In Sweden some women are considering to organize a larp convention where to play games written only by women. So if I’ve understood correctly, even though all organizers and game wrights would be women, also men would be welcome to participate the event and play on those games.
As a Finn I first thought about this to be “nice idea, but definitely not something Finnish larp scene needs, as about 2/3 of us are women”. After thinking about it the whole day, I realized that even though I wouldn’t organize such event myself, nor would I ditch the men I usually work with to accomplish some kind of equalityish goal, I can easily understand why event like that would be needed anywhere.
I make simple example with our national roleplaying, larping, card gaming, board gaming and miniature gaming convention Ropecon. Ropecon has been held every summer for last 20 years. I counted the organizers from the webpages or program booklets for last 4 events, so all information is more or less public and I’m not using inside info here. I counted each year separately, so yes, for instance I was counted more than once as I’ve participated in organizing the 3 times in four years. About 35 % of the organizers (N=140) were female, so about every third. Yes, that’s smaller numbers than estimates of how many larpers are female, but there’re the card and board game organizers and other reasons why it really is understandable why there’re more men there. From the 13 main organizers of those 4 years, only one was female. That’s 8%. Yes, next year is the first time that more than half of the main organizers are female, as three of four main organizers are, so after this year the number of last five years will be 23%.
But that makes a point that even though we have plenty of skillful women and men, still men more often try reach to the top on the organizing level. I tried to quickly go through Finnish larp calender to make some kind of statistics from there, but really couldn’t come up with any easy numbers of how many of the organizers are men and how many are women as I didn’t know who to count, all who write characters, or also those who do only webpages or food etc, besides not all games state all organizers publicly. Still I have a feeling that in games that have teams of 3-10 game masters, men more often are main organizers than they “statistically” should be. Same with the language of mathematics: Y/(X+Y) of main organizers > than Y/(X+Y) on all game masters. Y is male, X is female.
And that’s what we should change. That all roleplayers, also female, would trust on their own skills to run the show. May the “show” be a larp, a larp campaign, a convention, a roleplaying game book, or what ever. And making a convention (or a book!) around games written by women, (woman defined one way or another,) would make a great example that also women can do every single bit that it takes to make a convention.
Solmukohta 2004 and 2008 AWiFs included were both done by 33 % of organizers being female, when Solmukohta 2012 was organized, 78 % of organizers were female. (Couldn’t come up with any facts about 2000, except main organizers.) Each team containing 9 to 12 organizers, 2000 and 2012 have been organized with female main organizer(s), 2004 and 2008 as male, so I guess I can easily blame that SK is more gender balanced and that on those circles people let their gender affect less on what they could achieve. At least I got only once during my organizing year dealt inappropriately because of my gender, so it’s easy to assume, that that one person is just a moron.
During the last 15 years I’ve done enough different kinds of projects in Finnish larp scene. So at least these days I get enough space to do stuff I want as it is, but I believe not all women do. That’s why even though I still prefer to do larps with people I enjoy working with, both women and men, I give my full support on organizing events by only female larp wrights and producers also as statement needed.
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We organize run of Mad about the Boy in ten days. Game has 28 female characters and one man. But I wouldn’t call that larp really a feminist one, as the game is quite much about missing the important men characters had in their lives, nor is the game chauvinistic, as women are still able to survive without men. I consider the game more to be something that raises peoples understanding and awareness of the gender issues. As we only have guts to one run, we decided to go with a mixed gender game. As this is first touch to many of the players to the Nordic Larp, I really much like to keep it inclusive for all interested players, regardless of their gender. Also it’s not organized by women. The core team includes me and two guys, who I enjoy working with. There’re also some more persons helping: one or two guys with Black Box light and sound, and one with food, also a couple of other women helped us design the signing up form, and one other helped us to do the casting. Also we have two or three persons who have played on previous runs, to run the workshops, They’re all great people and I can honestly say they’re all part of the team because of their skills and interest, and they’re not doing less than they could, because of their gender. Larpwise I’m in a really great position right now.
Heidi larpwise 