For thirteen years, I’ve been a regular member of my local boffer larp. A full-contact game where the aim is to hit hard, get hit, and have fun, I joined in June of 2006. When I started to fight, I was small, meek, and had no clue about the world I had stumbled into.

Over the last thirteen years, I’ve come to love boffer larping and the athleticism it lends to people who want a fun hobby. I’ve gone adventuring, fought until I collapsed, gotten injured, and tried to find ways to enjoy myself.

I’ve also seen the sexism, misogyny, and lack of parity between men and everyone else that occurs on the field. That’s why I’ve put together this article to discuss these issues. We are at a critical point in the lifespan of several larps.

We can adjust to the times, admit that we have all been complicit in these issues, and change. Or, we can continue in old ways and wonder why our games stagnate, why women and queer and nonbinary and trans players leave at a higher rate.

Our games are more inclusive than they were ten years ago, but the progress forward is incremental when it could be more. We don’t play privately owned games; we play in games where our efforts and our volunteerism keep the lights on. So if that’s the case, then we need to know what is poisonous, and how to deal with it before it infects the next generation of players.

Sexism in boffer

The first thing that we as players, as administrators, volunteers, nobles and elected officials need to admit is that there is a deep-rooted problem in our games. I say games plural because this isn’t an issue that can be pointed at in a single game, chapter, realm or kingdom. It’s pervasive, and it’s partially because our games founded during an era when women were treated as lesser.

But it isn’t the 1980s anymore. We can do better and to do that first we need to talk about the issue. Sexism, misogyny, and parity are the three I’m going to be discussing today in some detail.

Sexism is built into our culture, which makes it particularly dangerous for the women who play. Other authors have spoken about broken stairs in enough detail that I don’t feel it necessary for me to go into depth about it. But I’ll wager than any player of a boffer larp in the Maryland area can name a broken stair from their home game. I’ll wager that amongst those, these were veteran players who were allowed to continue operating for far longer than anyone likes to admit.

Here’s the thing. I know that this is changing. I know that national conversations are occurring in some games about sexism, about how we serve our players. But until we sit down and say, sexism is a problem, and we have to solve it, it won’t get better.

This isn’t just a woman’s issue either. When we treat women as less, we also change the way that men behave. If all that our games value is machismo and brute force, then where do our soft men go? Our queer men? Our crafters and brewers and singers and dancers? The answer is that they also become less because of a culture that values brute strength and field presence over everything else.

A culture to blame

It isn’t about competition. This is the first thing that I want to say. In many cases, the first argument we hear when bringing up systemic issues in the culture of these games is the idea that “women just aren’t as competitive as men.”

I’m calling bullshit. For over a decade, I have watched women show up, learn to fight, and then get whittled down by the sexism in our games. The reason that we don’t have women on the field or in tourneys isn’t because of a lack of competition.

I can name off the top of my head a dozen or more who have wanted or are currently striving for the highest fighting honors in games coast to coast. We don’t see these women compete in tourneys due to lack of skill, but because of culture.

Let me explain. Each person, when they show up to their first event, is on a (mostly) level playing field. With practice, mentoring, and time any new player can grow up to be a noble, or a general badass. But in the first year, we see more women than men drop off. Why?

Speaking from personal experience, I believe it boils down to culture. When a woman shows up to an event, she is more likely to be asked if her boyfriend brought her out than if she wants to fight. If she wants to compete in the ring, she is more likely to be spoken down to than if she stays on the sidelines and brings water to a fighter. When she does want to fight, she is more likely to be engaged on a light basis, to be demeaned, or to have someone try to beat her down and show her her place.

These aren’t examples I’ve pulled out of a hat either. These are things I have experienced and watched and talked about with other women. Our games have a culture that is difficult for women to deal with when it isn’t outright toxic to them.

I remember my first event. One person out of dozens took their time to try and teach me the fundamentals of fighting. Several others asked if I was a camp bunny, who I belonged to, and tried to get in my pants. When women stop fighting actively they regress to being girlfriends and being treated as less even though they are still active members of their games. In many cases, women are only extended equality when there is a man to speak up for her. In some cases, it’s a friend, or a country member, or a significant other. The relationship doesn’t matter, only that a man finds her worthy and can convince other men as such.

Right off the bat, women are treated as second class citizens in boffer. They are more expected to arch, to take non-combatant roles, to act as “Camp Moms” or to craft, rather than becoming involved in the game itself.

Even women well known as being competent fighters or veterans in their game have to deal with this. The culture of our games doesn’t recognize women for their achievements on the field because it is easy for them to be outshined.

Take, for instance, the fighter who won their first tourney who was told it didn’t count because individual high-level fighters hadn’t been there to challenge her. Or the player who is expected to take light shots that no man would accept simply because of her gender?

This culture goes deeper than day events too. While many things have changed, and are changing still, rape and assault are prevalent at our games. There was a time when female nobles would walk the paths to speak to new women players about what to expect, who were told not to go out by themselves at night, who are stricken from a portion of gameplay because it was unsafe for them because of their gender.

Veteran woman fighters often take younger women under their wing because their veterancy allows them to protect new players. And to be frank, the fact that this whisper network is required in our game is atrocious. No player should feel unsafe walking the paths at night. But they do.

Our games value the input of their male players more than their women players. It’s easy to see when missing stairs are allowed to continue to operate in games even though their attendance makes the environment less safe for other players. It’s clear when predators are allowed to continue playing even after leaving a trail of women behind them with black eyes and stories of abuse. It’s clear when these predators aren’t dealt with by the women who reported them, by the women who called them out, by the women who compiled documents, but by the men who stand by them.

It’s wrong, and it’s unacceptable, and it’s how we operate anyway.

Finding parity

Part of the issues that I’ve raised come from a lack of parity in gender on the field. For every ten men we see, there might be three women. 3/10. Some games lean a little closer to 4/10, but nowhere across the board has true gender equality.

And that’s not even bringing up a discussion about how we treat our nonbinary players, queer players, or trans players. That is, in fact, an entirely different article.

It means that at times, it’s easy to overlook how we serve our player base because of the disparity. If your game only has 20 women who are active and has 90 men who are active, it’s easier to serve those men because they’re in the majority. They’re easier to see, and because of that, their opinions are louder.

So does that mean that women should be overlooked because they don’t make up as large a portion of the community? No. All of our games succeed because of the players. And in many cases, women are their strongest advocates. We love our games; we just don’t love the way they treat us.

That’s the thing to remember. You can love something and still criticize it, still want it to be better. I know our games and communities can be better, and I think you do too. It’s not always easy work. Breaking down biases, working towards games that are inclusive no matter your gender takes time and effort. But it’s worth it.

If we aren’t serving all of our players, it’s a reflection of our boards, our volunteers, and our nobles. We don’t play privately owned games, which means our communities steer the way our games grow and change. Underserving one portion of our population doesn’t do us as a culture any good. It does the opposite.

We live in a social media world. Love it or hate it, that’s the way it is. The time of only in-person word of mouth being used to discuss issues and benefits of our games is over. When a person loves our games, they post about it, and when they don’t, they post twice as often.

Some games have seen considerable changes in the number of players. In my opinion, it’s linked to both culture and social media. By courting only a subset of the broader population, we have driven away players to privately owned larps. For the first time, boffer larps are almost outnumbered by a variety of higher end games that have welcomed women and non-gender-conforming players at a higher rate.

How do we fix it?

This becomes the question that each game needs to decide for itself. I can’t tell your community how to fix their problems. But fixing our issues starts with conversations about how to serve the whole community. Not just stickjocks, not just roleplayers, not just crafters.

We have to look at our games as a sum of their parts. If we are lacking in one avenue, then a discussion about how to better serve that population has to happen. Sexism, culture, and parity are just the beginnings of this conversation.

Because change does happen incrementally. However the rate of change in our games has been so slow that women who started twenty years ago are still fighting the same fight, and that can’t continue.

I don’t want to look back in another ten years and think that my years of fighting for parity and better relations for women in boffer have been wasted. I don’t want to leave these games; I love them.

I just wish they loved me back.