Male vs Female

I just finished reading an article today on the differences between male and female communication modes. I have been interested in this for quite some time. Since like puberty, basically. And articles about men and women often say the same thing in the end. Nothing new under the sun and all that.

Men are goal-oriented. That is why they can actually walk into a grocery store, walk directly to a single item, grab it, buy it, and leave. There is no meandering down aisles idly looking things over. Hunter vs gatherer. Pretty basic stuff. Well, in communication they are the same way. You start talking about something to a man, he will try to find a goal for you and give you advice on how to get to the goal. You feel bad that your boss said something to you, you tell a man and he will ask you if there is any way to get to your boss's boss, maybe you should quit, how can you get back at the boss, etc.

Women are process-oriented. That is why they like to gather, shop, gossip, etc. The goal is ancillary. They are mad at the man for suggesting solutions to the boss because complaining about the boss was the actual goal, not actually solving the boss as a problem. They just wanted to vent, they dont need a solution.

There have been a lot of discussions in the RPG industry about appealing to women. Marketing comes up a lot. Zak has said to me once that the problem is that women just don't like the structure of the game. Maybe he is right, but in a way he might not have meant.

Maybe RPGs are traditionally designed in a goal-oriented way. And they just doesn't appeal to women very much because of it. Maybe if we designed them in a process-oriented way, it would be more appealing to women (but less appealing to men, most likely).

Just a thought to chew over.