Now, for a change of pace, here's a rant about some bitch ranting about WoW.

[obliviousally_lj]

Oh my god, Tony sent me this because I don't browse WoW/MMO forums. I just...oh my fucking god.

Firstly, here's the direct link: http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/143781/why-is-wow-so-sexist

Now, let me do some bitching because I hate this sort of over-the-top, no-fun, feminist attitude.

I have written letters, emails and contacted GMs over the last 6 months, still with not a single answer. I have now decided to post an edited version of my letter here on the general forum because I am sad and disappointed in the lack of response:

That's because they're probably having a hearty laugh in your general direction.

Complaint against sexism in World of Warcraft, more specifically “Love is in the air”, Noblegarden and Worgen/Goblin emotes

A man uses chemicals to drug women and then takes advantage of them, it sounds like something from a crime series, but no, it's from the new main storyline of the "Love is in the air" event in World of Warcraft.

This event went through a drastic change this year, and almost everything with it is new. In the new main storyline we are introduced to a goblin male who uses chemicals on women to make them "fall in love" with him.

I was appalled that Blizzard found it appropriate to use a serious criminal offense, %!##, in one of their storylines and to treat it so light-hearted. The goblin in question faces no consequences of his crimes and is let go of the person doing the storyline quest chain (the player).

Blizzard ought to change the "Uncommon Scents"-storyline from the Love is in the air event, more specifically the part regarding Marion Sutton/Roka and Snivel Rustrocket, as this depiction of drug related %!## has no place in a PEGI 12+ game.

Oh, you know, except the love potion is a common trope in entertainment, AND NOT ALWAYS UTILIZED BY MALES TO LURE IN SUPPOSEDLY UNSUSPECTING FEMALES. Your complaint here is weak. At best. You know what's also a 'serious criminal offense' in the real world that exists in WoW? Death Knights killing civillians (and I'd bet money you'd play one), any quest where you must kill innocent bystanders, any quest where you have to steal something. Because theft is a crime, sweetcheeks! But I'm sure you're willing to overlook these 'petty' offenses because you're too caught up with being SO OFFENDED by a dumb little quest in a dumb little MMO game.

In the event called Noblegarden there is an achievement titled “Shake your bunny-maker”, as if the achievement itself isn’t sexist enough it is followed by the text: “Use Spring Flowers to place rabbit ears upon females of at least 18th level”. Shake your money-maker is slang for prostitution as I am sure the persons responsible for making the achievement is well aware of, is it common belief with Blizzard Employees that it is ok for women, not men, over 18 to sell their bodies?

Are you serious? You really think 'shake your money maker' is an allusion to prostution? Okay, I'll give you that I can see where you're coming from there. VAGUELY. Maybe at one point, it might've been. But it's not anymore. ALSO. That's not even the quest's name. It's BUNNY-MAKER. It's a play on fucking words and you're not 'getting it'. You're 'making' bunnies by giving some girls bunny ears. In fact, I'm shocked you didn't make a Playboy bunny reference here and have a shitfit about that, too.

But, yes. You figured it out. WoW is completely promoting female prostution and there's a whole conspiracy there you're just scratching the surface of.

Worgen female flirts“Being #%!*!y is in my blood, don’t pretend you don’t like it”, “I just want someone to pat me on the head and tell me I’m a good girl” and “You can take me home, I’m house broke”, all of which are sexist and submissive.

Sexist? No. Submissive? Maybe in the right context. You fail to realize that these are WEREWOLVES and, because of such, canine-like traits are more dominant in them. The 'being a bitch' quote? It's a reference to LITERALLY BEING A FEMALE CANINE. I don't know if you missed it, princess, but 'bitches' are female dogs. Just because it's been turned into a ~swear~ does not change the fact that it's also a liable word for an actual thing.

The 'pat me on the head' quote? THEY'RE DOGS. If you don't have dogs in your magical place where nothing bad or fun happens, let me tell you about them. Dogs like being praised and being told they're good. Now, I'll admit that these may or may not apply to werewolves, depending on what your brand of werewolf is, but it's obvious WoW's Worgen are just a mish-mash of werewolf tropes in general. Regardless of this, canine societies are based around dominance and submission. Not in the way you seem to be assuming, but in the way that IT'S HOW A PACK WORKS. It's how wolves (and bitches) get shit done.

The last quote complaint is just stupid and how the hell are you getting anything sexist or submissive out of that? I wouldn't take home a non-housebroken Worgen girl, either. Christ.

Also, the fact you're bitching about submissivness is eye-rolling because SOME CHICKS LIKE THAT. So quit tooting your women's empowement horn.

And then we have the male goblin /silly: “He told me to tie her up, and do whatever I wanted to her. So I took her stereo.” A %!## joke. There is nothing funny about it, but apparently Blizzard think it is.

How is this not funny? Why are you offended by this? Firstly, let's take the first half of this into consideration. If this were an implied sexual situation, THERE IS CONSENT. Some chicks like being tied up. Just because you're not one of them does not mean you need to ruin the fun for the rest of us. Secondly, the latter half of the quote. Um. What's offensive about that? It's a punchline. Deal with it.

What is Blizzards view on these issues? Do you agree that the points mentioned can be considered sexist and offensive towards women? What kind of mechanisms do you have in place to reassure there is no sexist and offensive content in the game?

I have a sense of humor. That's how I 'reassure' myself.

For fuck's sake.

I'm sad the thread was closed because it looks like it was amazing.

Now that my OBVIOUS MISOGYNY is out of the way, I depart.

Comments

[keeperofdreams.livejournal.com]

I thought you'd enjoy that link. :3

[spiffystuff.livejournal.com]

Meh, I do think Wow is a bit sexist (all women must have belly buttons showing through their armor!!!) but it's not worse than any other media. And yeah I think raging about like she is is making too big a deal about it.

To their credit, WOW also has the occasional female (boss? NPC? ...character.) that is quite "ugly / monsterous", which pleases me greatly.

[thesameoldsame.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, they have had at least three major "ugly" raid bosses per set except for maaaaaybe BC.

Classic had Onyxia, and two or three of the ZG bosses (panther I know for sure, I think spider was too and one other I think... bat maybe?), AQ 40 had the two princesses and the Battlegaurd.

BC had less but included Vashj and Caribdis in Serpent Shrine, Mother Shahraz in BT (though you could argue that she is pretty hot), and the eredar twins in Sunwell (though this one is pretty sketchy as they have some serious... assets...)

Wrath had more. Maexxna, Lady Blaumeux, and Sapphiron in Naxx. Razorscale, Auriaya, Freya in Ulduar. The "bane" sisters in ToC. Lady Deathwisper and Sindragosa in Ice Crown.

And these were just RAIDS. Instances have tons more.

I havent run anything in Cata yet, but considering the importance of the naga and other monstrous races, I have a feeling there will be plenty of ugly folk to wail on.

[spiffystuff.livejournal.com]

Eh, characters like Mother Shahraz, eredar twins, etc are not what I'm talking about XD They may have a few monster features but their basic bodytype is still supermodel / porn star - standard media ideal female bodytype.
Same goes with a supermodel with a fish tail or snake limbs stuck on it :p

Onyxia is much better - often times the media feels the need to make any "female" critter have human secondary sexual characteristics even if it's really not necessary as they are not human. This kind of goes into the trope of "default gender = male". (ie, a stick figure is male, a stick figure with boobs, a skirt, and/or hair is female... vs a stick figure is neutral)

The princess (http://borderhouseblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Princess-300x276.jpg) is bleepin awesome for being both humanoid, female, and trying to be powerful / scary / monsterous rather than any kind of sexy.


I should add, I only played the game a little bit - my fiance is into it on and off so pretty much all of these bosses I've never seen and I don't know what kind of dialogue goes along with them. I think I saw some cool rock monster thingies when he was playing Cataclysm that would also fit into the catagory of "yay WOW doesn't make every single female stereotypically sexy!" but I can't remember what they are called!

[thesameoldsame.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can see your point, but honestly, the only "super model" aspect of most Naga models is the fact that they have boobs. Other than that, its pretty much just a snake. I would also argue that undead as a whole are not sexually appealing or follow a "supermodel" body image.

Most of the elementals are, unless expressly stated otherwise, gender neutral. The two exceptions are Baron Geddon (baron being masculine) and Ragnaros (who is stated in cannon to be a "he"). otherwise, elementals are just elementals with no gender behind them which is cool. Except for the dryads.

As for the point in general, the big bads are one thing, but the fact that several of the most powerful beings in the world are female (Red Dragon Aspect for one...) and the fact that the only two worshiped dieties that arent abstract concepts (like the "light") are female (Elune and the Earth Mother) speaks more to the empowering aspect of the game as well. Oh! And the night elves are matriarchal and most of their warriors in cannon are female. And the leader of two races (undead and night elf) are women

not really arguing anything, just making a point that for every apparently sexist thing in the game, there are just as many, if not more, empowering aspects to be considered. Also, men are emasculated a LOT in the game.

[spiffystuff.livejournal.com]

Yeah I didn't get into the player characters but oddly revealing armor aside, I've got no beefs with the looks of the races. For each one both genders seem to be equally "hot/powerful/creepy" etc, with some allowance for letting players choose things.
I may be misremembering but there are subtle things, like I think female undead don't have some of the "grosser" features like a tongue hanging out?

As you can probably tell, I'm pretty interested in / aware of / sensitive to feminist issues in the media. Overall WoW certainly isn't worse than most things out there, really it is probably significantly better. There is still room for improvement IMHO - again for example, one of the random monsters was some kind of "hot" kali-like lady wandering around scantily clad. I have no problem with that, but figure there ought to be a Shiva-dude wandering around in a thong too, and, you know, generally equal stuff for everything.

On that topic, as far as the naga-tops, etc being "hot" - warcraft is usually good about giving the males a fairly similar appearance (not to be confused with the classic comic book trope of women are overidealized to be sexy, while men are overidealized to be powerful - warcraft usually if the lady's "sexy" the man's fairly "sexy" too). I don't have a beef with that either just saying it's not the same as making a female that's not supposed to be sexy, which is so rare in the media I pretty much always give "feminist points" when it's done.

[thesameoldsame.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I remember those shiva chicks. They were in BC and like, all over the place. There were TONS of dudes in loincloths though, mostly demons. Wrathgaurds pretty much just have a steel codpiece, and satyr who are naked are the big examples.

I get what you're saying though, and I agree for the most part. I do think that there are plenty of examples of non-humanoid, non-sexy female baddies out there though. Most of the beast or creature baddies are female and the princess you posted as well as a few ogre examples and other races are good ways to show that blizz isnt always thinking of teh sex.

And man, have you seen female goblins? They are TERRIFYING.

[spiffystuff.livejournal.com]

^-^ Like I said, I mostly have experience playing with at the lower levels - I only ever made it to level 30 :B The rest was glimpsed and I guess I just saw a kali-infested part if there were lots of lithe dudes in loincloths too XD

Nu, I haven't seen the new races yet - I must make D shoe me next time he plays! XD

[thesameoldsame.livejournal.com]

Man, what the fuck ever. Yeah, WoW like most media presents an unrealistic beauty standard (In a fantasy setting?! NO WAY!) but I wouldnt call anything overtly sexist.

The goblin joke is funny, mostly because of the joke itself but also because this gal COMPLETELY missed the point. It wasnt even about rape, it was about fucking theft!

Also, I have never heard of "Shake you money maker" being used as a euphemism for prostitution. As far as I knew, it was about shaking your ass.

Bleh, I wanted to rant too but I just dont have the energy for it. TLDR: shes fucking nuts.

[armaina.livejournal.com]

The thing I love most about these sorts of things is their complete ignorance of the fact that the males get it just as bad when it comes to body image. They're all beefy with a lot of attractive facial features. Plus all the other things that joke about 'tee hee stupid males' and other negative male stereotypes.

The way I see it, there is an equal spread of male and female stereotype jokes in the games. I don't see what's so misogynistic about equal opportunity poking fun of things.

LIGHTEN UP LADY. Seriously she strikes me as one of those man hating women that spends most her life trying to find ANYTHING THAT IS OPPRESSIVE TO WOMEN.