the dashing Charles Fairchild) and a member of a mid-19th century English family (Obsession); and, even tailor gowns and frocks so dancers can dress themselves for a Grand French Ball (Rococo).
The idea of “female-friendly” themes holds no appeal to me, just as “male-friendly” themes hold no appeal to my husband. Likewise, “prettiness,” while making a game easier on the eyes, holds lesser sway to us than mechanics, scalability, weight, and, most importantly, who we are playing against, even if it is merely ourselves. Granted, board games with themes that we consider appealing do tend to capture our attention a bit more than those we find unappealing, and should said themes align well with quality gameplay, that designer earns extra points in our book. We both enjoy Wingspan for what it is: a game that allows us each to collect birds within specific habitats.
- Women like Wingspan due to low levels of conflict.
Wingspan is a eurogame (BoardGameGeek (BGG) definition used, link here). There are many individuals who prefer to play eurogames, regardless of gender. I enjoy Uwe Rosenberg games. Likewise, there are those who enjoy high levels of conflict in their games, either in general or depending on their mood. For example, I also enjoy playing Twilight Struggle, which is a thematic game about the Cold War.
I’ll pause here and reiterate my core point: It’s quite possible that if you polled 2,000 women gamers, a majority of them may say that they enjoy conflict in games. I’ll get to such a poll in a second. Such data is worth sharing, as publishers seeking to reach a wide spectrum of gamers can use it to offer themes, mechanisms, and elements they may not otherwise have considered. However, the issue is that each of those data points is a person with unique preferences. We lack compassion and empathy when we say things like, “Women don’t like conflict in games,” just as is the case if someone makes assumptions about you based on your ethnicity or age.
- Men are motivated by strategic and competitive games. Women are motivated by accessibility and community in games.
Of all the gender assumptions tossed about in the aforementioned online discussion thread, this was the one which finally motivated me to speak up and share my thoughts. I felt hurt and frustrated reading the back-and-forth of well-intentioned individuals (predominantly men), believing they were sharing general, indisputable facts concerning women’s motivations for board gaming. Those “facts” did not align with my own motivations, and I didn’t want generalizations being made, on my behalf or anyone else’s, as to what types of board games I, and others, am expected to like and why. I particularly didn’t like the general implication that, as a woman, I’m not expected to be motivated to play strategic and competitive games.
Within the discussion thread, someone referenced a survey by Nick Yee (link here), analyzing the primary motivations of board gamers. While an interesting piece, I encourage those interested in reading his findings to exercise caution, review the survey methodology, and maybe try filling out the survey themselves. Then, they should review their results first before making, or sharing, broad, generalized statements about gender motivations.
Among the >90,000 board gamers who took the referenced survey (blog post dated April 2017), 72.7% identified as male, 26.0% identified as female, and 1.1% identified as other. So that’s around 23,000 women. About 21% of the individuals surveyed provided their BGG profile name, though a further breakdown of gender was not specified. Below, I have consolidated Yee’s key findings, regarding primary motivations of board gamers, into a bar graph and summarized chart for ease-of-reading.
Adapted from: Yee, Nick. “The Primary Motivations of Board Gamers: 7 Takeaways,” April 27, 2017.
| Top 3 Primary Motivations of Board Gamers | ||||
| Men | Women | Non-Binary Gender | BGG Gamers | |
| 1 | Need to Win (12.8%) | Accessibility (17.7%) | Accessibility (16.0%) | Discovery (22.1%) |
| 2 | Discovery (11.4%) | Social Fun (16.1%) | Immersion (14.7%) | Strategy (9.9%) |
| 3 | Accessibility (10.3%) | Chance (12.2%) | Social Fun (10.6%) | Aesthetics (9.1%) |
Adapted from: Yee, Nick. “The Primary Motivations of Board Gamers: 7 Takeaways,” April 27, 2017.
Intriguingly, the primary motivations of BGG Gamers, a sampling not based on sexual identity, skewed notably from all gender-specific categorizations. As the exact breakdown of this group is unspecified, the statistical differentiation between a gender-specific versus a gender-unspecific sampling of gamers’ primary motivations demonstrates the inherent dangers of community generalizations based on sexual identification. Broad, oversimplified statements pertaining to group preferences, however well-intentioned they may be, are just that: oversimplified.
After reviewing Yee’s analysis, I was curious what my own motivation profile would look like. So, I decided to fill out the survey for myself. I found that the questions provided were well-written and unbiased, assuming my neutral interest in pirates was only supposed to be a random datapoint and not correlated to one of Yee’s eleven primary motivations. For transparency, my resulting motivation profile is shared below.
It’s plain to see my motivation profile did not match that of the female-specific profile. So, when I found myself in an online discussion thread in which persons were speaking on behalf of women, stating how we – as an entire gender – are generally motivated by accessibility and community in games, I found myself being pigeonholed into categories that don’t represent me at all.
Moving Beyond Gender Assumptions
I’m happy whenever I see someone post a new discussion thread online along the lines of: Thank you Wingspan! So-and-So is finally playing a board game with me! It makes me even happier when I see people responding with encouragements (ignoring any gender implications about the original post), asking probing questions in an attempt to understand what it is about Wingspan that an individual liked or didn’t like, and then suggesting additional games for the individual to try.
Because that is what is wonderful about Wingspan; Wingspan has the ability to introduce non-gamers to the board game hobby due to its accessibility. It is a quintessential “gateway” game (or “gateway-plus”). My hope is that Wingspan encourages non-gamers, regardless of gender, to explore additional gaming mechanisms, themes, and weights. Introducing gender assumptions – or any assumption, be it racial, sexually oriented, religious, etc. – to try to explain why people may like a particular game can unintentionally lead to exclusive behaviors. Let’s celebrate the idea of having new gaming partners entering our hobby and continue to promote an inclusive and diverse community, instead of trying to categorize others. I hope that sharing my thoughts and feelings will help promote a welcome community for new board gamers.
What are your thoughts? Have you encountered any assumptions? Do you have any possible solutions to share?
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Thank you so much, Natascha, for writing this! This is brilliant, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to share this on our blog.
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24 Comments on “Moving Beyond Gender Assumptions in the Board Game Hobby”
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Thanks Natascha for writing and thanks for Jamey for posting. I think nuance is always helpful and in forums, people posting may only be starting their own exploration of answering such a nuanced question. I tend to start with the general and then work down to the nuance when thinking of highly complex subjects such as this. So you most likely will get peoples’s first draft and least reasoned out answers on forums. Even this response will not be my last thought on this and it will be most likely my worst attempt at answering your question.
If Jamey wanted to encourage a demographic to try the hobby by publishing a board game that appealed to it and hired a designer within that demographic to design it, and the designer used generalizations to reach that demographic, I would see nothing wrong with that. The over-simplified generalizations would help bring more into the hobby. At the same time it would have to be done exceptionally well and even then there would be claims that it was unfortunate that stereotypes were used. The industry wants more diverse designers to appeal to a more diverse crowd and create new experiences based on that diversity. In this case Wingspan was designed by an under-represented demographic in the industry that may have appealed more to that demographic. If so, and for the record I have no idea if that is true, it would be a success and the industry would and should applaud the success and highlight it, if it wants to encourage more diversity, especially in other demographics. That will automatically mean putting a demographic in a bucket that isn’t accurate because it is an over simplification, but it would still have a use. So not sure if there is a solution other than on an individual community level. As long as communities don’t exclude certain demographics from games they aren’t “supposed” to play then it should be good.
Thanks Natascha for the very elaborated post (and Jamey for hosting it here). I have learned a bit by reading this. I know it is not your job, but I hope you do not mind if I have a follow up question.
I am a statistician by profession, and as such I am surrounded by other gamers who also know a lot of math. If one of us were to say “Women don’t like conflict in games”, we wouold interpret it as: if we poll people on whether they like conflict games and compare the distribution of “Yes” vs “No” over different genders, women will have a statistically significant amount of “No”s. This statistical difference is because (insert lots of math arguments in here).
We would resort to the simple “X type of people prefer Y” simply because it is short. Knowing that we have this interpretation, would you find the sentence above offensive? If so, how would you suggest we phrase it?
Side note: even if we accept the statement above, it is a complete logical phalacy to go on and say “Natascha is are a woman, therefore she does like conflict in games”. This is true even if 100% of the sampled women had said that they do not like conflict in games that would be a heresy that would have me immediately fired from my job!
Interesting point. When I take a psychometric test via work though they are very careful about talking about “preferences” (i.e. “this is indicative of your preference but not the whole story, etc.) – interesting that we (the general public) don’t seem to take this approach when discussing gender or other similar demographics.
I know our circle is a bit odd because we are all well educated in a very specific topic…but at some point we need to “cut to the chase” and remove all sentences like “assuming the study is rigorous and unbiased”, “these are results from a sample not the whole distribution”, “indicative of your preference but not the whole story”, etc simply for speed.
In any case, I emphasize I was considering a hypothetical. I doubt we would do blanket statement about gender and games: I was just quoting something that Natascha read somewhere and it seemed that our interpretations were very different.
Thanks for your questions and comments, MK. In my response, I’ll be referencing Nick Yee’s survey a few times. While it did not come across in my original post (I was concerned about the length), he did several things correctly and I hope referencing them here may provide some insight to your questions.
1. “…if we poll people…and compare the distribution of ‘Yes’ vs ‘No’…”: What I liked about Yee’s survey was that when he asked about individuals’ preferences on topics, he used a 5-point Likert scale (similar to what one may see in a psychometric test, as thesmileyone referenced) instead of the dichotomous ‘Yes’ vs ‘No.’ I’m not trying to imply anything by your comment (as you may or may not use Likert scales in your profession), I’m just raising it as I saw an opportunity to say something positive about Yee’s use of a rating scale in his survey.
2. “We would resort to the simple ‘X type of people prefer Y’ simply because it is short. Knowing that we have this interpretation, would you find the sentence above offensive?”: It is difficult for me to give a definitive response to this question. Depending on the topic, I might not find it offensive; however, someone else might find it offensive.
In my post, an article referenced Yee’s survey and provided a blanket statement of the primary motivations of men vs women. That statement from the article was then presented as fact in a discussion forum that I was in, and then I had to witness a number of men exchange variations of those viewpoints while multiple women tried to speak up. In this case, I felt offended and felt excluded. It is very possible that a different woman, whose preferences may have aligned with the general statement, may not have felt offended. What is key, though, is that someone felt excluded in what should have been an inclusive environment.
When it comes to data interpretation of physical vs social sciences, I think more words might be needed for the social/behavioral sciences interpretation than the physical sciences. For a physical sciences example, if you observe that 1 out of every 16 pea plants (n = 1600 plants) have wrinkled, green seeds, then I don’t see the harm in providing the detailed experimental and stating “pea plants have a 1 in 16 chance of having wrinkled, green seeds.”
However, for a social / behavioral observation, I think we need to be careful about providing short sentences in case it can unintentionally lead to exclusive behaviors (e.g. an individual reading the interpretation may not be informed enough to properly put the interpretation in context). This leads into my last comment.
3. “I know our circle is a bit odd because we are all well educated in a very specific topic…but at some point we need to ‘cut to the chase’…”: “Cutting to the chase” assumes that the individuals you are presenting the data to have the same assumptions that you do. E.g. if you’re presenting your data in a peer-reviewed research article to individuals in your field of specialty and providing the background properly, you still try to get your readers on the same page by stating your assumptions. However, when the reader is not well-educated in the topic, not reading the article, and is only looking for buzz words, “cutting to the chase” may not be the appropriate way to present an interpretation for social / behavioral sciences.
Going back to Yee, while it might sound wordy, I think that he properly presented some of the information: “While these two motivations together would imply…” and “…these two motivations suggest…” These statements are not presented as being factual and does point to some level uncertainty in the interpretation. This is a similar approach to what thesmileyone raised about “this is indicative…but not the whole story…”
I hope this response helps provide some additional insight. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Thank you so much for this! As a fellow woman who enjoys heavy strategy games more than lighter chance or social games, it can be really frustrating and frankly ostracizing to see these assumptions about women as a whole arise over and over again.
Thank you, Jamey, for providing me the opportunity to share my thoughts on this platform. And thank you, everyone, for your comments. It was not easy for me to share my feelings, but your kind words and your experiences were very helpful to read.
Thank you, Natascha! I think this article has already impacted thousands of people, and I’m so grateful that you wrote it.
Fascinating article…thank you for sharing. I’m intrigued by the items posited here as gender assumptions, as our game groups are 50% (or more in some cases) women and while we all enjoy an attractive presentation on the table, I simply bring good, solid titles to game night, like Wingspan which has made its way into the line-up a number of times over the past few years and it’s a hit regardless of gender. I’ll certainly be more attuned to these things should they appear, so I greatly appreciate you taking the time to craft such an excellent article on the subject.
Cheers,
Joe
Absolutely brilliant. Thank you for this insight.
First let me say I enjoyed this article. Unfortunately doesn’t any discussion of any products popularity in a gender, race, religion or region invite stereotypes?
As a gaming community we need to accept any reason for liking a board game as being a good reason.
Mark, for me the point is about not declaring something as a “truth” on behalf of others. If you said “men like games about fighting”. If stated that as “fact”, does it fairly reflect the truth of all men? Personally I wouldn’t recognise that statement as representing me, so I would feel like you either don’t recognise me as a gamer and/or as a man.
And often I see the issue of “white knights” who see themselves as coming to the valiant defence of fair young maidens (or something like that) who then declare another absolute truth of behalf of someone. Again for me the point from this post that rings true is that individuals are unique and different, and you need to be really careful about making assumptions of behalf of others.
Good article. While I do believe their are inherent differences between men and women, applying a gender stereotype to something like a board game is ridiculous. It’s the same application used with colors. What absolute rule defines blue for boys and pink for girls, its absurd.
I also think that generally speaking (and I do believe your poll points to this) men and women do have certain tendencies that we as a society attribute to gender. In terms of advertising, it can be helpful to be intentional about a certain group of people you are trying to market to. So while I agree we shouldn’t be classifying a game as “female-friendly”, I think it would be great for the gaming community to continue to and even increase the references to games as “conflict-friendly”, or “chance-friendly”.
Thank you for bringing this issue to light.
This is a really fantastic article. Thank you.
Very well put, Natascha!
I really appreciate your analysis of this issue. Sterotypes and assumptions can be very troubling. I get sick of all “what is a game my girlfriend would like” posts? As a 50 year old woman I struggle to get my husband to sit down and play games. I’m the gamer in this household. I do fall into some of these stereotypes though. I love birds and Wingspan was a purchase I was excited to make. I do love pretty games but as someone with a background in art my definition of “pretty” is not what this article was talking about. One of my favorite game illustrators is Weberson Santiago and I highly enjoy the game The Bloody Inn.
I’m fine with conflict in games but honestly I prefer the puzzle of getting my engine going. Lastly I also love games for the social aspect, I appreciate anytime I get to see my friends and play a game. Since I work at a public library I am thrilled to find a good gateway game to encourage gaming as a hobby to my patrons.
Even though I personally fit into the stereotype described in the article, I would hope instead of assuming I would buy the next pretty bird game that comes on the market, a store clerk would ask me what my favorite game is (Scythe) before making a recommendation.
Same here – I am the big gamer in my household, and while my male partner is generally willing to humour me in my hobby, I am definitely the one who likes the heavier, thinkier games. I’m also the one who played AD&D and various dungeon-crawling computer games back in the day and the one with a doctorate in a STEM field.
However, I do tend to prefer games with great art, cooperation or essentially solo competition over direct conflict, and puzzles and/or deduction (tile-laying, word games, mysteries, social deduction, etc). So I suppose that I fit the female gamer stereotype in that respect, and I’m really glad that we are seeing more diverse themes, styles, and art than I remember from my early days of board gaming.
But if there’s one thing that my biology background has taught me, it’s that norms/averages and “typical” responses only describe the midpoints of populations that can have quite broad ranges, and that we shouldn’t act as if every individual belonging to a given category is going to exhibit the same characteristics. Thank you for this article, Natascha!
Same here – between me and my husband, I’m the bigger gamer in my household :-)
Happy to see that you also have a background in STEM (my background is in chemistry). Between having to take Stats classes and doing lab work, I like being able to look at the raw data – or at least see a bit more analysis – for some of the very points that you bring up. E.g. What is the range? What is the standard deviation? If you developed a scatterplot between 2 variables, does it look like there may be a correlation and how strong is that relationship? Etc.
Thank you for sharing!
Thank you for articulating something I’ve struggled to put in more than one terse sentence when it comes up in conversation, which happens often to this female identifying board game store employee. I am excited to regurgitate snippets of this article to start healthier conversations.
Thanks Jamey, for sharing this platform with Natascha.
I am happy that you have found this helpful, Olivia. Thank you for sharing :-)
I’ve always found these kinds of gender assumptions amusing, considering that I’m an avid collector of pretty games, while my girlfriend enjoys (surprisingly heavy) games where strategy overweights luck. To me, assuming that women like pretty and simple games equates to assuming that women are stupid. And that’s not okay.
My wife and I play just about any game. From heavy to conflict oriented to solve the puzzle. While we definitely have moods for what we want to play and certainly have preferences. We would not fall into any of the generalities of that survey.
For instance, I was recently trying to decide if I was going to back a game on Kickstarter. It checked off a few of my boxes and I was really on the fence. I ultimately decided to pass because I found the art unattractive. If the mechanics had really jazzed me up I might have take a chance but I really do like pretty games.