The other day I was having a conversation with my good friend Keredria and she commented on how she typically does the lion’s share of fishing and herbing for her guild’s raids and how overwhelming it’s become since her move. She recalled that back during WotLK in addition to herself, two of her other teammates, both women, also used to help with this task. This then prompted her to ask me (also a female) if I saw a similar trend in my guild as well.
So I thought on it some. We do have five women on our progression raid team, including myself. But we’ve been buying herbs for flasks since Wrath, and we have a wonderful F/F member that has kept us well stocked in fish feast mats. Anytime we are low on anything, we’ll just buy what we need. We do have guildmates who offer donations into the bank – but many times it’s our male members. This, of course, initially led me to counter K’s suggestion that women frequently do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to guild matters.
Until I thought about it some more. And when I took it out the micro context of raid consumables, it dawned on me that perhaps K has a point. I mean if all of my melodramatic stomping around the house and yelling at Brade about “HOW I DO EVERYTHING AROUND HERE” is any indication, then yes I suppose I do feel that I do the lion’s share of the work. In fact, the last time Brade and I had a spat about it and he asked what would make me feel like I wasn’t towing the majority of the load I responded with “WHEN YOU DO MORE THAN ME”. (Those caps are the written equivalent of my stomping around, hollering and waving my hands about – just so you have the proper visual).
So, uh, I suppose I do feel an awful lot like I do a lot of work.
This, of course, made me think about the other women that I know playing WoW. And it makes me wonder if other women feel that they do a disproportionate amount of work for their guild. I wager to bet that there are a good number of people sitting back going “your damn right, sister” right now.
That makes me wonder if men also ever feel this way. And if they do, do they ever communicate about it? Or is it some unwritten “bro-code” that states “thou shalt not whine”? Anyhow, let’s move along.
Let’s go on the premise, for now, that the thesis stated women in WoW do more of the “work” than men is correct. What I want to know is why? I actually have a few thoughts on this. And some of them tie into some studies that have been done regarding women in the workplace as well. My guess is that it’s because women tend to feel a heavier burden of obligation. If something needs to be done, and no one else is doing it, women tend to step up and say “well, someone has to do it”. I know that’s how I’ve personally fallen into several guild leadership positions. I can’t just sit there and let something that needs to be done just not get done. Even if I don’t really want to do it. Even if I’d rather be doing 100 other things. I’ll still take care of the task, because someone has to and it “might as well be me”.
Some if it, I think, is also an increased sense of responsibility and loyalty. I certainly know that a lot of what I do is because “well, I’ve always done it”. Even if I don’t have time – somehow I make time. All the herbs that we buy and put into the guild bank? Well, they don’t magically become flasks. Yes, I do sit there for an hour and make flasks. All the fish feasts that drop every night? Yes, I stock my bags with them to make sure that we have enough for every wipe we may encounter (thank god for the chef’s hat…one of the best things ever put into the game). All the initial research into boss mechanics to make sure we start a tier prepared? Unfortunately, I’ve yet to find the strategy elf to log in every night and post them up. Honestly, I’m sure someone else would do it if asked…but I’ve just always done it. And because of that, everyone just assumes and expects that I’ll continue to do it.
It’s not until I’m so burdened down to the point of breaking that I stop a minute to say “something has to give here” that people start hesitantly stepping up. I could probably count the number of times someone’s offered help on one hand. And half the time when someone helps, I feel like I have to “nag” to get things done. To the point that it’s just easier to do the task myself, because it’s less hassle. Hmmm…I think I’m seeing a cycle here.
So, I’m curious. Do you think that Women are the worker bees in WoW? Do you think that your female team mates carry a disproportionate load of the work in your guild? Do you feel that there are men who do the same? If there was a man and a woman in the same position, together, who do you think would ultimately bear more of the burdens of running a guild/raid?
Falling Leaves and Wings 
I think you answered the question here: “Honestly, I’m sure someone else would do it if asked…but I’ve just always done it. And because of that, everyone just assumes and expects that I’ll continue to do it. ”
You’ve set the standard. This isn’t a gender role thing at all…. its purely a standard that the individual player has set. One of our healers (Male, if at all relevant) prepares feats for every raid and puts them down… if he forgets, people start asking “where’s the feast?”. Me, I do all the WOL LiveLogging… if I don’t do it no one else does (unless asked). Why? Because I set the standard.
This is simply a situation of expectations; most of which have been individually set expectations. Nothing more.
While I hate blanket statements about gender – wouldn’t you say there’s some expectations of women societally that might factor into this mindset? It is an interesting point. It might feed the impetus to fulfill the expectations.
Perhaps, but the only mindset is a *reasonable expectation that was set by the individual*. Using myself as the example: people expect me to LiveLog WOLs… because I’ve always done it. Not because I’m a man, or a priest, or a homosexual, or wearing shoes, or a hazel eyed person….
@Derevka –
I would agree that there is an argument that it’s more based on personality than gender. However, I can also see where the person who asked me the question is coming from. I know a lot more women who will step forward and offer help without being asked than men. Is this true for everyone? No. But I do think that it has the potential to exist and it’s unfair to say that it shouldn’t be considered.
I would agree perhaps it is just the motivated person who undertakes a certain task – but I guess the question that I’m asking is who is it that steps up to help when no one asks? I know a lot of women who fill that role, for whatever reason. Perhaps I just know a lot of very motivated and thoughtful females. Regardless, I thought the question asked was interesting and worth some discussion 🙂
My guess is that you are both correct and a bit off. Yes it certainly is related to personality, but at least in the US, women are typically socialized from a young age to be the primary chore doers around the house. How many people have mothers that did all of the cooking and cleaning while still working an equivalent 40 hour / week job, while the fathers watched football or whatever.
It is likely that it is derived from personality that is socialized in at a young age, and that while others will do it if asked, its the women who are taught when young to do the things that need to get done without having to be asked. I know that even on twitter, I have noticed that it is the female wow players that mention doing laundry, folding clothes, cleaning the house, etc, and the excitement when their S.O. makes or picks up dinner.
At this point in time in our society, this is just the way things tend to be. Whether that is ok or not is up to us to determine.
When it come to stocking my guild with herbs for flasks and cauldrons, yes, I do the large majority of the gathering there, even though the guild coffers could easily afford the purchase. I am not an officer, but I have a special one-shot guild rank of ‘The Chemist” so I can get into the herb tab and make all the flasks we need for cauldrons. I do potions too, as we are down a potion-specced alchemist currently. But it is two men, our mage and hunter raiders, who do the large majority of the fishing for feasts.
Just out of curiosity – were you asked to help, or did you just sort of see it needed to be done and started doing it? And yay for fisherpeople! ^.^
I have been in predominately male-dominated guilds (numbers-wise, although I’ve been in more female GM environments). Like you, I’ve fallen into a lot of leadership positions, because you just do what needs to be done. On the other hand, now that I absolutely do not, never, ever have extra time (and a threat of divorce if I ever come near a leadership position at this time ^^) I’ve found myself able to resist that siren call. Most of my “omg people, really?” work atm actually comes from people wanting to use me as a sounding board.
Saying all that, I’ve had a nice opportunity to take a gander at my current guild from a purely member position (it’s weird, I’ll say it). Although the female membership has increased quite dramatically since I’ve been a raider (last year or so) the “tasks” of leadership remain with the men. Guys buy the goods, make the feasts, make the flasks, and do the initial write-up/strats to start boss discussions.
I don’t think it naturally falls on women to be the doers in their guilds, but I do think it’s likely to happen. Many women gamers I know (especially in “progressive” environments) have been a small minority in some point of their gaming career. One of the easy ways to garner easy “value” points is to visibly provide for the guild (even if it’s not rationalized in that way ^^). And let’s face it, you work your ass off to prove yourself for a raiding slot, being excited about a project, it’s easy to get heavily involved before you even know it, and then how do you let it go? The latter is not a female problem. One of my guilds dissolved when the GM could not figure out an effective way to pass GM-ship to another player/group within the guild.
This is rather rambling, huh? Anyway, I’m not surprised women find themselves in this position, but I don’t think it’s inherent to gender or the structures we find ourselves in… it’s just hard NOT to.
You are probalby right in that a lot of women do find themselves in this position, but that maybe only a small part of it is inherent to gender. I wonder if there is any connection to the type of females who are drawn to gaming or raiding, and their work ethics and personalites? There my not be, but it’s certainly interesting!
Interestin’ question, what would require a large data set fer ta answer reliables. In me current 10-bugger raidin’ guild, is 13-14 peeps, two of whom be wimmenz. Fish feasts is provided by me and another dude, cauldrons by a number of us, includin’ one of the wimmenz. In me 5-bugger weekly poker night guild, is 8-9 peeps including one adult wimmenz and me teenage daughter. There, I provides everything (when I remembers fer ta bother).
I’s interested fer ta see if’n there be an overall pattern one way ot the other. One never knows if one’s typical or way out in freakin’ left field without more dataz.
I agree that there would probably need to be some huge amount of research done to have reliable data. Perhaps that would be a job for the gnome census? Although I would fear from them in Org 😉
My 10-man guild has two women, neither of which really do that sort of thing at all. One of them is our resident ace, who takes the strats I write and finds really key aspects to fix or change that end up getting us our awesome ranks, but as far as fishing and cauldrons go they don’t do anything toward those. I’ve also fallen into several guild officer positions through my 12 years of raiding simply because “someone has to do it”, so you’re not alone there.
That’s my anecdote.
Well, I don’t think finding key aspects in strats that help you perform better is unworthy of note 😛
She contributes in a very big way, but it’s really more of a smart-person consultancy gig rather than the busywork other people do. She’s not making dozens of cauldrons like our priest or literally thousands of elixirs like I do.
Hmm, I think I’ve met a higher proportion of women who are willing to devote a lot of their time to their guilds, but over all, I know more men who are hugely devoted to their guild. (This is a fact of just knowing more men, in game.) I certainly know just as many, or more, women in the blogging sphere who work to the bone for their blogs, guides, services, etc. For example, my last guild had 4 steady female members, and 3 were either officers or demi-officers. But I don’t think gender affected how much work someone put in to their roles within that group. Yes, we had a busy bee female officer who would constantly organize events, ran recruitment, bump forum threads, etc, but we also had a male raid leader who was always our moderator, always prepared to lead, busy organizing loot, posting strats, etc. I’ve always known just as many, or more, men who would stock guildbanks with herbs and fish and gold. (I’m terrible about this. Before the Lilli’s, I have never really been one for stocking guildbanks, I like selling things on the AH too much!)
I definitely see that “boring mundane things get done by women” role at work IRL, though. So very much. Boring committee? Clean up catering? Throw away the stack of boxes everyone’s been ignoring? Always a woman who ends up getting stuck with it. One of the things I LIKE so much about my circle of Azeroth is that that’s not nearly as much of an issue.
Your stress level might be relieved a little by delegating, and then letting things go imperfectly for a while until the people you appoint to help you step up and learn how to do it. I worry for you, Beru!
Hmmm, maybe, Narci. I’d be curious why you felt gender didn’t have anything to do with the three female officer-types in your last guild. I’d be equally as curious how they came to be promoted – did they just start doing things? I absolutely agree that there are men just as devoted, dedicated, driven and doing some of the more mundane tasks – I just find it curious that I know a good number of women who undertake these tasks for their respective guilds. Which is something I started giving more thought to when K approached me with her question!
I do think that personality plays a lot into it, for sure. But I’m not sure I’d 100% agree that sometimes there isn’t more to it than just that 🙂
It is interesting that you bring this up Beru – i do a lot of fishing to get feasts and herb when i can but i think it is just from my desire to contribute to the raid. A lot of our herbing and fishing is done by the boys as well. However i think it is from that female urge to help. If a friend is having a party, don’t we automatically ask “do you want us to bring a salad/drinks/dish” whereas the boys happily turn up and eat. I know myself that I can’t stand waiting around for people to do something so I will just do it myself – that’s in game and in RL. And i bet lots of girls feel this way.
You bet that I ask “what should I bring!” 🙂 I also always ask if there is anything I can do to help when I know someone is going through a rough time. Is that simply because I’m me? Is there more to it than that? I don’t really know! I certainly would say that I fall into a “nurturer” category, which may be some of the underlying need to make sure everything is taken care of properly.
Some of our best herb contributers are men, and the F/F member who’s been fishing like a rockstar is also male. So I absolutely believe that men also perform this task – I certainly didn’t mean to say that “men don’t do this”. I just found it interesting how many women undertake these tasks when statistically you would think if Women are in the minority in WoW they should be smaller overall contributors – at least if you took everything simply by the numbers!
“Honestly, I’m sure someone else would do it if asked…but I’ve just always done it. And because of that, everyone just assumes and expects that I’ll continue to do it.”
Exactly.
I think it’s hard to answer the “if the two were faced with a problem, how would they respond?” What’s the problem? What are the resources available to each player? What is the assumed/expected responsibility of each player? Do strategies need to be posted/reposted at all, or should players be expected to go out and learn them on their own? If flasks and feasts are “guild provided”, who is expected to provide the input?
That’s fair.
As to the question – I guess I was looking at two people on completely equal footing. Take Brade and I as an example. Nine and a half times out of ten, I will deal with it – unless I ask him to do so. Now, he’ll tell you that’s likely because I’m a control freak – and there’s some truth to that. But it’s also easier for me to just deal with mystery problem x than nag at him to please handle it, because he functions on “Brade Time” which is quite different (and significantly less rushed) than “Beru Time”.
But let’s take it out anything personal. Let’s say you have player a very motivated female and player b very motivated male. Both officers of guild y. And guild y needs fish feasts. Both players look into the guild bank, see there are no fish and know that some need to be fished. I’d be very curious who will go out and tackle the great fish draught.
IT may very well be that they both go out, or that only the male goes out. But in my experience, I’d be the one watching some terrible VH1 programming while listening for the fishing bobber 😉
Based on previous experience, if there were no fish in the guild bank, the expectation would be that someone would just go to the AH and buy them and that I would eventually cobble them together since the feasts are BOP and I always take care of it.
It’s all about expectation and delegation, in my opinion.
I think there are two questions here. One question is implicit, and I think you may be assuming an answer that is not true.
1. Do women carry a disproportionate load of the work?
Here, I would agree with you. It does seem like the women in the guilds I’ve been in take on more responsibilities than the average male player.
2. Would the guild be hurt if the women did not take responsibility like this?
Here’s the part where we probably disagree. I don’t think the guild would be hurt. Other people would step up, things would still get done. If this wasn’t true, it would imply that guilds without women are at an organizational disadvantage, and I don’t think that’s true. A guild with no women still has cauldrons and feasts, still keeps going.
Second, we’ve often had times where more of the responsibility was placed on the individual player. Before feasts and guild cauldrons, when players had to supply their own food and flasks. In my experience, the male players were just as prepared as the female players at this level.
What I think happens is that women volunteer for group tasks at an “earlier” point in the cycle than when men would have. Men, on average, wait a bit closer to the point in time when doing something becomes absolutely necessary before stepping up. In a mixed group, this results in the women assuming a disproportionate workload.
What I’m saying is that yeah, the women in your guild probably do a larger share of the work. But if you all stepped back, I don’t think your guild would suffer greatly. There would be a period of adjustment, but life would continue on, and other men would start doing the necessary work.
I think the inherent flaw in my post was that I got personal with it – rather than just keeping it somewhat objective. I don’t actually believe that guilds need women to succeed – and in fact know that many don’t have any women and do perfectly fine. I was simply presented with an interesting question that made me think and shared some of my thoughts, and I think that clouded the issue some (a lot).
You are absolutely correct on the first part though – I do know a lot of women gamers who take on a lot of responsibility for any number of things. And perhaps that simply the experiences that you and I have, while others have differing experiences. However, I would also agree that if they were to fall off the planet tomorrow, in most cases, with time, things would right themselves and everything would carry on…although it may be noticed exactly how much that one person was undertaking, which may have been underappreciated previouslu 😉
Side note:
I never let anyone “donate” to the BRM guild bank. If you wanted to provide some materials, I paid for them at market value. This helped to alleviate the “I donate so much and soandso gives nothing!” conflict. It removes the angst about selling things on the AH to make cash vs. helping the raid.
Eh, I think that’s a bit of a non-issue really. Since we generally just buy everything that we are short on – unless it is literally unavailable on the Horde or the Alliance Auction House. And then we do announce that we are buying “xyz” and that you can CoD it to monobank for market cost. We’ve just not had to do that for quite some time 🙂
This peer pressure is too much for me!
Anecdotally, I have known a lot to be done by the women of the guild, but they by no means have the corner on guild service. While I tended to fish up the feasts, there were male players who came prepared to drop feasts, as well, and some nights, they’d beat me to every feast drop. I did a lot of herb gathering, as did at least one other gal in the guild, but there were also male players who routinely whispered me and said, “Hey, I just put a bunch of herb stacks in the bank for cauldrons.” Our male raid leader usually mixed and brought the cauldrons, but I came prepared, too, in case he ran out of time.
While the guild bank could have handled the purchase of mats, I just liked to contribute in whatever ways I could. I can’t answer to the motivations of the others, but I’d guess they were similar.
All in all, I’d say while the burden of preparation was disproportionately shouldered by certain few members of the raid, I couldn’t make any conclusions about male/female contributions.
That’s fair. I know that there are also a lot of very dedicated and motivated men that do these things as well! I certainly didn’t mean to insinuate that there weren’t 🙂 I was just struck by the curious question and my thoughts!
I appreciate what you are saying but I do not believe this has anything to do with gender at all. Everything you mentioned is admirable (as far as gathering, putting in the work, and stepping up to shoulder the burden of responsibility) and is a sign of good character and determination. While you may know some fellow WoW women who do take on this responsibility in their particular cases I’m sure there are plenty of people (gender omitted) out there also in the same boat that do what they do because its part of their very fiber and integrity and might feel underappreciated. Similarly in households there are surely plenty of couples/families where different people feel that they pull the lion’s share of weight when it comes to shouldering responsibility.
I think more than anything the call should be for people, regardless of gender, who step up and go above and beyond to get recognized as they often don’t get the recognition they deserve.
I don’t really know that it has anything to do with recognition. And I’d disagree that it isn’t completely gender neutral. You may very well be right in that a lot of it has to do with the person as opposed to the gender – but I think it would be folly to completely assume that gender has nothing at all to do with it either 🙂 It’s certainly one consideration that is worth valid exploration!
It is an interesting question to ask. However, I loathe blanket statements about gender. It’s a very easy argument to unseat with anecdotes which people tend to see as exceptions always disproving the rule. However, to draw back further and to say that social and societal obligations don’t affect some women when it comes to fulfilling roles in a game and the ever-present “Who would do this if I didn’t?” is a little naive. While men can and do pick up slack in a video game, across the board, I have a feeling a lot don’t and traditional gender roles come into play in some ways. It all depends on things and forces in someone’s individual life. So while no, I don’t agree with your overall statement because I think it’s too general of a statement/question, there’s definitely some issues here that deserve to be looked at that people might miss in their rush to disprove you.
I think I made a pretty big error in writing the post by using my personal experiences as examples. And to an extent, I regret that as I think that it clouded what I really meant to explore. Which was the interesting question asked. I would agree I made a broad statement, and perhaps over-generalized. I don’t usually talk much about topics like this outside of with friends, so it was a little out of my comfort zone for what I generally blog about and in hindsight, I wish I had done a few things with the post differently. 🙂
That being said, I do agree that it’s a question worth exploration, and I do think there is something there. I am just not sure I’m the best qualified person to tackle it!
I’ve been talking to Beru about this for months… months! And while I’ve wanted to blog about it myself, I couldn’t. So yay Beru for doing it for me! And let me just be clear. I’m not just talking about just buying the mats or getting the mats out of the guild bank to make stuff. I’m talking about taking the time to do the actual herbing and fishing.
So yes I’ve set that standard… but why was I the one to set it in the first place? Or the two other women who I played with in Wrath… both who started helping me without being asked. Why did we step up and start doing it? I think Navimie hit it on the head with her real life analogy.
I do think you have the consider that fact that women are underrepresented in the game to begin with, so the numbers of them providing the majority of these kind of gathering mats for a guild may actually represent a higher percentage. Maybe Jess can do some fancy statistics here.
I’m not saying that men never help out, in game or in real life. But I do think that women have a natural propensity to do so.
On the other end, I do think its unfair to continue to bitch about something if you’ve never asked for help. Even when a part of thought process includes the idea that I shouldn’t have to ask for help and hoped that the guys would realize and just start pitching in on their own.
Even though I’ve expressed reservations about this before, I’ve finally put up my hand and clearly told my guild that I cannot and will not solely supply mats anymore. We’ve come up with a way for folks to pitch in that I think will work for us. So there’s the lesson for me… if its become too much for you and you start becoming resentful for it, ask for help.
I won’t defend the other members of your guild for not stepping up and contributing but for some, and I’m guilty of this myself sometimes, they may need to be told directly what the situation is. In guild I’m somewhat blissfully ignorant of the gathering folk and the resources going on and I wouldn’t know who is getting what unless it was directly told to me.
In life outside of WoW communication has to be direct. I’ll jump on a problem immediately if it is readily apparent to me but if something is going on behind the scenes or is bothering someone I’m not going to know unless I’m told. A relative of mine once asked me “How come you don’t offer to help with more stuff with other family members” my response was “some of them never ask me for assistance”. The counter was then “Well, why don’t you simply offer to help them and then see what they need done” and I would simply reply “I’m not psychic so I don’t know when my help is needed. Similarly every time I talk to them on the phone I’m not going to lay out a blanket statement of ‘and by the way is there anything at all that i can help you with?'”. If someone in my family needed help I’d be the first one there contributing but unless I know they need the help I may not be aware of the situation.
That was clearly a huge tangent but its my way of saying that some people like myself have the capability of putting in lots of work and are always willing to step up as long as we know the stepping up is needed.
@Jar –
“I’m somewhat blissfully ignorant”
But this is part of the problem right here, is it not? You admittedly don’t know – and you from what I can gather from your comment you are more than OK with that – provided that your flasks and feasts arrive nightly for your raid. You state that “if someone wants help they should ask”, but I counter that with questioning why you would wait to offer help until it was asked for. No, your not a psychic, but why should that preclude you from stepping up and offering? I mean, no one told me in Vanilla that we needed metric shit tons of gromsblood, yet I farmed it and provided it to the guild anyhow.
I think this only illustrates part of the problem that K and I were discussing – we’ve always just done things and it’s been expected of us, but no one asked us to start doing them. We just saw they needed to be done and no one else was taking the initiative to get it done. Now whether that is because we are forward thinking and motivated people or because we are female is probably (read:definitely!) debatable. I don’t know that there’s a right or wrong answer – I just think it’s an interesting observation.
” If there was a man and a woman in the same position, together, who do you think would ultimately bear more of the burdens of running a guild/raid?”
There’s no correct answer to this question…. its asking the question of WHO when you have no facts outside of the irrelevant point of gender. Perhaps the male is the “go -get-em” type…. so he’d take the reigns. Or perhaps he really only raids to raid and would rather just show up and do his job so he lets the other person (or ‘forces them to’). Or perhaps its the woman the same situation? Is one an officer and the other an applicant? Are they both officers? Is one Recruitment and the other Loot Council?
I still struggle to see this as a gender issue…
Setting aside WoW, you should talk to Brade about your feelings. This is something that I have to revisit periodically with my spouse, on both sides – we have to talk and make sure that the other person understands what it is that we’re doing all day long, and how what we do affects the other’s workload. It’s hard, really hard, to keep the communication open, and I struggle with it a lot. (So does my spouse. It goes both ways). It’s an issue of trust in your partner, and if left unaddressed it can breed resentment. Set clear tasks, too. “It would help if you did this, and were responsible for it.” “I hate doing X, could you do it instead?” “In the future, could you please do Y? It would make Z (this boring task which you don’t want to do) that much easier.”
Gender can play a role, sure, but it’s up to each individual couple (or guild) to work out how we share the load.
(And yes, there have been times that I felt like I was doing the lion’s share of the work. Talking about those feelings really helped me see that I wasn’t being fair – yes, I work really hard, but so does my spouse. It really is an issue of trust.)
Oh, Brade and I do talk about it. (omg, didn’t you see my hollerin’ at him in this post!). Just a lot of the things that are important to me, aren’t really as important to him – and he tends to either neglect them or just forget about them. And then I have to nag. And I fucking hate nagging. Like I’d rather just get up off my ass and do whatever it is than turn into my mother. So it’s…a work in progress. I suppose we can leave it at that 🙂
As far as it goes with the guild – I take a lot on. I rarely ask for help. So this is partly my problem. And I’ve gotten better at it. But K’s underlying question is still relevant, I think. And if we trace it back to it’s roots – a lot of it started because I did something that no one else wanted to do. Is that because I’m female or because I’m motivated? I couldn’t say? I think it could be argued one is because of the other. I would like to think I’d be equally as motivated if I was sporting different chromosomes – because I’d like to think that’s just in my personality – but who knows! 🙂
I hope that you don’t take this comment personally as it’s not a personal reflection; you’re very aware that you and I have disagreed quite a bit on raiding and attitude, and I still read your blog with pleasure & think of you as a really fab person I met at Blizzcon. Disagreement is not dislike.
That having been said… I honestly found this article to be pretty insulting.
I really disagree with all of it, and I was honestly really bothered just by reading it.
There are biases implicit in so much of the wording that I haven’t seen in wow for a long, long time, and I wasn’t sure what bothered me about it until I came to the end and realized it. It’s loaded. It’s loaded with anecdotal unhappiness and evidence, but that does not make an effective generalization. I don’t think you meant to have it sound like that, or that you meant to make people uncomfortable reading it; for the record, I was made uncomfortable.
So this is me saying no, and also me saying that reading this article made me about as uncomfortable as hearing a chauvinistic joke. The reason why a chauvinistic joke is hurtful is not the joke, it’s the implicit requirement that you accept certain truths about the world to laugh at the joke. This article implies a set of truths about WOW that I find hurtful, honestly, as a woman who doesn’t want to be seen as a woman raider– who doesn’t want to see others as women raiders, guy raiders, girl raiders — who wants to be respected as a raider.
I’m not discrediting your observations or your experiences.You’ve had a different experience in wow– that’s for certain! — what I have a problem with is the way that you took these experiences and generalized.
The end of the article where you ask for opinions about women and their role in a guild is chock full of loaded questions, which is a great way to get impassioned responses but is not precisely the best way to get accurate ones.
“Do you think women are the worker bees of wow?”
No, I don’t think so at all. Answering “no” to that question makes me feel vaguely anti-woman and I’m certainly not. I’ve been in guilds with lazy ass female officers and totally overcommitted ones. Guy officers too. Gender is irrelevant to ones commitment to work. It confuses me to hear it brought up.
“Who would bear more of a burden? The man or the woman?”
This question is representative of the rest. You keep asking questions about men and women like it’s completely a given that they will be doing different things and carrying different burdens. Even this question has as a given that the man and the woman would be doing different things.
I find this question irrelevant. Its phrasing is an example of the kind of bias which I felt permeated the entire article. A better question would be WHETHER they’d be doing different things, and my answer would be a confused look and a no.
The conclusion paragraph is quite effective in that it riles up the emotions but it is less effective as far as getting answers which are not in agreement with you. I’m even having a lot of trouble answering no without explaining why I found even the questions I answer no to so troubling.
I hope my response pretty much captures how I feel. I’m a little bit angry after reading it, so I’m sorry if some of this is coming across as insulting. It’s not. I am as passionate about my position — as a raider, not a female raider, but a raider — as you are about yours. I think that this article is phrased in such a way that’s insulting to me in a way that I haven’t found to be true in years and years of gaming.
As an answer: I absolutely don’t think women are the worker bees of wow and I feel like the phrasing of this article suffocated any kind of a response of that type.
I am pretty happy I got my objections out though, as most of these comments are going to consist entirely of sycophantic praise. Someone as committed to communication as you deserves some disagreement from time to time as well. 🙂 And I couldn’t disagree more!
Ana summed up my thoughts for the most part. I had a bunch of different responses typed up and ultimately didn’t post any of them, so I’ll be happy to just go along with ^^^
@Annfielle –
Oddly enough, you read a lot more into the post than was intended. As did other people. This wasn’t meant as some tyrade or some “I AM WOMAN HEAR MY ROAR” type of post.
I was presented with what I felt was an interesting question by someone that I respect and communicate with frequently, and one that I thought had merit. I took said question and applied it to my personal experiences – as I typically do with my blog. I agree with many people who posted that said it isn’t inherently a “male/female” question as much as it is “personality” question. But I also agree with many people who have also stated that women are inherently more likely to pick up things that need to be done, but no one else wants to do. I see both sides of the argument – and in fact, until I was presented the question myself and sat down and thought about it for over a week I wouldn’t have agreed.
Perhaps the problem with the post, which was solely meant to spurn discussion on the topic, not make some sort of grand statement, is that I did apply it to my own personal situation instead of creating some sort of anecdotal objective.
Respectfully, I didn’t really find anything about the post offensive. I asked a question, I offered some of my thoughts on it, and I left the question open – albeit colored by my experiences. If you were truly that offended by it, perhaps you should look inwards a little at why you took such offense? Regradless, I apologies you felt slighted as a female gamer by my presentation of a question that I felt was valid for discussion.
Beru–
I think one of the reasons why I did read into it so much is because I care — a LOT — about the issue you’ve brought up. I really, really do. And I feel like the way you phrased it harms how I see myself and the people around me. I don’t think you understand why it was harmful when the intent was innocent, but twitter has had this discussion before and I’ll try to summarize from my perspective.
When I first started to reply, I started to write a comment that anecdotalized people in my experience. X officer who was a woman. (GASP!) X guy friend of mine who I know burned out from being a “worker bee”. I could list them off and use my list to agree or disagree with you but that doesn’t change the fact that I made the lists.
That bothered me.
I’m reading the comments here and a lot of people started from your question and divided men and women up into two categories. Every time I see that kind of thing, it really saddens me, even when they’re saying they don’t agree with you. They are listing through their acquaintances and slotting them into categories by gender. I just read Kurn’s comment below and frankly it kind of saddened me. It’s a perfect example. I could have done the same thing. I have, mentally.
That bothered me.
You’re damn right I took it personally. I’m a girl and you and I have a lot in common. I have a tendency to overcommit, but I have that tendency because I’m Ana, not because I’m female.
Or do I? It’s a personality trait, not a gender trait. Or is it? You’ve got me asking these questions now.
The reason why I didn’t like your post is that you basically told me I’m like that because I’m a girl. 😦
Thanks. 😦
Am I the only person who felt like this? I seriously don’t think so, but I might be the only one who posts so vehemently about it.
Slotting people into categories by gender… It’s not how I like to think and it’s certainly not how I like to see people encouraged to think. Every comment that people make on this blog is accepting as a given that men and women are different, even if they’re arguing that woman have a different role than the one you’ve selected.
I don’t think your question is without validity — but I do think you could have asked the question in a much less loaded and less biased way. IS there a difference — not WHAT is the difference. The way you asked people to respond EXPLICITLY grouped men and women into two different groups and took off from there. Every commenter is encouraged to stereotype and to list and to group.
According to your call for comments— I should think about what other female players do, put myself in one column, put the men in another column, and debate what roles we take in leadership. Really? Can’t I just think about people and what people do, not women and men, and what they do? Can’t your friends be people instead of “sisters”? I just don’t like to stereotype people like that and you asked people to respond with stereotypes.
I guess you could consider me a feminist in that it really, really, really irks me to be judged by my gender even when that judgment is positive and it certainly irks me to be told to judge other people by their gender. You didn’t leave an option for personality differences in your call for comments. You went straight to men vs women. And you did it from a position of authority!
You say that you think it’s mostly a personality issue — but that’s not how you phrased the post and it absolutely, certainly isn’t how you phrased your comment quest. That’s what I took issue with.
Ana –
Not wanting there to be discrepancies does not make those discrepancies non-existent. Not talking about them and just pushing them under the rug because you don’t want them to be there isn’t beneficial to anyone. I was always raised to believe that your voice should be heard – and if you want change you should effectuate it. I guess we will just have to agree to disagree with your reading, and my stated intentions, in making this post.
Now I feel kinda bad.
This comment is really just relevant to the generalizing part though…. not the personal experience part. I am sorry to hear about your experiences that led you to a post like this. 😦 Your pain is real. Doing all the work SUCKS.
I know people who’ve burned out taking more than their fair share of the load (just as many women as men though, I have to add; actually I think I know more burned out guy raiders who quietly took on more than their fair share).
I’m sure it felt better to talk about it and blog about it. But I just couldn’t resist, I took such issue with the gender phrasing – I really was bothered, REALLY bothered – and like you I too love to write about it when I am 🙂 I couldn’t stop my comment. Good luck getting everything sorted out organization wise and I hope your stress level improves.
You shouldn’t feel bad. I don’t. I think you read more into the post than was intended. It was meant to be an open ended thought/question – which I felt was a valid question. And I do believe that some of the same gender issues that we see outside of the game can (and do) easily transcend into the game. As a woman am I angry that I work so hard? Not at all. Do I think it makes me less of a player? No. Does that make the question I was asked any less worthy of consideration? I don’t think so.
An interesting question, to be sure.
All I really have here is my own anecdotal stuff, as a woman who’s the guild leader and primary raid leader and, oh yeah, healing lead.
I do a lot of work for my guild. To the point where a lot of guildies say “Kurn, you do too much”. I do it because it’s usually easier to do it myself than to nag/harass/remind people to do the stuff I’ve delegated to them. I also have certain standards for certain things and I know many people around me won’t do X, Y or Z to my standards.
One of my officers through this expansion until today, actually, has been a woman. Not to say that my other officers don’t do what they’re asked (and more, in some cases), but this particular one has been amazing for me. “Do you want me to update that post, Kurn?” “Oh my God, WOULD YOU?!” “Sure!” and then she goes ahead and does it. And does it just as meticulously as I would.
With all due respect to the men in my officer core, I’m not sure any of them would be as detail-oriented as me or my female officer (who, sadly, informed us a couple of months ago she’d be stepping down at the end of the tier.).
My hunter officer (who does guild bank stuff, loot mastering and occasionally helps out with ranged assignments) is a workhorse, though. He tirelessly organizes the bank, our weekly EP drives, deals with loot crap and will randomly go out farming and deposit a crapton of leather, herbs, ore, whatever we need.
I feel that, based on my experience over the last six years of playing, things can be broken down thusly:
– Women will more often do the administrative stuff in terms of reviews of players, attendance crap, loot stuff, policy writing and communication.
– Men will more often tend to help out in terms of ideas (though not necessarily the implementation thereof) and will help herd the cats in a raid setting.
Then again, I’ve never been part of the leadership of a guild where no women were around, obviously. 😉 But I know that I very much step up when no one else does. In my very first real guild, the GM had wanted to push towards end-game stuff, but people kept leaving the guild when they hit 60 “to go raid!”. So, as I hit 60 and was promoted to officer, partly, I’m sure, to make sure I wouldn’t go elsewhere, I decided to figure out if the leadership DID want to raid and, if so, how to get us started on that.
So I’m the one who did all the research — attunements, quests, etc. And I wrote it all up for the guild and posted it on the forums. The GM posted “strats” (because they were just basic ideas, but he tried) and, to his credit, he also organized DKP at the time.
But I did the research, another female officer did the guild bank (back when “banks” were the alts of some officer) and the other officers were generally in charge of others of their role/class, and they were all men. So, me and the other woman did a LOT of the administrative stuff (including recruitment, actually) and the men did a lot of the “do this, sheep that, kill that”.
While I’m unsure if it’s an uneven workload, the administrative side of things tends to be a consistent effort, not one that happens primarily on raid nights. So I think that might be why I feel I do a lot of work as compared to some of the guys I’ve been guilded with in the past.
TL;DR: I hear ya and I feel similarly, haha.
I think, probably, Kurn, you and I are a lot alike in a good number of ways 🙂
One of my biggest frustrations is when I do finally breakdown and try and delegate, and the people who were asked/agreed to help don’t really do what needs to be done. It’s just so damn frustrating! Partly, my expectations might be too high – but not always. And for me, it really is easy just to get it done right the first time – even if it means doing it myself. I tried really hard this expansion to let things go and other people do them, and it mostly just frustrated the every living hell out of me!
I find that GENERALLY women tend to have a heightened sense of responsibility. But it’s very very very general. I know a lot of men who are overly responsible and I know a lot of lazy arse women.
It did happen to me once in a guild, where I was doing more than my share of the work. Not only that, but I was doing all the work, and being denied the credit or the leadership roles that came with the work I was doing. When I found out that it was due to my gender (and trust me, I’m not one who blames everything on my gender. This was a very explicitly sexist situation.) I left the guild.
In my current guild, task distribution is pretty equal. I’m the only woman. I do my part, but my guildies all pull their weight. We have the fish guy, the flask guy, the boss strat guy, the logs/raid review lady (me!), etc. IMO, its a much healthier environment than one person trying to do all the work.
I agree that it’s a very general statement. I think a lot does depend on the people, because I do know a lot of men who are just as involved and motivated in guild affairs. I was just very curious on other people’s perspectives on it and if they had any experiences with it as well 🙂
From my previous guild being an officer as we are assigned to certain task I don’t get too obligated to farm for the guild but I totally hear what you are saying Beru, for it seems like Women in our guild is more DOING the farming than the guys in the guild. Sometimes the guild is doing what we call a guild derby or some sort, that members likely to farm more if there are incentives in the bank. Like months ago, We had a Guild fishing derby, besides the fact that I hate fishing, But I pushed myself not because of the prize that the guild offers but I always want to motivate myself and help others and besides it was good timing that I already started fishing because I want to level up my skills. So I decide to help to get the Guild Achievement Fishing quest to obtain the Feast recipe. That was a lot of fishing, I did won the derby. but of all the members who joined only 2 of us women had been fishing out of 10 guys who joined. Anyway, I think its up to the officers of the guild and the GM how they handle obligations to specific tasks? like Kurn and Ophelie was saying “task distribution is pretty equal”. Anyway, Having guild events also is good way of encouraging members to do simple task to help the guild out for there raid benefits. because honestly 1 member cannot do everything on there own, we are in a guild, team work is the key. =)
I definitely think there is a lot of team work involved, for sure. I guess it’s more a matter of who is looking to do what tasks – and who gets them done I suppose 🙂
Interestingly I have two women in my 10 man raid team, and neither of them farm any materials or provide flasks/food. One is a scribe, and can be relied on to have forgotten about scrolls of fortitude on the nights when we don’t have a priest. I have 3 other male players who farm up mats for food and buy flasks if there isn’t enough stuff in the guild vault.
The pair of them also have a habit of waiting until the boss strategy discussion is finished and then asking, “so what do I do?”. This is somewhat tricky when one of them is my wife 🙂 This is definitely my fault, since I give them the 3 second description when they say that…
Honestly I think this sort of thing has more to do with a person’s level of engagement with the game. My 10 man team has been mostly intact for two years, and some of the players can’t be bothered with farming now, just rocking up for raid nights. The dedicated altoholics are the ones who do all the farming.
The two other 10 man teams in my guild are led by women, and they do the bulk of the organization – telling the guys what to bring to the raids. Both these players have been around for a shorter period and are more engaged with the game than some of the old timers. They are also the ones reviewing logs and encouraging improvement within the groups. In the guild, raid leaders tend to do strats, logs, coaching and delegation, regardless of gender.
Maybe that’s a fair statement. And I think it’s an interesting comment about engagement in the game driving motivation. It’s definitely worth some additional thought!
To add another few data points: not me. I do what I need to to keep my character(s) running smoothly and let the others know what excess BoP crafting mats I have, and that’s it. Our main herbalisers have been 2 dudes, one a while ago because he loved gathering, and one more recently because he wanted to be helpful and we were trying to get the cauldron achievement.
I must admit, I’m mildly jealous 🙂
I’ve never really been in a raiding guild with many other female members/officers but I can categorically say that I’ve never ended up doing most of the fishing/herbing/ etc (although refusing to level fishing until they introduced the baby crocs may have helped there :D). Dealing with emo raiders who didn’t get the trinket they wanted and want a shoulder to cry on whilst they whine about the loot council being stacked in certain people’s favour, yes. Oh and relationship advice to all sorts of people (which with my track record is pretty weird). Providing more than my fair share of consumables no. Although I could be described as fairly lazy when it comes to doing things I don’t particularly enjoy.
Looking back though, we’ve always had a fairly self-sufficient policy. Flasks, speed pots etc etc have always been your personal responsibility and if you showed up without them, you just got bitched at in raid chat until you went and got some of the AH/borrowed some from the mages who always had 40 flasks on them for everything from dailies to PvP. Feasts came from the guild bank but we had enough people chasing achievements for a near endless supply of fish.
It was self-sufficient until feasts in WotLK I think.
We handed out a few flasks a week in WotLK – but prior to that there were marks of the Illidari but everyone was always required to bring their own raid consumables. When that shifted to things like Cauldrons and Feasts, I think it changed it up a little bit. We still require everyone to have their own raid consumables as for as potions go, but group consumables muddle things a little.
Some day I’m going to follow in yours and Windsoar’s footsteps and say “someone else can do it”. Maybe. 🙂
Interesting topic… all the officers in my guild are men, and they do all the prep work because of that. However, when we needed the fishing achievement, I recall it being all the women who got out there and fished (even though we all hate it). A couple of the guys chimed in when there were about 100 fish left to catch.
I think this is very close to the point I was trying to make. It’s not that the guys don’t do anything – because that is obviously not the case – it’s just that with some frequency I see a lot of women stand up and do things like fish out holes until their brains want to explode, because it needs to be done. Bah, I don’t know! I just think it’s interesting! 🙂
Interesting topic. More annecdotal evidence, the GM of the Guild I am in is a woman and she is the major fisher/herbalist in our Guild. I help out with the fishing when I have time (new job with a major commute took a big bite out of my game time). I am also the major Alchemist in our Raid Group and put out all of the Cauldorns (since I am a Chemist IRL I love Alchemy..all of my toons have it!) and a good number of the feasts (was the first in our Guild to get the Iron Chef achievement).
We have 4-5 other women in our Guild that I can think of and I (male BTW) do more fishing/herbing than anyone other than our GM. So while I would agreee that social norms would suggest that women would do more of the “work”, gamers as a whole are more likely to fall outside of “social norms” (else why would we game? perhaps a topic for those who blog, certainly not I) that it would be difficult to bring a lot of real life “knowledge” into the debate.
An aside, please excuse my ignorance, but what is an F/F character? You can e-mail me an answer if you don’t want to take up space on the blog to answer that.
Ah F/F = Friends and Family 🙂
I don’t mean to imply that all women are the go-getters, but from reading the comments that wasn’t very clear! I do think that gamers tend to fall outside of social norms, but sometimes they also retain some of the worst social norms as well – and unfortunately, I feel that sexism is on of those retained. Certainly not in every case – or maybe not even in most. But it’s certainly prevalent enough to be noticeable, and I’m part of a gaming community that is (obviously) very open to women and puts a very large emphasis on respect. Just something to think about, I think!
My guild is like yours: we purchase whatever raw materials we need using guild gold — provided by BoE and Ember sales from the 25-man raid — and have our in-house crafters — all of them officers, and male except for me — churn out fishs feasts and flask. I manage the guild bank and all of our AH “investments,” so I suppose I feel more like a businesswoman than a worker bee. 😉
I am not a female, but I think the answer – by and large – to your post is a simple “no.”
To expand on this, however, from my own experiences with raiding – from BC up until now. I’ve been in guilds with female officers every step of the way. Some of them do different things. But the male portion of the guilds do just as much, in different manners. Doing these things is merely a personality trait – it’s not a gender trait. This could be somewhat expanded to different roles in game. It’s thought that women are more likely to take up healing roles than men. Between two – TWO – ten-man groups from ICC until 4.2, we had exactly two female healers out of seven – and one of them was only off-spec healing. So, out of the four women in our groups that regularly raided, only one of them was a main spec healer.
Healing can be looked at in a bit of correlation to this post. Healers have a lot of responsibility on them. Healers have to be able to pick up the slack in certain encounters (people standing in bad, extra DPS, etc.). Compare that to guild necessities – providing feasts, cauldrons, etc. Interestingly, none of our female raiders is an alchemist! Three of our healers (myself included) did happen to be, but none of us were female. We had people both male and female provide feasts, summon, or whatever else. So again, gender doesn’t really apply here. I am a little confused as to why the generalization was made from an anecdotal point of view.
I did want to make one real quick side note while I’m thinking about this: the topic (both the content of the post as well as the title) are very easily implicating that men are lazy… which is a real kicker to this. I know it’s not the intent of the post, but it still very much comes off that way – and that on its own, as a male, is a bit insulting, too. Don’t get me wrong – I respect your opinion and viewpoint, so I understand what it is you’re saying. I just do not agree with it, or the presentation of it.
As a woman, I’d also have to agree that the answer is no. Do I feel like I do a lot of things for the guild? Certainly. But it has everything to do with my personality and nothing to do with my gender. I’m the sort of person who steps up to do something when no one else is doing it, or others are doing it too slowly/poorly in my eyes. But my boyfriend is the same way. So are other certain other people in my guild, both male and female.
For example, the boyfriend and I came back from our WoW break a couple months after 4.2 came out. We discovered that no one with blacksmithing had gotten the shiny new recipes from the Molten Front. We waited about a week or so before realizing that it was just taking too long for our tastes. So he took up blacksmithing on one of his alts and with me helping with gathering mats, we powerleveled it in a single day. I wouldn’t call us driven (I’m a self-proclaimed lazy person) but we just like to get the job done, and done right.
We’re not the only ones though. One guy absolutely delights in gathering the mats for fish feasts and laying them out in raids. Another guy was our designated “drug dealer” throughout all of Wrath, gathering herbs and making them into flasks for all of our raid members.
The distinction in our guild between the “doers” and the “non-doers” is not gender, but rank. Almost all of the contributions come from the officers. And they don’t help out because they’re officers, they became officers because they help out.
That’s a very interesting point Beru, I’ve seen it both ways in guilds myself. Even though I’ve got the ability to farm mats, I absolutely loathe doing it, But I don’t mind fishing or mining one bit. Skinning is another one that bothers me now that I think of it as well.. Anyhow, my point was I wonder if it’s more a personality makeup than a gender makeup. Great topic though!
By farm mats… I -clearly- meant farming for herbs. Sheesh. Long day and all 😀
Nice post Beru! Don’t feel bad about getting personal in this topic – how esle are you supposed to write? I giggled at you retelling of household temper tantrums especially your reply to Brade on how to fix the situation. 😉
I’ve played mostly in guilds with a very high f/m ratio (at our best about 7 slots in our 25s were filled by female players). Pure and simple, yes, men and women can be equally attached and dedicated to their guild. But in my experience the farming and tedious tasks were picked up by women.
I see the same scenario: There’s a job that has to be done by someone. GM: I don’t want to waste my time on that, who does? *silence* and more often than not a woman steps up for the short term and ends up stuck with the responsibility until they leave the guild/game.
That said generating money at the AH selling BoEs was done equally by a man and a woman.
Strats were usually done and posted by a man. Logs also done my the male officers. And they are also boring and time consuming.
Flasks, feasts? Women.
However there are some female players who most certainly would not raise their hand and offer to help. I have become one of those. I don’t even feel bad about it anymore.
I’m in a wicked large progression based guild. For a long time I was the *only* girl. I quickly organized the bank, started social events, and ending up with the auctions and guild raffle as well. The guild raffle is my way of getting the MALE members of my guild to contribute materials.
I’m the sole female officer and still one of the only women. I let the boys handle the strats and the raid leading. When people are upset about something, they come to me.
In my experience, yes, it’s the ladies who do the tedious tasks, but there have been several males to contribute mats like herbs as well. Mostly guys do contribute gold…and they make that gold by farming. They’d just rather donate gold than be seen farming.
Disclaimer (I’m not sure I should write this disclaimer at all, since it could be “held against me” in that someone might say “but you did open with that”; still, I’ll do it in case it is not seen to be inherent to a ‘comment’ as such): What follows is an approach to an objective standpoint that cannot ever be objective because you never know every last bit of information there is to know regarding the subject; it is, after all, still subject to what I see “from my side of the fence.”
In the guild I lead (social guild with 2.5 ten man raids — I know, it’s a slightly weird transition phase at the moment) there are currently three officer posts and four “honorary officers” (i.e. they helped create and shape the guild and their opinions are held in high esteem, but they are currently inactive; if they decided to start playing again, they would probably be elevated into the officer rank again). Two of those officers are more committed to the going-ons in the guild, sometimes even more so than I am. As much of a control freak I am in other things, as long as their methods and the results they bear don’t conflict with what I think is “the way of the guild”, I happily sit back and let them do their thing.
One of the officers is more involved with the communication structure of the guild, partly because they are a very good listener and on good footing with almost everyone in the guild. The communication goes both for in game things (chit-chats with the guildies, being aware of arising guild drama before anyone else, problem-solving [if they’re not involved themselves]) and things outside the game (handling news on the website/forum etc.).
Another officer is more involved with recruitment, getting people to do things, delegating and distributing work, and organising raids. They sometimes need help with that because of all the different people they delegate, and their system for the distribution of information is, at times, insufficient. “It was your job.” — “You didn’t tell me.” Things in that nature. However, that is easily fixed. I’ll simply make sure they told everyone what they are to do.
The third officer is the diplomat. They can always find an argument and are able to rationalize in any given situation, which has ended many a conflict with both sides equally appeased. When there is no conflict to be solved or argument to be formulated in the most diplomatic way possible, though, they are a really quiet member who sometimes seems very passive and uninvolved.
Next up, the raid. Of the 16 people in our roster at this moment, three have recently taken a break. One due to an injury and two due to general reluctance and finding themselves in new jobs/university studies. One of the reluctant ones had me grin my teeth especially, because they were the only one with the legendary staff almost completed. But life is life, I guess.
Of the remaining 13 raiders, four will regularly read up on strats, watch videos and make sure they know what’s awaiting them. Everyone else will just watch a video once, seemingly without paying any attention to it, if they prepare strategy-wise at all (can you tell it sometimes frustrates me?).Don’t be too shocked, we are really ‘casual’ that way, so it is less of a big deal and more of a personal quirk of mine.
Feasts and cauldrons are mostly paid out of the raid bank (as far as I can tell), and what isn’t bought is brought in by three or four committed members.
A general attitude of “show up and kill stuff two times a week” is shared by about ten of them, and (very subjective estimate) about the same amount do it for the shiny purples, not to experience content (i.e. they couldn’t care less if all the Aspects died killing Deathwing — “What? Aspects? Never heard of them.”), which, again, doesn’t sit too well with me, but whatever. I can enjoy my fill of lore while they enjoy their epics that they will leave behind when the next bosses come along. 😛
Similarly, while a few people are really committed to let the raid happen each week, about 5 people just come raiding habitually because it’s “what they do” (meaning they log on for a few hours of raiding and aren’t seen the rest of the week for the most part), and about three couldn’t care much less if they raid or not and will only do it “so the raid can happen”. They much rather would be watching that football game (or for you people who call that game where they run around with the ball in their hands all the time “football”: soccer) or their series, but don’t want to “let down” the ‘determinate’ portion of the raid, either.
As you might have noticed, I didn’t say who was female and who was male. I did it because I don’t think that gender has anything to do with being a worker bee. I think it has anything to do with WHO you are and not with WHAT you are. I’m a control freak, so I’ll handle the things I care about myself (for the most part, see above). I’m insecure so I won’t dare to ask some people if they need help, because 1. I could stand in the way and 2. they could take offense that I think they needed help in the first place.
However, I do agree that, of the people I know, more women would be quicker to ask if they could help with anything without being asked for help. But is that because they, as women, have a finer sensibility for someone in need? Is their nurturing instinct? Or is it simply the fact that they reflect what they think to be ‘true’ because they saw it around them growing up (both at home and outside, in the house and in the media)?
A few more questions you can ask yourselves: have you, while reading, pictured single persons as male or female? If so, why do you think you did? Is it due to your upbringing, education, social contacts, experiences, expectations, or gender? Is it any one thing in particular or a mix of everything?
Food for thought. It’s not a fish feast for thought, but it’s something.
Haha, reading through it I realised I said “ten *man* raids”. I’m a bad person. Consider this a mistake of habit. It’s shorter to say “man” than “person”, I learned the expression this way, and until recently I never even knew some people thought the terminology to be misrepresentative. It is, however, and I’m in the process of remedying that. Hence, the comment on the comment.
http://m.jezebel.com/5864160/moms-multitask-more-than-dads-and-theyre-not-happy-about-it
Reading this article made me think of this post, for some reason and that you may just be on to something, Beru.
Regarding the tasks that you complained about doing for yuor guild I don’t think that is a gender specific thing that is a leadership specific thing. My officer team is all male and we do all of those things. Thanks to being brought up by a feminist campaigner as a mother I am very reluctant to make generalisations about gender but is it possible that women are less likely to complain if they feel they are doing too much?
For a while during tier 11 we had me and another officer who did everything and 3 officers who were basically just figureheads and did nothing. It only took a month of this for us to have a fairly unpleasant officer meeting which resulted in assigning the tasks more fairly. While we still had to chase up the slacking officers to make sure they did their assigned roles and we did end up with two of them accepting that they weren’t willing to put in the effort required to be officers and going back to members, the key point is that we didn’t accept their slacking I wonder if many women would not of complained until it got much worse.