Haha, because that would be SO WEIRD!
Women’s tournaments are at most half an eyebrow-raise and you know it!
Does it really matter what you think though? That’s not about you personally, my opinion doesn’t matter either. This isn’t about us men and our opinions.
If some women of pinball/pinburgh see a Womens’ Final as a positive thing and would like to participate and the ReplayFX organization have the volunteer resources to put it on, that’s really all that matters. I’ll be there to cheer on because that’s my only job. No need to “well, actually…” anything – if a group of women find this exciting, just go support them.
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Are we all excluded from having an opinion because we aren’t the subset being evaluated? What logic is this?
That’s like saying your opinion on C/D division prizes or recognition “doesn’t matter” because you are a A level player.
Agree on wanting to hear opinions from the women on if they would see benefit from such an addition… but the ‘you don’t matter’ dismissals are way overreaching.
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No, but opinions from everyone was not the original request.
It would be nice to hear from the group asked to share their opinions first hand and it would be more likely that more women respond if it didn’t seem like their comments were going to be immediately refuted or passed off as irrelevant.
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He invited responses… and if you only want responses from certain people… open discussion forums is not the right place. The subject was still Pinburgh… which is not a segregated event. So the topic is relevant to all, not just one sex.
Quite the long jumper you are…
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Sure, but you could choose to refrain from speaking.
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Why not have a similar sub ranking competition for Asian competitors, another under represented group
Dude I would even rock a asian women’s category if there was one.
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I am detecting quite the Pinside vibe in this thread. Can’t we all just get along?
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We have a custom rankings system in place at the IFPA that allows us to highlight any subgroup of people that have interest in being highlighted.
We have custom rankings for citizens of a specific country. We have custom rankings for specific cities/regions. We have custom rankings for specific leagues representing just their members.
I’m all about creating that value add on our side to increase the enjoyment of competitive pinball for those specific subgroups.
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Sorry i didnt actually say that, I was quoting the other guy and making a joke. I was on my phone and didnt format it. My bad
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Why is the initial reaction to any type of women’s division in pinball:
“They don’t need it, there is no advantage that men have over women that warrants a separate division”
That isn’t the point and generally speaking is not the intention of any women’s division I’ve ever seen run IMO.
Fact: There is a major imbalance in the pinball community from the perspective of how many women there are in the community compared directly to the number of males.
The idea behind a women’s division is not segregation, it is recognition and awareness. It is a way to foster a fledgling group of people in our community and ideally create more interest in the hobby as a result.
The major difference between women and men in pinball isn’t skill or ability, it’s strictly a numbers game. So how do you increase the numbers? By drawing attention to it. The point of the division would be to say “Hey look at these awesome people, don’t you want to be as awesome as they are? Well if you do all you have to do is play!”
When the community gets to a point where the ratio of women to men is more like 60/40 rather than the 90/10 it currently is then I could see the argument that a women’s division would no longer be necessary. But until then there is 100% value in running something like this.
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I like this idea. My view on women’s divisions in pinball is that they are harmless at worst, and at best they increase the visibility and perceived social acceptability of women in pinball. Since it may be considered relevant, I will note that I am a woman but not a top female player, so I am unlikely to personally benefit by having a women’s finals at Pinburgh.
I believe that men may have a small physical advantage in pinball on average. For instance, my height and lack of upper body strength makes it harder for me to nudge well with my hands and so I tend to use my knee to assist. In a high level competition where tilts are very sensitive this disadvantage is probably very slight. It surely doesn’t rise to the level where we would say that female players can’t be competitive with male players in an open competition. No one, however, advocates women’s tournaments for reasons of physical disparity; instead, as others have said, their purpose is to increase the visibility of female players. I see two potential benefits from increased visibility: 1) changing the climate of the pinball community so that it’s one women feel more accepted and at home in, and 2) offering role models for women who currently think of pinball only as a “guy thing.” Either of those benefits would ideally increase the representation of women in pinball.
At least, I think we should continue trying out women’s tournaments/leagues/divisions for a while as they are still relatively new and have not yet been very widespread, before we decide if they have been beneficial.
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THIS THIS THIS. It’s not about giving women a chance to win because they never will if they have to play against men, it’s about highlighting that women exist in competitive pinball in order to redress a historic gender imbalance and encourage more women to participate.
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Totally agree. Women’s divisions are not meant to segregate women due to gender differences in pinball skill; they’re meant to foster greater participation by an underrepresented group.
Why don’t we see more women in the top 200? Maybe it’s a function of sampling bias: we’re working with a population where there are 9+ male players for every female player. I’m not sure what the numbers look like now, but late last year there were only 2,000 women out of 46,000 ranked IFPA players, or 4% of ranked players (thanks @ Skill Shot podcast). I’m happy about any effort to increase female participation in pinball and get closer to a 50/50 split in players. Increasing the visibility of top female players is one way to try to do that.
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Unless @Slamtilt Graph is wrong in the IFPA admin panel this is the current numbers:
623 represents the number of profiles that have identified as female in our system.
I’m sure there is a sampling bias, but I have a theory that it might also be because male players on average start playing earlier due to social pressures that work against girls getting involved in arcade/bar type hobbies. Again, I just mean on average, as I am certainly acquainted with female players who have been playing since childhood. But I also know of a lot of female players who came to it later in life. Of course these are only anecdotes, but I think it’s worth consideration as a contributing factor.
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This isn’t Brian Shep. This is Brian Dye. I have made no graphs, but will gladly take credit for making them and the mistakes that come with the work. 
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One Brian is as good as another 
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Sort of an aside, but Carly Kocurek’s book “Coin-op Americans” goes into that. Pretty sure she talks about numbers and she most certainly talks about the culture of an arcade being a “boy’s world”. It’s a great read, even if it only talks about pinball for a hot second.
Anyway. All that is definitely changing with women’s leagues making pinball a more inclusive hobby. Now it’s just a matter of getting more women to compete on a higher level.
Of course I would rather just be known as a “competitive pinball player” and not a “competitive female pinball player” btbqh, a women’s final would ease my nerves about competing in the big leagues. Again, I have to agree that when the ratio of men to women evens out, the need for a women’s final would hopefully become unnecessary.
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Hey everybody! Consider this topic (of who said what to who and their intent behind it) done as of now. This isn’t going anywhere and is unlikely to. If we have constructive discussion around the place for women’s tournaments and continuing to promote our rad under-represented groups in pinball, that can continue 
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