Javaness2 wrote:A long time ago now, I believe I asked how to increase the number of women playing Go. Somebody responded with something like: "well why do we want more women playing, why not more gays or blacks".
This is a reasonable question to pose.
But is it a hard question?
Joaz pointed out that it's not a matter of women not having the opportunity, and that if we want more women to play because we think it's good for them, then that's a rather patronizing attitude. Although social conditions could be preventing women from enjoying something great which might justify a certain amount of reverse discrimination, I generally agree with Joaz. More women aren't playing go because more women don't want to. But back to the question. If our goal isn't to increase women's opportunities, and it isn't to make them better people, why do we care if only a few women want to play go?
It seems that what we're left with is that we (or those who do) specifically want more women go players (as opposed to just more players) because we (or they) think that that would be nice for us guys. Go is something that most of us do in our free time, and wouldn't it be practical if it also helped fulfill some other social needs? If this is the case, I think we should own up to it, admit that we don't know how we're going to meet any ladies if they're never at the place where we spend most of our free time. If this isn't the case, and loftier reasons predominate, then please elaborate! Otherwise, why not be honest and say that we like to be around women, that we particularly like to be around women who play go, and that we especially like to be around women who like guys that play go and more of any of the above would be a step in the right direction.
So, what's to be done? While any effort to make go more popular will increase the number of women who know about go, who play go, and who appreciate how truly cool go players are, but if we specifically want more women to play, we need to ask: what's in it for them? As BobC suggests, many women would prefer to chat with friends than to sit around with a bunch of silent, brooding men. But go is by and large a non-verbal pastime. We might be a chatty bunch of guys, but not when we're in the middle of a game.
It would be fair at this point to accuse me of stereotyping women as people who tend to prefer their cerebral pleasures in verbal form, but when addressing a general question such as how to get more women to play go, such generalizations can be useful. In this case, they indicate that there is a disparity that needs to be bridged, between time spent talking and time spent playing go. I personally doubt that this is a bridge many of us feel the need to cross. If women want to cross it, I'm sure they'll say so.
When we watch a movie, we are by and large silent, but afterwards we have something to talk about and everybody's happy. Go is different. After a game, interest tends to range between playing or watching another game and destroying furniture. Talking is pretty far down on the list. What I'm saying is that this seems to be a case of wanting to have one's cake and eat it too. If we want to spend more time with women, maybe we should take up some other hobbies.
That said, women tend to look favorably upon men spending time with children, so offering more children's activities might be a roundabout way of getting more women involved.
Patience, grasshopper.
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