Excluding females from a raiding guild?

Opioid · 06/07/07, 2:08 AM

It has come to my attention that Nihilum does (or did at at a point in time a couple months ago, I don't know of any updates that may apply) not allow females within their raid-group, citing 2 main issues: inability to tolerate abuse and potential for drama.

Its not very politically correct to say, but they may have a point. As useless as anecdotal information is, every girl in an MMO guild I've ever seen (under 30, admittedly) has, eventually, exploded when one rule or another wasn't bent for her, being on-time scheduling requirements to make the group, or whatever. Given a much harder-core guild, especially a top-level situation, I think the tension of riding the bleeding edge makes EVERYONE a little bit more uneasy, and I think gender-based tensions are one more facet to a drama bomb no one wants to deal with.

Agree or disagree, I don't think anyone can object that Nihilum's policy has gotten results in recent times, so I had a few questions:

1. Has anyone had experiences, positive or negative, to share about a guild with a highly-female-skeptical recruiting policy? Did it make raids more or less "balanced," for lack of a better term, over time?

2. Has a bleeding-edge sort of trailblazing guild in WoW ever had a significant number of females on the raiding team maintaining the same standards/dedication as the rest?

3. Even if you wholeheartedly discount that something is wrong with female raiders altogether, don't the problems present with the reactions of male raiders, for one reason or the other, given whatever prejudices they might have consciously or subconsciously, make it a reasonable policy for practicality reasons? (as opposed to having to discover whose been boiling with closeted misogyny for weeks and having it explode after a wipe one night and possibly having to call it early because some vital "role" is now unfulfilled?)

Now I know ideally female raiders are equal, capable of all the same tolerances, and so on. My question is more of a pragmatic one, can anyone attest to that being true in real situations in-game? Have there been guilds with a significant female population (meaning more than just a few along for the ride) attempting the bleeding-edge of content without it working against them as a whole in one way or another?

Xav · 06/07/07, 2:16 AM

The presence of a female in a raiding guild, or even an environment such as WoW's is just oozing with potential for drama. We have a few female main raiders in our typical 25 man lineup actually (and many of our firsts were with females), and they haven't caused problems.. however, I don't think it's going to stay that way FOREVER. And we have a few members who get caught up in the whole female thing and it detracts from their playing/raid ability at times.

Although I guess it does help that at least one of them tries as hard as possible to not be noticed. Some are just louder than others, though!

So yes, we have some, and are doing okay so far.

The supposed nihilum policy of no females makes perfect sense though, since if you want to progress at the absolute most efficient and quickest, most hardcore pace, eliminating a potential major source of setback/drama would be step one.

On a somewhat related and edited-in note, I will say.. I think the types of females that are most prone to actually cause detrimental issues are those that come as package deals in a couple. I've dealt with about 5 or 6 guildmate pairs in my time playing wow, of male/female IRL couple, who play wow together. And by far, 'they' cause more drama then the 'single' variants!

♦ Praetorian · 06/07/07, 2:18 AM

Fuck this topic, take it (back) to WoW General.