Perils of the Lady Gamer
Shaenon: About a month ago, after foolishly reading a bunch of news about the video-game industry, I drew an awesome comic called Perils of the Lady Gamer. In case you’d like an attractive and portable tree version, I’ve made up a batch of Lady Gamer/Edward Gorey’s “The Trouble With Tribbles” flip comics for the Emerald City Comicon next weekend. Yes, that is two old-timey comics in one!
Channing: One of my contacts elsewhere pointed me to this comic before Shaenon told me she did it and asked if I had helped produce it. I was all like, NO, I WISH. Seriously, it’s good stuff.
Read the comic. I know it’s supposed to be funny, but all it really did for me is remind me that entities of my gender, myself included, can be really huge dicks.
I’d like to think that’s improving in the gaming community, but… honestly, a cynical voice in my head says it’s probably not.
To any ladies who do game, more power to you all.
Live-action gaming groups aren’t as bad, but online gaming can be pretty nasty, unfortunately.
The truly sad part is that you don’t even have to be an actual female IRL, just have an attractive female character in-game to get hit on by hormone-poisoned horndogs looking to “score”. And yes, I do actually speak from personal experience in this case. _Especially_ when you tell the little shits in question that (A) you’re there to play the game, not to have cybersex, (B) you’re married or otherwise in a relationship (actual reply when I told someone that: “Hey, kewl! Wanna 3sum?”), and/or (C) you’re not interested in guys (again, actual reply: “Yur a dyke? Can I watch? Betcha jus need a reel man to straghten yu out” [sic]).
I had one little pinhead harass me and several other players with attractive female avatars to the point where we all had to report him to the GMs AND put ALL of his characters on our /ignore lists.
On the one hand, it makes me glad that I was taught to treat women with some degree of simple courtesy, but on the other hand, it makes me wish I had been born a lesbian instead of a hetero guy sometimes…
Oh, my. That diversion *was* rather more graphic, at parts, than I am used to from you. Even so, well done.
I don’t believe I can improve upon Mr. Toboz’s remarks.
Sadly, every single anecdote in the comic came directly from real life incidents.
Yes, even that one.
I can’t really say much more that Toboz hasn’t.
I don’t have any problem treating someone who I’m playing with in person any differently depending upon gender. However, when playing online, years of comments and viewpoints unconsciously picked up from the other members of the gaming community leave me just as idiotic as any other video game playing dude when faced with a female gamer. (I’m not proud of it, but as with most built up habits or internal views, it’s really hard to clear my head of old perceptions.)
That… that was just sad, but seems to be how most women used to be treated (and probably to a degree, stil treated) 🙁
Not “to a degree”; the central point of the strip is that this is *exactly* how women in gaming are treated today.
Still are treated. Especially in male-oriented computer games like FPSs. Which is one of the reasons why I prefer to play against the computer when I play RTS games like StarCraft. Even though I use a masculine handle, I still see really sexist (and really disgusting) comments in chat sessions in some games. There are even a few websites devoted to women posting transcripts of the crude and unwarranted comments they’ve been subjected to when gaming online.
And “sad” doesn’t even begin to describe it…
Was that, Laural and Hardy? 😀
I would buy these, if they were in the store.
Agreed. Where can we purchase copies if we won’t be at ECCC?
John Kovalic of Dork Tower fame did a series of three cartoons on girl gamers/fans. It was disturbing to read in the same way that Shannon’s was. I’ve been a gamer since the mid/late ’70s and while I’ve never seen this type of behavior personally, I have no doubt that reports of such rectal haberdashery are accurate.
It amazes me how we sometimes demonstrate how un-evolved that we are.
The first of three: http://www.dorktower.com/2014/02/24/9282/
Is there an e-copy I can get somewhere?
click on the blue “Perils of the Lady Gamer”, above.
http://www.shaenon.com/ladygaming.html
World of Whistcraft? Where do I sign up!
I play an online MMO, Dungeons & Dragons Online. It was only a couple of weeks ago that a male gamer was shocked and surprised that there were actually some real females playing. Sharon’s comic saddened me the same way that guy did, that we still have so far to go as a society.
That Penny Arcade panel in particular is crystalline in its perfection, thanks
I agree wholeheartedly. The fallout from that particular strip was why I stopped reading Penny Arcade altogether. I know that they were poking fun at the “rescue X captives” type of quest in MMOs, but the reference in the strip in question was bad enough. The insensitivity shown afterward was what totally turned me off PA completely.
…Ok, I missed that there was a link to the comic above somehow. Now I feel dumb AND annoyed at my own gender.
Sorry, but that was pretty silly and overwrought.
I have a hard time believing apologies that come before the insult. It does not help that everything in the comic actually happened (mutatis mutandis) or that “overwrought” can be taken as “over-emotional,” which is a common misogynist slur.
Please attempt to write a criticism of this comic that you would be unable to counter with an unanswerable accusation of misogyny.
If you’re unable to do so, you should question your ideology’s methodology.
“I think that retelling these real-life incidents in such a humorous manner belittles the seriousness of and harm caused by them” would criticize it while acknowledging the seriousness of the subject matter and message. If I mistook your criticism of “silly” as referring to the incidents portrayed or the message the piece was attempting to convey when all you meant to criticize was some secondary feature that you failed to specify, well, I’m sorry for the confusion on that point. My point about apologies preceding the insult stands, though.
And as an aside, “overwrought” as a criticism of art or writing means exactly what its root suggests: overdone, too complex, or strained.
It probably started being used as a metaphor when iron began being used for things like decorative gates. Adding lots of fine detail (like leaves or complex patterns) made the iron brittle and prone to snapping.
If your first response is to play “ten degrees of misogyny” in an attempt to slander the critic, it must be very hard to have a proper discussion about… anything, really.
If that is what you meant by it, I’m sorry that there was some confusion. In my experience, however, people criticizing a discussion of an emotional issue sometimes criticize the level of emotion involved. In fact, this specific issue is frequently subjected to criticisms of “overreacting” (i.e., reacting with too much emotion) and the like; to assume that the word could not possibly mean its primary meaning when applicable just because there is a secondary meaning also available is to place too much trust in the universal observance of a usage note that doesn’t even appear in my dictionaries.
When someone makes a long complaint about misogyny and the reply is an unqualified criticism, I do question their belittling of the complaint. On the other hand, your own ad hominem is false; I don’t raise the possibility of misogyny in every context because it would be irrelevant to the subject matter in most of them. Nor is it normally my practice to slander a critic; however, it is my practice to point out relevant potential readings of their criticism. Here, misogyny is the subject of the piece you criticized and you used a criticism frequently used to dismiss such complaints without specifying that you were referring only to the art and/or writing in some way not bearing on the subject; to point out that your criticism “can be taken as” a misogynist one seemed reasonable under the circumstances and as non-accusatory as possible.
I do thank you for your subsequent clarification of the precise subject of your criticism.
Incidentally, I think that’s an interesting theoretical etymology, if entirely unrelated to modern usage.
The single art-specific definition I found for “overwrought” was for describing layered media; for example, I could say that something was “overwrought with gold leaf” if the base material had had gold leaf worked (wrought) on top of (over) it. That would suggest a literal meaning and straightforward etymology from the component parts.
“Wrought” is the simple past tense and past participle of “work”; any art that has been overdone could be said to be overworked (overwrought). There is no particular need to bring worked iron (as opposed to cast iron) in specific into the etymology.
Bosoms or depart!!