This is a rage-induced public-service announcement for all of my fellow straight guys out there:
A lot of girls play WoW. It's a fact. And yet, you don't seem to encounter any of them, right?*
Well here is why:
-As soon as someone admits they are female, or even speaks with a female voice on vent, you immediately make a big deal over how "OMG THERE'S A GIRL!" Now, let's think for a second. Do you think this makes them more or less comfortable? Think for a second about why you are saying it. Are you saying it for anyone's benefit other than your own? Or can you just not resist any opportunity to vent about your pathetic sexual frustration and loneliness?
-The Blizzard community team releases a pretty cool staff photo, and every single fucking comment is about how "the chick in the front is hot". Things to note: 1) She's out of your league, 2) Commenting on her hotness isn't going to make her cyberz with you, 3) WTF happened to everyone else in the photo? 4) Do you have any concept of how uncomfortable that makes every woman who sees it, including her?
-You say "girls don't play WoW". You know why you think no girls play WoW? It's not that they aren't there. It's because -and let me emphasize this - they don't talk to you. Because they are off talking to people who don't make them feel embarrassed or objectified for being female.
-When a guy makes a mistake, you blame it on him, and him alone. When a woman makes a mistake, you take it as damning evidence that all women suck in every way at video games and men are clearly superior because she made one mistake. You think women make mistakes because they are women, and men make mistakes because they made a mistake. Now think about whether this attitude makes a woman want to approach you, or go away. You have no fucking concept of what an uphill battle it is for a woman once she makes herself known in WoW, especially in raiding. Meanwhile, roughly half of the best raiders I know and run with are female. They got skillz, despite their boobies. Crazy, right?
-You sexually harass them. I actually had a pugger in my ICC25 run the other day say to our GM/raid leader upon hearing her female voice in vent, something unintelligible about driving his truck between her legs. He got kicked so fast his head is still spinning.
All of this can be summarize quite easily into something you may not realize:
Girls are people too.
I know, shock of shocks, they aren't just there to make you a sandwich and look pretty for you!
Learn to act like someone a woman would be proud to be partnered with.
*There are a lot of good guys out there to whom this post does not apply. Those guys probably know a lot of girls in WoW, because they don't automatically repel them. You know who you are.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
15 comments:
Wow! You're much better at raging than I am - and besides it's much more credible since you're a guy yourself. You're obviously in the Tam and Tim enclave. Thanks for the support and for vocalizing this in such a good way.
It's guys like you who get to know the nice girls. Because you put your attention to other stuff than just our boobs. But you know that already.
Cheers!
The only time I have every screamed "You're a girl?!?!?!" over gchat is when, one of my fellow guildies, who was extremely sensitive about the whole girl playing video games thing, finally confessed after months and months of pretending she was a guy.
But, remarkably, there are a lot of women who play in my guild. I would say it comes very very close to a 40/60 split (women are still a minority), but its definately much higher than the inequality displayed in the photo.
@Larisa Thanks :)
@Shawn That's a good reason to exclaim that. :D Over the years I've run across a lot of great players who simply will not speak in vent, and I suspect that most of them are women masquerading as men so they can avoid all the crap and be treated as equals. Don't blame them one bit.
And the girl in front isn't even *that* hot
But yes, I agree completely with you. Some people are just too much.
the reason we girls fail at wow is because we are too busy playing with our boobs and not concentrating on the raid. its a known fact.
Your points are something I agree with. I don't think I could say it better.
@Daynoid: I kept shouting at my wife to focus on her rotation and stop doing exactly that. I also explained to her that it kept distracting me.
Got kicked out of the guild because we went AFK.
That said some girls seem to love the attention of these gimps.
I was in a random group the other day and one of the members announced they were a girl... one guy did exactly what you said, started acting like a sex starved idiot (probably not far from the truth) and this "girl" player lol'd at all of it. I couldn't tell if it was nervousness or what.
Anyway I begin to get whispers from them next, saying "I really am a girl"... I asked myself why would this player be telling me that unless they're a) really a guy trying to fool everyone, or b) really a girl and wondering why i'm not also showing them any special attention.
I'm gonna make my next character a female blood elf and wear nothing but my underwear to see if I can get boosted to 80.
I gotta say, when a player randomly announces "Hey I'm a girl" when I have no reason to care about it (in a PuG group etc) I immediately ignore anything else they have to say. Not because I have anything against women, there are two or three females in my guild and I treat them all with respect (well, not on Filter Free Fridays ^_^) in my other guild I have like 8 females, roughly half are regular females, and half are ewhores... I treat half with respect...
I've thought about blogging about all my experiences... the funny and creepy stories about being not only a girl who plays WOW, but a single girl even! But I didn't want to be categorized as the attention seeking Snottydin type girl so I've questioned whether I should blog about it.
Thanks for raging on our behalf. :)
An excellent public service announcement. I actually had a conversation similar to this in my guild at 2 am last night. I know a number of female players who started playing male toons to avoid the sexual harrassment. I've also had some pretty nasty stuff sent in tells to me after speaking over vent. It's a shame you can't reach through the computer screen and bitchslap someone.
To Keredria - I think it would still make an interesting blog. Some people might accuse you of attention seeking but you can't please everyone.
I'm definately going to make a belf female toon to see what it's like. Might even make a false facebook profile to back it up... this could get addictive!
little known fact: I'm a chick IRL, I just sound husky on vent.
...what?
Ok true about women playing WoW they do as much as some guys dont want to think about it they play. What ive seen raiding wise is when a women speaks in vent and the boys with to much held in sex drive explode makes them uncofued. So they get hit mess up do something and die and in turn lose dps heals or a tank. Women are good raiders just dont exile them exile the little boys with no girlfriends.
OMG Hatch ILU. =P
You'd be amazed how many guys just 'don't get it'. It's always nice when you can play with guys who do.
And yeah, do some girls have low self esteem (nerdy girls are very much the same as guy nerds, often with the same self esteem issues) so of course some will act out to get male attention and to be thought of as desirable. But not -all- women gamers are socially dysfucntional or desperate, the same as how not all GUY gamers are that way, either.
Nicely written. I hope that this rant got some of those white knights realizing that they're being absolute douches.
Regarding the subject of the rant:
I myself always pretend to be a guy to avoid this shit. I used to just, tell them if they asked, which led to some very uncomfortable situations. Such as awkward whispers and getting loot even though I lost the roll.
I always used to wonder to myself; ''What's wrong with these people?'', but I tend to shrug it off nowadays.
All my guildies now think that I'm a guy, so it's aaaaaall good. That, and no one expects a girl to play a male troll shaman. Cha-ching.
Post a Comment