Some Great LARP articles.

[Elena]

New one on Gender here, which is why I am linking in the first place:
http://www.mortalisrpg.com/forum/index.php?topic=104.0

I read through the articles referenced to see what the author of them had to share on the subject I was rather shocked and aghast at what I'd read. Beyond the massive amount of page real estate take up by the author just talking about her own character (in many ways I feel that were irrelevant to the topic at hand) I feel that the series of articles feeds off of and then regurgitates the age old stereotype of the female gamer: That she is a rare, endangered species, and any character that she plays are supposed to be the object of a male gamer's desires, a support character and in short a lesser being at the whim of the dominant male gender. I find this very ironic given that the article was supposedly written by a feminist female LARPer.

The stereotype that a woman's characters are supposed to be objectified, passive background characters is an archaic stereotype. Secondly, female LARPers, let alone female gamers are no longer the endangered species that they once were.

...

An acquaintance of mine once shared that she felt that more women do LARPing than table-top gaming because LARPing is a more socially oriented form of gaming and women naturally gravitate to that. I have to say that I agree with that and feel that the more role-play oriented a LARP is the more women tend to become involved in it. Once again though, remember that not every woman follows the perceived or stereotypical pattern, there will be those who defy the standard because it does not fit them.

Just as female gamers have broken the stereotype of being an endangered species, I've also seen more and more women playing strong, active (dare I even say aggressive) roles defying the other age old stereotype (see the second paragraph). Likewise men too have broken their stereotype as well in turn playing characters in more passive and/or underdog roles. Much like the gender balance has changed, so have the expectations of the type of characters that the different genders are traditionally expected to play or portray.



Other articles:
http://www.mortalisrpg.com/forum/index.php?board=8.0

[Adam Davis]

I have to be honest, I can't think of a single female character off the top of my head who isn't elbow-deep in the action most of the time.  I can, however, think of a few MALE characters like that, although not that many... those people don't tend to leave a lasting impression on me...

[tono_Fyr]

SOLAR seems to have a decent female-to-male ratio.  It's always seemed that way to me, at least for the 3 and 1/2 years I've been playing.

I'd be interested to know the exact numbers, though.