Quote from: soldierjane on February 20, 2008, 09:27:41 AM
I think it's more an issue of upbringing. I'm sure just a very low percentage of mtfs played with barbie dolls or learned to color-combine clothes growing up and this doesn't mean the rest are less women than those who did; it is changing rapidly now, but gaming is very much thought of as a male thing (like the internet was thought of before it found widespread access) even though there's really no basis for it and there are a wide range of games appealing to people who think in all kinds of different ways.
Well, with guy clothes, the incentive to color-combine simply isnt there. Blue, brown, black and white...like that's hard to combine...they all go together or almost, the only combination I think is bad is blue and brown. White and white, black and black, white and black, blue and white, blue and black, brown and black all go together...
Color-combination is also dependant on how much one *wants* to color-combine, if you have absolutely no incentive to do so, it stands to reason that few will do it. If the fashion industry and your peers pressure and challenge you to outdo them everyday, then yeah, you'll develop a sense of creativity over it.
Some have a more 'natural talent' for it than others. And that's not necessarily women.
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Well, as for gaming. Women are considered non-violent by society, the men-as-perpetrator women-as-victim model pushed for by feminist concepts such as patriarchy and domestic violence institutions that they run has made it a societal-wide view. Women's violence is denied or minimized, while men's victim status (when they really are victim) is similarly denied, especially if at the hands of women.
A lot of recent studies concerning Domestic Violence suggest an equal or almost ratio of violence male-female and female-male, and a somewhat higher female-female than male-male (surprisingly enough). Women are the initiators of violence in slightly more than half the cases (like 53% or so).
The notion that women are poor defenseless dolls who only fight in self-defense is a popular, but false, notion of society.
Women can be just as violent, and just as interested in violence as men, including violent games and role-playing games. Where there might be a basis for the difference is that visual-stimuli tends to be a lesser factor for women than for men, especially considering arousal patterns. Videogames being mostly visual, maybe there is a link. Table-top games may be different though.
The reason women may be more violent stems partly from society's view that men should protect women and not hurt them. As such, some women take it literally and hurt men thinking they can get away with it. And they do, a lot of the time, if it's not bad enough (because men don't report it, and when they do, get laughed at for being wimps, I don't see women being called wimps though, not by the DV orgs anyway).
