Aug 27
Chick or Not to Chick
While doing my weekly scanning of the interwebs looking for exciting articles to talk about on TNB, I stumbled across a post written by Brajana at Mend Pet. She wrote an interesting view on the naming conventions of some blogs with words which denote a female writer, such as "Lady", "Chick" and so forth.
She writes:
"The thing is - I don’t see what the big deal is about being a female geek. I (obviously) do not have a problem with female gamers OR female bloggers. But I don’t understand why some women seem to think this is such important distinction for their blog."
There are many things in this post I agree with, but there a few points that I see from an askew view.
Some of the points are:
- Your blog title should be related to your subject matter and unless you are going to be talking about being a girl in every post, then you may not be able to justify the "lady", "girl", etc, title.
- Must you rely on your gender to get people to visit your blog or to find you interesting?
- Is it a big deal that you are a girl that plays games.
As a person, with the word "Chick" in her blog’s title, I feel the need to discuss these points. While, I think a number of horror stories have come out of grrls and games, the majority of my experiences with girls in the game has be exactly the same as with boys. Personalities are personalities, regardless of gender. And yet, while you don’t have to put a big red sign, flashing "I R GRRL", it doesn’t mean your view on the world and how you interact with it will not be colored by your experiences as woman. A guy is not going to come on vent on day and bitch to his buddy privately that he is having a bad PMS day. It is not a badge of honor, it is just reality and physiology.
Outside of our obvious physical differences, is being a girl a big deal? Nope. None at all. What is wrong it rubbing it in everyone’s face every chance you get. Or using it to manipulate people. This is true regardless in whatever game, or real life situation you may be in. It doesn’t matter to my boss that I am girl, or to my guild mates. The way I do things, the way I interact and how I communicate is what matters.
This leads me to the "blog title". I completely agree that your blog title should reflect what you are writing about. Many sites, like 4Haelz, Resto4Life, Dwarf Priest, and Egotistical Priest have focused their blogs to a specific class or spec. However, for more general journal blogs, which does not focus on a specific class or spec, like mine, having a title that reflects the author is more appropriate.
When I first started to blog, many of the sites I visited had the words "Dame", "Girl" and so forth. Personally, I really liked seeing that other women were out there writing about a game that I loved, also made my life a lot easier to know which pronoun to use. Now, Brajana is right, most of these women don’t write about being a "girl" most of the time, but they are still viewing the game and their interactions from a female eye. And if the titles reflect the authors, and the authors are female, why shouldn’t they put a feminine connotation in the title?
Example. I chose the name Gun Loving Dwarf Chick for a few reasons:
- To irate my friend who was always calling my DC ugly
- My toon is a female dwarf chick and I loved her
- I am a girl, my toon is a girl, and really enjoyed the idea of writing about Bre
I picked the name on a whim. Hell, I started the blog on night on an impulse because I was bored one night. So there I am sitting at the blogspot screen, asking for a title. I tired to think of something fun, something cute and then the image of old Ornate Khorium Rifle entered my head and Bre holding it. Thus GLDC was born.
I like my blog name. It fits me. Fits my image of Bre and how she represents my “fun side”. I am able to write and joke and be more cavalier when I write on GLDC. Does it mean I write about dwarf chick every post or write about hunters, or being a girl? I think you know the answer to that, but what the title does entitle me is the licence to be wacky, and fun and silly. Something I don’t do much in real life. And that is how justify having the title Gun Loving Dwarf Chick.
Same applies to the others bloggers with those markers in their titles. The name means something to them and they like it, but if their content is horrible or they can’t connect with the reader, being female won’t mean anything.
Regarding the point is it a big deal that a girl plays games. No, it isn’t a big deal, but I am always fascinated by girls who do and love to read about it. I grew up with the Atari generation, but until I started to play myself, I really believed it to be an almost exclusive male arena. Now, we are everywhere and that is fantastic. I love the fact I am not unique, that girls are all over WoW and gaming in general.
But that wasn’t always the case.
Before I started to blog, and before BC, I really thought I was very much in the minority. Which was not helped by pugs, usually young guys under the age of 20, coming into vent, hearing me and saying, “OMG it is a girl!”. I would just laugh or ignore but nothing horrible has ever happened to me because of my gender. Many of my most knowledgeable and active members in my guild and interwebs are girls. That is great and I happy to see it, but I don’t read them or play with them because they are females. I do because I respect them and I like them. Same as boys. I am equal gender, people.
The thought, "Oh I am a girl and people will come" never crossed my mind then or now. I can bet my Wolfslayer Sniper Rifle, people don’t come to GLDC because I am female or because there is "Chick" in the title. People come here, I hope, because they enjoy the writing, the stories, and of course Pookie.
Maybe I am off base, or not, let me know. What do you guys think?
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Comments: 22
I agree with you, while there may be some I haven’t run across that use their gender for evil…lol not all of us are among them. Lady Jess is a justifiable title, and it’s who I’ve…become? sorta? It’s evolved into the Lady and the Jess now that I’ve merged my personal blogging with it.
I come here cuz dwarf chicks are hawt.
Roffle, thanks Jess. I too, think they are pretty damn hawt. Braids FTW!
Fun fact, the male to female ratio of blog users/owners on blogspot.com is only 1.08 (108 males for every 100 females).
The more you know.
krizzlybears last blog post..A Novel Idea
I am one of the officers of an all-girls guild. Within that guild I am one of the very few tanks, which remain the least played class. I often do get comments that girls don’t like to tank. I wanted something catchy when I started my blog, something that would clearly show that the blog would be about tanking, and another warrior from my guild came up with the suggestion.
I tank like a girl, and that’s pretty damn fine. Do readers come there because I am a girl? No. Based on my stats, they come there for gear guides, tanking advice or just to read ramblings.
Well I for one come here because I enjoy your writing. The fact that the word “Chick” is in the title had no bearing on it at all.
the name of your blog (within reason) is unimportant.
Content is what matters.
Dechions last blog post..Honest, I just borrowed this post. I’ll give it back….
Most certainly The Pookie is a big ‘Wam-Bam’ draw card. I still grin when I remember following the ransom note updates – heh
But also the blog title has personality; it sounds proud of class and race and weapon – like saying “Hey I’m really into hunters and dwarves and guns – if you’re interested in those things come read me”. I would still have wandered over if you were the ‘Gun Lovin’ Dwarf Man’. I stick around and RSS you because I enjoy the posts *grin*.
Now that’s not to say you probably don’t have a horde of mildly disturbing blog stalkers that love you cause you are also a girl O_O but hey, nerdy boys are allowed to have crushes and idol worship too.
Green Hunters last blog post..Busy Days a Hazard of WotLK and Hunter Pet Love
I come from a heavy Geek background in gaming and nerdy hobbies and I work in the IT industry. The number of women in things that I used to do like play Magic the Gathering or FPS games was very low. It’s about the same for network/system admins in IT. Very few women. So, when I read about women who play a games on the PC, I take notice. I think that there is a lot more positive than negative that can come from a woman letting her gamer flag fly and I hope more women continue to do so. I think they offer a fresh and different perspective than what I grew up with in a 99% male dominated gaming culture and seeing that more women are writing about their PC gaming experiences is a good sign for the industry and the gaming culture.
I don’t mind the names of any single blog. But the mass effect sometimes become a little too much to me. There are SO many girls and chicks and mums… It sort of supports the idea that playing as a woman is such a SPECIAL thing. And it was once upon a time. But it isn’t now. And I’m afraid it may involontary conserve an old perception.
If there were loads of blogs called something with “boy”, “guy”, “man”, “dad” etc, it wouldn’t be any problem at all.
Anyway… the blog name isn’t such a big issue. The content is. And I’m glad to say that I wouldn’t be able to tell a blog post written by a male from a post written by a woman, if I was to do a sort of blind test.
There are exaples of hard core theory crafters of both genders, of strategies of raid bosses, of pvp tips, of rants about social relationships in the game etc, written by men as well as by women.
In most ways I think the WoW blogging is pretty equal.
I agree with Bre and Rorik. It’s definitely cool that more women are participating in the world of gaming. It gives male geeks something to be hopeful about. LOL! Seriously though I think that 95% of the time you wouldn’t be able to tell the gender of the blogger as Larisa says. And I wouldn’t be surprised if there were blogs with female references in the name being authored by a male. And vice versa. In all honesty WoW has become such a wide spread culture that it doesn’t really matter. It’s an EOMMORPG or (Equal Opportunity Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). Phew, what a mouthful!!
[...] was reading your latest post, about having the word ‘Chick’ in your blog title, and I was inspired to write you a letter, since this is way too long for a comment on the [...]
Really great to hear your response, Breana. I suppose I should clarify - my problem is not with blogs that have “Chick” or something equivalent in the title, especially if its use is clever like yours. I also read a lot of blogs like yours with titles like this. My problem is with those that bring the “guild princess” idea into the blogging world. True enough, I don’t think you see this nearly as much here as in the game world, but I had recently gone through a spurt of reading over a bazillion (really, I counted) WoW blogs, and I did come across it.
My problem is with the few who do think that because they are a girl, they are different (or better) than every other player/blogger out there. The ones who are using it as an easy way out of having to make your blog special in someway, other than just because of gender.
Thanks again for the response!
Brajana:
Absolutely agree with you. “Guild Princesses” or women who think they should be given special treatment because they have breasts is a no-go in my book. I will just blow those suckers right off. Thankfully, I haven’t come across many in game and when I read or see them in RL, I quickly avoid. Women who expect that treatment annoy me and I just get a bad taste in my mouth.
[...] which Breana over at Gun Lovin Dwarf Chick replied with this post. Once that was written, Big Bear Butt responded with his very own post on the [...]
I think having chick/girl/lady in your title may attract the younger male population or females trying to find other female wow players… However if you post about crap… or post once a week… or have spelling mistakes etc your are never going to keep a decent audience.
I came here because BRK said so.
I wasn’t expecting anything more nor anything less than a player that loved to blog about his or her Dwarf Chick Hunter.
I’m really glad that I made that click that day as your work is very cool, and is still about what the name says.
Except you’re using a crossbow now…for shame…
Thanks Stupid
But I assure you, I am using a gun now. Promise!
I had no idea, prior to starting to read your blog, what gender you were in real life. I think that generally, in WoW blog terms, it makes little difference. Even the loneliest, geekiest, adolescent is still going to arrive here after hunting for WoW-related info. I am sure, in this age of commercialised web presences, that there are plenty of blogs (ghost) written by models, pop stars and the like to saisfy geek-fandom, without needing to cut their searches to Wow, blog, girl.
But then I may be missing the realities, here. I’m hardly down with the kids anymore.
Oh, and as an aside, what gun are you using?
ChainTraps last blog post..Off and on…
[...] Hunter: Gearing for Karazhan (on a budget!) August 29, 2008 On his post about a post about my apparently pugnacious post, Big Bear Butt Blogger happened to mention an unrelated point [...]
First time visitor to your blog from Big Bear Butt. I absolutely agree with what you’ve said here. I personally love your blog title. Of course, I also happen to have a gun lovin’ dwarf of my own. It certainly doesn’t shout “I iz a guild princess, i can haz ur stuff!” The opposite imho. Most guild princesses are too busy getting stuff from others to actually write their own blog.
Honestly, I think the chick easily refers to your character as much as it does you. The title could just as easily be used by a guy and still apply. Bottom line is that it really doesn’t matter what you name your blog. It’s the content that matters.
Gun Lovin’ Dwarf Chicks with braids ftw!
[...] Gun Lovin’ Dwarf Chick [...]
Maybe a little late, but I still wanted to chime in. I really don’t think it matters and it’s a personal choice. Plus, I thought that the title referred to your character, not you.
Avonars last blog post..So, is the sky falling?
[...] a girl in general goes, I think the whole mess was more than adequately covered by people like Gun Lovin’ Dwarf Chick. There are a lot more of us and it’s not necessary to stand up before the people you meet to [...]