Healing is for the women
by Mike Schramm 
Sep 29th 2006 at 1:19AM
Garthar put something out there on the forums that I just couldn't pass up. Healing, he suggests, is for the women. He claims that he's found most women that play the game play healers-- he says most druids and priests he plays with are women. Note that he's not saying that all women play healers necessarily (although that's a conclusion you could take from him), but he's actually saying that all healers are played by women.I'm here to tell you that's not true. I play a resto shaman who heals like a madman (and a shadow priest, although I'm not sure if that counts or not), and while there are some female gamers who play priests and druids in my guilds, the majority of priests are actually guys. In fact, I've played with a surprising (to me) number of women warriors. There's nothing an old-school gamer like me loves hearing more than a female player complaining because the guild is pressuring her to spec out of fury and start tanking. Just more proof that videogaming is a girl thing, too.
Sexism aside (of course there are exceptions to every rule), Garthar can't be right, can he? There's no way only women play healers. Is healing as a class more feminine somehow then smashing things over the head with a large weapon? And where do the other classes fall in here? I know a few women that play mages (and play them well), but I have to admit that most of the rogues I know are played by guys. Does our gender have any say at all in what classes we choose to play?
Filed under: Priest, Rogue, Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
him Sep 29th 2006 2:09AM
Complete sexist rubbish if you ask me. I've played a few priests (and am male). Most of the women I've gamed with (was going to say "played with..." but changed my mind) seem to be mages or paladins.
The guy with the totem Sep 29th 2006 2:38AM
I dont believe all women are healer and wimpish classes.
In my guild there are a few girls and only one can heal, although she never uses it as i personally heal my ass off!
However, this being fact for me and my guild, I do believe that apart from the hormonal man hating ladies i play with, im sure there are the fairer of the specie out there that do prefer healing. i personally like it as i work for the ambulance service in the uk and however sad it makes me like to heal at home too!
-The guy with the totem
Aaron Sep 29th 2006 3:53AM
Both my Wife and I have played Healers in DAoC and WoW, along with other classes.
These days her main is a Mage in WoW. I think he's drawing on a very small segment. I know women that play just about every class in WoW.
Bill Sep 29th 2006 3:58AM
Not true for me.
I'm a guy and I play a resto druid while my girlfriend plays a rogue.
Also every single healer in my guild is a guy.
Phule Sep 29th 2006 4:53AM
I am a guy, and I love playing the healer for instances. Also, one of the best rogues I've ever met was an 11 year old girl. Never saw her lose a duel, unless the opponent was more than 5 or 6 levels above her. Also very good at PvP.
ikiko Sep 29th 2006 5:46AM
I'm a girl and I play both a hunter and a shaman and have enjoyed playing just about any other class. I don't think class has anything to do with whether you male or femaile--
and by the way, my characters tend to be male avatars!
Gorath Sep 29th 2006 6:42AM
We all know women should be in the kitchen, not playing video games... >.>
Just playing, but yeah im a 60 druid and im pretty sure (even though im feral) i heal every time i group up, and statisticly if it were up to me... id say i see most females playing the warlock class(coughtheredemonscough) ;)
Amauriel Sep 29th 2006 7:26AM
I'm female, and I group with another female...and what are we? A hunter and a rogue. My main is a mage actually, but I never had a healer till about my 5th character. I know I am not the majority, just putting in my 2 cents, but I sure don't see a sway one way or the other in the healing class.
PodMonkeys Sep 29th 2006 7:47AM
My guess is the guy's experience may be limited enough to give him this perspective, or his subconscious bias leans him to find this conclusion.
Having a Sociology degree, I can definitely see why there could be a trend towards male=dps, female=healing. Theres so much pressure in society to create passive care-takers out of women, and an amazing amount of pressure on guys to compare the size of our package/weapon/truck/etc.
I personally havn't seen the data on what sex plays what percentage of class, but it sounds like a job for the Daedelus Project. One also has to remember that you're in game gender does not always match the player's gender.
Nemira Sep 29th 2006 7:54AM
My first avatar was a female human mage. I leveled her to 27, if I remember well. The leveling was SO slow, because of me being a total noob at that time :) (she didn't even join any battleground). Then because my boyfriend started to play too I rolled a female night-elf rogue to play with him. I enjoyed playing with th rogue, started to care more about the items... My boyfriend had a hunter, night-elf too. He didn't like PVP, I did. Well, he didn't like many things I
do, and we had a short break at some point. I continued to play the rogue during the break and I leveled her to around 33... He didn't play the hunter during that time. When we made up, the difference of levels was too big, so we decided to make other avatars, on a PVP server this time (my idea). The plan was to play with these new avatars when I get bored of helping him level up. We rolled horde this time (I wanted this mostly because of the fact that, on the other server the horde always pwned us in battleground because of their team spirit) but I was not sure what class and race to choose. I was hesitating between warrior, priest... and warlock maybe. He was not sure either, but warrior was on his list too. He finally decided to go warrior, so I chose (or left with) the priest. Deciding the race was my call now. Obviously, after a short documentation (I
love search engines) I rolled undead.
:) I just loved playing with the priest from the first moments. My boyfriend stopped playing shortly after, then we broke up for good (no connection between these
two), so I leveled right from the lowest levels a holy priest all by myself :). I really enjoyed the leveling, which was very fast considering the talent build I chose and the fact that I pvp-ed a lot. It was a rather strange period of my life :) I had the graduation exams to take, the SCJP exam (I took them both with high
grades), I got promoted at work, I was after a brake up and rather instable emotionally and I still was always able to make time almost daily to play the priest and level her to 60. All these in like... three months. She never had problems with gold (no, I didn't use e-bay), she had both her mounts bought in the day she turned 40 and 60 and she always had expensive enchants. Because of things like these I got rather many whispers during the leveling asking if this char is my alt, some kind of twink :). She wasn't.
She played Strat, Scholo and both BRSs almost guildless (she was from mid 20s level in a small guild that disbanded shortly after she dinged 60). She is in a new but good guild now, that had MC as farming instance after like one month from the moment it was created.
But I stopped playing with her for like 3-4 weeks now. I am not sure why... maybe because of the fact that I don't like some of the guild members that much, but I like the others so I can't leave the guild. Or the fact that I MUST play the hours other people decide to raid and as long as they decide. Or the fact that it is not that fun anymore, that whiping costs more (and I am
not talking only about the cost in gold)... that it has turned into a serious thing. I tried to play the female mage after I stopped playing the priest (it was not a decision to stop, I simply didn't feel that logging her in game would bring me any joy), she is 30 now but... green gear and... Then I've started to level an alt I kept as bank on the first server (female night-elf
druid) to play with one of my colleague from work (there are 5 colleagues now that started playing because of me talking so much about the game). But I guess I won't play much with him, he has just started to play and... well, he is just so slow. I think I
will wait for the BC to be released, and make another avatar then. I am sure it will be a blood elf. Probably a she. Class... so far, unknown.(healer again maybe? :))
Well, all that amount of text above could have been summarized in "Yes, I am a girl and I play
a healer class" , but women are known as being able to complicate even the simpler things, don't they? :P
Undying Sep 29th 2006 9:00AM
I'm a guy and my main is a Pally and I do about 50-50 healing-tanking. I also have an alt Priest dedicated to healing. My GF plays a hunter, Warlock and Warrior. She loves to tank and jump in the hole and kill everything that moves. She tried some healing class also but hated that.
Also, My firend's GF is playing both Warrior and Mage. I know few other woman playing, and none of them play healing class...
Hanna Sep 29th 2006 8:39AM
I love my warrior. And the rogue I'm working on. And I can't wait to start a warlock.
'Nuff said.
To Sep 29th 2006 8:51AM
I have a feeling that Garthar is making the assumption that just because the character is female that mean that the player is female...which is hardly ever true. I for one almost always play a female character...depends on Race though. My g/f who plays more than I do always plays a warlock - always...thats kind of the opposite of a healer I think.
Coanunn Sep 29th 2006 9:21AM
Heh, Nemira, with you posting like that I will never be bored at work again.
You go girl, there is nothing wrong with a girl playing a healing class. Half my guild (yes a full half) is female and mostly play night elves on hunters, druids, and priests. That being said there is a female gnome warrior played by a woman, a fairly stout dwarven pallading played by a female and frankly I find it disturbing that in an MMO where we must be socially mixxed people still are sexist about female gamers. Most of the female gamers I meet put in twice the effort to be good at what they do that their male counterparts put in so they can be accepted.
We have a woman in my guild who goes on "fashion" hunts to find new clothes for her level 60 Nelf Hunter. She wears what ever looks good regardless of stats and will attempt to run instances wearing this "fashion" gear. It is not because she is female, it's because she is an idiot. Most of the guild won't group with her now because if unless she promises to wear the appropriate gear and not roll need based on how something looks. That said she is the nicest person in the world and is about average at playing her very non-healer class.
Yes there are women who will fall into that stereotype, but there are far more that won't.
Jusk Sep 29th 2006 9:52AM
Its not so much healer vs dps. Its about being pretty. At least for my wife, and the dozen or so others in the guild.
They always wear appropriate gear though. No problems there. But most of them ( all but 2) play clothies. Robes and dress-style just look prettier. And its alot harder to have a mismatched set in cloth. Just match the robe and shoulders and you are good. We have several female mages, one is even the mage class leader and a raid leader. We have several female warlocks. Again, the class leader is female :P We only have 1 female priest, and 1 female druid. We have 1 female warrior ( who is quickly becoming one of our best tanks). We have no female paladins.
I cant get my wife to play something other than a clothy for long. She has a warrior in the teens ( stopped playing becuase she finally got a set of armor that she liked the look of), and she has a paladin at 24, just so she can wear a set she liked the look of. She wont play them again.
She does like shamans though. Totems are pretty she says. No shes not retarded, shes actually the warlock class leader, and a skilled player. But looks mean alot to her when choosing a class.
Moab Sep 29th 2006 9:53AM
My main is a healer and I'm a guy. My toon is a guy as well. =)
manji Sep 29th 2006 10:31AM
I'm a woman. I play a feral druid, and, in fact, suck a nut at healing.
Jazz Sep 29th 2006 10:41AM
Hello my name is Jazz, I'm a chick, and I'm addicted to doing damage. In almost every game I've played I've played to do damage. I solo mainly and I need to know that I'm going go out and kill what I need to kill. I played Lineage 2 and that is open PvP all the time. You have to be able to defend yourself at all times. So being able to do massive amounts of damage has always been what has drew me to whatever class I play. I've tried being a healer but it just doesn't appeal to me. Though their outfits do look cute.
Now speaking of which I do like the "cloth" classes because yeah lets face it their stuff looks "cuter". I've thought of rolling a mage, I just like my rogue to much. I am a vain chick though and how I look does play a role somewhat in what I wear. However I'd rather be affective than look hawt. So its a mix of both for me. I try to find stuff that looks decent but still helps my stats. I hold on to sometimes looking gawd awful knowning that later on I'll have better looking armor.
elizabeth Sep 29th 2006 11:06AM
Well, my first character was a hunter, then a mage, then a warlock (which became my first 60). I then rolled a priest on a lark (for something different from the warlock) and played it to 60. More recently, I grew tired of the alliance and re-rolled a horde priest, which is now 60, and am nearing 60 with a horde rogue. And, well, healing is a fun change of pace from DPSing, and while my priests have both spent some time shadow specced, I enjoy healing. But usually, I think, it's because it provides a different sort of challenge than DPSing.
Of course... with the low ratio of female to male players, most of the game's players would be in deep, deep trouble if only women played healers... ;)
Kaylos Sep 29th 2006 11:42AM
LOL. Most women I know in game play DPS classes. Rogues, Warlocks, Hunters, and Mages. A few play druids and end up healing because druids are expected to. The only woman I have ever met that plays a priest would rather smite for 2K+ than heal. She does heal, but not because that is what she wants to do, but because she is good and understands to progress or win at PvP, its needed.
My own GF just started playing and I couldn't talk her into playing a healing class. She wanted to "blow" stuff up. So she now has a 21 mage.
So my experience is that women like to DPS, imagine that. However, they seem to like diversive dps as opposed to the in your face DPS of a warrior. Still haven't met an actual woman warrior.