Are Women More Likely to Collect Pets?

Stella3 · Post by **Stella3** » December 22nd, 2014, 4:47 am

Hi guys,

I and a few other fellow women in my guild are the only serious pet collectors and another guildie mentioned sarcastically how girls love pet collecting. We all laughed it off but I wonder if there is any truth behind it? Are there more females who take pet collecting seriously or is this just a farce? What is everybody's experience?

Gendou · Post by **Gendou** » December 22nd, 2014, 5:01 am

I've been a serious, hardcore pet collector since Vanilla.
I farmed up all of the dragon whelplings back then, for example.
The pet journal was the best thing that ever happened to my inventory space.

Eventually, that collecting turned into a battling/leveling habit when Pet Battles was released.

My wife, on the other hand, is a much more casual collector.
She gets pets she likes, but she doesn't do the "gotta catch 'em all" thing like I do.
She's never gotten into pet battles the way I did - when WoD hit, her highest-level pet was like 12.
In fact, I've been doing battles on her account to get her a few pets in the 25 range so she could unlock the Menagerie.

All of the serious pet collectors in our guild are guys.
Most of the women, on the other hand, are achievement hunters or mount collectors.

Stella3 · Post by **Stella3** » December 22nd, 2014, 5:28 am

Interesting, its the other way around in my guild, the guys collect the mounts and achieves.

Saviya · Post by **Saviya** » December 22nd, 2014, 7:21 am

My hubby and I both are collectors, I wouldn't say I'm more into it as I tend to be willing to spend my gold on them a little easier (and do dailies... he hates dailies). I can't say I actually know any other serious collectors ingame though

Enigmaticclarity · Post by **Enigmaticclarity** » December 22nd, 2014, 9:08 am

Yes, women are more likely to be into pets than men. The cuteness factor of pets rubs machismo the wrong way and causes some men to ignore them, but women are far less likely to be turned off in that way.

WarcraftPets Profile: Denverrunner · Post by **Denverrunner** » December 22nd, 2014, 9:26 am

The top three collectors in my realm are men, so I don't know if this theory holds true.

Enigmaticclarity · Post by **Enigmaticclarity** » December 22nd, 2014, 9:44 am

Men are more likely to collecting pets competitively than women just as they're more likely to be competitive at anything. Also, two-thirds of players are men, so there should be more pet collectors overall that are men than women simply because more men play the game. But in terms of the original poster's question--are women more likely to collect pets than men--yes, they are. I bet the percentage of all female players who have more than 200 pets is higher than the percentage of all men who do.

WarcraftPets Profile: Rendigar · Post by **Rendigar** » December 22nd, 2014, 10:17 am

Enigmaticclarity wrote:Men are more likely to collecting pets competitively than women just as they're more likely to be competitive at anything. Also, two-thirds of players are men, so there should be more pet collectors overall that are men than women simply because more men play the game. But in terms of the original poster's question--are women more likely to collect pets than men--yes, they are. I bet the percentage of all female players who have more than 200 pets is higher than the percentage of all men who do.

I would take your bet, because I think you might be surprised at the results.

While I will agree that women are more likely to be attracted to certain pets because of their "cuteness", because men are too chicken to admit they think something is "cute", you fail to consider that a large % of pets are ugly/repulsive/gross/insert-adjective-here. I don't know anyone who thinks a cockroach is cute (though I bet there are some), not to mention spiders, slimes, grubs, infected fawns, etc, etc, etc.

Men tend to be more competative (I think it's a genetic survival trait - kill first, eat - don't kill first, be eaten), and thus by your very logic men would be more likely to collect ALL pets just to have them all (thus "winning" over everyone else).

Of the 2 men and 3 women I know personally that collect pets beyond the casual "fell in my lap from events/kills/quests", 1 of the women only collects the "cute" ones. The other man and 2 women both lag behind me in pet counts (though 1 of the women is closer than the other 2) but all of them are definitely collectors (though 1 no longer plays). Not a good sampling at all, but then I don't know many people.

P.S. Pet collecting takes work, most people I know cannot be bothered to do the work for a minigame that does nothing to advance their characters abilities.

WarcraftPets Profile: Melmo · Post by **Melmo** » December 22nd, 2014, 10:58 am

I wouldn't say men are more competitive than women. I'd say we're pretty equal--men are just more outspoken in general about their achievements in WoW (there are still so many males who think WoW is a male-only game). One of my friends is a huge collector on Stormrage and has the most mounts/titles/achieves out of anyone in her elite guild. My old realm had women as the #1, 2, & 3 spots and we were all very competitive with each other. I was #1 for a long time and I always had the highest number of unique pets but I got surpassed because the other two girls level their pets faster

As far as PvP pet battling goes, I'd bet anything there are more men who love it. I know I absolutely hate it in WoW and Pokemon both, lol.

WarcraftPets Profile: Chibimage · Post by **Chibimage** » December 22nd, 2014, 10:59 am

This thread is so in need of some hardcore education my head is spinning.

I honestly think it should be deleted and locked. It's just.. ridiculously offensive in about a thousand ways and ignorant, and just awful.

Enigmaticclarity · Post by **Enigmaticclarity** » December 22nd, 2014, 11:26 am

Melmo wrote:I wouldn't say men are more competitive than women. I'd say we're pretty equal--men are just more outspoken in general about their achievements in WoW (there are still so many males who think WoW is a male-only game).

Hopefully that'll be true one day, but for now, it isn't. Look at the competitive pasttimes where physical differences don't come into play--video games, chess, etc--and it becomes readily apparent how much more competitive men are. I hoped Danica Patrick would prove that wrong in racing, but she just hasn't been able to get to the extremes of competition men do.

WarcraftPets Profile: Rendigar · Post by **Rendigar** » December 22nd, 2014, 11:34 am

Chibimage wrote:This thread is so in need of some hardcore education my head is spinning.

I honestly think it should be deleted and locked. It's just.. ridiculously offensive in about a thousand ways and ignorant, and just awful.

Considering it has both men and women providing their opinions (which is all this will ever be, without some serious polling), all I can say is if your offended, don't participate. Nobody is doing more than expressing their honest (though oftimes misguided) opinions on how they think men and women think about the subject at hand. However, I don't want to degrade this into an argument about it, so I'll just leave it at that.

Beave · Post by **Beave** » December 22nd, 2014, 1:23 pm

I don't think so. My only observation is that women on my friend's list seem to like the cute pets for the sake of having them as a follower more than the guys. They'll emote to my pets more too. If I have a baby ape or Perky out they'll interact with them. I can't recall a guy using /hug or /pet when they see one of my pets.

Awq · Post by **Awq** » December 22nd, 2014, 1:30 pm

Chibimage wrote:This thread is so in need of some hardcore education my head is spinning.

I honestly think it should be deleted and locked. It's just.. slightly offensive, ignorant, and just awful.

Kel · Post by **Kel** » December 22nd, 2014, 1:44 pm

I'll add this -
I'm a male, and I'm pretty serious about collecting pets. Why? Because it's a part of the game that I can do on my own. I'm not really into raiding because all I have found there is a lot of hate fueled arguments over who is better, who is stupid and why you suck. None of that is why I play this game. But it has taught me to learn to be self-sufficient. I make alts to craft the gear I need. I find things I can do without others. And pets fit into that mold. And in the end, most of the pets that I'm missing are the ones that I need a raid group for. Go figure.

Edit - Oh yea, the two biggest collectors in my guild are both males (me being one of them).

Kpb321 · Post by **Kpb321** » December 22nd, 2014, 2:34 pm

I don't think anyone can have anything more than anecdotal evidence for this, including Blizzard. I can see arguments either way and some arguments that can go either way. You also need to come up with a definition of "serious" before you can even categorize collectors.

I am Male and I'm sure most people would classify me as a serious collector given the size of my collection and the fact that I wrote a guide but I'm not so sure. Obviously, I spent a lot of time on my collection and on the guide but I haven't spent much time on pets since WoD came out. I wasn't even thinking about the lvl 3 menagerie until they nurfed it to 150 and I still haven't caught all of the WoD wild pets or gotten all the easy pets that are guaranteed drops from treasures or lvl 99 and lower rares. Maybe I'm just a little burned out on pets or I'm distracted by all the new stuff in WoD or maybe I'm just not that serious of a collector and was just killing time while waiting for WoD to come out? Maybe it's a little bit of all of the above.

Jazeel · Post by **Jazeel** » December 22nd, 2014, 3:27 pm

Well i am a male, most of the pet collectors i talk to on my realm are female, the only 2 guildies i have that are into pets are female, far too small a sample to draw any conclusions from.

Graven · Post by **Graven** » December 22nd, 2014, 4:09 pm

Kel wrote:I'll add this -
I'm a male, and I'm pretty serious about collecting pets. Why? Because it's a part of the game that I can do on my own. I'm not really into raiding because all I have found there is a lot of hate fueled arguments over who is better, who is stupid and why you suck. None of that is why I play this game. But it has taught me to learn to be self-sufficient. I make alts to craft the gear I need. I find things I can do without others. And pets fit into that mold. And in the end, most of the pets that I'm missing are the ones that I need a raid group for. Go figure.

Edit - Oh yea, the two biggest collectors in my guild are both males (me being one of them).

I'm a bit like this too. I'm a bloke who collects pets, partly because it's something you can do in your own time. I had a couple of bad experiences with raiding guilds which put me off wanting to commit to one again, so content I can enjoy solo or in a casual guild is what I play for these days. I'm really not that competitive in the sense that I don't much care about having raid achievements, or prestige gear or whatever, but for some reason I really like to have those rare pets that only other collectors will appreciate.

I do love all my pets though, especially the ones with the "cute factor", and I'm aiming to eventually give every pet in my journal a name. I think this has caused some people in-game to assume I was a girl, until told otherwise.

Graven · Post by **Graven** » December 22nd, 2014, 4:27 pm

Chibimage wrote:This thread is so in need of some hardcore education my head is spinning.

I honestly think it should be deleted and locked. It's just.. ridiculously offensive in about a thousand ways and ignorant, and just awful.

Just curious, but why do you find it ridiculously offensive? I think it's interesting personally, I've wondered about the question myself.

Stella3 · Post by **Stella3** » December 22nd, 2014, 4:58 pm

Not to turn this into a debate but I dont see why this is offensive? I am not stereotyping anybody just asking a question. I am also a female so its not like I am some dude-bro making a sarcastic jab and asking something with clear intent on harassing.

Those of you offended, If you were to pose the question how could it be done so that I learn better in the future? If you say don't ask it at all well sorry I dont want to bask in ignorance and would rather ask.

Back on topic however; I do think the 'cuteness' factor is also subjective meaning I know a girl in my guild who thinks the woodland undead critters are cute like Infested Squirrel and Infected Lamb etc, and I find the moths cute.

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