White Ribbon

This is not a transmogrification post, but I feel the need to share it. While flipping through the blogs of other Xmoggers I ran across a strange little picture.



It was on Effy's blog supporting a "White Ribbon Campaign". I looked at the little sentence in the picture "Working to end violence against woman" and I rolled my eyes. Why? I figured it was some cheesy political club thing. And don't jump all over me assuming I don't think violence against women isn't a serious subject, I do take it very seriously. I've just seen so many projects about it that were started by someone with good intentions and were simply vehicles for someone's political agenda rather than a true desire to help and care for those who had been harmed.

I clicked the link anyway. And discovered my assumption was wrong. This White Ribbon Campaign was started in support of a fellow gamer who was terribly, brutally hurt. More than just hurt. The first thought to come to mind is that gamers are real people with real lives, not just pixels. Then my heart was touched by the show of support from the rest of the blogging community. She is a gamer. She is a woman. She is a real person. Not just some faceless "this is how you earn gold in WoW" blogger.

I read some of Alyzande's blog entries telling a little of what happened to her, what she's dealing with and how she felt about the White Ribbon Campaign in her behalf. There are two things she said in her "Hi Honey I'm Home" post stood out to me. The first was to enlarge the campaign to encompass more than just women. Insightful, caring, forgiving.

I was proud that bloggers had looked beyond the sensationalism of “eep one of our own was hurt” to the wider issue of caring for our fairer sex in general. I’d like to widen that issue further and turn attention to violence to all, not just to women. Mankind is capable of great beauty, of deep thought, but also of great destruction.

The second addressed my pet peeve. The casual use of the word "rape" among many gamers. "I got raped by that rogue!" Well most often the person who says that has no clue of the reality of the word. In essence they are dumbing it down and casualizing it. You hear the term rape and it's becom common place instead of something to be taken seriously.

Do me a small favour. When you get ganked in a battleground, yell out in rage that you’ve been “pwned” not “raped”. Rape isn’t a joke.

Taking down an enemy in a battleground is funny. IRL trauma isn’t.

Amen sister. I have added a White Ribbon for you. <3