Why Have There Been So Few Female Survivor Winners Recently?
Now let’s talk some GAME THEORY. (No, really.)
Hello? Is this thing on?
Welcome back to my entertainment blog The Queue, which I’m resurrecting after almost two years away so that I can talk about Survivor’s 40th season.
To be honest, I don’t know if I’m going to watch Survivor after this one. There were some glaringly MASSIVE problems with the previous season (which I actually got to talk about on—brag alert—Rob Has A Podcast). But quite frankly, Survivor’s had issues for a while, going back years.
So, let’s just pretend I’m going out in a blaze of glory (and bringing some friends along with me to chat all things Survivor) and breaking down all we can dissect over the next three-ish months.
First and foremost: We’ve got to talk about the utter dearth of female winners during the previous 10 seasons. From Survivor’s 30th season through its 39th, there’ve been only been two female winners. (There’ve also only been two people of color who’ve won in that time, but we’re saving some of that discussion for a different day, though there’s an obvious intersection of gender and race that we can’t ignore.)
One of those winners, Michele Fitzgerald, won during an all-newbie season, while Sarah Lancina, who previously played on Survivor: Cagayan, won one of the show’s few all-returner seasons.
Other than that, the winners’ list is a goddamn sausage fest.
This hasn’t necessarily always been the case for Survivor. So, what happened? I dive into these shenanigans with my buds Ryan, Alexis, and Taylor.
NOTE: The following contains spoilers from the season premiere of Survivor: Winners at War. And because this season features an all-winners cast, reading about the current season essentially spoils the endings for 20 seasons of the show. So, uh, read at your own risk. I have no sympathy for you if you don’’t.
Lily: Okay, let’s get this first installment of our Survivor 40 DM chat started! Today’s topic is the show’s incredibly complex gender dynamics — and imbalances.
Much like my other chats, I’ve got a lengthy intro here to help us orient ourselves and and give us a place to begin. We’ll start with a more specific topic and then work out way outward.
Perhaps one of the most egregious examples of gender imbalances in the show is the fact that in the past nine seasons (the “thirties decade” of Survivor 31 through Survivor 39, though it’s hard to know where to put 30 timeline-wise), we’ve only had two female winners, the last of whom was Sarah Lacina all the way back in early 2017. That means we’ve had a five-season string of male winners and seven of them total in four and a half years. (And interestingly enough, both female victors technically won in summer 2015 and 2016 before Trump was elected president, I’m just saying.)
We’ve seen an imbalance when it comes to the gender of winners at other points in the show’s history, too. From seasons 11 to 29, there were eight female winners and 12 male winners, a widening gap but not as prominent, especially if you break them down by their respective five-year chunks (each had six male winners and four female winners). The first 10 seasons of Survivor have an even split gender-wise.
This begs the central question: Why are we seeing this huge gender divide amongst winners now?
I’m putting my sociology degree to good use and getting my feminist theory thinking cap on, and here’s what I’ve got: “Advantage-geddon,” i.e. the fact that the game now has 347 twists and advantages in play at any given time, does a disservice to female players, making it harder for them to get to the end of the game and then get taken seriously. Because we’re seeing a bigger pattern and not just problems with individuals, this is about larger societal dynamics and norms and not necessarily issues with one-off players.
The way Survivor plays advantages tends to favor players with more “masculine” playing styles — like leaving during daring times to “hunt” for those advantages and constantly blindsiding and betraying those in their alliances using advantages. Women are penalized more than men when they try to embody those qualities because they’re acting “out of character.” And yet at the same time, if women don’t show enough advantage prowess (which is seen as a major part of strategy and winner “worthiness” nowadays), they’re often labeled as “riding coattails,” also making it difficult to win. Lastly, the “social game,” once seen as at least a legitimate avenue to get to the end and pull out the W, always had more “feminine” traits associated with it — compassion, empathy, and intuition—and just isn’t valued as much today when crowning a victor.
We see this double bind in our society all the time — in our workplaces, in our politics, and elsewhere. Women are playing in a world skewed for men, and they’re told to be bold, but not too bold so as to rock the boat. They’re told that their “womanly intuition” or whatever is important, but not important enough to move up. We see these dynamics play out on Survivor constantly.
Think about it: Before production unleashed an asinine number of twists and advantages, how often did we historically hear that social prowess was a key component of female winners’ games? Look at so many of the woman who won. Ryan’s queen Michele Fitzgerald staked everything on her social game. Everyone liked Danni Boatwright enough to keep her around when there was no reason to, and she was able to juxtapose her upbeat nature and solid relationships to take down season villain Stephanie at the end. Natalie White’s argument when she beat Russell Hantz was that he had zero social game, whereas she was socially gifted and actually helped orchestrate a couple of key moves thanks to her relationships with members of the opposing alliance that allowed her outnumbered alliance to get to the end.
Okay, that was A Lot™. Before we really dive into this season in particular, let’s start with the question of why we’re seeing fewer female winners nowadays in general. Anyone else want to jump in?
Alexis: If you look at this from a statistical point of view, the gender ratio of people who make it to late-merge is fairly balanced, so I’m more inclined to zero in on what’s going on in the final three. I think women have a harder task of owning their games (and being rewarded for them) than their male counterparts, and a lot of that has to do with what you’ve already mentioned (masculine play styles are a lot flashier and more easily spotted, etc.). Even if they make similar moves, men get more credit for them (and receive more votes, as long as their FTC performance isn’t trash).
Taylor: Oooooo yes 100%.
Ryan: First, great opening, and if you’re still with us, I’d like to pitch in my two cents — “Advantage-geddon” is a large part of why women are constantly at a disadvantage in the game, and this can be seen as far back as Seasons 12–15 when the Hidden Immunity Idol was first introduced. As you stated, Lily, advantages inherently favor more masculine gameplay. Be bold, take risks, make mistakes, it’s ok, you’ll be celebrated because you did something…unless you’re a woman. Then the more critical eye is placed on a female player: why would they play so aggressive, why did they not think through their options, why are they NOT playing aggressive? The list is endless of the criticisms women have received playing this game that men have been celebrated for, and that has a lot to do with how a) women are portrayed in the edit and b) how women are generally perceived in society.
Lily: I know Ryan’s chomping at the bit to talk Michele v Aubry and there’s a reason we’re waiting to have that discussion on a different day haha.
But to your point about women not being celebrated for playing the same moves men have, I know a lot of fans were upset about Chrissy Hofbeck not winning HvHvH.
Taylor: You guys I am rewatching that season RIGHT THIS SECOND.
Alexis: Chrissy was my first thought as well, especially since she did so well at challenges (which used to be rewarded by juries — I think this has lessoned since advantages have taken over).
Taylor: And I cannot agree more. Women, like Chrissy in that season, also do SO much emotional management work that helps their alliances move forward. And it very rarely is appreciated or seen by a jury.
And that’s super frustrating.
Lily: The emotional management aspect is an excellent one. And I think of how much of that work doesn’t end up in the edit because it’s not interesting or makes a winner (typically male) look bad.
Alexis: I have seen articles (podcasts?) discussing the edit female winners get: usually it’s more about “why he lost” rather than “why she won.”
Lily: OH DAMN.
Alexis: Just thinking of it: Malcolm to Denise, Coach for Sophie, Russell for Sandra and Natalie W.
Lily: And interestingly, both Denise and Sophie were severely underestimated going into this WAW season as one-time winners, partially because of that.
Alexis: Kim seems to be a huge exception in a lot of discussions on edit — she and Sarah are the only two female winners to get the highest number of confessionals in their respective seasons.
Ryan: This is a common editing style, and I’m not sure what the general knowledge of this is, but I believe most, if not all, of the editors are men. So editing from a man’s point of view is easier, and probably the default for everyone in the editing bay.
Alexis: Exaaaaactly! The edit has a huge influence in the show and how it's perceived AND how it's played (such as what the jury "should" reward). It's part of a self-perpetuating cycle.
Ryan: Which is just another issue of the gender imbalance the show suffers from.
Lily: So it’s easier to dude editors to be like, “Ugh, sucks this guy lost” than “damn, this woman fucking OWNED.”
It also goes to show HOW MUCH SHIT a winner like Kim Spradlin had to do to get the edit she did.
Quintessential “woman having to be 87 times as good to get the same level of recognition as a man” thing.
Ryan: Oh 100%, for a player like Kim to get such a dominating edit was amazing, especially with Troyzan getting such a hero, underdog edit that season.
Taylor: I’m not as well-versed on the diversity of the Survivor staff, but I also wonder about who’s in the room when decisions are being made about how advantages should be found/function.
Because those also, as Lily said at the start of this chat, really do tend to skew toward a specific style of play. And I have to imagine that there’s SO much room for creativity there, and a way to approach it that’s much more inclusive/interesting to watch.
Lily: Interesting. And camera folks might argue it’s more “interesting” for the show to watch someone like Tony sprint around everybody than watch Natalie just give Sandra an idol.
Ryan: I don’t have the show’s IMDB page right in front of me, but I would bet a lot of money that it’s mostly a male-dominated workforce.
Alexis: I uhhhh might have a list of surprising stats on this thing too. (I can link to the sources if needed!) Only 33% of post-merge confessionals in HvV went to women, despite the final three including both SANDRA and PARVATI. Since Micronesia, (I believe) only One World has had more female confessionals than male. And if you add all the confessionals made by women in all of South Pacific, you still don’t get as many as Russell Hantz in Samoa.
Taylor: LORD. that last one. oof.
Lily: ALEXIS COMING IN CLUTCH TODAY. This is fucking painful.
Ryan: Oooooh, that’s a not-so fun statistic.
Alexis: (I’m sorry/you’re welcome haha.)
Lily: Also worth pointing out that during “captain seasons” (i.e. a few returning players amongst a bunch of newbies) we’ve had way more men than women come back. Peridiam has a YouTube video on this and I can’t remember the stats for the life of me.
Ryan: I can add on to that as well. There have been 119 Idols found in the game, 89 of those have been by men. But interestingly enough, of the 21 advantages like vote steals, Legacy Advantage, Idol Nullifiers, there have been a more even split with 10 Men and 11 Women “finding” the advantage.
Lily: Ohhhhhh. So why do we think that is?
Alexis: Okay that’s FASCINATING. Is it because idols are typically hidden differently than advantages?
Lily: Could it be partially that other advantages that aren’t the HII have other means of being “found”? For instance, they’re often BEQUEATHED (bequothed/bequithered) to people by other players.
Ryan: When looking at the advantages, most, if not all, are on twist-heavy seasons. For example, Island of the Idols, it's a random draw for who goes, so it's a more even split of gender distributions. Or when a Legacy Advantage is hidden at a marooning, everyone is there. I actually have some Bequeathed stats as well, 3 to men, 2 to women.
Lily: Y’all came with the hot number goss today.
Ryan: That doesn’t include idols however, so that could be vastly different.
Alexis: That makes a lot of sense. I was trying to think back and couldn’t remember the last time a legacy list was shoved in a tree.
Ryan: You don’t shove all your legacy lists in a tree? I must be doing it wrong.
Alexis: Nah, I only go for the stuff that’s hanging on a tree on a well-trodden path lol.
Taylor: Ghost Island also ended up being a pretty even split.
Lily: Admittedly, I remember zero about Ghost Island haha.
Taylor: Women went 5 times, men went 6 times. Though men won advantages 2x as much as women (4 times vs. 2).
Ryan: I believe the power imbalance is realized when idols and advantages are mixed in. Idols hold much more power, and can even negate an advantage like a vote steal or extra vote.
Lily: So is there anything else that separates the 30s from the other 30-ish seasons of the show in terms of why men are winning more often, aside from advantages?
Alexis: Hannah Shapiro had a really good point on gender dynamics (especially regarding the different ways men and women are perceived by juries) in a Wigler interview. That double-standard that’s oh so familiar: if a woman makes a move, she’s a flipper. If a guy makes a move, he’s a game player. If a guy stays loyal, he’s loyal. If a woman stays loyal, she’s a goat.
Taylor: Definitely the fire-making twist. A man has won every fire-making twist thus far. Additionally, the only person to be “taken” to the finals and win was Tommy Sheehan, a man who was edited to have “strong social connections.”
Lily: Hot take: Tommy Sheehan had the most obvious winner’s edit from day one since Tom Westman.
Alexis: That’s absolutely true about fire. The “goat” spot has been sewn into the fabric of the game in a much more blatant way than ever before.
Ryan: A probably colder take: Tommy and Michele played very similar games, but only one is controversial. Yes, my Michele Fitzgerald standom has finally arrived.
Lily: I’d expect nothing less from a Michele stan, but I’ve got to agree with that.
I want to make sure we have time to talk about this current season, but it seems like we’re in some agreement: since We Live In A Society™, women suffer a double-bind when winner worthiness is heavily weighted towards “masculine” attributes and styles of game play and production when they’re done by men. The advantage-heavy era doesn’t help things.
Alexis: I feel like a lot of people recognized Tommy’s win as a celebration of “old school play styles can still work!” whereas Michele’s wasn’t recognized as such at the time (from what I can recall)
Lily: I’m bringing multiple mugs to the Michele Fitzgerald discussion, because that tea is going to be piping hot and aplenty.
Ryan: Twas the rare “why this woman lost” over “why this woman won” edit conundrum. But more for that on a later discussion.
Taylor: And Tommy’s got framed as “calm, calculated, well-reasoned” whereas Michele got framed as “boring, lazy, unworthy.”
Lily: Before we move onto this season, somebody please tag Michele when I publish this DM chat.
Okay, now I want to dive into Winners at War. The current all-winners season of Survivor is particularly interesting. Given that the two first boots were women, that means the probability of a man winning this season went up. At the same time, there’ve only been four all-returner seasons in Survivor history before this one, and three out of four of those were won by women, including the most recent and advantage-heavy one. While the sample size is small, all-returner seasons tend to reward under-the-radar players, something that plays into the strengths of women in the midst of this fast-paced and advantage-rich iteration of the game. Even more fascinating, all four winners of those all-returner seasons are back this season (Amber, Sandra, Jeremy, and Sarah).
I think the fire tokens schtick this season is goofy as hell (sounds like some shit you’d win at Chuck E. Cheese), but I do like that it adds a more social element (and less physical one) around advantages. I mean, the first hidden immunity idol of the season went from one female player to another, and the player who was BEQUEATHED (loooooord) said idol was Sandra, a woman who at times has shown no fucking interest in running around a forest looking for one. I LOVE that.
Ryan: Can I just say, the Season 40 premiere was a magical experience. To see 20 of the greatest players on one beach, all vying for the best winner of all time… *chef’s kiss*
Taylor: I didn’t think anything could top how I felt watching HvV the first time. And then that happened.
Alexis: I might’ve cried. Several times.
Lily: IT IS MY SUPER BOWL. Yul Kwon making the poker alliance A Thing™ was my Beyonce halftime show.
Ryan: Take my excitement for Second Chances and just amp that up times 2 MILLION because everything I love about this show was experienced in those two hours, which includes my disappointment on our first two boots. (It should be noted I will be sad for a majority of the boots this season)
Alexis: I think the theme (excuse?) of these first two boots was “dangerous connections.” The paranoia and fear was off the charts this season. Perhaps more than any season prior, people stuck with who they could relate to. Even the smallest ties offered lifelines (Danni and Boston Rob are both from “old school”) or threats (poker people). Sadly, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that unconscious bias played its old tune: despite having seen her season (and “knowing her” at least a little from having watched it — she’s loyal as hell), the first tribe sent a woman of color packing.
Ryan: TWINNIE YOU FOOL.
Alexis: What’s interesting to me is, why Natalie over Jeremy? She’s just as strong in challenges (more so? idk, girl is fierce), and he’s got WAY more connections than she does.
Lily: Quite a few people tweeted about the fact that two women went home because of their connections to men and wheeeww I love woke Survivor twitter.
Jeremy is a meat shield for like 12 people. Interesting that all the dudes are meat shields and yet you’ve got people like Parvati and Sandra out there.
Ryan: Yes, to both of these statements. I’ve seen several explanations on why Jeremy was picked to stay over Natalie, and I think it boils down to pre-game relationships. Jeremy was at that poker game. Jeremy has connections with a lot of these people. Which makes me ask, why keep him in when he’s “the bigger threat?” Lily said it…he’s a meat shield.
Alexis: The Amber vote is interesting because Yul cited choosing her over Tyson because of challenge prowess — and “keep the tribe strong” was what Natalie was preaching at her tribal council.
I think we all heard the death knell when we saw that she’d be on the season with Boston Rob — but it still hurts to see her go and him stay completely safe.
Lily: I’m also not one to be like “it was a specific person’s fault,” but it sounded like Amber just…wasn’t really playing the game? Hard to make the case for someone who doesn’t have a handle with what’s going on. Ironically, she’ll probably be even more lethal on EOE as far as Rob’s game is concerned.
I wish we’d gotten to see more of Amber making alliances and having conversations, because they just sort of pretended she chatted with Tyson and Kim and that was it.
Ryan: Amber was the easy vote. I think the “keep the tribe strong” mentality is inherently code for “vote out the women who we think are weak.” But in modern-day Survivor, brute strength isn’t everything. You saw how a ring toss decided the second immunity.
Alexis: Can I just add in here that Sandra freakin HUSTLED to keep that target moving? Whew.
Lily: Let’s also talking about the irony of Jeremy putting his “manliness” aside and doing the two-handed ring toss.
Alexis: Hahaha.
Lily: Masculinity so fragile that the red tribe lost immunity trying to look cool throwing rings at a bunch of pegs.
Ryan: But I agree with you Lily, was Amber playing the game at the same pace as everyone else? I don’t think so. And though it was Yul who painted the target on the Poker Alliance™, it was Sandra who decided that Amber needed to go a la her Vengeance confessionals.
Taylor: I think Amber was a little shellshocked — or at least that's how it seemed to me. And it's not uncommon for the first few days to be especially tough. We've seen many contestants over the years hit that rough patch but pull through (Dawn, for example). I am confident she would have gotten oriented if she had had little more time. But she just didn't have a shot. Especially with a vindictive Sandra working against her.
Alexis: The stats of who goes home pre-merge very heavily leans female — and Ryan hit the BS reasoning on the head (they’re weak, let’s vote them out). Since the ratio evens out late-merge, I think it’s safe to assume the early-merge boots lean male, but for a totally different reason (they’re threats, they’re too strong). It’s like a coded language that puts a fat, ugly mirror up to our current societal understandings of gender.
Lily: Sandra’s misogyny this season (i.e. “I’m taking out all of the women”) is a whoooooole other thing too.
Alexis: I think Boston Rob didn’t do Amber any favors, either, by telling her pre-game not to trust Sandra. Why pit them against each other so early? I have to wonder if she didn’t put Sandra’s name out there just from that advice.
Taylor: And of course it’s infuriating that Amber goes home for a mistake that ROB made by not telling Sandra that he would be coming on the show. Like….Amber should not have to pay that price. If he had played that better, Amber and Sandra could have worked together in a different world maybe.
Lily: SIGH. I AM SAD.
Ryan: Ugh, so many likes to all of this. Amber was a player I was really excited to see play again, but I guess deep down I always knew it was a pipe dream if her and Rob would be there together. Amber, if given the time, had potential to really make strides in this game, but unfortunately her fate (and her edit) was tied solely to Rob. Much like her All-Stars game, many will credit Rob for the outcome, but I believe her ousting here is to his credit, whilst her win was, in an underrated way, to her own credit.
Lily: So, do we think a woman can/will win this season? Or rather, what will that hypothetical female winner have to do?
Alexis: Honestly, a woman’s best bet is sitting next to other women at final tribal council — especially since the guys this season already have FTC experience and won’t likely mess it up.
Everyone’s a target, so I can see the same effect happening now that happened on the first Edge of Extinction season: once you make a move, you’re a target. Boom. Next person makes a move, they’re a target. Boom. I suspect we might have a Tommy-type player sitting pretty at the end.
Lily: I think the fact that the jury could potentially be gigantic (if we’re playing by original EOE rules) could also REALLY matter even more than a typical Survivor jury.
Alexis: I somehow don’t see this season of winners rewarding someone who was voted out? Especially if so few of them raised their hand in that tribal council in favor of EoE.
Lily: I don’t either.
Taylor: Agreed. But I do wonder how much more political EoE will be this year, especially considering the outcome of last time.
Alexis: Super true, especially with Fire Tokens.
Taylor: Now that folks know that COULD really happen….is the strategy/impact of gameplay out there gonna change in a big way?
Ryan: Whewwww, a woman Sole Survivor… in this economy? I really hope we get to see it. I’d hate to see six straight men win in a row. But I think the women have, as always, a much harder path to forge. They have to be cunning, smart, social, and still remain likable. It harkens back to what Kass McQuillen once said, “If a man played the game I played, he’d be celebrated as a hero.” With the potential of such a huge jury, I find it hard to convince many of these egotistical men that a woman is the best representative of the season.
Lily: That’s the damn truth. Any last things to add about women in Survivor?
Alexis: I hope that the age of this cast helps, at least. Parents tend to reward parents, so there might not be as much of a “mom curse” as usual — that helps a lot of older women who usually have an additional hurdle to clear.
(Then again, it may hurt the likes of Sophie and Michele, who don’t have kids!)
Ryan: Women in Survivor — often underrated, forever stealing my heart. ❤
(To the uninitiated readers, I am in fact a homosexual male, but I didn’t think that needed to be explained.)
Alexis: I know we say a woman will win this season a lot, but at this point… a woman *must* win this season.
(please lord, I mean jeff.)
Lily: I pray for Denise’s new cool haircut to beat the shit out of EVERYBODY.
Alexis: amen!!!
Taylor: preeeeeeach.
Ryan: Denise’s power cut should win the season, or at the very least the Sia money.
