On Being Gender Blind

Yes, the roleplay guide posts will resume shortly, possibly this week and next week.  I've been dealing with fun things in real life involving giving my blood to strange people so they can tell me all the things wrong with me.  (It turns out there's not much apart from inheriting my father's stubborn veins, thankfully.)  Of course, not having the time/energy to do the RP post doesn't mean other things aren't coming across my radar that I'd like to talk about.  This week the stars have aligned in such a way that something pinged more than once and I wanted to touch on it.

It started Monday with Brian Patterson's webcomic D20 Monkey.  The comic that day concerned one of the regular cast members, Jeannie, a woman who is, naturally, a gamer.  While by no means anything I'd term a feminist comic, Patterson does occasionally poke at the problematic elements of gaming and geek culture, and Monday was one of those days.  This time it concerned Jeannie's personal experiences as a table-top GM trying to put together a campaign.  It's pretty funny and, sadly, a bit spot-on regarding the sexism and immaturity many women have experienced, but it was the middle panel that got my attention the most.

D20 Monkey

Then, yesterday on Twitter someone lamented the fact that people feel the need to identify what sort of gamer they are by gender (and sometimes sexuality).  "Why can't we all just be gamers?" they asked.  The ideal gamer, the "good" gamer shouldn't see race or gender.  We should all be able to enjoy a game without mentioning our sexuality, our race, or our gender.  Sounds like a great idea, right?  It's not.

In social justice circles we often encounter the concept of color and other types of "blindness."  It's intended as a way of saying we're all equal and we're all human and should be treated based on our merits and accomplishments rather than the things that are beyond our control.  While definitely a laudable goal, this type of "blindness" ignores the very real fact that we can see skin color and gender.*  In fact, colorblindness is a form of racism because it ignores the historic and continued impact of racism in our society.  To be colorblind is to be in a position of privilege since those who claim colorblindness are often white and, thus, do not experience racism and don't always see the many ways racism affects the day-to-day life of non-whites.  Likewise, to claim you don't see gender in gaming is to ignore the very real fact that women must endure sexism and misogyny at every level in the gaming industry.

From artwork, to development, to stories, and even to the players themselves, feminist gamers see sexism and misogyny on an almost daily basis, not because we want to or we're looking for it, but because it's an extension of our culture.  It's more apparent to us because we've experienced it and can see a pattern, and we also know that sexism isn't always blatantly obvious to those who never have to worry about it (namely men).

The problem with asking me to shut up about being a woman who enjoys gaming is that there are men out there who genuinely believe women don't play video games, or that if we do, we're a small minority.  The reality is that we make up half the gaming market, but that is in no way reflected in the mainstream gaming industry.  Right now, I know women who hide their gender online because they fear harassment, and there are countless accounts from other women to provide more than enough validity to those fears.  And even when men in the industry are caught sexually harassing a female developer in such a way that no one can deny it happened, they are able to continue their careers with little or no penalty.  The issue isn't that these women exist in a way that makes it obvious they're women, the issue is that sexism and misogyny exist and that we allow it to continue.

When you say we shouldn't bring up gender in our identities as gamers, what you're really asking us is to pretend we're men.  You're really saying, "It makes me feel uncomfortable to acknowledge there are differences in how we're treated, bur rather than address the inequality I want you to act like it doesn't exist."

Pretending we're equal doesn't make us equal, and in doing so we only reinforce the status quo.  We must acknowledge the problems in our community, and we must address them if we want to see change.  If it makes you uncomfortable or maybe makes you feel somewhat culpable for not calling out the bad behavior when you see it, then good.  I want you to be aware of it.  I want you to feel icky because it means you're listening and you're realizing there is a very real problem.

It's important that I'm here as a woman.  I want game developers and creators to see me enjoying their games, and I want them to see women characters as more than plot devices.  I exist and that deserves acknowledgment.

* = I recognize not every person identifies as male or female, and that there are non-binary genders.  I'm addressing the fact that people assume gender on the basis of appearance, which in itself is an issue.

My Traumatic Event is Not Your Fucking Punchline

This post contains descriptions of sexual assault and rape and I am applying massive Trigger Warnings for this reason.  Also, comments will be turned off for this as I will not entertain any sort of debate or discussion on this matter.  Do not contact me privately if your intention is to play Devil's Advocate or to try and convince me rape "jokes" are totally funny and I'm being unreasonable/overly sensitive, etc.  You will be blocked and ignored.

Tonight, during a Twitter Raid event, someone (who did apologize after I called them out, hence why they remain unnamed) said, "And Rageface leaps on you and rapes your face."  This turned my already borderline mood sour and even though the person apologized and no one spoke up to say anything sarcastic, it reminded me of something I wrote last year after I left a guild over the GM making some heinous rape jokes and then telling me not to "start shit" when I made an effort to point out she was being an asshole.  (Yes, she, and the others joining in the jokes were also women.  Internalized sexism and misogyny is a hell of a drug.)  I'm quoting myself and re-posting here because sometimes I think people need to know what it is they're doing when they make rape jokes.

I want to talk about how rape jokes aren’t funny, and drop a whole bunch of links about how jokes like that empower rapists, make them think it’s no big deal.  I want to quote every feminist and/or survivor who’s ever talked about rape more eloquently than I ever could.
Instead I’m sitting here shaking remembering what it was like to sit on that couch in a so-called friend’s apartment.  To feel someone’s hands on my body and my stomach is churning because I really don’t want to be there, but I’m too scared to say no (I never said yes either).   

Instead I’m remembering being cornered in the hallway at school and forced to endure having my breasts touched when I didn’t want them to be.  I remember the boy who threatened to stab me because I was going to kick him for touching me in the park.  I’m seeing someone’s penis I didn’t ask to see, and it’s erect though I’m too young to understand what that means only to have the realization dawn on me years later when I’m sexually active for the first time.   

He was aroused and wanted me to touch it.  

These were all separate instances.  And someone—more than one someone out there thinks each of them are funny.  The reasons I want to go into the bathroom right now and puke and cry are someone’s punchline.

Yes, these are incidents from my life.  What's sad is that too many other women reading this have lived through similar or worse experiences.  One in six of us have in the United States.  And we must live each and every day in a culture that likes to pretend rape isn't a big deal, or that actively encourages and empowers rapists by allowing seemingly innocuous statements slip under the radar day after day after day.

You don't rape bosses in raid.  You aren't raped by that mob that caused you to wipe.  The only thing that is akin to rape or even like rape is rape.  You're trivializing heinous acts perpetuated by real-life monsters and are normalizing such behavior by treating it like it's no big deal.

There is nothing funny about rape.  Nothing.  If you're making rape jokes and people are laughing, one of them might be a rapist and he thinks you're on his side. You're telling him it's okay for him to rape.  It may be the last thing you're hoping to accomplish with your jokes, but that's what you're doing.

Words have power whether or not I proclaim they do/ do not.  Language isn't as benign as some like to say, and even if you disagree that there's no such thing as a funny rape joke, you can hopefully agree that if someone says those statements make them uncomfortable the decent thing to do is to shut the fuck up, apologize, and find different subject/more appropriate and accurate metaphor.

#HowToPissOffAFemale(Gamer)

Caption: "#HowToPissOffAFemale tell them you're playing World of Warcraft instead of seeing them."

Remember how I said this blog would sometimes be about my feminism and how it intersects with my gaming.  Yeah, I had no idea how soon I'd be inspired to focus on that particular aspect.  Here I was thinking I'd be talking about becoming a possible convert from Demonology spec to Affliction spec on my warlock for raiding tonight, when I spied the above tweet on my twitter feed.

By itself, it's not horribly offensive, though it does grate on my nerves.  We've all heard the "jokes" about wife or girlfriend aggro, and just yesterday a male player lamented to me, "I think my girlfriend is mad at me for not spending more time with her."  To which my response is inevitably, "Well, put down the mouse and go see her!"

The thing is, I'm not sure why this is solely considered a problem in the realm of male gamers.  We women have also put our significant others through the "Just one more dungeon!" or "I can't go to that party, it's raid night!" scenario.  The other issue I have with this is all this complaining about how a girlfriend or wife wants their gamer boyfriend or husband to spend time with them instead of playing WoW (because we all know no gay men or women ever play WoW--careful not to step in that dripping sarcasm there, it's slippery), and how this is apparently a bad thing.

Which brings me to the "joke" in the tweet above and other jokes like it.  When you enter a relationship with someone, you have a responsibility to maintain that relationship.  This means you--yes, you the gamer has to be the one to find the balance between play time and relationship.  Sometimes a significant other might be a little clingy, and if the other party is demanding you spend every waking moment with them, then yes, you have a right to say, "No, I'm going to raid tonight."  However, what I see too often is that the player is on WoW six nights per week doing whatever s/he does, and then complains when, for one night, their significant other wants him/her to turn off the computer and, horror of horrors, spend a little time together.

I have been on both sides of this.  When my boyfriend was spending a bit too much time in Paragon City (the setting of City of Heroes for the uninitiated), I had to put my foot down one night and let him know that I needed a bit of attention.  Recently, I had to admit that sometimes I was playing a bit too much in Azeroth when I should make more of an effort to spend a bit of time on the couch snuggling and catching up with Burn Notice on Netflix (or one memorable evening, watching the new Conan remake, which was only made more awesome with our MST3K-style commentary).

And rather than either of us whine and complain that our significant other was trying to take us away from the game, we both stepped up and said, "Hey folks, I'm taking the night off to spend with my girlfriend/boyfriend."  Because, you know, we love one another and respect each other's emotional needs, and we both realize our relationship comes before our gaming.  Yes, even that epic hunter pet I've been camping forever is secondary to my relationship.  Sometimes.

Finally, the comments I see outside of communities dominated by women, these "jokes" are always aimed at women and how we're ruining the game for our significant others.  It's sexism at it's finest (or worst, depending on how you view it).  And the thing is, I know PainsofWarcraft doesn't mean to be sexist, and I know my male friends don't mean to come across as being annoyed their wives and girlfriends have the audacity to demand attention, but it doesn't change what it is and what it means to those of us who are women who enjoy this game.  We have the same struggles and we're tired of having our gender referred to as problematic or a hindrance to your playtime.

Like I said, I'm not exactly offended, which wouldn't be a bad thing if I was.  I'm more or less annoyed and rolling my eyes because this is the Meme That Never Dies, much like the old, "Go make me a sandwich!" insults.  After a few years, you'd think we'd get some fresh material to work with.  And also it's problematic in that the jokes seem to negate the fact that everyone in a relationship has a responsibility to make themselves available emotionally and physically to their significant others.

And if that's still a problem for you, maybe you should switch one stereotype for another.  Instead of being the beleaguered boyfriend or husband, maybe you should become the "Forever Alone" gamer who doesn't understand why the ladies aren't lining up to date him.