8 - Stereotyping Women

     MMORPG's are bound to have issues men stereotyping women who play them, like the ones who play World of Warcraft. The most common stereotypes would probably be that girls are not good at playing WoW, they are more suited to using characters that heal, and that they don't play PvP sessions, However, as we all know, these kinds of stereotypes are of course common misconceptions. I mean, some may be true, however, it all depends really on the player herself; whether she's actually into playing WoW or is only doing it to spend time with her partner who plays it.

     Through my research, I came across an article which was written by Olivia Grace, entitled Breakfast Topic: What's behind stereotypes about what ladies play in WoW? In it, she explained her opinion on the said subject and she wondered why such an idea even existed in the first place (however, she doesn't answer that question).

Here's what she stated in the said article:

"While I was taking a well-earned break from a particularly demanding PvP session, I got to thinking. I'd been at a gaming society meeting a few days earlier where I had a discussion with a man about my gaming -- principally, PvP. Now, I'm a PvP columnist here at WoW Insider, and I PvP a great deal, so when said man told me that PvP "isn't something that women do," to say I was a little surprised was an understatement."

     Obviously the said stereotype is not at all true, since, as you can see, women do play PvP sessions. It's kind of unfortunate how, even in the virtual world, men still insist on stereotyping women. I, too, am unsure of how these sort of things even exist in the first place. I mean, I'm sure that at some point we could meet female players that show prowess in playing the game. So, why continue this kind of stereotyping?

     I also found this another article which was entitled Wow and Stereotypes, and was written by Analogue. The author talk about the two stereotypes which are: women are bad at WoW and women who can play WoW, are healers, and argues about how much truth there is in those statements. For the first stereotype she stated:

 "Truth: not everyone who plays WoW is any good at it. People can be stupid and therefor, play badly. People can have other reasons for playing besides being good (social reasons). This second group is less likely to give up when they know they are bad at the game because being good at the game is a secondary goal. My parents have played WoW; my dad liked it, although he's gone back to EverQuest, my mom followed him around with her priest, clicked the "heal" buttons when he said to, and picked flowers. She didn't like the game, but she did it to spend time with my dad."

      Her solution to this was that the player should learn to feel more interested in the game in order for her to get better at it. If there's no motivation for her to keep playing, then she would definitely continue to get stereotyped. For the second stereotype, she said:

"Women tend to be more nurturing than men. Guys tend to be more protective/aggressive than girls. Women tend to work towards the success of the group; men strive for personal achievement. Both genders are drawn to both goals, of course, but the dominant leanings tend to be as I've stated. Avoiding any discussion of whether this is good or bad, these tendencies would explain why there tend to be more female healers out there."

      So, with that said, it's not really much of a negative thing for a girl to be a healer. I mean, she should be whatever she wants to be, as long as it will help her progress in the game. It's better to have good female players than stupid ones. So, one shouldn't really look down on a female player, otherwise, it will only provoke her into quitting that getting better.