As I observe in my post on the subject, I rate the achievement as mildly offensive, and mildly sexist. On the other hand I rate the community *reaction* to it as *grossly* offensive and *grossly* sexist.

And even mild sexism is unacceptable.

I clearly stated in the original post that I’m not saying people should not be offended

Yes, you clearly stated that. You then provided several arguments which degraded, belittled, and dismissed the opinions of people who were genuinely offended.

The basic problem here is that you’ve got a basic misconception about equality. You say:

Just as you stated in a previous comment that people who are offended have the right to express that and be heard, so do those who oppose their stance. It goes both ways

It does not “go both ways”.

“This is not offensive” is the default position. People do not need to say when something *isn’t* offensive, they do not need to say when they are not offended by something. If your opinion is “I don’t think anything should be done or needs doing” then you can say absolutely nothing and what you want to happen will happen automatically.

People who are offended by things have a right to be heard. People who are not offended by things don’t need to be heard, because they aren’t asking for anything to be done.

I don’t know, maybe you aren’t looking at some of this the same way I am. I’m not sitting here trying to be on my side of the fence and trying to make people climb over to join me.

That’s because you don’t *need* anybody to join you, because your side is already winning. It’s easy to treat this whole thing as an intellectual exercise if it didn’t upset you, but the fact that you put so much time and effort into explaining why this “isn’t offensive” does, directly and explicitly, dismiss the concerns of people who were offended by it.

Your post, and posts like it, *do* make people feel under pressure. The more people say “I wasn’t offended by this and don’t see why other people were” the more you say “people are only offended because they choose to be” the more you put pressure on people to put up and shut up, instead of speaking out.

You are *not* being neutral in this.

I wasn’t trying to “get you.” But your wording is interesting. “A little bit offensive.” How would you rate this achievement? I’ve mostly seen people say it is or isn’t. Goes to my very last question of the original post:”Or is it ’sort of’ ok in your book?”

In regards to your blog title, would you change it based upon only one person saying they found it offensive? Or would it take more than one to actually facilitate the change? Would that have been acceptable from Blizzard… an apology that it wasn’t their intention to be offensive and they will look into adjusting the achievement?

What I would not do is tell them that they should “pick their battles” or that they needed to “get a sense of humour” or that it was “only offensive because they chose to find it offensive”.

And I am not telling anyone to do those things. I’m asking questions, asking for discussion, asking for everyone regardless of their opinion to open their mind to other opinions. I clearly stated in the original post that I’m not saying people should not be offended. I am saying I am not offended and others are not and why that might be. I did not leave it merely as “it’s just a game, loosen up.”

Just as you stated in a previous comment that people who are offended have the right to express that and be heard, so do those who oppose their stance. It goes both ways. This is also why you don’t see flame comments or remarks in my post. My intention, again, was to generate discussion. Ask questions. Play Devil’s Advocate. Present other perspectives/reasons/meanings.

I’m sure you, as well as anyone else that has spoken out against unjust in society, know that there are people out there that oppose those views and ask questions. If someone is unable to calmly discuss and present their opinion, it tends to be dismissed pretty quickly, no matter what the importance of the issue is at hand.

Video games are real life.

Real people spend real time playing them. In the case of WoW they pay real money to play them. If somebody encounters something in a video game that offends them, they have the right to complain about it, because it isn’t “just” a video game, it’s a part of somebody’s life.

We are going to have to agree to disagree on this point. Unfortunately, I will never agree that video games are real life. Yes, they are real people and we bring ourselves into the game. But, that ends when I exit the game. I can choose not to play it. I can play something else. If it’s disliked by enough people, it will eventually go away. Issues in society and REAL LIFE… I cannot log out of.

There are people, (one of whom posted on your weblog, and was promptly attacked for not explaining herself clearly enough) who were genuinely upset by this achievement.

I, in no way, attacked that commenter. Again, I was looking for discussion. I wanted to know thoughts, feelings, reasons. One commenter said the found the entire event offensive, and I wanted to clarify if that was the ENTIRE Noblegarden event of JUST the achievement for SYBM. If someone finds the entire event offensive, that quite possibly includes more issues they see than JUST that achievement. Heck, that discussion may have even encompassed far and beyond sexism. Maybe it would have included religion. I don’t know, because my request for more information and discussion was not answered. And that’s alright. But if you read my response to that commenter, I made my intention of request clear and asked them to share if they were willing to do so.

I was in no way implying or saying that I think my fun is more important. Those may have been issues in comments on other sites, but not here. Unfortunately though, it is extremely hard to please everyone. And no matter how hard we try to eliminate all offensiveness, there can still be something that is offensive to someone.

-I think one of the things that bothered me the most about the whole controversy was seeing a fellow woman gamer post “I should be mad, but I’m not.” If you are, you are. If you aren’t, you aren’t. But neither position should feel like they “should possibly be” of the other position.-

To me, it reads like a woman who thinks the objectification of women is wrong, and would prefer it to be absent from her games but who has resigned herself to not being able to do anything about it. She’s not saying “people keep telling me I should be upset, but I’m not and now I feel bad” she’s saying “I feel that this is not okay, but I have seen too much like it to think it’s worth complaining.”
That, in fact, more than anything else, is what makes me think that this is a battle worth fighting.

Maybe I wasn’t clear enough on that part. I was not saying she was feeling pressured to feel offended, but was not. (Although she did speak about how darn cute they looked!) And actually you saying that you read a different “cry” from it actually strengthened my original point with that quote. I clearly said no one should feel pressured either way regardless of their opinion. No one should feel ambivalent about their opinion. I was not assigning any intent or trying to speak for her. Just reading those words for what they are bothered me.

I don’t know, maybe you aren’t looking at some of this the same way I am. I’m not sitting here trying to be on my side of the fence and trying to make people climb over to join me. This is not about me vs. you. If it was about me vs. you, then I’d be looking to “win.” There is no way to “win” a discussion. I am not arguing or fighting with you. The best I can hope for is that we both take something away from it, right?

Some of my favorite bloggers spoke out about this achievement with various opinions. I think no differently of them simply because their opinion doesn’t match mine. And I would hope they don’t think differently either. If my post was flamatory, degrading, and full of person attacks – then that would be a problem. That is not what I wanted to do and I have no hard feelings against anyone that was offended by this achievement or seeks to change it.

What I would not do is tell them that they should “pick their battles” or that they needed to “get a sense of humour” or that it was “only offensive because they chose to find it offensive”

I also don’t recall telling anyone to get a sense of humor… but with picking battles, I said that it was not considered important IMO. In my opinion. I did not say you or someone else needs to pick your battles to mean this should not be your battle. You can pick this one. You can pick something else and let this slide. You can pick this one next year or never or when something else has been addressed. In a year, either of us could potentially have a different view on the achievement. (Although, we do have to prioritize things and we do that generally by picking our battles or we’d never get anything done!)

But that is how things are offensive. An object, word, activity are not inherently offensive. They are just things. They become offensive (or inoffensive) based upon the meaning we assign to them. As I said before, there are things that have been assigned widespread negative meaning, which we would consider blatantly offensive. Those are things the majority of people find offensive. There has to be meaning assigned to it or there wouldn’t be gray areas. Things are not just automatically one way or the other, if they were, it’d be pretty easy to eliminate everything that just IS offensive.

There are things that lots of people find offensive, a chunk of people do, a few people do, a small smattering of people that do. Why? Because of the meanings that they assigned to it. And generally the people that agree it’s offensive have a common ground of their views, morals, culture, etc… but not always.

I wish I could remember what class or training I had that spoke to that point. It was emphasized that no one is offended unless they allow themselves to be… I would like to share it if I could find it. And that’s not saying you should never be, just that it’s based upon you. I actually remember asking questions and thinking “Well that’s ridiculous because there are some things that are GOING to offend you and you can’t just decide it’s not going to.” It was a very interesting discussion. Bah. I shall have to continue searching for it.

I had quite a long reply to this, but it got a bit ranty, and I thought the second half of the reply was more important than the first, so I skip a lot of your points to get to the stuff that’s really important.

Or what about, other words used commonly in game and even in your blog title? Have I missed posts about people being upset about the offense to those who are mentally disabled? (An example of how one can dig to find offense)

Actually you’ve got me totally bang to rights on that one. My blog title *is* a little bit offensive. The difference, however, is that I am willing to admit that and, if somebody were to leave me a comment saying “Hi, I thought the title of your blog was offensive” I would apologize, inform them that wasn’t my intention, and seriously consider changing the name of my weblog.

What I would not do is tell them that they should “pick their battles” or that they needed to “get a sense of humour” or that it was “only offensive because they chose to find it offensive”.

Again – where do we draw the line? It is a cruel, cruel world if we let it be. Are there real issues? Yes, of course, and there are things that need to be changed IRL.

Here’s the thing.

Video games are real life.

Real people spend real time playing them. In the case of WoW they pay real money to play them. If somebody encounters something in a video game that offends them, they have the right to complain about it, because it isn’t “just” a video game, it’s a part of somebody’s life.

There are people, (one of whom posted on your weblog, and was promptly attacked for not explaining herself clearly enough) who were genuinely upset by this achievement. By dismissing or belittling those people’s discomfort, you are sending the message that you care more about your own fun than their wellbeing. It is not okay to make a person feel like that. Not anybody, not for any reason. Not ever.

I think one of the things that bothered me the most about the whole controversy was seeing a fellow woman gamer post “I should be mad, but I’m not.” If you are, you are. If you aren’t, you aren’t. But neither position should feel like they “should possibly be” of the other position.

I’ve just gone and read that post. The line that stands out for me is: “But no matter how I try I can’t work up any real rage. Probably I’m too used to it. This is how society looks like; it’s just how things are”.

That, to me, is not the cry of a woman who feels pressured into feeling offended by something which she is perfectly okay with. Just the opposite.

To me, it reads like a woman who thinks the objectification of women is wrong, and would prefer it to be absent from her games but who has resigned herself to not being able to do anything about it. She’s not saying “people keep telling me I should be upset, but I’m not and now I feel bad” she’s saying “I feel that this is not okay, but I have seen too much like it to think it’s worth complaining.”
That, in fact, more than anything else, is what makes me think that this is a battle worth fighting.

“1. Is the energy and focus put into it because it is something they are passionate about calling out for change IRL as well?
Pretty much. I don’t want to speak for all feminists, and I certainly don’t want to speak for all women (since I am, in fact, not one – I just play one on teh intarwebs) but a lot of women feel that sexism is taken for granted as something they have to put up with. Once they turn around and say “hey, it is not okay for people to treat me like this” they tend to be passionate about it.
Similarly, a lot of people get sick and tired of being told that small examples of sexism are “harmless” or “unimportant” because it’s all part of the same problem. Women have the right to want to live in a society that is not sexist at all, not just one where sexism is low key and less explicit.”

You speak as though women are the sole inheritors of sexist behavior and harassment. If this were the case, I might side with you on your argument here. However, if you nitpick the behavior of the majority of women toward men, you would find similar nuances, instances in which the man is subjected to certain expectations, stereotypes, and other such things you would consider to be sexist if it were directed toward a woman. The difference is that men simply don’t voice these things. If we took away all sexual jokes and references, our sex lives would be pretty bland. “Tonight you’re on top, tomorrow I am, let’s make sure we keep this equal – okay now you thrust, now I thrust – good, but remember, if you smack my ass I have to smack yours”. Men and women have different roles, different instincts, and different desires. We reference those things, because they are truth. Because people can relate to them. Men and women will never be the same. Why try to make them that way? Why not embrace the differences and even better, JOKE about them? Calling a woman a “butterface” is the same as calling the man a “sewing machine” or a “jackhammer”. Think of the pressures men go through in the sexual world – penis size, length of sex, getting the woman to orgasm, being “manly”….it’s all equal and opposite to what a woman faces. Much pressure is put on a woman’s appearance, which is just as controllable if not moreso than the size of a man’s penis. I find that many feminists tend to lose their own feminity in their struggles to appear “equal” to men. That, in my opinion, is a damned shame.

“Although, with anything controversial, there are people in the world that specifically try to seek out issues with just about anything and everything.
That’s a common misconception. It’s true that once you start looking into an issue you start to see how important it is, and how deep it goes, but that doesn’t mean you go around looking for things to be offended by. It just looks that way to outsiders because people are very good at ignoring things.”

It is not entirely a misconception. Your behavior changes to become more receptive to details, but the difference lies in how much weight they put into those details. The more weight you give to things which should have little or none, the more you put energies into lesser things that will detract from others coming to your main cause. There is a difference between SEEING the smaller issues and attempting to show them to everyone as though they are the same as many of the much larger issues out there. This hurts the cause of feminists, as it causes people to say, “Those feminists will say EVERYTHING is sexist”. And many will. It’s all a matter of perspective.

“To take an example from this conversation, let’s look at the representation of female characters in WoW.
From a casual perspective, WoW does a pretty good job with its female characters – two of the capitals are run by women, there’s about as many female NPCs as male NPCs, and of course female PCs are basically the same as male PCs.
The thing is, the casual perspective is based in the underlying assumption that the world is *supposed* to be male-dominated. When you say it out loud, it sounds mad, but that’s the assumption that 99% of Fantasy settings are based on. If you assume that the “natural” or “default” situation is for men to be in charge, then any female presence *at all* is a bonus.”

Not our world. The fantasy world. And why? Because the majority of it is based upon times of dragons and kings, of chivalry – based on an actual historical period during which chivalry was present, during which men DID rule, during which women WERE disrespected in so many ways we would consider barbaric. And the truth is, women had different rights then. Different roles in society, some of which have been idealized as much if not moreso than the male roles. If you think of it from a writer’s perspective, giving the women in WoW the power they have is crazy, and in many ways goes against the Fantasy grain for the very reason that it’s simply the wrong atmosphere. To take a fantasy novel and analyze it as though it were a non-fiction is folly. To say that the events in the book reflect the author’s own personal views of women is also folly. It is simply a setting, an atmosphere for the reader to immerse him or herself in. Who hasn’t been in love with the time of chivalry, both men AND women? It’s a very idealistic thing, and many female writers LOVE to get their hands on it and empower women while still staying within the guidelines of their time-period or overall setting. If you don’t like the setting of the majority of fantasy books and their chivalric/kingly atmosphere, simply try a different genre. There are plenty of books whose authors turn the tables and make men into their female characters’ slaves, mindless penises who are simply there to please them.

“There are a lot of very interesting studies about this – in linguistics, for example, if you present a conversation where women speak *exactly as often* as men, people percieve that as women speaking “more than 90%” of the time. Similarly if you look at distributions of male to female characters in works of fiction (or people in the workplace, or whatever) studies show time and again that people view a “balanced” gender mix as being roughly two men to every woman, with anything even approaching the 50/50 distributiou we should expect being seen as unfairly female dominated.”

I’d like to see where you get these statistics.

“It’s interesting to note, in fact, that of the original three Alliance and three Horde factions both had exactly two male leaders and one female. I don’t think it was an accident: somebody obviously sat down and said “right, we want to have a good mix of men to women, so we should have at least one male faction leader and one female faction leder on each side” and then made the “gender-non-specified” faction leaders men by default.”

Again, this is due to the chivalry/fantasy theme that the game is immersed in. The majority of rulers/leaders WAS men – very few females had the ability, opportunity, and scream and kick as you might, the DESIRE to be a ruler. Yes, many women simply thought the responsibility was not something they wanted, and with good reason. Those who did receive/desire the power were incredibly deadly. Look back into history. Then think of Sylvanas and tell me you don’t see any historical ties. She raised an entire army of Undead for her own very personal vendetta. Sound familiar?

“To put it another way, if I asked you to design “An Orcish Warchief” or “Somebody to rule over the Alliance” or “The Warlock who sold the Orcish people out to the Burning Legion” or “A ruler whose desire to protect their people led to madness and destruction” you’d come up with male characters every time (Thrall, Varian Wrynn, Gul’Dan, Arthas severally). The only time most people would design a female character is if they were specifically told “a woman who…””

See above explanation. Add this – the majority of fighters in wars were which gender? Oh yes. Male. And who best understands the male gender and their desire to conquer, control, and dominate? Men. A man to stir the hearts of men, of his soldiers. It makes perfect logical sense and is not sexist at all. Just nature.

“To put it yet another way: male characters can be described in a variety of ways “Fallen King” “Noble Shaman” “Bold Paladin”. Female characters are almost universally limited to concepts that take the form “Hot _____ Chick” (Hot Paladin Chick, Hot Zombie Chick, Hot Priestess Chick).”

Uh…who says that? Where in the game have you seen “Hot ____ Chick” anywhere? Where in the game has it said that the only qualities the female NPCs or players have is attractiveness?? You pulled that out of nowhere. I’m Nassira, Champion of the Frozen Wastes, Champion of the Naaru, the Merrymaker and the Elder, and of course, the Noble.

“The reason that feminists often look like they’re looking for things to be offended by is that one of the big things that offends them is the fact that so many things are considered inoffensive when they’re actually anything but. Once you stop reading “maleness” as the default, you start to see, for example, how poorly realized female characters are compared to males. People who just take for granted that most authority figures will be men don’t see what all the fuss is about, but the fuss is about the fact that it’s taken for granted.”

Either that, or after reviewing the topic, people genuinely feel as though those things have nothing to do with sexism – and maybe, JUST MAYBE – they’re right.

“If singling out the sex of a character can be seen as inappropriate, do the other ones seem inappropriate too?
The simple difference here is that gender exists in real life, whereas “race” (in the “Orc/Troll” sense) and “class” (in the “Fighter/Mage” sense) do not.
To be a bit more specific, Shake Your Bunny Maker required you to single out characters based on the real-world-analogous property of gender, and to do something to them which was, itself, analogous to a form of real-world behaviour that would be considered unacceptable.”

And what is this unacceptable real-world behavior? Placing bunny ears on women? If someone walked up to me in real life (not just men bunny-eared people during the event – it goes both ways) and shoved a pair of bunny ears on me, I wouldn’t call the cops on them. And that’s all the game did. “Hey, wear these ears!” If you didn’t want to, you could take them off with the click of a button, just like you could remove them from your head in real life.

“To put it another way, how would you feel about achievements like these:
Nice Rack!: /whisper “Nice Tits” to ten female characters.
Lynching: Kill ten dark skinned humans.
Felony Sexual Assault: Render a female character unconscious in PvP, then /kiss and /love them before they can release.
Yes, they’re all significantly more *blatant* than SYBM, but they carry the same connotation of gender-based harassment.”

You really believe those all carry the same connotation as the bunny ears? I’d say these ones more closely reflect the connotation –
Hodir, if you keep doing that…! : Find 10 male characters in Dun Nifflem and remind them they could go /blind!
The Gentleman : Place a red rose in the mouth of any male human while he dances with you.
Pregnancy : Get 10 male players to bring you any of the following-
Chocolate cake
Watermelon
Baked Chicken
Cantaloupe
Chinese Take-out

Innocent references to common things. Fact: Stereotypes exist for a reason, and you cannot quote statistics if you don’t believe it, because the statistics will show the origins of those stereotypes quite clearly.
There’s nothing wrong with talking and laughing about stereotypes so long as they’re not slanderous or degrading in ways that the general public would perceive them. It is simply quantifying an event through categorizing. It’s a natural behavior that we all have, categorizing. It’s how our brains work. And someone will always get offended by something – we can’t go through life without offending someone somehow. Obviously, avoid those things which will offend massive amounts of people, but those who are offended by the little things, things no one ever would’ve even thought of as offensive…we can’t help that. It’s for the individual to decide how to deal with the supposed offense.
Fact: You must be 18 to pose in Playboy, the Playboy symbol is a bunny, and only nude women are featured in it. Just the fact that they made it possible for you to bunny-ear men as well, even if it wasn’t part of the achievement, means there was no intended discrimination with the ears. Anyone can wear them or not wear them.

If you don’t want to be rabbit-eared, tough luck. Just like if you’re in Org and someone uses their Piccolo on you – don’t want to dance? TOUGH LUCK. Someone turns you into a little white rabbit and you don’t want it? TOUGH LUCK. Someone turns you into a bat, a pirate, a ghost, a pumpkin, or an elf? TOUGH LUCK. Many things in the game are involuntary, and many more of those can in fact be dispelled quite easily, just like the bunny ears. Both males and females are forced to do things in this game by other players. This one just happened to be geared toward females this time. Next time, who knows?

Secondly, the example of ‘Felony Sexual Assault’ achievement is way over the top. Rape is not only a “woman’s” problem, men get raped too. To assume that such an achievement in game would be sexist and offensive as targeting women misses the mark a bit. An achievement like that would be offensive and inappropriate regardless of the target. That would be wholly offensive across the board, not just singling out females or just singling out males. Plus, the other examples have no innocent fun angle AT ALL. SYBM can be looked at in another light as I detailed in my original post. There is no way any of those other ones would be considered appropriate in the least. That’s the biggest difference.

To compare placement of bunny ears upon a character to something like sexual assault is not an appropriate comparison. Bunny ears during an Easter event. Maybe if it was bunny ears during Love is in the Air. Easter. Bunnies. Virtual ears. And hell, you aren’t even really placing ears. You don’t have ears to be placed upon them. You have flowers that you SHAKE at them. It’s not about them shaking anything. It’s about YOU shaking your FLOWERS at them, which happens to cause bunny ears to sprout out of their head.

As for the race/class combinations not being a reflection of something that is a problem in the real world, I would say that is a weak argument. Especially when people would say that it was offensive and uncomfortable to subject females to the stalking behavior to place the ears. So it’s ok to stalk other players for race/class combinations because you don’t see that as a valid oppressive/offensive comparison to real life? What about the perpetration of stereotypes?

So are random buffs etc that were not consented to harassment? Anything that is “forced” upon your character? Would the lack of a level requirement (or at least something other than 18) have made SYBM non-offensive to those that found it offensive?

As for unimportant, frivolous, unfortunately, I would have to say that this particular achievement falls into that category IMO. It’s called picking your battles. People found that offensive based on out of game ideology. So, attacking and addressing the ingame activity is not going to do much to influence the out of game ideology. Attack and address it on the outside, which will then work its way inward.

Regarding the design of leaders and characters. Maybe it’s less about being sexist against women and more about being sexist against men… I mean, they’d be the ones foolish enough and thinking with their biceps to go to war over everything, right? As for fantasy games being almost always being dominated by men… yeah. That’s what I expect. Does that make it inherently sexist? No. It becomes sexist and offensive when YOU (or someone else) attaches that meaning to it.

I still beg to differ that there aren’t people that seek offense in anything and everything. We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that. (Btw, I was not limiting that remark to sexism/feminism only)

So the Blushing Bride achievement was not offensive? Why did it require one party to wear a tux (wear the “pants”) and the other party to wear a dress? No one was attacking that. As I SOUGHT to compare other achievements to SYBM, I DUG to find that Blushing Bride was potentially offensive based on sexual orientation. I know it did not matter the sex of the individuals, but the outfits say a lot, amirite? Or what about, other words used commonly in game and even in your blog title? Have I missed posts about people being upset about the offense to those who are mentally disabled? (An example of how one can dig to find offense) Again – where do we draw the line? It is a cruel, cruel world if we let it be. Are there real issues? Yes, of course, and there are things that need to be changed IRL.

As I stated previously, I do appreciate the discussion, and I hope you do as well. And like your own post about this achievement stated, sexism is a complex issue. I agree. It very much is. The thing that is interesting about an example such as this achievement, is that really no matter what either of us say, we can both find more examples to suit our position.

But, I do love playing Devil’s Advocate… asking questions, trying to get others to explore different thoughts/opinions, and at least have a respect for those differences. The more I understand your “why,” the better and vice versa, I think. I think one of the things that bothered me the most about the whole controversy was seeing a fellow woman gamer post “I should be mad, but I’m not.” If you are, you are. If you aren’t, you aren’t. But neither position should feel like they “should possibly be” of the other position.