FemShep is making an appearance on the box art for Mass Effect 3. When I heard about this I was ecstatic. I know that the fan base of Mass Effect has a large female contingent, so it’s great to see their gender represented in this way. Bioware had six possible designs for the default female Shepard, they put these designs on Facebook and asked people to ‘like’ their favorite to decide which should become the default female Shepard. I’m sure this seemed like a fine idea at the time, and heck, I even voted. The blonde Shepard won… by a landslide. Apparently, this is a bad thing? I mean, it’s not the one I voted for, but ~Death to Blonde Shepard? Really?

“Death to Blonde Shepard” by Kim Richards is a featured article on PC Gamer’s website. In it, Richards decries the winning selection based on the idea that the blonde Shepard was chosen solely by virtue of being blonde. Richards bashes the selection with such puerility claiming the winning avatar as a “wishy washy, Barbie-faced, personality vacuum that cares more about her glue-on nails and handbag Chihuahua [than saving the universe].” Her article reeks of presumption, not only in her declaration of the blonde Shepard as inferior, but in the way she attacks male gamers while asserting her femininity. Someone should tell Richards that men have to deal with this too, sexualized buzz cut muscle-heads, shirtless marine types, tough-guy alpha males… that’s all we ever see of men in modern day video games.

I feel like Richards wrote this article for herself. It doesn’t surprise me, as she’s showing herself a bit selfishly, disregarding the majority vote in favor of her own choice. The article is offensive, to be honest, in the way it belittles democracy and stereotypes blonde women, slights men, and also in the way it trivializes feminism by placing a spotlight on such inconsequential visual attributes.