There has been a great deal of discussion lately about feminism in WoW and the prevelant sexism and prejudice, which then shifted onto the Men. About all that was come up with in the ongoing discussion was the fact that the human male avatars in WoW seem a tad unrealistic, (as in they are all muscly and their head is smaller than their neck and who ever heard of a muscle-bound mage or priest?). At the end of the day though I find that a discussion on why there is sexism in WoW is like having a discussion on why there happen to be fish in the sea.
I am going to try and cast my mind back to when I was in high school. This is a long cast-back by the way. I am now going to attempt to imagine my group of male friends and peers at the time. So far so good. Now I am going to try and imagine what it would have been like if we had had access to WoW and a social communication network with actual females where they didn’t know who we were and we could say whatever we liked without fear of repercussion …
It wouldn’t have been pretty, and there would have been a lot of gossiping and joking in the school-yard the following day. I also fail to see how we would have got any homework done at all. The point is that this game is full of teenage boys with no social repercussions for their in-game behavior. What is there to work out here? It’s going to be a free for all. It is a free for all. This doesn’t excuse it, but you are trying to swim against the tide if you think that you are going to change this.
There is one interesting point here though. When I was at school, video-games, (as well as RPG games like Dungeons & Dragons), were this young adolescent male’s only escape from the horrible realisation that I was a social leper and that I sucked around girls. Looking back, I don’t even think that I would have wanted girls to be included in this activity. It was the only place where I could really relax and be myself without having to worry about whether or not I was saying or doing the wrong thing.
As far as looking in-game for healthy representations of maleness or femaleness, I really don’t know what to say. If you’re looking for this sort of stuff in your life in a fantasy role-playing game then you’re pretty fucking deluded. I mean, have you ever watched Conan the Barbarian? This is what it’s all based on. The caveman dragging the female back to his cave by her hair. This is escapism, pure and simple. The fact that it is so far from reality should indicate that it is not in any way a representation of reality, nor is it meant to be. It is what a fantasy video game has always been as well as the whole fantasy genre; big guys with swords killing each other at an alarming rate with semi-naked females scattered around for your viewing pleasure. That is the demographic, right there. If you are a girl, and you choose to play in it, then great. I’m very happy for you and I hope you have fun. But don’t start crowing about femisnism and sexism and any other ism that gets your knickers in a knot. When I was at school I was openly made fun of by the girls for playing these games. Now twenty years later girls are getting worked up about the fact that those same games don’t have enough female representation in them? Give me a fucking break.
August 26, 2010 at 10:01 am
Few nights ago i was on a stroll with my girlfriend when i suddenly noticed two skinny girls in mini skirts holding on to them tightly in fear they will show something that should not be shown, in that position they were forced to walk with really tiny steps which really looked pathetic. It’s not the male population who started with showing bellies, bold cleavages, hot pants and whatnot. If you’re female in wow, get mature guild with people that overgrown such greasy jokes. Problem is that mature guilds are usually successful ones and you have to be really good player to get into them. Knowing females I can say that WoW for them is way of relaxation and fun (healthy point of view and i absolutely agree with it), but for most of good and hard core guilds WoW is shitload of pressure long time focus and sometimes includes yelling at members that failed. And ladies you have to agree that high percentage of you don’t want to experience that shit same as you don’t want to hear shovinistic jokes. Rest of community is mostly drooling wankers and creepy geeks, here and there can be found decent player but they are rare. Lost the point but you’ll figure it out;)
August 26, 2010 at 10:11 am
Just from the fact that female avatars in game can be just as powerful as their male counterparts, I believe WoW has already enough feminism inside.
There’s no game racial ability that forces the female of one race to have less strenght or to automatically learn cooking and tailoring at level 1.
Sarcasm aside, video-games are usually made by male developers for the male population simply because the male brain is more likely to be stimulated by its abstract setting [gotta give you a reference on that].
It’s just like porn… why is porn aimed towards the satisfaction of the male… well… because its aimed at males in the first place.
August 26, 2010 at 10:21 am
In the early days womens armour consisted of a heavily armoured bikini and I can remember thinking that does not make sense.
However the sad fact is that it still does not make sense. Sigh!
August 26, 2010 at 10:34 am
I liked your post Adam, but I do take issue with your demographic. Fact is that the average player is not a teenage boy – he’s in his late twenties, by which time you would have hoped he’d have had sex a few times, maybe had a girlfriend, and maybe learned that girls are not for hitting over the head and dragging back to your lair (well, not *always*). You would hope that the average player will be able to interact with women in a mature way.
If there are 11 million WoW players, then there are nearly 2 million women playing the game. That’s more than the entire playerbase of any (?) other MMO. Seems a shame if they are only there as uninvited guests.
August 26, 2010 at 10:34 am
It sounds to me as if you’re clinging to something. “Don’t touch my world”.
I agree that the genre is old and that you don’t just walk in and demand it to change entirely overnight. I’m kind of pragmatic. I like fantasy after all and the way I handle it is that I identify with the male heroes and look in another direction, not pondering too much over the stupid armory they give the female chars. Because if I thuoght about it all the time, I would lost the enjoyment.
However! I don’t think this is completely set in stone. All genres take influence of their time. Time has changed since Conan was written. We have a different view on skin color and racism is frowned upon. And we have a different view on men and women, where people are allowed to be who they are and aren’t locked into cages by stereotypes. Why would it be so wrong if the fantasy games took some impression from this?
Why is it so important to you that it remains a pueril boys club? I think the genre WILL change either you like it or not. But it will take very, very long time and it won’t happen because of our everso thoughtful blog posts. It’s more about the change in society and the preferences of women. We’re breaking into gaming. and that will make a difference.
But there probably always will be enclaves where you can hide with other cavemen who want it to be the way it used to be. However the mainstream will change. Ever so slowly, but I think it will. Because I’m an optimist.
August 26, 2010 at 10:54 am
Hey larisa,
The fact of the matter is that this is the high fantasy genre. And there have always been women who played in it. Our old Dungoens and Dragons game that ran for almost 12 years saw quite a few female players join in. There was never even a hint of discussion about feminism or sexism. Everyone understood that this is the fantasy genre. It is a fantasy. You live in another time, in another world. So attempting to make it live up to real world standards misses the entire point.
If you play these types of games then you came in with your eyes wide open. If someone says that they didn’t realise that this is how it was then they’re either a blind fool or a liar. But attempting to then change the genre is like buying an apartment on top of an already existing bar and then lobbying for the bar to be shut down because it’s too noisy.
These worlds are based on a combination of fantasy magic land and medieval Europe around the 10th century. Attempting to throw femisnism into the mix is just ridiculous.
August 26, 2010 at 11:38 am
Tbh WoW is NOT a pure high fantasy game. It’s a mixture of everything. Which sometimes has annoyed me a little – what ARE those guns doing side by side with the swords? However I’ve come to accept it and even learned to love it.
The fantasy genre isn’t really exactly set in stone once for all and the boundaries are blurry. I can’t see what the problem is really to have a game where the chars are wearing swords and wands and magical garments, but where the faction leaders as often are women as men. Would it suddenly stop being “fantasy” because of that?
A genre can evolve over time, depending on what the audience wants.
But I guess we’re not going anywhere with this, are we? Somtimes you just have to agree that you disagree.
August 26, 2010 at 12:43 pm
Okay, if you really want to get realistic then lets comapre the number of female politicians and leaders in todays society and compare it to the male number.
20%
http://www.businessweek.com/careers/workingparents/blog/archives/2008/10/women_in_leadership_the_20_rule.html
That’s just one of many many links I found.
Humans = Male
Gnomes = Male
Dwarves = Male
Night Elves = Femal
Dranei = Male
That’s 20%
Orcs = Male
Tauren = Male
Undead = Female
Trolls = Male
Blood Elves = Male
Again, 20%. I realize that as a female you obviously want more female role models to look up to and represent your interests. But it’s not yet time for this. men and women will ALWAYS be fundamentally different when it comes to our personalities and goals.
Take my work place for example. I’m in the military and we’re basically screaming for women because we’re not hitting our quota in my trade(Electrical technician) So any woman that shows up is pushed through the training program(Even if she fails the tests) but we STILL are very much under represented in this trade. Why? because men are more likely to be interested in this type of work.
Same goes with politics. Most women aren’t interested in those types of jobs like men are. So it’s not a matter of sexist behavior thats holding women into that 20% field. Affirmative action has put a stop to that kind of crap.
Society will change and evolve someday, but not today and not through a videogame fantasy world. Games change and reflect the real world. The real world doesn’t change to reflect the games.
August 26, 2010 at 1:02 pm
Sure, the world has a greater impact on the video games than the video games have on the world. However – I really can’t see the problem. What’s so bad about giving women more strong, powerful roles in WoW?
Evolution doesn’t happen overnight. It happens slowly and consists of many small steps. Modernising the stereotypes in WoW is a small thing, yes. But keeping it like it is because it’s how it “always has been” is just a bad excuse.
I’m a strong supporter of the saying that it’s better to lit a candle than to ban the darkness.
About what’s holding women back from the top positions, it’s more complicated than that they don’t want them. They’ve been TAUGHT to not want them from society. But that takes us to a discussion that is quite far from WoW. So I’ll stop there.
August 26, 2010 at 1:16 pm
I agree with everything that you just said. I have no problem with faction leaders being female, in fact it is a non issue for me. But when people start complaining that a statue in Dalaran doesn’t have a female representation, or a Horde leader calls another faction leader a bitch which is “demeaning”,(when he should actually be trying to eat her face off), then things are getting stupid. And when people start saying that NPC’s aren’t good enough role-models, well, then I just want to punch them in the face.
August 26, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Snieh
It’s not just about the number of leaders, it’s about the type of leaders that there are and their role in the story.
The main female characters are all either passive, weak or subversive/underhand in some way and it gets annoying after a while. It isn’t difficult to make strong female characters, but the developers don’t seem to be interested in doing so.
As for society changing, I would argue that society (while not perfect) is a hell of a lot better than the society portrayed in games and films. If games and films portrayed interactions between men and women as they are in the real world rather than in a teenage boy’s wet dream then they would be a lot better for it.
It’s games such as warcraft where gender roles are stuck in the 1950s (or even the 1850s).
August 26, 2010 at 2:53 pm
Well, if you only want people to write in more powerful female role models then I think you’re not in the right place for it. When it comes to the creation of art or stories it all comes down to the writes preference.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_A._Knaak
This man is the writer of the Warcraft novels and a huge source of the Warcraft lore. Being a male he write males into the more dominant roles. Which doesn’t surprise me, I would do the same thing. I’m sure if a woman wrote it there would be women inthe more dominant roles.
It’s basically all a matter of marketing. If you wanted to make money, what would you do? would you design your product to appeal to a small democratic or a large one? Obviously the large one since you want money. Sadly, males like me are the dominant users when it comes to this type of entertainment. So they market to us. It’s not being sexist, it’s business.
Maybe you should be convincing your girlfriends that videogame culture is as fun and entertaining as I think it is, to bring in more women. So more women would be on the writing teams and development teams.
What I really want to know is why everyone insits on being in strong powerful roles? I think men are already too agressive and want to be in the powerful role and I think women are the perfect counter balance to that. I also think women are too mentally agressive and I think men are the perfect counter balance to that as well.
Yin and Yang. Without both everything would just goto shit.
August 26, 2010 at 3:46 pm
“Sadly, males like me are the dominant users when it comes to this type of entertainment. So they market to us. It’s not being sexist, it’s business.
Maybe you should be convincing your girlfriends that videogame culture is as fun and entertaining as I think it is, to bring in more women”
This is a treacherously circular argument though.
Games are allegedly designed this way because men are the majority of the subscribers, but perhaps it’s the case that men make up the majority of the subscribers because the design of the game inherently attracts men with positive, powerful, leader-type role models and inherenly puts a lot of women off with weak, passive, or insignificant role models.
As you said before, the writer of the stories places men in dominant roles because he’s male; turn that idea around and maybe you can see why a female player might want to be able to imagine herself into a powerful position within the setting.
August 28, 2010 at 3:25 am
The thing is, even back when he was writing, Howard was breaking out of the stereotypes of his time, where women only existed to be ravished by lantern-jawed heroes. Many of his stories boast strong women, be they warriors like Valeria, or leaders like Belit, Yasmina or Tascela. The idea of Conan (Howard’s Conan at least, I can’t speak for the dreck published by Tor in the ’80s) being nothing more than Puerile Adolescent Wish Fulfillment is based on a cursory glance at most, and willful misinterpretation at best.
That’s not to say there isn’t an element there: Howard did write cheesecake into the stories, mostly because that’s what the audience wanted at the time and Howard was a practical man. But even back in the 1930s, Howard was making a statement for women to be included in the fantasy genre in a capacity beyond helpless damsels being dragged into caves and set to cooking the mammoth steaks. The first Sword-and-Sorcery heroine, Jirel of Joiry, has a predecessor in Howard’s Red Sonya, who was far from the chainmail-bikini figure she is today.
August 26, 2010 at 3:01 pm
I know, right?
I mean fuck those bitches. If they wanted to hang out with me, they should have fucked me in high school like I wanted them to.
If those stupid fucking sluts want to play this game they can just keep their fucking mouths shut like they’re fucking meant to.
August 26, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Well, Chas, whatever toots your horn I suppose …
August 26, 2010 at 3:53 pm
Doesn’t your post imply that’s exactly what toots yours?
Also are you seriously arguing that because you couldn’t get laid at school women have no right to discuss the way they are represented in a game they play?
August 26, 2010 at 4:04 pm
Wow Tam, way to miss the point entirely. Do I really need to explain that I wrote that as an aside to remark on the curious fact that when I went to school videogames were social death with girls and now girls are demanding that we put statues of female role models in them?
Somebody needs to go back and work on their reading comprehension.
August 26, 2010 at 4:12 pm
No, we read you correctly.
You’re complaining that because *some* girls didn’t like you because you played video games, you now believe you have the right to punish *completely different* women by *denying them the right to talk about their own fucking hobbies*.
That’s … umm … actually really misogynistic.
August 26, 2010 at 6:14 pm
“You’re complaining that because *some* girls didn’t like you because you played video games, you now believe you have the right to punish *completely different* women by *denying them the right to talk about their own fucking hobbies*.”
I get what youre saying, and in a way I think you’re right. At the same time I still see a story. Told from a perspective of a person. Maybe more female creators need to get creating their own virtual world with lore that would attract women.
Of course I’m suer some guys would complain that it’s sexist and start this argument from another angle. It’s not sexist though, the same way the Womens television network isn’t sexist. I was going to quote the man show…but that is definately sexist. Probably why it was cancled.
“why are some men so afraid women will take something away from them?”
August 26, 2010 at 6:16 pm
I read your post the way Chas and Tam did too.
I played video games as escapism throughout high school too. So did most of my female friends. So as I see it, you smelly boys are in MY game.
August 26, 2010 at 6:22 pm
You’re totally right.
If a woman feels underrepresented in WoW, she should just go out and create her own massively multiplayer online role-playing game with a subscriber base of eleven million.
It should be particularly easy given the vast personal fortunes most women have sitting around, as well as the complete lack of any barriers to women in the games industry which, as we all know, is notoriously easy to break into and exceptionally friendly to women.
August 26, 2010 at 4:07 pm
I could probably go all the way of addressing all the different points that strike me as profoundly flawed in your post, but what it really boils down for me too is that you’d simply like to protect your very own fantasy world and outdated views from 20 years back because back then you were an insecure schoolboy that got laughed at by girls. umm okay, not really the best basis for this.
reminds me of the attitude in men-only clubs, “finally we can relax and compare our bellies in peace /burp”.
why are some men so afraid women will take something away from them? is the definition of fantasy worlds and escapism for you really that naked women crouch beside the throne of a hypermuscled barbarian? Really?? 😀 lol
August 26, 2010 at 5:20 pm
Lots of knotted knickers up in this joint. Wow.
My takeaway from this whole episode: If someone is hell-bent on injecting REAL-WORLD values into a FANTASY environment, why even participate in the fantasy?
August 26, 2010 at 5:33 pm
You realise that sexism is *also* a real-world value, right? By your logic all games should try to be as non-sexist as possible, to better preserve their status as fantasy.
August 26, 2010 at 6:23 pm
Snieh hit it pretty close. Azeroth… is Azeroth. It is what it is. It is a construct with its own set of norms in which we participate in a *role-playing* game. We willingly suspend our disbelief to enter a foreign world where human males are muscle-bound lumoxes, dwarf males are college fratboys looking for their next keg, and so on, and so forth. Another RPG has its own world, with its own lore, and its own design – and one would interact with it differently than WoW.
Of course, there is an overlooked item in all of this: the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory grants license (whether right or wrong) for people to act absurdly under the cloak of anonymity.
August 26, 2010 at 6:31 pm
Umm, a central tenet of the actual world of Azeroth is gender equality. That’s why it’s possible for people to play female characters at all.
So actually the issue here is that you’re not able to suspend your disbelief *enough* which is kind of your own problem.
August 26, 2010 at 7:42 pm
I was trying to keep everything pretty neutral without attribution. However, the wagging of your virtual finger in my face with usage of YOU and YOUR make it impossible. Soooo…
My suspension of disbelief works perfectly well. I am what I am, as defined by the 1’s and 0’s and the lore that is presented. Whether male characters are dominant in the programmed dialogues and storylines, or that females are depicted in skimpy attire and somewhat subserviant in nature, it really doesn’t matter. It’s fiction. It’s a figment of someone’s imagination manifested in computer code. And, most importantly, it ceases to exist when I click the “Log Out” button. It has zero impact on me when I go to work, or when I kiss “She Who Must Be Obeyed” good night. (You see, in my RL household, the woman rules)
As for the personal interaction part, I still point to the GIFT (and as they say, you can’t fix stupid – especially THAT kind). But, guess what: I’m not going to be filled with angst if someone acts like a douchebag because of my attributes. Hint: I can go find someone else to interact with.
By contrast, it would appear that your suspension of disbelief is nearly non-existent, as you feel compelled to drag your real world baggage with you into a fictional realm and fictionally fix every fictional wrong. The impression I get is that you feel victimized by the some of the admittedly absurd caricatures that exist in WoW. But that is all they are: caricatures (“portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness” – sounds accurate to me). They AREN’T REAL.
Back in the real world, I’m with you: women are underrepresented, mistreated, discriminated against, abused. It’s quite ugly. However, spending this much energy arguing over perceived slights in a fictional world that will INEVITABLY cease to exist entirely in a few years seems to be energy wasted.
Or maybe I am just missing the point entirely, being a “stupid insensitive male” and all. But do you really need to resort to such impetuous baiting like “Why are feminists such whiny bitches?”
August 26, 2010 at 11:04 pm
Back in the real world, I’m with you: women are underrepresented, mistreated, discriminated against, abused. It’s quite ugly.
Yet apparently it is completely unreasonable for women to ask that the fantasy environments they use for escapism be free from all that bullshit.
But I forgot, it’s not their fantasy environment, it’s yours and Adams.
August 26, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Or…people can just accept art and creation as it is. You wont tell a sculptor to change his/her art because you don’t feel it represents your interests.
August 26, 2010 at 6:28 pm
You’re absolutely right again!
Seriously, why can’t feminists be like the rest of the WoW community and just accept the game the way it is.
Nobody else ever complains about the storylines, the game mechanics, raid encounters, class balance, the appearance of Tauren Cat Form or anything else at all. Why are feminists such whiny bitches?
August 26, 2010 at 10:40 pm
Because art emulates reality and reality emulates art? Because a sexist society will produce sexist games and sexist games will encourage real word sexism? Because discrimination is never okay, even as a fantasy? Because fantasizing about treating women as objects is a short stop on the train to treating real women like objects?
August 26, 2010 at 6:47 pm
“That is the demographic, right there. If you are a girl, and you choose to play in it, then great. I’m very happy for you and I hope you have fun. But don’t start crowing about femisnism and sexism and any other ism that gets your knickers in a knot.”
yes, it would totally be contradictory for people identified by a movement whose goal is to change the way things are in real life, to then also try to change things are in WoW also. How dare they interfere with you trying to make WoW a little carbon copy of your experience in high school by making WoW a little carbon copy of their…experience…in high school. Hm.
“When I was at school I was openly made fun of by the girls for playing these games. Now twenty years later girls are getting worked up about the fact that those same games don’t have enough female representation in them? Give me a fucking break.”
I kinda just want to echo what Chastity already said, but she said it so well. Instead I’ll just say that I had a similar experience in high school as you did, Adam, but then I graduated, joined a gym, went to college, got a job, and moved on. I suggest you do the same.
August 26, 2010 at 7:10 pm
[…] was casting around for reasons why representation in the game matters when I came across this post from Adam at the Noisy Rogue, in which he expresses surprise that women expect to be represented in […]
August 26, 2010 at 8:31 pm
“I mean, have you ever watched Conan the Barbarian? This is what it’s all based on. The caveman dragging the female back to his cave by her hair.”
I assumes we’s talkin’ the movie, and not watchin’ a book kinda just sittin’ there on the table. Yeah, I watched it. Did you? Valeria was smart, tough, brave, and wore fairlies practical armor. Weren’t nobody draggin’ her off ta some cave by the hair. Meanwhiles, there was a distinct zilch of mechano-hogs, zeppelins, and boomsticks. So…. Azeroth is all based on this which how?
August 28, 2010 at 3:17 am
Valeria in “Red Nails,” the last Conan story Robert E. Howard wrote, wasn’t exactly your typical pulp cheesecake either. She was smart, tough, brave, and wore fairly practical clothing for a pirate. Conan was smitten with her, but she wasn’t falling for him until the end of the story, when he had more than proven himself to be worthy of her. Valeria more than matches Conan in swordplay, grit and badassery, if not pure physical strength and resilience – and then, most *men* can’t match Conan in those respects.
And this was written in the 1930s.
August 26, 2010 at 10:57 pm
I have an imagine in my head of a man with a can marked “worms” and he’s managed to get the lid off. You sure as hell like to come back with a bang Adam. Good to have you back though.
I’m not going to fuel the argument but personally, I agree with Forrest.
August 27, 2010 at 1:41 am
I think you need to seriously wonder what is going on in the head of someone whose escapist fantasy has no room for equal gender rights. Or to put it more specifically, if your enjoyment of a fantasy game revolves around “The caveman dragging the female back to his cave by her hair” then you are fucking deluded and, if not a rapist, then a supporter of a culture that accepts rape as an appropriate male fantasy.
August 27, 2010 at 2:09 pm
“and, if not a rapist, then a supporter of a culture that accepts rape as an appropriate male fantasy.”
This is one of my problems with feminism Mstoton. I’m sorry but bringing rape up like that and accusing someone of being a rapist because of something they said on the internets, to prove a point is to me abhorrent. Yes it’s a nasty thing, yes it happens but when people bandy it about it’s incredibly disrespectful to rape victims.
However I think the person earlier in the thread who pointed out that Blizzard will do whatever suits their main demographic is correct. It’s a fact of life, people follow the money. As to the Goblin faction leader I personally would have welcomed a female leader IF it was not just some last minute window dressing to give an illusion of equality. If they’ve written it as male and it fits the lore then fine but I don’t believe they should be shoe horning women into the story just to meet some imaginary quota. Nothing is completely balanced although women could do with a better positive rolemodel than Jaina “tiny tears” Proudmoore – who was incidentally more badass in the lore.
I think that although the game may be male oriented it probably will change, as larisa says, over time. If it’s a male dominated area however – like golf clubs or working men’s clubs or any of that stuff – can you not see why men feel threatened? To a male mindset it’s like losing territory.
The territory historically being that of violence – we’re raised from birth to believe we should behave a certain way and enjoy a direct from of competition. This is what a certain part of wow is based off. It appeals to my competitive side and my desire to smash things. Take all of that shit away and we’d be left with a dark ages Second Life.
As an aside: aren’t you a bloke Chas? because I thought you were a guy but people seem to be responding to you with female pronouns.
August 27, 2010 at 9:47 pm
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