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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsOpening a dialog about sexism in World of Warcraft
by Amanda Dean 
Feb 11th 2008 at 1:00PM
Perhaps one of the biggest challenges of being a gamer girl is learning to deal with rampant sexism, without becoming defensive. Just like racism, sexism should not be tolerated, but how do you address it without making the problem worse? Smurphy from Burning Blade brought this up in the forums. Nethaera's response was to shut the thread down before a dialog could really begin on the subject.
Although the majority of WoW players are men, there are a number or women who do enjoy the game. Women are often important contributing members of guilds and raids. Perhaps a little known fact about gamer girls is many of us don't like to be hit on or given special favors like spots in raids. Nor do we like to be called honey, baby, or sweetie by complete strangers. We would very much like the same treatment given to our male counterparts. Women do truly enjoy the game, and should be able to feel safe and comfortable in the online environment.
Personally I live and die as a lady in game and in life. I believe that if I act as lady, I should be treated as one. One of my favorite books, The Art and Power of Being a Lady, has some excellent social advice that translates well into the WoW environment. The authors insist that modern ladies do exist. Ladies display grace and dignity. We win gracefully and lose gracefully. No whining, crying, screaming, or carrying on. Another important characteristic of a lady is true friendship. In game, we can come to the aid of our friends and should feel comfortable asking for help when we need it.
The Art and Power of Being a Lady has a chapter dedicated to relationships. Discretion and respect should carry over into the online realm. Ladies should refrain from excessive flirting and behavior that makes those around them uncomfortable. A lady knows that someone who is currently in a relationship is off limits, even online. Gentlemen, please heed this as well. We do not all appreciate your overtures and please respect our existing commitments.
As long as we do our part as ladies, we should be able to expect other stakeholders to do theirs as well. Guys, have a little respect. I'm not here to be a feminist, and no bras were burned in the making of this post. We may be girls, but we are gamers foremost. That's why we're gamer girls, not girl gamers. We can be powerful associates. We can heal, tank, and dps as well as men can. There's no difference in our character stats or ability to mash buttons. Although our armor appears to only cover about half as much as our male counterparts' it still blocks the same amount of damage.
Females do not have to tolerate sexual harassment. Blizzard's terms of use indicate that in-game chat may not be used to "Harass, threaten, stalk, embarrass or cause distress, unwanted attention or discomfort to any user of the Program." Ladies, you have the right and responsibility to report behavior that makes you uncomfortable. Since we all agree to this code with every patch, everyone has the responsibility to avoid making any violations against this code.
I don't know where to start immodest armor choices and model. Personally I'm not bothered by it, but some ladies are. Is it degrading to women players? Maybe, but it seems to fit the standard for previous video games and the overall fantasy genre. Perhaps an option to display non-hoochie-mama versions of the armor (the same as displayed on male toons) might be an acceptable solution. I don't see that happening, just throwing it out there.
The first step in resolving issues of sexism is to stop ignoring the problem. I understand that it is difficult to be proactive and Blizzard's main recourse is to take action after-the-fact. Cutting off any mention of sexism only serves to encourage it.
Readers, I do very much appreciate your comments, but please make them productive. Things like "don't play the game" or "there, there sweetie" would not be helpful. What I'd like to know more about is your experience with sexism in the game and any suggestions you may have for resolving the issue. Do men also experience sexism in WoW? Thanks!
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Blizzard, Forums
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 10)
Auraith Feb 11th 2008 1:36PM
I'm a felmale who plays world of warcraft. I never outworldly screamed the fact that I was a female, but all the people who know that I am one have always treated me with the same respect and attitudes that they would to men who play the game. I have never recieved a raid spot just because I was a female. I worked on my gear and strived just like everyone else in my guild. That isn't to say I haven't come across those people who have treated me differently, but asking them to stop or even just putting them on ignore can quickly solve the problem.
Daruntis Feb 11th 2008 1:53PM
That's a perfectly legitimate way to deal with the issue when it arises but I think more the point of the article is that you should never have to meet people like that. Either that or that it should simply be talked about and people be willing to admit that it exists.
Chriasas Feb 11th 2008 1:45PM
As a male, I get honey and sweetie just ordering food from restaurants. Sticks and Stones, I suppose. You will have problems like this ingame with others on occasion, just as in real life. But, if this is happening with people in your guild, you really need to take your concern to officers.
Mats Feb 11th 2008 1:47PM
Dear Amanda Dean
You yourself are being sexist in this article, demanding respect due, not for being a person, but as being a “lady”.
No one, male or female, likes to be disrespected, and asking for respect based on your sex is no better then the flirty girls who post guild applications with personal footage showing lots of cleavage. In fact, asking AS a female, you lower yourself to the same level as the girl with large cleavage asking for a raid spot, if you ask as a person however, you are not. Sexism is fostered by girls who like to objectify themselves and use there sex to there advantage. Your book, “The Art and Power of Being A Lady” is itself a sexist book, being a lady is all about being a good person, not a good female person. Putting yourself into a position where you say “these kinds of things makes a good lady” shows that there are different rules for the sexes, and differences makes for discrimination, if you had only been A. Dean, and written how to be a good player, this would have been a far more sound article.
Rudolphe Feb 11th 2008 1:51PM
and they expect me to open doors for them, let them walk in first and pull out chairs for them. HAH! I spit in the face of the idea that women should be treated equally, because the majority of them seem to want special treatment for being a female.
Don't get me wrong, i dont treat women any different than i do men, honestly i assume all toons i see are men unless i'm told otherwise, plenty of times i refered to someone in a group as He or Him and was corrected.
Rimar Feb 11th 2008 2:14PM
I wanted to add my own experiences.
I am a male. that said, let me get onto other things. I typically play only male toons but made one exception. I do not know any good male tailors in real life so when I went to make a new toon for that, I made a female.
As I played, I found I enjoyed the various outfits I could put her into from random drops. From a Lady beginner to a ninja looking woman in pants during the mid 30's.
But when I got to Outland with her, I was trying to put together good armor for drops and the best piece for the waist/legs was almost a g-string looking thing.
Odd as this is to say, I found myself offended! :-). It wasn't until this point that I began to realize something that many women probably live with constantly.
That this was sexist for my female toon, I agree. She could not find anything demure to wear that was even remotely as stats helpful or beneficial.
As to gaming with other women -
My guild on Terrokar Server has quite a few females and they all play very well (better than me since I am new to game).
When I group with them, I am thinking about how *we* as a group, can prevale in the various quests/ints we are doing. I have to admit that when playing WOW, sex is very far away in my mind.
Anyway, I have not seen anyone doing anything I would call sexist.
Daruntis Feb 11th 2008 1:59PM
As we can see, men tend to be quite defensive when the idea of sexism is brought up. I've acted like that at times been ashamed of being a guy at times too but it's just simply a discussion about something that happens in the world around us.
Anteia Feb 11th 2008 1:55PM
Oi, so many people taking offense! What on earth is wrong with a woman asking to NOT be constantly flirted with or given degrading comments too? I started out (and still play) a MUD. In MUDs, while females do play males and males do play females as they like, it's not AS rampant for males to play females because they don't have the excuse of 'I wanted to stare at a cute butt all day long' as opposed to, "No, I just felt like I wanted to play a female." My main character is a female, but the characters I run for events tend to be males just because of one odd observation I've made: a female EVENT character is much more likely to be hated by the females for the mere reason of being female and liked by the males for the mere reason of being female. Note, I'm a woman in real life who had the term 'feminist nazi' applied to her in highschool, and while that was always a bit extreme (I had the audacity to say I didn't know how to really cook and didn't think it was a female's place to always make dinner because I intended to work too.) I by no means bash women as a whole because I firmly love being a woman.
The issue the article is addressing is when TWO of the people who knew me from this MUD found out I played WoW as well. One's reaction was to exclaim, "What? There's attractive females in WoW?" and the another, who had a crush on me from before, started making this much more obvious in WoW until a guild member made a comment about a christmas present, "I wish I was female and had people getting crushes on me.". I never led anyone on. I was honest from the start that I wasn't interested. We had exchanged in-game gifts in the guild (it's a very small one) because we thought it'd been fun. But the general feel was that because I was female, I had somehow seduced a gift out of the guy when I had told him the entire time I wasn't interested and would like him to cool off so our friendship could be more comfortable. None of the above guys are jackasses. They're great guys. But all of the above made me feel like I was being viewed as 'female' first rather than 'the person I've gamed with for years' which the latter was true. And these are with supposedly close friends! It isn't about equality, people! It's about being viewed as PEOPLE who you have even an ounce of respect for. I don't want to be viewed as one of your guy buddies. I'm not male. I'm not going to sit and watch that football game with you, but yes, I am going to go watch the olympic ice skating. And some women hate ice skating and love football and more power to them. It's about treating us as individuals and not labelling us the minute you find we have different physcal parts than you. Is that really so awful?
Auralez Feb 11th 2008 1:56PM
I pretty much treat everyone the same, not only because I believe that that's how I should treat people, but mainly because in most cases I don't really know if I'm actually dealing with a man or women IRL. So my choice is simple, treat everyone the same...
Once I get to know them (either the toons or the person on the keyboard) there might changes in treatment but based mostly on RP or on how I get along with that person IRL. After all, you don't treat a stranger the same way you treat a friend, do you?
Smurk Feb 11th 2008 1:59PM
"How could I fail Women's Studies? I love bitches!"
Malachi154 Feb 11th 2008 2:02PM
It is all about respect. Both sexes deserve at least the amount of respect that they give. I try to start out giving full respect to any that I meet, their behaviour will determine how much respect they get in the future. I was in AV the other day, and a female toon called me a derogatory name in /BG (I know, that *never* happens in AV), so I returned the favor in whisper. Not only did she report me, she had a male friend log on and flame away. She gave me 0 respect so I gave her the same, and she took offense! Some folks lamenting the way they get treated should look in the mirror and see how they treat others...
CrazyT Feb 11th 2008 2:03PM
Everyone gets the same treatment in the guild i'm in.
I'm a guy, and the females in our guild dish it out as much as they take it, so in the end, they are expected to take the shit they are given. If you don't want to have people fuck with you, don't fuck with them.
If you are expecting to be treated the same as everyone else, notice how everyone else treats eachother. If it's shit talk, and fucking around, then...don't really have anything to complain about, do you? (Well, besides the fact that we are all abunch of rude bastards)
Puddingbat Feb 11th 2008 2:03PM
I have found (being female) staying quiet about my sex is a must, previously I admited to a guy about my gender, as he appeared to be a decent fellow. However, he then proceeded to make continuous comments about sex over several weeks ending up with him suggesting "a good hard r*** in the a*** would make me feel better" I was disgusted at this point and bought in the gms. I had been speaking to him on matter of fact terms to try and correct his misogyny in whisper and had screenshots of all conversations.
Now I stay quiet, as behaviour like this seems rampant online.
I dislike I have to hide the fact I'm female, and hardly feel like I have a choice in the matter, for fear of more abuse.
It seems that the worst in people is bought out online, when no-one knows who you are, you can be as rude or horrible as you like without recriminations.
Dan Feb 11th 2008 2:03PM
I got half way down page 1 and decided that the internet is such a bad place for this debate that I might actually hurt myself.
Good lord, some of you are dense...
thebvp Feb 11th 2008 2:09PM
To the dudes out there,
Try playing a female character with a name that isn’t “zomgbelfboobs” or something like that. Find another avenue to talk about sports or beer than WoW while playing this toon, join a guild, maybe raid a bit, and generally interact with others in an androgynous way. You don’t have to lie about your sex and be a creepy internet perv, just humor me for a second and go along with this little experiment.
In my own case, I play an undead, female warrior and my name was nerfed a week after the game launched. The differences between how I was treated when I played my female and male characters were pretty staggering.
The first, of course, was that when asked about my RL sex and my character’s name, it would always lead into a huge lecture about the history of my character, justification for her name, why it doesn’t matter, etc, etc. It very quickly became so annoying that I just stopped caring. Oh look, another drooling 15 year old wondering if, in fact, a real-life female is controlling this character. Hey look, here’s another person who assumes that, in a game where talking cows transform into bears and midgets shoot fireballs, the sex of whatever character I choose to play must be true-to-life.
I suppose that somewhere between my own general interest, laziness, sense of humor, and a little bit of vindictiveness, I decided to be as androgynous as possible. No mention of beer, boobs, or sex whatsoever, and I didn’t need to speak on vent in 40 mans.
There are a few common ways people deal with the issue of sex in MMOs. Without turning this into a Sociology case study, most of them are very absurd.
I think the most annoying part about this “experiment,” however, was when I was “let off the hook,” or excused, simply because I was a girl. The implications were pretty offensive.
Theserene Feb 11th 2008 2:09PM
Everyone is treated the same in our guild. If you don't like the language and insults (all done in the best possible taste :) ) then get out and find a different guild.
I don't tolerate 'men are useless because..' talk anymore than I tolerate 'omg gays are so pathetic' or racist stuff. But that's as far as it goes. I've worked my entire professional career in the IT industry and am fine with being treated as 'one of the lads'. Asking for extra consideration or 'you can't say that with women around' because I'm female would totally negate that.
As for the armor, feck it. I like looking at it. I don't want my warlock to go into battle dressed in a head-to-foot burka :-p So what if you see cleavage, this is fantasy, not reality.
Mirina Feb 11th 2008 3:30PM
100% agree with this post. Personally, I like my nearly nekkid toon! =P I R hawt, lol!
Friday night, bored out of our minds, 2 of us guild females stripped our characters nekkid aside from our boots, capes, and shields, and proceeded to dance on the side of Scryer bank. We were also joined by several guild males (playing female toons), and several other officers (males), dancing with their male toons. The vent conversation was hilarious, we actually had random people running up to watch, flirting with us (and vice-versa), and even getting into the RP-ness on a PvP realm. And we didn't do it for attention, we did it to have fun and waste some time while we decided whether or not to pull out the RL booze and start our weekly drunk Kara run. We didn't demand gold, we were stylin' in our new Lunar Festival outfits, and we were just being wacky. My pally just picked up a new breastplate that looks like it was part of Wonder Woman's gear--so I made her a pair of the Black Mageweave Leggings, and she partied in those, her new chestpiece, and the rest of her gear. Wasn't looking for attention, I just have a clothing fanatic side to myself (made my husband the tux so he can be "stylin" if he wants to, lol).
All I can say really is this: WTB more exposing armor for my Hunter :( How come my lvl 40 pally and my husband's lvl 62 warrior have more revealing gear...I want booty shorts or something damnit!
Switch4475 Feb 11th 2008 5:48PM
This is why I don't mind the armour models themselves. Hell, I wish I had the option to play my orc without any armour model but a loincloth. He's got the physique for it, dammit!
I wouldn't mind seeing more bulging biceps and killer quads in-game, personally, and damage mitigation be damned!
Tarbh Feb 11th 2008 2:10PM
Completely have no idea what the hell you are talking about.
Only time I've seen someone bother a female for being a female is when the one who was bothering her was, well, just creepy, and that's just a fundamental trait of that person (who left thankfully).
MT/War CL and Mage CL in my guild are female, and I don't see them getting treated any different. (Hell, I've had my nationality mentioned more than their gender ever will be, it's completely fine though.)
If you pew pew then we use you.
And I think this is the mindset behind most wow players.
(Also, I think it's kind of rude to talk on behalf of 51% of the population, which is how part of the article seems to be worded, no man nor woman could ever possibly talk on behalf of their gender, be more weary with your wording. This is pretty much a nitpick though.)
In my opinion, be yourself first and foremost, don't limit your behaviour or have it dictated to you based on your gender, which is what all this 'lady' talk seems to be doing.
Aticus Feb 11th 2008 2:23PM
Whenever I group with a female on my Alt's guild, it's always more enjoyable then playing with a guy. I don't know if it is the case all across the board but when we come across a mining node (for example), we'll briefly talk about who needs it more. When I group with a guy, usually he will just go and mine it. I'm not trying to be a sexist but that has been my observation over the years in all games.
I play on a RP server and it just seems like on the off-peak hours, people are usually friendlier. With that being said, I think most of the teasing and sometimes harassment is caused by the teenagers and people in their early 20s who think that just because they are behind a computer screen, then that means they can act however they want to act.
Treat people as people. Do onto others as you would yourself.
-Aticus, http://www.paladintales.blogspot.com