So I’ve noticed a common thread in the comments whenever I talk about non-wow playing (or computer using) Roomate. The comments always include a lot of advice on how to subtly lure her into WoW, or how to sublty lure her into my pants.
First of all, neither of those are going to happen. I’m dead literal when I say she refers to computers as a demon box. And she is a friend and roomate, not a potential tryst or relationship. She’s far more useful than that – one of her greatest traits is that she went to school for engineering and has a somewhat logical thought process, so she often helps me translate emotional talk into Frost speak – ie. something rational. Of course at times she’s been known to say things like “You wouldn’t understand, it’s a feeling” which isn’t helpful in understanding why someone is behaving strangely.
However, this has gotten me to thinking about the mysterious girl power in WoW. I know to some extent this is just a geek-related issue. I play tabletop rpgs and board games and used to work at a major publisher of board games – I really know that crowd. I have another roomate who is a professional comic book artist and works for Marvel and DC and through him I’ve met a bit of the comic crowd.
I’m used to the variations on the socially akward geek stereotype. Heck, Party Girl was telling me about a sci-fi con that has a “How to Talk to Women” panel that is always standing room only.
But the WoW crowd seems different. There appears to be the same kind of mystical allure that women have to the geeks and gamers across the board, but in WoW it’s combined with a kind of cocky “I’m gonna hit that” kind of attitude – rather than the overly shy stereotype.
So what do you think makes this special combination of reverence and confidance, and why are there so many in WoW?
And for you women death dealers reading, and I know there are a lot of you, is there any kind of female equivalent of this?
“is there any kind of femail equivalent of this?” No, not that I’ve noticed. Except for the mass hatred of teehee girls.. the ones who use their bewbs to get whatever they want, loot and attention mostly. I’ve seen a lesbian talk about “checking the forum for cute boys” before.. You know those moments where you really really lol? Yeah..
WoW as opposed to RL has the anonymity (gave up trying to spell that..) aspect. If a WoW guy (who probably hasn’t seen a girl since he popped to the corner shop to buy some beer or more likely, red bull, and was served by a middle aged women with a moustache) finds a WoW girl and attempts to .. “hit that” there aren’t really any repercussions for him. It either works or it doesn’t. Most of them are just amazed at the “girl geek” thing and see it as being more obtainable over the internet. I’ve seen some of these tell just about every single WoW girl they meet that they’re in love with them, they get turned down, move onto the next one, eventually one of them agrees and they move to Sweden. In my opinion, the geeky shy stereotype is still there, just masked :p
It amuses me that you have to ask this. Allow to introduce you to John Gabriel’s Internet theory.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/
The premise there hold true for any game or forum anywhere. If you can’t see them or know them in real life, people can pretend to be anyone they want. So, on the internet, everyone is a stud. I am certain that these people would be just as geeky in real life as the other crowds you mention.
Part of the problem may be that the guys who actually act this way are the most vocal of the crowd when it comes to girls in WoW. Plenty of guys don’t act this way about females they meet or that are in their guilds; but how obvious is behavior that just treats them like another person, as compared to someone who’s going over the top?
And yeah, some girls are over the top themselves. They understand that they can get attention and “things” (loot, gold, runs) by using themselves as sort of sexual imagery, flirting and manipulation. It’s annoying, but often they engineer their own crash-and-burn exit. I’ve resolved to stop caring so long as they don’t interfere with my friendships (which has happened before).
Hey now, Hrist! I’m a stud in real life, too. 4 kids, 2 play WoW, and Heedy-child actually approaches Frost’s DPS when he’s not lured away by girls or sports. Raising a successful hunter (even if I’m a slacker) is definitely worthy of stud rank.
Is this what the WHU has come to?
/cry
Anyway, yeah, it’s the internet. See Hrist’s link for further details. I might also throw in this for further amusement and/or realistic geek research:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7O4izi1fQE
When you’re sitting in Dalaran, hopping in the bank or on the fountain while the current raid leader is putting tonight’s group together, you will notice something;
Regardless of the time of day, there will be atleast 2 people having a totally worthless conversation, these are the people who seem to want to pay $15 a month just to annoy you.
These are the same people that always HAVE to make that comment when someone is putting a Naxx 25 together, that ‘Naxx is srsbsns’. This person will also be the same person to call it a fail-raid and bail when the raid doesn’t have enough DPS to down Thaddius,
Now, take this powder-keg of adolescence, and throw a jailbait-cocktease into the mix, and what do you get? Instant hillarity. I was guiding a new Hunter through the hitting 80 process, emblems, heroics, gems, enchants, rotation, spec. And I would see this litle tart bantering back and forth with whichever boys would pay attention to her.
But across the board, people can say/do whatever they feel like, as there is no repercussions to their actions. Table-top and comic conventions require a face-to-face, which can result in more than just a /slap if you are unable to be charming. Needless to say, this person did not work out with our guild.
I understand there are females who play WoW to play WoW. There are 3 in our guild that realize that WoW is a game first, and a social networking medium 4th. I appreciate the hard-work put in by these individuals.
These individuals do not spam trade talking about their bodies, and in return don’t get responses like ‘lol tits or gtfo LOL XD’
I think interaction between a male and a female is merely one aspect of this, and in response to Hrists comic-post, it would lead me to believe there are no NORMAL people, as WoW is their id brought to pixelated life.
I hate WoW
-Daddyodwarf
I have no idea how relavent this is to your post, but in my guild the three top DPS performers are I (a male MM hunter), and two female gamers (one a FFB mage and the other an SV hunter). The three of us compete for DPS, and each of us takes his or her turn at the top of the DPS chart (overall raid DPS that is, the mage cannot touch us on single target DPS) depending on what we are fighting, how many criticals we scored, etc…
A very recent incident, that was hilarious to us, was when our GM finally realised that two of us we not guys. And when the raid leader, myself, and the two DPS in question, asked him how could he not have figured it out on Vent, he said he never realised as assumed it was one of the healers of something. Okay, so he’s a little obtuse. That’s why he doesn’t lead our raids.
As a guy married to a non-gaming woman, and who doesn’t know any women in real life who enjoy electronic gaming outside infrequent trysts with Mario Kart, being in a guild with two outstanding female death dealers, and a female main tank, I think that’s “awesomesauce.” Oh, and none of our healers are women.
Then of course there is our guild…where a couple of the best healers are guys who play female toons.
And have some fun with the newbies who don’t have vent and can’t figure out voice chat
I never looked at it from that perspective I guess. My guild is a bit of an anomaly as well I guess, as we have no less than 5 couples in the guild, and only 1 of the people in those couples (my wife who’s only played for a few months) does not have at least 1 raiding toon. Of the 5 women mentioned, one was one or our 2 primary tanks for a long time, another often heals on her priest, but is an excellent DPS or tank on her druid. The others are both respectable DPS. Honestly, I believe there’s only one other female member of the guild, and she has a number of capable alts as well.
Then there’s the whole female toon thing… Our main Raid Leader’s “main” is female, our GM plays all female draenai (dunno what’s up with that), and there are several other guys playing female toons as well.
Hey now. Nobody better be bad-mouthing guys playing female toons.
/target Wiredude
/scowl
…to be fair, though, my two alts are both male, and there’s a reason for my gender choice on the hunter. My name’s a derivation of Artemis, greek goddess of the hunt (and thus hunters). So in a slight nod to the roleplaying gene in me, I couldn’t allude to such a mythic figure and not have my toon be female.
Uhhh no comment *blush*
I think of wow as my other family you get attached to people and get to know people really well, especially if you have voice chat. Wow is not a sexiest gaming meaning that both sexs have equally opertunity to get what they want out of the game. We have a few ladies in our guild who play and there great to talk too, there interested in advancing there character just like the rest of usand hitting up the raids. As for blokes playing female characters one of the blokes i know said most of his characters are female because he would prefer to look at a woman figure then a bloke all day. I think wow opens peoples mental thought processes as most know they will never really meet in realife so people push the boundarys more then they would in realife. You can be someone completely different to your real realife personality which opens up the locked doors and allows people to speak and act freely with normally no consquences. But personally i think its hot for all you woman players out there who want to kill or tank or even heal in a raid situation why should wow be just for guys. Keep up the killing girls and make us proud !.
On the subject of guys hitting on anything that says its female in WoW, I agree that its probably the anonymity thing. Sad but true
The girl equivalent i would say are the girls that say they’re a girl without being asked, particularly in pugs. I call this nerdbaiting. And in most cases, the males will court the female throughout the pug. Nothing wrong with this ofc. Its just nice getting some attention i guess, and it being a pug its not like it will start a feud between your friends or guildies or anything. Kinda like a onenight stand or just flirting with someone on a night out.
About the female/male avatars, I think it kinda depends from person. Some pick a male because they think its “gay” to play a female. Some pick a female because its pretty. Some view their avatar as a extension of themselves, some as an ideal, and some as a character in a book or a movie. Lots and lots of different angles on this one
Ooo, and one more thing, if you want to actually flirt with someone ingame, you don’t do it in /group or /guild, then its /whispers. You wouldn’t shout out you pickup lines in a bar with friends and strangers obviously listening to you, would you? And if you do, you probably(and rightfully so) would be interpreted as insincere, and trying to show of to the other people that you are confident and have a lot of experience with the opposite gender(wich in turn proves you don’t).
I believe that it is harder to tell a ppl gender than to tell their age. I think that WoW removes the genders and people gets into the roll of their char, but it is still quite easy to guess the age though.
Btw, is it anyone who can hint me on wich ring to replace with Dexterous Brightstone ring,
Uruka’s band of zeal (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47222) or Signet of Edward the Odd (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44308)?
@ Arthemystia Don’t get me wrong, I could care less what gender someone’s toon is, really makes no difference to me. I can actually appreciate the RP side of it though, I’ve played tabletop RPGs for years, and I will freely admit I do things in WoW for RP reasons even though I don’t play on an RP server.
A friend of mine played a female avatar for the simple reason of “if I have to stare at the ass of someone for hours each night it may as well be a female one”
idk.. i am a girl playing a girl… i see no allure to it. I tried playing a male toon, but quickly gave that up, as i cannot act as a male, or think as a male, or reply as a male… gosh.. males are sooo hard:(
I have no idea what the percentage is of males vs. females in my guild.. But i do know that our female priest is one of the best healers i have ever had a pleasure of fighting with! She saves my butt quite often.. and i am ever grateful!
So true about the whole “alternate reality” thing. I play a Dwarf hunter….a hard drinking “hold my beer and watch this” kind of little guy. I am nothing like that in reality
As to the gender of the toon you play….I have no problems with it at all….I just get a chuckle out of some of the new guildies , or pug members who flirt with the sexy night elf healer only to find out later that HE’s actually an NCO in the US military LOL
We actually have a LOT of US military folks , both male and female, in our guild ….I wonder what’s up with that ??? only a half dozen of us are Canucks
Everybody seems to be mentioning female DPSers, to do seem to be rarer then female healers. However, in comparison, how many female tanks do you know? There are a couple about sure but personally, every guild I’ve been in has had about 5 or 6 well known females (by well known I mean, there could have been more hiding behind “my mic doesnt work”) and in about 3 years of playing this game I can only remember… roughly, 3 female tanks. 2 prot paladins and 1 feral druid
…and then there;s the ones like me…yup I’m a married lady who started her toon off as good ‘ol Blargh, male orc hunter…..wanted to do it to avoid all the stupid flirting and having to pause from my char.progression to swat away all the masses of pre-teen advances….but then at lvl 60, after vent revealed my true sex….*poof* thank-you for the sex change blizz….I hide no more, and strangely enough found that I got more flirts as a dude…wtf!?!?!
Well, whatever the sickness that’s involved in that, no matter…I find that what turns the crank of my guildies and non-guildie peers is gear, achievements….OH, and lest we forget…all those stupid useless lil companion pets that you can love and play fetch with and groom and, and…errr…*ahem*…heh.
Basically in the end…us serious gaming girls are just as geeky as you guys. We still research dungeons, gear, quests, etc….and pretty much once I got a better grasp of how I wanted my toon to go, have done it all myself, short of when I need to hit up places like ToC, VH and all those other heroic dungeons that a new 80 should really focus on…although I DO admit that there’s been a few times when myself and another party member will show up at a stone and there’s a bazillion alli there doing summons of their own….a lil’ flirty flirt goes a looooong way to let me pass by them and peacefully do a summs for my party members….good ‘ol female tactics work in game too it seems! >=]
In many ways, mmo’s, for better or for worse, reflect a good slice of our social consciousness, so in most cases what you hear or see is, to some degree, some part of that person speaking out honestly (hardcore rp’ers who manage to sustain a whole language and behavior pattern online aside). There are days when I glance over our global trade channel and worry for the future of our planet.
So when you ask if maybe it’s WoW that allows women to be perhaps less stereotypical or shy, I think you’d have to ask is shyness a female stereotype anymore, even in rl? In regards to western culture, I don’t think it’s out of the ordinary for a woman to ask the man out on a date, to make the first move, to actually engage in the “chase”. In films and books, our female characters have changed significantly in the late 20th century until now. So it should come as no surprise if they may say something that may, for better or for worse, be something usually only a male would say in similar context, in-game.
I’ve played in several MMO’s, and in all of them, my personal experience has been that some of the most aggressive and gutter-mouthed players happened to be females lol. And certainly, there were those who were some of the best damn game players I have ever met, anywhere.
In contrast, some of the most emo-sensitive, walk-out-of-a-guild-over-a-nothing-issue, or leave a group over one comment type of people happened to be guys. *shrug* And you have those guys who seemed to have to cram the fact that they are bike-riding, tattoo-wearing, tough dudes down your head every time you see them. *shrug* You could write an entire book on the psychological impressions of what this reflects of us as a people, a community. Roles shift, empowerment spreads, it goes all over.
All I know is, from my perspective, the last thing I’m looking for when I log into an mmo is a girlfriend. And if they got a good sense of humor, aren’t as dumb as a post, can play the game and be helpful, I could care less what gender they are. I guess a whole other slice of that question could come from what your social expectations are from joining something like WoW. Is it just to have a good time, forget the rl crap you’ve been working through all day for a couple of hours of fun (and some challenges), and should genuine friendships emerge from it, so much the better. Or, that your hope is somewhere in this vast virtual landscape you would find ms or mr right?
As pointed out earlier, lots of pitfalls in that second notion. Wouldn’t completely recommend it, but whatever is your need or floats your boat
In the end, it is a game, to get back to the question, I’m not sure if WoW gets applied differently with gender roles than any other mmo. One thing for sure… despite all the usual whining or bitching that you hear about what Blizzard may be doing wrong, I think they’ve done an amazing job – and have created one of the richest virtual worlds to go trounce in.
Cheers with Ten Beers
Yeay! Arthemystia…!
Love that you just linked to Tripod..
One of the best geek comedy acts, and better cause they are aussie
In regards to the actual topic though..
I have had to deal with my fair amount of dodgy dealings when people find out that I am female… I don’t usually advertise that fact unless someone is being especially misogynist in guild chat, then I tend to pipe up and defend my corner!
I always try to be friendly, not hurt anyone’s feelings, but not use the fact that I am female to my advantage in any way..
But Its a really fine line to tread and quite difficult to get the right balance…
Would be really interesting to hear about other women’s experiences of how they find the right balance of being friendly, but not encouraging attention that you don’t want/need/expect..
On the other hand..
Yes I do like the fact that the stripes on my Devilsaur match my hair color, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to play my class or pump out solid dps relative to my gear level..
Its a tricky one, trying to be taken seriously and not be a source of fascination, just because of my gender…
/sigh
i really dont care what sex a player is or there character is it all about attuitude and how you treat people if your going to be a arse about it go and find some else to play with . I guess i am lucky as all the people in my guild are great we socially chat while doing heroics and easy raids its only the end game content when we all get serious but still have a joke and laugh after downing a boss. Also i guess i am lucky being a Aussie on a American server as the ladies tend to love my voice but im not there for pick ups its to play and have fun and socialise , to leave the real world behind for a few hours.
That youtube video made me LOL. I so posting it on our guild forum.
I’ve been searching for this article I read one time “what kind of girl gamer are you?” But, I can’t find it. Anyway, I remember one gamer was called “I’m a REAL girl” Gamer. That’s the one I identify with the most. So many guys play female toons. And, I was told it’s because, “if I’m going to stare at an ass all day, may as well be a chicks.” Girls in Warcraft really don’t have to TRY to get attention or special preference… it just, happens. I have no idea what the lure is, nor will I question it! The only time I use my pixalated boobies to my advantage is when we can’t find a tank or healer for the daily. Then, in LFG, you’ll see something like, “LF heals H Daily, have girl, pst.” I also post that in guild chat when no one is paying attention!
I am a female player who has both male and female toons and to be frank I rarely get flirted with because I don’t flirt. I am a big girl and don’t need the ego boost of flirting online. I play wow to play wow and my guild is friendly and fun and there are many married couples in it and btw our best tank is female and her rl husband is our healer who also has a female toon!
Of course, the fact that my main is a female dwarf may have something to do with this, but my other female toons are pretty nubile lol. I am a geek I guess – all my family have computer or engineering related professions. What surprises me is that there are any women on here who use it as a social networking site. Sad, sad, sad.
About a year ago, GamerDNA did a study. http://blog.gamerdna.com/blog/tag/world-of-warcraft/ They looked at gender, class, race, and gamer “archetype” and found that the most common classes for “real life” females to play were priest, then hunter. Apparently, ladies were more than twice as likely to play a priest than men, and we also slightly outnumbered male hunters.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that they were looking at level-capped characters, so in theory someone’s level 12 bank alt could be skewing the data. The study’s also a year old.
But to answer the question, I play all female toons in WoW (with the exception of a male DK I created as a supporting character on an RP server). I can’t say that I flirt all that much in wow, though I do tend to favor “pretty races” (my main is a night elf). Have I ever done any mail box dancing? Only in front of the Horde inn in Dalaran (mostly to prove I could).
I’ve never run into much opposition as a girl in wow. Several people have assumed that I’m a guy playing a female character (it took one of my guildmates months, though that’s partly because our main heal and I sound similar in vent). I’ve heard people casually remark that most of the hardcore raiding guilds are all male, or complain about female avatars getting better treatment than their male counterparts. I’m not a hardcore player (my guild is still doing Naxx and OS) and I don’t play male character, so I can’t validate or disprove those claims. Still, I know that I love to top their DPS, and feel quite pleased with myself when I save their lives with a quick misdirect or freezing arrow.
Gotta call shenanigans on parts of that study, Shadda, but don’t mistake that for ingratitude. Thank you for posting it. But we’re never told exactly what a couple of the graphs are showing on the Y-axis. Percentages? Can’t be, since many men/woman totals would equal well past 100% since they are both near the top of the chart. So, overall number of females or males that play a class? If we’re to believe the that, we’d have to believe that more females play several classes in WoW than men do. I understand that certain classes will have more/less females, but the game in general is still predominantly male.
They also never define what they mean when players describe themselves as killers/explorers/etc. Killers, ok, maybe raiders. Or PvP, which already muddies the label. Explorers? Um…those who get the exploration achievements? That’s not a reason to play, at least not for nearly 40% of gamers. Even if they define it more stringently, it seems like too vague a title to give us insight into what each gender likes to do with their character. I would have preferred Raid, Solo, PvP, Level, etc. as choices.
DK’s in WotLK also skew things. They’ve quickly usurped Hunters and Pallys on most servers as the class of the masses, which will change data for all classes and genders.
By their own admission in the article, that site is pulling data from their own databanks, which is relegated to those who have signed up and provided personal info. I don’t fault the attempt, and some of their conclusions would likely hold true for a much larger data pool, but the data itself seems insufficient to draw reliable conclusions. Warcraft Realms has good server stats for class comparisons, though unfortunately won’t be able to contribute to the gender discussion.
…
Gotta say, though, Blood Elves were the reason every girl I know got into WoW. They stay for other reasons, but that was the hook. Sometimes the sterotype ain’t pretty, but it doesn’t make it false.