This might have been mentioned before here or on a different post, however, the reasons that keep most girls from playing *roguelikes* in specific, imho, are quite a few and are mostly the same reasons why most guys don't play roguelikes. To clarify, I'm talking about
the average girl that actually likes to play video games (because there's quite a few that consider them a completely juvenile method of spending your free time, I know quite a few like that). Not the occasional nerdy chick, which sadly, is a rare sight. And I'm not talking about casual social games, but about more deep and engaging experiences, that either deliver a good story with solid characters with which one can identify, or challenge the player's ability to think and come up with solutions to problems (Crawl tactics, for example), or both. Of course there's more sub-categories of worthwhile games to examine, I'm just naming a few.
Problem A: Graphics: At first glance, Crawl tiles (which I love) look like an atrocity to the average gamer, which, let's face it, probably owns a last gen console or something to that extent. Now, I believe that girls are way more critical of art -in games and in general- than most guys. For example, isn't it a classic male stance to just let the wife choose how to paint the house and decorate it? Oh, and I'm not even gonna bother with ASCII. These things are outdated even for me, and on my first computer I used to run DOS, use floppy disks and have a hard disk drive of the whopping size of 128 mb.
Problem B: Complexity: Roguelikes (outside the casual market) are complex and that is what people that bother playing them love about them, I think. But, again, this is not just an issue that girls have. To give a personal example, I've stopped trying to get into Dwarf Fortress due to the sheer complexity of the UI and rules I'd have to learn in order to establish a healthy dwarven colony. And to top it off, I'm just not a huge fan of city management games, so it's natural that I'd give up. Sometimes, the end result (having fun playing) is just not worth the effort of learning how to play a game, since you could just do other things that you know how to do already, like read a book, for example, which is favoured by girls and women of all ages.
Problem C: Permadeath: One thing I've been thinking about is that permadeath, a defining feature of the roguelike genre, may actually be very close to gambling (the variety in which the player feels like they maintain a lot of the game's control within their hands though, not blind luck, at least when it comes to DC:SS, that is hardly a luck based roguelike), since permadeath is pretty much the same thing, the stakes are high and one wrong move means you're done. Only instead of losing your money and self-esteem, you lose the time invested in your character (and your self-esteem, possibly). Then, add the fact that (afaik) men are much more inclined to become involved in gambling and that may be something to consider. What are your thoughts?
So, to be a bit more on topic, in order to attract more females to DC:SS, either;
a) The game would have to be a totally different game targeted at a female audience, which the current fans probably wouldn't enjoy.
b) Women would have to change their taste in gaming, which is far more unlikely to happen. DC:SS is unpopular with both sexes anyway, but the very obvious lack of women in roguelikes is just a tiny part of the general lack of women in gaming communities. The way most games cater to a male perspective (typical alpha male lead characters, women are immensely sexualized and are there for the boobs and ass, etc) is a major reason why many girls don't enjoy playing a lot of games. It's simply because they weren't created with female consumers in mind.