‘Oh you’re really good for a girl’: Sexism,Stereotypes and Subcultural Capital in Board Gaming

The Gendered Ownership of Geek and Gaming Cultures

While there is relatively scant research on the gendered dynamics of board gaming (key exceptions are discussed in the following subsection) a substantial body of knowledge exists making sense of these dynamics in the wider ‘geek’ culture – that is, ‘the identities, cultures, and communities of certain media fandoms (especially science-fiction and fantasy ones) [and] forms of gaming’ (Scoats and Maloney, 2024) – of which board gaming is an increasingly popular part. Underpinning these analyses, the ‘geek masculinity’ framework provides a way of understanding how geek and gaming cultures are policed by cisgender heterosexual (cishetero) boys and men who claim ownership over a range of related spaces, and at the expense of others’ enjoyment and feelings of inclusion. According to Massanari (2015: 129):

Geek masculinity therefore privileges the white, able-bodied, young straight cisgendered male over the woman of colour, for example, or the homosexual older man, or the disabled trans woman. This is not to say that these individuals are not active in geek culture but that they remain marginalized, relegated to its fringes, and frequently silenced.

The notion of geek masculinity – and how it acts as a powerful normative ideal in geek and gaming cultures – is, in turn, informed by Connell’s long-standing and foundational hegemonic masculinity framework (Connell, 1995; Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005): ‘the masculinity that occupies the hegemonic position in a given pattern of gender relations’ (Connell, 1995: 76). In this geek cultural setting, cishetero boys and men who eschew ‘stereotypically masculine interests in favour of technology and gaming’ (Braithwaite, 2016: 3), and who therefore might themselves be marginalised in other settings by failing to achieve wider normative masculine ideals, become ‘hegemonic’ and determine the inclusionary/exclusionary ‘rules of play’ for others. While these men may not embody the traditional normative masculine ideals (such as physical dominance or athletic success) that grant status in broader society, they establish within geek and gaming spaces alternative hierarchies where technical knowledge, gaming prowess and mastery of complex rule systems become the dominant markers of status and masculinity. This creates a cultural milieu in which men who may be marginalised in mainstream contexts for their failure to meet conventional masculine norms can become ‘hegemonic’ within gaming spaces, exercising power over others – particularly women – through their command of geek-related cultural capital. In their monograph, Toxic Geek Masculinity in Media, Salter and Blodgett (2017) provide the broadest and most exhaustive account how cishetero (and predominately white) boys and men have asserted dominance in geek cultural spaces and communities, and how notions of an ‘authentic’ geek identity are bound up in entrenched gender inequalities. Here, they argue that geek masculinity is ‘an inevitable evolution of hegemonic masculinity in a culture where dominance and technical mastery are increasingly interwoven’ (Salter and Blodgett, 2017: 47). Furthermore, the centrality in geek and gaming cultures of technical mastery as masculine coded – including the ability to demonstrate knowledge of, for example, gameplay systems and/or the ‘lore’ of geek fictional universes – serves as a mechanism for the ‘continual rejection and negative framing of femininity’ (Salter and Blodgett, 2017: vi). Exemplified by the #GamerGate harassment campaign of 2014–2015, this subordination and marginalisation of girls and women in geek and gaming cultures extends into acts of vitriolic sexism and misogyny – in online forums, for example – by the cishetero boys and men who continue to govern these spaces (Salter and Blodgett, 2017: 92).

Salter and Blodgett’s (2017) broader portrait of the ways in which geek masculinity serves to subordinate and marginalise girls and women is supported by a range of more narrowly focused scholarship, particularly in respect to video gaming cultures and communities. To give some key examples, Ratan et al.’s (2015: 456) study of popular multiplayer strategy video game, League of Legends, describes a male-centred culture in which women players are made to feel less competent than their male counterparts, and often pressured into playing feminine-coded ‘support’ roles ‘that, though requiring no less competence than other in-game roles (and arguably more), [are] nonetheless seen by many players as subordinate [. . .] and less desirable’. Austin’s (2022: 1116) study of first-person shooters found the very same phenomenon at work:

Perceived infringement on an overwhelmingly masculine space pushes women to the margins of online team-based games, where gender norms inform the presumption that they play supportive roles that are viewed as passive and unskilled rather than actively contributing to team objectives.

Echoing this, Kelly et al.’s (2023) innovative study of gendered perceptions of gaming competence found that, when shown otherwise identical footage of gameplay re-edited to feature either a man or woman providing voice over, participants were markedly less likely to assign high levels of competency to the latter.

Towards the more vitriolic and violent end of the spectrum – and supported by a range of other similarly focused scholarship (e.g. Ballard and Welch, 2017; Chess and Shaw, 2015; Gray, 2012), Fox and Tang’s (2017: 1290) large survey of female gamers’ experiences of online multiplayer gaming settings uncovered the high frequency with which they are subject to ‘general harassment and sexual harassment’ during play. Beyond providing important confirmation of the hostile gendered environments many female gamers are forced to confront when engaging with their chosen recreational pursuit, Fox and Tang (2017) also shed crucial light on the coping strategies they employ to continue participating – including self-blame, denial, avoidance, and gender masking – with some others ultimately making the difficult decision to withdraw altogether. Similarly, Thornham’s (2008: 137) in-depth interviews with female gamers illuminates the ways in which they navigate this subordinated positioning through a ‘gendered public/private narrative’ in which they seek to minimise their negative experiences and express reluctance to ascribe them to wider sexism and misogyny in the culture.

Thus, there is significant evidence which highlights how men, and certain displays of masculinity, frequently dominate geek and gaming spaces, and these displays serve to marginalise women within these spaces. Despite arguments that geek and gamer culture is a ‘contested’ space where male gamers and geek masculinity itself are shifting towards more inclusive and socially progressive positionings (Boudreau, 2022; Maloney et al., 2019), the research highlights a long and varied exclusion of women from these cultures, even if this may be slowly changing.

Subcultural Capital and Gatekeeping within Hobby Board Gaming

Given the minimal research regarding gendered exclusion and hobby board gaming cultures, we cannot conclude that women are necessarily excluded in the same way – through the construction of masculinised geek hierarchies which marginalise women – as they are in other parts of geek or gaming culture. Despite this lack of research, the concept of subcultural capital highlights how hierarchies and exclusion very much still operate within the arena of board games culture, and that these hierarchies tend to be arranged along gendered lines (although not exclusively).

Drawing from Bourdieu’s (1984) work on cultural capital, Thornton’s (1995) subcultural capital refers to the ‘objects, practices and beliefs that subculturalists use to distinguish themselves from outsiders and to demonstrate authenticity to insiders’ (Haenfler, 2013: 91). Although hobby board gamers do not necessarily represent a subculture in many respects (Haenfler, 2013), the notion of subcultural capital is still an important tool for understanding gatekeeping and hierarchy within the community.

Looking to how subcultural capital can manifest, Thornton (1995) describes it in terms of both objectified and embodied forms. With a specific focus on the rave scene of the 1990s she states:

Just as books and paintings display cultural capital in the family home, so subcultural capital is objectified in the form of fashionable haircuts and well-assembled record collections (full of well-chosen, limited edition ‘white label’ twelve-inches and the like). Just as cultural capital is personified in ‘good’ manners and urbane conversation, so subcultural capital is embodied in the form of being ‘in the know’.

We see similar displays of objectified and embodied forms of subcultural capital within board game cultures. For example, the board gamers’ ‘shelfies’ –images of board game collections shared collections with the wider community (Rogerson et al., 2016) – are reminiscent of ‘well-assembled record collections’ Thornton highlights. Likewise, in some collectible strategy games’ scenes (in this example, MtG and Mageknight), Williams (2006) shows how ownership of rare and exclusive cards and figures, and the sharing of gaming resources with newer players were both ways through which participants could boost their status. We also see embodied subcultural capital when board game players attempt to establish their credentials though discussions around games and wider geek culture (Konieczny, 2019), or when certain individuals are seen as ‘authoritative sources of information and opinion’ (Woo, 2012: 669). Barbier (2021) too suggests that teaching games to others can add to one’s social standing through its demonstration of knowledge.

In many ways, subcultural capital operates as a mechanism through which boundaries and belonging are maintained and established (Haenfler, 2013). Returning to Thornton’s (1995) discussion of club cultures, she describes: ‘the social logic of subcultural capital reveals itself most clearly by what it dislikes and by what it emphatically isn’t’ (1995: 164). In this sense, belonging and acceptance to a group depends on how well one is able internalise and embody its norms and values, and distance themselves from the perceived ‘other’. As Konieczny (2019) highlights, it is common for tabletop gamers to criticise and distance themselves from mainstream, mass-market games such as Monopoly, as they are considered as being low quality, having few meaningful decisions to be made, and give a misleading portrayal of their hobby. Similarly, Barbier (2018) discusses the notion of bad players – those who maybe play too slowly or are ungracious winners/losers – whom others then subsequently try to avoid.

Despite the opportunity that subcultural capital theoretically provides for anyone to attain status and acceptance, the boundaries of subcultural capital are still often established and policed along gendered lines (Tramell, 2023) with authentic cultures and participation associated with men (Thornton, 1995) and particular performances of geek masculinity. Men are thus frequently seen as naturally belonging whereas women need to work harder to prove their legitimacy (Correa-Chávez et al., 2024) and accepted participation may require an active rejection of femininity in favour of masculinised ways interacting with the culture (Lumsden, 2010).

Given the masculinised history of hobbyist board games culture and the restricted access women have had to these spaces (Trammell, 2023), it is perhaps unsurprising that many of the cultural norms which have developed within board game spaces may serve to exclude women and promote particular versions of masculinity. For example, men and masculinity as the default can be seen in the games themselves, where men tend to feature more on the boxes of games (Pobuda, 2018) and the use of male pronouns in rulebooks is the norm (Jones and Pobuda, 2020). Booth (2021: 174) also identifies a variety of behaviours that can exclude women and restrict their participation:

The microaggressions, gendered assumptions, paternal attitudes, casual sexism at a gaming table, throwaway homophobic remarks, and mansplaining [. . .] all add up to an environment that can sometimes be implicitly or explicitly hostile or alienating to players that don’t fit the ‘traditional’ [male] mold. (Booth, 2021: 174)

Indeed, some literature suggests that women must capitulate to pre-established, masculinised notions of ‘gaming taste’ or ways of playing or risk never being taken seriously (Pobuda, 2022). Women may also fear that aligning with stereotypes around female gamers, such as being less competent or (dis)liking certain types of games, can lead to a pressure to perform or an inclination to adopt the dominant norms of the culture, thus discouraging women from engaging agentically (Davis, 2013).

To speak of a unified and singular experience, set of attitudes, or culture within board games is, however, an oversimplification (Scoats and Maloney, 2024). For example, more serious hobby gamers – those engaged deeply with the not just playing the games but many other related activities – will engage differently to those who simply play the games (Rogerson and Gibbs, 2018). Technological advances now also mean that access to board game knowledge (e.g. understanding rule sets) and the privilege this socialisation can afford no longer necessarily relies on in-person gatekeepers, has been democratised through the rise of more professionalised means such as online game tutorials or how-to-play videos (Barbier, 2021). The rise of board game cafes and public meet-up groups also point to a divergence and diversity of board game cultures developing (Barbosa, 2021; Harrington, 2023) and as Trammell (2023: 159) argues, as the hobby has evolved, we have seen ‘an older generation of apolitical game hobbyists against a newer generation of geeks interested in shifting the unjust power dynamics of the past’.

Numerous studies have explored how women experience masculinised, male dominated (sub)cultures but relatively few touch upon women’s experiences within board games. It is unclear to what extent women experience sexism, exclusion and stereotypes that hinder their participation and prevent them from being fully active members, as has been demonstrated in other fields. As Scoats and Maloney’s (2024) research on women’s perceptions of board game culture shows, women often perceive it as a male domain where they face numerous barriers to entry. The current article focuses on how women are treated within board game culture at a time when board game culture appears to be diversifying.

Sampling and Procedure

Participants were recruited via snowball sampling leveraging the first author’s personal network, recruitment posters in board game shops and cafes across England, digital recruitment posters in online board game groups and shared on social media platforms such as Facebook and (formerly) Twitter. Participants were invited to take part if they were ‘a woman who has an interest in modern/designer board games, ¹ or you view it as a hobby, or you consider yourself a board gamer’. Although no participants were excluded, the description was written with the intent of generating a sample of participants who could speak of their experience of hobby board game culture rather than occasional or incidental players who might not be aware of or engage with the broader cultural elements and activities associated with board gaming.

Study information was provided via a webpage which included a lay summary of the study as well as participant information documentation and consent form. It was explained that the study wanted:

To understand and explore the experiences, perspectives, and attitudes of women within modern tabletop (specifically board game) culture. Within board game culture, women are often in the minority, and this project thus aims to explore how they navigate and experience this predominantly male space.

A total of 43 semi-structured interviews were conducted in-person and online. Interviews lasted between 30 and 80 minutes and no incentives were offered for taking part. Ethical approval for this study was attained through Coventry University’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities ethics board.

Participants

The mean age of participants was 38.9 years (SD = 9.6). Participants were predominantly White (76.8%; including White, White British, White other), and more than half identified as heterosexual (58.1%). Most interviews were with women from the UK, USA, and Canada. This study draws upon the same sample as described in Scoats and Maloney’s (2024) published article. Accordingly, further demographic information for the participants can be found in the appendices of this aforementioned, open-access article. In the results section, all names and identifying information have been changed and participant details are provided after each quotation including pseudonym (if not already mentioned in the text), age and race/ethnicity.

It is important to acknowledge that while our sample offers valuable insights into women’s experiences of sexism in board gaming culture, it cannot capture the full spectrum of sexism in these spaces. Despite some diversity in age and sexual orientation among participants, the predominantly White sample (76.8%) means our findings primarily reflect experiences of gender-based discrimination and do not capture how sexism intersects with other forms of marginalisation such as racism, ableism or transphobia. The experiences documented here should therefore be understood as capturing a specific, gendered dimension of exclusion and stereotyping, rather than the complex intersectional discrimination that might occur in board gaming communities. Specifically, our data primarily capture gender-based differential treatment manifesting as: assumptions about women’s gaming preferences and competence; exclusion from certain gaming activities; positioning women as accessories rather than legitimate participants; and resistance to women demonstrating expertise that challenges gender stereotypes. Furthermore, the data may also demonstrate a ‘survivorship bias’ where the voices of those with the most negative experiences are absent are they are no longer a part of these communities.

Analysis

The study employed reflexive thematic analysis as outlined by Braun and Clarke (2021), an approach that offers flexibility in examining and interpreting participants’ lived experiences (Braun and Clarke, 2006). The research team began by thoroughly immersing themselves in the data, developing an initial set of codes. These codes were subsequently refined through collaborative discussion, considering both explicit (semantic) and implicit (latent) meanings within the data. Preliminary themes were then formulated (Braun and Clarke, 2021) and iteratively revised until the researchers reached a consensus that the themes accurately captured the ‘patterns of shared meaning’ (Braun and Clarke, 2019: 592) prevalent across the data.

As suggested by Braun and Clarke (2019: 595): ‘Assumptions and positionings are always part of qualitative research. Reflexive practice is vital to understand and unpack these’. Accordingly, both authors recognise the potential influence and impact of our positioning as cisgender men conducting research on women’s experiences. Indeed, during the participant recruitment stages, some commenters on publicly posted calls for participants suggested that women would be reluctant to speak to men about their negative experiences, and the research would be better carried out by women. Putting aside issues surrounding the additional burden of academic labour that would befall women if they were deemed the only ones suitable to investigate ‘issues facing women’, we believe that our positioning as (partial) outsiders bring valuable additional perspectives and constructions of knowledge.

All of the data collection and participant recruitment was conducted by the first author, a man with approximately 10 years’ experience with hobby board games and their communities. The principal investigator thus shared both insider status with his knowledge and experience of board games but outsider status as a man researching women’s experiences. As Mercer (2007: 7) suggests, ‘the more we conceive of [insider/outsider status] as points on a continuum, the more we are likely to value them both, recognising their potential strengths and weaknesses, in all manner of contexts’ Accordingly, the authors reject the idea that only individuals from the studied group can generate understanding (Bridges, 2017; Merton, 1972), but instead acknowledge that the analysis and interpretations they bring may provide alternative insights (Bridges, 2017).

While recognising that there is no one ‘truth’ to be found in reflexive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2021), the authors recognise that their own subject positions may have shaped the knowledge constructed (Olmos-Vega et al., 2023). Despite the inevitable influence of the researcher on the research process, both authors engaged in discussions on personal, interpersonal, methodological and contextual reflexivity with the aim of mitigating the impact of their prior experiences and biases on the research process (Olmos-Vega et al., 2023). For instance, they selected broader, open-ended questions and actively encouraged participants throughout the process to focus on what they felt was important.

The ‘Female Gamer’ Position

Although neither universal nor constant across different environments and groups they interacted with, many in the sample highlighted experiences of sexism in board game spaces. Sexism operated to position women (at least initially) as possessing lower status in the subculture, that is, they were perceived as lacking in knowledge, experience, and deeper levels of interest. For example, women were often presumed to have particular interests – namely lighter games or those games with more ‘feminised’ themes; be less capable competitively; and were less likely to be seen as engaged participants in their own right. These expectations around women positioned them as less ‘serious’ gamers and helped situate them as outsiders.

Being characterised as preferring particular types of games, Elle described past interactions with exhibitors at large gaming conventions: ‘They’ll direct the cutesy games at you [. . .] And if you go past more heavy euros they’ll speak to the lads first’ (31, White British). Verity and Aubrey described similar experiences at game shops:

But I felt slightly patronized by the guy who works there [. . .] it wasn’t the case of ‘Hi, how familiar are you with board games’, when offering some help. I think he showed me the very basic level ones, the very well-known ones. And remember thinking, I know more than that. So that was a slight flare up of rage, mildly pissed me off. (Verity, 35, White British)

Somebody who worked in the store came over and was telling me how difficult the game was and maybe trying to direct me towards something completely different. And I’m like, ‘No, this is the weight game I’m looking at’. (Aubrey, 41, White)

Whilst some participants did actually prefer lighter games – ‘There’s a sort of stereotype (which in my case is true), that women like the lighter games’ (Maya, 34, British Indian) – reliance on this stereotype meant that women were excluded from some tables:

My partner and I have made jokes in the past about the ‘big boys’ games. You’d have a group of guys – it’s always men – who have set up their table, and they’re playing their kind of hardcore games there. And it’s very, very rare that women would be included in that. (Quinn, 48, Mixed Race)

In addition to being symbolically (and sometimes literally) excluded from ‘hardcore’ games – those games deemed more complex and requiring a more significant investment in both time and mental effort to play (sometimes also referred in terms of ‘weight’, for example light(weight) vs heavy(weight) games) – these sorts of games were often constructed as ‘superior’ to other games, thus relegating women (and their presumed interests) to a lower status within the board game subcultural hierarchy. Echoing Konieczny’s (2019) arguments around how distinctions between ‘hardcore’ and ‘mainstream’ serve to reproduce (in this case, gendered) subcultural hierarchies and insider/outsider status, Maya explained how she was reluctant to suggest what would be perceived as lighter games and had had her opinions diminished by some ‘serious’ gamers:

When I’m around serious gamers, I feel like I can’t suggest like Lords of Waterdeep because it’s too lightweight. Or sometimes when I suggest games it can get quite dismissive, ‘Oh, no, that’s not that good a game’ [. . .] I do wonder if it’s a bit of ‘this game’s not macho enough, don’t bother with this’. (34, British Indian)

Board Game Geek (BGG), a popular board game website and forum-based community which has a feature allowing for user scoring and an overall ranking for games, was a way through which certain types of games were constructed as ‘objectively better’ than others:

BBG rankings, the top 10 games were all basically the same games that ranked in the top 10 list of heaviest strategy games. And it really seemed like people were getting some feeling of superiority for playing these really hard games [. . .] something that I found frustrating getting into the hobby is there’s really like, tiers of like, superiority of like gatekeeping around games. (Rose, 30, White)

Further intensifying the capacities of men to assert dominance over women in this particular subcultural setting, this type of gatekeeping was brought up by many participants as evidence that men were far more invested than women in competing for social position: ‘I definitely see the men in gaming as far more aggressive and far more gatekeeping than women are’ (Stella, 27, White); ‘I feel like you get geeky bros, who try and like one up each other’ (Clara, 41, White).

Alongside women’s supposed lack of interest in heavier games, their presumed lack of experience and knowledge meant they were often assumed to be novices compared to men: ‘There’s comments about, ‘Oh, you’re really good for girl’ [. . .] it’s just patronizing’ (Quinn, 48, Mixed Race). Women would thus sometimes receive unsolicited advice, or what some participants described as ‘mansplaining’:

We played Power Grid, which I’ve never played before. And this guy kept offering me unsolicited advice and talking to me like I was an idiot. And just to be contrary I did the exact opposite of what he told me. And then I beat him. Then the second time we played, he did the exact same thing. (Sofia, 35, White British)

Sometimes I might get some mansplaining done to me. Just, ‘Oh no, you don’t want to do that because strategically it doesn’t make sense’. And I’m like, ‘I understand the strategic bit. But actually, from a different angle, it makes more sense’. So that happens sometimes, explaining the rules to me when I’ve been playing that game for three years and I understand very well what I’m doing. (Ruby, 27, White Other)

Consistent with the expectation of less knowledge and that women necessarily need help, it was often anticipated that women would not perform well. Furthermore, in what amounts to active policing of gender inequalities in this subcultural space, if women did do well, and won, some men would respond negatively: ‘I find that some of the guys really get agitated when I win’ (Aisha, 53, Indian). Kylie also described how in some contexts her inclusion was conditional on her aligning with expectations around her diminished gaming abilities:

If we’re meeting for the first time, and it’s a table full of primarily men, walking over to the table typically results in a lot of positivity at first, there’s a lot of, ‘Oh, you’re a girl and you’re gonna play that’s awesome. Do you need help learning how to play?’ stuff like that. But then usually, once we get going, there’s seems to be this weird, almost cognitive dissonance in the first half of most games, where I’m very polite, but also very upfront with stuff. And the longer the game goes on, if I’m doing well, the meaner people get. I’ve not really had this experience with most women. (35, White)

Similarly, Jade described a ‘natural order’, where women’s social position around the board game table did not include competence:

If it’s like a cooperative game and I do badly, I’m expected to do badly by certain members of my team. So the natural order is still there. Likewise, if I do well, I am not expected to do well, and therefore I must be cheating or something’s gone wrong. I was with a group of men that had played quite a lot and their attitude was just bring the newbie in and she won’t do very well – that was the expectation. And when I won [. . .] they stopped just short of like overturning the board. It was like, ‘how did you do that?’ It was then picked apart – I must have cheated. (39, White Other)

Further highlighting women’s presumed position within board game culture, they were often treated as inherently less involved or interested in games culture. For example, some described being specifically introduced as someone else’s partner: ‘I’ve had a man introduce me to other people when I was with my husband he said, ‘Oh, this is Josh, this is Josh’s wife’. Like I don’t have a name. Like I’m not a person, I am property’ (Sofia, 35, White British). Violet (64, White British) described a similar situation where a man she was with was explaining their board game scene to others: ‘And you’ll find it’s a nice place where we do have you know, mixed gender and people have been bringing their wives and girlfriends since we started’. Being a long-standing member of the community however, Violet quickly challenged and subverted his comment: ‘Julie and I just looked at each other and said “Yeah, some of us have been bringing our husbands and boyfriends as well”’.

Others spoke about how their male partners would often receive better treatment than they would. For examples, within board game shops: ‘my partner will be on one side of the store getting a completely different experience than what I’m getting’ (Aubrey, 41, White); or board game groups:

So there was one point I was going to this group every single week for about six months. And nobody talked to me outside of who I was with. But my male presenting partner, oh, made friends, got invited to do this, got invited to do that [. . .]. (Lucy, 46, White)

Highlighting the pervasiveness of these attitudes, Florence described watching a pre-convention live-stream event hosted by three men:

They were doing this kind of two hours of kind of bro-dom. You know, lots of in-jokes and they did loads of interviews. And everybody interviewed was male and they had a bunch of callers and they were incredibly chatty with these guys. ‘You’re coming to the convention, what are you going to do?’ Et cetera, and there was one female caller. And the first thing they said to her was, ‘Hey, what are you doing today? You looking after your kids?’ Like, what the fuck? (49, Jewish)

In summary, while experiences of sexism in board game spaces varied across different environments, it functioned to subordinate women’s status in the eyes of some men. This operated in various ways: from the devaluing of female-coded ‘light’ games and related pressures to exhibit preferences for allegedly more ‘hardcore’ ones, to sexist assumptions around participants’ capacities, and outright hostility to their instances of gaming success.

Becoming an Equal

Despite the ever-present spectre of sexism within board game spaces, women were frequently able to challenge stereotypes they encountered and establish themselves as equals within these spaces. An active demonstration of board game subcultural capital, in the form of demonstrating niche interests or knowledge, or being good at games could aid women in breaking away from assumptions made about them. For example, demonstrations of board game knowledge could bolster a personal sense of belonging:

So I walked into a boardgame café and went, ‘Have you got furnace? I want to play Furnace’ and the boardgame Cafe guy says, ‘Never heard of it’. And it’s kind of like, I know one game that you don’t know! So you know, there’s this shift, where you suddenly start to feel like actually, I’m not in an unfamiliar environment. And I do know this environment. So I walk in there with more confidence and more assertiveness. (Piper, 58, White British)

Echoing findings from the previous section in which gendered hierarchies of taste and knowledge are subtly but actively reproduced by men in gaming spaces, others highlighted how demonstrations of their knowledge could dramatically alter how male gamers responded to them. Mary described her experience of going into a board game shop where she was initially met with stereotypes around her interests. However, once the staff member recognised Mary’s more specialised interests the interaction changed:

[The male board game shop assistant] was trying to point me towards Azul and fun games and I was actually in there to buy a Zombicide expansion. And they were like, ‘Oh you know about Zombicide?’ and I could feel that shift in conversation where once he knew that I knew what I was talking about it he definitely wanted to make me feel welcomed, but he’d made that assumption of you’re a woman so you’re probably interested in these really pretty tile-laying games. (29, White British)

Some participants recognised that they actively needed to demonstrate their board game capital way to quickly diffuse assumptions made of them. As these assumptions usually came from men, Olivia acknowledged that there was more of a need to demonstrate her board game capital to other men rather than women:

I would say it’s rare for me to go into a shop or board game cafe where there are female staff, so maybe there’s a little bit more the need to kind of prove I know what I’m talking about. Make sure that they calibrate their responses based on what I like. (38, White Other)

Similarly, and evidencing the ways in which board game spaces require women (as women) to actively engage in strategies on entry that signal their insider status and right to belong, Ivy described how bringing specific games with her to public groups helped to silently convey her experienced position to men: ‘when I was going to the board game nights the games that I pick to take with us are almost like, here are the credentials, these are proper games. It kind of stops a lot of the bullshit’ (38, White British). For others, their status was legitimised through other people’s recommendations: ‘I’ve been introduced by my group of people, they’ve gone, “Oh, Elle, she likes this game, she’s really good, you won’t be able to beat her”’ (31, White British). Without such recommendations, however, Elle suggested that it was much less common for women to be invited to join with others they didn’t know.

In contrast to the previously discussed finding that women who did well at games had their victories challenged and diminished, sometimes being good at games helped them to establish reputation and be welcomed by others:

[Going to a board game group] was a good experience all round other than this kind of weird, we’re not going to invite a girl to play, not at first. And then you start climbing like, alright I can pick up this game quite quickly. And that seemed to earn a degree of respect, that they weren’t kind of having to dumb it down or slow the game down for me, that I could pick it up quite quickly. (Ivy, 38, White British)

Elle described a similar situation where her demonstrated prowess with games was seen as a positive: ‘I pick up games really fast, and I tend to win. So after that, I got a reputation of always winning. So people always invited me just because of a challenge now’ (31, White British).

Quinn, who previously spoke about the exclusionary practices around ‘big boys’ games’, described her acceptance from some board gamers based on her ability as bittersweet:

The guy running the event was asking for a game of Brass Birmingham, and I said, ‘I’d like to join because I like Brass Birmingham’. And I absolutely smashed it. And he didn’t do very well. And then since then, he kind of changed his attitude to me, and now I’m allowed to be part of the big boys’ games, which I don’t know how I feel about it. Because a bit of me enjoys playing those games, and a bit of me wants to shrug it off and go, ‘Well, you know what, you can go off and play your games’, but also a bit of me wants to be part of it and show that actually I can do this as well as anybody can. So he’s changed from somebody who was kind of excluding me to somebody who really who is actively seeking out playing games with me now. (48, Mixed Race)

In conclusion, despite encountering sexist assumptions, demonstrations of board game subcultural capital could help some women to challenge and reposition themselves as equals.

Reframing Sexism

Although clear that some had experienced what may be interpreted as sexism, many participants were reluctant to frame their encounters through this lens or view board game culture as any different to wider society. For some, sexist behaviours were instead recast as awkward social interactions that reflected individuals’ introversion, poor social skills, or perhaps neurodiversity: ‘I think sometimes, you can find a lot of introverts playing board games. So it doesn’t necessarily mean then that they’ve got the social skills to converse and say, “Hey, how you doing?”’ (Nina, 49, White British). Similarly, Jess said:

In some board gaming cultures, people, me included, will gravitate to board games because it provides a social context for the interaction. They might not be the kind of people who are naturally outgoing or inclined to think about inclusivity in the moment, or have language for that. (35, Mixed-Race)

Excessive, awkward, and uncomfortable behaviours were thus characterised as an individual failing rather than a cultural problem, stemming from a small minority rather than being reflective of the overall culture. Rose’s (30, White) account captures the complex way in which participants sometimes tread a line between individualising bad behaviours, while also acknowledging the failure of (male-dominated) gaming groups to adequately protect women in these spaces:

There’s often a guy in the room that everyone knows is a problem, and they don’t deal with it. So like, there’s one guy who, no matter what woman shows up, his eyes are following her or he’s getting up to talk to her, even if she’s visibly uncomfortable. And even if it’s just like, it doesn’t have to be anything, like aggressive or overly sexual, but if he doesn’t know boundaries and can’t take the hint to leave her alone. And everyone else is just like, oh, that’s just Joe and he’s just like that.

Highlighting the difficulty in determining the intent behind people’s actions, Angela (37, Chinese) said: ‘I feel like people have a tendency to read a lot into other people’s behaviour, we assume people’s actions mean things, which might not necessarily be true’. This difficulty was vividly demonstrated in a situation Sofia described:

I was playing with some people including a man in his probably late 50s, and he would have a rules query. I would answer him and he would just ignore me wouldn’t make eye contact with me. It was like he couldn’t hear women. After we finished playing the game, I had to say to my friend, ‘Did that actually happen’? (35, White British)

Later on, more information came to light which shifted her reading of the situation:

I found out through third party reports that the man is diagnosed as autistic, so that probably had something to do with it. I do think that there is probably quite high incidence of autism in board and community from what I’ve known. A handful of my friends who play board games have an autism diagnosis.

Likewise, Ruby explained that although she had experienced sexism behaviour from men, she didn’t necessarily read it as intentional:

As horrible as it sounds, in those of cases [of being treated differently] I’ve tried to go in and talk to them, and they will just be awkward about it. And if I’m with a male friend, and we’re both talking, they’ll be speaking to the guy, answering to the guy. So I think there’s some sexism there that they don’t realize, I don’t think they mean to kind of create that society, but I think it’s what they’re used to. (27, White Other)

In addition to attributing sexism to poor social skills rather than being intentional, others interpreted their experiences of sexism as simply part of ‘being a woman’:

I think there’s the odd person that judges whatever game I’ve got in my hand. But I think that’s just life as a woman. In any space where you have anything in your hand somebody has to make a comment and judge you on it. (Ivy, 38, White British)

Accordingly, it made sense to adopt the same sort of strategies around board game tables that they did in their wider life:

I think as a woman I feel the need to, if I’m not going to be patronised in life, to be a bit scary. And that’s something I’ve adopted for years in certain situations. And people do kind of know not to cross me, because as a woman, people would just try it. (Joan, 20, White British)

There were a couple of people who like, ‘oh we’ll come and be your friend’, like, ‘oh you’re a female, who is single now and vulnerable’. But nothing bad happened but for whatever reason, there was a vibe with them that made me feel more cautious than with other people. But again, they didn’t, they didn’t actually do anything. This is all part of being a woman isn’t it, like you carry your keys in your hand when you walk down a dark street. (Clara, 41, White)

One specific strategy that a number of participants highlighted was leveraging the sexist assumptions made of them into an advantage:

A friend of mine had a 13-year-old daughter who was really very bright. And she used to play the little girl card in games, ‘Oh, can you help me please? I don’t think I can work this one out. Was I supposed to put that there? Oh, look, I’ve won!’ Because everybody just assumed that being a little girl, she probably wouldn’t know what she was doing. So she played the I-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing card. And won almost every game that she was in because she learned how to completely twist all the adults and especially all the men around her little finger. And I think that there are still quite a few women who can get away with that. There is an assumption that. . . that maybe we don’t necessarily know what we’re doing. I know quite a few women now who will play the room if they see that kind of thing coming up. So we have our own ways of handling situations sometimes. (Violet, 64, White British)

A notable element of Violet’s example is the young age at which she suggests her friend’s daughter had not just learnt to recognise sexist stereotypes but was capable enough to convert them into tools which gave her power within gaming scenarios. It also indicates that this teenage girl has already started to internalise what many of the adult women indicated to be lifelong strategies to navigating society as a woman.

Thus, it was clear that some women framed negative experiences as stemming from individual men’s poor social skills or a normal part of women’s lives rather than necessarily view board games culture as having a sexism problem. Furthermore, while some participants were conscious of the failure of board game groups to call out instances of sexism and misogyny from individual men, they also appeared reluctant to ascribe collective responsibility for such policing and instead chose to acquiesce to the status quo in the interests of maintaining peace.