Breakfast Topic: What's behind stereotypes about what ladies play in WoW?
by Olivia Grace 
Dec 26th 2011 at 8:00AM
So I did what any sane girl would do in 2011 -- I went and posted about it on Twitter. I went to another session and emerged to quite a response from various ladies all saying that they PvP or that they knew ladies who did and who wouldn't be particularly happy to be told that PvP wasn't something women did.
Anyhow, as I was saying, this provoked some thought. I do think there are gender stereotypes in WoW -- mostly, that women heal far more than they do anything else and that almost all tanks are men. As an anthropology student, I'm adept at making sweeping generalizations, and I wouldn't think for a moment that either of these statements are absolute truths.
However, they do raise questions. First, is there any truth to them at all? Are healers really the group in WoW where female players are most well represented? Are tanks genuinely the role least played by women? And do ladies really make up a far higher percentage of the PvE playerbase than they do the PvP one?
And, of course, the burning question underlying all of the above: If so, why?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
phiplipian Dec 26th 2011 8:33AM
I'm a woman. I have 5 85s, including a mage, druid, and a rogue that I pvp with. I have a warrior that I tank with (I LOVE tanking!). I can't stand healing as I like being in the middle of the action and find healing boring. Only 2 of my 85s are maxxed in cooking. Oh, and 3 of my 5 85s are male toons.
elkosteve Dec 26th 2011 10:49AM
I only leveled Cooking on my female characters. Does that make me a bad person?
evemartyn Dec 27th 2011 5:40PM
I'm a woman, age 30, I love tanking, hate healing but also hate pvp....on the other hand my Guild leader is a woman 40+ our main heals (disc priest) but her favorite part of the game is PvP...there are quite a few women in our guild, and men, and they play everything from hunters to druids, I'm pretty sure it's just as diverse a mix as the men that play :)
goldeneye Dec 30th 2011 10:09AM
Every time I heal a run I renew my amazement of how engaging it is despite not being in the thick of it.
It's also remarkable how much ppl depend on healers keeping pace! If my tank or dps lag behind, things go slower. If the healer is busy looting, somebody dies (less so in leveling dungeons of course).
viciouspen Dec 26th 2011 8:13AM
Wait a minute....you mean Olivia is a girls name????
:O
jk :P
Anyways as a guy the only thing approaching a stereotype for women in wow I know that I have in me is in regards to healing. For some reason I always feel better if I know my healer is a woman. I just don't trust men to heal me as well. I have no logical explination for it.
Besides that, i got into wow because of a girl I was dating wanted me to play with her. She mainly was a healer but she loved to pvp and had a rogue as well.
The girl I'm currently dating is all about the dps and her main is a rogue.
Thal Dec 26th 2011 8:16AM
In my 5 years of WoW I have yet to encounter a female tank. Although I have seen many both male and female healers. I think it is because women are used to operating more in the background than on the front. No offence to the ladies out there, but, imo, women are better at supportive roles and males are (sometimes) better at leading the troops and charging to victory. (or atleast we think we are)
Think it also has something to do with the hunter-collecter stereotype from the pre-history, where men hunt and women feed and raise the children.
Just my two cents, don't mean to upset anyone, I think that's just the way it goes. (that's why we see so few female world leaders too, and I'm not saying that is a bad thing)
marla Dec 26th 2011 8:29AM
How do you know you haven't encountered a female tank? Do all the tanks in randoms/LFR/pugs state their gender to you? I know that when I'm tanking (as often on male toons as female toons), I tend to just focus on what I'm doing and not comment on personal things, except in my small guild.
Thal Dec 26th 2011 8:37AM
Oh, I'm not talking about pugs, I have no clue about that. I'm talking about guild tanks ofcourse. I've been in a lot of guilds of the years, and I've seen a lot of tanks come and pass, that's why.
mamaryno Dec 26th 2011 8:45AM
"better at supportive roles"? Oh Sweetie, brace yourself. "it" is coming and will smack you squre on the head. (And by "it" I mean girl nerd rage and it hath fury like nothing you have ever seen).
I love my Enh Shamman, and I love my Holy Pally. I love to punch things in the back of the head and I love the satisfaction knowing that I am keeping these PuGs alive. Dividing my game time between the two gives me two completely different perspectives.
And for the record, the best tank/raid leader Ive ever raided with, bar none, was a woman who had a voice much like the female munchkins in Wizard of Oz. When she said "^%$^%$ move!" by golly you MOVED!
Aro Dec 26th 2011 9:23AM
Best guild tank I ever met was female. She single handedly got us through many a heroic encounter in Ulduar back in the day.
Lipstick Dec 26th 2011 9:30AM
I'm a female gamer, and I play a healer.. does that make me a cliche? Maybe. I've tanked and dps'd before too. I just simply found I enjoyed the game more as a healer. I have a multi-tasking mindset, as many mothers/woman I know naturally do, and that does naturally lend itself towards the way woman think about things (imo). I mean when I think about my mom, I think about her kicking ass at her job as a lawyer, coming home to her "second shift" and managing to coral, and manage us kids doing our homework, and our millions of demands, several loads of laundry, the dishes, putting dinner on the table, etc. She did all of that seemingly without breaking a sweat when I was younger. Now that I am older, I can see exactly HOW much work my mom did, but at the time I never noticed.
Healing for me in game is much the same way. If I am doing my job well, people wont notice me break a sweat, the dungeon will progress without the dps or tank worrying about dying, and we all collect loot at the end. For me, I can't imagine how anyone finds healing boring, there is always so much to do! In mind, healing is not just retroactive, it's proactive, and being aware of whatever boogie men are around ever bend and being prepared to handle it. I have never seen healing as taking a back seat, or not being in the middle of the action, because without me, there could be no action, at least not for very long.
Does that mean I'm in a supportive role? Sure. But I think people see "support" as if it's weaker, without realizing that support is often the strongest. After all, a house is SUPPORTED by it's foundation, it is what everything else is built upon. When people come over though, they don't say wow, what a nice foundation so good and supportive, they say "wow, what a nice house". I think that is often true of the dungeons I'm in. DPS can brag about their dps, tanks get a lot of credit for what they do.. healers are often the silent, but rock solid force.
I don't think what thal said was at all offensive. I think it's a) just his opinion and b) not totally off the mark, as I've known quite a few woman who occupy supportive rolls to their families. They may not get the guts/glory credit, but without them their households would cease to run.
Thal Dec 26th 2011 9:37AM
I've been a tank since the moment I started playing, and still I've never met a female tank. It might be me. Ergo, I'm only typing my observations. I didn't mean to upset any women out there.
Besides, pretty much every healer in my guild is female, and they all excell at it. They are honestly amazing. But as they said to me a couple times, they would never ever tank, not even for a guildrun. I'm not saying this is the same for every other player out there, it's just the way I know it.
carboncreative Dec 26th 2011 9:41AM
"So few female leaders"
Is it REALLY the reason why there are so few female leaders??? Sigh.
We've been force-fed this junk for so many centuries it's no wonder women are hesitant to lead in games. I for one am a 44 year old mom who tanks pve and ganks pvp with five 85s. Healing just isn't my thing unless I'm on my shammy and I'm helping out the main heals. In BGs I take on the teabaggers on the opposing side and top the charts over the "let's rape face" guys. This sort of lazy sexism and worse is rife in wow, and yet women persist. Ladies, there still are tons of male players who don't think like this but don't let anyone tell you that's just the way it is and always has been.
Revnah Dec 26th 2011 9:44AM
"better at supportive roles" - actually, studies find again and again that women have more of the qualities desirable in a leader than men, and this is reflected in the trend that more and more women are getting leadership positions all over the place.
That's inside of WoW and out.
So how many of the tens of thousands of guilds that exist have you been a member of? Five? Ten? Fifty? Do you seriously think that's a representative enough number?
The main tank in my guild is a woman, and out of our six healers four are male. Now, that's not representative either. I also think that there are *more* male tanks and *more* female healers altogether. That's because many people, like you, still have sexist stereotyping from the 1950s in their heads, and act accordingly.
To draw conclusions as to skill from that, is dangerous and perpetuates the stereotyping.
Thal Dec 26th 2011 9:51AM
Haha. It wasn't at all meant offensive, just my OWN observations, NOT meant generally.
*note to self: never post anything that can be slightly seen as offensive and upset an angry mob during study breaks*
Revnah Dec 26th 2011 10:12AM
"No offence to the ladies out there, but, imo, women are better at supportive roles and males are (sometimes) better at leading the troops and charging to victory."
Well if this was your "own observations" then you shouldn't be surprised if you get opposition. By the way, nobody was flaming or name-calling, just making their case, so who are you calling an "angry mob"?
Mortenebra Dec 26th 2011 10:15AM
Let's not forget you can also lead while in a "supporting" role, too. It's much easier to see what's going on when you're not staring at boss crotch all the time, for example.
... Or what Lipstick just said (just scrolled up again).
Frankly, I like to push buttons and keep "doing something," if that makes any sense. And think of it this way: do you see Rambo or Ah-nohld running circles around their enemies while hacking at them in close melee? No, they're usually running in there with guns blazing, strafing while riddling the bad guys with bullets. Those are some iconic "manly man" figures, right?
Now, imagine me, as a girl, doing the same thing as my hunter.
Or, I can just reference this comic: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/media/comics/?keywords=&view#/comic-2007-05-eldonious-winner
Galatea Dec 26th 2011 11:12AM
"No offence to the ladies out there, but, imo, women are better at supportive roles and males are (sometimes) better at leading the troops and charging to victory."
"Haha. It wasn't at all meant offensive, just my OWN observations, NOT meant generally."
Since you've apparently forgotten, these are 2 of the statements you've made above. If you'll notice, they aren't consistent. You can't say you didn't mean to be offensive or that you didn't mean your statements to be general when that first statement is most definitely both offensive and general. "woman are better at supportive roles" is just the type of statement that has been used for generations to keep women at home tending the kitchen and the children. Which is fine if that is what they choose to do, but there are plenty of women out there who would like to "lead the troops and charge to victory".
Guess what? I'm a woman. I served 4 years in the United States Army. Then I worked in a library for years. Now I stay at home with my 3 year old daughter. At night, I'm a raid leader and main tank for my 10man raid team. I have 3 tanks (pally, DK and druid) and I've been leveling a warrior when I'm in the mood. Not all women fit your preconceived notions. And most likely, if you're typing this stuff while breaking from studying, you're too young to be making these kind of general statements anyway. Get out into the world a little before you create such narrow opinions of women and people in general.
Greg Dec 26th 2011 11:22AM
I've played WoW since 2005. I've never met a single female tank in game either; not even one. That goes for every single level of play- random pugging, casual guilds, RP guilds, and 25-hour-a-week 'hardcore' guilds.
But then again, I've never met a sex that talked about its genetalia as freely or often as men do.
ephuthepaladin Dec 26th 2011 11:43AM
@Lipstick
As a male healer myself (my main and by far favorite toon is a holy paladin) I agree and think that healers often go unnoticed in the background.
In fact, we are only really noticed when we screw up. I think it takes a lot to become and play a healer cosistently because of the fact that most of the attention you get is criticism.
Healers are almost always the first ones to get blamed for a wipe and it can be very discouraging. There's.a lot of pressure being a healer especially when trying to progress into heroic raids.
Now I have played with female tanks, dps, and healers and from what I have gathered, It's about the perso, not the gender. I've met women who love dpsing and refuse to heal or tank. I've met women who don't do anything but tank. We each have our own preferences that cannot be accurately described in a stereotype.
I may be wrong, but I remember reading somewhere that 42% of games are female. To say that "all females are healers" is ridiculous as it would mean that just under half of the playerbase is comprised of healers. Since we all know that that's not true, it only makes sense that neither is the stereotype.