Accommodation, Resistance, and Ranged Roles in Games

In our discussion last Thursday, we talked some about the stereotype that women always play "background" roles, like healers, spellcasters and other ranged positions. There is also a stereotype that these roles are not as strong or important, which is probably linked to how gendered "female" they tend to be. Being a healer in particular is often a thankless job.

In many major games there are essentially three different roles for players. First, there are the heavily armored, slash and shoot frontpeople who can take more damage than others-- often called "melee". Second, there are the "ranged" folks who do damage, like often lightly-armored spellcasters. Lastly there are the healers, who do the least damage and focus on keeping the group healed and prepared.

These sorts of delineations in roles are common in games with team play, like the massively multiplayer World of Warcraft and the single-player but squad-driven Mass Effect. The roles are often inspired by table-top RPG's, like Dungeons and Dragons.

In Mass Effect, Adepts are biotics specialists. They wear light armor and use abilities like telekinesis and spatial distortion, harming enemies from afar. Liara, pictured here, specializes in biotics. Players can choose to be an adept.

When discussing women playing the ranged and healing roles, I was constantly reminded of my own experiences. While playing both a mage and a healer in World of Warcraft, I am often confronted with sexist comments like "oh, of course you play a healer, you're a girl". I don't think there is actually any truth in the statement that more women heal than men, but I think that there is an important gender dynamic occurring with ranged roles and the women who play them.


As a healer, I feel a large sense of power and control. The role is always varied and exciting. I get to literally have the lives of my team in my hands. This is a challenging and sometimes nerve-wracking experience, particularly with new encounters, but I think that I handle it very well. While healers often cannot do much damage, they are very important to a team.

I think that healing allows me to enter into the gamer space as a women and play a role that is powerful without being relegated to the heavily-armored, "slash and burn" roles that are often associated with men. In a way, the stereotype of "women as healers" or "women as ranged" makes me feel confident and strong in my healing role. Playing healers or ranged characters may allow women to carve out their own space in gaming communities, where they are strong, necessary components of the game and retain some sort of femininity.

The Priest crest in World of Warcraft. 
Priests are primarily a healing class.

K noted in our last meeting that often times when she plays with a team of women, they are more interested in communicating and strategy than men. I would agree with that based on my experiences as well. I think that because women are often socialized to value relationships and communication, they work well on teams in video games. Communication, strategy, and ranged ability are valuable components of gaming and women may find these skills to be gender affirming in the gamer space. Rather than becoming "just like the men" and taking on traditionally male roles and strategies, women may carve out their own space through an interplay of accommodation (choosing roles that are seen as more feminine) and resistance (making these roles their own, taking control of important team functions).

While women can and certainly do play both ranged and melee roles, the women who are playing ranged roles are not simply accommodating the stereotypes. In many cases these women are actively creating a space for themselves in an often women-hostile environment. These roles may allow women to become powerful and important members of a team without the insistance that traditionally masculine roles and strategies are the only way to be valuable or strong.

-H

A Plea for More Monstrous Ladies

When discussing the treatment of women in gaming circles, I often come back to the designs of the characters themselves. I feel as though a lot of the sexist harassment experienced by players in game is often backed-up by the portrayals of the women characters in the game. In games where very few women even exist in the world, it may be simply under-representation that creates these tensions resulting in male players feeling like they are in a "boys only club". In games where women characters are rather prominent, however, representations take on more layers and complexities. Reading this blog post, I was especially struck by the reaction that this woman received when attempting to ask for more reasonable outfits for many of World of Warcraft's most prominent lore characters.

She has an excellent point, many of WoW's key characters are powerful women, including the Dragon Aspects. That being said their outfits are in many cases bikinis-- creating confusion when compared to their often heavily armored and certainly more covered male counterparts.

For some examples take a look at Alexstrasza, the Life-Bringer and leader of the Dragon Aspects compared to Kalecgos, the youngest Dragon Aspect. She's much more powerful than him-- in charge of life itself-- and yet her outfit appears to be right out of a Victoria's Secret catalog, as the woman at BlizzCon noted.

Dragon Aspects

Need more convincing? How about two Forsaken lore characters. Both are undead (zombies essentially). Sylvannas, the leader of the Forsaken and an extremely powerful character has the bikini on, while Putris, a male Forsaken gets an awesome mask and full body coverage plus bones showing, displaying that he is actually undead and frankly, creepy. An archer and leader with an exposed stomach? This just doesn't make a lot of sense.

Sylvanas and Putris

What ends up happening is that powerful and complex characters like Sylvannas are reduced to sexual objects. Sylvanas is downright diabolical. She has a tragic backstory. She controls a legion of undead forsaken, many of whom worship her. And yet, as many male players will comment in-game, she is just portrayed as sexy. This kind of representation, degrading even powerful women to sexual objects to be ogled, creates an environment where it is okay to call female players "sluts" and "bitches".

These representations extend into the playable race models for each gender. The sexual dimorphism between male and female models of the playable races is very apparent, and it is clear that the female variations must a) be clearly and without a doubt "female" and b) be sexy, with clear focus on thinness, breasts, and behinds.

The draenei and the worgen are good examples of this. Both are "monster" humanoids. The draenei are a race of aliens  and the worgen are werewolves, cursed with transformative powers. However, the female characters are less "monstrous" and more sexualized. The draenei women are clearly designed to fit a supermodel ideal and the lady worgen are a lot less menacing than their male counterparts. As a female player, I felt especially downtrodden when the worgen models were released. It seemed like the developers felt they had to try to balance "monster" with "clearly female/sexy" and the model that resulted was a disappointment-- particularly in comparison to the very menacing male.

Worgen

In addition to these tensions in design, there are only 3 or 4 humanoid mobs in the game (besides established playable race models) that are female. This means that there are almost no monstrous and dangerous ladies to kill as an adventurer in the World of Warcraft. Even the Naga, which have prominent female mobs, have clear sexual dimorphism favoring a "prettier" lady monster. (I mean, just compare the female and male faces!)

Naga Models

So what does this all mean? For one, these trends mean that WoW players aren't seeing powerful ladies that aren't bikini-clad or super-model pretty. Whether it's a playable character, a mob or a pivotal lore character, the females consistently stand out as being sexualized and made "pretty" even in a world torn by violence, war and adventure. This leaves female players with a sense that even in a virtual place where their heroism is needed, it is still very important-- if not most important-- that they are pretty, that they are sexy, and that they appeal to heterosexual male sensibilities. Not only does this focus re-enforce the media socialization that women and girls are constantly bombarded with, it allows male players to focus on these attributes of women as well. If the game developers see many women as merely sexual objects, why wouldn't the players immersed in that world feel justified in feeling the same? Ultimately video games are just another type of media and there is a clear focus on attractiveness in the most conventional sense. Being sexy isn't bad, but when sexiness is the focus and one of the only options, it sure is discouraging.

So lets have less focus on attractiveness. I want more monstrous ladies!

-H.