Blizzard, tokenism is not enough

So I wanted to make a few comments on this recent trend, how Blizzard is cleaning up things in their games that could be potentially interpreted as sexist/racist.

I am not necessarily against these things, but this must not be smokescreen to cover the real issues of discrimination against women in receiving fair pay in your company, I can’t speak for the women involved but I do know what it’s like to be working for next to nothing, effectively feeling like you are being used as slave labor, like you are being taken advantage of, people that do the same work should get the exact same pay, end of story,

These threads that keep coming up as you changing character names and removing the odd potentially racist/sexist quotes and whatnot in my mind could amount to mere tokenism, where you are trying to look good, but the question is, are you committed to making serious change?

I am no extreme feminist,but I believe a society where women are treated well at work and not subject to constant sexism will be beneficial for everyone, even men. I mean acting all Woke/progressive in game is all well and good, but is this going to translate into long term serious affirmative action?

Then again, sometimes I think acting too woke can do more harm then good, not going to lie, I left a lot of wow behind for FF14 not because of any system in wow in particular, but socially it just became too hard, that you can’t talk to people in dungeons at all, it feels like a crime to interact with anyone outside of your guild clique and whatnot,

Obviously the men in this game are partly responsible, I don’t mean to preach, but to the men I know you’ve grown up in the era of shows like the Big Bang Theory, where casual sexism is portrayed as harmless if you are a geeky/nerdy guy, but in reality some of that casual sexism can be really dangerous and extremely hurtful to a lot of women, and a lot of that behavior is not okay, obviously everyone has a right to be safe regardless of gender/race,

Anyway the point is we can’t let token like gestures stop us from keeping the pressure on to ensure there is real positive change in people’s attitudes and a company’s behavior,

Just something to think about.

4 Likes

Just something to think about.

I refuse to think about this.

12 Likes

Of course it’s not enough just to make the game “woke,” (hate that word), but the developers aren’t the ones who can fix systemic issues at the company.

2 Likes

Obviously since I play a Female BE, I’m a man. And I bear no responsibility for this issue. Not even a little bit. Also, I’ve never watched a full episode of The Big Bang Theory.

1 Like

THANK YOU, removing “Green skin” insults isn’t removing racism from wow. For 10+ years white customizations were forced on gamers of color (imagine the opposite), and such a gross political agenda as tying real-world racial skin tones to a should-be fantasy game fostered an environment where people aware of that racial disparity felt racial authority to tell others why non-caucasian eye features // brown skin tones shouldn’t exist as though they were inherently qualified to discriminate, and we still don’t have brown night elves.

2 Likes

Honestly I’d rather see them spend time making the game better than going back to change things in the past. This level 8 quest from 15 years ago that says “I’m gonna touch you” isn’t gonna have a resonating affect with the community. I tell you what will, the overall state of the game.

2 Likes

No it’s not obvoious.

Also, how dare you accuse me of these things. Who do you think you are?

6 Likes

Well not ALL men, but if you don’t think men haven’t been making casual sexist jokes and homophobic slurs and whatnot in this game, I don’t know what to say really

I’m so done with all of this. If you dont like it play something else or find a better job it is really that simple. If you dont think a company is treating you fairly then leave. That is how you actually make a statement not these im woke but not too woke rants that people just loathe to see. Stop trying to change something that just because you dont like it others do but we all have to cater to your needs. You need to toughen your skin the world is not nice maybe you should travel to find this out.

4 Likes

Ive heard women do the same thing get over it.

7 Likes

Just tell them to go to the garage and fix your car.
Oh wait, they probably wouldn’t care, would they?

It is a nice tactic, not giving a crap that is.
The subtle art of not giving a crap.

Is not a book talking about ‘not giving a crap’ but a book about how if you actually have something important to give a crap about, then the minor issues such as being told to go to the kitchen and make a sandwich, suddenly stops being a problem.

If you starve, then above is the last thing on your mind to give a crap about. If you somehow do not live comfortably, and think about this for a moment, if you somehow DO NOT live comfortably, then being told to go to the kitchen and make a sandwich is not a problem.

The point - you are probably fairly well off to care enough about minor issues like this, so you gotta ask yourself, are you REALLY in that much trouble because of casual sexism? Is it REALLY that dangerous?

This has been brought to you by bullcrappery.dot.dot

1 Like

And women have never said any of these types things? BS
I’ve heard women speak of men’s idiotic behaviors in game with words that cannot be repeated here. So don’t start this holier than thou BS.

5 Likes

Well casual sexism in reality is not so ‘casual’ once again I’ve probably worded myself very badly.

Casual sexism can and does create victims, and by the way just because this isn’t Afghanistan or some country where women are being shot, doesn’t mean that bad things don’t happen to women here.

1 Like

That is an intentional pancake interpretation and you should feel ashamed.

Two people can do the same job at vastly different levels of effort, efficiency and thus productive value.

A first year mason and actually being one for 20+ years is an entirely different thing.

2 Likes

But was revealed in the scandal that the women were putting in as much effort, if not more for the same job the men were doing…

This is illegal.
If someone is getting paid less based on gender, they can grab a lawyer and get paid.
I have a hard time believing that women are getting paid less across the board simply because they are women, and we never hear any law suits about it…

Not to mention the pay gap is a myth that has been debunked over and over.

5 Likes

Of course not, bad stuff happens to everyone. What are we gonna do about it, have a permanent curfew for everyone?

Does it thought?
Or does it just give rise to the “victims” who do not like being called ‘sugar’ a single time on the street by a guy she’d never have any interraction with at any other point in her life.

I’ll give it to you though, we still have some absolutely disgusting World of Warcraft nerds that need to get a proper social life so that they can actually learn how to properly interract with people.

2 Likes

I take issue with how such things are determined. Knowing for example how many hours the men and women were working, what their tasks were and such.

You can’t say that women were working any harder because they were there longer. Some people can do the same job in half the time. That doesn’t mean the former was providing more value to the company.

The government is entirely untrustworthy here.

I believe the women’s football team actually tried it out.
But the judge threw the case out stating that the men and women were paid equally, which is somewhat true, appearantly some of the women are actually paid more. The difference in pay comes from the payment structure.

The women were offered similar payment structure to the men, but the women rejected it to instead get employee benefits.

As a software developer, I can tell you, most places will hire significantly less-qualified women and minorities, and then pay them better. Thanks to things like Affirmative Action, everyone wants the “diverse” candidates and therefore offer to compensate them better and promote them easier in the STEM fields. I used to sit next to corporate recruiters for a STEM company who would flat out tell hiring managers that they could not hire any white male candidates, even if no one else applied. They would just have an empty spot on the team until a “diverse” candidate applied.

3 Likes