Darth Hater

I have a poll question I'd like to ask, just for kicks. :P

When you get spam in-game mail (BUY CREDITS, WEEKEND SALE) do you take the credit included with the message, or just report/delete?

I think your assumption that most of the women are casual players and that's why there's the disparity in the responses you received is faulty. Just in terms of people I have gotten to know on our server, only about 20% of them are women (which is low even for an MMO). MMOs in general get marketed to boys and this has really been no exception. But swtor goes a step further -- there are a lot of truly sexist elements built into the game that I was not expecting. Play through a few of the female story lines -- ugh, particularly the smuggler. I get so tired of them using "girl" and "woman" like it's a frickin' insult. Oh and the female smugg's flirt options in the story are things like "You should propose marriage to me." Really? I've run a lot of the story quests with other smugglers and the male characters get so much better dialogue and the insults by npcs are so much more creative (so the BS about having to double voice things? Yeah. Out the window. They had to double voice every dialogue where the women get insulted for being women vs. the male story's npc voices. Why even go there if they didn't intend it to be specifically sexist?). I guess at least I can wear full body clothes instead of having to be forced into a bikini but the clothing is skewed along gender lines in very discriminatory ways (not just against women) - guys can't wear the social 1 dress, I can't wear the social1 pants and some of the tops turn into bikini tops just on the female characters with no option for me to get the non cheesecake version? Yeah thanks EA.

I know our server lost a lot of women within the first month who cancelled in disgust at the overt sexism. I think that's a whole lot more of a factor in the gender disparity than your own equally sexist commentary that women must just be casuals and not "real" players.

To really see the difference between the story lines, it's best to be running the class quests with someone else at the same time. I didn't realize the differences early on when I was just soloing. It was only seeing the same scene play out one after the other that I realized just how different they are (while still managing to be exactly the same story). I chose fairly identical options in the dialogues as the men I was running with, just because our characters are similar, and at one point each of them (three different guys, three different areas of the story) said something to the effect of "Yeah, they're really throwing that 'woman' thing in your face, aren't they?"

For maximum dosage of the sexist BS in the female smuggler story, have the male and the female smugglers both take Corso along. He just gets worse as you go for the female where I guess he makes a pretty good "bro" for the male smuggler. The fact that he's the so-called romance option makes me want to kick his teeth in. "Possessive" and "smotheringly over protective" don't qualify as "romantic" to me. You lose affection with him every time you make a choice that involves a woman being able to think for herself or make her own decisions and it galls me to have to give him presents to make up for the affection loss or just suffer the hit on my crafting missions. I was so glad to put him away when I finally got Risha...

The female trooper is a very strong character, and the NPCs use 'sir' or your rank to address you, so it's all quite respectful. There are several 'flirt' moments (I don't know how they compare to the male trooper), and she can take care of herself (sometimes her lines sound a bit too 'aggressive' for me! But they go well with a soldier's confidence )

" On the Republic side of the Galactic frontline, Women prefer playing a Smuggler (16.67%) to a Trooper (5.56%) three to one, while men on the other hand trend towards Troopers. Perhaps it’s that they prefer a straight fight (heavily armored, no less) to all that sneaking around. "

I kinda wanted to point this out after your response. Statements like this that say "well women must enjoy sneaking around then and don't prefer a straight fight" may not "carry sexist intent" but they still are pretty blatantly sexist. Something to consider when you start thinking about why you see a greater gender gap on your site than in game. I wouldn't say I've seen anything individually that stands out here as really terrible for the most part (and I read everyday) but if you read that quote and it doesn't scream at you as being dismissive of women, maybe you need to rethink how you're looking at things _before_ you start trying to address it as a problem.

But more importantly it's entirely untrue about the classes. I play a Cybertech Saboteur Gunslinger Smuggler. Every altercation starts with an explosive followed by more explosives and topped out with double blastered gunfire and oh yeah, maybe some more explosives. Totally the opposite of all that "sneaking around" that Smugglers supposedly do *grin*

Don't be too hard on Predation. I imagine he's just trying to make a wild guess as to why girls prefer smugglers over troopers. You're a girl Aurhia, and one who plays Smuggler, maybe you can give us some ideas for why girls might prefer Smuggler? Or even just why you chose Smuggler?

Predation, two things: First, it's the smuggler who says that so... isn't your quote a little backwards to say it's the smuggler doing the sneaking? Maybe it should have been "Maybe women just prefer a straight fight to all that sneaking around." (Not really. That would still be dismissive in the opposite way, though woman as being secretive and weak and incapable of standing toe to toe is an ingrained sexist stereotype about women in our society where when you say those things about men there's assumed to be more diversity because, well, they're men.)

But really, that doesn't change in any way my statement that if you can't see how saying "Well maybe men just like a straight up fight instead of sneaking around" as an explanation of why more women don't play the same class is dismissive of women, then maybe you need to reconsider how you're looking at things before you even start to consider the "why"s of the disparity.

And see, I just want to add that this is one of the reasons I read this site for my swtor news. We're capable of discussing this friendly-like, as real people, and the comments aren't filled with the usual trolls you get whenever you point something like this out. So thank you all for that.

Well guys do tend to be aggressive in real life. In gaming, notice guys tend to be the biggest percentage of FPS players. Not a knock on girls, just a random statistic. And it's a little stereotypical, but every girl I know who plays PC games also plays The Sims. The Sims seems to have a significant percentage of women, while FPS like the Call of Duties have a large percentage of males.

I am still curious why you chose Smuggler, Aurhia. Though I see in another comment that you also have a Merc.

Me? I chose Trooper first just because I've always been a big clone/storm trooper fan(loved the Republic Commando game) and also a big Republic guy. I've been deadset on Trooper since the game was first announced. My only other character is an Imperial Agent Sniper, because I'm not a big Jedi/Sith fan and Agent looked pretty distinct and interesting, plus I wanted a character on each faction. I guess to be honest, my reasons for picking an Agent weren't as obvious to myself.

@article writer - I enjoyed the article a lot. But as Aurhia points out, unless you're a trained analyst or profiler, please stick to facts and do not try to analyze or explain them. You come out very strongly as a sexist, however unintentional it may be. As a writer/statistician, your job should be to present the data, pose questions and let your readers interpret them the way they want it. It's not within the scope of the article to explain the data at all. 

@Rogue - yeah, I felt like I needed more caffeine before I attempted to dissect why I absolutely love my gunslinger.

That is to say, if "Every altercation starts with an explosive followed by more explosives and topped out with double blastered gunfire and oh yeah, maybe some more explosives" isn't reason enough ;)

Honestly, I expect you will find that my reasons are pretty much identical to the reasons a man might pick a smuggler. Which was kind of my point. I get to be dashing (hey, women can be dashing too) and run straight into the fight full blast -- and I do it without hiding behind heavy armor either! I get the best one liners in the story (some really good writing went into the smuggler lines, even if they do sometimes break on gender lines), and the smuggler always gets the girl/boy (in every port...), not to mention I've got the fastest ship from here to Tat and I live by my own rules. I'm sure you've seen the opening cinematic. Who doesn't want to be that 'slinger? I play on an RP-PVP server, so there's an extra layer of story beyond what BW added in, and that's part of the appeal of the character. My character's an arms dealer and a slicer who runs her own company (our guild) and works on contract with whoever will pay her. I decide where I go, who I work with, and what you're going to pay me. What's not to love?

I have a trooper alt too, but even though I know it's the proper form, being called "sir" all the time is really annoying. I'm not positing that as an instance of sexism because I know that's normal military terminology (or at least, not on BW's part). Just annoying to me personally to keep getting hit with it. But there's an emphasis on conformity and sublimating the self in military stories that isn't fun for me. It is for some people, I know, just not for me. And the assumption that I was playing a healer as soon as people heard my voice on Mumble rather than, say, the tank, was just drama that I didn't feel like dealing with when I was just trying to have fun. No one (well almost no one. There was this time...) makes that mistake with a 'slinger. I do have a healer (consular though not trooper). I do love pvp healing. The automatic assumption that I must be playing a healer if people find out I'm a woman is really frustrating though because I also play tanks and dps. Nearly as frustrating as the assumption that I must be a guy when I'm on my smuggler. I don't go out of my way to point out that I'm a woman but I'm not going to hide it either and a lot of people can't handle that.

Do guys tend to be agressive? Some do. Some don't. The implication here is that "Well women as a whole just aren't aggressive." Um... no?

I would say that the lack of women in FPS has a lot more to do with the casualness that people throw around things like "rape" as though it were nothing, and the reception most women get from the other players, than anything to do with their preference for or against that kind of game in general. Even those of us who go in with both barrels blazing all the time get real tired of that kind of treatment real fast. So when it comes to things you're doing for downtime, a lot of women, myself included, just choose to go do something else. I fight twice as hard for half as much respect all day every day in my public life. I don't need to be dealing with that crap on my downtime too.

Not to mention, have you ever paid attention to the way women are shown in those games (or rather in most cases, NOT shown)? I get that all day in the media. I don't need to subject myself to it on my off hours. I do not have figures in front of me but, has anyone looked at how many women play something like Mass Effect over similar but more gender-restricted games? I would venture as a guess that there are a whole lot more women who play ME just because the women aren't all stuck in virgin/whore dichotomy land. I would also guess that if there's more women playing Sims it's because they always have control over their environment in the game, where we often don't in RL without a lot of struggle. Maybe not a conscious part of it but I can see that being a factor. That's veering into analysis though of a game I've never played.

...I think I'm starting to ramble as I try to hit all the points of your reply though so maybe I'm not actually caffeinated enough yet after all...

On the "sir" thing, there's a codex on Ord Mantell that explains it. With so many species and so many genders(not just the two male/female ones), it's easier just to use a single term for everyone rather than use 50 different words. Would you use sir or ma'am for a species that can change genders at will? Plus I imagine it's just easier for BioWare's line readings. But there is at least an in-universe justification for it.

This is a fun discussion. I'd love if DH would make an article(or someone would make a forum topic) just for this sort of things. You're pretty level-headed and well-worded in discussing playing as a girl, I'd nominate you to the task if you were a writer. 

Quote from RogueJedi86 »

On the "sir" thing, there's a codex on Ord Mantell that explains it. With so many species and so many genders(not just the two male/female ones), it's easier just to use a single term for everyone rather than use 50 different words. Would you use sir or ma'am for a species that can change genders at will? Plus I imagine it's just easier for BioWare's line readings. But there is at least an in-universe justification for it.

This is a fun discussion. I'd love if DH would make an article(or someone would make a forum topic) just for this sort of things. You're pretty level-headed and well-worded in discussing playing as a girl, I'd nominate you to the task if you were a writer. 

Yeah I know the "sir" thing is just a carry over from normal practice but it still makes me grit my teeth every time -- which was not a main reason I never got my trooper very high, but it certainly did not help matters. I could never do military service. I'd slug someone before the end of the first day. My point was just that regardless of the rationalization for it, it might be a contributing factor to the disparity. Being regarded equally shouldn't mean "pretending not to be a woman" (even though right now that's basically what you have to do to be successful in many fields as a woman).

I think I would buy that rationalization about the different races better if a) they actually showed a lot of those races in positions of authority in the game and b) you could play those races. Actually, if I could play a race that could change gender at will, I'd be all over that.

And, I am a writer (among other things), just not in the game industry. I freelance; not against taking on a few pieces on this subject if someone wanted them. But this is a seriously broad topic that really requires a whole lot more than a single forum topic or article and usually incites a lot of vitriol in the comments so it requires extra moderator consideration usually. In fact, on the official forums, we had a thread that was devoted to discussing it just as related to swtor (not even gaming in general) and it reached max post limit and got restarted several times. It was always full of flames and trolls though. Some people find it threatening to think that women might actually want to discuss being women in a traditionally male setting or that they might want to know who some of those other women are so they have someone to discuss those experiences with. Several members of that thread started a forum of their own to discuss it (which has grown to encompass other games) and I am one of the mods over there now (though RL has kept me busy so I've been absent from them a couple weeks). I won't advertise it because I haven't looked to see what the policy on that is here but I'd be glad to send anyone the link privately. Point is, it's much bigger than a single article or thread can do justice to.

But I appreciate the vote and I'm glad to see you're interested in the subject.