They are out there, breaking through the preconceived notion of a gamer. No longer is the male, pale-faced and continuously-squint-eyed-from-the-glare-of-the-monitor stereotype sufficient as a demographic. Chicks are in your WoW, stealing your loots.
There is a story told by professors in sociology classes designed to show the underlying gender bias in our society: A father is driving with his son when he gets in a car accident. They are rushed to the emergency room and the son is taken to surgery. The surgeon comes in, looks at the patient, and says "I can't operate on him, that's my son."
How, the professor would ask the class, is that possible?
Most students say the father is performing the surgery, unhurt from the accident. Others come up with wild tales of adoption and lost families. Very rarely do any come up with the correct answer: the surgeon is the boy's mother.
Why do we bring up this distinctly non-WoW related story? Well to illustrate a point - as most people assume a surgeon is a man, so do most WoW players assume the people they are playing with are men. Although statistics say that more than 30% of the players online are women, there is still a stunned sense of incredulity when the hot Night Elf female druid is revealed to have rolled a gender correct toon. Much like we had to fight for acceptance in typically male-focused careers, women are now having to fight for equal footing in the gaming and technological areas.
