The Angel in the Guild

"On the other hand, she's noticed that some male players seem to think anything a woman says or does is dramatic. 'Girls in games constantly have to be on guard to not look like they're causing drama - as their very presence sometimes creates it. It's like throwing meat to the lions, so to speak. If lions were competitive, hormone-enraged 20-something guys.' She says the volatile atmosphere encourages silence from women. 'Most of the women hide. They don't want the attention.'"

Melody Lutz speaks to Christine O'Reilly, a woman playing a man's game - and winning.

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I have been an EQ2 guild leader since it started and I used to deal with drama. Finally, I just didn't care anymore. People were making the game into real life and I wasn't going to take it. If they had an actual in-game problem, I would try to help and solve it. But if it was some stupid drama between people and they weren't mature enough (which I've seen a good percentage of the MMO world NOT be mature enough) to deal with it themselves, I would let them take it to tells and see what happened from there. One of the people would just leave the guild, yes we raided also so that hurt us, but I'm not going to beg someone to stay and mediate between two people in a GAME...it's not real! When I came to this realization that people pay 15 bucks a month to have fun, I told everyone who was threatening to leave the guild (because it always happens in every guild, in every game) to just go. I don't pay for their subscription, so do what makes you happy. If that is leaving, so be it. If you want to talk it out, np, we can do that too.

I had 6 females in my guild (they were on Teamspeak, so yes, I know they were actually women), one being a raid leader, another an officer, and we never had problems. The women would tell the guys exactly where to stick it if they were taking any crap. Once that happened, there was never a problem again. I have to give credit to women who play MMOs. They have to mainly deal with a lot of stereotypical MMO guys and good lord, even I don't want to do that! :)

I've played online text-based games - MUD with player-run organisations much like, or perhaps even more important than the guilds of Everquest or Wow - for years now, and curiously I never saw this sort of behaviour. While women aren't quite as prevalent they're almost as likely to take leadership positions in-game.

More sophisticated audience, perhaps?

I have a female in my guild who always take raid leadership spots, and she's an officer too. She does a great job at it, and while from time to time we get drama in the guild, is definitely not the female's fault, but all guildies related to it, males and females. Males provoke as much drama as females, but they just do it in another way.

I'm male but also a Women's Studies Major, and this article was particularly interesting in light of performative gender theory (re: Judith Butler). Butler believes that gender is a performance (usually not a conscious performance, but one built on social norms), not innate. Here, we have quite a few males demonstrating emotional vulnerability and feelings, but they only feel comfortable talking to a female about it because showing emotion is supposedly a female attribute. However, the very fact that they have these strong emotions and feel the need to express them is clear evidence that males are just as capable of showing emotion as females.

It's good that this guild found an outlet, but in some ways Christine seems like a crutch. Instead, I'd like to see a culture where sharing one's feelings was normalized and dialogue was valued instead of all of it going on "behind the scenes." Drama precipitates when people don't attempt to talk to one another about their problems civilly and openly and, obviously, this guild never learned to do that (hence, their breakup after Christine left).

Anyway, interesting article. I like The Escapist's explorations of gender, identity, etc. It'd be nice to see more insight and less "human interest" journalism, though, in my opinion. But, of course, still doing a great job. Thanks.

I agree with Merlynn. It's an issue, but it's really starting to seem to me like The Escapist has come up with nothing else to talk about.

Much as I liked the article, I'm going to have to agree it's starting to feel like we're beating a dead horse.

Then again, games media write about what's on gamers' minds, and until a comfortable norm is found, tricky gender issues are going to be on gamers' minds. If The Escapist feels comfortable slaughtering this goose, rather than publishing these increasingly predictable golden eggs, its philosopher-journalists could start searching for a solution....

Anyway, the subject of this article strikes me as very wise. By recognizing two facts - first, that people interact differently based on the sex of their company; and second, that most players are not mature enough to recognize that not every guild in the game is going to have the same kind of company - she is able to make things smoother for a lot of players. And if she wants to do that (evidently, at the end, she decided it was too much trouble), then more power to her.

But it doesn't escape the root of the problem: some people think that every guild in WoW is already a veritable gentleman's club, and some people think that every guild should be totally open. A third faction - I daresay the largest - exhibits extreme annoyance when these two factions come into contact with each other, producing conflict. Not to mention that members of the first two faction mistakenly accuse members of the third of being a member of the other of the first two.

Merlynn:

The thing about games like WoW is they emulate war. And war requires you be able to withstand all kinds of abuse and punishment.

... but (if you want to take the "emulate war" stance) that abuse and punishment should come from your opponents, not your own team.

None of this is new. If you read anything about the challenges that femiminsm dealt with women entering predominantly male-dominated work places, you'll see the same stories coming up. The way Christine O'Reilly is dealing with it is by having all of the strengths of being a woman (e.g. better communication skills, having people open up to her), but not being allowed to have any of the weaknesses (e.g. being subject to sexual harassment, or being the default guild mother figure and spend extra time dealing with drama). That's a way that works on an individual level, but it doesn't change anything - she leaves a top guild, only to have to reprove herself to players again willing to dismiss her or reduce her based on her gender alone.

So yeah, this is still an issue that requires attention. MMOs shouldn't require woman to put up with behaviour that would be offensive in any other setting in order for them to be involved. It shouldn't need to become a pissing contest between you and the person who is insulting you (because that really creates guild stability, doesn't it?). It just goes to show that there is still a lack of respect in some MMOs for other players, especially along gender lines.

However, the one thing about this article I have to disagree with is that O'Reilly is "winning" in a male dominated arena. She isn't. Her guild broke up, she apparently hasn't gotten into another guild or three (by here choice or not) and is now waiting for a game that isn't yet released so that she and her BF can start a guild there. That's hardly a female victory story for the ages.

As a hardcore female mmo gamer since the days of muds, mushes and moos whose ran numerous guilds and currently plays in a WOW Pvp guild with several hundred.. I notice it is less and less unlikely to have other females in the guilds these days (real ones from the sounds on Ventrilo). I have never seen a guild that didn't allow females or one that seemed to think females caused drama any more so than males. That being said, I think it is very possible for people to attract drama-- ie..encouraging calls and personal issues and going to the gm with issues for others. Regarding "male offensive" behavior.. and someone stating MMO's shouldn't require women to put up with such-- I'd rephrase that to MMO's shouldn't make anyone HAVE to put up with such--and they don't. There are ignore buttons, gquit buttons and a x key that usually works if you're bothered by such whether you're male or female.

It's interesting, needless to say, how Christine fit into her guild by using traditional female roles as her strength within it. Certainly this article explores the oft mentioend issue of "women in games" at a deeper perpective that brings out the complexities of the problem more into view, and criticisms that the topic is somehow exhausted are, I think, unfair.

It's not the topic, but rather the quality of the entry into it that merits attention (after all, high numbers of articles have been written about MMO's, and violence in videogames, and yet, by and large protests that these are "overdone subjects" don't seem to come up as often..hmm..)

Furthermore, any claim that games are the last place where we can "compete without consequence" gets, to a certain extent, to the core of the problem. Men have had wide and open spaces to act without consequence or thought of their actions not just to women, but to each other, but of course, any thought that such consequences do not actually exist is a fantasy, if the game involves other players. Any competition that draws people in will draw some emotional investment, more especially if people knit themselves into social units such as guilds, wherein the dynamics of socialization and friendship become relevent. Tyr as you might, other people's thoughts and feelings are involved. Yes, it si just a game, but so is soccer, and any number of other sports where we do not accept people acting like egregious sexists or misogynists. Quite simply, acting in this matter to other people is not a polite or mature way of behaving, and has nothing to do with "fun", or at the very least represents a limits scope of fun, the type the bully has over his victim.

Insofar as women are entering gaming, it is hoped that the boys playing there are being influenced, if ever so slowly, to expand their horizons and grow up sufficiently to react to the presence of 50% of the population with some control and maturity, a bar so high we often except it of ten year olds.

I'd like to emphasize that a on online vent and teamspeak. Women need to talk more and get their members past the whole 'she is a women' stage. But I do encourage to have 'drama' in sexist comments said by the male members in the guild. It is a bad atmosphere to be in, and should be molded into something better.
Think of a coach training some students. "you throw like a girl," would be deemed inappropriate talk, AND very bad subliminal influence to the people on the team. Research shows that this can teach domestic violence in the future of these kids/men. Domestic violence is a very much reality, and should definitely be tamed as early as the verbal level.

A guild environment is very much so as that of a team; and will be a good opportunity for these people to get themselves into gear.
Don't let this culture stay, I know several campaigns that try to fight this; atleast here in Massachusetts. Like the "Coaching boys to men" seminars, etc. I think their website was endabuse.org. (I only know of them cause they did a seminar I attended at the hospital [MGH] I volunteer at.)
An example of their coaching seminars: http://toolkit.endabuse.org/Resources/CoachingBoys.html

Also interesting that this came from escapist, if you check out Whitney Butts escapist article OMG Girlz Don't Exist on teh Intarweb!!!!1 she talks about her experience in such women based abuse. But since that whining, she has highly integrated into her guild Shadow Syndicate [(ssguild.org) now found on the Mug'thol server; Horde] where now she is its guild master and is highly respected beyond that relative to her position. The guild chat can't be dictated to prevent such verbal abuse, because we know that impossible. But it is minimized greatly, and the environment is open for people to express themselves fully without any question in masculinity/or such. (yeah I was part of that guild; but quit WoW overall; quitting WoW is great way to boost your test scores I'd emphasize).

So I am saying, it is all possible. Just strive on and get there!

I don't think it's really women that cause drama, I think it's MMO's themselves lol.

But this girl sounds amazing. I want to know more. I want to learn from her, learn how better to manage a guild. This is an excellent article :D

There is nothing particularly amazing about being a girl in an MMO that is dominantly made up of males, just as there's nothing special about girls playing sports. Guys who play MMOs or any video game who is still shocked over, "ZOMG IT'S A GURL! DROOOLLZZ" really needs to get out more often. And the girls who go, "I have boobs, a vag, and I play video games. I'm SOOO COOL!" need to get over themselves as well.

Girls in games constantly have to be on guard to not look like they're causing drama.

I completely disagree with this statement. A girl who plays an MMO is going to act just as she does in real life -- if she's a drama-monger outside of game, then she'll be one in game too. If she's serious about the game, then she's going to put in just as much effort as any male to show that she's here to win.

There's nothing different in the virtual society than there is in a real society. People will cause drama regardless of gender. There are those people out there - male and female - who will blow up over the tin