I guess it's a similar question to "where are all the women in IT?" Which is something that's left me scratching my head as there was nearly a 50/50 gender split when I started back in the late '80s, but over the years I watched the number of women dwindle and dwindle: it seems that as the older ones moved on to other things, there were fewer and fewer younger women coming into the industry. Anyway, I could pontificate about that but as I do so I suspect it may become of decreasing relevance to the subject!
In terms of gamers I know personally, loads are women. I haven't really attempted to count up the number of guys vs. girls I know who are into gaming, and my social circle will be somewhat self-selected anyway, so even as anecdotal comments go, it's pretty, well, anecdotal.
One thing I'm wondering might be a common factor is that many of the women I know who are into games are around my age group, 30s, 40s and 50s (I'm 47) but I don't know if I can draw any conclusions from that or not.
One thing about D:OS that does occur to me is that the retro themes of a turn-based, isometric view might just have some sort of automatic male bias in there since as a general stereotype, chaps tend to be more into that kind of detail, perhaps, and for me personally those elements kinda put me off a bit. I play D:OS in spite of them rather than because of them. It has other things that appeal to me more such as playing as a party (I don't necessarily mean with other players: I actually prefer to avoid online gaming) but that element didn't receive so much prominence.
Is any of this relevant at all? Dunno really, I'm just pontificating randomly, and it's hard to say if today's stream of consciousness provides any enlightenment at all. :P
