“Arthur Morgan-all-women-are-queens suffragette supporter true cowboy feminist!!!”

(In-game Arthur): 

“ur not a lady, how much u cost, anyway?”

“lmao this crowd (gestures to suffragettes) would eat me alive rofl”

“you wanna head out there, ruuuun (waves hands around sarcastically) with the men?”

“you coming with me then, woman/princess???” (to sadie adler)

——-

im not saying that arthur morgan was portrayed as outright violent towards women, or that he didn’t have genuine moments where he respected women characters, or that he didn’t help some women fight against misogynistic hatred and oppression. 

but his words cut deep enough. he’s not progressive at all by our standards. back during the victorian cowboy era, yeah, he’d probably count as respectful towards women. 

but in the context of 2018, arthur morgan’s language towards women aren’t acceptable. his gruff and grumpy attitude quickly turns into cheap shots paid towards women sex workers, women activists, and sadie’s frustration.

its casual misogyny. he was literally harassing the women at the saloon. not extensively, sure, but it was harassment nevertheless. and when sadie starts clashing with his fellow gang members, yeah he takes the time to help her, but not without hemming and hawwing.

arthur’s grumpiness doesn’t have to be misogyistic. for example, sadie’s grocery-shopping quest starts off with arthur calling her ‘princess’ and mocking her past life of not being a household maid 24/7. but when the two leave town and go back to camp, his dialogue is just as sarcastic and dry, but without the sexism; he pokes fun at her new outfit being ‘boyish’ without digging at her personally. “Won’t be long before you’re smoking cigars and playing the harmonica”. that’s very different from arthur saying something like, “ooh, you wanna dress like one of the men, now, princess???”

arthur was written by a AAA company, trying to appeal towards a wide audience of modern gamers that have slowly started to evolve from the white straight dudebro stereotype of recent years. i can tell that they didn’t want arthur to be some duke nukem jerk, but they still felt the need to add in some gross language. 

i dont own the game myself, being a pc gamer; im currently watching a silent walkthrough of each quest. and i went in thinking arthur was a pure and beautiful sinnamon roll based off of fandom portrayal. call me surprised and pretty disappointed to find out that wasn’t exactly the case.

i just dont want to see people just ignoring arthur’s written language like didn’t happen, or that his language didn’t count as (at least casually) misogynistic at times. because he is misogynistic on occasion.