I am quite aware that the people in the guild I recently joined as an experiment are mostly in their 20’s and the guild (text) chat and voice chat reflects this. Firstly, there is lots of it, which is comforting, and much of it is joking and one-upping. It’s boisterous Uni stuff without the political correctness of work, and I love the energy of it all. Putting on my cynical hat, it’s from people who haven’t played this game for 5+ straight years and have yet to be worn down with familiarity and the (at times) tedium of logging in most nights which I find myself falling into sometimes.
But there’s one thing which disturbs me about some of the chat. It’s how the women tolerate and even celebrate the sex talk, even though much of it is directed at them. It boils down to the talk that Sam and I had at work the other day about how I was shocked when a 29 year old female wrote “Eat a Dick” in chat. I thought about the women I grew up with, many of whom were feisty feminists and concluded that although many could swear like sailors, they wouldn’t use that phrase. Another made reference to golden showers and yet another talked about how she’d been raped by some in-game non player characters. And I started to think – is this typical for gals in their 20’s now? Or are they trying to fit into blokey game culture so bad that they have unravelled decades of feminist progress.
Then Sam at work set me straight – I had an inkling of it, but I needed reassurance. These women are post feminists. Women and men are the same now, or bloody close to it in their teens and twenties. They probably get as drunk as each other, commit as many crimes as each other, and compete as alpha’s to be the most filthy, most outrageous, most popular and most noticed. Blame Big Brother, blame Lady Gaga, blame Jersey Shore. It should be a triumphant moment for the young women of today that no male can cower them or make them feel ashamed or vulnerable (and maybe it is for them), but instead it makes me a little disappointed that they had to become like blokes to do it. It’s been preying on my mind all week, I’m glad I got that out…
I guess your last paragraph made me think of the pommy “Ladettes” (or “Ladette to Lady” reality TV show that I heard about, anyway), but when mjd first mentioned this post I was thinking I wouldn’t say something like that. Then we watched the football and I (a 29 year old female) repeatedly yelled at Stephen Milne to “Suck it!” when he was having a crap game. He is, however, my least favourite player in the league, and I wouldn’t yell it at too many players. I didn’t mean it literally after all. I wouldn’t use it with anyone I was having an actual conversation with, unless it was perhaps mjd. I certainly wouldn’t say “Eat a dick”. And I don’t think it’s ever appropriate to use the word ‘rape’ for anything other than its worst meaning.
It’s like people making air-crash jokes around me. Not uncommon. They don’t know that it hurts unless I tell them, and if I do feel like it’s worth bringing up it obviously changes the social context entirely – which usually isn’t worth it – but I become seriously uncomfortable with the conversation when it veers that direction, and I’m sure rape survivors have the same discomfort (or worse) listening to that sort of ‘jokey’ chat.
As one of those ‘older’ chicks I just find all this so-called blokey chat (whether it’s guys or girls saying it) still to be mostly demeaning to women, pretty unfunny and very dull. Really is this the ‘crowning achievement’ of feminism that we can act & talk like guys ..maybe we all need to rise to a ‘higher’ standard. (do i sound like my mother???)
Hey Darren. Long time no see! How goes mate? Good to see you’re still playing, and obviously excelling!
On topic – I still find most women around my age (early-mid 20’s) are ‘moderately crude’, as I will put it. Only a very few can equal me when I’m going hard and strong with the vulgarities – and similarly few are of the ‘prim and proper’ type! It is though refreshing (and chauvinistic on by behalf for it to be so?) to come across a lady whom can treated ‘like a lady’.
Also – if you want to catch up over a few emails – you’ve got it above! Would love to see how you two are going – and the old crew if still in contact 🙂