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Gender differences: martial interests

Started by Beorning, September 17, 2021, 10:42:25 AM

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Beorning

Please, pardon my rambling and chaotic attempt at making a post based on some loose observations...

Lately, I've been thinking on the difference between male and female attitudes toward violence, guns, combat, military and similar martial-related matters. Here are some random observations:

1. When me and my sister were watching GOT, I really enjoyed the combat scenes - while my sister was bored by them.

2. The wargaming crowd over here is predominently male.

3. Recently, even one liberal (and female) journalist here made a claim that only a minority of female high school students would be interested in any expanded course of military history...

So, my question is: is there really a gender-related difference in how men and women feel about such matters? Is it true that women have a significantly lower interest in playing games about war and combat... learning about military-related things... or just watching or reading well-executed combat scenes?

If so, why is that? Is it because of that whole testosterone thing? Or is it because of socialization? If the latter, how does that work, exactly - how does the society influence women into not being interested in combat (or men into *being* interested in it)?

Any thoughts?

RedRose

I think it's both.

I remember Starship troopers had a lot of female fans, but nothing compared to guys who are still into it.

Same for many movies. I have a fascination for some stuff but I hate "long battle scenes" or gory ones.
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Oniya

I used to leave the History channel (back when it actually showed history) on as a default.  I've probably watched thousands of hours of WWII documentaries.  As a high-schooler, my buddies and I got bamboo sticks and learned basic staff-fighting.  The SCA's lady knights are legendary.

Trust me, it ain't dependent on a Y-chromosome.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
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Blythe

#3
Quote from: Beorning on September 17, 2021, 10:42:25 AM
1. When me and my sister were watching GOT, I really enjoyed the combat scenes - while my sister was bored by them.

2. The wargaming crowd over here is predominently male.

3. Recently, even one liberal (and female) journalist here made a claim that only a minority of female high school students would be interested in any expanded course of military history...

1. My sister adores gory combat scenes. She and I don't talk much anymore, but this was a rare common interest for us.

2. Wargaming, at least in my area, has had an issue with being able to accommodate respectful spaces for women. I don't know about yours. I also know online spaces are almost never indicative of actual RL interest in the medium. I've found it's more discussion focused than actual practicing interest.

3. I've mostly found in the so-called 'male dominated' fields of study that it wasn't that women weren't interested, it was that they were often actively driven out of those fields. STEM fields are fairly good examples of that, where oftentimes toxic cultures drive out women who otherwise would have been incredibly interested in those fields.

Not making empirical factual statements with my post, to be clear. I just assumed since the OP contained anecdotal evidence that that sort of sharing/contribution was an acceptable contribution to the thread.

Oreo

#4
Doesn't track for me, though this is just me observing me, not data. My earliest favorite show I remember was
Combat
1962-67 Combat!, a one-hour World War II drama series on television, followed a frontline American infantry squad as they battled their way across Europe. With mud-splattered realism, the show offered character studies of men striving to maintain their own humanity in the midst of a world torn by war.

My favorite recurring movie was The Dirty Dozen. If there is a war movie out there I am all over it like oil on an engine. Doesn't matter if it is humanity or fantasy. It takes a LOT to get me to watch a 'chic flic', as they generally bore me.

Now that I think about it, even my O/Os are fighting specific.

She led me to safety in a forest of green, and showed my stale eyes some sights never seen.
She spins magic and moonlight in her meadows and streams, and seeks deep inside me,
and touches my dreams. - Harry Chapin

Oniya

Quote from: Oreo on September 17, 2021, 07:08:15 PM
My favorite recurring movie was The Dirty Dozen. If there is a war movie out there I am all over it like oil on an engine. Doesn't matter if it is humanity or fantasy. It takes a LOT to get me to watch a 'chic flic', as they generally bore me.

I'll trip over myself to watch Kelly's Heroes.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Oreo


She led me to safety in a forest of green, and showed my stale eyes some sights never seen.
She spins magic and moonlight in her meadows and streams, and seeks deep inside me,
and touches my dreams. - Harry Chapin

Azy

Quote from: Blythe on September 17, 2021, 06:57:04 PM
1. My sister adores gory combat scenes. She and I don't talk much anymore, but this was a rare common interest for us.

2. Wargaming, at least in my area, has had an issue with being able to accommodate respectful spaces for women. I don't know about yours. I also know online spaces are almost never indicative of actual RL interest in the medium. I've found it's more discussion focused than actual practicing interest.

3. I've mostly found in the so-called 'male dominated' fields of study that it wasn't that women weren't interested, it was that they were often actively driven out of those fields. STEM fields are fairly good examples of that, where oftentimes toxic cultures drive out women who otherwise would have been incredibly interested in those fields.

Not making empirical factual statements with my post, to be clear. I just assumed since the OP contained anecdotal evidence that that sort of sharing/contribution was an acceptable contribution to the thread.

I agree with this.  Interest depends on an individual.  This goes into the gender box idea that drives me nuts.  Don't just narrow it down to movies and games, look how many women have joined the military since they've been allowed.  That is actual warfare rather than a game.   

Tolvo

A lot of these also can relate to how welcoming a place is to women. Wargaming has a long history of trying to keep women out, the same happened and still happens with a lot of hobbies and fan groups, with certain ones being more welcoming and more often having women in them. Usually social reasons are behind these differences, not things that are inherent to genders. This works as well the other way, a lot of men aren't encouraged to do "feminine" things, when there are a lot of men that like sewing, baking, dressing up, dancing, etc. The disparity is often greater when there is a greater pressure to be one way, and everyone is going to be different and have different interests.

Chasing Dreams

Those observations aren't true for me.

My favorite movie is Top Gun. It has nothing to do with Tom Cruise, but because of the Fighter Jets. I'd much rather watch war movies and action movies over 'chic flicks.' I will also watch all three John Wicks whenever they are on TV. Two books I adore are The Things They Carried By Tim O'Brien and Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden. In high school, I was in the NJROTC program and I can tell you from my own observations that there were many females in the program as well. 


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Skynet

Speaking from personal experience, I've met many women who are into fight scenes, military history, and such in media, although they don't enjoy consuming it in and of itself. The Fire Emblem series is very heavy on the "strategy RPG" side of things. In most of the games you're basically directing your own army. But just about every soldier is a fully fleshed-out character with their own interactions with other soldiers, which lends some strong "visual novel" elements to the series as well. So in such cases they enjoy the battles and war-like elements, but often when it's part of a greater story.

As for gun ownership and gun-related sports such as hunting and target shooting, those are still male-majority sports, although there's still a decent chunk of women who participate in it for recreation.

Azy

Quote from: Chasing Dreams on September 18, 2021, 12:28:26 AM
Those observations aren't true for me.

My favorite movie is Top Gun. It has nothing to do with Tom Cruise, but because of the Fighter Jets. I'd much rather watch war movies and action movies over 'chic flicks.' I will also watch all three John Wicks whenever they are on TV. Two books I adore are The Things They Carried By Tim O'Brien and Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden. In high school, I was in the NJROTC program and I can tell you from my own observations that there were many females in the program as well.

I love that movie too.  The eye candy doesn't hurt I'll admit, but I liked the action as well. 

Beorning

Just to be clear: personally speaking, I have nothing against the idea that women could be interested in such things as much as men. I have a female friend who is in the military reserves and is fascinated by knife fighting..

It's just that when you read an article in a major liberal newspaper (one that has always been engaged in women's rights issues etc.) and you see a claim by a female author that basically says "Nah, most women don't care about all that military history stuff"... you really start wondering?

TheGlyphstone

The plural of anecdote is never data, as they say. Just because one person claims to speak for all women obviously doesn't make them an authority, as seen here.

Lexandria

That sounds like she may be protecting her own preferences into all women; sometimes it's hard for folks to recognize the difference between their own feelings/opinions and actual facts. It's so much a staple of their own reality that it's hard to imagine another perspective.

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Lexandria

**projecting

Not 'protecting'. Stupid phone.

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Beorning

Hm. That reminds me of one major Polish feminist who claimed that government money being spent on building football stadiums was a sign of patriarchal oppression of women. Because football was something only men were interested in... Somehow, she couldn't grasp the fact that there are women who are interested in watching football, too...

Oniya

Quote from: Beorning on September 18, 2021, 02:45:43 PM
Hm. That reminds me of one major Polish feminist who claimed that government money being spent on building football stadiums was a sign of patriarchal oppression of women. Because football was something only men were interested in... Somehow, she couldn't grasp the fact that there are women who are interested in watching football, too...

Dear gods, I hope she never meets my mother.  We could keep score upstairs when she was watching a game on the main floor.  (Maybe not completely accurate, but pretty darn close.)
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Beorning

Quote from: Oniya on September 18, 2021, 03:01:11 PM
Dear gods, I hope she never meets my mother.  We could keep score upstairs when she was watching a game on the main floor.  (Maybe not completely accurate, but pretty darn close.)

Yup. Meanwhile, the lady I'm talking about claimed (I don't know if she still does - maybe she changed her mind) that if women watched football, it was because they were only doing this to conform to their husbands interests... Not because they liked the sport in itself. After reading a few mini-rants on football by her, I came to realize that she was simply projected her personal dislike for the game into her politics...

She also is (or, again, used to be - not sure whether she sticks to that notion nowadays) that more women should get into politics, because women are just more reasonable and community-minded (instead of men who have huge egos, selfish obsessions with personal careers etc.). Overall, according to her, the world would be a better place if run by women. I... strongly doubt that. Having observed some female politicians in action over here, I'm pretty sure women in politics can be as dishonest, greedy and bigoted as their male counterparts...

I must say that encountering that lady's views - as well as talking to some feminists online who seemed to agree with her - I came to realize that there are some brands of feminism that really promote some bad ideas. And that actually smack of reverse-sexism...

Skynet

Quote from: Beorning on September 18, 2021, 02:45:43 PM
Hm. That reminds me of one major Polish feminist who claimed that government money being spent on building football stadiums was a sign of patriarchal oppression of women. Because football was something only men were interested in... Somehow, she couldn't grasp the fact that there are women who are interested in watching football, too...

I do have to bring up and ask about the Overton Window in this regard, in that Poland is very right-wing and conservative on many social issues that what may be liberal there is centrist elsewhere. Such a statement would be laughed at by most people in the USA and inevitably seized on by regressives for their "SJWs Gone Wild" articles. Here in the USA women account for a good amount of sports fans, with 51% identifying as such in comparison to 66% of men. There's a gap, but it's not a huge one. There is a lack of coverage of women playing in sports by news stations, although that's quite common in other aspects of life where women in general get overlooked.

Beorning

Hmmm. But wouldn't the Overton Window work the other way around? If I understand correctly, due to OW, issues that are seen as centrist and uncontroversial in Europe (like free public health service) as seen as leftist in the right-leaning US. So, if Poland is right-leaning in social matters and the statements above seem to be leftist here, then they would be more acceptable in a liberal country. But you say they'be considered even more extreme there...

... or am I having a brain fart now? :)

TheGlyphstone

The Overton Window is simply 'what is considered acceptable to debate/talk about'. So it can move in either direction, left or right.

clonkertink

Quote from: Beorning on September 19, 2021, 11:34:20 AM
Hmmm. But wouldn't the Overton Window work the other way around? If I understand correctly, due to OW, issues that are seen as centrist and uncontroversial in Europe (like free public health service) as seen as leftist in the right-leaning US. So, if Poland is right-leaning in social matters and the statements above seem to be leftist here, then they would be more acceptable in a liberal country. But you say they'be considered even more extreme there...

... or am I having a brain fart now? :)

I think what Skynet is saying is that in Poland, interest in sports seems heavily gendered - women aren't supposed to like sports and therefore the proliferation of football stadiums is just catering to the interests of men, and ignoring women. Whereas in North America, it's seen as perfectly normal for women to be interested in sports. So claiming that "Football stadiums are oppressive to women" sounds absurd in a North American context because it's a non-issue. The debate in North America isn't, "Are sports oppressive to women, yea or nay?" It's more along the lines of "How do we ensure that women in sports are treated fairly, when compared to their male counterparts?" And the statement, "We should stop building stadiums because they're oppressive to women" is almost seen as regressive - it would be entrenching gender roles by assuming that sports are only for men.



RedRose

Yes, the more old school (?) vision is that women hate sports. I do hate it, tbh, but my SO doesn't have a big interest either and would never "yell in front of the tv"

As for STEM after spending time as the only girl in computer class in uni, I quit.
O/O and ideas - write if you'd be a good Aaron Warner (Juliette) [Shatter me], Tarkin (Leia), Wilkins (Faith) [Buffy the VS]
[what she reading: 50 TALES A YEAR]



Skynet

Quote from: clonkertink on September 19, 2021, 12:49:03 PM
I think what Skynet is saying is that in Poland, interest in sports seems heavily gendered - women aren't supposed to like sports and therefore the proliferation of football stadiums is just catering to the interests of men, and ignoring women. Whereas in North America, it's seen as perfectly normal for women to be interested in sports. So claiming that "Football stadiums are oppressive to women" sounds absurd in a North American context because it's a non-issue. The debate in North America isn't, "Are sports oppressive to women, yea or nay?" It's more along the lines of "How do we ensure that women in sports are treated fairly, when compared to their male counterparts?" And the statement, "We should stop building stadiums because they're oppressive to women" is almost seen as regressive - it would be entrenching gender roles by assuming that sports are only for men.

Yup, this more or less fits what I was trying to say, albeit better-worded on your part.