The Right Stuff (Women & Raiding)

[Ciderhelm]

The following was posted to my blog, though like the last article it may be of interest to some here as well.

The subject matter is "hardcore" raiding. Many of these issues may not come up for most guilds, and many of them may be more relevant to raid-driven guilds.

Also, I absolutely do not mean to offend anyone, and if you do find this offensive, let me know. I am not posting this on behalf of TenTonHammer, but on behalf of myself and my own personal thoughts as a guild/raid leader. This is entirely from a guy's perspective.

Finally, I have edited some words to make them more audience-appropriate.

Hijacked by Xerin, because, well, it's too good to sit on the forums and not be viewed by the non-forum goers.

In our latest op/ed, Ciderhelm goes into discussion from first hand experience about the trials and tribulations of having women in endgame raiding. An exhilarating look at endgame raiding and the various situations where the mingling of the opposite sexes can sometimes cause strife and drama and other times work out just well. A real eye opener, well worth the time to read and then discuss on our forums!

Some women may lack confidence or be afraid to make mistakes as a result of those sexist overtones. They, like everyone, want to be seen as equals, and be recognized based on merit. However, to become great players, all players must first make mistakes, and have friends and guild members who understand that those are mistakes everyone goes through, not mistakes caused by being women.

Get comfy and read this outstanding article at Women and Raiding!

[Thaumaturgos]

My 2 coppers' worth are that this is an excellent article. Well done Ciderhelm. A good male-perspective on gaming with women.

Just as a thought, and not to suggest a flame-counter, what about a follow-up article from one of the women in our ranks on the issues of gaming with men. I for one would be interested.

[Nahima]

Firstly, my helm off to you Cider - what an awesome article! As a femal player - small guild of RL friends and my gorgeous husband, i haven't had too much sexism or other stereotypical behaviour throw my way BUT...there's always a but, I am generally ignored whe discussing mob and boss strategies....I spent two days talking about how to bring down a particular mob - ignored the entire time by 4 others until the third day, one of the guys repeated word for word what I had said and everyone went "Brilliant, thats an awesome idea!"

I was dumbfounded - I didn't realise until that moment no one was listening - and to have a friend take your idea, claim it as their own and have everyone else agree at how brilliant he is leaves me cold. The only reason I didn't leave group is because of my husband...

Another incident which left me feeling angry is when after over 2 months as the main tank and working hard to get the right gear, the right weapon and the right strategies to ensure group survival, a guildie coems back on and is immediately given the main tank position - no discussion, no do you mind, nothing...I was even asked to consider respeccing to healing because it would be more useful than having me as an off-tank... it was only after discussions with my husband and therefore his subsequent discussions with other guildies that I was given tanking position again - so therein lies the relationship strings discussed in Cider's article...

I don't want to have to rely on this to be taken seriously however, it seems we are often pushed to use such measures to be heard.

To all the men out there, please consider that my level 70 was never played by anyone other than me - all the gear, the weapons, the quests, etc, is my work, so why is it considered by some ( I know not all) that this is a lesser achievement than a man and why am I relegated to a secondary position when another man in the guild wants mine?

Cider makes some damn good points, if nothing else, please consider what he has to say - in game we are equals - there are good and bad players in both sexes...

Thank you Cider for your article, I really enjoyed the read - May your blades never dull!

[TrinaM]

Outstanding piece, Cider. Absolutely.

As another female player, I have encountered quite a bit of what you described and what Nahima described as well. I too have been in the situation Nahima depicted: my research, discussion and advice completely ignored unless repeated to the guild by my boyfriend. I *hate* that I seem like I'm trying to pull strings behind the scenes, but goodness, if that's what it takes to get the proper information out there and prevent a disaster, then that's what I'll do.

The steretypical, sexist behavior I've witnessed and experienced in WoW has been far worse than what I've seen in my RL career. And, I've been told to leave a courtroom until I came back in a dress or skirt rather than a pantsuit.

For me, things have been worse since my son was born in April. Without going into unnecessary detail, he was 12 weeks early and I spent a lot of time at the hospital until he came home. Since he's been home, my focus has been on him, as it should be. My leveling has slowed, considerably, in this time. However, this has not dimmed my enjoyment of WoW or my ability to research and develop strategy. In the eyes of many male guildies, however, I have become some sort of wilted flower lacking intelligence, ambition and skill. Personally, I'd like to see a few of them cuddle a four month old and continue questing, solo, without missing a beat. Diaper change before a respawn? Yeah, right.

To every person who reads Cider's post, I encourage you to remember that there are plenty of women playing WoW who don't want you to give them gear just because they're a chick, plenty of women who take a great deal of pride in their WoW accomplishments, and plenty of women who can out strategize, out tank, out heal, out DPS and just plain out play the vast majority of other *people* playing the game. What we want is to be taken seriously and valued for our contribution, rather than our gender.

Thanks for the great article, Cider.

[Wildcricket]

I strongly agree with the characterization regarding different types of women, although I consider myself a serious woman before being a serious gamer. You will often hear that line about being friends with men from a serious woman too if she has encountered too many MSM's in her life.

I have to say though, healing shmealing. My first raiding toon was a rogue and now I have a druid built for tanking.

[Miralyn]

We have had our share of drama being a family/casual guild. We do raid but it is not our focus. We have a few couples and the women in our guild are treated pretty equally. I have never gotten "Oh she's a woman, she cannot do x or y". Sometimes it is annoying as the couple wants to go and we may only have one slot available...but that is an occasion far and few between. I think there are women out there who can play their toons and as I have seen on occasion and I kid you not a woman asking over Vent (a 60 warlock mind you in MC) "What's a sunder?". So it goes both ways....I know enough guys (some married with kids) who couldn't fight there way out of a paper bag so it comes down to the character of the person.

Yes I have seen the "dating" side of things and it has been good and bad (one guildie left for undisclosed reasons, a girl in the guild being the reason after the fact) but you're going to have that anytime you have a social type game. I am sorry to see Nahima of the "distrust" you have been dealt, I will say from reading your posts on here you know your class and the game well and I would respect your opinions were I in a guild based on that.

[Prynnie]

Maybe I'm just lucky, or perhaps its the fact that our guild is a rather tight nit disfunctional family, but I've never really had any problem at all being a girl. I've been in the guild since its creation and even though we only started off as a few close friends who came over to play WoW from FFXI we've grown quite a bit since those days. We only have two females in our group at the moment (had three but one left recently) and I'm the only one of the two that actually raids to my hearts content. I'm a bit of a Kara junky at the moment even though I don't actually want any of the gear I just think its far too much fun! Neither of us girls play healers or mages. I'm an enchancement shammy (No I will NOT respec Resto kiss my trollie booty) and the other is a hunter most of the time. If either of us have suggestions we rarely have to scream it out a million times to get it heard and since tried and true strategies have rarely ever worked with our raid groups do to our diversity everyone is always open to new ideas on how to down a boss easier or clear the instance faster. We've never had to fight tooth and nail for gear or at the other extreme just had anything handed to us because we're 'cute'. The only time we would just 'get' anything is for the same reason anyone else would. If we are the only person that can use it or doesn't already have it go for it! For the most part if we weren't on Vent people wouldn't even care that we were women. (Even though i'm a bit obvious because of my insane collection of in game pets, mounts, and the over useage of the word CUTE!!!) We don't seem to whine or cry any more than any of the guys in the guild who don't get their way. And if anything we've had more males leave over e~peen issues with the other guys than over us girls. Maybe we're just lucky to have such a great group of guys who don't just think that girls can't play and aren't good for much. <3 to my guildies for the lovin!

~Prynnie

[Zeep]

I think the anecdotes and personal feelings about women and gaming expressed in the article are valid and interesting if not taken as more than that. The article criticizes some gender stereotypes and includes some others that make me wince. It's what one person has experienced, what some others relate to, and it's great if that starts a conversation folks find interesting. I'm just not convinced about the generalities, perhaps because the experiences related to me by women who play casually, lead guilds, or who have been raiding for years seem quite different from what I just read. I've seen a woman who is married with a few children taken quite seriously by a top raiding guild, and her various guild drama stories are all about issues having nothing to do with gender. I've seen a woman with a new baby respected as a leader in a casual guild, as an expert player, and as a human being as she and her husband took time for family and real life. I tend to see couples raiding as a positive thing, or at least more positive than leading separate lives in the evening. I am, however, not a woman, a raider, or a serious or experienced gamer, so I don't want to make generalities of my own and have them taken seriously.

[Ciderhelm]

Originally Posted by Zeep

I think the anecdotes and personal feelings about women and gaming expressed in the article are valid and interesting if not taken as more than that. The article criticizes some gender stereotypes and includes some others that make me wince. It's what one person has experienced, what some others relate to, and it's great if that starts a conversation folks find interesting. I'm just not convinced about the generalities, perhaps because the experiences related to me by women who play casually, lead guilds, or who have been raiding for years seem quite different from what I just read. I've seen a woman who is married with a few children taken quite seriously by a top raiding guild, and her various guild drama stories are all about issues having nothing to do with gender. I've seen a woman with a new baby respected as a leader in a casual guild, as an expert player, and as a human being as she and her husband took time for family and real life. I tend to see couples raiding as a positive thing, or at least more positive than leading separate lives in the evening. I am, however, not a woman, a raider, or a serious or experienced gamer, so I don't want to make generalities of my own and have them taken seriously.

A few things. First, absolutely, there are very successful women in top raiding guilds. I don't disagree whatsoever, that's why I named so many of them.

With that said, I spent a lot of time honestly thinking before I wrote this. Am I being fair? Is this accurate? Were my own stereotypes changing my view? What I came out with was -- yes -- a reflection on myself, but I believe it is intellectually honest.

I didn't recognize these issues because they weren't apparent before I was involved with a major raiding guild. In the context of raiding, people spend 30+ hours a week together, working on genuinely difficult and stressful content. Everyone gets just as frustrated and everyone shares the same enjoyment.

Like I say in the article, this does not cause any problem with most people in a guild. This does cause a problem with a very small number of people, and over two years, the issues kept repeating themselves; after talking with people from other guilds with similar experiences, I believe I'm on the mark with the issues.

Why? What causes a raiding guild to be different? Mostly the lack of inhibition from men, which in most cases is a good thing.

Anecdotal evidence builds theory. Or, in this case, and after taking an honest look not just at my own guild but others as well, I believe it shows us that the Internet is no different than the real world. We're all humans, we all interact in roughly the same way.

To illustrate that these are issues in the real world, I would have you look at the rules and laws on workplace relationships, military fraternizations, and gender-specific domestic abuse.

Notice then the similarity in the organization; this is an article written about raiding guilds. While I believe it is relevant to many guilds, and feedback suggests that, it is written from the perspective of a cohesive, highly-invested guild. There's not much difference between raiding guilds and great jobs, in that we enjoy them and we are stressed by them. Or, perhaps an even more relevant comparison might be the issues Danica Patrick faces in NASCAR as a female driver.


I bring up twice in this article, there is no realistic difference between men and women in this game. I don't believe I'm reinforcing negative stereotypes.

The fact of the matter is, I have seen women who use sex to get ahead. I don't believe that's unfair, and I don't believe that as a guy, I should be wrong to point it out. However, I believe as you look at the entirety of my article you will see that I don't consider them the majority, and you will see I believe men cause more problems than women.


I am by no means a gender rights activist, but the question to me is honesty. I have said in the past that these issues don't exist often and don't come up often. I have said everything is anecdotal evidence. I did not take these complaints from women seriously.

But as I see more of it, and as I watch over the years that these are issues that don't change in many areas of my life, I have to question myself. My answer, it turns out, is that I was wrong.

[Ciderhelm]

Originally Posted by Nahima

Firstly, my helm off to you Cider - what an awesome article! As a femal player - small guild of RL friends and my gorgeous husband, i haven't had too much sexism or other stereotypical behaviour throw my way BUT...there's always a but, I am generally ignored whe discussing mob and boss strategies....I spent two days talking about how to bring down a particular mob - ignored the entire time by 4 others until the third day, one of the guys repeated word for word what I had said and everyone went "Brilliant, thats an awesome idea!"

Nahima, I'm actually going to add a bit to my article if I can. I completely forgot this. Yes, I've seen this.