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great article! thanks for posting!

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Reference to a meme of an animated gif of someone eating popcorn to indicate being mildly entertained/amused.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/popcorn-gifs

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Interesting read, but when they start commenting on BJM... at first I want to defend it stating big breasted women and themes/backglasses have been the staple/fabric of pinball for 80 years, but thinking about it, I guess I wouldn't be comfortable myself explaining this to my daugthers, where as with most other machines with your typical large breasted women, they are just there, without their boobs being the sole theme.

Then I think, why does everything have to have an issue these days, not matter what it is and no matter what the forum is...

yeah, no doi, that wasn't the source of my confusion.

the popcorn gif is usually used when something is expected to spark controversy. there wasn't really anything controversial in the article.

it was a great read, though.

What ever gets people out and playing pinball is a good thing in my book. Play on everyone!

Good article, they even mentioned the women's tournament in Milwaukee, which my wife plays in. More women playing pins is great!

Don C.

A year ago this thread would have been filled with pictures of hot chicks, and be at least 3 pages long by this point.

I agree , and i am happy that is finally a change to see more women play pinball.
We love pinball too same as the guys

This is a great article! Women's pinball leagues are really taking root in a lot of cities and getting more and more people in to the hobby. I'm amazed at the diverse group we can get at ours.

Yes, it was a good read. And longer than almost any pinball-related story/article I've seen. Ladies, you are welcome at all times and always. Just because most pinheads are men... that does NOT mean it's a boy's club. Come on in! I'll never slight you!

Nice to see an article about pinball, especially about getting more women involved!

"What happens when female players slam tilt their way into the bright, loud world of pinball?"

I would assume they'd be Slamtilt shamed by 90% of Pinside and told "they couldn't pull that shit at my house!"

Also, keep your feet off the cab
That would never happen in our league.

My wife never slam-tilts, but man, she can really shove a machine around. X_x

"twice as many men named John as there are women in total listed in the international pinball player database."

.......really?

"It's not something you can do from your couch"

I totally beg to differ. In fact, I have a tournament idea around this idea, if my wife does not extricate the couch from the premises POST HASTE...

"Vrabel has become one of five women in the top 500 pinball players in the world"

There's more than that, but not much more. I think I saw 7 obvious, 1 indeterminate. Depressingly low stat though. I guess at least I can say that I've played against the 2nd best woman in the world...Jennifer Peavler?

I'm with you on that one. Depends on the type of couch.

Interesting article. The "Women's Only League" thing did confuse me since I thought everyone is trying to get away from gender discrimination nowadays. Are other non gender specific leagues just very hostile to having women join them? I've never actually been to a pinball league or event so I have no idea how they are run, or if the environment is just a big dude fest that discourages women from joining. The article doesn't provide many statistics on that beyond the basics so I was curious if it was really that bad for the ladies. I play pinball at arcades often and it doesn't seem like people care whether it's a guy or girl playing, but maybe leagues bring out the worst in people.

The league I'm in is a big sausage fest. It's an open league, anyone can join and play, but I don't blame a woman for not wanting to be in a basement with 30 men. Nothing to do with danger, but does that sound fun to them? The reality is most weeks we have zero women, sometimes a wife or girlfriend will come, and in the 20 year history of our league there is only 1 woman we can think of who came on their own, without being brought by a significant other.

The counter to that is my wife started a monthly women's league, which averages 8-10 players per night. And all of those women were "new" pinball players, not from the regular league. And almost all of them are not girlfriends/wives of players in the main league.

Through my house vents, I can hear the laughter and camaraderie, cheering each other's bad play, and discussing things like teenage pregnancy. It's just a completely different environment from the regular league and more appealing to them.

From pure math, it is a big net gain of players. Has nothing to do with discrimination or danger, just creating a recipe for success.

I dunno exactly the stats, but in OC league where I play we have somewhere between 50-60 members. We never get everyone at any one meet, but 40+ is common. I can think of 3 regular women players off the top of my head. It's definitely a small %.

I certainly would not doubt it. And that's also a zany statistic riff based on http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/upshot/fewer-women-run-big-companies-than-men-named-john.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1
"Fewer Women Run Big Companies Than Men Named John"

Interesting article. Thanks for sharing!

Ah I see. I was thinking from my point of view, like if I walked into that public place, asked to join their pinball league and was refused because I'm a man, that would have been a bit weird. But I was over thinking it, they just want a more comfortable and compatible environment to play. Well cool, whatever gets people playing pinball.

Out of the 74 total players in the London, Ontario, league that have come out this season, 13 are female.

For the first actual pin event that I went to, I took my parents. My mom is pinball crazy, and she and I had planned on competing in the little tournament they had just so we could play those games. We had never seen some of the games at all and the only way to play was to compete, so we thought it would be fun. And then we got there and it was a sectioned off space with 5 machines and about 40 guys literally crammed into a mosh pit, shouting at each other, holding beer bottles, cheering other guys on or cussing them out in a friendly way. Nope. We gave up on that idea really quickly. Now I'm 5' 10" and anything from petite, but just the idea of standing in a crowd of yelling and sweaty men to play a game that I'd never seen before was not something that sounded fun at all.

A few months later I took my mom a couple hours away to the closest arcade in the state, and they were having a tournament that day. It was only 8 guys and after realizing that a few were on Pinside and we knew each other's screennames at least, they invited us to play. It was 3-4 people to a machine playing in teams, and we had a blast. They would give us pointers on the games we'd never seen/played, because honestly we weren't any threat to their rankings at all, and everyone had fun.

I've been to a couple of expos since then and the tournament area is always in a separate room, and I never bothered because I've not seen 98% of games, much less played them to be able to compete. And there are no pin people near me at all to know if league play in people's houses is a welcoming environment. I'm usually against any kind of "for women only" separation, but I can see where most women (especially those not as familiar with pinball in general) wouldn't be comfortable jumping in the middle of a huge group of guys. I know some of the gals on here do though, and more power to them.

Pinball is a guy thing for the most part, that some females like. And more times than not it’s a spouse coming out because of the man being involved. There is nothing wrong with admitting that. There are lots of things that are typically female things, that some guys like.

Men and women are not the same, yet in society we keep getting pushed and pushed to somehow acknowledge both sexes and all ethnicities, religions and everything else is equal in every way, and when there is a (natural) imbalance, we have to start questioning why, and how can we fix this?

Just let the dice roll and see where they land… Women don’t want to get in the middle or a sausage pinball party, I get that, just like I get men don’t want to get in the middle of a solid wine and Oprah book of the week evening either

I don't think anyone is trying to pretend differences between the sexes don't exist. All people are asking for is a community that is welcoming for everyone.

The Oprah Book club is a good analogy. Or even just looking in the audience of the Oprah show (when it was still on the air), and count the women vs men. It was like 95% women.

It's not that men weren't welcome, it's that men did not want to go. Simple as that.

There's an opportunity with pinball, where the actual product (the pinball games) is something women can get into, with some tweaking of the actual formats of play. This article, and the anecdotal evidence really is "if you build it they will come".

The proof is in the pudding, and as this article shows, these new leagues popping up are expanding pinball and that is good for everyone.

There is nothing inherently "male" about pinball in terms of playing it - there's no strength requirement, and men and women are equally capable of the hand-eye coordination required to play it at a competitive level.

The difference is like blondetall said - the overall tone of most male-dominated leagues is a huge turn-off to women. Hell, the tone of ToPL, the league frolic is talking about, is even too much for me as a privileged white male.

This is one case where a separate league helps everyone. If the women find they're more interested in competitive play after playing in that league, they've got the experience to move up to a national tournament, whereas they might otherwise not get the experience at all.

Sure there is, it has always been geared towards men, as males are the extremely high percentage playing them. Look at the themes – how many female based themes are there? The game itself *is* inherently male, just as watching Oprah is inherently female – doesn’t mean I can’t try to sit my butt on the couch and watch it, I just won’t, just like most women can’t be forced to play pinball.

No one is saying that women aren’t allowed, in fact to the contrary, most of us have tried many times to have our female family members involved, but it’s a losing battle in most cases.

It is what it is, but everyone is always welcoming. Although we hear suggestions of fear and apprehension from females about partaking, I’ve never heard of anyone not wanting females involved, or of actual issues. Usually it’s the contrary, men are more than happy when women get involved in pinball, so I wonder if it’s only the perception from the outside in.

If you kick in my coindoor, I'm going to kick in your head.

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Pinball is almost exclusively made by men for a male demographic.
Nothing is inherently male about pinball except that it is the status quo.

its weird that you would say this when the article quotes several women talking about how uncomfortable they felt, and then several posters in the thread expressed the same sentiment.

thats one of the problems ... men say "hey we are welcoming", then women say "well actually we feel uncomfortable / unwelcome for these reasons", and then i dunno, it's like dudes cant hear them or something. after a while it seems like guys want to say everyone is welcome, but dont actually want to do anything that would lend sincerity to that sentiment.

That chica would leave you on the floor twitching and vomiting on yourself Vid.

I think the article mentions BRAWLS (plural!) that she and her crew have been involved in.
Best just ask her nicely.

I'm confused with your post Caitlyn, if the first line is true, does that not infer an inherent connection? No one is saying exclusive, but inherently male, by definition, I believe so.

That's my point. I wouldn't blame the women at an Oprah book party if I felt uncomfortable there, right?

Again, most men WANT more women to get involved, want their spouses to play. There simply isn't enough interest in most places for female only leagues, if they would even want that, so really above that, they are the ones that will have to get past any preconceived issues and join in.

I’m sorry, but if you are trying to be the first female into an all male group of anything, it’s going to look a little raw and rough from the outside before the barriers are broken. That doesn’t mean anyone inside is any less welcoming.

It's a still photograph, you can't tell what she's doing or whether her foot is outside the left-leg of the game.

None of my pinball machines are so important to me that I'd threaten violence to a stranger over them.

I think you're missing the point. If women are saying that they go to pinball events and feel unwelcome, then clearly at least some people at those events are "less welcoming."

If male players actually do want more women to become involved in organized pinball, they can't just say women are welcome and tell them they're wrong when those women explain why participating isn't fun for them. Instead, why not ask what they can do to make the environment more friendly?

Good question!
This is called institutional sexism: just because something has always been seen as a men's sphere doesn't mean it is inherently male. Think of corporate boardrooms, for example.
Women were systematically kept out in various unconscious and/or deliberate ways since "everyone knew" intrinsically that men should lead companies, since that was the status quo.

So in the same way that boardrooms were found to not be an intrinsically male dominion, neither needs to be pinball.
Nothing about the fundamental components in pinball are inherently appealing to just men.
But it is the status quo of it being a "guy thing" only that is starting to change, and that will keep changing pinball culture.
And while a bunch of angry types aren't happy about that, whatevs, culture progresses.

You got to start somewhere. I think that's the whole point of the article.

I really think it's lame writing stories when you single out women or men. People enjoy pinball and it doesn't matter if they are man woman or child.

How would you suggest writing about Belles & Chimes without mentioning women?

I'm not a great Oprah fan, but I do like women in general (and one in particular), and so I am thrilled with anything that encourages their participation in pinball.

I'd say "holy shit what a unique stance" but I saw a few people at ReplayFX adopting the same stance and... Well, whatever helps your game, but that doesn't look too comfortable.

Bells and Chimes are hardware inside a pinball machine that aren't gender specific.

lol but it's not the same. Those corporate men didn't want women in there, and fought it. We are saying we want women to come play, I think you're missing my point... A large part of the female population wanted into that corporate arena - but although we try, most of us can't drag the females in our lives into pinball.

It is what it is, and again, just like you noted, it's because it has always been that way. Why? - because men have been the traditional lovers of pinball and the market has directed the themes machines at them. That's the inherent connection. It's amazing that it gets called a form of sexism for simply being what it is and only traditionally men liking it!

I'd love to see it change. I want more people, whoever, to get into pinball. Couldn't care less if you are male, female, child, retired, whatever. In fact, I believe I have brought more females into our league than most other leagues have in females in total! But we're not changing how it's done. People that want to play show up, you are in groups of 4, you play, have fun, you leave. We're not having pinball night / Oprah book night combined or anything else to help make the transition any easier.

If females want to get involved into something typically male, that is established, why do we have to be the ones bending over backwards to change it for you? Other than saying “we want more women to play”, what more can we really do to make it more welcoming?

I am going to hazard a wild guess that you did not read the article.

We're all just God's little cakes and cookies.