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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: 'Every female WoW player has healed at least once'
by Olivia Grace 
Mar 12th 2012 at 8:00AM
Once I called him on his generalization, there was more back-pedaling than in the Tour De France. Of course he knows that not every female player has played a healer. Female players who have only played for a few weeks and chose a pure DPS class, he allowed, wouldn't have!
But of course, there is a stereotype in WoW that women heal. We've talked about it before, but it makes me wonder two things:
- Do most women have a healing character?
- If there's any truth in the stereotype (which I think there might be), why does healing appeal so much to women?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 9)
Mitawa Mar 12th 2012 9:18AM
You're looking at the effect, and not the cause, of the objection here. It's not that healing is a "lesser" task.
The objection is that women are usually linked to healing stereotypically because healing is a "nurturing" role and women are supposed to be the "nurturers" in a family. Saying that all women heal is more along the lines of saying all women take care of the children, clean the house, and have dinner on the table when husband comes home.
Cooking isn't a lesser profession, executive chefs are well respected... but people assume that all women can cook because of the nuclear vision of family, not many people assume all men can cook.
Revnah Mar 12th 2012 9:04AM
I do have a healer, but I also have a tank and several dps. My healer is my main raider, but that's purely because the guild I joined needed a healer back then. I had both her and my tank ready at the time.
I think most non-casual players have tried every role at least once, tbh.
razion Mar 12th 2012 9:05AM
I've known a number of female healers. I've also known a number of male healers. I've also known two very dedicated female tanks, and a female dps who was so dedicated to her role you'd think it was her day job (and considering how many guilds are after her, it probably could be).
I think part of the reason people associate women with healers might have something to do with the caring or mother-like role they seem to put over the group, watching over the entire group as if they were children making a mess of the house and end up getting cuts and bruises all over themselves.
Another part of it may be people making an unconscious link in their head with how few women there appear to be playing this game and how few healers there appear to be and come to a conclusion there must be a logical reason for both, and naturally associate them together.
Mitawa Mar 12th 2012 9:12AM
On hybrid classes after buying a dual spec I sometimes pick up healing for faster dungeon queues, but I never keep at it at max level and I MUCH more frequently tank.
lilsapheire Mar 12th 2012 9:15AM
I've got two mains, a healer and a tank. The tank is my favorite character to play. They're also both male toons, and for the most part no one ever even mentions that this is strange. In fact one of the only people I know who tends to poke fun at me for it is another female player. :)
For the most part I just want to be challenged and I like responsibility, so I like key roles better than dps, not to mention they're in far greater demand, especially in my guild. I've got at least one of every class though. I pay for this game and I want to try everything!
Terrant Mar 12th 2012 9:21AM
I think the idea has to do with broader video game RPG tropes. It's common to have a healing female character in video games (Marle in Chrono Trigger, Aerith in Final Fantasy, etc.), so players of both genders end up being more likely to roll female characters when they intend to make a healer. And when we enter situations like dungeon finder where we don't use voice chat and assume players share the same gender as their characters, it creates the impression of there being lots of female players playing healers.
danawhitaker Mar 12th 2012 9:26AM
I only like to DPS. I don't heal, I don't tank. I DPS. On seven characters. I don't have any plans to change that in the near future either.
Atanae Mar 12th 2012 9:28AM
I actually started as a DPS - Oomkin (from back when Oomkins were just that). I was okay. Not great, but this was back in the day when the hybrid tax was taken into account, that utility brought value and your ability no not stand in fire (or otherwise not be a burden on healers) was an asset. And yes, I walked uphill, both ways, in the snow. :P
One time though, we had an overabundance of DPS but lacked a healer. So my RO asked me if I wanted to heal. I specifically didn't want to, but I agreed to because I'm a team player. My heal lead didn't want me because I didn't have a heal set. But I asked him for pointers, told him to let me know if I screw up and we went in.
I was one of the top healers.
And I found I enjoyed healing. Not because of anything like wanting to nourish or protect or wanting to be "away" from the boss (which is an absolutely ridiculous assessment when you have fights like Rotface, Festergut and Magmaw which required healers to be up close and personal with the bosses). And not because "I'm a girl and so I want to be a hausfrau." It's because Healing is about CONTROL. I choose which spells I want to use. I don't let myself be dictated by such petty things like rotations. Simply put, I like to decide what spell I want to use when and choose who is going to get, or not get, that heal. My favorite fight, as Heals OR DPS, was General, since the entire fight was about control - controlling your impulse to heal/DPS until the right time. Controlling the boss' AoE ability and the saronites. It was an elegant fight.
I would say that if there is anything "feminine" about healing is that the perpetual "mine is bigger" argument commonly found in DPS is not found in nearly as much in healing. We may joke, but any healer worth their weight in salt's first thought is: did my team win the encounter without unnecessary deaths?
IMO, people who heal heal because they like to be in control of how them manage their casting and they do not like to be micromanaged on their rotations. I don't think that's a female only trait. We also tend to be more team-player oriented. Is it a "support" role? no. A "support" role, by nature, is an optional one. You try entering an at-level raid with no healers and tell me you're going to succeed. Now CC, *that's* a support role. Remember, I was an Oomkin, I know what being "support" means. Healers are 1/3 of the "holy trinity" of instance gaming. That's not "support," that's being a partner.
I heal because I find healing to be empowering and liberating. I have the freedom to cast whatever I need to get the job done. My choices control the fates of my team mates. My observations can change strategies. I do not like DPS nearly as much (melee or ranged), because my choices, and options are few and I do not want to be the puppet dancing at the ends of the strings that are Blizzard's pre-determined "optimal DPS rotations."
Glaras Mar 12th 2012 9:34AM
Wow, you are a control freak. High five, sister!!
Aimee Mar 12th 2012 10:17AM
I am a mother, and I get the whole 'women are compassionate nurturers' thing. But in WoW, I don't play to nurture. I play to destroy.
I've been playing since burning crusade, and my main is a BM hunter. My husband says that I like cute, cuddly animals that can rip your face off. My favorite role, however, is tanking, whether on my DK or pally. What's better than lots of damage on one mob? lots of damage on lots of mobs!.
mavis.pye Mar 12th 2012 9:33AM
As a female player, I find this all very amusing... I am a prot pally and actually main tank for our guild. My husband is one of our two main healers (both men) and our other female player is a mage.
While I do have a healer (druid) I tend to want to play boom and only go heals to get into runs faster. I like to make things blow up just as much as the boys do...
I am woman, Hear me ROAR! :)
Erebos Mar 12th 2012 9:30AM
I think the idea is that women are stereotypically more caring and interested in helping others, and thus will be more interested in healing than in pewpewing or being a meat shield, where men would typically be more interested in the latter two.
That said, I love healing. I have all four healing classes at 85 and able to heal DS. I'm a guy. Maybe it's because I'm gay, but let's not get into that. Point is, I'm not into it for being helpful and caring, but because I like doing it. I'm not a fan of DPS because I generally don't do it that well (which comes down to practice, since I don't do it often and I do heal a lot). Either way, it's basically what you said, that healing is interesting to me. I have an aff lock at 85 who I do enjoy playing, but it's really undergeared and I'm out of practice.
Now that I've done it so long, I've come to like being the one watching health bars and making sure that I'm staying alive. Frankly, it'd be hard for me to trust other people to be in charge of my health.
And, actually, of the women I know who play, most of them do play a healer, though not necessarily as their main.
Lindariel Mar 13th 2012 8:26AM
I'm a lady, and I've been a dedicated player for several years now, and I've tried pretty much every class, and I'm more a tank/dps kinda gal. I got the fight in me, I don't like to stand back and band aid people.. I'd prefer to blow their face off. Boyfriend, however, is an obsessed holy paladin and loves every minute of it. He's tried other healing classes, tanking, etc, but is stuck on loving his paladin. He did go to nursing school for awhile, though, maybe that's why. Haha. But srsly, heals are important, it's just not my cup of tea.
wow Mar 12th 2012 9:31AM
WTB Less people concerned with gender roles and more people focussing on actual ability.
Thank you!
varjokuutti Mar 12th 2012 1:16PM
Thanks wow for summarising it all into one sentence! I don't need to rant about how bored I am of this discussion repeating over and over again.
Don't be so silly and try to put everything into neat box with label. People are different and like different things (no matter their gender), so could we end this argument?
Psst. My main is warrior and I love the class. All my alts are dps because it's fun. ;)
Glaras Mar 12th 2012 9:32AM
Nope. My wife is all DPS all the time (except that brief dalliance with tanking on her lowbie pally). She refuses to heal, says it'd be too much stress.
Me? I've got a healer of every flavor. (And 2 healing shamans, both Alliance. Don't ask.) I've already created a holding character for my monk toon. Can't wait to heal on that.
Steve Mar 12th 2012 9:32AM
I think this stereotype is largely driven by the traditional roles of women as nurturers and men as protectors. And while you could probably find plenty of examples to support this I think you'll find that it's the personality of the player, and not their gender, that determines what roles they feel comfortable playing and excel at.
Our guild is comprised of all female toons but a mix of male and female players and I would venture to guess probably a higher ratio of female players than most guilds. And I'm not going entirely by people saying they are male or female this is based on Vent, Facebook friending and meeting a number of them in real life over the years.
Looking at our most active players that I've grouped and raided with over the years I don't see any particular pattern to gender determining group roles. Right now we have mostly female healers but they all also have DPS and tank specs/toons they play regularly. We only have a few male players who heal (and I am not one of them, I'm a failhealer). In the past we've had a fair number of male healers but when Cataclysm came out that shifted. Currently our highest DPSer in the guild is a female who plays a ret pally and her off spec is tanking- so much for the females only play ranged DPSers. Our guild is pretty heavy on the altaholics and so many guild members, male and female, have a number of alts of various classes and roles.
This would make for an interesting study though. I'd like to see a breakdown on the numbers of this as far as male and female players- as well as their toon genders, and what roles/classes they play. I suspect you'll find a lot of female toons are healers regardless of the gender of the player which creates an illusion that supports the stereotype.
MommaBear Mar 12th 2012 9:32AM
My priest: Healed one Deadmines at level 17 (the original). Didn't like it. Healed one attempt at Kurinaxx in Vanilla. Not sure it counts because the tank was fed up and Leeroy'ed it before we were set up so it was an insta-wipe. Healed one painful H Slave Pens. My male friends pretty much told me, 'Don't try any more, play what you like.' Healed several group quests, mostly by spamming the tank with greater heal in shadow spec and hoping for the best. And disc'ed some arena/bgs in WotLK. That's it. 11k+ achievement points, more than 5 years of raiding. I'm currently 2/8H DS. My current raid group includes 4 female dps and 3 male healers. Three of us female dps have never healed in WoW. Sweeping generalizations are stupid.
ravyncat Mar 12th 2012 9:33AM
I do not think I will ever play a dedicated healer as a main because I do not like healing. It is too stressful.
I prefer bashing the crap out of things until they die--which is why I have so many melee characters. Ranged DPS is kind of dull to me because I am not close enough to BASH!
The only character I have tried healing on--and I admit I have tried it--is my paladin. This is mainly because I hate what they did to the ret spec. I hate it so much that it isn't fun for me anymore--and yet I love that character. So I am looking into other ways to play her.
On a side note, we have more male healers in my guild than female. I know only two women who prefer to heal exclusively and one of them also DPS's.
Charles DeWitt Mar 12th 2012 10:49AM
You can never really count on stereotypes with wow. It is like saying, "Guys like pvp girls don't." Well, every Friday I group up with four other people for BGs and three of them are women.
Now, I'll say I've met far fewer female tanks than female healers, but I would wager that is because more men still play the game. I have a good friend (one of the pvpers) who was a tank before she became annoyed with druid tanking in cata, but who tanked in BC and Wrath. My wife is working on her tank, but does not have a dedicated healer at all.
I am just now rolling my first tank, but I've healed since vanilla, and my girlfriend at the time rolled a rogue.
This is one of those generalizations that tugs at the social stereotypes already ingrained, so to see it pushed onto wow is not surprising, but it'll become more apparent how silly it is as the digital generation makes themselves known. Your middle school and high school girls now play MW3 with each other and with their male friends (possibly their boyfriends as well). It really is only a matter of time before you'll get a situation where you won't know at all what the gender is of the person you're pugging with due to statistical likelihood.