WoW and Body Image
I took a trip through No Cookies for Me and found this cool article.
In fact, both the male and female avatars share many qualities with the typical portrayals that Sheri Graner Ray outlined in her 2004 book Gender Inclusive Game Design. For women she described avatars with exaggerated sexual features such as large breasts set high on their torso, large buttocks, and a waist smaller than her head.6 For men she described avatars with exaggerated signs of virility such as broad shoulders, slim hips, and arms that are well-muscled. In contrast to the female avatars, however, their sexual organs are not exaggerated
I will say this about WoW: it doesn’t matter in the gameplay if you are male or female. If you play an RPG, more often than not, a male warrior is the center character. He’ll then collect a group of people to join his party and the healer or magic user will be female. This is a concept that is slooooowly changing in games.
But in WoW, you can play as a female warrior or a male priest. The males are not stronger and the females are not more agile. It all depends on the class you pick.
That’s not to say that it doesn’t matter if you play a female character. In the beginning stages, you’ll probably be asked to group or duel more. You’ll also get more buffs (bonuses to help you out) from other players if you’re playing as a female than you would if you were playing a male. But that’s all because of other players in the game and not the actual game itself.
Stop Making Me Think!
I may not agree with everything this blogger says, but the fact that he thinks through gender relations means that I’ll listen to him. And I’ll think about what he says.
Imagine if someone thought this deeply about things rather than . . . oh, I don’t know . . . calling people female supremacists. He might have actually gotten the attention he wanted so badly.
I can’t quite decide how much of this- if any- is a legitimate misunderstanding of what constitutes privilege, and how much of this is intentional intellectual dishonesty. The move here is from “men have privilege”, which is true, to “men never experience negative or harmful consequences”, which isn’t.
Being a part of the privileged class does not mean that one never experiences harmful or negative treatment. It’s possible to be a man in a patriarchical system, and still have people treat you unfairly sometimes. It’s still possible to be a part of an advantaged class and find that there are times when you are at a disadvantage.
When we say that we live in a patriarchical system, we’re not saying that every single member of the class “men” have a set number of advantages over every single member of the class “women”. When we talk about men having unearned privileges, that doesn’t mean that no woman has any of these privileges, or that every man has all of them.
Geek ‘Gasm! #2
Feminism + Gaming = Female Nerd Heaven
Nevermind that this is one of the major creative forces behind Assassin’s Creed. Nevermind her degree in computer science. Nevermind all the hard work she’s put in. Because a bunch of gamers have decided she’s the hotness, she’s depicted as a fan-servicing moron who can’t even pronounce “creative”.
Geek ‘Gasm!
Thanks to When Fangirls Attack, I found this great blog.
Because the little things? They’re symptoms of the same thing that’s wrong with society as the big things are.
Comics and feminism? Who’d have thunk it?
Is Marvel mocking feminists? Make sure you read the comments because someone pulls out the old Just Shut Up and Take It card.
Sigh. Another example of someone claiming to be a feminist but saying anti-feminist things. Just because you say it doesn’t mean it’s true.
I don’t want feminism to take anything away from me, comics-wise.
WoW, action figures, and comics?!?! Be still my geek heart!
Here’s you-know-who again. Boy, he brings the smarts, doesn’t he?
I’ve reread it a few times, and I can only say, after a review of Gail’s body of work, that yes she is a feminist, because she hates men.
You can’t even begin to debate with someone who can only think in stereotypes.
One of the reason I read comics in the first place is that its one of the last bastions of male competence in entertainment.
Oh, so that’s why he gets so upset about feminists complaining about comics. His He-man Woman Haters Clubhouse is getting smaller and smaller and he’s trying to keep the girls with cooties out of the back room. 
