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lodessaSo as some of you know... I've been playing a lot of World of Warcraft in the last months. Everyone knows that the video game industry is a male dominated space. Regardless of people's gender, one default assumes that the player is male, unless given a reason to believe otherwise. They do outnumber us be a large margin after all, although I play with probably half a dozen other female gamers on a regular basis. The assuming people are male on WoW thing didn't bother me much, because I do the reverse in fandom. Although there are male fans (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
spectralbovine springs to mind), most of the people involved in fannish dialog on livejournal are female. I've obviously thought about what kind of societal assumptions lead to these mirror communities on the internet, and I certainly have a lot to say with thy way that being made up of women informs the way in which fandom operates, but recently I've started thinking about more hostile sort of gender issues manifest in my MMO world.
It is largely acknowledged that certain girl WoW players, or men pretending to be women, use the rarity of female players to gain special treatment in the game. I've always scoffed at both, although I do take pride in playing the game with other women and do not think gender as irrelevant as we might like to pretend in this circumstance. But recently, I guess the feminist critic within me has started making comments. And I feel torn, because I love a lot of things about this online community I've become a part of but I also feel I am a traitor to a lot of things I believe in by going along and participating without questioning.
In the current game expansion, there are three different group sizes used in dungeons/raids. Although nominally called regular and heroic dungeons (5 players) and raids (10 people for regular, 25 people for heroic), even on the official forums in posts made by Blizzard employees they are mostly known as
"5 Mans", "10 Mans", and "25 Mans". Back in the old days there used to be "20 Mans" and "40 mans" rather than the current raid groups, and I believe (based on my boyfriend's comfort with the terminology that the "X Man Raid" as a description dates back to Ever Quest). I've found myself using the "man" terminology and feel disgusted with myself. Recently I've been consciously using the other nomenclature, because the common one is clearly patriarchal in the extreme, but I hold my tongue and I don't say a word to those I play with about their usage of these terms. I don't want to be "that girl" and truth be told I haven't even brought it up to Jeremy (the last time I brought up gender issues in something he liked when I pointed out women's power being the taking away of free will in one way or another in Legend of the Seeker... well it was a long and interesting conversation but we was a wreck the next day from sleep deprivation).
So I'd been thinking about this terminology, but not really holding Blizzard accountable for it, because technically it's not their term and internet culture comes up with a lot of stuff without prompting from the host site or server (I think we can be pretty sure that livejournal developers never imagined what fandom would do with it). But then a new announcement came down that they are combining three different attributes (armor penetration, spell penetration, and haste) into one new one: potency. As a mechanic this change is consistent with their current trend and I have no problem with it... but the word choices... well it gives me pause. Because potency to me really invokes a connotation of virility... masculinity, manliness. Which pretty much becomes explicit and sexually aggressive in some sense when you link it to PENETRATION. Then you add haste and basically I am seeing a ninja fast assailant, asserting his dominance over the world.
And of course I am building sandcastles, or dungeons as the case may be, in the sky. Of course the whole concept and mechanic of the game is about dominating an invented world and proving your untouchable skill and prowess. Of course the developers probably weren't trying to invoke the image of rape into their new attribute. But doesn't that really make it more to the point? Isn't that insidious understanding, the unconscious reaction, really our biggest hurdle?
And yet... I have no idea what I am going to do, if anything, about these things. I guess it never hurt to think, but I feel like my hands are dirty and I need to scrub at them.
spectralbovine springs to mind), most of the people involved in fannish dialog on livejournal are female. I've obviously thought about what kind of societal assumptions lead to these mirror communities on the internet, and I certainly have a lot to say with thy way that being made up of women informs the way in which fandom operates, but recently I've started thinking about more hostile sort of gender issues manifest in my MMO world.It is largely acknowledged that certain girl WoW players, or men pretending to be women, use the rarity of female players to gain special treatment in the game. I've always scoffed at both, although I do take pride in playing the game with other women and do not think gender as irrelevant as we might like to pretend in this circumstance. But recently, I guess the feminist critic within me has started making comments. And I feel torn, because I love a lot of things about this online community I've become a part of but I also feel I am a traitor to a lot of things I believe in by going along and participating without questioning.
In the current game expansion, there are three different group sizes used in dungeons/raids. Although nominally called regular and heroic dungeons (5 players) and raids (10 people for regular, 25 people for heroic), even on the official forums in posts made by Blizzard employees they are mostly known as
"5 Mans", "10 Mans", and "25 Mans". Back in the old days there used to be "20 Mans" and "40 mans" rather than the current raid groups, and I believe (based on my boyfriend's comfort with the terminology that the "X Man Raid" as a description dates back to Ever Quest). I've found myself using the "man" terminology and feel disgusted with myself. Recently I've been consciously using the other nomenclature, because the common one is clearly patriarchal in the extreme, but I hold my tongue and I don't say a word to those I play with about their usage of these terms. I don't want to be "that girl" and truth be told I haven't even brought it up to Jeremy (the last time I brought up gender issues in something he liked when I pointed out women's power being the taking away of free will in one way or another in Legend of the Seeker... well it was a long and interesting conversation but we was a wreck the next day from sleep deprivation).
So I'd been thinking about this terminology, but not really holding Blizzard accountable for it, because technically it's not their term and internet culture comes up with a lot of stuff without prompting from the host site or server (I think we can be pretty sure that livejournal developers never imagined what fandom would do with it). But then a new announcement came down that they are combining three different attributes (armor penetration, spell penetration, and haste) into one new one: potency. As a mechanic this change is consistent with their current trend and I have no problem with it... but the word choices... well it gives me pause. Because potency to me really invokes a connotation of virility... masculinity, manliness. Which pretty much becomes explicit and sexually aggressive in some sense when you link it to PENETRATION. Then you add haste and basically I am seeing a ninja fast assailant, asserting his dominance over the world.
And of course I am building sandcastles, or dungeons as the case may be, in the sky. Of course the whole concept and mechanic of the game is about dominating an invented world and proving your untouchable skill and prowess. Of course the developers probably weren't trying to invoke the image of rape into their new attribute. But doesn't that really make it more to the point? Isn't that insidious understanding, the unconscious reaction, really our biggest hurdle?
And yet... I have no idea what I am going to do, if anything, about these things. I guess it never hurt to think, but I feel like my hands are dirty and I need to scrub at them.
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-13 10:24 am (UTC)Well, there's your problem right there if you honestly believe that's true.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-13 06:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-13 07:14 pm (UTC)I am saying that "it never hurt to [blank]" is rarely true in the best of cases and "it never hurt to think" in particular is so patently false. Thinking about things in an honest way very often hurts; these things are designed to be accepted without question and when they are examined they fall apart and cause the thinker to lose faith in the institution, feel implicit guilt, and more. Whether that institution is WoW, patriarchy, white privilege, something overtly political, or something apparently innocent. That is why criticism is shut down with defensiveness instead of received with debate and that is why it remains important to be the person brave enough to deal with the pain of consciousness anyway, because most of us don't want to have to think about those things.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-23 07:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-24 01:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-24 03:47 am (UTC)