RE: Confessions of a Gender Bender

The following is in response to : Altoholics Anonymous' post "The Confessions of a Gender Bender"

I think the gender thing is hilarious in WoW.  "What's My Main Again?"'s characters are dominantly female.  His reasoning?  The guys are ugly. 

We had a discussion once about guild dynamic involving females (in RL) vs. females. When I started playing Wow 7 months ago, there was ONE female in his guild.  She had played w/ hubby and Kobeck in a previous guild, until they broke off and started our own family/friend guild.


When I started playing hubby and I were questing in Tanaris and said female player decided that she would come on her 80 and kill off the stuff we were needing to kill for our quests.  Now, this was my first toon, I was trying to get to 80 ASAP ... and here is the person stalling me by one-shotting stuff that I needed to finish my quests.  She wasn't in a group with us..just following and, I guess, trying to show that she was better than me?  So I told her to back off.  She got all huffy, logged off and 2 days later /gquit her main.  I see from her POV that I am a new player, the only other female in the guild, and the GL's wife.

I guess from a purely female POV I get what I construe as intimidation.  I may be wrong... maybe that wasn't the problem at all.  I've touched on the fact that we are not a raiding guild and mostly raid with people from another guild who are also small, and this works for all parties.  When I started playing hubby informed the group of my entrance into WOW as a player and not a wow widow (haha) and the MT/RL's wife was really excited... as I neared 80 she and I started chatting and hit it off immediately.  One of the other female players in their guild has been friends with hubby almost from the beginning of his WoW days nearly 3 years ago.  She has known me as the reason that hubby had to cut back on raiding, the reason he has been forced to quit for several months in the past.  The person screaming at him while he was on vent back before he switched from open mic to push-to-talk.   But again, she and I get along.

I'm not sure if the lack of cattiness in this group is the fact that I am totally in awe of both of their playing skills, but don't feel personally intimidated by either.  Or maybe it's the fact that since I started playing it has been easier for hubby to play MORE.   

I had expressed that I found it interesting that while both of these women are awesome in their own right... they have their own skills, their own names, their own personality and standing within the group... but, for whatever reason, I am Arty's wife.  And that is also funny considering he hardly plays on Artorin anymore but that is what he was known as in the beginning and it has stuck through all his other alts.    And Cass is Marr(MT/RL)'s wife. <-- names have been changed to protect the innocent (haha)  And Blan is B2's "whatever" (they're not married and actually met over WoW, I think)   

In my opinion a lot of the gender issue in games really depend on the people.

From what I have seen the range of females tend to fall into 5 categories:

The Females who play Female toons:

Angry Female:  The female player who acts like she is badass, actually SUCKS, but then says that it's because the males don't respect her.

The stereotypical female:  Plays girly characters, says girly things, acts girly, is rarely hardcore, and most likely has a male counterpart who IS hardcore, and has suckered her into playing.  (this is pretty much me)

The smirking female:  the female player who plays a female toon, doesn't say anything, and totally mops the floor with the other people in the group/raid, all while the MEN in the group are most likely whispering each other something like "She's a girl, you ready to pick up the slack when she sucks?"  only to quickly replace this with "Must really be a guy under that female toon" (Ha!)

The Female players who play male toons fall into two categories:

The She(rocks)male:  The female player who rolls male toons so she doesn't feel like she has to prove herself to be accepted.  She establishes herself as awesome, and then after she has the respect of her group it slowly becomes more apparent that she is actually female.  By this time though it doesn't matter because she's awesome.  And this also generally prevents her from catcalls, etc. while establishing herself..because even if you play a male belf... you aren't likely to get hit on by other guys unless they are playing a male belf and are, in all likelihood, truly gay in RL.

The She(hates)Male:  This is the female player who probably has this toon as an alt, plays it terribly just to prove that guys CAN suck.  Then comes in on her true female character and totally rocks.


I think i'm probably missing some..but these are the general types that I have seen.

Being an altoholic (and master of none)  I have both male and female toons, horde and alliance.  I am pretty much cool with whoever.  However, if you have a problem with me I most likely will tell you to knock it off.  I am not going to submit someone disrespecting me whether there is a real reason behind it or not.  I am not down with being treated like crap in game for something that I didn't do.  I am not hardcore enough for it to matter to me if another girl is a better player than me.  I really just don't care.  If you try to do something like prevent me from doing what I need to do, I will tell you to back off.  I like playing, but I am not competitive.  I never really have been, with anything, in my life. 


And now I did this girly thing and totally went of topic... but it was fun anyways.