It’s time we talk about guild recruitment policies and our female players.

Unofficially we have a no girls allowed rule, but we have two girls in our raiding core so it isn’t really enforced. but I know several guilds that are more dedicated to that cause than my own. And I in no way support my guild’s stance. Then again this issue seems to me to be more of an issue with the male players than female ones. Unfortunately hardcore raiding is a young person’s game apparently (I as a 20 year old are actually one of the oldest people on the guild.) and I think that feminine voice on the ventrilo servers makes the 16 year-olds not know what to do with themselves.

Actually when asking around about this I was take aback by the amount of subtle or not too subtle sexism that ran throughout my guild. It wasn’t pretty.

At least from my experience, the myth that girl’s are bad players is just that, a myth. They are bad in the same ratios as male (that ratio being about 4000:1) and I think their minority in the game amplifies the stereotype. I really hope this starts to go away as more girls enter the game. Let’s see some more of you raiding!

edit: as I wrote this post one of our female raiders ninja-transferred… =\

1. Spinks Says:
   May 19th, 2009 at 9:46 am

   “as I wrote this post one of our female raiders ninja-transferred… =\”

   I was wondering why they stayed as I was reading

2. Tristan Says:
   May 19th, 2009 at 10:11 am

   Apparently she had something IRL come up and she sold her account… >_>

3. logtar Says:
   May 19th, 2009 at 11:18 am

   I blame this on the maturity of the players… we have mostly adult players in our guild and have 3 females that raid with us. We are casual raiders, so I guess nobody is really 1773, but our females are a great healer and two of our top 4 DPSers… in fact one of the females is the top DPS. The drama we have seen in our guild was caused by immaturity, never by females.

4. Typhoonandrew Says:
   May 19th, 2009 at 8:19 pm

   I’ve found drama has nothing to do with Gender or Age; its the person. I’ve seen 31 year old people act like 13 year olds, and vice versa. I hate drama, and get really sick of over reactions. Every now and then (and I mean once every 4-5 months) I get pissed off enough to say something blunt, but its never caused a flow on affect and I would much rather turn off my mic and swear than swear in Chat or Vent.

   Drama would be my number one point of differentiation for finding good long term players.

5. Brajana Says:
   May 20th, 2009 at 10:35 am

   I was going to say that it’s stupid to not allow girls into a guild. But then I saw that you’re one of the oldest, clocking in at 20. I still don’t really support a ‘no girls allowed’ policy, but if your guild is a bunch of teenage boys, the girls would probably be better suited somewhere else, and boys can be themselves more when there aren’t girls around to distract them.

   My guild, on the other hand, has an 18+ policy to do our best to avoid that kind of immaturity. I don’t think that everyone under 18 is completely an immature idiot, or that everyone over 18 isn’t immature, but it seems to help. And I must say, the fact that we clearly state that we are a mature guild is probably why we have about 7-10 of our 25-man raid made of women (4/5 of our guild leadership as well, including me).

6. Twisted Nether Blogcast » Blog Archive » Shared Topic Two-in-One! Guild Exclusion Policies and the CPP Says:
   May 22nd, 2009 at 3:51 pm

   [...] at The Elitists had a look at his own guild’s policy on women in the [...]

7. Atris Says:
   May 26th, 2009 at 5:59 pm

   My first reaction was “You’re kidding!”.

   My guild, Dont Panic of Alleria, has 9 raiding women out of a total of 25, including myself as Guild Leader. And I’m significantly more than twice your age. Our average raider age is late 20′s/early 30′s. We’re also an >18 guild, although we’ve made exceptions in the past. In general they’ve resulted in drama, and we’re very drama averse.

   I think you’re right that gaming skill doesn’t equate to gender. I suspect your contention that “hardcore raiding is a young person’s game apparently” is partly right, as people’s lives get busier and richer as they age and make more connections, and take on more responsibilities. It’s not so much reflexes, as simply being unwilling to give up that much of life for gaming. Our guild, while not hardcore in our own opinion, is 10 bosses into Ulduar. We raid a maximum of 12 hours a week, because we choose to value Real Life > Game.

   We also really value our women members. We’re a diverse guild and we enjoy that, too. The game wouldn’t be as rich otherwise.