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On January 26 2011 07:35 travis wrote:
So what about sports, physical sports, men are different than women and because their bodies are made a different way they can do things women can't. So why is it suddenly so far fetched that men, in general, could do things mentally that women can't, or at least that they don't? (IN GENERAL) I mean, we've already agreed that men and women have different brains.
Honestly have none of you noticed the general differences in the way men and women think about things...? The general differences between their focuses and interests?
I don't want to piss women off, I am not saying it's good or bad, and I am not saying there aren't exceptions. I just can't believe people's ability to deny what is obvious and right in front of their face. Women aren't top starcraft players because they aren't built in a way that promotes that. It's not society. Society isn't keeping women from playing starcraft. Jeeeeesus christ.
and again, yes, there are exceptions. plenty of exceptions.
i'm not saying men/women aren't different, of course they are. some biological, some societal. but how can you say they're not built in a way to play games when games like sc2 are non factors in how how body develops or evolved over time?
like i said, all these experimental results that show one thing or another in specific behavioural tests don't mean anything until they're integrated to show that this factor x in men is what gives them an advantage in y, which is necessary for z. just showing isolated papers with spacial ability, or reflex, or what not doesn't mean anything because you're not playing sc2 or doing any daily activity in the conditions that you're put in when you're doing those tests - i guarantee you. at the end of the day there's not enough evidence to say that these differences even mean anything when it comes to performance.
but what's right in our faces is that it seems to be a social taboo when girls are playing games, while it's less so when guys are doing it - and this is coming from several female posters in this thread. can't that be a more plausible reason to explain the opening question?
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On January 26 2011 07:55 fush wrote:
but what's right in our faces is that it seems to be a social taboo when girls are playing games, while it's less so when guys are doing it - and this is coming from several female posters in this thread. can't that be a more plausible reason to explain the opening question?
I don't think so. It might be somewhat of a social taboo for girls to be gamers, but that's not keeping millions of them from playing WoW and Farmville. Why? Because they actually want to.
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The amount of people countering each others arguments with anecdotal evidence is very depressing. Saying your calc class was all girls or there was this girl chess player once who was exceptional says nothing except it is possible. It says absolutely 0 about if it is likely or the potential causes so please try to avoid statements like that no matter what point you are trying to make.
If you want to use an individual example you do it like this; looking at the data there are not many great female chess players as compared to males however there is this one exceptional one who is an outlier. What characteristics both in terms of biology and experience does she posses (or not posses) that the average female ( we would probably tighten "average female" to females in a similar age range and possibly more) does not. Once we have found those characteristics we can focus on what causes the average female not to posses them. Even then our research is only based around the skill-set for chess which you would have to do additional research (you could use both genders for this one though) to define.
Someone mentioned Einstein earlier and he can be used in the same way. What differentiates Einstein from the average human male? In his case it is both biology and experience that were different from most, now saying to what degree each affected his outcome is not really possible to do with great precision in modern science, all we somewhat know is they both had a degree of affect.
Also in terms of data averages are tricky especially when you are focusing your study on a question involving outliers specifically. I think a few posters already pointed this out but the standard deviation is very important in a study like that because even if two populations have the same average (say the average US Master League player has the same skill however we chose to define it as the average Korean Master League Player) there could be only one or two US players among the top 30 most skilled in the world. A statement like "Females on average have only slightly higher IQs than males so there is little to no biological difference in IQ" is incorrect.
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On January 26 2011 07:35 travis wrote:
Women aren't top starcraft players because they aren't built in a way that promotes that. It's not society. Society isn't keeping women from playing starcraft. Jeeeeesus christ.
I'm not a biologist so my post isnt going to have hard data in it. However, the above quote has a point and yet is so narrow-minded.
Take a wider look a the world. Don't just see it from your perspective, or from your sister/mother's perspective.
In "developed" countries, women have come a long way and it almost feels equal sometimes to be a girl. But remember that this is brand new. Women have been struggling to achieve the kind of equality we have now for a long and arduous time. Only twenty years ago even, women were still fighting with second-wave feminist goals (ie. trying to prevent the image that women have to be housewives, understanding all the politcal ways in which we are/were oppressed).
To put it into a more visual picture, if any of you have seen Mad Men, thats actually what it was like up until very recently. Even today in year 2011 I have problems with my work dress code because almost all "business" shoes for women are high heeled. The remains of an extremely patriarchal society are everywhere, but because we're all used to it, you don't notice it.
Now to relate this to Starcraft/competition/inherent ability vs boys/men, its obvious that there's not some big man somewhere saying "no! we can't let women play Starcraft!", so in that sense you are correct Travis, society is not directly telling women not to play or compete.
Instead, society puts out TV shows where girls compete for their beauty, society fills magazines full of advertisements with "advice" on how to achieve the "perfect look". Society expects women to be pretty and to be dateable. If no one tells young girls "hey, did you know you can pursue what youre actually interested in? Did you know its actually okay to play video games tonight instead of going to the school dance?", girls will follow what they've been pushed into until they realise its not actually rewarding or useful to their life. Some girls are lucky and have super cool parents (like me) or they have older siblings who mentor them positively.
But considering the vast amount of girls who are pushed into other activities, and considering how much practice it takes people to get really good at something, its no surprise they aren't at the top level.
All I can say is that I hope as society slowly grows up more and more there will be a more positive environment for which girls can grow up in and choose what they really want to do well at, rather than chasing glamourous ideals at the expense of their self-esteem while companies make money by selling them these pointless products.
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On January 26 2011 08:09 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2011 07:55 fush wrote:
but what's right in our faces is that it seems to be a social taboo when girls are playing games, while it's less so when guys are doing it - and this is coming from several female posters in this thread. can't that be a more plausible reason to explain the opening question? I don't think so. It might be somewhat of a social taboo for girls to be gamers, but that's not keeping millions of them from playing WoW and Farmville. Why? Because they actually want to.
What's the boy:girl ratio in wow? If it's nowhere near 50:50, can you still say it's not taboo?
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On January 26 2011 06:12 Torpedo.Vegas wrote:
Women are definitely competitive. Just their competitive outlet tends to be different based on society's gender roles. In fact, they can get down right vicious. I mean look at a high school girls, comparing all manner of accessory or clothing, grades, stuff like that. Social status is another good example. I'm sure someone more informed then I can give the complex reasons that lead them to use these and other things as their competitive outlets (its branching more now), but women are as competitive as men are.
Also, yeah, unless you have a degree in Biology or Genetics or something, don't run to that. Biology is a very tricky thing to pin down as a cause and more often then not, isn't even a factor so much as societal pressures and norms.
*Edit*
Another note on the biology thing, your interpretation of gender has been developed by your societal influences. There are many cultures in Asia, Africa and the like, where they are totally matriarchal and women call the shots. Being of female sex does not automatically denote weakness in our species or any other.
Another myth. No society with reversed gender roles or unambiguous matriarchy has ever been found.
Edit: last time I checked thoroughly was 2006 in a work I did. Who knows, might've changed. Odds are, it hasn't.
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On January 26 2011 05:23 fush wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2011 03:18 ParasitJonte wrote:
As usual people are giving way too much credit to things that are probably not of greatest importance (cultural acceptance etc.).
The variance among males is simply higher. This is true regardless of where you look: math, cooking, sports, playing games. The very best and the very worst are always males.
If all cultural barriers were removed there would surely be a lot more female players in diamond and masters. But the tournaments would almost always end with a male winner. That's just how it is. how can you show that cultural limitations are less important than biological ones? you claim at the end that the removal of these barriers would see more female players in a hypothetical situation, right after you say they aren't important? a little logical loophole there imo. and even with all these studies showing some form of "advantage" in males in some performance task, we are still missing the developmental angle where perhaps the development of such skills are hindered by activities that aren't encouraged in females at younger ages. can you say for sure that a woman raised under no social/cultural limitations with a man will be biologically less capable of playing sc2 than her counterpart?
No. You have to read all of what I write first.
The question is: "Why is there a lack of female top players?"
Now, the word top is of course ambigous. But as you see in my text, I interpret it as people who win tournaments (still ambigous but I think you are smart enough to get it).
This is explained by the fact that the variance among males as a group is higher than that of females as a group. As a result, almost wherever you look you will find that a male knows most, has done most, is the best and so on.
Results on IQ tests are a good example. I haven't seen much evidence for their actually being a difference between mean scores, but the variance among males is higher. That's why nobel prizes go to men (that and the fact that women don't seem to be as interested in hard sciences as much as men are).
Note that while these sentiments may appear extreme, they really are not. They just, for the third time, express the same thing: variance among males as a group is higher than variance among females.
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On January 27 2011 04:20 SPACETIME wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2011 07:35 travis wrote:
Women aren't top starcraft players because they aren't built in a way that promotes that. It's not society. Society isn't keeping women from playing starcraft. Jeeeeesus christ.
I'm not a biologist so my post isnt going to have hard data in it. However, the above quote has a point and yet is so narrow-minded. Take a wider look a the world. Don't just see it from your perspective, or from your sister/mother's perspective. In "developed" countries, women have come a long way and it almost feels equal sometimes to be a girl. But remember that this is brand new. Women have been struggling to achieve the kind of equality we have now for a long and arduous time. Only twenty years ago even, women were still fighting with second-wave feminist goals (ie. trying to prevent the image that women have to be housewives, understanding all the politcal ways in which we are/were oppressed). To put it into a more visual picture, if any of you have seen Mad Men, thats actually what it was like up until very recently. Even today in year 2011 I have problems with my work dress code because almost all "business" shoes for women are high heeled. The remains of an extremely patriarchal society are everywhere, but because we're all used to it, you don't notice it. Now to relate this to Starcraft/competition/inherent ability vs boys/men, its obvious that there's not some big man somewhere saying "no! we can't let women play Starcraft!", so in that sense you are correct Travis, society is not directly telling women not to play or compete. Instead, society puts out TV shows where girls compete for their beauty, society fills magazines full of advertisements with "advice" on how to achieve the "perfect look". Society expects women to be pretty and to be dateable. If no one tells young girls "hey, did you know you can pursue what youre actually interested in? Did you know its actually okay to play video games tonight instead of going to the school dance?", girls will follow what they've been pushed into until they realise its not actually rewarding or useful to their life. Some girls are lucky and have super cool parents (like me) or they have older siblings who mentor them positively. But considering the vast amount of girls who are pushed into other activities, and considering how much practice it takes people to get really good at something, its no surprise they aren't at the top level. All I can say is that I hope as society slowly grows up more and more there will be a more positive environment for which girls can grow up in and choose what they really want to do well at, rather than chasing glamourous ideals at the expense of their self-esteem while companies make money by selling them these pointless products.
This is a good representation of the common consensus of understanding of gender roles and (almost always) lack of female representation in category XYZ most well-educated people in western societies seem to have.
I take offense to it for two reasons mainly.
Number one. The historical background. People seem to have this image that men have led lives full of privileges while women have been oppressed. The truth is of course that most of mankind has been oppressed for most of all time by the people in power and their privileged friends. It's only now, since liberalism invaded our world, that many of us are free in any real sense.
Number 2. The unsupported, should-be-accepted-just-because-it-should-be-accepted, arguments from social constructivism. It's society's fault with all the magazines and TV shows!
Well. What is society? Society consists of people. People make society. It is no coincidence that hunter and gatherer societies are the same when it comes to female and male wherever you go around the world. Society will reflect how people are.
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On January 27 2011 05:05 ParasitJonte wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2011 05:23 fush wrote:On January 26 2011 03:18 ParasitJonte wrote:
As usual people are giving way too much credit to things that are probably not of greatest importance (cultural acceptance etc.).
The variance among males is simply higher. This is true regardless of where you look: math, cooking, sports, playing games. The very best and the very worst are always males.
If all cultural barriers were removed there would surely be a lot more female players in diamond and masters. But the tournaments would almost always end with a male winner. That's just how it is. how can you show that cultural limitations are less important than biological ones? you claim at the end that the removal of these barriers would see more female players in a hypothetical situation, right after you say they aren't important? a little logical loophole there imo. and even with all these studies showing some form of "advantage" in males in some performance task, we are still missing the developmental angle where perhaps the development of such skills are hindered by activities that aren't encouraged in females at younger ages. can you say for sure that a woman raised under no social/cultural limitations with a man will be biologically less capable of playing sc2 than her counterpart? No. You have to read all of what I write first. The question is: "Why is there a lack of female top players?" Now, the word top is of course ambigous. But as you see in my text, I interpret it as people who win tournaments (still ambigous but I think you are smart enough to get it). This is explained by the fact that the variance among males as a group is higher than that of females as a group. As a result, almost wherever you look you will find that a male knows most, has done most, is the best and so on. Results on IQ tests are a good example. I haven't seen much evidence for their actually being a difference between mean scores, but the variance among males is higher. That's why nobel prizes go to men (that and the fact that women don't seem to be as interested in hard sciences as much as men are). Note that while these sentiments may appear extreme, they really are not. They just, for the third time, express the same thing: variance among males as a group is higher than variance among females.
Your answer to the question is that men have higher variance in a measurement of success in some areas... Okay. I'm down with that if you've done the research. How does that distinguish between cultural or biological influences at all? You use iq tests or "most" other fields as an example, but you can't account for developmental impact on these measurements at all with a variance. So how can you exactly disregard cultural impact as irrelevant?
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On January 27 2011 04:20 SPACETIME wrote:
In "developed" countries, women have come a long way and it almost feels equal sometimes to be a girl. But remember that this is brand new. Women have been struggling to achieve the kind of equality we have now for a long and arduous time.
In our "developed countries" women are taught to behave like men ... so we are actually turning them into "men type 2". Is that a good thing and what would actually be needed for equal rights? No on both accounts IMO.
Men and women are different ... not only in their bodies, but also in their mindsets. I think this is pretty obvious (and not totally due to the society and its education) and unless you disagree with me there I ask another question: With two different beings of different strengths and weaknesses do you try to negate weaknesses or support strengths when you try to teach them something (i.e. in the education)?
In our societies it seems that we are trying to negate the weaknesses (i.e. enabling everyone to be able to do every job for the sake of "equality"). But does that really make sense or is it part of the reason why there are so many divorces? People do not need a partner of the other sex to form a fully functional family ... they can live on their own and be self-sufficient.
Thus the whole "women have been struggling to achieve equality" is a load of crap which some hippies cooked up in 1968 and which creates a load of misconceptions. Just accept that female gamers are the exception and dont try to force any quotas. Since it is a purely mental game with minimal reliance on bodily fitness I do not see the point of having a separate female league in any eSport.
[The biggest step in the wrong direction is the recent decision of the french government to require a 40% quota for female managers in their biggest companies. Forcing equality with a crowbar is bad and you cant force men to have babies in the same way.]
On January 27 2011 05:21 ParasitJonte wrote:
It's only now, since liberalism invaded our world, that many of us are free in any real sense.
Only very very few people are actually free, because freedom requires that you are able to form your own opinion and with the increasing influence of mass media and the "limited mental capacity of the masses" most are not actually free. Just check your ads on TV with a very critical eye and you will see lots of really unnecessary stuff which sells a lot. Ringtones, new mobile phones (even though you already have one), new digital camera with more megapixels (even though the pictures will be worse), yoghurts to support your digestion, .... the list goes on and on.
On January 27 2011 05:21 ParasitJonte wrote:
Well. What is society? Society consists of people. People make society. It is no coincidence that hunter and gatherer societies are the same when it comes to female and male wherever you go around the world. Society will reflect how people are.
In reality we are more or less at the same stage the cavemen were ... "might makes right" and if you werent lucky just rob your neighbors food by clubbing him when he isnt looking. Sure we call ourselves "civilized" because we dont use clubs or even guns anymore, but for centuries money has ruled and people with money have absolute control over what they do with it. Altruism - caring for the welfare of others - is not something we are taught but rather to beat your competition in any way you can. This is possible because the penalties for "mental violence" (misusing the power of your money or job to make the lives of others worse) are pretty much negligent.
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If female gamers were encouraged and accepted equivocally to the male counterpart (i.e. no sexual division or discrimination) I believe they could win a GSL as well if not better then players we have seen so far. Until society changes this probably won't happen, although it would be pretty damn awesome if Team Liquid, EG or the like found a really high level female gamer willing to go to Korea, because I think it would explode the SC community and encourage more female gamers to step up and publicly bring the pain. There are many women interested in SC, no doubt, but I don't think they are given the same encouragement or acceptance as a male gamer. I would argue many of them even play under our assumption they are male since SC is all type and no voice.
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On January 27 2011 04:55 ParasitJonte wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2011 06:12 Torpedo.Vegas wrote:
Women are definitely competitive. Just their competitive outlet tends to be different based on society's gender roles. In fact, they can get down right vicious. I mean look at a high school girls, comparing all manner of accessory or clothing, grades, stuff like that. Social status is another good example. I'm sure someone more informed then I can give the complex reasons that lead them to use these and other things as their competitive outlets (its branching more now), but women are as competitive as men are.
Also, yeah, unless you have a degree in Biology or Genetics or something, don't run to that. Biology is a very tricky thing to pin down as a cause and more often then not, isn't even a factor so much as societal pressures and norms.
*Edit*
Another note on the biology thing, your interpretation of gender has been developed by your societal influences. There are many cultures in Asia, Africa and the like, where they are totally matriarchal and women call the shots. Being of female sex does not automatically denote weakness in our species or any other.
Another myth. No society with reversed gender roles or unambiguous matriarchy has ever been found. Edit: last time I checked thoroughly was 2006 in a work I did. Who knows, might've changed. Odds are, it hasn't.
Well, I took a course in Chinese ecology (by no means am I an expert) and there is a culture that developed in southeast (I'm trying to find the name) where the females of the society were held in higher regard and the family lines are traced through the mother and not the father, also its the females that tend to lead the household. Since then it has become a bit of a tourist trap since their walking marriage style has been exploited and turned into some exotic event.
Also, I had a teacher who immigrated from Africa and who made a profession studying gender roles in global societies. Apparently in Africa there are many societies and tribes where gender isn't even acknowledged directly and its all about age and status. What gender you are is means far less, so women are held in equivocal regard to men, not for the sake of equality, but because they value the life experience associated with age over biology.
Gender roles and beliefs are modeled heavily around society rather then biology, and many early scientists went into their work under the influence of these biases. There is actually a pretty serious movement to re-evaluate many scientific studies that used only men as the absolute analog for comparison for things like medicine because there is a biological difference, but one that has been both completely ignored and marginalized and one whose importance is inflated way more then we appreciate.
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On January 27 2011 05:42 Rabiator wrote:
In our "developed countries" women are taught to behave like men ... so we are actually turning them into "men type 2".
...
Thus the whole "women have been struggling to achieve equality" is a load of crap which some hippies cooked up in 1968...
What are you talking about? What do you mean "women are taught to behave like men"? I honestly don't know what you are referring to, unless you mean that women are taught to be more ambitious and believe in themselves. I for one was never "taught to behave like a man", that is completely ridiculous and based on nothing.
And your second thing there...are you saying that the struggle for equal rights is a myth? That "some hippies" put out a myth to cover up the fact that....no it doesn't even make sense enough to be a conspiracy, I can't even conceive what they'd be trying to cover up. Therefore nothing needs to be "cooked up" and the arbitrary use of "1968" is laughable considering what I'm referencing is still occurring and has been occurring well since after the 60s.
I never implied that men have every privilege possible, or that guys don't have their own struggles. Of course they do, life in general is a struggle.
What I'm trying to say is that the level on which girls and boys are put on and their differences in society (yes by "society" I mean people) were a lot bigger and much more contrasting in the past, and they are slowly coming closer together.
Also I don't support the decision that there must be a quota to fill to create equality. I don't support that 50% of staff have to be women. If there are better and more skilled male candidates than girls, then there should be more males in the role.
That doesn't mean that we can't teach girls to become better and give them more power in the future, though.
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There have been a couple of threads on this, and I believe most reached a similar conclusion:
Women don't normally have the same primal, competitive drive that men have. Women typically play more for fun than men, who are more likely to care about winning more. That attitude is a drive that helps top players continue practicing, and drives them to be better.
Without it, practicing long and hard is VERy difficult.
EDIT:
I hardly think that this is a physical problem. Starcraft fitness (as far as I can tell) is restricted purely to cardiovascular and just overall health (no muscle, strength, or size required). If you're a healthy person, regardless of gender, you have the physical capability to play SC just as well as anyone else.
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On January 27 2011 04:55 ParasitJonte wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2011 06:12 Torpedo.Vegas wrote:
Women are definitely competitive. Just their competitive outlet tends to be different based on society's gender roles. In fact, they can get down right vicious. I mean look at a high school girls, comparing all manner of accessory or clothing, grades, stuff like that. Social status is another good example. I'm sure someone more informed then I can give the complex reasons that lead them to use these and other things as their competitive outlets (its branching more now), but women are as competitive as men are.
Also, yeah, unless you have a degree in Biology or Genetics or something, don't run to that. Biology is a very tricky thing to pin down as a cause and more often then not, isn't even a factor so much as societal pressures and norms.
*Edit*
Another note on the biology thing, your interpretation of gender has been developed by your societal influences. There are many cultures in Asia, Africa and the like, where they are totally matriarchal and women call the shots. Being of female sex does not automatically denote weakness in our species or any other.
Another myth. No society with reversed gender roles or unambiguous matriarchy has ever been found. Edit: last time I checked thoroughly was 2006 in a work I did. Who knows, might've changed. Odds are, it hasn't.
What about Native Americans? The Iroquois and Algonquins were both matriarchies at one point or another. Or do you mean currently? Because then you'd be right.
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On January 27 2011 07:21 TALegion wrote:
There have been a couple of threads on this, and I believe most reached a similar conclusion:
Women don't normally have the same primal, competitive drive that men have. Women typically play more for fun than men, who are more likely to care about winning more. That attitude is a drive that helps top players continue practicing, and drives them to be better.
Without it, practicing long and hard is VERy difficult.
EDIT:
I hardly think that this is a physical problem. Starcraft fitness (as far as I can tell) is restricted purely to cardiovascular and just overall health (no muscle, strength, or size required). If you're a healthy person, regardless of gender, you have the physical capability to play SC just as well as anyone else.
I would modify this slightly though by saying that females are not encouraged to use gaming as an acceptable outlet of competitiveness. This is changing but the aggressive and graphic "hardcore" games fell into society's definition of masculine, so men were encouraged and subsequently became the target audience. Again this is changing and I hope to see pro-female gamers in the GSL at some point. Because I do think for this whole e-sports thing to really work, we need to be as encouraging and inclusive as we can without identifying a gamer by their stereotypical gender definitions.
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This thread is so depressing, I can't believe so many people actually believe men are innately more intelligent and "capable at gaming" than women. They ignore the scientific studies posted which show no innate math skill gap between sexes, and somehow think a study about spatial visualization translates to limited math abilities and SC2 skills.
@ travis and others-
How can you say culture is not the driving force between more men currently being gamers than women? Do you look at things other cultures are known for and first thought is they must have different genetics that make them "better" at those activities? French and Italian people have innate genetics for cooking, or Canadians are genetically optimized for skating and playing hockey? Or, do you think they are dominant in those fields because that activity is popular in their culture and the culture supports and drives many people to do that activity, providing a large talent pool? Do you think Hawaiians are genetically inferior hockey players or competitors, since there are few or no Hawaiian pro hockey players?
There are no famous black racecar drivers, that must mean black people are bad drivers and have no competitive instincts! Or....culturally, more midwest/southern white people grow up with the NASCAR culture and are encouraged to take part in it, and there is a self-supporting CULTURE which naturally cultivates white racecar drivers. Most black people are not part of that culture, so it may not even occur to them to partake in the sport. Or, if some did, they would be actively DISCOURAGED by their self-identified culture, lowering the participation numbers, and hence the talent pool of black racecar drivers would be very small, and perhaps too small to find top talents.
Similarly, in intellectual fields, there have historically been many social barriers keeping women from even competing in academics, sports...and people wonder why there are less women in gaming as well?
Women in the U.S. were not legally able to vote until 1920 (this means men had a head start since 1776 in experience and cultural acceptance of discussing politics). Women were not legally guaranteed access to birth control until 1972 (not abortion, talking birth control, the ability to control whether or not sex results in children ). Do you realize it has only been 40 years that women have been able to completely legally control how many children they have, and whether they would be stuck at home all day taking care of 10 kids, and you think it's genetics, not culture that many didn't have time to be academics and aren't gaming at the same proportion as men?
For the record, I'm a girl that graduated from a top engineering college, and half my graduating class was women, and we are all capable and smart and working top professional engineering jobs now. My women friends work at Google, Microsoft, consulting firms, etc. I'm in grad school for CS now, and there are still more men in grad school, it will take time for the % of women to even out as my generation grows up, moves up, and the next one comes in.
Also, I recommend the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (author of Blink, and the Tipping Point), where he researched and analyzes people like Bill Gates who are so successful they are considered "outliers" compared to everyone else. One main point of the book is that these outliers are all a somewhat circumstantial product of the CULTURE they grew up in- they all had some level of talent/skills/drive, but they were made possible by their family, resources, and culture. Another major factor in the success of "outliers" (they used the Beatles as their example) is putting in the 10,000 hours of practice. It takes about 10,000 hours of conscious practice (not passive participation, focused practice to try and improve) to master any difficult skill. Outsiders may think a person is a "genius" or has innate talent, but they have almost certainly spent 8 hours a day doing that skill and have put in their 10,000 hours.
Those 2 things right there explain CULTURALLY how most women have not had as much opportunity to become highly skilled at gaming while many men have had the opportunity. Even if girls have the skill/talent, it is still highly likely they don't have a supportive family/culture/resources in that many parents discourage girls from gaming and give them dolls and makeup to play with, movies/magazines/internet says women are supposed to do makeup/shopping for clothes and spend all their time on that, they will get 10,000 hours experience in makeup application and making friends, and resources wise they will not get random gameboys etc. as presents lying around the house thus not allowing them to get their 10,000 hours gaming experience, while boys will probably get some game system as a present as a young child and begin putting in that 10,000 hours probably before they are even in college. As a counterpoint I had a friend that had a gameboy, always wanted one as a kid but parents no game system; when I had a younger brother they couldn't fight us both and we were finally able to get a N64 and I was able to start gaming. Compared to my bf now, who never played video games growing up, he would have to play a lot of catch up to just basic mario kart/super smash bros/"move around and not fall off cliffs" skills.
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For the record, I'm a girl that graduated from a top engineering college, and half my graduating class was women, and we are all capable and smart and working top professional engineering jobs now. My women friends work at Google, Microsoft, consulting firms, etc. I'm in grad school for CS now, and there are still more men in grad school, it will take time for the % of women to even out as my generation grows up, moves up, and the next one comes in.
Aside from this paragraph the rest of what you wrote is a great argument but this paragraph is nothing more than another useless anecdotal argument the kind of which has been cluttering up this whole discussion (and shame on you for making it as an engineer!). I could tell you my background too, only 3 girls in an engineering class of 35 with 2 of them at the bottom of the class and the other in the middle. Does that say anything useful? Absolutely not.
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My Computer Networks class:
36 males
0 females
Total sausage fest.
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They don't want to play, it's that simple. It's not even a taboo, the majority of the times in which I have tried to induce some woman into gaming, or seen women try some games, they just get bored quickly, especially in games like starcraft.
Games that are more popular with women are those in which there is some sort of involvement with your character, as in wow, sims games, etc, highly sociable games are also more popular with women. Both genders have different tendencies in the books they read, the forums they visit, the things they talk about, the sports they play as well as the videogames they play, it has no relationship at all with the skill they can get, since we've seen many times in many disciplines women can become just as skilled as men, however, that won't happen in a great number if those numbers aren't attracted to playing in the first place.
In conclusion, if 50% of SC2 gamers were women, a large percentage of pro SC2 gamers would probably be women, since most don't like playing SC2, they can't get skilled, thus there are/will be very few female pro gamers.
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EPT
