Editor’s Note: We don’t tend to syndicate blogs here on CZ. While syndication is a great and totally valid way to get good writing to a wider audience, we strive towards high quality original content here. But this piece proved the exception that was needed to break the rule. I hung out with Lili at Fanfest and was directed to her blog where I stumbled upon this amazing piece. As a result of it, I’m delighted to announce that she has joined the Crossing Zebras staff and will be writing an in-depth follow-up to this piece in the coming days! -Xander While recovering from my Iceland trip (thank you VERY MUCH for a mean virus Iceland, really appreciated), there are some thoughts on my mind that I wanted to share about girls in EVE. I took part in the Ladies with Laz0rs roundtable and went there with my heart on my sleeve as I am terrified by modern internet feminists, Social Justice Warriors and all that Tumblr crap. Ladies (and gentlemen) in EVE surprised me once again. At the beginning I could hear some SJW-y voices from gals in the panel, but those were quickly dropped and really constructive discussion followed. What was the consensus? Glad you asked. Ladies in EVE do not want to be seen as women, but as gamers, pilots, genderless machines of mass destruction. And that is great – I agree with that point of view, but there is another side to this coin. While there are more women in the world than men, there are significantly less female players* in EVE Online than male. Gals are as little as 3.8% of all Eve subscriptions. And while we are a bunch of great individuals (aren’t we?), there is concern about getting more ladies to play the game. To get to the root of the problem, this will be a summary of my thoughts after the Ladies with Laz0rs panel and the part of CCP Quant‘s presentation that spoke about EVE player types. I won’t get into details (the whole presentation is available here ) but this was the most interesting graph, showing how active people are in described areas, dividing them by type of play: The first thought that came to my mind was “oh hey, I’m social, probably more girls are!” but this is utterly untrue! I asked CCP Quant for insight on that matter and got my response: On first glance it may appear that “oh look, there ARE significantly more social type female players and there are significantly less female aggressors” but a more in-depth study of the totals reveals (and this graph is by me, sorry it’s not as pimped as CCP Quant’s ones): The trends for both genders are the same. We do not differ much in play type, so yeah, we are all genderless weapons of mass destruction. Two questions remain unanswered – why are there so few female EVE players and how do we get more of the titty carriers to play? What made me chuckle was the response of the community at the panel, when on one hand we don’t want to be seen as girls, but as pilots, and on the other hand we would like something girly in game. Something which would show us we’re special without damaging our reputation as badass space warriors. Something which would make more ladies try EVE and stay. Something that would cause the next This is EVE video to have 50% female voices, instead of one in the background. What that would be? I have no clue and neither has CCP. But we can think about it together. I’d like to open discussion on this topic. Thoughts? Leave me a comment down below or tweet me . *Yes, I am using binary genders. If you are SJW and want to argue on that – just don’t.