Playing ESO while female
I belong to three guilds in TESO--my own guild of friends, which is painfully small, the Tamriel Fisherman's Guild, which is mostly dead, and another random guild I was invited to from TFG and said... sure, why not.
That was probably a bad idea. For the most part I don't talk in guild chat, or listen to it... I just sort of zone it out. Part of that may be because guild chat displays your account ID, not your character name, and my account ID is undeniably female. And we know how I feel about that. Plus some of the things that have been said in chat strike me as... not overtly hostile, but not indicative of a progressive mindset, either.
And then, last night.
I was questing with Matt on my templar Falanu, and I dinged 29. Nothing of huge note, really, but someone in guild chat said "grats on 29!" Which seemed nice, until they followed it up with, "ancient vag lol."
... I wracked my brain for some way that could be interpreted that wasn't offensive, but I didn't come up with anything. My attention was quickly taken up with the quest we were doing, but I kept coming back to that, hoping it was something other than a tasteless joke. Of course, that's exactly what it was--the kind of thing no one would walk up to me on the street and say.
I didn't reply--maybe I should have said something like, "not cool," but when you are faced with stuff like this, you never know the right response in the moment. At least, I don't.
But now I do. For one, I'm not going to put up with micro-aggressions like that. I owe this guild literally nothing and I have no reason to stay. I'll be gquitting when I get home.
Two, I need to change my display name to something more gender-neutral.
So, that's your daily dose of "what it's like to play an MMO while female." Have a war pug chaser.
That was probably a bad idea. For the most part I don't talk in guild chat, or listen to it... I just sort of zone it out. Part of that may be because guild chat displays your account ID, not your character name, and my account ID is undeniably female. And we know how I feel about that. Plus some of the things that have been said in chat strike me as... not overtly hostile, but not indicative of a progressive mindset, either.
And then, last night.
I was questing with Matt on my templar Falanu, and I dinged 29. Nothing of huge note, really, but someone in guild chat said "grats on 29!" Which seemed nice, until they followed it up with, "ancient vag lol."
... I wracked my brain for some way that could be interpreted that wasn't offensive, but I didn't come up with anything. My attention was quickly taken up with the quest we were doing, but I kept coming back to that, hoping it was something other than a tasteless joke. Of course, that's exactly what it was--the kind of thing no one would walk up to me on the street and say.
I didn't reply--maybe I should have said something like, "not cool," but when you are faced with stuff like this, you never know the right response in the moment. At least, I don't.
But now I do. For one, I'm not going to put up with micro-aggressions like that. I owe this guild literally nothing and I have no reason to stay. I'll be gquitting when I get home.
Two, I need to change my display name to something more gender-neutral.
So, that's your daily dose of "what it's like to play an MMO while female." Have a war pug chaser.
