Lengthy rant pt2

I think "Women in Magic" is such a kinda misguided topic. It vaguely has something curious there, yet it seems pretty straight forward.  But then again, I also spend some hour or so writing this, so enjoy.

Have to somehow agree with what Sean is saying here, even though there are girls who do well in tournaments, there’s alot of gossipy, unnecessary coverage, like ‘she is x pro players gf’ (actually mentioned on an mtg column, of all places!). “X players’s GF” is possibly the worse stigma I can think of, I mean, it invalidates you in all possible ways, either people think you just suck, or people think you’re only good cos your BF helps you. There’s too much of this ‘girl’ stigma attached to nearly any girls in magic, it feels like we have so much more to prove. Can’t even believe they put a list of girls in competitive magic on wikipedia, as if we are some freaks of nature. Even if I did cash in my PT, I wouldn’t feel it was very wiki-worthy. Maybe top 8 is worth mentioning, but still the whole ‘girl’ thing is kind of overrated in general. We all have brains, some people are smart, whether they are men or women, therefore some people can do well in magic. Doesn’t have to be so “Oh, a girl CAN play, wow” or “Oh, girls suck at magic”. I’ve played against guys who REALLY suck at magic, so its not a gender thing. They will have all the pieces to logically win with, yet they fail to see it and do something that ultimately makes them lose the game. But that’s magic, and hey, we basically all make mistakes, apart from these uber elite players who still ‘might’ make mistakes. Since there are so few females in tournaments, obviously they get observed more, judged more. It’s so polarised, either you get labelled as a scrub, or “Wow you can actually play”. That in itself is kind of demeaning, that people judge so much, and also make a big fuss either when a girl cashes in tourney, or in this secret ‘Girls suck’ kind of topic that is whispered among men.

I guess females are a curiousity only because they are rare in Magic, its just human instinct. Alot of guys will naturally be attracted or curious about ANY girl in the room when surrounded by 30-300 other guys. It’s about the numbers. In any normal social setting, we see mostly a balance of females and males (not in all countries, but generally), so its weird being in a place with only males. Its like clastrophobic for some women, or like a “Where’s Wally”. I can’t fault guys for being attracted to these girls, since its possibly a fascination that marries two of their interests: Magic and girls. That’s my explanation for it. That’s why its weird for females in Magic though. You stick out way too much, way more than you should. If you’ve just won a PTQ like anyone else, or qualified like other people, doing it the hard way, you feel like you want a least some respect. A part of the curiousity is probably respect, but I think a part of the curiousity is also, “Can she live up to expectations”. And the answer is usually, “Maybe not”, depending on what your expectations are. There’s no gravy-trainer girl on the PT. We won’t be able to live up to expectations like that until one of the very few of us, actually exceeds that. But maybe someone will breakthough sometime, at least there are girls who play competitively. We’re basically outnumbered though, and alot of guys (a lot more!) are also trying very hard to win the PT at the same time, and when you count the number of people in the PTs, it’s pretty hard to win. You need both luck and superb skill to make it to top8, so statistically, thats going to be pretty hard for girls due to the sheer numbers.