Why are all mainline campaign leaders male?

[oberon]

My 11 year old daughter wants an explanation! It never really occured to me before

There are lots of powerful female units, female leaders in multiplayer, and some in add-on campaigns, but not one in a mainline campaign.
There are female enemy and allied leaders, but you never get to play one (certainly not for most of a campaign - I may be forgetting the odd scenario with a different leader).

[Turuk]

It was nothing intentional. It is most likely the result of most, if not all, of the authors of the campaigns that made it into mainline being male. Most people tend to write from a perspective of their own gender.

You could always edit the files and make the characters female for her.

[Velensk]

I don't know what would help your daughter but most historical warleaders were male by an overwhelming majority.

[aquileia]

In Northern Rebirth, if you keep a specific unit alive, an Elvish Princess will join you and you'll also play as her in the final scenario... in addition to your male hero, that is (multiple controlled sides).

There was a discussion some time ago about diversity of major characters in mainline, IIRC back then the main hurdle was that you'd have to replace the artwork of that unit. Keep in mind that both content and art creators are volunteers - is it up to them if they change things.

[Chewan]

Smart girl, good question – given the number of UMC with female leaders (or co-leaders at least).
And an interesting answer.
So, does anyone know how many UMC campaigns are made by female authors (if any)?
And what is meant by "editing the files" ? Bad example with ambiguous implications:
Deoran from TSG would still show as male if renamed "female lieutenant Deorana" ?
And the dialogues would have to be changed as well (personal pronouns etc.), no ?

To make a start: Wouldn´t "Roar of the Woses" fit into mainline, as the missing representative of the Saurians
AND the first one with a female protagonist ?

most historical warleaders were male by an overwhelming majority

Well, by an overwhelming majority wars were started by males.
This does not justify the general lack of female leaders among all BfW races.

[zookeeper]

As Turuk said, it's probably because all the authors have been male (and presumably rather young too) so they've just defaulted to a male protagonist because that's the tired norm in this kind of setting.

I don't recall any UMC authors either that I'd know to be female, but that doesn't mean none of them are.

[SkyOne]

Ah... On Tutorial, players can choose Konrad (male) or Li'sar (female)...

But yes. Selecting the game leader (male or female) is not a bad idea on mainline campaigns IMO. (maybe, on Dead Water as Mermaid Queen?)

[Turuk]

And what is meant by "editing the files" ? Bad example with ambiguous implications:
Deoran from TSG would still show as male if renamed "female lieutenant Deorana" ?
And the dialogues would have to be changed as well (personal pronouns etc.), no ?

To make a start: Wouldn´t "Roar of the Woses" fit into mainline, as the missing representative of the Saurians
AND the first one with a female protagonist ?

most historical warleaders were male by an overwhelming majority

Well, by an overwhelming majority wars were started by males.
This does not justify the general lack of female leaders among all BfW races.

Editing the files means setting the leader to be female and yes, changing any pronouns in the dialogue or other references to the main character's gender over to female. However, another consideration is that some mainline campaigns use units that don't have a female sprite currently or custom sprites, so that is another hurdle to consider.

As far as Roar of the Woses, there are more considerations for a campaign making it into mainline besides filling a story gap and having a female lead.

Velenk's note on historical leaders was not a justification but reasoning of the bias shown by authors.

[Velensk]

It works both ways. There's nothing that says that races (or wesnoth campaigns) should have female warleaders anymore than history should (history does though the cases are few and far between just like in wesnoth).

Now if you want Wesnoth to have them it can. I don't particuarly see the need (though two of my campaigns have had female protagonists). As it is, the places where it makes the most sense for it also have the most potential for it built into them already (what gender is the only normal lvl 4 elf for example).

A comment at Zookeeper. Male protagonists for high fantasy is overly common but it's not as though many of the tropes related to female warriors in contemporary fantasy aren't just as tiring (even ignoring many of the poorly written ones).

[taptap]

My 11 year old daughter wants an explanation! It never really occured to me before

There are lots of powerful female units, female leaders in multiplayer, and some in add-on campaigns, but not one in a mainline campaign.
There are female enemy and allied leaders, but you never get to play one (certainly not for most of a campaign - I may be forgetting the odd scenario with a different leader).

Good question.

And: Why are the enemies so often female?

[Chewan]

Why are the enemies so often female?

Right, it is proven that woman are usually victims to their superior male counterparts. Due to a lower status,
their traditional role has revolved around domestic tasks, cooking, childbearing and rearing, etc.
Those that do NOT abide by the rules must be certainly enemies, villains!
What separates these villains from tragic heroes is that they lack the bravery of males, too.
So, the role of women in BfW is grounded on tiring nevertheless very important historical facts,
the bias shown by young nevertheless staunchly conservative authors,
and the yet missing sprites and portraits. Well, and the quality requirements and time it takes
for UMC making it into mainline, and, thus, setting new standards.

if you want Wesnoth to have them it can. I don't particularly see the need

Of course, there´s no particularly need for female protagonists, as well as for much else.
However, similar to other non-essential but very nice and interesting features, selecting the gender
of the game leader (as soon as conditions permit) is – referring to the remark by SkyOne – not a bad idea.

[Sapient]

The reason why it isn't there isn't because we don't want it, it's because it is waiting to be made. Personally, I think if we want a real flagship campaign for girls I think it should be written by girls and for girls, instead of some gender-swap ripoff or an attempt by some guy to envision what girl-gamers would enjoy. Until that happens, there are still some nice usermade campaigns out there.

I think I remember playing "Roar of the Woses" and I didn't finish it... I wasn't terribly impressed at the time. Maybe you could spruce it up until it reaches mainline quality.

[Telchin]

It works both ways. There's nothing that says that races (or wesnoth campaigns) should have female warleaders anymore than history should (history does though the cases are few and far between just like in wesnoth).

While it's true that armies led by women are a rare occurence in the real life, I dare say that they are more common that armies that use fireball casting wizards or fish people. Please don't take it personally, Velensk. It's just my pet peeve when people have no problem with speculative fiction having elements that don't exist in real life (elves, dragons, undead, etc.), but expect other elements (be it status of women or anything else) to work exactly as in real life.

A comment at Zookeeper. Male protagonists for high fantasy is overly common but it's not as though many of the tropes related to female warriors in contemporary fantasy aren't just as tiring (even ignoring many of the poorly written ones).

Could you enlighten me what you mean by female warriors being tiring tropes? I don't say that you're necessarily wrong, but it's not like BfW tries to make its campaign protagonists super unique (just count how many of them are orphans).

[Chewan]

a real flagship campaign for girls I think it should be written by girls and for girls

Yep, oberon´s girl should not fiddle with boys' stuff.
To be honest, I wasn´t aware of the gender specific nature of BfW-campaigns myself.
I am glad for playing a game for "real men", hopefully female UMC authors will keep themselves to themselves.

Spoiler:

"Roar of the Woses" and I didn't finish it... I wasn't terribly impressed

Did you feedback to the author to help him to achieve mainline quality?

[Velensk]

I agree that BfW campaigns don't need to be incredibly original in stories. I don't have any problem with Wesnoth protagonists being female I just don't think that there not being many is a problem that needs fixing.

As for woman warrior tropes being tiring, what have you read that uses them? My experience is that most female warriors in modern fantasy tend to come in two major varieties, one of which more commonly written by men and the other more commonly written by women.
-The one that I find men tend to write (and I'm not immune if you look at my campaigns) has women that are functionally men in how they behave and think and are only women in the story because it's cool/sexy/an attempt to be different/hides the historical character they are based on/a nice picture. I don't actually have a huge problem with this by itself (after all there are girls that do act a lot like men) but the problem is that when I continuously see it, especially when it doesn't do much for the character or story, I do get a little tired of it. There's a kind of potential there that is wasted with this approach though admittedly one that I suspect is hard for men to write.
-The one I tend to see women write is what I'm inclined to call a freedom fantasy. It's actually very much like the fantasies of men except that the particular edges and tropes it tends to take have their own feel. This kind of heroine is almost invariably from someplace that would close them in and limit their options but they find freedom and whatever else appeals to them on the edge of a sword defying everyone else's expectations of them. Part of the reason this has a different edge to it is because (at least in setting) there's a focus on defying a societies expectations whereas it's not as unacceptable for men to be heros (though you can find plenty of stories where men with one status or another face the same problem). This has a huge set of tropes that go with it many of which I find annoying. The first kind also has set of tropes that go with it but it's both smaller and in my mind less irritating.
---Part of the reason I think this one doesn't speak to me is that my experience is that most of the barriers that the author seems to want to free her audience from exist only in the heads of the audience anyway (note: I'm not talking about societal barriers here. Societal barriers may exist in the story or in real life but the author isn't really fighting those, she's working on the audience). My entire life I've been surrounded by women who don't let themselves be bullied by other women into not engaging in 'masculine' hobbies (like swordplay, role-playing [in earlier years, that perception is changing somewhat], board games, programming, military history, ect.) and the funny thing is that even though they do these things, the way and the reasons they do them tend to be different than most of the men I've seen who do the same thing. Also, because they're not lashing back against the societal pressure not to do these things they don't overplay their interest or engagement past their genuine interest. So for all that they aren't being oppressed, I still don't find many of them who'd ever want to get into ASL or any other heavy wargames, nor even play Wesnoth more than casually (Wesnoth being considerably more to their interests). Those of this type that I tend to see, don't actually match-up with the women I've met who accomplish the same kinds of things.

This isn't to say that it can't be done well or that I hate all of them it's just that the vast majority I encounter don't impress me. I have liked some, for example some Elisabeth Moon protagonists or the old Jorel of Joiry (though I'm more lenient on her as she was one of the originals that it feels like others were based on; she's still a lot better than a lot of imitators).