http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?212651-Request-Gender-neutral-Rules-Please
So first off it should go without saying but there are 3 people in this thread who I think behaved in a matter acceptable for human beings; the OP, Stepfan and PPS_Simon.
I really wanted to give Nick from the Texas Renegades (the only name I recognised on the thread) a pass but he's the first person to claim that the OP is accusing PP of sexism and misogyny. That's not OK.
This is quite possibly the best request type post that I have ever seen on the forums and the responses among the worst. I have seen a thread that was nothing but the original poster complaining about how OP Venethrax was and demanding PP nerf him immediately or he would leave the hobby and the responses to that thread were mostly advice on how to win that match up. No one belittling the OP despite the fact that he was clearly an idiot.
So this is happening all over the place, women are trying to exist without harassment and dismissal. That's not what this thread started as but the thread shows what is happening to women on the internet and if I'm honest offline too.
The question is how is this going to affect PP, can we get rid of the dickheads or will PP become infested with them? I think sadly that as things stand it might be the second one. It seems to me that the signals PP is sending out are less that this is a safe space for women and more that this is a safe space for misogynist arseholes.
I think the biggest thing is sexualised female models. In particular it's the convention exclusive sculpts. The Bombshell Bombardier, the blighted bather, the druid gone wilder, the steelsoul keg protector. Every single convention exclusive is female and sexualised. Even the friggin robot. It sends a message about who the game is for and about who the game isn't for.
The PP range also has a very large amount of sexualised female sculpts. There is a lot of female clevage on display, there is a lot of boob plate, there are a lot of female sculpts with high heels for some reason.
her heels give additional traction on the ice
Fluff wise there were a lot of sexist tropes in the early story line of the game but PP has gotten better at that (at least with what I have noticed).
I think the telling thing will be the community. There are some loud feminist voices in the community, Simon at PP is one and I applaud him for it. There is also Chad at muse on minis and the Irish Warmachine guys in particular Anto and Stu. However there are still a lot of misogynistic slurs that are used in the community as names for models and which are bandied around pretty freely. I already called out one guy on a podcast lets go all in, the Chain Attack guys use a lot of unacceptable gendered language, and Emmanuel Class from RFP thought that this was an acceptable way to advertise shirts for the WTC fun raiser.
These things are not OK, these things are fomenting the boys club, anti women attitude in the community. At the moment I feel like the hate directed at women in the community is overpowering the good things.
I hope that the community is less shithead than I think it is, I hope that we get past this and the warmachine community becomes a safe space for women.
Sorry I'm so down at the moment but this is really depressing to me. I don't want to leave warmachine but I don't want to stay in a community filled with this kind of stuff.
That thread is sad.
ReplyDeleteI emailed Fantasy Flight games a while back to ask the same thing because it annoys the crap out of my partner when she reads a rule book. Shes gotten into saying "with his penis" after every "he does X", they even use he when it is a female character in the example.
Gender neutral rules shouldn't be hard to do. Why people get so butt hurt at the suggestion of them says tons about our hobby, and none of it is good.
As for the figures, for the most part PP does already. Sure there is some boob armour and Denny/Skarre stick out as fap models, but for the most part the women are attired appropriately.
ReplyDeleteThere are also loads of powerful influential women in the setting, and they aren't starlets and hookers. Check out these figs from infinity, they make Skarre look classy.
http://impetuousorders.blogspot.co.nz/2012/04/sexism-in-miniature-worst-of-infinity.html
PP is by no means the worst offender when it comes to sexualised female models, in fact by industry standards they are probably on the better side. Relic Knights is another one that is really bad. I understand too that often the reason boobs are accentuated on female models is that because of size and armour it can be hard to otherwise differentiate them as female. Not only that I think the line has gotten better with time. I still think there is room for improvement, in particular with the convention exclusives which is where I think the big problem is as far as PP is concerned. Most of the other stuff is up the community.
DeleteUnfortunately the linked thread is closed. The only RL comment by a female friend I can offer is on the witch coven (certainly attractive young females, skin color choice of yours truly), and it was "she has an attractive gut". I´ll just add that males tend to be on the muscular side of things, too, and that causes it´s own set of unfulfilled expectations.
ReplyDeleteLanguage is a difficult issue. I can live with the neutral form, but prefer to have sexual identity in the game. I play Cryx, and we can refer to pDenny, eDenny, pSkarre, eSkarre as "she". There are no Lich Ladys, and that might be a problem. It could also be (with a positive stretch) be seen as reflecting society averages, with old men being in power and younger women moving up. What PP can certainly not be accused of is women being portrayed as weak. Consider Blood Hag, Sea Witch, Warwitch Siren.
I spent a lot of time trying to work out how to reply to this. There are two ways to take this comment. Either you are trying to understand and have missed my point a little bit or you are repeating sexist garbage answers you have heard from similar problems in other industries.
DeleteI really want to just put you on blast mainly for trying to apply the dumb argument that keeps being repeated in comic book circles to warmachine where unlike in comics there aren't a bunch of muscled men in skin tight suits. And also for "...prefer to have sexual identity in the game" which might be the most ridiculous argument I have ever heard.
Instead of a full blast though I'm just going to quickly add some things in addition to what I have said above. Old men in power and females trying to break in does not reflect societies averages. There are more old women than old men (they live longer) there are many less old women in power because of sexism.
You are the first person to claim that PP portrays women as weak. I didn't say that, the poster I'm talking about didn't say that.
It was a bit late, and while I still get what I wanted to say I admit it´s not as clear as it could have been. Like, at all. What I did not say (you didn´t either) is that women are portrayed as weak in this game.
DeleteThe part about female representation problems I "get" best is that about there not being representation in some games. The computer games I grew up with often didn´t have the option, and I like female gamers and since that changed there are more. Good.
Now my warmachine faction has undead male casters and living female casters. Banes at least are gender-neutral as far as I can see, and the language seems to favor the neutral form. No trouble with that as long as the text for Goreshade can say "he" and the text for Deneghra can say "she". I think I read too much into the neutrality demand here, and apologize. On the positive side at least the language of the Cryx book seems to be quite neutral.
That leaves the point of gender balance in leadership positions. And this is where I don´t understand you: "there are many less old women in power because of sexism." seems to be another view of "old men being in power and younger women moving up" currently happening in 1st world societies.
It has nearly no influence on the actual game, since most anyone will play female casters, but there are only Lich Lords (male title) (a whole one, Thalassina, seeming to be female). This could change, as it will, over time, in reality.
As Crxyian I say eMortenebra for Lich Lady and Darragh Wrathe for living male warcaster!
eMorty for Lich lady is a thing I support.
Delete