I have a lot of zombies in my collection at this point, from many different manufactures, and I have somewhat belatedly noticed a commonality that runs through almost all of them. There are hardly any women among the undead.

Out of 108 zeds in my collection, by 7 different makers, there are only 24 women, which comes out to a little over 22%. This raises several interesting questions of both a real-world and a metagame nature. Breakdowns by maker will be at the end of the article.

First, the metagame questions. If there are fewer female zombies, does this mean a disproportionate number of women are assumed to survive the zompocalypse? If so, is it due to some inherent feminine talent or drive for survival, or is it the result of still-prevalent cultural attitudes of “women and children first” like those that produced the disproportionately female group of Titanic survivors? Feminism aside, any culture wishing to survive a crisis is pretty much compelled to value the survival of its’ women and young more than it’s men from a purely biological perspective, so this idea might hold water.

To consider a much grimmer alternative, perhaps there is some x factor (forgive the pun) in female anatomy that makes them so attractive to the undead that when they are dragged down by the horde their bodies are totally consumed, or at least consumed to such an extent that not enough remains to rise as a fully-functional zombie. Perhaps when in extremis women are more successful in choosing brain-destroying methods of suicide to avoid joining the undead.

Now we move on to the RL questions. Is the gender imbalance the result of a conscious decision by artists and/or manufacturers? Perhaps the reasoning is that there is a cultural discomfort with violence by and towards women. After all, female zombies have already been the victims of horrific violence during their original death, and in their undead existence they are out to commit more horrific violence against any survivors until they are finally dispatched in equally horrific fashion by a blow or shot to the brain. I could see how that could make some people uncomfortable, and were I a miniatures company I might be reluctant to risk losing sales by putting off prospective customers.

I personally don’t think the phenomenon is that reasoned, though. I think it’s an unconscious manifestation of a couple of underlying psychological factors. The first is the female violence taboo discussed earlier. It’s quite strong, especially among men. We’re taught from an early age that “You can’t ever hit a girl,” and those kinds of childhood socializations are extremely powerful.

That transitions nicely into my second point. The community of miniatures sculptors that I’m familiar with (an admittedly unscientific sample) is overwhelmingly white and male. There are exceptions, of course, and I don’t mean to suggest for a minute that artistic talent of this sort is somehow a genetic birthright. But by and large white men are the ones sculpting the zeds, and the natural tendency of any artist (writers included) is to produce characters that look like themselves and/or their friends and acquaintances. The result? Hardly any female zombies and even fewer ethic zombies.

I don’t mean to accuse anyone involved of being a closet misogynist or racist or anything of the sort, I’m just the kind of person who unconsciously trolls for patterns in the world and tries to figure out their meaning (if any). The hazard of being this way is that it’s easy to fall into the trap of seeing patterns where none exist and then assigning underlying motivations to essentially random events.

Regardless of why it’s happened, the gender gap among the undead is an undeniable fact, and I call on the zombie makers of the world to correct this. If my pseudo-psychological rambling has any basis in fact, that would seem to me to be a pretty strong argument for getting more female zombies onto the tabletop. The core of the entire zombie genre is about confronting the breaking of taboos (cannibalism especially), so why not crank up the horror level a bit further?

For an excellent article on how any why people are prone to see patterns where none exist, check out this link to an excellent Scientific American article by Michael Shermer,

Breakdown by Manufacturer

Cold War Miniatures: 8 males, 2 females

Griffin: 9 males, 6 females

Mississinewa Miniatures: 16 males, 3 females

Mega Minis: 15 males, 5 females

Studio Miniatures: 10 males, 6 females

West Wind: 8 males, 0 females

Zombiesmith 18 males, 2 females

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