The first time my son and I went to find a Magic The Gathering tournament locally after learning to play, I felt as though I was taking him to scouts or something similar and then inexplicably staying for the duration. I loved the game, I love games generally, but there was nobody else of my age or sex there, so I felt somewhat out of place. The shop owners were lovely and welcoming, as were the young men that played in their events, but I was definitely an oddity.
Games shops and gaming in general is well known to be a male dominated hobby. There is nothing wrong with that, but we wanted to make sure the environment in our shop was also welcoming to the women who are drawn to gaming. We also wanted to do so whilst remaining respectful to the existing culture. It's easy to be heavy handed and impose an idea of how things should be, but there are benefits to a male orientated environment, and we didn't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater so to speak.
I can remember the first time this realisation dawned on me. We had become regular attendees of the lovely group that met once a week in a pub in Eastbourne at the time. One evening I was very emotionally turbulent and had been very upset over something. I can find my emotions very overwhelming sometimes, and emotional regulation can be a challenge, as it can for many neurodiverse people. My female friends and I would generally deal with such emotional turbulence by deeply discussing the issues involved, and I've always thought this approach was more helpful and psychologically healthy than what I, at the time, considered to be the only alternative - repression.
What I discovered that evening, was an amazing sense of relief & distraction through a nice environment and an in depth involvement in the game, and some good company and laughs. It wasn't repression, but rather, a mechanism that allowed my mind to be drawn away from it’s obsessive, circular ruminations. Nowadays, I don't think it has to be either/or. Different approaches have their uses, and whilst I’m aware I’m speaking in generalisations, and there are many people who don’t conform to these stereotypical depictions, there are many studies highlighting the differences in the use of language between men and women. Sometimes we can tie ourselves in knots worrying about generalising so much that we are afraid to say anything at all.
Some of the research in this area explores the mental health crisis that men are undergoing, evidenced by the enormous and rising suicide rates. Whilst I don't want to veer off track too much, and the ethos that ‘it’s good to talk’ obviously has it’s place when people are inclined to bottle things up, but let’s not undervalue the use of focussed interests, hobbies and social interactions. Perhaps, as with most things, balance is key.
So, we took our shop over from a lovely man who started the shop for the first year or so, but had itchy feet and wanted to go wandering and have some adventures, which he has subsequently done. He is so lovely, and engendered a lovely ethos and atmosphere into the shop, which I think he felt we were very aligned with. Letting somebody else take over was akin to handing your child over to somebody. I think he wanted to feel it would be nurtured and cared for in the same way he would have done.
If he had one blind spot, I would say it was the number of suggestive images of the female anatomy that adorned the place. To be fair, gaming has traditionally leant very heavily into this area, and you don’t have to go far to find them. There are also probably some women who like this imagery, and some who are indifferent, but I found it off putting and felt it sent some sort of message that this was a male space, designed for men, and that women were decorative rather than active participants in the same way.
One of my first tasks therefore was to remove these from the shop. Seeing your demograph represented when you go into a gaming space is not to be underestimated. On anecdotal evidence, we have more female players than the average games shop. Women who come in, see other women playing games and being an integral part of the community. We try to keep the language in the shop family friendly, which reduces the chances of women being put off by over sexualised language being used around them.
I suppose what I want to say ultimately is that we have tried to make an environment that is less likely to alienate women immediately they walk in, but that we also recognise and value what men bring to the table, and appreciate the movement they’ve made in making some room at the table for us too!
