Women on the Mindcrack server

[rills]

So, I was watching the podcast today, and again the question of female server members came up. (Timestamp) This is not the first time that the guys have discussed this issue, but, to my knowledge, it is the most they have ever said on the topic. Essentially, their response was along the lines of "Yes, we want girls, but there's a lot of pressure that would be on these girls and not many people are willing or qualified to step up to that plate." (But please go listen to the podcast linked above; the question is answered in about 3 minutes, so it's not that much to get through!)

What I was wondering is, given that many members of this community seem to be female, what is your opinion of adding a female to the lineup?



Personally, I'm hugely in favor. As a female, I have a different perspective on most gaming issues than a lot of the guys do - for instance, it would be great to see a female LPer address the difficulty of, say, adding a facecam to their twitch streams. There's obvious possible consequences for anyone who does this, but a female faces some unique challenges, such as being accused of using her gender to get ahead. I feel as if female members of the Mindcrack community could help dispel some of these awful stereotypes by, y'know, being visibly female and still respected in a community including prominent male gamers.

The guys on the server also sometimes rub me the wrong way (lol) as a female viewer, I must admit. Even in this podcast, there are some crude implications when this question is asked, and while I'm by no means trying to say that sex jokes are terrible and wrong, I would've liked to see the question more seriously addressed, I guess? Like, for two minutes, they could have taken the time to give us a straight answer about what is a serious topic, without badgering each other like the Angry Women Brigade was going to bite their head off for something as minor as awkward phrasing. As for other instances of unfortunate behavior, look no further than that excellent discussion of BDubs that was posted a couple of weeks ago...

The last thing that kind of got to me was the (somewhat loaded) talk of finding someone that fits with the community. The server is definitely a community, yes, but each member so far brings something unique to the table. They range in age from 15-40, live all around the world, have vastly different life experiences, and very different personalities. Hell, Guude even used to dislike GenerikB, apparently. The only common thread seems to be that they're gamers who also enjoy LPing, and through this mutual interest, they've become friends. So I guess I'm saying I hope that possible female members are being considered at that same bar, because I'd hate to see a potentially great member passed over because her LPing style was somewhat different than, I dunno, whatever is expected.

And my sympathy goes out to those nervous about potential backlash - it's got to be rough, realizing that you won't get the same subscriber jump that a new guy would get, and you'll have to deal with a huge new influx of rude comments, and everything else that would happen. It does make me wonder if Beef's idea of introducing a group of female LPers all at once might be a good idea: 2-3 new players would diffuse some of the attention (though that is arguably not so great) and kind of force the community to realize female gamers are here to stay. The worst possible thing would be for one woman to get added, be overwhelmed by trolls, quit due to harrassment, and then no females ever get added again to avoid another scandal.

Anyway yeah sorry for the long rambly, I've just gotten myself back into sorts after a two week busy period and I've got a lot of feelings about this issue that I can actually talk about now! But I'm genuinely interested to hear other opinions on this, especially since we have the luxury of an actual discussion in this little community.

Disclaimer: I am an inherently flawed human being and may have said something terribly wrong at some point above. If I have in any way offended you or said something awful, please please be kind in pointing this out because I assure you it was not intended.



Also another possible angle to take with this: how do you think female server members would change the Mindcrack shipping community? Would it become larger? More mainstream? Or something else?

Comments

[isi]

Still, I don't see Guude adding anyone if he thinks they're just in it for the popularity. But I think I see where you're coming from. It might be harder starting out if you're added with two or three other people, but I hope anyone in that situation wouldn't get discouraged. There would continue to be opportunities to expand after the initial reactions to having new people die down.