Archive for Ranting

Feminism and You: How to Participate in Open Discussions

April 24, 2012 · Filed under Ranting · Tagged ,

Note: I would like to note here and now that comments will be moderated. I am the sole person to approve them. Why?? The simplest answer is because many people can’t talk civilly to each other.*

Around the twitter-verse there has been a lot of buzz surrounding feminism… and other -isms. Today I’m going to address some of the problems surrounding the types of conversations being had on twitter, despite listening to my gut which says to stay the hell out of the dialogue. While I’m not going to single any particular person out some of the referenced conversations might sound really familiar. If you’re feeling as though I’m pointing a finger at you specifically, maybe it’s time to re-evaluate the way you’ve been treating others, and how you’ve been handling having discussions about feminism among your peers. Feminism is one of those really touchy subjects in which people feel very strongly one way or the other, including ambivalence and apathy. In order to have a productive and constructive conversation about feminism, people need to understand the history of feminism and how we’ve gotten to where we are today.

Feminism, an Intro

Feminism at the core is a desire for equality between men and women. It’s a “movement aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women.” Historically, women have been oppressed for far longer than it’s been recorded in history books. Women are still oppressed in many countries outside of the United States, but for today’s history and civil rights lesson, I’m going to stick to U.S. History only.

In 1868 African American slaves were granted citizenship equal to those of whites (though we all know that it didn’t necessary play out that way, but this is a discussion for another post on a different blog… I digress). In 1870, the 15th amendment was enacted, prohibiting “the denial of suffrage based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Note that it says nothing about gender. Fast-forward 50 years (50 fuckin’ years people… wrap your head around this shit!! That’s a lifetime!) and women are granted suffrage with the 19th amendment, lawfully ending women being viewed as the property of men in the United States.

Take a moment and process that. No really. Just think about it. African American men were property one day, and in two years are granted full rights (again, in law only. I realize shit went on for years after this point). But oh no! We lowly women were still the property of men for another 50-fuckin’-years!

Please understand that I am angry. This shit makes me damn angry. Women still make less money for the same work and education when you look at specific power-positions (things like CEO, CFO and directors). Then there are those archaic politicians like Rick Santorum running around spouting bullshit about how he, as a white man, has the right to put into law what is and isn’t okay for a woman to do to her own body.

“One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country…. Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s okay, contraception is okay. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” – Rick Santorum (Speaking with CaffeinatedThoughts.com, Oct. 18, 2011)

Couple that with the ignorance of men like Rush Limbaugh who, as evidenced by what he says, clearly doesn’t actually understand how birth control or women’s bodies work.

“She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps.” – Rush Limbaugh

So here is all of us, in current times. Women are still often treated as second-class citizens. Women are still coddled and treated like children. They are still the highest demographic to be sexually assaulted and raped. Many feminists have been fighting the good fight for so long; I feel like many of them have forgotten what it was like before they were feminists. In the experiences I’ve had on twitter, as well as what I’ve seen passively, it seems that many people have forgotten some of the basics of feminism. So here I go… and I’m going to school you, dear reader, in the early learnings of feminism.

THINGS TO REMEMBER

Many women want to believe that they have always been a feminist, but the fact is, most people don’t even realize there’s a difference in the way men and women are treated until well into adulthood. Feminists are created, taught, and made. There is no collective feminist mind in which some people tap in, and others do not. There is no special initiation, either, much to the chagrin of many self-declaring feminists. You don’t pay dues. There is no membership card. And there are no special parking spaces anywhere. Does it seem as though I’m making light of the feminist cause? I am, in a way. Like so many other things, the extremists make it easy to poke fun of important issues. Feminism is not exempt from this. Feminism is still pretty srs bzns. Even for me.

Men can also be feminists, but they cannot actually know what it’s like to deal with mistreatment based on gender (except for a small population of transgendered individuals).

So, most important rule to remember: People are not born feminists.

No one is born knowing all there is to know about feminism. At your conception, your parents did not have some survey to fill out in which they chose whether or not you would be a feminist, or a misogynist. It’s a sliding scale. I’ll have graphics for this later.

ISSUES I SEE ON TWITTER THUS FAR

Many people are extremely quick to label others. They also seem to feel as though they can think for others, tell others what to do, and flame them if they don’t agree. There is little room for open discussion among this particular group. If someone is curious about feminism they are met with derision and blame for not being cultured on all things feminist. There is also little room for opinion. If you have a differing opinion, you are flamed, chided, and eventually shunned. This is coming from both sides of the feminism scale, where feminism is on the extreme right and misogyny is on the extreme left (and the red dots are where various different people will fall on the scale).

The best thing is that people can fall somewhere, anywhere on that spectrum of feminism and misogyny. There are an infinite number of points there. Remember that too. Infinite. Unending. There will be a quiz at the end.**

Now here I’m going to toss some math your way. Statistics. I know. I hated this stuff when I was in school, but I’m glad to have learned it. It’s going to help me out right now. Statistics, in my own definition, is theoretical math. It’s often used to help postulate or find relationships between two or more variables. Right now, we’re talking about two extremes: Feminism and Misogyny.

Now, if I was so inclined I could create a questionnaire that might measure a person’s feminism (or subsequently their misogyny). Scientifically, I might give this questionnaire out and ask people to anonymously answer and submit their responses. As a scientist, I am trying to be as objective as possible. No matter what the sample size is (meaning whether 100 or 1000 people responded), their scores would fall into this distribution table. All samples are meant to be representative of the population, but realistically, it’s impossible to get a full population of subjects. So I’d have to make inferences. The bigger the sample size, the more likely it is to see this bell curve of where people will fall on the scale between feminism and misogyny.

What you’re seeing is that the largest portion of the population will fall in the center, just to the left and right of the middle, by one SD (standard deviation)***. 68% of the population will fall in this middle section. When you go 2 SD out, you end up capturing more people within this middle area totaling about 95.4% of the population. What this means, in the end, is that I can reasonably guess that if I gave a new person the questionnaire, there is a 95.4% chance they will fall somewhere within 2 SD of the mean (middle).

Why is this important? This is important to remember when you’re talking to people about feminism because such a tiny portion of the population falls at the extremes. I can, subjectively, only give questionnaires out to a feminist population, skewing my results. I can do the same the other direction as well. Objectively, this is pretty standard when measuring human behavior and other non-mathematically measurable attributes. In science you can make inferences based on these standards.

HOW DO WE MAKE THIS BETTER FOR EVERYONE

In many of my efforts to discuss feminism on twitter, the extremists are quick to twist my words around on me. I’ve been calm when trying to discuss things, but in the same vein as talking with a misogynist, it seems that people are quick to jump to irrationalities and generalities that don’t hold their own out of context. I’ve watched people go from perfectly reasonable to arm-flailing, finger-pointing, screaming-the-top-of-their-lungs type nonsense. I’ve watched people get singled out, name-called, and shunned by others in the community. I’ve had those same fingers pointed at me.

My point, often times, has been to educate with resolved calm. To which I’ve been accused of telling feminists and victims to “be the bigger person” and equally pointing fingers telling them they’re not allowed to be angry. Quite the contrary. Be angry. Be damn angry. Fuck! I’m effing angry!! But I choose to focus my anger and energies toward social change, not just to make myself more comfortable. I want the change for future daughters and transgendered children. I want the change to happen, but I understand that humans cannot and will not listen to you when you’re jumping around like a banshee, spitting fire and pointing fingers in their face. The up-in-your-face method isn’t working. The anger is often channeled in the wrong direction. Remember, 95.4% of the population. That’s a lot of fuckin’ people who may not have been a victim of a sexual crime. That’s a lot of people who have never been objectified. That’s a lot of people who don’t know a feminist. That’s a lot of people who I might be able to educate and talk to and maybe, just maybe, I can get them closer to that 2nd standard deviation of feminism. Closer to the outliers.

What’s actually happening is people are being chided for not having experienced something and thus not currently a feminist. They’re being accused of being ableist and victim-blaming. When what’s really happening is the extreme feminists are arm-flailing, spitting accusations, and finger-pointing, forcing people to pick whether they want to be associated with the extreme feminists or none at all. There are a whole helluva lot of feminists out there who can have a civil conversation with without blaming the people who aren’t involved. Not everyone is a feminist. Feminists are created out of circumstance and education. Being calm while educating others is not taking the high road and letting the misogynists run rampant. It’s having a discussion and taking the opportunity to teach people. Let the misogynists be the arm-flailers. Let them be the haters. Let them push people away so that feminists, as civil, adult, educated individuals, can teach those who fall in that middle 95.4%.

Focus the rage at the ones who deserve it. Please stop talking for all feminists. Speak as you, for you, and not for the rest of us. No one elected you as the spokesperson for feminism, so please stop. And remember, that on the other side of every all-caps tweet, on the other side of the computer screen, is a breathing, living person who has feelings. Surprisingly, there are people reaching out asking questions not to mock and demean you, but to learn and understand. Civility, people. It goes a long way in the quest for equality for women in all areas of life, not just in video games.

* Plus I pay the bill, so I can do what I want.
** No actual quiz.
*** I wish I could explain standard deviation better, but it’s used in statistics and probability theory.

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WoW and the Art of Courtesy

April 1, 2012 · Filed under Cross-Realm Raiding, Ranting · Tagged , , , , , ,

Before we get started, let’s go ahead and throw out the definition of courtesy so that we’re all on the same page.

cour·te·sy

[kur-tuh-see]  noun, plural -sies
1. excellence of manners or social conduct; polite behavior.
2. a courteous, respectful, or considerate act or expression.

Now that I have that out of the way, I need to step back a little bit and explain a handful of things (and I will attempt to do this without wall-of-text writing). I quit playing WoW for many reasons, but most of them are probably better left for a different sort of blog entry. When Blizzard introduced cross-realm raiding, the ability to get to play the game in the way that I wanted was finally available. The world of Twitter and WoW go hand in hand like many other online groups. There are many levels of involvement, but for the most part, it’s pretty inclusive. A person can participate if they want to. And a person can choose not to participate if they do not want to.

When Saz created Twitterland Raiding, I was very excited! I had the opportunity to raid and play WoW with people I had grown to like on Twitter. This is not an understatement. I was truly and honestly happy about this. So much so that I re-enabled my account just for this reason – to play WoW with people I wanted to play WoW with. Here’s the caveat – having such a large group you’re going to find yourself in the middle of people whom you grow to love, and people whom you really don’t like very much at all.

Within a guild that has specific rules and guidelines, you can exclude people you might feel are going to cause a rift among your current roster. There’s a tone of voice, or even an air about a person when they fill out applications that you just sense. There isn’t always something you can put a finger on, but it’s just something, right? We get those kinds of vibes off of people when we meet them, either in real life, or in game. People you just get along with and people with whom you have no discernible reason for dislike, but you just don’t. Now when you try to put all of these people together under a single umbrella there are going to be problems and rifts that occur. As well as alliances and friendships.

The question I want to pose is at what point does common courtesy no longer apply? When does etiquette and politeness cease to exist?

When Vitae asked the question late one night about what people thought of a public Twitter mumble, there was a lot of people who expressed interest. Since that first night of wondering, the Sleepy Hams server has become a fairly bustling place. Those first few nights were full of people talking over each other, and chatter across the board. There were people making sexual innuendo jokes. Others are talking about Minecraft, or Rift, or SWTOR. Those early days were an experiment and things have toned down quite a bit.

One of my favorite places to hang out is in Twitter Mumble. Don’t get me wrong. I love the place. I love the service and I’m forever grateful for Vitae providing such as service for all of us to use. But when did common courtesy go out the window? When did it become okay to just burst into people’s conversations and overtake them? When did it become commonplace for people to just interrupt and interject and voice opinions that weren’t asked for?

At some point, the server etiquette rules went out the window, and quickly! When I see two people whom I consider friends in a channel, I send the channel a message to ask if it’s okay to join. I remember the rules I was taught as a child and I feel that this is the perfect time to use them.

The majority of the channels on the server are not private. Due to this, please be mindful that no different from walking into someone’s bedroom without knocking would be rude, so too is hopping into a channel where only a few people may be talking. Send a message to the channel and make sure it’s not being used for a temporarily private discussion before hopping into it.

Do you know how many private conversations I’ve had interrupted abruptly because someone, uninvited, burst into a channel without as much as a warning? Mid-sentence someone will come in, catch a bit of the conversation and ask “So what are you talking about?” Not, ‘I’m sorry, did I interrupt something?’ or even ‘Oops! Was this a private conversation?’ It’s like sitting on the phone in the furthest room from the front door and having someone walk in from the street and plopping themselves between you and the phone asking to be included.

I understand that not everyone is going to be as nice as I am. Even the people I feel are my besties in WoW are not exempt from my joining their channel without my asking first. Why? Because this is the right thing to do! Never assume you’re welcome. Ask kindly if it’s okay. If you’re told you’re unwelcome at the moment, don’t rage and flame people for it. The service is being provided for many people. A large group of people. Alas, you are not always going to be included. I’m sorry, but you just aren’t.

Is there really such an entitlement issue among gamers, particularly the Twitter WoW folk, that you feel as though you can do whatever you want? I understand the desire to socialize. I understand the desire to get to know people better. I understand enjoying other people’s company. But sometimes, just sometimes, I DON’T WANT TO LISTEN TO YOU! And I shouldn’t have to worry about how to say this to you in the nicest way possible because you’re prone to having fits of hurt feelings. Maybe had you asked if it was okay to join the channel I could have kindly said “I’m sorry, but we’re having a private conversation” with no hurt feelings. Once you’re there, what can I say? You’ve burst through the door, demanded to know what was being talked about, and assumed what we were talking about! You’ve put words in my mouth. You’ve finished sentences for me. You’ve insisted on filling the silence with chatter and noise. You joined ME and forced me to listen to something I’m not interested in at all. You brought friends with you. Hell, at some point, you probably joined the channel I was in and told me that you had 16 other people coming and that you were going to take the channel.

I can be nice. I can let a lot of shit slide. I’ll even be kind and just simply change the subject so that I’m not yet another person on the list of people who’ve ostracized gamers and treated them like social lepers.

But you’re teetering on a very fine ledge in which I’m going to lose my cool and jump your shit. I can’t re-teach you how to be kind and courteous to me and others. I can ask you to be respectful though. Because I extend that same courtesy to you. I want to be nice. I want to be respectful. I want to be kind to my fellow gamer. I really do. Not all people will be my friend, though. Our common ground does not instantly mean an established friendship is mandatory. This also does not mean that you’re welcome to jump into channels willy-nilly like you own the place.

I guess this is my call-to-arms… I’d like the twitterverse to learn to be nice to each other, and treat each other with respect and courtesy. And send me a damn message to ask if I’m in the middle of a private conversation rather than jumping in assuming you’re welcome. Just ask. It’s not a hard concept. It’ll save you from making an ass of yourself, and it’ll save me from having to go ape-shit over your insistence that you were automatically welcome just because you exist.

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Finally the death of Nefarian

March 12, 2011 · Filed under Blackwing Descent, Raids, Ranting, Strategies · Tagged , , , , , , ,

So, it’s been awhile since I’ve been buggered to blog. I know. I had these grandiose plans to find my area on the internet where I would be this amazingly funny writer. Yeah. Well, screw that real life crap. It kinda got in the way. I’m still thoroughly annoyed by it too.

So let’s get down to business. Nefarian. Let’s go ahead and get this out of the way right now. Blizzard decided to sit down and figure out all of the things that have ever been used as a raid strategy in the last however many years and threw them all together for the final boss fights. I can’t even imagine what Sinestra‘s gonna be like, but I’m going to lament about this damn dragon first. Cho’gall is all over the place too, but at least after the first time you kill him (is it a them??) it doesn’t go so badly. There are strategies that help keep healers from going apeshit running around trying to heal everyone.

See, my Raid Leader is a very kind person. She’s effing pretty damn amazing. She knows that I don’t really like tank healing, and so she tries desperately to not assign me as a tank healer. I fell in love with healing when druid were omfg-ah-may-zing raid healers, and I refuse to be pigeon-holed into a type of role. I don’t mind tank healing, and I don’t think I do a horrible job at it, but I love my raid healing. I have this compulsion to heal people anyway, so I guess she doesn’t really have a choice.* Anyway. Cho’gall at least has most people standing in the same general area. Yeah, there are the slimes. Yeah, there’s this corruption crap flying around all over the place. Yes there’s fire. And tentacle butts.** But there is nothing in the Cho’gall fight that compares to the clusterfuck that is the Nefarian fight.

This fight was so bad that we were all truly getting disheartened. I sensed the tension rising amongst my guildmates. I did my own bitching and moaning to my friends about the apparent slacking or perceived slacking. It felt like we, as a whole, had hit our limit. We were pushing and trying and not only were we going backwards (with each attempt being worst than the last one), but there seemed to be an awful lot of finger-pointing. Everyone thought it was someone else. Few people admitted to making a mistake and owning it, but that’s an entirely different blog post for another day.

Today, I want talk about Nefarian. Be is a douche bag. First when you engage Onyxia (omg, can’t she effing die already??!?) it takes a little bit before Nefarian comes down.

ಠ_ಠ

Oh but wait. This shit gets better, you just wait. This time you’re not just facing Onyxia, but Nefarian too. Oh yeah. Yeah. So much shit goin’ on, there’s no time to think!!

In the meantime, while you’re waiting for Nefarian to come down from flying around ominously above you, you’re stuck down below getting hit with electrical shock-y nonsense. Oh yeah, and a tail lash, that is unavoidable… no matter where you’re standing. Really? RLY BLIZRD!?? You had to make this ability unavoidable? And you desperately had to pair it with the electrical shock-y nonsense and then while us healers are already freaking out over OMG LOOKIT THEIR HEALTH!!1! you have to make it so that I can’t cast anything. Fabulous. Thanks. A lot. Not really. DIAF! Whoops, I’m getting ahead of myself now… we’ll get to the fire.

There is a need for 3 tanks on 25-man Nefarian. You need a Nef tank, an Onyxia tank, and an add tank during Phase 1. Healers are going to need to be spread out all over the place with at least one healer on each tank, the add tank healer chasing after the add tank too. As a raid healer, my job is to heal everyone. I will spot heal tanks. Lifebloom whomever seems to be eating the most damage. Rejuvenation, rejuvenation… MOAR REJUVENATION!!***

Oh see, now here’s the good part. After enough electrical-y things nuke the shit out of your raid causing an all-healer panic, there’s a time to kill Onyxia. And then the lava shows up. THE FUCKIN’ LAVA! OMG! Yeah, the lava. 3 pillars. There are 3 mobs who suck to put it simply. They’re like giant imps who cast this absolutely horrible ability that will wipe your whole raid if you’re not good about getting those interrupts off immediately and on time. The groups inevitably have to be split up with a nearly equal number of healers, interrupters and ranged DPS in order for this to go smoothly. Healers will be stressed the hell out all over again, and this is likely the best time to use those healthstones if you haven’t already. Because guess what? There’s more electrocute to go around! Yeah!! I don’t even know where this is coming from, but yeah, it sucks.

Once Phase 2 is over everyone hops down and prepares themselves for Phase 3. We have 3 healers follow our dedicated add tank. For the most part, the entirety of the rest of the fight is trying to keep those adds away from fire and surviving. Eventually the adds will overwhelm your tank and no amount of heals will be able to keep your poor plate-y alive. The hope here is that the rest of your team was able to burn the hell outta that damn dragon.

Collect phat lewts. And you WIN!

The first Nefarian kill was amazing to say the least. It was much anticipated and without a doubt one of the most difficult encounters to have to deal with. Everyone had a job. Everyone has something important to do. Everyone has a role that is vital to the beating of this dragon. I can honestly say, that the Nefarian kill Apotheosis had was sweet and much deserved. Even if that heifer didn’t drop my tier helm token.

Until Sunday… when Nefarian will be found singing his songs while flying around.

ಠ_ಠ

* This is making me more sad because now I think she assigns me to raid heals because my over-zealous need to heal anything moving and top them off keeps me from being very effective at anything else. Crap.
** When you’re in cat form, running, the tentacle attaches itself to your butt. I should have snagged a screenshot of this when a wipe was called and I was running around hoping to get MC’d so I might survive. Imagine my surprise when I saw I had this weird tentacle attached to my kitty bootie instead of a tail. Very unnerving.
*** I don’t actually heal this way, but it’s how resto druids used to heal Pre-Cata and occasionally I’m reminded why we used to heal this way.

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Atramedes probably deserved it

February 5, 2011 · Filed under Blackwing Descent, Cataclysm, Raids, Ranting · Tagged , , , ,

The first time I saw Atramedes he was a little tiny whelpling. I don’t play with sound, so I likely missed a lot of the storyline behind it, but all of a sudden, the little guy gets zapped. For at least twenty minutes I couldn’t stop myself feeling sorry for the little guy. Oh ho ho! That little guy eventually becomes Atramedes, the blind ass dragon who is a giant pain in my ass.

Atramedes

Well, y’know what? Atramedes is a douche bag. Blind ass dragon is a pain in the damn ass dragon.

Don’t get me wrong, I realize that the majority of the dragons in WoW are douche bags. I mean, what’s the point of playing a game in which you don’t kill internet dragons?? Yeah, I can’t think of one either.

This one in particular, sends these really pretty sonic rings all around the room, originating from underneath his belly-ish area. The problem with the pretty rings is that I want to stand in them and see what happens? Don’t know what happens? He breathes fire on you. Not only does he breathe fire on you, but you get a hand debuff called death.

Throughout my WoW playing, I’ve always (generally speaking of course) been really good at avoiding all the junk on the ground. Purple circles, rocks falling, brown circles, white circles, blue circles, fire circles, fire patches… you name it, I probably stepped out of it*.

Unlike the horrible time I have staying out of Valiona’s face-eating purple fire of doom, I actually don’t do too badly avoiding Atramedes’ sonic rings of “omg I wanna stand in it” and, yes, of course the fire.

Y’know what I have a problem with? It seems it’s Searing Flame. Not even when it’s cast on me, but when it’s cast on others and I stand there like a dumb ass and don’t move to the left while they’re running right. Oh, no, why would I move when I can just hit 100 sounds and get devastated all over the place. It seems I do my best raiding with my face on the ground, honing in on my awesome skills of death buff. o.O My Raid Leader, however, might beg to differ about being really amazing dead on the floor.

With a monetary incentive, the RL offered 50 gold to the person who didn’t get hit with any of the pretty sonic rings, before 11:30 pm EST. We didn’t reach the time limit, cause, let’s face it, Atramedes was a hungry mutha-effer that night.

I’m fairly certain that by the end of the night Tuesday, everyone was pretty pissed off at Atramedes. I went from feeling really sorry for him to wanting him to die horribly and take his damn sonic discs with him. I keep telling myself that maybe he was just a mean bully of a whelpling and that’s why he was blinded, thus deserving what he got.

* This includes the good things, like Healing Rain, and Efflorescence the first time I’ve seen them. Don’t judge me.

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