Dealing with Harassment: What almost ruined "World of Warcraft"

I tell this story because I feel it is important. It didn’t happen to me, it happened to my wife and she gave me permission to tell it.

Beth has played video games her entire life. As a little girl she and her dad would create their own LAN parties. She got me into it when we started dating- forced me to play through Final Fantasy X as an example of story telling capabilities in the interactive sphere.

She enjoys playing online as well. She likes meeting people who love the games she love. She likes making friends and has made some incredible, long lasting friendships that have extended way beyond the walls of virtual reality. This summer we took a vacation with one of these friends. I say this to show how much in the world of gaming my wife is.

There have always been problems though. Gender-based insults are common to the sad point where they are almost meaningless. Rape and death threats happen all the time as well. When these things happen Beth reports and blocks the offending players. While these things are real cause for concern, that’s not what bothers her most.

It happens like this: Beth makes friends with a person or a group of people who all play the same game. The friendship grows into something more substantial than acquaintances you play games with into actual friends. Then the friend asks for a picture of her boobs or suggests some sort of cyber/text based sexual fling.

This has happened quite a few times and each time Beth goes through feelings of disappointment, disgust, sorrow and the loss of friends. Guys, who know full well she is a happily married woman- now with a kid- act like the “nice guy” for months, sometimes years, with the hope they will get something sexual out of it.

When one member of a group acts like this experience shows that the rest of the group usually doesn’t care. Either they write it off with a “that’s just how it is online” or “boys will be boys” excuse or else blame the girl for causing undue drama.

 So, yesterday World of Warcraft released their latest expansion “Warlords of Draenor.” In our house a Warcraft expansion is like a major holiday. We’ve both played from the earliest days of Vanilla and have some awesome memories of the game. While we live in the real world often vacation in Azeroth.

One aspect of World of Warcraft we haven’t really experienced before, however, is having a great guild around us. A friendly, helpful guild more interested in having fun with friends than rankings or other such stuff. Not that these guilds don’t exist out there but we just haven’t found one that worked for us- until now.

Recently Beth started playing with a guild that fit the bill perfectly. She liked it because the people were friendly, funny and helpful. There also was a lot women in the guild which appealed to her as well. Everything was going almost perfectly.

There was one guy, however, that was problematic. His voice-chat handle was obscene and whenever he talked it was always on the edge between fooling around and outright inappropriate.  He made my wife uncomfortable to the point where she was actively avoiding him. The problem was he was also real-life friends with some of the guys who ran the guild so Beth decided the awesomeness of the guild outweighed the grossness of this one guy.

Then it happened. He whispered Beth in game asking “When are you going to let me see your tits?” (I’m paraphrasing because the actual request was far viler). Beth immediately ignored him but he found her on the guild’s voice chat service and continued to harass her until she finally logged of the game altogether. This was the day before Warlords of Draenor dropped and all the excitement she had for the game evaporated.

Beth messaged the guild leaders with an ultimatum she didn’t want to have to make: This guy is harassing me. He goes or I go.

This wasn’t an easy thing for her to do. In her mind, Beth imagined the guys in her guild would decide their friendship with this guy- along with is above-par PVP skills- would outweigh her feelings of offense.

Beth didn't want them to HAVE to choose between her and this guy. She'd gone down this road before. She wasn't going to be in a situation where she put up with this garbage but she didn't want to make these people- men and women- who were nice people, give up a friend because she was offended.  It would suck for her- another potential group of friends ruined because of some jerk- but the sad truth is that's just how it goes sometimes. 

If I were in her place, I would have had a tough time telling anyone. In today’s age, video game news is full of stories about women who are attempting to stand up against the egregious sexist tropes and attitudes that exist in games. More often than not, these women are torn apart by men who don’t want the status quo to change.  

It didn’t happen that way though. After a bit of conversation between her and the guild leaders- conversation that did not include anything more than the guild leaders telling her she was an important part of the guild and they trust her- the guy was banned from the guild and from the guild’s voice chat system.

As soon as it happened nearly every other woman on the guild said they were glad the guy was gone. All of them had been actively avoiding the offender as well. He had asked several of the women for boob pics and had even sent a few of them unasked dick pics. As the conversation went on most of the guys in the guild said they were uncomfortable with the guy as well- he was always talking about sex and women in the most base, disrespectful way you can imagine. His removal from the guild was something everyone wanted but it required Beth being willing to stand up and speak out about the behavior.

One of the guild leaders asked the women, “why didn’t you say anything about it?”

That’s a hard question and, according to Beth, the answer seems to be that men have a hard time seeing it. Women are trained not to rock the boat and not to be a “bitch” by forcing perverted guys towards accountability.

I’m not going to pretend to know why women do or don’t speak up when they are harassed. It’s not my place to say one way or the other I suppose, but Beth did make one point I think is worth passing on:

The popular narrative is that women will be punished for standing up against sexism in the video game world- and many are. Still, it’s just a small, yet very loud, population that wants women to be punished. Most gamers are on your side. Most gamers when presented with sexism will fight against it. Most men when presented with the reality of sexism will become allies.

You know, there seems to be a shorthand response for when men talk about issues in feminism. They always say “As a husband to a wife” or “as a father to daughters” in order to place themselves within the context. These statements are somewhat problematic because it makes it seem like men need some sort of feminine other in order to care about sexism. Still, I think- and in my life in particular- having women who are close to you can highlight how inherent sexism is. As a male, especially a white male, it’s almost impossible to see how much privilege you face and you assume everyone has the same experiences. It’s like someone who has never been in the water wondering why the drowning woman doesn’t just breathe oxygen. It’s hard and I’m only beginning to see that in my life now- because I see Beth’s experiences and realize how different they are from mine.

Women are a part of video game culture- more so now than in any other point. The more men are confronted with that the more they realize that gender equality in gaming is its intended and destined state and the problematic sexist elements are rough parts of the statue that need to be sanded away.

At first, I wasn’t sure her guild would do the right thing, but they did and it meant kicking the offensive guy out. I feel confident this is a microcosm for the video game industry as a whole. Yes, there are jerks but there are far more great people who will stand up to the jerks. It's like what Blizzard's president and CEO Mike Morhaime said at the opening of Blizzcon: 

 Over the past couple of months, there’s been a small group of people who have been doing really awful things. They have been making some people’s lives miserable and they are tarnishing our reputation as gamers. It’s not right.
Blizzcon is a great example of how positive and uplifting gaming can be. Let’s carry the good vibes from this weekend out into the world all year round. There is another person on the other end of a chat screen, they are our friends, our brothers and sisters our sons and daughters. Let’s take a stand to reject hate and harassment, and let’s redouble our efforts to be kind and respectful to one another.
Let’s remind the world what the gaming community is really all about.

By the way, the excitement for the game returned.