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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Clint_L" data-source="post: 9427146" data-attributes="member: 7035894">In another thread, someone brought up the anecdote that allegedly Williams kept a poster of Jimi Hendrix as a kind of trophy because she liked to brag that, when she was student president at Berkeley in the 1960s, she blocked him from performing there on the grounds that he was basically a degenerate.This story was presented as more evidence of how awful and culturally out of touch Williams was.Are you struck by the same thought I was? Lorraine Williams was student president at Berkeley in the 1960s? That would be incredibly impressive! I know Berkeley is progressive and everything, but still, that would be some historically significant glass ceiling breakage.Never happened, or if it did, I can't find any record of it. And I think it would be kind of a big deal if any of it was true. It's just a made up story. Like a lot of stories about her that make her out to be some horrible troll of a person.So my BS detector is on high alert when it comes to anecdotes about Lorraine Williams. TSR was an incredibly sexist environment when she took over (listen to the podcast, read any number of first hand accounts...including from Gygax himself) and, quite frankly, so was a significant portion of the fanbase. And it shows in so many of the comments about her, and not just the eagerness to tear her down, but the specifically gendered way in which it is often done.But when I hear or read first hand accounts, and especially primary source documentation from court cases, from TSR, interviews, etc., a different picture appears. She seems like someone who really rubbed some folks, especially certain types of men, the wrong way. But lots of folks had good things to say about her. She didn't pillage the company and float away on a golden parachute, she invested heavily in it, probably saving it for a decade. She didn't make a strong effort to understand the hobby, but that's not a hanging offence as a human being. She made some good decisions and some bad ones.She was in some respects a pioneer in this industry. And she was continually denigrated and disrespected in a way that no man would be. From what I've read about her, I don't think I would have liked her that much. But I respect a lot of what she accomplished. It can't have been easy.Oh, and one more thing: while Gygax and his minions spared no effort in tearing her down, Williams kept her mouth shut. She didn't fire back, and from what we know now (again, listen to the podcast) she would have had plenty of ammunition. I respect that, too.</blockquote>

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