Girls playing DDR

[Flound3r]

[Julie QQQ...?]

Wow, one gender thread I don't feel like humorously trolling with kitchen jokes, and on Chit-Chat no less!

I may not be an expert on cultural anthropology especially in the field of gender studies, but the idea on a social level that relate to girls and DDR, beyond the whole, "Oh my god, girls are physically incapable lolteehee!" idea is rather fascinating.

It's quite obvious that women are physically less capable than men, but I think this idea has less to do with DDR than most think. Thousands of generations of societies that followed the hunter-gatherer principles of efficient village building made men more genetically predisposed to physical superiority, as well as didn't give the women the chance to catch up by relegating them to tasks that would make them more adept to raising multiple children and positively affect their family and society as a whole. In turn, they raise their children to do the same. Now, I'm not flat out saying putting women in the gatherer role was always the case in every example of older societies, but it generally made a lot of sense back then, when procreation and lowering the infant mortality rate was the key to a self-sustaining population for future generations. (Oh, the irony.) The fallacy that lies within this would be that women were also socially inferior and different in their gender roles, which many societies eventually inferred from male physical dominance. This in itself is a flawed argument, with much evidence that matriarchal societies in prehistory (i.e. the Iroquois) were highly advanced in many social principles and worked very well.

There have been changes, especially with the advent of non-traditional households, but many nuances ingrained in our society still have a bearing on how we raise our children. Over time, many things have helped free women and men from this structured "social necessity" (most notable in the more developed nations), and you can blame it on anything from the Industrual Revolution to feminism to birth control to what-have-you, and we increasingly witness equal-parenting or rather, equal-financial providing, mostly in middle- to upper-class households in America. Still, the uterus-bearers are traditionally made to be the caregivers, because it still makes sense. And from the stereotypes in prehistory to today's more developed society, male children have evolved from playing with rocks to sharpened spears to fake swords to toy guns and eventually first-person shooters, while female children who started out weaving baskets eventually got dolls, Barbies, Easy Bake Ovens, and fake cell phones or the other "feminine" toys that are out there on the market today. Little boys' toys also had the underlying tendency to invoke competitiveness and dominance over something, whether it be an deer in the wilderness, an imaginary person, or a two-dimensional sprite on a screen, while girl's toys never seemed to have that same gusto, obviously.

I'm not saying that there's this mass-conspiracy to keep girls in the kitchen or whatnot since social progress tells us that there are great strides to having girls graduate from college and into highly competitive fields of work. Still, because of societal predisposition, a set of parents, as well-meaning or as socially-conscious as they think they are, will more likely indulge their little girl into buying toys the parents were accustomed to playing with that their less-accepting societies dictated them to have, than to break the mold by introducing gender-neutral or opposite-gender aimed toys.

As a little girl, my parents (who if my mother was working full-time during our childhood, would have been pulling in more than a third or close to half of our household income) got me all the Barbies I wanted on my birthday because that's what I was I liked (or subconsciously made to like?) as a girl, and actively discouraged me when I had questions about my cousin's Sega system in her basement. I also had to beg for a Gameboy Color, an N64, and a PS2, as well as buy my own Nintendo DS and games. I was lucky to grow up where I did and made the friends that I did, and we were a 50/50 split of girls and guys, where a lot of us did similar extracurricular activities, like Model United Nations, various science teams, or anime viewings, so it was never really a question whether to invite girls to Halo, LAN, or DDR gatherings, because hell, girls would bring over controllers, laptops, or homepads.

Still, it's really evident by the way many girls play DDR that they look at it differently, and perhaps their disposition to less competitive tendencies are to blame. I think most girls who play DDR are invisible, and like many have said (including myself, in previous threads) in the past, console DDR would be enough to foster her self-competition, which is enough for a girl who isn't conditioned by society or her lifestyle to succeed athletically or in video games. I would go so far as to say that if you take the entire demographic of DDR players from casual to competitive, girls would be anywhere from close to half and I'd personally venture to say more than half of all players.

A place like DDRFreak brings out many people who are more competitive at the game, and when you look at the girl vs. guy numbers here, they take a sharp turn downward. One step up from the invisible female home player is the, "I'm a girl and I can pass Max 300 at the arcade and a bunch of 9's!" player, which in my mind doesn't prove much either, and even though there are less of these more accomplished girls than invisihome players, there are stlll quite a few (back in 2002 when I played console DDR, ALL of my girl friends could pass 9 footers. All of them). Yes, there are girls at arcades. Yes, they can pass 9's and 10's. Are they good? No. Because, as a DDRFreaker who knows better than to be amused by someone who can barely clear a 10, if they had a penis, the average DDRFreaker would not be impressed.

It's when you add to the mix all the nuances that make competitive DDR the way it is, girls are virtually zero to none. When you tabulate the number of girls who keep flushed out DDRecall scoresheets, AA/SDG/AAA a remotely large to virtually all of the game charts, can tell you which songs in DDR are offsync and why, and enter major tournaments in their region, that is when you have a percentage that is so embarrasingly small. Maybe you can name me five, ten or hell, fifteen girls who can do this and still do this on varying skill levels (I know I can), but that is merely a drop in the bucket when you consider how many guys can do it as well, or usually better.

Girls as a whole aren't encouraged to be competitive at this game, or any game for the matter, and if a girl plays well, she is the exception, not the rule. The athletic aspect has been touched upon on this thread too, and as a girl who cannot run three blocks without wheezing but has AAed 10's and can SDG strings of 9's, it doesn't matter as much as you think, although someone made a good point that you need a decent amount of stamina to get better. At the DDR endgame, however, a lot of it is accuracy and stamina conservation, as proven by the many non-athletic players who can AAA 10's. (It's a lot harder to make this generalization about ITG, especially for 10+'s.)

So I think you can look to what society tells us a cause for why girls aren't visible in their love for DDR or many other video games, for that matter. It's not the end-all-be-all answer to the question, but it's most definitely a logical explanation as to why we are so shocked to see girls playing this game on various levels. For people arguing that girls suck at DDR because they are physically incapable just needs to look around at all the non-athletic males and nerd varieties who excel at the game to shoot that theory down, and from there, they can adequately focus on what's really to blame in this case -- the cultural factors and history that discourage or don't actively encourage women to push against the social gradient, motivating them equally excel at something as simple as a four-panel dancing video game.

[B4ULoveShine]

I'm constantly curious why a lot of women whom I play DDR with don't and refuse to play "It's Raining Men" or "Somewhere over the Rainbow".

Heck, all of them cringe at the prior.
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BeForU was easily the heart and soul of DDR, until someone in Konami thought that it's a threat to the current structure (read: Konami's blatant overfunding of IIDX/pop'n).

[MightyJAK]

My girlfriend loves Bumblebee, but hates Cowgirl.

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DDR Hottest Party wrote:

This groove is all Mighty. I'm lovin' it!

[ihcw.stefank687]

[ChilliumBromide]

DDR was made primarily by men.

DDR is played primarily by men.

I don't see why that requires 7 pages to figure out.
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I used to be active here lol

[(SSS)DarkSerenity]

Hi, i'm a girl... i play ITG for a little less than a year... and here's my GS :
http://www.groovestats.com/index.php?page=profile&view=quicksongs&id=4259

so yeah haha, i started playing with hard mode... and my 3rd song ever was expert... (hand of time) that i passed too haha XD, so i know that i decided to start playing ITG bcz i saw a guy playing godly... that didn't discourage me, more like the opposite

[ChilliumBromide]

I decided to start playing ITG 'cause it was $16 at GameStop.

Yay for male reasoning.
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I used to be active here lol

[ANDYburnsDDR]

i just ganna have to put out there i remember i was in italy in pisa at the bowling alley and there was a couple playing girl and guy...now the girl was ever hot and very voluptuous is ya know what i'm sayin. and she killed it on afronova(HVY FTW!) but i'm just sayin after that she took a breather...and i'm sure all the jumps where makin things hurt...and that can also be a dumb reason why not to many girls play...please no one take offence to that...it's just a story with my strange logic...
peace
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[ChilliumBromide]

That just means she needed to firm up her tits.
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I used to be active here lol

[Jaipan]

I think girls don't play DDR at the level of guys is because girls competive edge is high, but not as high as males. It doesn't have to do with us not liking to be sweaty or anything like that...NO ONE really likes to be sweaty.

Also, girls wouldn't prioritize being a ddr master over schoolwork, boys and you know...girly-type things. 7.5 times out of ten.

Advanced girls inspire other girls 2 play ddr. Advanced guys inspire other guys to start playing ddr. If there are 15 advanced guys for every advanced girl, more guys would be inspired than girls...right?

Does that make sense? Probably not.

[Blue_eternity_09]

I've been playing for a while(5 years, give or take), and I'll say: this is not such a bad topic.

Sure, women are physically inferior but it doesn't mean that they can't change that. As for motivation, even I can be guilty to lack it sometimes but it doesn't stop me from playing altogether. In fact, I'm surprised that I'm even still playing and I'm glad that I am.

http://www.ddr.ddrecall.com/user.php?mode=viewprofile&user=1538

I'll probably have a ways to go, but again: this is not a bad thread.

By the way, I feel pretty motivated to play now.

[ChilliumBromide]

Something I've noticed is that most of the girls I know who dance typically use their torso and arms in most of what they do, but don't do a lot with their hips or legs.

Most of the guys I know who dance are exactly opposite.

I dance with my whole body, which is why everyone looooooves me.

Point is, DDR's very similar in how you use your energy to a dancing style more popular among males then females.

Another thing that I've noticed is that I probably know about 200 girls who play DDR, but only 3 of them play on heavy, 5 or 6 on standard, and the rest all play light or beginner.

I know about 30 guys who play DDR. 25 or so of them play on Heavy, the other 5 play on standard.

I think it's a lot easier for females to just casually play DDR, but for guys, they only play it as a joke and don't even try, they're pressure by their girlfriends to play, or they play because they saw some other guy playing all hardcore-like and wanted to be hardcore too.
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I used to be active here lol

[Ichigofan]

I see girls playing DDR sometimes...I actually am a girl, and I love DDR.

[flotastic]

vagina vagina vagina tits vagina

stop making threads relating girls and ddr in any way. it always ALWAYS degrades into:
a) girls aren't better than guys because of (superficial reason)
b) girls aren't better than guys because of (physical reason)
c) girls aren't better than guys because of (overwhelming generalization)
d) i'm a girl and i play ddr on this difficulty ^_^
e) i'm a girl defending girls trying to look righteous (but really i just want more attention)
f) random flame

just stooooooooppppppppppp with these threads

[ChilliumBromide]

Girls have tits. Men will take any excuse to talk about them.

Although your ratio of vaginas to tits is off. Most girls have 1:2, not 4:1.
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I used to be active here lol

[flotastic]

[Kitties]

I'm a girl, I play DDR. I suck though. Like, majorly. But I'm improving. I don't know anyone else who plays, but I'm young. The only thing I really took offense to in the slightest bit in this thread is when somebody said Canada was messed up. So. Yeah.
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♥

[ChilliumBromide]

Canada wins. They have Maple Syrup.

And Maple Syrup candy.

And Jones Soda.
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I used to be active here lol

[kaosskratchet]