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.