When You Put Bunny Ears On An Orc, YOU PROMOTE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Posted on April 29, 2009 by Scott Jennings| 117 Comments

(I do too, but only because it’s really tedious.)

To be a bit more serious, they do have a valid point, and one that could have been minimized very easily with intelligent design (for example, requiring both players to trade an item to activate the bunny state). But Blizzard has shown time and again that not only do they tend to encourage their community to minimize social concerns, they also tend to respond childishly when those concerns are brought up.

And yet, hey, 12 million subscribers!

(One of whom apparently won the game. Whoops.)

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Nerd Rage

FWIW, I will agree that involuntarily putting ears on anyone is not cool, and making it a requirement for a game enhancing mount is extremely not cool, but all of those things were an afterthought in the add sexism post.

Go ahead and resume hating me now. I should probably say something about getting back in the kitchen so it’s easier to dismiss my rantings.
Angelworks

I’d offer my design help (for free) to Blizzard because it feels like they need it – not that I have any professional experience doing that sort of thing, but I thought of a bunch of more fun things to do for that holiday event than what they came up with – for instance hide eggs around all cities, not just 4 or 5 per faction.

The bunny ear thing was just wierd to be honest. I had people following me around at one point :/.
Vetarnias

Never mind whether this is sexist (I’d say it is); what does it say about our society when 12 million people subscribe to, and are apparently content with, a game having stupid quests like placing bunny ears on a female character?
mer

This is pretty funny in a dark way.
Second time this month something like this came up.
Female gamer said she and/or her friend where made uncomfortable/upset/angry about a development choice.

Male gamers line up to tell her how she is wrong and how “some female gamers obviously like it”. That their opinion on the matter makes it ok. And she should shut up.

Hmmmm. What does that tell me?

I’m just glad that not making these stupid mistakes makes good developers more money.
Athryn

You have to be kidding me. As a female gamer myself, I don’t think that article by feministing represents a majority of how women players feel. Heck, on the first night of Noblegarden, I held an impromptu parade around Dalaran on my Dwarf priest, with many people, both Horde and Alliance, thanking me for hanging out long enough for them to put ears on me. None of the other female players in my guild (of which we have many, actually) even commented, other than the fact that it’s a pain to find someone who plays orc females.

If you want to put a real finger on the pulse of female wow players, go no further than the wowladies community on livejournal.

I haven’t seen one mention there of a sexist aspect to the event, and trust me, when they have issues with something, they’re not reticent. There are frequent discussions there about issues dealing with women players in wow, and this just was not one of them.
ikew

@Gexx

Freedom of speech is not some strange government idea, it’s *value* of our civilization. To be precise, it’s one of the most valuable values of our civilization.

@Gexx
I see your point – but i still think that people are making a big deal out of a tiny example of genuine tastelessness. I, for one, felt *raped* when a paladin corpse-camped me for about 60 minutes when they were overpowered some months ago. It was demeaning experience, devastating to my ability to enjoy the game and it made me feel like a lowly, unimportant mob. Someone wanted me to feel bad, he really did invest time in it – and he had no reason, i had never seen that guy before, but no, he waited and killed, waited and killed, waited… and killed…
What i’m trying to say is – there are much worse things that can happen to you there. And they do happen. There was an achievement for /hugging the corpse of a player – when it was introduced, the non-so-much-pvp players on them pvp servers swarmed the low level zones to kill easy targets. And to hug them afterwards. THAT was demeaning. But you got the achievement no matter what gender was the target, so there wasn’t much complaining, eh?

“Oh, and when someone starts a conversation with “Don’t take me as…” or “I’m not X but,”… yeah. It’s both a derailing technique and a fake apology.”

I am not convinced that every time someone insist that he is not something, he IS that exact thing.

Furthermore, i consider myself crusader of HUMAN equality. I do not see the point of giving one gender some exclusive rights. PEOPLE have rights, but sexes? I would not let someone represent me on basis of having the same kind of dangling parts. Neither feminists nor whire
ikew

@Joshua Meadows

Freedom of speech is not some strange government idea, it’s *value* of our civilization. To be precise, it’s one of the most valuable values of our civilization. It has it’s place almost anywhere.

@Gexx
I see your point – but i still think that people are making a big deal out of a tiny example of genuine tastelessness. I, for one, felt *raped* when a paladin corpse-camped me for about 60 minutes when they were overpowered some months ago. It was demeaning experience, devastating to my ability to enjoy the game and it made me feel like a lowly, unimportant mob. Someone wanted me to feel bad, he really did invest time in it – and he had no reason, i had never seen that guy before, but no, he waited and killed, waited and killed, waited… and killed…
What i’m trying to say is – there are much worse things that can happen to you there. And they do happen. There was an achievement for /hugging the corpse of a player – when it was introduced, the non-so-much-pvp players on the pvp servers swarmed the low level zones to kill easy targets. And to hug them afterwards. THAT was demeaning. But you got the achievement no matter what gender was the target, so there wasn’t much complaining, eh?

“Oh, and when someone starts a conversation with “Don’t take me as…” or “I’m not X but,”… yeah. It’s both a derailing technique and a fake apology.”

I am not convinced that every time someone insist that he is not something, he IS that exact thing. : P

Furthermore, i consider myself crusader of HUMAN equality. I do not see the point of giving one gender some exclusive rights. PEOPLE have rights, but sexes? I would not let someone represent me on basis of having the same kind of dangling parts. Neither feminists nor male supremacy idiots have some special allowance to speak for anyone but themselves.

sure, some girls have really been offended by the bunny ears. To them i offer to quit wow, if they think the devs don’t deserve their money, or to stand and suffer the indignity like the rest of us do. And to call the ones who stick those ears to them “idiots”.
Sullee

@Scott

Your suggestion of requiring a trade on both parties wouldn’t work in this case as part of the achievment involves the opposite faction women whom you cannot converse let alone trade with. I get your point though.

Overall this whole event was very poorly designed… it simply isn’t fun and entirely too facile. The bulk of it is waiting out the RNG if you are going for all the achievements (I gave up after 600 eggs). The meta can be gotten without so much but still it isn’t fun. There is no puzzle for the brain to chew on.. just some timesink via travel and clicking ground spawns. Amazes me this crap makes it out of the most cursory design meeting let alone through their testers (who either suck or have absolutely zero power).
AMIB

Isn’t this the same holiday that has an achievement to wear a tux and blow a kiss to someone wearing a dress, but has not gender restrictions on that whatsoever?

Can’t win for losing.

And to correct a factual error here, you can put bunny ears on whoever you like, regardless of gender. If someone wants to follow another player around and keep replacing the bunny ear buff (every five minutes, as it has a cooldown), they can do so, regardless of gender or level.
http://spinksville.wordpress.com/ Spinks

I personally think that achievement would have been a lot more fun if when you put bunny ears on someone, you had a 10% chance to get stunned for 3 minutes and had your PvP flag set. Then if a female character with bunny ears killed you during this period, they could get the achievement, “That Rabbit is Dynamite!!!”
http://deathknightspree.blogspot.com/ Stabs

Ha ha, very nice Spinks!

One of the traditional elements of Blizzard games has been a certain level of freedom for the designers. Right from Warcraft 1 there have been little easter eggs or pieces of dialogue that make players do a double-take.

Perhaps this is the price of freedom, that if you allow your designers to cross certain lines from time to time in pursuit of entertainment they will at times be offensive.

It’s very much a double-edged sword though, as Spinks recently considered over at her blog games that position themselves as games for boys are effectively jettisoning almost half of their customer base from the outset.

Incidentally, am I the only one who thinks Scott’s take on this is somewhat puerile? The feminist site reporting this didn’t say anything about violence against women. They simply stated it’s degrading to some players, non-consensual, and unfair. Hard to argue with any of those observations.
Pingback: West Karana » Daily Blogroll 4/30 — Wednesday is the new Tuesday edition
TPRJones

Sure, but all of comedy is degrading to someone, non-consensual, and unfair.

Every joke has a butt. Sometimes it’s your turn.
Joshua Meadows

ikew :
@Joshua Meadows
Freedom of speech is not some strange government idea, it’s *value* of our civilization. To be precise, it’s one of the most valuable values of our civilization. It has it’s place almost anywhere.

Try again, big boy. It’s government protection that allows me to criticize politicians without needing to fear being arrested or executed for treason like they did in the 1700s.

I’ll agree that it’s become a value, but only because the original intent has been misunderstood from “protection from government censorship” to “I have to entertain every stupid comment on the blog or forum I pay for else I am Stalin or worse.”

This isn’t a freedom of speech issue, it’s a right to be stupid issue. Blizzard is a private company, and if they want to have a stupid juvenile event that’s certainly their right; which is weighed against their image and desire to piss of their customers.

I think the author has a point, but as another poster said earlier in this discussion there are much more severe issues to get upset about regarding sexism and misogyny in WoW and video games at large. I guess the difference in this example though is that the latter, larger issue comes from players acting like twats, while this was done by the game developers themselves.
Drey

@Gexx

I’ve honestly never bought in to the “it’s OK for a minority to call each other the derogatory names that the majority uses for them, they’re just empowering themselves and taking the word back” line of reasoning. It seems that only works if the majority is no longer using the derogatory word, image, symbology.
http://www.brokentoys.org/ Scott Jennings

Incidentally, am I the only one who thinks Scott’s take on this is somewhat puerile? The feminist site reporting this didn’t say anything about violence against women.

Um, neither did I, save in the painfully obviously satirically strident title.
Joshua Meadows

Scott Jennings :

Incidentally, am I the only one who thinks Scott’s take on this is somewhat puerile? The feminist site reporting this didn’t say anything about violence against women.

Um, neither did I, save in the painfully obviously satirically strident title.

Why do you hate women? I’m going to boycott this blog immediately.

By which I mean post comments telling you how outraged I am.

>:|||
Drey

@Scott Jennings
There you go again, Scott, thinking everyone who visits your site recognizes sarcasm when they see it!
Vetarnias

Joshua Meadows :

Scott Jennings :

Incidentally, am I the only one who thinks Scott’s take on this is somewhat puerile? The feminist site reporting this didn’t say anything about violence against women.

Um, neither did I, save in the painfully obviously satirically strident title.

Why do you hate women? I’m going to boycott this blog immediately.
By which I mean post comments telling you how outraged I am.
>:|||

Do you mean to say that Scott Jennings is ***?
TPRJones

I’m sorry, Vetarnias, that term does not exist in the world of Scott Jennings.
Mortarion

As an aside: I play a dwarf paladin. During the Winter’s Veil holiday, there’s an achievement to make snowflakes fall on the heads of certain races/classes. Everyone had to find a dwarf paladin and put snowflakes on his head.

There are like five dwarf paladins in WoW. So for the whole holiday, I was *constantly* getting snowflaked. On the surface, it was unfathomably annoying. But you know what? Once I ignored it, it ceased to bother me. My character already looks like a retarded comic book superhero, so who cares what else is going on (graphically) with him?

All you people who think the bunny ears thing is harassment – well, then the Winter’s Veil thing is harassment too, isn’t it?

But seriously, if women are going to get offended at something sexist in the game, get offended at pants. Normal pants on guys that turn into chainmail bikinis (the most cliched fantasy armor idea) when worn by women? They have chainmail bikinis in the game, yet you’re getting offended at bunny ears? Come on.
Sutro

@Mortarion

I can get behind the idea that Winter’s Veil and the Love Fool quests can be harassment as well. I do touch on avatar sovereignty in the post; I feel that the avatar sovereignty issue in this case, though, is exponentially made worse by the sexism issue.

As far as the dress issue, lots of people have noted that (LtM old schoolers: Remember Lietgardis and the AC Red Dress? ;D ) I agree with it full-heartedly. I just chose to point out this issue.
Vetarnias

@Mortarion
Yeah, I remember that Winter Veil quest. It struck me as silly beyond words. As for the chainmail bikinis, I have no doubt that they’re there.

But amidst all that, I don’t think you’ll find another subscription-based game out there which is more “mainstream” and more played by women than World of Warcraft. It’s not just when compared to games aimed at “Teh Hardcorez”, like Darkfall, but to almost every game out there: WAR, Conan, the rest of them.

And if we’re to mention sexism, how can we not discuss the treatment of women Age of Conan, which is even more questionable than WoW ever will be, even if it were suddenly announced that Haris Pilton was the smartest female NPC in the game.
http://knk.codlin.net Laag

Wow Lum… how many times are you going to link the Tinfoil hat April Fool’s Day joke?

Let it go, man. Not enough people were half as offended as you were to keep harping on it like this.
Cedia

I believe it is offensive to we of the older generation who do remember Hugh Heffner and his Playboy mansion, et all.

This is the problem, though, most WoW players are young enough to be my grandchildren. So I guess I’ll accept being the minority and just be glad I had my husband click all the eggs to get my pet for me, because I am a terrible “click and run” person and couldn’t stand, as someone else put it, The Dick Olympics.
Klaitu

Verily, thou has besmirched my e-honor, and therefore I shall whine on ye tubes of yore!

Seriously, people are whining about how bunny ears may appear on your head?

If you don’t like the event, don’t go to the event, it’s not like you’re being forced to play WoW against your will!

Seriously, go outside, discover sunlight, and realize that there are.. perhaps.. more important issues than how you can be offended by a video game.
Facebook User

@Mortarion – I know, I was one of the race/class combos that was continually pelted with snowflakes during Winter’s Veil too. But it didn’t bother me. It didn’t inconvenience me in any way or prevent me from carrying out my business in town. I thought they were cute, as I do the bunny ears.

If I were to level an actual accusation at Blizzard in regard to the treatment of women in WoW, it would be the glaring lack of strong female characters in the lore.
Micah S

Lame Feminists: trivializing actual sexual equality issues with rants about virtual bunny ears since right now.
Amp

If this riles up the feminists, we should add bunny ears to all the female characters.
If this offends you, you fail at the internet.
Bonedead

IMO (seeing as that comes from the “community” section of the website, which has a disclaimer that views expressed in the community section do not reflect that of the editorial staff) she’s blowing it way out of proportion because she thinks she finally has something gold to impress those she looks up to/aspires to join. Again, this is all IMO. But if you look at her recent comments, she’s saying that it really isn’t a big deal to her, and she just likes getting discussions going.

She implies that Shake Your Bunny-Maker has some sort of ties to Playboy. I’m pretty sure that’s fucking stupid. Oh man, they changed the word money to bunny, Playboy invented the word bunny, so they must be referring to Playboy. CRAP. If anything they’re just ripping off some rapper, actually, Elmore James (American blues guitarist) coined the term first in 1959. What a sexist bastard amirite?

I’m done trying to prove some point I’m unaware of. The author of the article is just being loud to be heard, and I’m done giving her attention.
Bleaktea

Is this worse than the red dresses in Asheron’s Call? Because I was informed that those were the greatest evil in the history of mankind.
Turdblossom

I’m not sure that anyone mentioned this yet, but the “fastest mount in the game” she keeps referring to can be gained by several achievements, not just this one. There are more than one meta-achievement that grant that mount (or one of identical stats). It’s a clever bit of obfuscation on her part though, to imply that the only way to get that item is to be [what she considers to be] a sexist.

I did the Noblegarden stuff, and in all honesty it didn’t even occur to me that it’s sexist; I thought it was tongue-in-cheek good fun, a la Monty Python (those sexist bastards!). Maybe I’m part of the problem; on the other hand, maybe to a woman with a hammer, all the world looks like a nail.
dartwick

Much of many well received MMOs is about the imposition of will and power on others.

Most men dont write long whiny diatribes when they are gay humped in an FPS or MMO(probably by a straight 14 year old). And I dont think most women get upset of this stuff. We are paying to much attention to drama queens.
Sutro

@Turdblossom: The Heroic:Glory of the Raider/Hero achievements stopped giving the 310 mounts for rewards when patch 3.1 was released. Check your patch notes.

The only other way to get a 310 mount is a 2 percent drop rate off of a 25-man raid boss, which I don’t really consider practically achievable except through good fortune.
Sutro

@Bonedead: LOL. No. I don’t have any aspirations to join the site; if I did, I wouldn’t write stories that require manual moderation within an hour of its creation.

And… guilty as charged! I wrote that article hitting the high points of what I felt was wrong with the achievement – without getting into the more complex avatar sovereignty issues – and left it at that.

Think of that ethos what you want, but we’re in a “quick hit” media consumption society. If you don’t make your points, make them passionately, and get out… it doesn’t get read. That story has the more comments on Feministing’s community site than the vast majority of things posted there. What’s the point of having an opinion if you can’t spark a dialogue – even if it’s against you?

Like I *also* said in the comment you’re referencing, I absolutely believe in everything I said. I also believe there are more facets to it than what I wrote. And I wouldn’t edit it. If you can’t understand the reasoning for that, we’ll just have to agree to disagree, and you can curry your supporters for your position, and I’ll just kind of hang out.
http://wowpanda.blogspot.com wowpanda

All I have to say is Spinks got the best idea, I’d love that

And finally figured out why my female toons are getting stalked, it is the garden thing. This is just a game. A lot of hot female toons are controlled by man.

Spinks :
I personally think that achievement would have been a lot more fun if when you put bunny ears on someone, you had a 10% chance to get stunned for 3 minutes and had your PvP flag set. Then if a female character with bunny ears killed you during this period, they could get the achievement, “That Rabbit is Dynamite!!!”
Brent Michael Krupp

But Sutro, the Ulduar versions of those achievements give 310 mounts so it’s same as before, availability-wise.
Female Gamer

I’m a feminist. I’m a gamer. And I’m offended …

…offended by people who are claiming to be offended on my behalf. I never gave them the right to speak for me, and they don’t.

To anyone who was offended by the bunny ears: When you’ve been told you can’t even apply for a job you’re highly qualified for because you’re female, get offended. When you’ve been told you have to have a man co-sign to open a bank account, get offended. When your college academic advisor tells you that women shouldn’t be in college, and especially not in the sciences, get offended. When you’re denied housing because you’re a single woman, get offended. When you’ve been told you have to clean a filthy bathroom because you’re the only woman working there, get offended. When someone at your new employer’s home office demands that you put the real manager on the phone or you’ll be fired, get offended. And especially, when you’ve been told that your chances of getting a promotion from your boss are directly related to your boss’s chances of getting a blow job from you, get offended.

If the WORST thing that ever happens to you because you’re female is that someone zaps your game character with silly bunny ears, thank your deity of choice every day that you were not born into my generation, that you did grow up in the world we we grew up in, and that you did not have to fight the struggle we fought to have the opportunities that you take for granted. The women of my generation, and the generations who came before us, fought for the right to equal and fair treatment under the law. We fought for the chance to prove we could do a job, and do it. We fought for the opportunity to be everything we could be, do everything we could do. We did not fight for the right to never be offended. Anyone who thinks that such a right exists is trivializing every woman’s struggle to be treated as a human being, as an adult, as an equal.

Go ride your pink pony to the land of nicey-nice, you weak sisters. Find yourself some politically correct game where nobody is allowed to say any words, think any thoughts, that you personally do not like. You might want to get yourself a fainting couch while you’re at it, and make sure you have a man standing by to open doors for you and help you into cars. Or woman up, deal with it, and stop looking for things to get offended by, because you’re giving all the real feminists of the world a bad name.
TPRJones

You win the thread!

Well said.
The Alien

Sutro :
@Turdblossom: The Heroic:Glory of the Raider/Hero achievements stopped giving the 310 mounts for rewards when patch 3.1 was released. Check your patch notes.

The Glory of the Ulduar Raider and Heroic: Glory of the Ulduar Raider achievements award new super fast mounts. These directly replace the Glory of the Raider and Heroic: Glory of the Raider reward mounts.
Sutro

@Female Gamer
I’m really confused where the notion that I’m speaking for all female gamers came from. Did I ever say that I was? Like I’ve said multiple times, I’m not a female. I posted on the community site for Feministing. Maybe the staff posters purport to speak for everyone, I sure as hell don’t.

You’re right though, it’s a generational difference. It’s the difference between second-wave and third-wave feminism, and there’s plenty of message boards filled with third-wave feminists for you to argue with.

I’ve iterated TIME AND AGAIN in the comments on this thread that no, I’m well aware that this isn’t the greatest threat to women on the planet. I know there’s bigger, monstrously bigger, issues that are out there.

What IS scary about this is that there’s such a STFU backlash to someone expressing their opinion, one crafted from the observation that several women – again, do a quick Google search for “noblegarden” and “sexist,” – are bothered by this. As someone on F13 noted, it’s not a situation where “OMG HOUSE ON FIRE, CAT IN TREE, ONE FIRE TRUCK! WHICH DO WE SAVE?” It’s an observation that there’s a content creation culture that’s not recognizing that some people believe these achievements are sexist.

Look. We’ve all heard the arguments about Barbie, pink clothes, and such. The argument there – that’s pretty well universal among even second-wave and third-wave feminists – is that the patriarchal environment crafts ideology. And it’s an additive effect. If you don’t stand up against patriarchal environmental cues where they exist, how’s anything going to change?
Cedia

@Female Gamer

Yes, those things are extremely offensive and are examples of inequality. However, things that objectify women also offend me. You’re coming across as rather strident when you tell other women what they should and should not be offended by.
Sutro

@The Alien

That’s fair. I missed that. I read over them several times to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, but I did. That said, there’s not a single guild according to raid tracker WorldofRaids.com that’s finished that achievement yet. It’s early, true, but still a little surprising that not even Nihilum has apparently done it yet.
harl

@Sutro

I’m offended by achievments.
Sutro

harl :
@Sutro
I’m offended by achievments.

Heh, I get that, harl. In fact, I could have a few things to say about the wisdom of implementing the uber-grindy commitment-centric achievement system in a media/popular environment where MMOs are under assault from all sorts of talking heads about addiction…

…but I think I’ll save that one for another time.
Xanthippe

Cedia :
@Female Gamer
Yes, those things are extremely offensive and are examples of inequality. However, things that objectify women also offend me. You’re coming across as rather strident when you tell other women what they should and should not be offended by.

I’m with Female Gamer on this. Actually, I’ll go even further and say that I actually _like_ those pants that look different on female toons than on male toons. Dressing like a strumpet is a fun option. If one doesn’t wish to dress like a strumpet, then don’t.

Does this make me a sexist? Or just a victim of patriarchal brainwashing?

My god. There are so many things to complain about with regard to Noblegarden, but this one is the silliest I’ve yet seen. It’s as though someone’s just looking for an argument.
http://foolsage.wordpress.com foolsage

Bonedead :
She implies that Shake Your Bunny-Maker has some sort of ties to Playboy. I’m pretty sure that’s fucking stupid.

You can’t be serious. The connection is blatant and intentional. Whether this offends you or not (it mostly disappoints me; it doesn’t get me angry but I don’t care for the discrimination, mild and tongue-in-cheek though it is), whether you think it’s sexist or not (I think it is, though as other have noted it’s hardly the worst example of sexism in video games or real life), it’s clearly a reference to Playboy magazine.
Sutro

Well, -this- is interesting.

The thread on the World of Warcraft forums discussing my Feministing post was nuked by the moderators:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=16474315406&sid=1

Pretty funny considering that personal attacks go past the mods on a daily basis. Yeah, the thread was extremely hostile to me, but I was taking it in stride in my responses. I’ve seen way worse personal attacks on the WoW forums go by unnoticed, and the topic matter doesn’t violate their CoC.

I’ve got an e-mail in to CM, be interested to see the response.
http://www.thisisnotacommunity.org D-0ne

I find W.O.W. offensive.
http://spinksville.wordpress.com/ Spinks

@Female Gamer: I’m very glad that I never had to experience the discrimination in the workplace that you did, and very grateful to feminists of your generation for all the progress that you made. But two wrongs don’t make a right, and surely we are still allowed to feel upset (even if it is just a mild twinge) whenever we sense that we are being treated differently by those in a position of power due to our gender?

Still, it does give me the chance to use a phrase that I haven’t used since I was at university (and thought I would never use again!)

I demand the right to define my own oppression!

IMO the dreadful over-reaction on bboards that Sutro mentions above implies that … there is an issue. Or at least, a lot of players are not yet capable of calmly discussing the possibility of discrimination in games they play. I think we still have a way to go.

When You Put Bunny Ears On An Orc, YOU PROMOTE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

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