Sunday Sermon: Is our hobby misogynistic?

Botticelli's masterpiece - The Birth of Venus

I'll be honest I started this article months and months and months ago now. I actually started writing it back when I first started writing this Blog, so it's almost a year in the making. Yes that means it didn't start out as a Sunday Sermon originally, and has morphed from being a series of articles dissecting various aspects of the hobby into a single article, and then back and forth again multiple times. In fact so many I've lost count. So why the hell has it taken this long to finish, and what finally prompted me to get it done? Well it's taken so long because it's such a mammoth and emotive subject to cover, and a very difficult one to broach. It also doesn't help that I'm a man writing from a male's perspective on issue that is about how the hobby effects and indeed portrays females. Lets be clear here, if I'm not careful this could come across as patronizing, condescending, tripe masquerading as feminism. It probably does, and no doubt somebody will point that out to me, but my intentions are I hope at least in the right place, even if 'ownership' of the issues contained within it are difficult. I simply want to start a sensible and hopefully rational debate about some of the issues I'm going to raise here, if I do that, even if I get shot down in flames it'll be mission accomplished for me. So what got me back to writing the article. Well it was that knucklehead SinSynn and this article, and me reviewing the Gilded Saint Dragon Hunter.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau - The Birth of Venus, clearly a popular subject with artists I've been asked if these sorts of painting are any different to depictions of women in our hobby.

As I say it's not a very easy topic to write about, and if you wade in with your size 10 boots with your tact module set to zero you are liable to stand on a landmine, and get blown to pieces. But, it is a subject that I feel needs broaching, if for no other reason than the very simple fact that our hobby is systematically ignoring 50% of the population, and in some respects actively putting them off of the hobby. Now I'm no capitalist, and I'm certainly not about to make an argument for the better treatment of women purely based on wealth generation and capitalism... but come on! Ignoring women / girls / females / chicks / hotties is just bad business surely? So OK I'm probably not the best persona to tackle the issues, but I'm willing to give it a go. Besides, I'm often told I have a girls name (Jody) so I figure that must give me some credentials right? Yeah, I thought not. I didn't however seek to produce an article purely from my own perspective originally, although ultimately that is what I have done, as I've got to say I felt it was the safest way to proceed in the end. So yeah this is purely my opinion, even though over the last 10 months or so I have spoken to many 'girl gamers' (even that tag could be considered condescending and sexist) about their experiences and more importantly what they think.

Specifically I was asked how the Venus Di Milo differed from...

The one thing that has struck me, and continues to strike me is that many women find the fact that this topic has to be broached at all annoying, insulting and condescending in and of itself. But, most did feel it needed tackling, for a myriad of personal and broader social reasons. I actually really wanted to try and get a guest female author in to write this article initially, but none were forthcoming, or ultimately willing to help me out on this score and I can respect their reasons... even if it does annoy me slightly that I don't get a Sunday off writing! That's part of the reason why it's taken me so long to write it, I was genuinely hoping to pass the buck I guess, and abdicate a bit of responsibility over the 'ownership' of the issue. Yeah, ultimately I was being a big cowardly cry baby, for not wanting to tackle the issue of patriachy and sexism, not just in the hobby, but wider society. I'm not normally a chicken, so I rolled my sleeves up and finally got on with it. Often when us males stand up and say 'hey I'm a feminist and I think it's shitty society treats 50% of the population this way' we get it in the neck from both sides. We're either trying to get into some chicks knickers, or we can't possibly understand the crushing oppression and soul destroying objectification women are put through daily. We're apologists or clueless, but perhaps I'm not the only one, for my part I just didn't want to come off as yet another guy trying to defend the poor helpless 'girl gamers' out their...
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