[MUD-Dev] The Price of Being Male

[Sanvean]

On Tue, 1 Jul 2003, Travis Casey wrote:
> Tuesday, July 01, 2003, 1:54:15 PM, Chris Holko wrote:
>> From: "Travis Casey" <efindel at earthlink.net>

>>> So the question is: why is it more OK playing, say, Everquest,
>>> for me to pretend I'm a *male* elven wizard instead of a female
>>> one?

>> Because a number of players in MMORPGS are not politically
>> correct, let alone tolerant.  In other words, they will not
>> refrain from exerting peer pressure over your choice, even if
>> that includes using derogatory/offensive terms.  The methods of
>> which usually involves words, parental references, sexual
>> preference and suggestions of other deviant behavior.

> This seems to be a circular answer -- it's not considered OK
> because some people don't consider it OK and are loud and
> obnoxious about it?  Well, yeah, it's certainly true that such
> people exist, but why don't *they* consider it OK?

For me, a lot of the discussion is interesting precisely because of
the notion that men don't feel comfortable running female
characters, when women gamers have been forced to run male
characters over and over again.

Games where you get solicited by hookers, games where victory points
are scored in terms of acquiring "girlfriends", games where being
female means you get harassed by other players in a multitude of
ways, games where you have no choice but a male avatar, games where
the female avatar has embarassingly large breasts that move of their
own accord, games with the ever so charming Rape social, games with
advertisements that are aimed only at people with penii - there's a
thousand ways female gamers have been informed that gaming is a
man's world, which is making vast concessions by letting us play at
all, and that playing on our own terms is out of the question.

Does that come off as overly shrill, strident, or feminist? It's
hard not to speak in a way that gets labelled as one of the first
two, and lord knows, the third term has been thoroughly subverted by
the media to mean something a far cry from what it once was.

I'd be the first to admit that I've got a political agenda for
Armageddon - it's creating a game world where members of either sex
feel comfortable playing, a world where you can play whatever or
whoever you like and find it just as enjoyable and just as capable
of advancement. I can't claim to have achieved success, but we're
farther along than most of the other games I've played. It's amazing
how much resistance I've encountered along the road so far.

And whether or not the female avatars are worth less because fewer
women play and therefore the demand is less for female-shaped
virtual-suits or it is's because they're pink and have ribbons on
them isn't really the point for me - either way that price
difference is significant and indicative of a problem.

Yeah, I'll hop off my soapbox here.  Thanks for reading.

Sanvean
Overlord (sic) of Armageddon
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