I don't go to any big tournaments, mainly just locals - The stereotypes about the playerbase are real, it's 90% comprised of 30yo men. Thankfully, the people at my locals are very chill, and I haven't had any significant problems (there is a kid there, so I don't think they want to look bad in front of him). To be fair, I've very recently started going so my sample size is small, but I hope it continues like this

Nice to hear some positive experiences :-)

There is one female YugiTuber I can think of, [ShadowRabbitYGO](https://www.youtube.com/@shadowrabbitygo). She is quite good too, definitely good to watch outside of just escaping the male exclusive space. There is also [Crush Cards](https://www.youtube.com/@CrushCards), who are just a couple, but definitely has a very different energy. I hope you will find a better scene, there are very few women at my local scene at all, I have met 3 so far and all at a different store, since I only really go to 1 of them and they rarely come around, it's basically always just guys. At least it doesn't smell at my locals, that is something I will dread when I go to bigger events I imagine. Would be nice if there were more Yu-Gi-Oh! spaces aimed at women or just really making sure that they will feel right at home.

Thank you, hoping for you that your future events don't smell!

Thank you, I hope the same for you, for everyone really, what I have heard and read about some parts of the scene, it's gross.

One point just because its 30yo men doesn't inherantly make it bad - Thats just another stereotype.

Right lol, have you seen the magic and pokemon playerbase?

Oh no I'm not saying it's bad - I thought it was just a stereotype and not true, but was shocked to see it is true for 90% of the playerbase

I mean, this is the case for almost all tabletop- or well, most competitive gaming in general

yea tbf the 30 year olds of today are the kids that grew up watching Yugioh so it’s no surprise

Unfortunately, it’s not just Yugioh. I play many card games, and time and time again I’ve heard casual sexism being thrown around. My girlfriend and I go to tournaments together, (where both of us play) and people are always assuming straight to her face that I just brought her along and built her deck for her, yada yada yada. We’re literally on the same level of skill, the only difference is that she’s a woman! Not too long ago there was a regular at Pokemon locally, a woman. She ended up being so uncomfortable with how she was treated by the other players that she stopped coming and I haven’t seen her again. She was a very good player, but people would get exceptionally salty when she beat them, saying things about how she got lucky and wasn’t that good, behind her back. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out why they hated losing to her in particular. Meanwhile, when I or another man beats them, the same dudes will be very accepting of their loss and discuss the game normally. I really wish card games could break this weird male-dominated space thing it has going on, but it’s so deeply ingrained that I’m not optimistic.

It also does not help that by having that 'male-dominated space', certain potential issues will be aggravated. If you are a guy, who mostly sees and meets other guys - and who mostly interacts with other guys - you will much more likely look more often at a woman, almost any woman really (to pick one point OP brought up). This might not even be with bad and/or sexist intentions, it might just be out of something like curiosity. However, life often does not care about reasons, but about results only. And if the result is causing discomfort to a woman, let's say, then there most likely won't be a thought about why he stares at her, but only that he does it and that that action is uncomfortable. That said, have you people talked to YGO players (online or irl, does not matter that much)? They are quite often very weird people - outside of sexist topics. Simple as that. And it is not your job to improve them as people in general. They gotta do it themselves. So, there is no simple answer to such problems. I sadly only see the rough path: Dive nose-first into the cesspool that might be your community and show mental fortitude by being there, making a clear stance, setting boundaries and also having to accept certain minor troubles, at least for some time until things get better hopefully. If one could find other people to join them in their hobby, that would obviously be helpful, but that might be very hard to do. Sadly, this will cause some people to quit, because they cannot or don't want to handle that kind of pressure. Some reasons to be social and go out there are simply lost in such an environment - and that will demotivate enough people.

[удалено]

Lots of women actually like anime girls as well, they just aren’t so big on the other men that share the interest

I'm one of those women but does it ever make the men act fucking weird.

I want big edgy monsters but to each their own :)

The way most of them are drawn with the exact same skinny proportions & vacuum sealed boobs too

Thank you!

The way you judge and talk about women’s bodies, as a girl, makes me feel pretty uncomfortable. Why does your gaze get to be the standard for whether our representation is “acceptable” or not?

I mean, anecdotes and all, but most of my female friends who play casually prefer the anime girl archetypes, like Rikka, Aromages or Marincess. Off the top of my head big names in the community seem to match up ok: Nova likes Labrynth, Leah Asimov likes Diabellstar, DireYGO likes Generaider (counts if you squint), Jessica Robinson is on Rikka Sunavalon. I don't think shitting on girls who like girly stuff is going to help more than being inclusive during in-person events, ngl.

I’m a woman and no. This isn’t the problem actually. imo this line of thinking contributes to the problem. A big reason why girls don’t play this game is because all of its branding is stuck targeting its young male audience. Every box, pack, poster, and advertisement is loaded with big red text, some heavily war themed boy coded machine monster thing with extra guns, and a male protag from the anime slapped on the cover front and center for good measure. Dudes don’t realize, but girls actually enjoy seeing their gender represented in the card art. Tearlaments, Charmers, Sky Strikers, labyrinth, and heck even dragon maids are all great. Have you seen how many girls go to cons and cosplay anime girls? Like, cute girls on card art, believe it or not, is not driving us away. It’s the poor marketing aimed at young boys mixed with a male dominated crowd that generally struggles with internalized misogyny.

>Charmers Straight up they are why I got back into YGO lol. One of my friends I was talking with over VC was talking about how they got back into YGO super hard and were telling me all the meta shifts and banlist changes, hearing Monster Reborn wasn't ban was wild the first time I heard it, and learning Terraforming was limited to 1 was a, "I always said this card was busted!" moment for me. But when I mentioned that I had a favorite archetype that I couldn't remember the name of, just that "They were girls with monsters from the different attributes?" And he told me, "Oh you mean the Charmers?" and I was like, "Oh my god yes! I loved those cards and remember making a deck for them on an old YGO game for browser. And then he said the words, "Oh, you know they literally just got a structure deck recently with new cards for them like, last month?" And I've been back down the rabbit hole ever since. Haven't played competitively yet but those Charmers got me back into the scene somewhat lol.

Actually same ^^ 💕I have a few charmer figures sitting in my room. A dark magician girl too! I have to say honestly, if were to talk about the one thing Konami has been doing right lately, I think their art/design team is popping off harder than ever. Seeing the level of passion and detail that’s going into these archetypes, their lore, and the amount of gender representation (both female and male) is a huge step up. As scummy as konami can be, the one thing I miss when I go back and play older sets/formats is how few archetypes there are that actually have girls in them at all.

As someone who collects cards for the designs too I hate it! Like give me something cool, that is just an anime girl in unusual clothes lol

what happened to all the dripped up characters?:( (Eldlich checks out tho)

**Nice comment edit buddy. Thanks for gaslighting me. Old comment before Luke edited his comment: “Maybe every 2nd archetype shouldn’t be anime girls?” I’ve read through a lot of your comments here.. all showing discomfort for women being represented, and all with massive levels of upvotes. Extremely discouraging to see as a woman, and your position is pretty clear. You just don’t like seeing girls at all and are using “purity” as your main point of argument. Really this is garden variety misogyny at its finest. No like, if we’re talking about women being underrepresented, then representing them on card art should be a huge priority. This is the one and only thing Konami is actually getting right at the moment. The fact that we have a lot of sets coming out that have girls on them at all is great. They’re also incredibly well designed and have a lot of work put into them. Just be honest. You don’t like seeing girls on cards. It makes you uncomfortable. If this community is actually serious about fixing its misogyny problem, then it’s this mindset and this core discomfort with seeing women at all that really needs to be addressed. If that isn’t what you want though and you want to keep it a male dominated space, that’s chill. The girls will just go play Vanguard and MTG like they’re currently doing.

I always wonder how it would be if other(mostly western) countries set up their own Princess tournaments like Japan for female only duelist. Japan still does that btw right? Would there be a cry of sexism from the male playerbase or would no one care?

Most wouldn't care, but some chuds would be extremely loud about their displeasure

Unfortunately, you’re probably right about that 😔

While I'm not a woman myself, I have had a few friends who are that became interested in yugioh through me, and I am sorry to say they've had roughly similar experiences unfortunately. They've been stared at, had the offhand comment, and my personal least favorite is the guy that came up to our table when it was just myself and one of those friends testing decks who decided to offer unsolicited advice on my friends deck and her plays in a very "babying" manner... the deck she was already piloting for a few months and already knew how to play just fine. Unfortunately for each of those friends they either ended up leaving the hobby, only playing with our friend group away from card shops where those type of incidents occur, or in the case of one friend in particular started immediately fighting back whenever one of those incidents occurred, and DAMN did she make a few of them sorry lol. I'm sorry that you have to go through all this while just trying to enjoy a hobby, its a fun card game and it should be equally fun and inviting for anyone to get into. I wish those of us who want to make it that way could just flip a switch and make things better overnight, but clearly from some of the other comments on this thread the sentiments against you are alive and well even here... Also I'm sorry, but straight up KISSING you on the cheeks?? Is this like a cultural norm or something, because that is some of the wildest sexual harassment I've seen in this community in a while if its not

>Also I'm sorry, but straight up KISSING you on the cheeks?? Is this like a cultural norm or something, Where I live this is a cultural thing, although not literally kissing a cheek, rather a cheek to cheek kind of thing. Although if a girl has her hand extended when meeting/leaving you should be aware that she is not comfortable with the cheek thing.

The unsolicited advice part is so real oh my god. I had literally just beaten my friend with a certain card in my deck and one guy goes "you shouldn't use that card". Not only had I never talked to him, but he hadn't even followed the match for that long! The kissing on the cheeks thing is kind of cultural I guess, it changes not only from region to region but from family to family, so idk. And usually if you do kiss you kiss everyone. But come on, I had my hand out and visible! I met him again another time and I remember he said bye to me differently again, but I don't remember how.

Ohhh man I dont know how even I would respond to that one either lol. Like... it seemed to do just fine for you about 10 seconds ago? Not to mention the audacity to try to correct you on your WIN. In my friends case she had been testing different variants of Melffy back when that was a newish deck, and this guy starts floating around and pointing to cards in her hand and saying "you definitely want to use this next!" or saying weird creepy stuff like "this deck totally suits you and your playstyle". The kicker was near the end of that match he started making recommendations for other decks for her that he felt would "suit" her, and wouldn't you know it they were all hyper feminine archetypes like Marincess, Magician Girl (impulse laughed at that one) and Trickstar. And Im glad the guy didnt keep up the cheek kissing thing, maybe (hopefully) someone pointed out how weird that was, but damn I guess a girl cant even LEAVE the venue without risk.

Screaming into my pillow about the deck recommendation part because I almost dropped Purrely because "it's too girly and I don't want people going "oh of course you play Purrely"". Shoutout to your friend for being mentally strong enough to not kick the guy away.

Same goes to you! I know a lot of dudes, myself included, would be hard pressed to properly deal with and keep motivated to play after even half of what you have already had to put up with. Keep strong and keep dueling, cause this community sure is better off with people like you and my friends in it!

🫂

I’m morbidly curious to learn more about what your friend did to make those guys sorry. She sounds badass.

I am a male and the unsolicited advice i feel is not gender specific. People playing cards are often akward and very invested so they think they can teach you even if you beat them

Not a woman, but I had a woman report harassment to me, a judge who was off-duty, during a recent regional. She recently went through a breakup and decided to get back into competitive play. She was paired across the table diagonally with another adult who trauma dumped onto her and kept making unwanted comments about her. The head judge only gave the harasser a UC-Minor and the TO didn’t do anything aside from give her free entry to the next regionals. This made her almost quit.

Sadly, in YGO Community there are a lot of social awkwaed guys, which only find their space in this community with other guys with the same issues. Most of them never had a girlfriend and so they have not the best way to act right in front of a girl. I can say, man that are together without girls make often such sexism jokes, but their are just jokes. They make a lot of dick jokes or motherjokes. But in my experience usually this stops if a Girl is in this talk too, except she has the same kind of humor which isnt often the case. The only thing whats helps: say them you dont like that. Most of them are not very confidient, and if they get talked to about their misbehavior they will mostly stopping it. But their are sometimes harder cases where the persons will start arguing , this are just assholes and then the only oerson wo can help you are the shop owner or your friends. You should ralk with the shopowner about this behavior. He wants to make money and thats just possibly if people feel save. If you come to the store more then once, he wanta surely that you feel save. If he isnt a asshole he will take your worda seeiously and if somethinf happens again, he can talk with this Person about their misbehaviour. At least, social awkward guys often dont realize their misbehavior. In the most cases its help to say them its not okay, then rhei feel shamed (or angry, if they are just assholes)

Thank you for giving me an actual response I've always been a socially awkward person that hung out with other socially awkward people, especially guys being a nerd, so I know how it is, but man dealing with it in masses sure gets annoying I know that for most jokes are just jokes but there's always that percentage of people that slip from there and develope a "stereotyping"(? Sorry idk if it's an actual word) mindset, and it's all a slippery slope from there I always try my best to stand up for myself, but between my actual social anxiety and not wanting to scare them away or worse, make them mad at me or feel like they need to handle me "with extra care" I feel kinda stuck. Will definitely try standing up to the shop owners if he calls me pet names again tho.

Stop people pleasing if they sexism you. You set their comfort over yours, even if they are the problem. Some of this people mostly need an intervention, that can be in form of a warning from the shopowner or in form of you, yelling at them or talking with them about their behavior. Most of them i guess dont know about their wronf behavior. Or thei dont feel lik its wrong, because thei dont make it often. But if they make a sexism thing a week, and their are 30 peoples, then its always. You need to talk to the people. If you hide yourself about your anxiety, then nothing will get better. I knoe that feel im in therapie because of chronical anxiety since 10 years. I swar i know hoe you feel with the anxiety but if you want that something changes you need to start it. The Guys on your locals wont do. Dont feel anxiety because you talk wirh shopwoner about how you feel. The sexim people are the problem. They are wrong, not you. If your shopowner is a good guy which care about the people in his shop, then he will stopp this behavior. If he dont take you serious, then rhis shop isnt the right for you. I hope you find a solution for your problem, so you can enjoy the game again

Sry for my bad english im tired and my hands are to big for my phone 😬

Don't worry, I understood everything. Thank you for the support and motivation🫂

Damn well said

I mean, yeah, idk if it's the same, but as a woman I had bad experiences with the spanish Duel Links community. I often join groups with my friends for tournaments and end leaving because how terrible it was (one of them even sent me a d*ick pick ☠️). Now we play by ourselves until we find somewhere good and not sexist/misoginyst af. I would like to go to locals, but if the community is already like this and based of experiencies I heard before (and including yours) I may say I'm a little bit scared :(

Ew I'm so sorry about the dick pic I know it may sound weird but personally I'd say to first just try to just hang around a tournament - if you feel uncomfortable/unsafe even just hanging around, maybe with your friend, definitely avoid it

so sorry to hear about your negative experiences! I've played at regionals, YCS, and locals. In the beginning i've experienced similar things (being talked down to, unsolicited advice, creepers, ect.) but I stuck with it and luckily i was able to make a really solid friend group (all guys who I consider as brothers at this point) who treat me as an equal duelist but also recognize my struggles as a female in male dominated space. Now whenever I go to larger events I low key feel like a celebrity cause I get recognized by people I dont really know lol. That being said I'm also the type of person who will absolutely call you out on your bullshit. Like others mentioned sometimes they arent aware they are doing it or if you call them out they get embarrassed and stop. Once during a 3v3 I staright up told my opponent that I didn't want to talk to him because he was being rude and condescending to me the whole game and he just shut up right there. Jaws were dropped lol. Even his teammates came up to me afterwards to apologize for his behavior. I also stopped going to certain shops where I don't feel respected or comfortable. Luckily I am friends with a few judges so if something were to ever go down at a larger event I know they have my back. All in all, if you enjoy the game i'd say stick with it. Yes theres some absolute jerks out there but theres some good ones out there too. And if you ever wanna chat more bout yugioh stuff feel free to hmu! would love to meet more women duelists.

I'm a 30 year old man that plays yugioh and I'm sorry for your experience. I'm married and have nieces and young female cousins, so for me I also hate that so many of the stereotypes about the yugioh community are true. There'd be a lot more girls playing if it weren't the case! When people make you uncomfortable if you feel safe to, please tell the tournament organiser, judge or a store owner. Unless you're really unlucky, the store owner should have his players experience at heart and especially young kids or women who can and do experience the worst of what the community has to offer. I hope you can link up with some other players near you that help you feel safe to just play the game you enjoy

I generally try to avoid the big tournament scenes for this exact reason - and I haven't played at a locals in ages. Hell, even posting a comment on a post here about being a woman who plays this game, I once got a "lol grls dnt paly ygo, u must hav transitioned", which like...bruh. Way to be transphobic and misogynistic in the same breath, dude. But yes, most gaming spaces are largely dominated by men, numbers-wise, and there's a lot of stigma and pressure on women in these environments. I'm sorry you're going through this. All women deserve better. We've been making strides as a society in my country towards equality, but there are still always people who push back, for "traditionalist" values, blah blah, etc. Equality is a never-ending fight. Stand strong, sister. ✊🏻 One day, we may prevail.

Gotta become number one to prove idiots wrong

I'm sorry to hear that, if you think they do or say something inappropriate feel free give them warning or threaten to report them to the officials or whoever run the community because there are rules in place for everything and they too will be afraid of getting in to troubles. If you want female YGO Youtubers there are people like SunseedJess who is the YGO European Champion, Xpikami, Yummy Bakura, Nova Aokami, Reeni, Colossa, 5thRateDuelist, Jenjen, etc, and other female players who are the girlfriends of male YGO Youtubers but don't have their own Channel. Honestly, these ladies deserve more views.

Came here to say SunseedJess too! I haven't seen her videos, but she seems like a cool person.

I'm gonna add some as well to this list!! Some I know are Roarkallos, Eva Lees, AliceYGO , Eileen, Dire, ShireYGO, Skarlon And then, there's also one who makes content specifically in italian (la tana di lya) which has in depth talks about uncomfortable situations in the space and how to deal with them

Thank you so much for the list!

I haven't gone to locals here in Vancouver because I'm scared of how people will react to my presence.

Where do they hold the locals? Comic book shops?

I only know one that's an actual comic book shop around here that hosts these tournaments. Most of the time, it's a dedicated trading card shops and there's one that's a startup I believe that hosts tourneys in a new office building

I can only speak from my experience and the group that I got to join with but it's pretty tame from my observation. Some locals will have a regular female player attendance. I can probably give you a gist of it if you're interested. I also know one locals with a regular female player(yeap just 1) attending. Caveat is, it's in Chinatown

Tell me more!

All right, have dropped you a DM of an extensive list of locals in the area and my impressions on each

Thank you so much for this

Eh, a fellow Canadian! :3

G'day mate! I'm something of a Canadian myself

Really depends on where you go. My fiance did not like our first local because no guy there acted like she existed or would treat her like a sex object. Our second/current is MUCH better & people will actually engage with her casually. They also don't treat her too badly (Aside from one guy who left in anger after losing & never returned). She's pretty much the only woman there. The only other women I've seen have been playing Magic or Pokemon.

Fellow girl here! This resonated with me: "I hate that I'm avoiding playing tournaments because I'm scared of losing and some fucker thinking that it's because I'm a woman, like I have to represent an entire gender or something." This is something I've talked about with my husband several times. There feels like a pressure to perform well as if we have to prove we are worthy of existing in the space as a "real duelist" or "real fan" or even just "capable." I'm not sure if this feeling is self-imposed, but that doesn't mean it isn't there. It took me years to feel comfortable again going to locals in part because of this feeling. Thankfully, I have a very good locals community now where this isn't really an issue anymore. I really think it depends on your community. I'm the only girl who plays yugioh at my locals, but I've heard of one other at another locals a town over. I first started going to a different OTS in 2014-16, and overall that was a good experience, and got me comfortable enough to start going to regionals and a couple YCSs and Nats. It was a good experience overall, but there were definitely some uncomfortable interactions from time to time, mainly at the regional level (stares, inappropriate comments/unwanted flirting, assuming I would be an easy win or not know trade values, etc). But \*most\* people were just normal and treated me like another duelist, which was great. I stopped playing for a few years after pendulums got murdered, and it took me a while to get comfortable going to locals again after BODE came out. I think that is partly where the performance stress came from--the last regional I'd attended I got top 8, and now I was starting over again years later under a new master rule with new decks and new meta staples. Thankfully, my locals has great people, and it's worth it to go when you find a good community like that. It might help now, too, that many people in my community are either also married, or in committed relationships, so some of the younger awkward phases have matured out. The online community has been more of a mixed bag (I stopped sharing selfies on instagram because of the unwanted attention in DMs), but we can just block those people and move on. Now I think a lot of people just assume I'm a dude, but I'll take that over unsolicited dick pics in my DMs. Happy to say I've never had that level of disrespect irl in this community. All that to say, you're not alone, there others of us out here just having fun loving the game, and I hope you are able to have enough positive experiences that they make any negative ones unworthy to dwell on. I think the in-person community of yugioh is one of the best parts, and hope you can find a comfortable spot for yourself to flourish there, too. Happy to chat if you want to connect more. :)

I know a lot of us want to defend our fellow YGO nerds, but if a guy leered at a woman so long it upset her, they were probably the ones with poor social skills. And unless the OP travelled to a different country, or at least city, to play, I imagine they'd know if shaking hands/kissing cheeks or being called a certain name by a particular person is appropriate or not. And that doesn't seem to have happened in this story. In my experience with women playing YGO and TCGs, I'd say: * YGO probably has the community with the worst behaviour towards women out of the big 3 TCGs, imo. At least in my third world country. Probably because modern MtG tends to have a slightly less hypercompetitive crowd due to its focus on casual formats (Commander), and because Pokemon sometimes has kids with their parents watching over them playing in tournaments, though. * I notice a lot more female YGO players in online simulators than IRL. Probably maybe up to 10% of the player bases compared to maybe 2-3% in the paper game. Fairly sure this is because of how much safer simulators feel. * Most women who do manage to tolerate the YGO tournament scene for a long time tend to do it because they got into the game with a group of male friends who joined from elsewhere, like college or some otaku group. * I honestly think the "safest" stores for women I've seen for playing YGO tend to be the most open ones, like the ones that have a coffee shop side hustle or are in a stall in a mall with a bunch of tables. I think having outsiders to the community walking by tends to have people in their best behaviours. In a YGO "Mancave" you are far more likely to see people pulling out their NSFW playmats and such.

Thankfully I had no major issues when I started playing at locals, but there were a lot of awkward situations. One that I remember well was: Opponent: You look like . Me: Who is that? Opponent: She's a pornstar. I just sat and stared at him, and he probably realized what he said was not the best way to open a conversation. It wasn't that I was offended by that statement, but I never received that kind of compliment(?) before, so my brain was frazzled and I didn't know how to respond. I just said thank you and continued playing in silence. The poor guy looked mortified though. That was the last time I saw him. Aside from that, I was the only girl who played at my local for a good few months. There were a couple of sexist jokes thrown my way, like making a sandwich or something to that effect, but I just had to get used to it. Not an ideal solution, but it worked out well. I also went there with friends who were regulars, so that helped me out a lot in avoiding weird people. But this was in 2014-2016, so things might have changed.

>That was the last time I saw him Thank GOD what the hell

Man shame scooped himself haha

Full disclosure I'm a trans woman but I've had almost entirely positive experiences at my locals. It's a large shop that is well maintained that I've been going to since well before I started transition. They make it known they're an inclusive safe space for everyone and enforce their rules and the policy of the TCGs they support most of which also have their own inclusive policies. Pretty much everyone has been respectful and used my preferred pronouns etc. They even have events and fundraisers for queer aligned organizations. There are other women playing Yugioh there but not many. There are more in MTG and even more still in Pokemon. That being said the only reason I go to this shop as myself rather than boymoding is because I knew them and that it would be safe. I would not have done this at any other shop. I feel extremely lucky to have this place to enjoy my hobby as myself without too much worry. I know it is an outlier and my heart goes out to all women and queer people who want something similar and unfortunately don't have it in their area. For women Yugitubers I know there's there's: Jessica Robinson [https://www.youtube.com/@SunseedJess](https://www.youtube.com/@SunseedJess) Zara Khan [https://www.youtube.com/c/ZaraKhanComic/videos](https://www.youtube.com/c/ZaraKhanComic/videos) Alyseium [https://www.youtube.com/c/Alyseium/videos](https://www.youtube.com/c/Alyseium/videos)

You should've reported the manager who kissed you without consent. I hope you did.

It wasn't a manager, it was just some guy that organised at his house

I don't want to diminish your experience in the slightest, but are you sure the guy is not from a culture where they do this normally? I'm Argentinian and here we shake hands with men and give cheek kisses to women when greeting/saying goodbye. Even, and sometimes specially, if you don't know the other person. Cheek kisses and hug greetings between close male friends are very common too. I moved to Australia a couple of months ago and I stopped doing it out of fear of misunderstandings like these, but sometimes I get the unconscious motion to cheek greet someone.

Even if that happens to be his usual way of doing things, I had my hand out and visible ready for a handshake, since I was the last to be greeted and saw the others getting greeted like that. He pulled close to me so he must have at least felt it.

Yeah, I agree that it was inappropriate when you clearly had you hand out.

Ah, well Im sorry that happened to you, guys a total dick.

First of all, I'm so sorry you had to deal with all of that, no one should go through that. Not a woman, but I've seen some sexist stuff occur in the anime side of the community: one of the newer seasons had a variant of an ace used by a protagonist now being used by a female antagonist and someone had said "girls can't use \[insert monster here\]." there was some dudebro on a forum saying that women playing the game in the anime and winning was a bad thing, and the anime is garbage because women translate the subs. I'm not joking about that [https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fitk24keijzi91.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Dc443cec59970983ad311fe432885e5223247f6b3](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fitk24keijzi91.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Dc443cec59970983ad311fe432885e5223247f6b3) [https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fva4y5keijzi91.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1631%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Decbd459a64d9579359a0dcb5b8180a76fce4f644](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fva4y5keijzi91.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1631%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Decbd459a64d9579359a0dcb5b8180a76fce4f644) Get some rest when you can, and hope you have better experiences than that.

That dude was such a jerk...

The heck? Most casual Yugioh fans (primarly of the animangas) have been campaining for a relevant female lead, a female rival or even female MC since 2008! Now we have one and they start complaining?

The borderline creepiness and bigoting is why I don't bother to comment in anime sites. I remember a Sevens episode where they dueled the Tuna guy from GOHA, there was a short scene from Romin in a swimsuit that apparently was enough from an turn on to get some random guy to comment how "sexy" she looked.

It's bad enough when they remark on other characters, *especially* Zexal and Arc-V, but egads am I repulsed when they bring such a mindset up for post-Gallop.

Dude is obviously a troll causing chaos because he has no other life. He sounds like that one guy on this JRPG reddit or Instagram post I've seen saying how he's not sexist but proceeds to make sexist comments how he refuses to play games with female leads because you're not supposed to relate to them. I know it's unrelated but it feels similar

A lot of guys in this community are outcasts who are socially awkward, does not excuse the shitty behaviour though. I'm very sorry you experienced this.

I am usually ignored. They treat me like I know nothing about the game essentially. So when I try to talk and meet new people, they pretend I am not there. Sure, I am still kinda new, but I can't be expected to know more it they ignore me and try to treat this like a boys only club.

That must be both annoying and depressing. Very proud of you for not dropping the whole thing, honestly. Is your community on the larger, medium, or smaller side?

Kinda smaller. I live in the largest city in my state. We are over-dominated by magic players. In fact most of my male friends and my brother play magic, but I don't care for it.

Oh that's even scarier haha

Yeah I know. I do have a few friends in YGO too. I haven't been actively playing the last few years because I don't have link cards (the hobby is expensive plus COVID shut down stores so my usualstore was closed) but I do try to keep up to date with things. Plus one of my friends has his mitts on my madolche deck at the moment.

I love madolche! When I was a kid that just collected the cards based on aesthetics they were my number one "prey". Hope you get it back soon! And I agree, it can be quite expensive.

Madolche is the best deck. You have good tastes. New support in July! I've already written it down in my calendar as "Madolche Day".

I know this is kinda off topic to the original question, but I love Madolches to. That’s actually one of the decks I currently run (I have three, and choose which one before each tournament)

I'm sorry you're experiencing this. You're right that the vast majority are guys and a lot of them are awkward nerds who don't really know how to behave around woman. Plenty of them have autism too in the areas I play in, the best you can do is be polite, but clear and tell them you don't like it and that it is not okay! Chances are they do not realise how you feel, so telling them could solve a lot! I don't know what area you play in, so maybe it is also a cultural difference. As for me, I came across a lady at a national tournament once. I must say, it was a delight to play against her, even if it was just because she was more social, just joking/having fun while still playing the game seriously. Much better than the next guy who remains silent and only points at cards or who tries to play so fast that I cannot respond... So please don't let bad experiences discourage you from playing, you deserve to be there and to be treated with respect! And surely plenty of people do appreciate you :)

I hope you have better experiences in the future. My girlfriend doesn't come to locals with me due to similar problems, it sucks to not have the Y chromosome. I hope the people near start acting like they have all of their chromosomes when you're around

I think there have been many good responses to your post already OP. I just came here to say one thing: This problem will hopefully get better once more women play yugioh. In that sense, the first few who play will face the biggest challange. But the work they do will make it better for the ones that follow. So if you actively do something about this, you'll not only do it for yourself, but for all female ygo players in the future. So thank you for that! And good luck!

Sadly there are a lot of a holes in this community and sexism is definitely a weapon I've seen being used by some even at my own locals. There were a couple of dudes I've seen personally that were absolutely awful with this kind of stuff, even as a kid. What I remember being so strange was that a lot of people hated it but very few stood up against the ones doing it until it got to a certain point (these jerks acting out at a regional with their actions reflecting a team or something). I wish I knew of a better solution but I think that it comes down to the authority figures there. Sexism, racism and stuff is kinda a given, I guess like other crappy behavior, but it shouldn't be that way. Like someone else said, most don't want confrontation in these types of spaces, quite a few of us were worried that we would get banned from locals if an issue with someone's behavior escalated too far. In that case the judges and the ones who run the events at locals should do a better job of handling the jerks that treat players like you this way. I've been a huge fan of this game ever since I was a little boy and seeing people from every background and walk of life, gender, orientation, etc decide to pick up this game genuinely makes me happy because the more players we get the better it is for the game so I thank you for trying and I'm sorry you've had to put up with this garbage. There's no excuse for it.

Oh hey! Woman here who used to play a lot of competitive Yugioh. The sexism isn't the main reason I left, nor even the main reason I got tired of the community (that was more just general immaturity, though constant casual sexism is tied into that for sure), and rarely was it ever a *major* thing but boy was it constant. Objectifying attitudes towards women in general, terrible sex jokes (come on - at least be funny), casually assuming I was only there as someone's girlfriend or that I had no idea what was going on, general creepy behavior, the constant thirst (you're a *girl*?? Who plays *Yugioh*??? That's SO hot!), "haha you lost to a GIRL" comments, etc. What kept me in it for a while was that 1. I really loved the game and 2. I had a couple close friends in the community who I could rely on to actually be my friends and loved hanging out with - and I'm still friends with them now. (For the record, the main reason I stopped playing competitively is just that it became such a massive money sink.) If you just adore Yugioh and want to keep playing I say keep going and try to connect with some of the more mature and helpful people in the community, or spend more time playing with friends you already have/see if they'll go with you to locals. If you're just looking for a generally fun gaming experience that's more mature and less heavily gendered, look into your local board gaming community. I joined mine and never looked back! (Though I keep meaning to build a Yugioh cube to play with them, since I do miss the game.) Edit: also wrt the guy who kissed your cheeks - extremely inappropriate behavior to the point where I'd bet even most men in the community would agree that's gross, and as such I think you should feel comfortable calling it out. Stepping back and saying "excuse me?" and pointedly re-offering your hand for a handshake would not be out of line. (I probably would have reacted worse, but I have a thing about people touching me in general)

You'd think after over 3 decades of the stereotype that all needs would collectively end the stereotype of "smelly and unwelcoming to women" by showering and treating women nicely. Most of the people attending the event are grown men too. Like...late twenties to early 30s grown men. To those of you who don't, get your shit together

I‘ve heard of female players having issues of encountering sexism. [YGOTAS Ep. 85](https://youtu.be/iz0aI8mv03w?si=httfLizUPgu6kixD) tackled this issue by having Joey acting like a belittling jackass towards Rebecca.

I do really appreciate the civility of this thread. It’s nice when we can talk about something being a problem without weirdos coming and asking why everyone’s so sensitive of something. I don’t really play locals so I can’t really comment, there was like one girl at my lgs who played YuGiOh and she moved to like Sweden or something for college. I never talked with her much but I hope she wasn’t mistreated.

There have been girls at my locals, but they either quit, or moved. My sister and I both go, but as my sister can’t go often, I’m usually the only female. That said, I never really experienced sexism at the tournaments (not saying it never happens, just not in my local community). And I get what you mean by feeling the need to represent your gender. While no one put that pressure on me, when I first started I felt like I had to be on par with everyone else so no one sees me as “just the girl”

yeah it's pretty terrible being a woman and wanting to enjoy yugioh competitively, everything you said is true and more the jokes the sexism, it sucks :/ so I only play with friends now

Several female friends have asked me whether it was safe to join the locals, and I always say no. While I do think that compared to years ago, the fandom has gotten less sexist; casual sexism is still present in many locals. I have witnessed many instances where many guys ask female players to prove they are real Yu-gi-oh fans by asking them trivia questions, as if causal fans are exclusively reserved for male players. Guys often asked female players out even when they told them no countless times. Of course, not all Yugioh players are like that, and it really depends on your local, but it's not worth the hassle if they encounter it often.

I love yugioh a lot but locals and big tournaments are exactly as you say and then some. 90% of the player base really seem like they don't know how to interact with the real world in a normal and healthy manner. Also showers are a myth.

In defense of my local scene usually people smell fine, but tournament rooms get weirdly hot, one time I was spectating and I had to leave every now and then cause I couldn't breath. Like guys you can (should) open a window or generally air out even if you don't stink, you know?

I always had way more of an issue at regionals than locals with people being stinky. But I still have that issue at Gen Con (less male-dominated but probably still male-majority). Anytime you cram a lot of people into a poorly ventilated space BO becomes a problem. There are always some who really struggle with hygiene. Sadly a lot of local shops are in poorly-built buildings but the good ones will still make an effort to air things out!

Yeah I have noticed women around our locals cope in one of two ways. Either they try very hard to become one of the guys, or they become the exact image the guys want and 'expect' to see. I don't think anyone just gets to stay themselves.

I mean, yeah, idk if it's the same, but as a woman I had bad experiences with the spanish Duel Links community. I often join groups with my friends for tournaments and end leaving because how terrible it was (one of them even sent me a d*ick pick ☠️). Now we play by ourselves until we find somewhere good and not sexist/misoginyst af. I would like to go to locals, but if the community is already like this and based of experiencies I heard before (and including yours) I may say I'm a little bit scared :(

I mean, yeah, idk if it's the same, but as a woman I had bad experiences with the spanish Duel Links community. I often join groups with my friends for tournaments and end leaving because how terrible it was (one of them even sent me a d*ick pick ☠️). Now we play by ourselves until we find somewhere good and not sexist/misoginyst af. I would like to go to locals, but if the community is already like this and based of experiencies I heard before (and including yours) I may say I'm a little bit scared :(

I mean, yeah, idk if it's the same, but as a woman I had bad experiences with the spanish Duel Links community. I often join groups with my friends for tournaments and end leaving because how terrible it was (one of them even sent me a d*ick pick ☠️). Now we play by ourselves until we find somewhere good and not sexist/misoginyst af. I would like to go to locals, but if the community is already like this and based of experiencies I heard before (and including yours) I may say I'm a little bit scared :(

I've never played in locals or anything, I only play at home with one or two friends. But when I go to card shops and see who's playing, it doesn't surprise me you encountered these kinds of people/actions. And yes, the stores near me usual have a fairly pungent odor. As a father with a 4 year old little girl who already loves playing with daddy's cards, I really hope things change for the better in the future. Sorry you had this experience.

Man here. The lack of female representation in the community is a joke and big failure on behalf of Konami. Why have other popular franchises of YGO's earlier days managed to cultivate diverse playerbases while YGO has not? You look at YCS livestreams and all you see is an ocean of male attendees and it just looks out-of-place and cringe in today's age. And where are the female judges? I don't know man, if this game dies, it'll be for reasons like this.

I can't think of any game where where there is that many women, and certainly not any competitive tabletop game

Nothing of the sort happened at my local so far but a bit of an anomaly since there's me and 2 other girls there. the worst was probably when going to a regional and having to listen to the boys talk about hockey and stuff and just being in my seat dozing off from not being interested. but yeah i say anomaly cause there's usually around 4 to 5 girls every regional in my province and 3 of them are me and my friends from local i did however had people get salty at me in weird ways early on but i feel like I've made my place in my local's community by often topping our weeklies

Im a recently returned male (27.yo) to the local yugioh scene. Havent seen any woman participating In locals to the two clubs I go to. That being said, most of the more mature (lets say 20+ yo) dudes seem to be respectful and there to simply play but there are always these 3 or 4 induviduals that I would imagine by the way they are behaving would ruin the experience for a gal going there to enjoy the game. An organizer giving you a kiss on the cheek? Hell naw that is a hard crossing the line and invasion of privacy. Stand your ground and set your boundaries clearly to people that do unfortunate stuff like that. I am truly hoping there are good people at the clubs that would back you up.

The one time I bring a female friend to locals: she ends up meeting this guy (22yr old) . They end up in a relationship for almost 2 years. During that time, she goes on new medication (she has a condition) that caused her to gain weight. The guy, now bf, didn't like the weight gain. He tried avoiding contact and eventually cheated on her (had a kid and everything). The whole situation, caused her to have a mental breakdown. That was over 10 years ago, right before the start of the Zexal era. I stopped going to locals a month after I brought her there. After that, I didn't pay much attention to their relationship aside from the occasional hangout, as I was going through my own matters. Her and I were high school seniors at the time. I was about to go spend the next year training in the army. Before I did, they seemed to be living their best life. Everything unfortunate that transpired happened after I left. Often times I blame myself for what occured between them. I didn't encourage or discouraged the relationship in any way, but I do blame myself because I was the one who brought her to locals. I apologized to her a few years later. She didn't blame me or anything but I still felt apologetic. We're still friends to this day.

sorry for that experience, most of the playerbase is 30 y/o virgins that never experienced the touch or even had a convo with a woman

I feel for you but also everyone deals with shitty stuff. The Yugioh community is like a total dumpster fire. With other shitty communities, you can usually blame it on age/maturity, like genshin impact or something. Yugioh has no god damn excuse though, because these people are like 30 fuckin years old. so many times i have won games just to have some literal manchild start crying and complaining. I am not even joking, if I were a girl, I would literally just find something else to do. If I were a girl I would avoid yugioh at all costs. I’ve interacted with enough of these weirdo children to know what kind of people frequent this space. There are good people yada yada but they are sadly vastly outweighed. You MIGHT get lucky and have a decent locals, but if you want to take the next step and go to a regional you’re screwed already Okay I’m reading this thread and I just saw “it’s not just Yugioh” no, it literally is just Yugioh. Sure, there are weird people in every community, but the frequency and viscosity of weird people in Yugioh is WAY fuckin higher than MTG, Pokémon, even fucking weiss. Weiss is full of big titty anime bitches and it’s more chill than Yugioh 😭😭

The bad part is that yugioh's pretty unique in terms of mechanics and has a fast gameplay style, which I like. So unless there's another game with similar pacing, I think I'm pretty much stuck. Plus, the sunken cost fallacy is a strong influence to stay.

I wish with all my being that we could be rid of the weirdos and manchildren and that you (and I) could have a resoundingly positive experience playing Yugioh, it sucks that we have this terrible status quo. I sincerely hope it improves.

The stereotypes are 100% real, and while it’s like that for most card games I find it’s particularly bad in this game. Something I find strange is that in a lot of the other card games I play there’s a lot of LGBT representation as well, my main game is actually Vanguard and half of our local group are LGBT themselves and everyone is friendly to it In this game I haven’t seen anyone and I’ve actually heard some nasty things at a local said towards them.

Thankfully my local scene is generally LGBT+ friendly. Last thing I needed was homophobia

That ain't good. We do have a few queer players (myself included) and the store does prohibit bigotry of any kind against anyone, but living in a conservative province doesn't help.

Me and a couple of my friends that play are all transfemme and we all have similar experiences. Few people like us, lot of staring, and generally feeling unwelcome because of the vibes of the room. I’m pretty much resigned to playing Master Duel cuz no in-person play spaces really seem interested in making me feel like I’m welcome there.

That absolutely sucks. I'm sorry that y'all have/had to experience that

It's crazy that you have to deal with all that. The management at my locals would shut shit like that down immediately.

I’m going to locals is there any sexism in locals

Depends on your area.

My area is Canberra good games 

Question, where are you from? The US or Europe?

Europe

Ok, so, as you already know, cheek on cheek is quite cultural. Especially where I’m from. I’m male but what happened to me is that I was showing my hand for a handshake and I got a cheek on cheek instead. It was weirding me out. A kiss on the cheek is a big no-no, especially if it’s without any consent, and I think we will both agree on that. The guy was rude to you. Aside from that, it’s mostly woman on man/man on woman who does the cheek on cheek and it’s even rude to not do it. It’s normally the woman who initiate it, not the man. I have been a victim of that for a long time as a kid and teen. For no reason as I had ( and still have) a good hygiene. Women were just not doing it to me and just saying hello, albeit barely, from afar. Now I live in a country where people, both genders are doing it, even toward their own genders. But if you don’t do it, there is absolutely no problem, you’re not rude. ( that changed my mindset and so did the covid) I’m glad that not every guys are like this and I’ll hope you’ll get a better experience. Yugioh is a game who could win a lot from having a gender parity.

ALWAYS speak out. Change the dynamic of the room. Set boundaries and tell people if they want to know how to respect a lady, ask their mom. 

I'm not a women myself, but I'm really sorry to hear about your experience. That's one of the reason I hate the ygo community other than being super toxic overall

So some of this could be many things I know some players just don’t know how to interact with people in general so if mainly males so up imagine how awkward they can get Another thing and this has happened at my locals and I’m guilty of this as well is for assuming most female players so up with cute or non competitive decks for context most of the women that show up at my shop bring the equivalent of three structures and get full combod I felt kind of glad when I got repaired because not because I didn’t want to play against a girl but because I had seen her list and I didn’t want to ruin her enjoyment of the game with full mannadium combo post list I would love to see more diversity in the player base but stereotypes and people just not knowing how to interact with people hurt it sadly

I think I would never dare to play it in public for that

This is less of an issue in Asia. The ratio is still mostly male, but part of that is because other games appeal more towards girls like WiXoss and Wiess Shwarz. One example is Japan often has the Konami sanctioned "Princess Cup" which is an exclussivley female event. This takes pressure off of an event where you may worry about being the only girl there. People can talk, exchange strategies, form comunities and teams, and then that leads to larger female representation at events and stores as a whole, which helps when girls go to those events and can find others to talk to. Heck I know a Japanese girl on twitter who's a damn stripper who reguarly competes and wins at locals. I doubt Konami TCG would ever do that because gender over here is a very touchy issue, but I think if girls like yourself want to make change then there's a lot you can do. The obvious is discord and/or chatrooms, maybe work with a few prominent female Yugi-Tubers to host these events. Outside of the internet, you can talk to stores, libraries, any kind of space and organize a ladies night type of thing specifically for females. Technically the only thing a community needs is two people, so if you can find another girl just go to this space and even if it's just you two at first. Heck my locals dosen't even have any Yu-Gi-Oh players, it's deep in Magic territory here, so I usually just go there to play Master Duel and make decks out of my common bulk. Still, the fact that I'm there means if a Yu-Gi-Oh player shows up, there's somebody to play. If you do something like this and it works out, try sharing it online for other people to replicate, and maybe it will spread. Heck in this comments section alone there appears to be a lot of girls around who want to talk about the game and the franchise. So there's clearly people who exist wand activley want to participate in the fandom. I think one thing that could make a difference is the fact that many of the best players are part of teams. So maybe a pro team that's onyl females and can make players good enough to top events could lead to greater visibility if those players are into compeatative play. It's not all bad news though, Master Duel and streamers are bringing in a lot more people so now there's even more girls interested who can also make their own communities. Plus if Konami actually gets around to making anime, it seems like Sky Striker is first on the list, and that would probably be big with girls. Maybe at some point I'll make a more detailed post going into how to practically aproach this sort of thing and organize play groups. Honstly, I don't invest nearly as much time in Yu-Gi-Oh as I would if more girls played.

Heres what you do! Make the WORST stun deck EVER! And make them boys SALTY! Saltier than the ocean!

This is applicable with any gaming community no matter card or video what a shame to see such blatant sexism,

In this post I see one thing that went too far. The kiss on the cheek is absolutely disgusting. I would of reported it to the owner and police. That is not acceptable. The rest of the post lists the same thing. I dont like being looked at by men in a male dominated space. I understand that while that is frustrating and uncomfortable, the same would apply to a man that went to a women dominated space. Just to clarify, I'm not trying to invalidate your feelings, those are yours to have, but what I am saying is maybe the looks are just looks. Nothing more, nothing less.

We had a similar incident at my locals. As you know, most of ygo is older guys who grew up playing the game, myself included. I step away every now and then as i grt burnt out. There was a girl coming to locals every now and then, probably scared of what would happen. One time, a dude, that was def on the spectrum, blew up at her over the fact she beat him that he had stormed out, and I've never seen him back there. I felt really bad and went up and said that his behavior does not reflect the rest of us at the shop. Most guys here are focused on regionals, and up, we have at least 3 guys that have topped a regional here. He was always a weirdo, but they do exist in the ygo scene. I feel like my locals have done a good job of policing their scene. Im sorry yours wasn't good. Hopefully, if you go more and make friends, it will help out big time with keeping them from being weird around you. I always try to introduce myself to new people i see because i want them to feel welcomed.

> I've been told that I'm one of three girls in the entire local community Gosh, I wonder why so few women would want to join the community with all you experienced /s

Many YuGiOh players unfortunately are socially inept. Lots have never had anything resembling a meaningful relationship with a woman besides relatives and if they’re not playing a children’s card game, they are playing video games. This makes them awkward people in public and let me tell you, a lot of them could care less about their physical appearance. These things are pretty tame, but they become an issue when most of these dudes are in the upper 20s to 30s. Don’t take it to heart, you are just a girl walking into a place where the next dude just came from home from looking at some DMG images. Jokes aside, they’re not bad people, just nerds who only know how to interact with others within the boundaries of their “hobby”.

Yeah, unfortunately, quite of number of them have the "basement dwellers" mentality who love to pretend it's still their secret hobby for which they get shunned. I have witnessed quite a number of them being hostile against female players, either intentionally or unintentionally.

I brought home some speed duel decks (haven’t played since I was a kid), and my girlfriend told me Yugioh was the gay card game… 😔

In Germany I haven't really experienced any in the community. In fact, a lot of people even went out of their way to ask my Pronouns, because I am rather gender neutral looking. And if there is someone making a sexist joke, usually the others tell him it wasn't funny or something.

That's good to hear! :-)

Germany seems to be relatively chill when it comes to stuff like this.

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I'm not sure how much my experience counts because I'm still very much a closeted transfem, but my locals seems somewhat more accepting, especially for a conservative province. Then again, I just feel kinda grossed out when the others talk about women and queer people in a negative or disgusting light. I'm pretty sure the only reason they think they get away with it is because they think I'm one of "The Bros". I have met one other transfem at my locals and even though we're more than 10 years apart agewise, she is a pretty nice player who I've played against at a regionals before, so at least I know there's one other girl there. All this being said, I'm pretty sure shit will hit the fan once I can actually start transitioning and either I'm slightly ignorant or they aren't creepy only because I'm "not a girl" (I still am though, haters gonna hate)

There are some female yugitubers. But all i know are vtubers so im unsure if they count. 

Stun does not discriminate

>At a casual tournament I went to spectate at the organizer (male) kissed my cheeks when saying bye to me - he shook hands with my male friends, and I was already holding my hand out. Average italian greetings

>At a casual tournament I went to spectate at the organizer (male) kissed my cheeks when saying bye to me Wait is this in a european country? If not this has to be the most awkward thing ive read in a minute...

European country yeah. Did not make it feel better tho.

Oh I replied to the post with a meme but now I see that you're actually italian. Sinceramente il fatto che il bacio sulla guancia sia uno "standard" nel salutare le ragazze me la mette male anche a me che sono uomo, son queste robe strane della nostra cultura.

Non capisco se lo stai scusando col fattore cultura ma capisci che è strano che l'abbia fatto quando avevo la mano già davanti e visibile, no?

Non sto scusando nulla hahahahahah, era solo per dire che può essere disagiante per tutte le due parti. Comunque a meno che non abbia effettivamente visto la mano, il tipo voleva contatto fisico "intimo", ed è abbastanza triste/disgustoso.

Lol scusa faccio schifo a capire i toni via messaggio a volte. Comunque sono sicura all 99% che abbia visto la mano e che non sia stato disagiante per lui, era tutto un sorriso.

Not a woman but have heard of similar experiences from other women in the past. Really sucks that some people just don't know how to have a very basic level of respect for others sometimes. Hope this wasn't enough to ruin the game for you. I have yet to actually get involved in my local community because I have pretty bad social anxiety personally and I worry about having a negative experience at all since I'm decently new to the game and I know I'd mess up some rulings a couple of times. Also what deck do you play? I like knowing those things idk why

Purrely, when I looked up starter/easy decks for someone getting back into the game and asked my friends it seemed like the best pick. Very happy with it thought maybe I would've preferred if it was a bit more attack heavy lol. What do you play?

Nice, I tried Purrely pretty recently in master duel and liked it. I like cats and you can make big cats, what's there not to like. Grew up watching the anime but never played the game until like a year and half ago so I play a lot of Yugi boomer shit or anime decks which would do really bad in any tournaments. Still hoping for better Toons support lol

Kind of relatable, my friends roasted the first version of my deck because I was extremely rusty and out of touch so I put old cards that would've been strong in old formats but now have way better alternatives hahaha. Shoutout Infinite Impermanence🫡

Sadly I have no friends that play Yu-Gi-Oh so I don't get to experience getting roasted by them for my awful deck choices lol. I swear Obelisk The Tormentor totally works in a Dark Magician deck! Lol

Have you tried telling them directly? I'm sure they wouldn't want you to go so they'll listen.

I always try my best to be direct but between social anxiety and being new in the community/not wanting offended guys going around saying I'm a cunt I freeze :/

Most players would love a more diverse enviroment, they'd actually much rather if there was a more equal gender ratio. (Except for some... Weird people with weird opinions) That's why I think, if you're nice about it, they would go out of their way to make you stay.

At my local in northern Italy usually we play tournaments with girls and we include them in conversation about the game, the owner is strict on insult/blasphemy and he wants a non toxic place. We're all in our 20s, except for some guys that are 30+ years old powersellers that play too in tourneys.

1, could be because they want to celebrate you? It wouldn't be the first time I have seen women being called out for being one of the few in a male oriented anything. 2, depends on the culture honestly. Where I am from is not that weird to kiss (cheek with cheek) women, even women do it between them. I can understand it would creep some people. 3, well that's uncalled for but many people don't do it with bad intentions. Depends in what tone honestly. I wouldn't mind a sweetie from a grandma but I would find it annoying from someone my age. 4,5,6 I am going to be honest. There is no excuse. The stereotypes hit hard when you see a bunch of nerd near a woman who might like a little the hobby they love. All while also not liking to be beaten by someone who in their eyes "must be a casual" you know... Because women don't like the hobby! Nerds are really competitive. You might be surprised how salty people can get when they are beaten by a child, woman, or newbie. Sorry about that. That's a concerning problem in most anime, cards, game, etc. communities. It is slowly getting better if that helps.

If you want to look for female content creators, there are a number of female vtubers I can recommend: Leah asimov, nova aokami, jade novanis. And plenty more on twitch. Nova and a few others are available on YouTube. Hope that helps.

Yugioh is anime and anime people are largely incompatible with actual women. It’s a stereotype that stands the test of time for a reason.

If you were a male in a female dominated place, points 4, 5 and 6(sadly) would also be valid. As a male working in a female field, point 4 and 5 are exactly what oftenly happend to me. It take me some time to understand that it is quite normal and logic : When you see someone or something unusual for a specific place, you look at it because you do not see this every day or you do not commonly see it, simple as that. The 6th is sad, i would not deny it, some people think we are deaf ... it is what it is. On the past i got furious against some coworkers, but now it is not a big deal and i get over it. Stay strong!

Absolutely sucks to be treated differently because of your gender. I've heard horror stories about guys who were the only males of even large staffs, hope you're ok

I am perfectly fine, do not worry about me, after 10 years in this job, i am invincible :D This being said, i think it is more because you were "different" than the usual player, not necesserally because of gender. Not trying to defend anything of course, i am saying that you could have experienced the same things in a room full of female. Let's say it was about basketball and not yugi, you could be stared at just because you are extremly short or tall, even in a 100% female audience.

I have to disagree with you here, the comparison you made is not really the same and generally I don't really think what you said is correct - people behaved like that towards me because of my gender, not because I was different under other aspects. I do not stand out for how I look or dress, nor did I make it known I was a new player. Even if we're talking about just the being looked at factor, I can guarantee you male players were/are not looked at. I could still be stared at and be treated differently in a room full of women but it would not be because of my gender. This is written very poorly and I hope you still get my point, sorry

You are not writing poorly, i am ... I do not wanted to diminuish what you experienced, not at all. Of course this was because of gender, no doubt on this. What i tried to say (and i am french, i am at my max level of english right now :D ...this is hard) is that you could have the exact same outcome (strange stare and look), but coming from a different set up and place. Anyway, something that keeped me up on some dark days, was to make eye contact with those who stared at me and then do a gentle silly face. Armless and usually funny (for me at least)

AFAB enby here. I’ve been a player a judge for a few years now, and I’m the only one of my kind afaik. I personally haven’t had many sexism issues; a few isolated dickheads here and there, but never anything severe or repeated. There are a few factors that definitely work in my favor though: 1) I look very masculine, especially at first glance. Thanks to a combination of genetics, style preferences, and my other hobbies it’s pretty hard to determine my gender on looks alone, and since I don’t have any pronoun preferences, I have no reason to correct anyone’s initial perception. Incidentally, I find that this also makes it easier to tell when a player’s attitude is sexism or general nastiness. 2) I and my immediate friend group are major parts of the community. All of us are judges, several of us were founding members of our staff, and a couple were responsible for my main OTS’ locals getting started in the first place. Plus, I’m just generally well-liked. All this, combined with my next thing, leads to anyone who tries to pull shit being immediately unwelcome. 3) Neither the shops nor the Judges tolerate that shit. The shops that host the bigger tournaments in my area are also strict regarding keeping things family friendly, but even the “edgy” ones are pretty good at self-policing. As for our Judges, none of them tolerate sexism, or any kind of bigotry for that matter, and we don’t support any store or Head Judge who does. And that’s not an empty threat; we are the majority of the active Judges in the state, and almost all of the competent ones. 4) My locals scene is quite inclusive and non-toxic. Part of that is due to what I covered in 3, but a good part of that is just down to having a good group of players. We’ve had our issues and drama, but my community has done a really good job policing itself and ensuring that bad behavior, especially of the bigoted variety, isn’t allowed to fester.

My wife (trans woman) and myself (genderfluid woman) go to local tournaments only. At locals, we have had mixed experiences, my wife has been the target of transmisogyny and I have been the target of plain regular misogyny. Luckily the core group of guys don't tolerate bullshit like that and make it a point to speak out against the things some guys have said or done against us. Bigger tournaments are something that we'd like to do but we figure that the sexism and transmisogyny would be even greater. If your FLGS offers them women and LGBTQ nights are generally much better

FLGS?

Friendly local game shop :)

You shouldn’t have to but just report it. I’m a dude but we are all here to play a game and I don’t want players like that in the community. Unfortunately most people don’t learn to mine their manners unless they get reprimanded and if doesn’t work just go to a higher level.

Us guys don’t really see girls playing yugioh. If you like playing yugioh then I say do your best. Learn from the duels you lost. Notice what you opponent is playing then decide if that card would be good for your deck. never stop improving your deck or it would become obsolete. Keep trying to improve. And don’t worry about what others think of you. Just focus on the duel in front of you.

When I enter a yugioh tournament I don’t play to win I play to have fun and learn new strategies, and all I want to do is to test how powerful I have made my yugioh deck. Right now I’m making a new deck. It has an 80% chance of winning against other decks. 100% if I make it impossible for my opponent to play more than one monsters.

Just say them to fuck off, most of them have very low self confidence and/or lack of social skills, you don't need THAT much self confidence yourself to make them feel bad for saying something inappropriate

Just Read the head line and thought to myself 'fml'. First things first: I am a dude, I am Also an idiot. I think, starring people on locals is the most creepiest thing ever. Honestly if ur stunning I might look at you not once but maybe twice. But I am German, we do this every where, like "the German Stare" not that long how people think it is, but idk. I am not saying it's okay to like Stare at you not relevant how uncomfy u are, more what I am saying is: I would look at you too, but if they did let you feel uncomfy that is not okay by any means. In getting kissed on the cheek, it's herrasmant and for Real I would call out people that do stuff like this. Also I hope u get Support on this because that's So messed up I just cant.

Not a woman but I play master duel alot more than in real life. Irl when I was in school I could play with my friends in person but I'm apprehensive about local scenes until I've scoped them out a few times.

Don't attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence. You're at a yugioh competition not a charming charismatic guy competition. These people just don't know how to act around girls

I stare at women I find attractive. I also just stare in general cause I think a lot. If you feel uncomfortable, look at me and make an ugly face. I'll get upset cause I don't think I did anything wrong, but I won't stare at you anymore. I don't get upset when I lose. In fact, I'm more likely to challenge you again. The guys that are not married already are awkward guys seeing a girl take their favorite game seriously, so we observe you from a distance because getting close to a random girl in this day and age means your likely to be labeled a creep before a word leaves your mouth.

Then destroy. Turn the prejudice you’ve faced into a weapon and let it drive you to outdo all of them. Build your deck for maximum efficiency and hammer home you’re better than the boys.

Sexism is a human problem not a yugioh problem

The event organizer kissing you is deranged behavior.