Well I was speaking generally, so I wouldn’t think about it too much in regard to one person.
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Some needed clarifications, since I was tagged and I won’t be adding anything:
Because, as I said, multiple times and noone bothered to read, in my country, FOR GO SPECIFICALLY, the problem is the severe absence of Go players of any gender or orientation.
We are like 8-9 people active currently? Scattered in the whole country.
Maybe I’ve said this now four times and still I get replies like these?
I do not know what else can be done or how more simply to write it, sorry.
I never said there is no sexism, for God sake, I even mentioned first the other sports like volleyball.
Please understand. We haven’t got enough PLAYERS and that is ISSUE NUMBER ONE for this country, here, specifically.
I’ve been playing Go for years and I’ve never had a live game in my life because there is noone to play with.
Yes, sorry I misread that. I missed the “about your age” specific part because I do not consider age as important information anymore. I am not a teenager to get the “shut up you do not know about life” and until I hit 70+ and people start calling me “too old to understand modern society” I am safe from age-ism.
Again sorry for that misunderstanding.
Obviously yes. 
I also totally agree with that.
All I am saying is that we have to have a club first … that is the main issue because without a Go club, without Go players, there is no “sexism in Go in Greece” because “there is no Go in Greece.”
for now … someone is bound to notice that Hikaru no Go is sexist …
Akari is constantly portrayed as vapid and that the woman’s group/competition is de-facto weaker, for example…
I have a screenshot collection of insults I got in LoL games … apart from the usual death wishes and terminal illnesses, some really got creative with dead relatives.
I’d post them but they are so vile, I’d get banned just for re-posting them, which is what actually happened when I posted them in the LoL official forum (may it rest in peace).
Got to love LoL moderators 
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Well in fact, yes.
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One quote I got in a LoL pm which I thought was quite clever was “Bronze players calling bronze players bronze players”.
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You are talking from the point of view of Greece: there are no go players, therefore no problem with the community since there is no community. This is a bit off-topic. The initial question was: when there is a group of go players somewhere, why are women in the minority?
Some answers have been made, I won’t go into them again, however I feel that there are so few women in the go community that we should do our best to be supportive and create a friendly environment for them. Some of the messages in this thread, even if not ill-intentioned, don’t go in the right direction and I now regret some of my messages. We (male players) should keep in mind that women may have had bad experiences due to sexism or stereotypes that we didn’t experience, so an argument which may appear as abstract logic for males doesn’t resonate at all in the same way for women.
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I played one live game, once. Guy didn’t make me uncomfortable or anything, I enjoyed the game, I moved so unfortunately I can’t play again with him.
I’m pretty sure our mental preparation for going out to play a game with a stranger in a public place was vastly different.
I don’t play chess, I don’t like it, Go was my first and only love in the genre. I’ve met Greek chess players here and there in other capacities throughout my life, I can’t say there wasn’t a “girls aren’t good enough for chess” vibe here and there.
There’s a chess club in my current city; I made some moves to create a Go connection, I can’t say I felt entirely welcome and free to communicate with them and the reason for this not being my gender. Some welcome young girls in chess, because they see in them future champions with a sprinkle of virtue signaling. But a grown woman making space for a board game, on her own? We can’t have that. (I can’t vouch for their exact thoughts, I can relay my experience though).
I don’t ever expect to reach 100 players here, but a couple more would be nice. And statistically 50% of that couple is probably thinking “will these guys flood my DMs if I smile during the game”.
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Yup … we are just used to good ol’ Hikaru being around for so many years.
Yes, I just brought it as an example, that in order to answer “why women do not play Go” in particular, we should check the bigger question “why don’t people play Go” in general, which, for me, contains the key for the topic itself, depending on the country.
Maybe I am wrong and it is fine. Whoever said the opposite?
For me societies are different. Sexism, of course, like most stereotypes exist everywhere, but the “initial question” has a different answer, for different countries/societies and I understood that each of us was supposed to answer about their own part of the world.
You cannot ask for an opinion and give the answer for a country/society you do not know.
How could I know what goes on in France, for example?
Not to mention that even within a country, things/society I guess is different in Paris in comparison to a rural village near Marseille.
This was the original question:
It does include culture and it is even asking if it “a problem that we must try to solve”.
I find the question very open-minded, but, indeed, here culture is actually the problem.
It is acceptable here to laze for three hours and play backgammon, but if you mention chess (let alone Go) to an adult he’d probably say “board games? What are you 10?”. It is a “grassroots” problem here, before we even start climbing to more complex issues like sexism.
“Games are for kids” (remember I had that exact issue pegged in the intro - those are not things that I just came up with suddenly ) they are viewed as “a waste of time” by a culture that is notorious for being lazy (another stereotype, but hey). You cannot get a more “grassroots” problem than that, but somehow backgammon, in particular, is for “adults”.
Why is that?
I don’t know.
I wish I did. All I said is that this is the first question we need to answer here, and once that’s solved, then we might have insight on the gender issues. Or we might not. Who knows?
How could we know unless that’s solved first?
I do not know about Italy, or the Netherlands or France. I talk about the society I know.
That is why I brought up the basketball example.
People relate with the things they know.
In order to understand a problem which does not apply to me and I cannot really talk about, I try to understand it by finding a similar problem that does apply to me and I can fully understand.
That is my way of making an effort to be better and improve as a person.
Does it work? Well, not always, but hey, what does always work? 
Now, people disgree on which problem should be “first”. That’s fine. That is a matter of opinion and we can agree to disagree.
The rest is, sadly, misunderstandings that happen due to the written language, especially in such important issues.
I fully agree with your second paragraph.
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If you insist… Honestly Hikaru is written by a woman pro go player describing some sexist situations (not only). One can debate if by doing this It’s a criticism or not. The intention is not clear to me, and i can understand that women may not appreciate the description or the lack of comment from the writer on it.
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I don’t … frankly I am not the right person to be the arbiter of what is sexist, but I only pointed out that with the current situation and judging by what other stuff get attributed as sexist in 2022, if someone was to watch it now, for the first time, there might be things that could be considered as such.
Will they be a lot or “enough of them” for the whole thing to be labelled thus?
I don’t know. But I wouldn’t be shocked to hear that in the future, that’s all I am saying.
P.s.
Gender-swap timelines are also very “in vogue” at the moment (see western comics), so to balance things out we might get a reboot named “Akari no Go” which, unlike the lame modern western reboots (e.g. the recent Cowboy Bebop live action which flopped), I would gladly watch as an anime. I trust the Japanese anime industry to make a reboot properly.
I wasn’t aware that in Greece, board games are not considered as games for adults. This seems to be quite specific to Greece. On the other hand, gender imbalance already exists among children. Look at the page of the go club Grenoble - Ecole de Go (38GJ). It’s a school go club, in a primary school. Open to all but most players are under 12, some of them between 12 and 16 (those between 12 and 16 generally started before 12). Most players are apparently male. I don’t believe it’s because of bad male behavior, not at that age. Probably stereotypes are the main factor.
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I can’t say I second this. Different people, different experiences, of course.
Well, I was very surprised recently to find out that chess (and most board games apparently) are legally classified as “παίγνια” and thus are treated akin to gambling, even though chess is also recognised as a sport. I haven’t had the chance to read the new law myself, but I did read the article of the president of a very active chess club ( that is the first one to incorporate Go in Greece, thanks to the efforts of Petros Zazanis ) that complained about the whole issue.
The same club president is also heavily pushing towards chess being included in schools in some capacity and extra-curricular club activity, but of course, none of that has happened yet.
Board games, according to the ministry of education, are barely fit even for kids.
As usual, weird stuff happen here. 
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There are schools in Athens, especially private ones, and a couple of schools in Thessaloniki that I know of, that have chess as an official school activity.
Of course in “good” neighborhoods. Other neighborhoods don’t get other more vital stuff, like say doors in school buildings.
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Depends on who you ask and which games they happen to know and consider as ‘‘board games’’. If they only know of “Bunny Hop Hop” or “The crocodile dentist” they are obviously right.
Games like scrabble, monopoli, jenga, backgammon, chess, word puzzles or even battleships are played quite often among adults at houses, parties, cafés, transit, the beach. Board games are a very prominent activity in student cafés, too.
Adults also play trivia and clues games, but I don’t consider them as true “board games”.
(We OTed this topic soooo much… )
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There’s been a lot of worthwhile things said in this thread. I think it may be worth adding something though.
Whether we’re talking about racism, sexism, nationalism or bigotryisms of various sorts, they all have one thing in common. They all embrace the folly and evil of ceasing to treat other individuals AS individuals and that is a counter-productive lost opportunity at best, stupid and offensive at worst.
While it is right and proper to call out bad behaviour, I think progress on this issue also requires an effort to discuss alternative behaviours. One of the other issues that has been progressed over the last few decades is the need for people to be able to express themselves (dare I say it, particularly men). If person X is attracted to person Y in environment Z then what is the proper and inoffensive way for them to express themselves? An awful lot of bad and criminal behaviour is often ascribed to the failure to express feelings appropriately.
If you wish to change behavioural norms then you need to be able to encourage alternatives.
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Couldn’t agree more.
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A. I think you’re in the wrong thread…
B. Some quick advice: approach once, take no for answer and don’t push it. No means leave and forget about it, not insist.
But, and this is a big but, I will never understand how people think it’s acceptable to approach someone who has shown zero interest. Someone’s hasn’t even registered my existence, why approach them? The problem with “hitting on someone”, is that you are inserting yourself in their life completely uninvited, like you have a right to be there.
Approaching everything with a pulse isn’t because someone is attracted, it’s because they think they have the right to.
Maybe try actually approaching only the ones that really have inspired attraction?
And if I’m attracted to someone, it’s my duty to behave how I should, place / time / person.
And I’m a flirty single butterfly, I just keep in mind to have basic respectful behavior both ways.
tl;dr
Flirt is an art and it’s not trying to score anything in the vicinity.
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My answer would’ve put more emphasis on “environment Z” as well: most environments are not the right environment. People wait for the bus to travel, not to date, so to say.
I also guess that “approach” should be clarified. Something like introducing oneself and striking up a conversation is what I’d read under “approach”, but I bet there’s many who think making a remark about someone’s appearance is the right “approach” (which it probably isn’t).
If it’s someone you’re already introduced to, ask them if they want to have a coffee / drink / dinner sometime, but to do that with total strangers seems inappropriate to me as well.
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PS Never approach people where they are working and you are the client.
They can’t push back because it’s their place of work, they can’t be even slightly negative or their boss might bite off their head.
If they’re really interested, they’ll come to you first.
Rule to live by.
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I’d expand that far beyond romantic overtures. Don’t be a d*** to customer service people.
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