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The latest patch 5.4 newsSexual dimorphism in Cataclysm
by Matthew Rossi 
Dec 13th 2010 at 6:00PM
Also interesting to note was that this trend goes both ways: when blood elves debuted, the males were much closer to the females and were beefed up in The Burning Crusade beta. As Annalee Newitz pointed out, the other race that debuted in BC, the draenei, are extremely dimorphic; males are bigger and more massively muscular than orcs, while their females are far less mesomorphic. What interested me, at least so far as the tauren and troll model changes went, is that players complained that the tauren and troll women weren't to their liking, which most likely had an influence on the design of draenei and blood elves.
Now, with Cataclysm, we have two new races to consider. How do the worgen and goblins stack up on the dimorphism scale?
Well, goblins may well be the least dimorphic race in WoW, or at least a contender. (Gnomes aren't terribly dimorphic either, so it may be as simple as a consequence of geometry.) Male and female goblins certainly are distinct from one another in their playable incarnation, with males having slightly more pronounced features and females being slightly taller.
While there has clearly been an effort to make the goblin female appealing visually, it hasn't occurred as a result of highly altering her body type to be very distinct from that of the male. They are both short, slight beings. There's no major discontinuity between the men and the women when it comes to goblins. Goblins are, therefore, a race lacking in a strong component of sexual dimorphism, which suits a people who are such experts at negotiation and commerce.
How, therefore, did our Gilnean friends come out of their curse? Well, since worgen were once human, we're already talking about a fairly dimorphic race in WoW. All human males, from the mightiest warrior to the warlock and wizard, are built like brick outhouses, as my father used to say. (He didn't say "outhouse," but you can understand why I made the substitution.) But do worgen maintain the dimorphism of their parent race?
I wouldn't say so. It's not that they maintain it -- it's that they take it as a foundation and go wild with it. One of the interesting aspects of World of Warcraft is that many of the males crouch; worgen are no exception to this trend, although they're the first Alliance race to do so. Orcs, tauren, trolls and now goblins all have between a slight and severe crouch or hunch to their posture in the males. Tauren females are taller than tauren males unless you count the pronounced hump on the male's backs; the troll females stand generally taller than the males, save for the rare moments when the males straighten all the way from their extremely severe crouching posture. Worgen are similar in this regard.
How, therefore, did our Gilnean friends come out of their curse? Well, since worgen were once human, we're already talking about a fairly dimorphic race in WoW. All human males, from the mightiest warrior to the warlock and wizard, are built like brick outhouses, as my father used to say. (He didn't say "outhouse," but you can understand why I made the substitution.) But do worgen maintain the dimorphism of their parent race?
I wouldn't say so. It's not that they maintain it -- it's that they take it as a foundation and go wild with it. One of the interesting aspects of World of Warcraft is that many of the males crouch; worgen are no exception to this trend, although they're the first Alliance race to do so. Orcs, tauren, trolls and now goblins all have between a slight and severe crouch or hunch to their posture in the males. Tauren females are taller than tauren males unless you count the pronounced hump on the male's backs; the troll females stand generally taller than the males, save for the rare moments when the males straighten all the way from their extremely severe crouching posture. Worgen are similar in this regard.
As can be easily seen in the picture above (including the feet this time), a worgen male is slightly shorter than a worgen female due to this extreme hunch, but almost twice as wide. The body type of a worgen female is nearly as slender compared to the make as the draenei but, like a tauren, is taller than the male due to posture issues. So worgen fall somewhere to the far extreme for sexual dimorphism for playable races, somewhere between draenei and tauren/trolls.
Why the worgen curse makes women grow taller than men, I have no idea, but there it is. It's also interesting that while the female is taller, every aspect of the male from the head and jaws to the hands and feet grows massively, while females see very little in the way of growth of those portions of their anatomy. The worgen male sports a massive maw of savage fangs, while the female's mouth (although still a large muzzle full of sharp teeth) is far less developed, almost fox-like. Much like the tauren or draenei, the worgen male is nearly double the width of the female.
Interesting that of our two new races, the goblins come off as nearly physically equivalent between genders, while worgen exaggerate the already striking dimorphism of their parent race -- especially considering that most Gilnean women you meet in the game are such astonishingly aggressive and forthright women.
Why the worgen curse makes women grow taller than men, I have no idea, but there it is. It's also interesting that while the female is taller, every aspect of the male from the head and jaws to the hands and feet grows massively, while females see very little in the way of growth of those portions of their anatomy. The worgen male sports a massive maw of savage fangs, while the female's mouth (although still a large muzzle full of sharp teeth) is far less developed, almost fox-like. Much like the tauren or draenei, the worgen male is nearly double the width of the female.
Interesting that of our two new races, the goblins come off as nearly physically equivalent between genders, while worgen exaggerate the already striking dimorphism of their parent race -- especially considering that most Gilnean women you meet in the game are such astonishingly aggressive and forthright women.
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 10)
Chetti Dec 13th 2010 10:18PM
I just finished the worgen start zone with my new druid. All of my toons are female, I'm not sure why.. I guess I created the first one (a ne druid) as a little avatar of myself, and the trend stayed. I don't like the worgen female model, I didn't like it the first time I saw it. I thought she looked like bambi.. small head, HUGE eyes and lashes. But I chose female because, well.. its something I do. Its kind of growing on me though.
Normally I'd be thinking that her armor should cover more (how long did my human priest look like less than priestly in her halter top and red stripper boots), but funny how on a worgen female it looks like they just.. work. Not in a woah sexy kind of way, but more in an oh crap I fursploded through my armor kind of way. I wouldn't say its "awesome" by any stretch, but its.. ok.
Eddy Dec 14th 2010 12:04AM
I agree with you so frequently, and right now is no different. I was never enthused about the worgen all that much but I hate the execution.
Some amount of sexual dimorphism is interesting. I like that some races have more and some have less. That gnomes and goblins are pretty similar, that elves are arguably similar-ish, and that something like the Draenei have a bit more. I don't think it is inherently a bad thing, it just has to be handled well.
But the worgen... oof. I saw one drop down into the mount animation today while I was questing, and I just couldn't handle it. It looks awful. I'm so glad to be Horde, so I don't have to deal with that in my raid.
Evelinda Dec 14th 2010 5:00AM
I did exactly the same thing; I rolled a female worgen first, because i generally roll female chars; i have females in every race, but only a couple of males. But after i gained a few levels, logged and played another char. When i went to go back to my worgen lady, i just... stared at her for awhile on the char select screen. i stared... and i realised i just couldn't do it. For me, its how vulpine they are that ruined it the most. I wanted my powerful wolf-woman to... well... look like a wolf. not a grey fox.
those eyes are also terribly unsettling though. and i wish if she was going to snarl all the time, she'd put some effort into it.
Snuzzle Dec 14th 2010 8:57AM
@Evelinda
"and i wish if she was going to snarl all the time, she'd put some effort into it."
I gigglesnorted, because I've always thought the female worgen didn't look like she was viciously snarling or even scowling in an aggressive manor. It just looks like she's got something that smells unpleasant smeared under her nose.
Billlop Dec 13th 2010 6:20PM
Well i think its to do with the general rule of things. Males are, generally, bigger and stronger than females. I know there are some weedy males and some buff females but what im saying is GENERALLY, males are stronger and bigger.
I think it goes back to the Hunter/Gatherer past. males are meant to hunt. They are meant to fight other males , to fight their prey, to fight for survival. Females on the other hand and more suited to the gatherer role. They dont need to fight to asert their dominance.
I know "socially" this has all changed, but you cant deny the facts. Most Male animals are larger than Female ones because of their roles in nature.
Pyromelter Dec 13th 2010 6:38PM
I don't think the issue is the fact that the males and females are different. I think when there is criticism it is because of the massive difference in size, which is often a much larger difference than would be expected.
j.h.gorton Dec 13th 2010 6:43PM
You're doing it wrong. Your observations are only applicable to humans assuming a hunter/gatherer relationship that is largely mythical. This isn't the forum to elaborate on why the "hunter/gatherer" model is incorrect: after all, humans distinguished themselves by being primarily agrarian. But that's neither here nor there because that argument misses the point.
The point isn't "Oh, we have sexual dimorphism in WoW, how nifty." The point is that dimorphism is accomplished by making the females more sexy and the males more brawny. In any instance where the developers needed to show a difference between sexes, the females were given slimmer frames, breasts, and longer legs (ever wonder if orcs and draenei breastfeed?). Likewise, the men were given huger everything.
The draenei could have their sexes distinguished in some other way, like color, intensity or pattern of color, absence or presence of a tail, stripes, anything—I mean, they're aliens following some other species' arbitrarily evolved sexual dimorphic traits just because.
It's not only uncreative, but harmful to our ideas of what sex and bodies "ought to be" and the way our society constructs these ideas.
Matthew Dec 13th 2010 6:41PM
Not true . . .it depends on how they eke their mates!
In communitites where one male breeds with all females (lions, deer, elephant seals) there is pronounced sexual dimorphism.
Sexual selection has much to do with the difference between the sexes - and specifically, HOW DO THE MEN FIGHT OVER THE WOMEN.
It is not due to hunter/gather. That is an offshoot. Human males are thought to use penis size the way rams do with their horns, and muscles, to compete amongst other humans (when we were naked and doing the Hunter/Gather thing) for mates.
If you want to learn more about this, look up 'sexual selection' or 'sexual dimorphism'.
mingdi9 Dec 13th 2010 6:55PM
Somewhat off-topic, but if I remember Golden's Lord of the Clans correctly, orc mothers do in fact breastfeed their infants with milk and blood.
Albain Dec 13th 2010 7:32PM
Sometimes sexual dimorphism works. If we were playing lions or eagles this would be all well and fine. But we're not. Taking the worgen example..
Canines have little to no sexual dimorphism, depending on the species. If you look at a wolf or a german shepherd, nine times out of ten, or more often than that, looking at ANY canine, if you can't see their 'dangly bits' you can't tell what gender that canine is.
Granted we can't have that on WoW, where clearly defined sexes is required.
Xantenise Dec 13th 2010 7:59PM
Actually, some animal species have bigger females than males. Some other animal species look completely the same. It is not ALWAYS a case of "the male is bigger."
CDave Dec 13th 2010 8:10PM
Think rationally about a huner/gatherer society; EVERYONE, male or female, would be muscular and extremely buff. Sure men did the hunting; women had to lift kids around all day, forage, carry whatever they foraged back, assemble/disassemble the shelters, and so and so forth. The argument that males are generally more muscular because of hunter/gatherer societies isn't just wrong, it's flat out ignorant.
Plus, in many nonhuman species, the females are bigger because they have to be able to 1) carry children or eggs 2) defend their young.
In WoW, the sexual dimorphism is weird not just because of "Barbie" effect or whatnot, but the skeletal structure of some races is almost completely different! The spines of trolls and tauren must be totally different for the difference in their genders stance. And the dranei and orc males are just ridiculously HUGE compared to the females; someone looking at the torso of their skeleton's would think the males and females are totally different species!
ToyChristopher Dec 13th 2010 6:30PM
yup it's annoying.
Raincaller Dec 13th 2010 7:21PM
I completely agree, but for some reason my guildies can't tell the difference between the worgen. I think it's a little silly, but I guess I can see it while they're 'mounted'.
MikeLive Dec 13th 2010 6:32PM
I rolled a male Warrior and female Druid, both Worgen, and it's becoming a certainty that I won't be playing the Warrior much, purely because the male's lumbering animations annoy the hell out of me.
Pyromelter Dec 13th 2010 6:33PM
The dimorphism is why I like females for the rogue class. There is an advantage of smaller size, to be sure, but just on an aesthetic level. You can imagine an orc female lightly gliding across a floor behind her prey, but a big orc male? I don't care how highly trained he is, the floor is gonna creak under his weight.
Human females also look a lot more roguish in stealth/sneaking situations, and the height of nelf males makes them seem laughable for a rogue class, whereas the female nelfs have a good height for a rogue.
It looks like Worgen are following that trend. Which of those pictures looks like they would be good at walking lightly and sneaking around?
Eldoron Dec 13th 2010 6:41PM
Males are combat rogues ;)
Nipah Dec 13th 2010 6:47PM
I agree with you completely...
Of all the Rogues I've made (and I've made quite a few), the only male one was Forsaken. All the other males look way too bulky to be sneaking around silently... its more like their muscles would knock over a vase and the jig would be up.
On a side note: I especially get tired of the "pretty" Troll face... so much so that its my theory that there are, in fact, no female Trolls. They're all robots, created by cutting edge Troll voodoo science to hide the fact that "male" Trolls are actually asexual.
Jack Mynock Dec 14th 2010 11:45AM
Human females also benefit from having the best kick animation in the game, imo.
Matthew Dec 13th 2010 6:38PM
Wolves are not a sexually dimorphic animal race, so this is doubly interesting.
Cows are . . so that explains the Tauren thing for me.
I refuse to play a male troll or undead due to their horrible posture. It's really annoying for me. I do play male orc / tauren though.
In game humans have somewhat realistic proportions too (as opposed to belf females). Excluding Jaina Proudmoore. I'm glad they didn't get the waif treatment.
I really enjoyed this article.
I have to say it: what else grows massively when the worgens go from human to . .worgen? /giggle