Thursday, June 26, 2014

Feminist Rant

So I was browsing the internet, as I do, and I came upon something rather interesting: The Quest to Understand Feminism Through 'World of Warcraft'.

It's kinda sad, but interesting all the same. I can happily say my experience in WoW is far more positive than the artist's. So far I've:
  • Met loads of real women.**
  • Been a member of at least two guilds run by women.
  • Been on a raid team where the steady and most competent members happened to be women. 
  • Met a lot of married couples like myself and my husband, who play and raid together. Geek Force unite!
  • Met quite a few young, unmarried men that wished they could get their girlfriend's to play or wished they could find one that did - they were perfectly happy to have women play wow alongside them.
  • Not once, in my just over two years of playing, have I ever heard a comment like "GB2 the kitchen".
I should point out, however, that I am Alliance, not Horde. There are jerks everywhere but we have prettier cities.

**I actually asked many a guild member (in our guild chat room) whether they were women or men, so I wasn't assuming. 

**Also, we used Vent (a program that's like a conference call for a raid team) during our raids. It's hard not to notice when "Faith" the female human on screen is accompanied by the deep Southern drawl of a man, or when "Honey" has the sweetest little voice you've ever heard and you just want to squeeze her.


Anyway! Back to the article. Where's the rant you ask? Well, here it comes: one comment I could just not leave alone. It set my blood boiling and I had to say something. Here's the comment:
Yeah, and then there's real life where women are socially equal to men and just like the special status playing the perpetual victim gets them. Post Modernist "feminism" is the ultimate form of misogyny as it requires women to be victims for it to have any threat of logic.
Oh boo hoo, you went out in public and heard something you didn't like. PATRIARCHY! OOOOoooh. Equal means equal. Deal with it.
 And this is my reply:


Are you serious?!  That pregnant 19 year old wasn't playing the victim. She was raped by a family member, and I can only assume a MALE, seeing how conservative she was she'd be a screaming homophobic otherwise. She IS a victim.

And "threat of logic"?!  You know, just saying something doesn't make it so. Women are NOT treated equally to men. Men are still payed vastly more for the exact same work, with the exact same experience.  Straight out of university, women with great grades will make the same as men with shitty ones( Female 'A+' Students End Up Making As Much As Male 'C' Students). How is this equal?!?

We've come a long way. Women are persons under the law; at least where I live. We can vote. We can own land. We can hold almost any job, as long as we don't mind a pay cut. But are we equal? NOT EVEN CLOSE.

When men are given wives as GIFTS,( South Africa investigates 'wife gift' for SABC head). No, we are NOT equal.

The fact that you think women are misogynistic for wanting true equality, for wanting girls and women to have the same value socially, culturally, intrinsically as their male compatriots says how not equal we are more perfectly than I ever could.