I've been a long time advocate of engaging men in sexual violence education in "unlikely places". And by unlikely places, I'm really talking about places where we don't feel like notions of violent masculinity exist, when, in fact they do. For whatever reason, the gamer community or the greater "geek" community in general is never the target of interventions addressing masculinity or sexual violence. However, if you've ever found yourself in Trade Chat ( a World of Warcraft chat room), ever read a comic book, or ever heard of GamerGate, you'd know that the men in this community are fantastic targets for some education.
World of Warcraft would be a phenomenal venue for some sort of online intervention meant to address rape culture, pro-rape myth attitudes, and unhealthy masculinity. For starters, approximately 6.6 Million of the over 10 million World of Warcraft subscription belong to people between the age of 16-25. According to a survey from 2004, 84% of World of Warcraft players were male, although the proportion of female players has likely risen since then.
So we have a community of 6.6 million young men and women sharing a virtual world. And in that world, we have rampant sexism. In my own opinion, the sexism in World of Warcraft does not actually come from the game. The game boasts several strong female characters (Sylvanas Windrunner, Tyrande Whisperwind, Jaina Proudmoore all come to mind). WoW does fall prey to the "scantly clad women fighting demons" thing. Basically, if you are playing a female character, you might find your armor to be a little more revealing.
The true sexism in World of Warcraft comes from it's players. As in any community, the problem isn't actually with the entirely of the population, but rather with a small and loud minority. WoW is no different. Spending time in a servers trade chat reveals that each server has their own "troll", someone who appears more often than others, usually saying things to get a rise out of other players. While these "trolls" may not personally believe what they say, the act of trolling with, say a comment about how women belong in the kitchen perpetuates sexism regardless of it's intention.
The asset of World of Warcraft as a potential intervention site is its cultural importance. Just this week, World of Warcraft was inducted into the video game hall of fame alongside Tetris, Super Mario, Doom, Pong, and Pac Man. That's right, like it or not, WoW has had as large an impact on culture as these other iconic games. So WoW really does have a lot going for it; a fictional universe that unlike so many others has strong female characters, a high number of young men, and huge cultural relevance.
Its not hard to imagine how bystander strategies might be adopted from college campuses to the streets of Stormwind City. Bystander intervention is not necessarily about jumping in to stop a rape in progress, but about training men to stand up to their friends and teammates who are making jokes about rape, or belittling the experiences of rape victims. Interventions through World of Warcraft could reach millions of young men and women across the world in a way that very few social media campaigns ever could. Moreover, given that World of Warcraft carries such a significant weight in gamer and in overall pop cultural, the effect of some intervention could be seen beyond the game itself.
Now, of course there would be challenges. The most important being how do we get people to listen to us? While colleges can deny funding to groups unless they undergo training, there is no way to make people listen to education around sexual violence during a time they probably use for escapism. A thought that comes to my mind would be training and employing some sort of "reverse troll", who says things to get a rise out of those hold negative attitudes. While this is not a traditional method of education, it would fit within the bounds of the WoW trade chat universe. Another possible strategy would be to increase WoW's mature language filter to include words like "rape" if it doesn't already. A final possibility would be to encourage popular raiding guilds or e-sport teams to support healthy masculinity.
I think that this could be an incredibly effective strategy at reaching young men across the world. As our world becomes more digital, we should be expanding our message to reach a digital audience. World of Warcraft could be a phenomenal research tool for Public Health professionals on how to improve behaviors and attitudes online. Currently, we are letting this opportunity slip through our fingers.
If you have any other thoughts, comments, or suggestions for strategies, feel free to post them in the comments below.
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