So this piece of sexist drek has been making the rounds and recently it landed in /r/gaming on Reddit.

People, this sort of garbage is not helping.

The gamer in me immediately revolts against this sort of display–and I’d like to think that its untrue–but then I also wonder what the statistics are. Is there a perception that the male-dominated gaming scene has produced that girls primarily play healers? Or that the boys only seek out their female friends to fill that role?

I’d love to see some sort of real statistics or a study that gives an idea of how girls approach MMO gaming and roles in the Holy Trinity of tank/heals/DPS. I’m sure there’s something out there. It doesn’t seem like there needs to be anything inherently “feminine” or gender essentialist about healing, but I could be wrong about the presence of sexist role-engineering at large in the gaming community.