Ship of Fools: #Gamergate, identity politics and the anti-feminist backlash

Thread: #Gamergate, identity politics and the anti-feminist backlash Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

(Apologies if this has been covered in the time before I returned, but directed Google searches found me nothing.)

OK, Personal Testimony Time. For five years I professionally wrote pen-and-paper roleplaying games. I wrote, edited and curated about fifty books for a couple of publishers, and ended up getting invited to a couple of weird little conventions as Guest of Honour. I was active on internet forums during this time, and by the time I quit, I was sick of it, and the thing that burned me out more than anything else, the thing that absolutely soured me and robbed me of any enjoyment was the behaviour of the fans.

Now most of these fans were white, straight and male. They were largely middle class and more than half were not humanities educated. I had death threats for writing rulebooks people didn't like so much. Like, people actually wishing me dead. People who were so devoid of social niceties that they could go from "Oh hi, my name is" to "I know your work, yes, your work is crappy. Fucked sideways," in a single breath (not an exagerration, not a lie).

(My stuff may have been crappy. God knows, it was work-for-hire hackwork, that goes with the territory, but that's not the point.) I came out of the experience finding it hard not to view "geeks" and "geek culture" as things worthy of anything but my contempt.

Which brings me to #Gamergate. Those of you who are lucky enough not to be immersed in nerd culture may not know about this. I still have connections in the video game and pen and paper game industries, so I've heard and read about it a lot.

So there's this hashtag and basically it revolves around gamers disliking what they see as "Social Justice Warriors" taking their fun away.

Here is a fairly detailed summary of how it got to be a thing, but it's got rude words and discussion of NSFW things in it, so:

It started with two things, mainly. First, one Anita Sarkeesian, a feminist cultural critic, financed a series of YouTube videos called "Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games."

In these, she presents in a generally pretty straightforward way that loads and loads of video games have stuff in them that is sexist and which either excludes women or harms them in representation.

For her trouble, she has received rape and death threats, internet libel to a degree most American presidents don't even receive and has been forced to leave her home for the sake of her family. Just for saying some (to me) fairly uncontroversial things (flat, direct things like "all the women in Grand Theft Auto are nagging girlfriends, prostitutes and strippers" - stuff like that which is like saying "grass is green").

Meanwhile, a video game designer named Zoe Quinn, already a hate figure for having created an independent game called Depression Quest (as in, for daring to make a game about surviving clinical depression rather than killing shit), has become the other flashpoint.

It's complex and deals with private stuff, but basically her ex posted a blog where he wrote about everything bad in their relationship and accused her of having slept with a game journalist for good reviews. Whether or not she did this or not is none of anyone's business but her own, but the online gamer community, as represented by such shining bastions of equality as 4chan and Reddit, went on a massive witch hunt against Quinn, as well as renewing their efforts against Sarkeesian, in the name of journalistic ethics.

(Never mind that if a journalist gives someone a good review after sleeping with them, one might think that is entirely due to the journalist's ethics being compromised).

A number of opinion pieces about the bankruptcy of "gamer" as an identity (bunch of links to well-done articles here and a great leftist one here) only fanned the flames, and it has become a wide-spread online crusade against "social justice warriors". People like Adam Baldwin (from inexplicably beloved sci-fi show Firefly) and a number of right-wing pundits have become celebrity advocates, and in terms of the games industry it has a remarkable amount of traction, even at the higher levels of management.

I think it's obvious where I stand on this.

What interests me is how the anger and defensiveness of these people is expressing itself, how (nearly all) straight (mostly) white (almost solely) men have seen what amounts to a couple of puff pieces and some women who are either making games they don't want to play anyway or saying, hey, look, maybe your entertainment is harming me have become huge identity-threatening threats.

"It's just the internet" is not an answer, because then we have to ask how exactly the internet makes that a Thing.

Because let's face it, an indie game designer, a woman who does YouTube videos and some bloggers do not have the power that big videogame companies and millions of male gamers have. They are not a threat. Or maybe they are, just not to what they're perceived to be a threat against.

(And maybe we can talk about "gamer" as an identity and whether that's problematic, because I sort of think it really is but to be honest, I've written enough in this OP.)

Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :

Freud would probably say it is infantile rage against the mother for not changing the nappy often enough. I'd probably say that he probably would be close to being right if he ever said such a thing.

I would also consider making forward-looking pushchairs illegal below a certain age (4?).

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

By backing themselves into the corner of ONLY being able to function in the gaming world, these guys* are now seeing everything outside that world as a threat.

That, plus being unable to hold a job, makes the crowd angry and pushes them into supporting each other because "no-one else cares" (why should they?)

And then teh Internet allows for anonymous venting to a degree that is simply not possible IRL.

We've allowed this kind of threat to develop on the Web in the interests of "free speech" or "getting everyone in" or whatever, without imposing any behaviour rules. The biggest problem would be enforcement unless you demand identifier tag, and a mechanism for actually making the dolts accountable.

But exactly the same behaviour would occur IRL if you allowed the wearing of masks in public.

Some people would think it fun to slag off everyone, others would become stalkers, others would create actual mayhem. That's what free will does to people.

*There may be responsible gamers, but we hear from the unemployables and the "F*** everyone" crowd. The rest just keep their heads down, since they don't want Wood's experience.

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

I think it's partly that some people, who never intended to be seen as bad guys, are so desperate not to be seen as the bad guys, they do the very things they're accused of.

Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on :

Isn't just the gaming world that is having these anti-feminist backlashes. The atheists have also been having this over the last few years (elevatorgate, creep list, allegations of a blind eye to sexual assault on women who attend some conferences [sometimes because the alleged assaulter is a prominent male atheist], bias in choosing speakers).

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Net Spinster:
Isn't just the gaming world that is having these anti-feminist backlashes. The atheists have also been having this over the last few years (elevatorgate, creep list, allegations of a blind eye to sexual assault on women who attend some conferences [sometimes because the alleged assaulter is a prominent male atheist], bias in choosing speakers).

Yes. There is a group of prominent New Atheists who are basically misogynist shitbags (which loops us back to the subject matter of the "scientism" thread).

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

Somehow I have read about the Zoe Quinn case, I don't know what directed me to that. Trying to look from the positive side, at least there is some discussion going on about these things now.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

I was with you till you slogged off firefly - a series where the Adam Baldwin character was a necessary evil rather than the male expectation. And the real stars were female.

Anyhow, we can disagree on that. Hardline gamers are notoriously anti-social, often because they are autistic to a degree and find it very difficult to function in a social environment. This is not meant to be disparaging of autism, just a reflection that the socially difficult aspects are a part of it, and the gaming environment tends to enhance rather than diminish this.

I speak as someone who is mildly autistic, and has a son who is also mildly autistic and is something of a gamer.

The nature of the gaming environment - interacting online - can mean that, rather than enhancing communications using all of the subtlety and nuance that most people use, they become even less subtle. For many people, online communications are faceless, and so people can be far more unpleasant than they would be face-to-face (the vile abuse that anyone who stands up for feminism on twitter, for example, seems to find out).

It isn't all gamers. It isn't all men. But those within the community need to stand up more to change the ethos, because they are all tarred with the same brush. There are some vile and unpleasant people out there. There are many more who are not horrible people, but who struggle to communicate clearly in some situations.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

If art is a reflection of society, and video games are art, many young people are already in the toilet. Disposable people. Was it Ronald Raygun or one of the idiot Bushes who said war and killing video games were good because they trained the cannon fodder* for the next war? The feminist backlash isn't really a backlash, it is a reset.

*I think which ever bastard American president it was said soldiers, but the point is made.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

It's worth noting that those associated with the "backlash" are not representative of all or even most gamers. The largest gaming community on the internet, RPGnet, has a consciously pro-feminist ethos and set of policies - indeed it is far stricter than the Ship in terms of attitudes towards women and LGBT folk. Plenty of gamers, including me, are socially inept and/or autistic, but that is not an excuse or a reason for sexism, sexual harassment or sexual assault. If you're high enough functioning to game then you're high enough functioning to learn how to treat other people, including and especially women.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

I should point out/clarify that I wasn't criticising gamers or those with autism. It is more that gaming can be a way that those with some aspects of autism find to engage, but which doesn't necessarily help them engage with people face-to-face.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:

That, plus being unable to hold a job, makes the crowd angry and pushes them into supporting each other because "no-one else cares" (why should they?)

No - I think this kind of thinking exculpates the perpetrators of such things.

The kind of people involved are just younger variants of the standard internet troll - who turn out to be mostly middle-aged, middle-class males.

I think there just happens to be a strain of online geekery which is actively nasty - not just to women, but to the disenfranchised generally. It's people who sped read Ayn Rand and thought that because they were slightly above average academically that they were special.

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:

That, plus being unable to hold a job, makes the crowd angry and pushes them into supporting each other because "no-one else cares" (why should they?)
No - I think this kind of thinking exculpates the perpetrators of such things.

The kind of people involved are just younger variants of the standard internet troll - who turn out to be mostly middle-aged, middle-class males.

I think there just happens to be a strain of online geekery which is actively nasty - not just to women, but to the disenfranchised generally. It's people who sped read Ayn Rand and thought that because they were slightly above average academically that they were special.

I wish this wasn't so accurate.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:

That, plus being unable to hold a job, makes the crowd angry and pushes them into supporting each other because "no-one else cares" (why should they?)
No - I think this kind of thinking exculpates the perpetrators of such things.

The kind of people involved are just younger variants of the standard internet troll - who turn out to be mostly middle-aged, middle-class males.

I think there just happens to be a strain of online geekery which is actively nasty - not just to women, but to the disenfranchised generally. It's people who sped read Ayn Rand and thought that because they were slightly above average academically that they were special.

Indeed:
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :

I've seen this in comics fandom as well, especially as more female creators and fans have gotten involved in comics, and some of the same issues about depiction of women (and ethnic/religious/sexual minorities, too) have been raised.

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

Wood wrote:

quote:
I wish this wasn't so accurate.

Accurate about what, though? I know of no academic research about internet trolling that shows any such socio-economic correlation. If you are finding yourself bumping into that sort of person, then you are probably yourself frequenting the sort of online locales that attract that socioeconomic class. Though if you know of any research to the contrary, then please correct me.

There doesn't seem to be a huge amount of research on internet trolling. The most recent work I am aware of points to a high correlation with the "dark tetrad" of personality disorders. And in fact, the simple observation that those who behave abominably on the internet are the same people who behave abominably in real life. Trolls score well above average for sadistic personality disorder. Thogh it should be said that personality disorders tend to cluster together, and they also show elevated signs of other personality disorders - that may just be our poor understanding of what underlies such disorders, and we have to classify them experientially.

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

Much as it pains me to agree with you, and especially Wood, I agree with the OP.

Games are merely a way of enforcing sexist stereotypes. The Howard Wolowitz's of the world united.

That's from me!

Women are whores or nag. Black people are addicts or thieves. It goes on and on.

But here's where we split...

In the fifties and sixties we had Lord Reith in charge of the BBC and nothing like that could be shown. The Liberal elite had a conniption and so TV and cinema were slowly 'liberalised'.

The games industry started up seriously in the mid 90's and nobody wanted to censor it for fear of being called a throwback to the fifties.

Then came the internet and it's porn.

What do you want? Censorship or liberalism?

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

Some games. Bioware put out titles that are pretty egalitarian, and their main market is CRPGs.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:

In the fifties and sixties we had Lord Reith in charge of the BBC

Good trick, given he resigned as DG in 1938.

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:

quote:
Originally posted by deano:

In the fifties and sixties we had Lord Reith in charge of the BBC
Good trick, given he resigned as DG in 1938.

Of course. I meant his rules, his code of conduct. My apologies.

Posted by Highfive (# 12937) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
Yes. There is a group of prominent New Atheists who are basically misogynist shitbags (which loops us back to the subject matter of the "scientism" thread).

For the record, I've met atheists who treat their current partners like queens.

The breath-taking Japanese game Okami had a mission where the player must inspire the young boy Kokari to start seeking his own adventures. The irony in this is that if the player was also inspired, he'd stop playing the game and the developers would be deliberately reducing their own market.

In Okami's day, publishers and developers would develop some games for art and some for profit. Nowadays, it simply has to be for profit.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:

What do you want? Censorship or liberalism?

Neither.
Dialogue.

It can't be dialogue if half of the argument is silenced with death threats, rape threats, and slander. And Wood is right, any gamer guy worth the stones he owns needs to speak up.

On that note, I am going to kick back and let him, Schrodinger's Cat, and no prophet keep doing the excellent job they are doing.

[ 08. October 2014, 00:46: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
In the fifties and sixties we had Lord Reith in charge of the BBC and nothing like that could be shown. The Liberal elite had a conniption and so TV and cinema were slowly 'liberalised'.

The games industry started up seriously in the mid 90's and nobody wanted to censor it for fear of being called a throwback to the fifties.

Could you expand on this a little? Particularly the bit about how an industry largely based in the U.S. and Japan was so strongly influenced by a backlash against BBC policy. There seems to be a missing step or several in there.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Highfive:

In Okami's day, publishers and developers would develop some games for art and some for profit. Nowadays, it simply has to be for profit.

I'm not so sure about that. Developers have always wanted to make money out of their games, I think, and now the likes of Kickstarter means they can put their ideas out there and see if there is a market rather than having to take the risk and do the (very costly) work first. There are a lot of indie developers making things because they think they're cool.

[code]

[ 08. October 2014, 06:38: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

Posted by Highfive (# 12937) on :

Maybe this is more accurate:

quote:
Originally posted by Highfive:
In Okami's day, publishers and developers would develop some high-risk original licenses and some low-risk existing licenses. Nowadays, it simply has to be low-risk existing licenses.

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

Interesting alternate take on the whole Gamergate issue and more here...

The question of "respect".

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

Well, "interesting" is one word.

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

Also this video - Failure to Venerate..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9JxPLv-904&app=desktop

Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :

I think there's a bit of a gap (OK, yawning gulf) between the two things, Alex.

Harassing, abusing, stalking, issuing rape/death threats etc. is not simply a failure to venerate confused with a lack of respect. It's offensive, anti-social, and at times no doubt illegal behaviour, full stop.

So whilst at the extremes there may well be a few cases where the venerate/respect thing holds true, they're such out-liers as to be largely irrelevant in the general case, and definitely irrelevant in the specific case at hand.

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

Alex - surely the underlying criticism of the gamer culture is that it is dysfunctional in its attitude towards women. Of course women are going to be the most vocal about this - they are on the receiving end of it!

It's a pretty closed and inward looking culture as well. All inward-looking cultures face similar issues about having norms that drift away from society's more general attitudes. As a result of this whole #gamergate thing, it's all gone public, and what was once a discussion that had limited coverage outside the gaming community has now been laid bare for all to see.

Oh, and what snags just said.

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

Good Wiki coverage of Gamergate - https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/wiki/index

One of the charges alleged against Zoe Quinn was playing out akin to the payola scandals in the music industry in the 50s and 60s; in this case there was the suspicion of possible sexual favours for promotional placement. Shady journalism..

Ir's also a good thing to compare earlier geek subculture with mainstream releases of the time. for instance - Star Wars, which subverted the Princess/Damsel trope went out at the same time as Blue Lagoon, where Brooke Shields played a rich man's fucktoy in essence. Which was the better role-model? Carrie Fisher's character or Brooke Shields' one? The "Nothing comes between me and my Calvins" ad was also playing at the time.

Sarkeesian almost went to slagging off Ellen Ripley - now if THAT isn't a strong egalitarian rolemodel I don't know who is.

A lot of the mainstream debate now was already covered in SF TV and film years ago - 1980s videogames were where SF film was back in the 50s...

Gamergate pissed off a LOT of female gamers and developers as well- just monitor the #notyourshield tag as well.

Sarkeesian and Quinn come across as "patriarchial feminists" - the bullies to quote Alison Tieman who writes on
Genderratic and the Honey Badger Brigade site listed above.

I suffered at the hands of bullies like Sarkeesian.

To see how far *ahead* some sectors of mainstream society parts of geek culture are - look at how sexual dynamics and acceptance of equal respect plays out in Babylon 5. This was aired in the 90s... mainstream was closer to Lexx in playout..

[ 08. October 2014, 11:11: Message edited by: Alex Cockell ]

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

Alex - if you'll pardon my saying so, you are letting yourself get dragged into this whole American culture wars thing again. It's obfuscating the main point.

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

That "failure to venerate" opinion is so stupid, I don't know where to start. These women are the subject of death threats, rape threats and slurs that, were it not almost impossible to police, in many places be criminal offences.

The cries to journalistic integrity only count when the journalistic outlets that are supposedly corrupt are being targeted. They're not, except when they say it's standing up and saying that it's wrong to threaten and vilify these women for doing... not much.

Like the office bully who, when accused of harassment, calls it "banter", failing to realise that it's only banter when the object of it says it is.

What's happening in #Gamergate though, more than anything, is actually in the name, gamers keeping a gate through which they don't want women, or gay people, or "social justice warriors" coming. Because it might change the games they play.

And lest we forget, the games they play which define, apparently, their identity, the label they apply to themselves which in and of itself is problematic, because it's an identity that
depends upon consuming things. Because people who call themselves "gamers" keep up with new developments in digital mass-media. They buy stuff.

It's been coming for a while. I am reminded of an earlier flashpoint in this when Carolyn Petit at Gamespot gave GTA V 9/10, dropping a mark because of its representation of women, and gamers campaigned to have her fired.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Alex Cockell: Good Wiki coverage of Gamergate

Do you know what 'Wiki' means?

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

I honestly didn't think anyone would come out as a supporter of this. I'm stunned.

quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
Good Wiki coverage of Gamergate - https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/wiki/index

I just laughed out loud at the screen.

"GamerGate is a consumer revolt triggered by overt politicization, ethical misconduct, and unprecedented amounts of censorship targeted at gamers."

Please. This is precisely the sort of shit I was talking about in the OP.

quote:
One of the charges alleged against Zoe Quinn was playing out akin to the payola scandals in the music industry in the 50s and 60s; in this case there was the suspicion of possible sexual favours for promotional placement. Shady journalism..

And yet that would be on the journalists. Why is that not on the journalists?

Why are they targeting the women?

quote:
I suffered at the hands of bullies like Sarkeesian.

I am. Um. I. Um. I honestly don't even know where to start.

Really? Really?

Let me ask you some serious questions here.

Have you been threatened with rape?

Have you been threatened with murder?

Has Anita Sarkeesian personally tried to harm you?

Has anyone gone on the internet and posted your home address in order to incite people to physical violence against you?

Tell us how you've suffered, Alex.

Part of the problem is this: we are reaching a point where there are people going, "yeah but Sarkeesian's methodology is flawed" (it isn't) "and her opinions are often wrong" (even I am not down with everything she says, even if most of it is flatly obvious to anyone with an ounce of regard for fellow human beings) and this is more or less equivalent to the people who were going "yeah but they were working for international capitalism and the US was horrible in the Middle East" when people mentioned the victims of 9/11, as if that made stealing a jumbo jet and murdering thousands of people was somehow justified.

We call this "victim-blaming". Like the people who go "she shouldn't have gone out alone dressed like that" when they should be saying, "he shouldn't have fucking raped her." Or the people who said Jennifer Lawrence should have use two step encryption on her phone when they should be talking about the bastards who stole her private things.

No. It is not acceptable.

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
Alex Cockell: Good Wiki coverage of Gamergate
Do you know what 'Wiki' means?

More importantly, it isn't good Wiki coverage because it is the wiki maintained by one of the online sources who are responsible for the whole #Gamergate thing. That is, it is not balanced, because it is the perpetrators' organ.

[ 08. October 2014, 11:47: Message edited by: Wood ]

Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
Good Wiki coverage of Gamergate - https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/wiki/index

One of the charges alleged against Zoe Quinn was playing out akin to the payola scandals in the music industry in the 50s and 60s; in this case there was the suspicion of possible sexual favours for promotional placement. Shady journalism..

Ir's also a good thing to compare earlier geek subculture with mainstream releases of the time. for instance - Star Wars, which subverted the Princess/Damsel trope went out at the same time as Blue Lagoon, where Brooke Shields played a rich man's fucktoy in essence. Which was the better role-model? Carrie Fisher's character or Brooke Shields' one? The "Nothing comes between me and my Calvins" ad was also playing at the time.

Sarkeesian almost went to slagging off Ellen Ripley - now if THAT isn't a strong egalitarian rolemodel I don't know who is.

A lot of the mainstream debate now was already covered in SF TV and film years ago - 1980s videogames were where SF film was back in the 50s...

Gamergate pissed off a LOT of female gamers and developers as well- just monitor the #notyourshield tag as well.

Sarkeesian and Quinn come across as "patriarchial feminists" - the bullies to quote Alison Tieman who writes on
Genderratic and the Honey Badger Brigade site listed above.

I suffered at the hands of bullies like Sarkeesian.

To see how far *ahead* some sectors of mainstream society parts of geek culture are - look at how sexual dynamics and acceptance of equal respect plays out in Babylon 5. This was aired in the 90s... mainstream was closer to Lexx in playout..

That's not a wiki. It's a list from Reddit. On this issue, Reddit has just a big an axe to grind as some of the people you're complaining about. The actual http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_controversy entry gives a much more balanced view of the whole issue. The conculsion is pure gold:

Alex Goldman from On the Media wrote that he recognized legitimate complaints in #GamerGate concerning the relationship between the video game industry and journalists, and that there is diversity within the gamer community, but noted that the movement's decision to focus on female indie developers and its involvement in harassment had caused it to lose mainstream credibility. "If you see yourself as a bloc of people who call themselves "gamers," to outsiders you are only as good as your worst representatives, and the past month have shown those representatives to be racist, homophobic, misogynist, and threatening. If you want to be seen as a monolith, publicly shame the bad actors in your cohort. If you want to be seen as individuals, well, stop calling yourself gamers. Come up with some other means of self-identification. Because as of right now, the worst people standing behind the mantle of gamer have spoiled it for all of you".

In a varient of Godwin's law, your arguement must be automatically lost if you have to threaten your opponent with rape, violence or harass and bully them to make some sort of point.

Tubbs

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

I was sexually abused by socially powerful predatory girls partially due to my unknown at the time autism. I was systematically bullied by both predatory boys AND girls through my school years. I was silenced by my assailants threatening to cry rape.

I have experienced the dark side of female sexuality first-hand, where it is fully weaponised.

Sarkeesian was quoted as finding games "really grose" - she quoted content out of context - didn't understand character arcs etc..

Dirt is on many hands here - on Quinn and Sarkeesian etc for not playing aboveboard, Quinn for allegedly cheating on her partner, AND for sexual payola. Journos are at fault for playing the game as well - just as both radio stations and record studios were during payola.

I don't buy this "women are always victims" crap for one instance - as I also suffered the cognitive dissonance of being called a "rapist" by the overwhelming voice of 2nd Wave Feminism at the same time as I was being raped by predatory women.

I escaped into the nascent geek and home computing subculture - which has been gentrified since.

Many of the key developers on Bioshock etc are women, and what have the SJWs come up with? A reskinned Alex Kidd-type run-and-gun but with tampons.

Christina Hoff-Sommers, who was there during first-wave feminism (as was Warren Farrell, Swayne O'Pye, Camille Paglia, Doris Lessing etc) is defending the gamers against gynocentrism-on-steroids (steinem-flavour Gender Feminism)

Most gamers are FAR more egalitarian.

Most of the Honeybadgers used to be feminists.

http://www.genderratic.com/p/4567/its-shit-like-this-feminists-on-womens-natural-insight-a-misogynist-trope/

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
I was sexually abused by socially powerful predatory girls partially due to my unknown at the time autism. I was systematically bullied by both predatory boys AND girls through my school years. I was silenced by my assailants threatening to cry rape.

I have experienced the dark side of female sexuality first-hand, where it is fully weaponised.

Alex, I am sorry to hear this, I truly am.

But this is not that conflict. This is not your trauma playing out.

The trauma that I do not doubt you have personally experienced doesn't justify supporting a movement that solely, despite its rhetoric, exists to harm and exclude (not just specific) women. If anything, supporting a movement whose prominent members threaten rape and violence puts you in danger of being on the side of the abuser.

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

hosting/

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
Tell us how you've suffered, Alex.

This is not the place or the topic on which to invite personal disclosure, and probably not the place or the topic on which to volunteer it. Admins will be watching this thread to ensure compliance with previous host & admin warnings in this respect.

/hosting

[x-post, but still applies]

[ 08. October 2014, 12:18: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

For the record, the #notyourshield tag has been used by a lot of people to differentiate themselves from the idiots sending the death threats etc. However, part of it is hyperbole on the part of the oversensitive.

There does seem to be a double-standard in operation with single-sex spaces though - female feminists are allowed theirs - but men aren't? Are they not to be trusted?

What does this say about some feminists' views on men? Just asking...

[ 08. October 2014, 12:30: Message edited by: Alex Cockell ]

Posted by Amorya (# 2652) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
Many of the key developers on Bioshock etc are women, and what have the SJWs come up with? A reskinned Alex Kidd-type run-and-gun but with tampons.

I find your use of the SJWs acronym very telling. The use of that term in relation to #gamergate was 4chan's method of deflecting any attention from their real agenda:

quote:
From this Wired article:
As for #notyourshield, its first reference appears on the /v/ video games board on 4chan as a suggestion for responding to "social justice warriors" who claimed the #GamerGate campaign was misogynistic. "Something like #NotYourShield and demand the SJWs stop using you as a shield to deflect genuine criticism," an anonymous user wrote on September 2.

There is a war going on, and people are dying. I know of two suicides just from the last week, let alone the amount of women leaving the tech industry because of bullshit like this.

The real issue is how women in the tech industry are treated by the men who are in positions of power. It affects everything from salary and promotions all the way down to conference attendees asking "Are you here with your husband?". It affects the stereotypes of woman = casual gamer while man = hardcore gamer. It affects how a woman who rocks the boat is seen as bossy whereas a man would be seen as strong and assertive. And all this is before we get to the actions of the hate trolls, who think nothing of doxxing, SWATting, gaslighting and more.

Women in tech are starting to stand up for themselves. Gamergate was created in order to silence those women by diverting attention. This has been proven through chat logs from 4chan's IRC server.

Brianna Wu (the head of game studio Giant Spacekat) says it better than I can:

quote:
So, I want to be really clear about something. #gamergate is not a controversy that will die down. It's a playbook being used against women.

The truth is, we're currently seeing a full-blown war on women. You're seeing it politically, and you're seeing it in the tech world. They don't see themselves as sexists. They see themselves as noble warriors. And their goal is to silence us and destroy our careers. This will not stop. This will not go away. There are men out there that hate women and are dedicating their lives to destroying us.

The #gamergate playbook is VERY straightforward. Find female targets. Stoke a fire against them. Assemble material attacking them. Then, repeat over and over again that it's not about attacking women. Set up tons of fake accounts to attack anyone that says otherwise. Then, do everything you can to harass these women and destroy their careers. This also intimidates women on the sidelines into being quiet.

It's well organized and it's relentless. There are people that literally do nothing with their lives but try to destroy women.

There is NO WOMAN IN TECH that should not be in serious fear about this. #gamergate could decide to attack any woman you know.

(As for "what have the SJWs come up with? A reskinned Alex Kidd-type run-and-gun but with tampons.", Brianna's game Revolution 60 is hugely successful, and Brianna is as big a proponent of social justice as you could get. But that's a tangent — people don't only deserve respect if they make good products.)

I am a woman in tech. I have experienced comments, attitudes and biases that come from an entrenched culture of sexism. Mercifully, I've never been the target of a hate campaign like Zoe has. Also, I've been lucky enough to have worked with some very supportive allies, and it is through their support that I've had the strength to face this industry. But every morning I wake up with a fear that today it might be my turn, that I might log on to Twitter and find my personal details alongside a call to arms by misogynistic vigilantes.

Amy

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
There does seem to be a double-standard in operation with single-sex spaces though - female feminists are allowed theirs - but men aren't? Are they not to be trusted?

That's an argument that falls down as soon as it's pointed out that in this case the single-sex space that you're trying to maintain consists of the entire gaming industry and community.

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

I don't know what to make of it myself- all I know is that from what I understand there is a lot more intrasexual shaming going on rather than external.

Put the bio imperatives in there as well - and apparently I as a marginalised man am being ordered to be a disposable pawn in women's games against each other?

Or something.

Plays into "he for she" - but what about me?

Are men and women equal - or are we "beta males" disposable pawns?

I just don't know...

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

Agh. That phrase 'beta male.' This is an ugly way to classify men, and for your own sanity and happiness you might consider giving up applying it to yourself.
I assure you that women do not use such classifications; we do not sort men into 'alpha' and 'beta' boxes and then treat them differently. (And I can, if you wish, produce reams of proof to back this up. You want a list of romance novels that star beta males? It will come to many many pages.)
"Alpha" and 'beta' is a classification system invented by men, to put other men down. Do not play that little game.

Posted by Amorya (# 2652) on :

This isn't women vs men. It's women + allies vs mysogynists. Men have the power to choose which group they belong to.

quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
Put the bio imperatives in there as well - and apparently I as a marginalised man am being ordered to be a disposable pawn in women's games against each other?

Or something.

Nobody is making you a pawn.

It is entirely possible to be marginalised in one category and have privilege in another. I'm white, so I have white privilege — which means that at the very least, when there's a discussion about racism, I don't stick my neck out and assume I know the full implications of what goes on.

There is absolutely no danger of anything swinging the other way. We're objecting to people sticking a "No girls allowed" sign on the door to the fort. That doesn't mean anyone wants to stick a "No boys allowed" sign on the same door. We just want there to be no god damned sign at all!

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Amorya: It's women + allies vs mysogynists. Men have the power to choose which group they belong to.

I know which group is more fun.

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

Thanks for that - all part of the disorientation I still feel when I observe full-on weaponised power games going on...

I suppose I was just shoved out on the margins - the outcasts created geek culture...

Hence the understanding about hjow it can seem as though it's undergoing "gentrification".

[ 08. October 2014, 13:43: Message edited by: Alex Cockell ]

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

How does tackling misogyny and homophobia equal gentrification?? Surely in that case it's a good thing, then? Unless you think that misogyny and homophobia are good things to be preserved...?

It all just smacks of 'I was so enjoying getting to be misogynistic and now these mean women are ruining my fun'. Well, sorry, but most people rather dislike misogyny so you're out of luck there.

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

I just don't know any more. I don't understand why I am shamed for being male, white and straight.

I don't understand the hatred and shaming language..

I just want to be left alone.

Is it "misogyny" to simply point out that women have a dark side, and sometimes innocent bystanders get hurt badly?

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

Perhaps you will be hurt and offended if I amend your last sentence to say "...people have a dark side."

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

I won't - but it does seem to me that so many of these altercations is where the feminine shadow is more commonly denied or excused and the blame pushed onto men via this "patriarchy" thing...

Almost as though I personally have to atone for everything every man has done against every woman..

Why should i?

[ 08. October 2014, 14:12: Message edited by: Alex Cockell ]

Posted by Amorya (# 2652) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
Is it "misogyny" to simply point out that women have a dark side, and sometimes innocent bystanders get hurt badly?

Saying it in a debate where women who do not have a dark side are trying to avoid getting bullied and hurt, then yes, yes it is.

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

OK- SOME women then.

I still don't understand why I am deemed to be in the wrong for being white, hetero, male and autistic simply because of ideology? and I'M the bigot?

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

All I know I I view both sexes as equal, with equal rights, equal responsibility and EQUAL ACCOUNTABILITY.

Or should be.

Stuff like "women have rights, men have responsibilities" need to be killed with fire.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

Nobody says you are wrong. You are imputing this to yourself. If you insist upon being a victim and a martyr, that's up to you.

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

All I know is I still get disoriented from time to time..

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

hosting/

Alex, it is my view that this thread is not relieving your disorientation. So I suggest you step back from the thread. If you choose to participate, you do so at your own risk and in the light of prior host and admin warnings addressed to you personally in this respect. Do not make your posts about yourself; engage with the broader issue.

/hosting

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:

I still don't understand why I am deemed to be in the wrong for being white, hetero, male and autistic simply because of ideology?

You're not. I'm all of those things too. You will be deemed to be in the wrong if you apply your experience of a small minority of a group (in this case women) as being typical of that group in general. That is why you get accused of being a bigot, just as if you used a bad experience growing up in the Lewis to make generalisations about Christians.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

And this entire detour is an example of how easy it is for a (relatively) sensible and (comparatively) calm discussion about feminism to suddenly take a left turn and become All About White Guys. Here is a link, from today's paper: http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/oct/08/afflect-dicaprio-white-male-celebrity-activist

Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:

quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:

I still don't understand why I am deemed to be in the wrong for being white, hetero, male and autistic simply because of ideology?
You're not. I'm all of those things too. You will be deemed to be in the wrong if you apply your experience of a small minority of a group (in this case women) as being typical of that group in general. That is why you get accused of being a bigot, just as if you used a bad experience growing up in the Lewis to make generalisations about Christians.

Eutychus has requested that Alex discontinue posts about his own experience at the expense of the issue in the OP. In case it was not clear that it would be appreciated if everyone else cooperated in not making it difficult for him to comply, let me make it explicit.

Keep to the point, people.

Eliab
Purgatory host

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
And this entire detour is an example of how easy it is for a (relatively) sensible and (comparatively) calm discussion about feminism to suddenly take a left turn and become All About White Guys. Here is a link, from today's paper: http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/oct/08/afflect-dicaprio-white-male-celebrity-activist

Well, it's open to the rest of us to help get it back on track.

Actually I agree with you. But surely the discussion is going to have to address the issue of All about White Guys, because that characterises this particular subculture, if what I am told is true. And any discussion of feminism that does not consider it is simply going to be decontextualized.

Actually, recontextualizing it is going to need quite a bit of reappraisal of assumptions in other quarters also. I'm not a gamer, so mine is not an inside view. But in his OP, Wood wrote:-

quote:
(And maybe we can talk about "gamer" as an identity and whether that's problematic, because I sort of think it really is but to be honest, I've written enough in this OP.)

We're going to have to. Because according to the most recent stats. I can find, in the UK most gamers are women. That's not quite the case in the USA,where they represent about 48% of gamers, but it soon will be.

So talking about gamers in general is going to be highly problematic if we assume that the #gamergate business is in any way typical of them all. It rather seems it involves a small subset, which needs far greater characterization to be meaningful. They exist alright. Who - and where - are they? And why?

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:

We're going to have to. Because according to the most recent stats. I can find, in the UK most gamers are women. That's not quite the case in the USA,where they represent about 48% of gamers, but it soon will be.

Only if you count everyone who has ever bought a game as a gamer, so the methodology is somewhat suspect.

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

The stats I saw referred to people who play games, not just buy them, Chris. But issues of who plays what and how often are exactly the sort of things that are going to figure in identifying who the people we are talking about here are, I suspect

I've consciously tried not to exclude anyone through terminology - right now we need a "no true gamer" tangent like we need a hole in the head!

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:

I've consciously tried not to exclude anyone through terminology - right now we need a "no true gamer" tangent like we need a hole in the head!

I don't think we need to go down that route either. Suffice to say that there are different demographics who play very different games.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:

I've consciously tried not to exclude anyone through terminology - right now we need a "no true gamer" tangent like we need a hole in the head!
I don't think we need to go down that route either. Suffice to say that there are different demographics who play very different games.

Those demographics, however, don't necessarily correspond to age, gender, or anything else. My Dad goes in for first person shooters, I prefer strategy and RPGs, my wife goes for 3rd person fantasy RPGish stuff like Diablo or Van Helsing. The problem is that there is a group of men who have decided they have ownership of "gaming" however defined, and allied to this have decided to blame their social flaws on women.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:

The problem is that there is a group of men who have decided they have ownership of "gaming" however defined, and allied to this have decided to blame their social flaws on women.

People engaging in dickish behaviour should be stopped, that's all the argument it needs. There need be no more justification than that.

So I'm wary of a stealth argument from economics ("Women make up 48% of the gaming - therefore"), because when it turns out to be more nuanced than that that becomes a 'justification' for further dickish behaviour.

[and I never said the various demographics of gaming were to be defined by age - though there will be some trends here]

[ 08. October 2014, 20:46: Message edited by: chris stiles ]

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

As with almost every group, the group identity is defined by the noisy ones who demand the attention.

Harper's Conservatives in Canada are defined by having several rabid fundagelicals who want to drive the "hot-button" issues of abortion and teh gays rather than allowing for the needs of the whole country (let alone the boss being rabidly anti-anything that might affect his friends profits)

"Christians" have become defined by the rabid fundagelicals who haven't taken the trouble to read their own Bible.

The Catholic Church is presently defined by paedophile priests and intransigent bishops.

"Muslims" are defined by the terrorists/suicide bombers/ISIS

"Gamers" are defined by the kind of person who is the subject of the OP: obsessed, unable to socialise and nasty

None of these are even a significant minority of the whole group, but the public view is of them, not the majority

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:

"Gamers" are defined by the kind of person who is the subject of the OP: obsessed, unable to socialise and nasty

None of these are even a significant minority of the whole group, but the public view is of them, not the majority

Well, kind yes and kinda no.
Read this
Or this from another article.

quote:
One of the weekend’s highlights was the fabulously feisty Women Who Kick Ass panel, which included American Horror Story’s Sarah Paulson, Orphan Black’s Tatiana Maslany and Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams and Natalie Dormer. Dormer believes the best roles for women are now on television, not in film.“Television doesn’t feel the need to polarize women so much,” she said. “Male writers – and I say this with all love and respect – often want to make a woman either the angel or the whore, make her the witch, or put her on the pedestal. When people ask me about Margaery, I say they’re not mutually exclusive.” However, at another event, Anthony Starr, from HBO drama Banshee, pointed out that most women in action roles are still created from a male gaze, with a certain, overtly sexualized look. The conclusion: when women with non-model looks kick ass in film and on television, then we’ll have real equality.

This applies to games as well.

Not wanting to go the No True Gamer route, the demographics do not tell the complete story.
Nintendo's Wii extended the age range of people who play video games, but Gran would not consider herself a gamer. In other words, many people play games, but are not part of the gamer culture. And, despite more and more women being involved, the industry is still mostly run by, and for, white males.

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

lilBuddha wrote:

quote:
In other words, many people play games, but are not part of the gamer culture. And, despite more and more women being involved, the industry is still mostly run by, and for, white males.

I'm sure that's likely to be right. In a sense, are we not just looking at the growing-up pains of an industry here?

Its history is pretty well documented - early gamer geeks, first commercializations for "early adopters" - classic middle-class white male demographic right there. Games increasingly need intense systematizing skills, which negatively correlates with empathy. Enter stage right culture wars. Demographic, not being social adept, tends to conservatism in the broad sense, absorbs culture war values, and fails to notice life moves on and diversifies. Reality dawns, beans spilled etc.

Or are we looking at more than that? Wood - you've been close to this confraternity - what do you say?

[ 09. October 2014, 20:57: Message edited by: Honest Ron Bacardi ]

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

In happier news-- did you see this, did you see this, did you see this?

So to the Gamergate boys who sigh, "What do wimminz want?" The answer is "this! Exactly this! This right here!"

Of course, if someone's underlying agenda is to defend their right to marginalize, discriminate against, and silence people, that answer won't be good enough. But one thing that encouages me-- and something that had definitely chamged from the early 90's when I started gaming, is that while the trolls always seem to be first on deck to whine, "why so many wimminz," very often it will be a guy who is next on deck to say, "what the hell is your problem?"
The increased dialogue is giving the decent guys the rhetorical backup they need to stand up. It's encouraging.

Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:
Dormer believes the best roles for women are now on television, not in film.

I think this is true. I admire that someone like JJ Abrams has written really strong female lead characters into at least two of his series (Alias and Fringe).

With games, the only really strong well-written female lead I can think of right now is Jodie from Beyond Two Souls (played by Ellen Page). And she was a brilliant character.

I don't know what this says about me, but I always prefer to play as a female character in a game if I have the choice (I'm male). It just seems like games are way too male-dominated (the characters, as well as the gamers). And, though I agree with the "women are either the angel or the witch" statement, I think that's part of a wider problem that in a lot of games, both male and female characters are poorly written two-dimensional caricatures.

It's still a relatively young industry, and I'd say it's only a handful of games that I've played where there have been really interesting, complicated, well-developed characters. I guess that's partly because the interaction and gameplay that's the focus. But when you add great characters to that, it makes the whole experience even better. I loved Red Dead Redemption for the way it told its story and developed the main character, in a way that could only work in a game. But that sort of thing is the exception, rather than the rule. Too many games have simplistic sterotypes as characters.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

I only know Dormer from the Tudors, but she impressed me there as adding a lot of nuance to what could have been a straight up witch role. Good to hear she is using her position in the Geekoverse to speak up about stuff.

What I want to say, she played her Anne Bolyn role as someone who was the hero of her own narrative-- which is how most of us see ourselves. Most genre films/ tv/ etc are good at portraying men -- heroes or villians-- as the heroes of their own narrative. Women-- whether angels or whores-- are traditionally portrayed as people in someone else's story. It doesn't matter if she is ballsy or self-sacrificing or evil or climbs skyscrapers or whatever-- if she only exists as something the male characters respond to, and is not the owner if her own world, she is an incomplete character. In fact, even the most traditional, subservient, feminine character could be more feminist than the most badass, weapon- wielding, trash talking action female-- if the former has a developed point if view and the latter merely responds to the hero's narrative needs.
So one of the sites I visit that promotes empowering girls created a montage of answers that users submitted to the question, "what kind of things would you like to see in a female character? "
I was pleased to see my answer was included-- "she has her own agenda."

( i have to add, this is just as important to address in films/ stories that have a female protagonist-- in the new series of " Homeland" while the character of Carrie Matheson is still one of the most remarkable, complex characters of either sex that TV ever produced, the guy they are currently setting up to be her love interest-- not so much. Briefly drawn back-history of PTSD and occasional forays with other women, but he is basically Carrie's Jiminy Cricket. Hope they develop him more.)

[ 09. October 2014, 23:11: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

This discussion is too serious to post this here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTGh0EMmMC8 but I'm going to anyway.

Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :

All true, Kelly. Especially the thing about being a hero of your own narrative. The same kind of thing happens a lot with non-white characters. They're there, but they're there to be disposable tools to drive the narrative, give comic interludes or whatever. But they can't be real heroes driving their own story.

I also think something that you often see is that women can't be strong for no reason. There was an article a while back (sadly, I can't remember where) that made the point that, even where you have strong women, they're written that they're strong because they were raped / abused when they were younger, and that trauma is what made them strong. Of course, that can happen. But for that to be the standard narrative is pretty shitty. It basically says that women can't be strong in their own right - they have to be abused into it.

(Incidentally, I've just started watching Homeland. I'm only a few episodes in, and Carrie is a great character (though it's going to take a lot to knock Sara Lund off her Queen-of-awesome perch). The only thing that is making me feel uncomfortable is that, at least so far, it comes across as incredibly Islamophobic. Which is a whole 'nother discussion in its own right.)

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

I guess the level to which you can develop your support characters is an issue for writers in any genre. Too little depth and they just move around like ciphers. Too much, and you finish up with War and Peace, where nobody can even remember who the lead characters are. And that balance is surely driven by the genre you are writing for. Television plots on subscription channels and public service outlets, where you don't get interruptions every 5 minutes, are going to be able to support longer, more complex storylines.

Kelly, if you find the storyline of Homeland in respect of Carrie interesting, you may like to check out some recent European TV crime fiction. Goperryrevs has already mentioned "The Killing" (Forbrydelsen) with the lead character of Sara Lund. Two others that are each very different, but that also have a female lead that is complex and flawed, would be the French "Spiral" (Engrenages), and the BBC's "Happy Valley". Of course American crime TV series have moved on too, but what all these ones feature is a female lead who is far from stereotypical really (apart from Sara Lund's sweater). If they share anything at all, it's a sense of tension over whether the lead's complex life will actually get to overwhelm them. If they are heroes (and sometimes they aren't), it's because they pull through despite all that. Or sometimes not.

Like I said, complex.

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

Re. strong female characters? Orphan Black. That is all. Helped by Tatiana Maslany's acting, but still. Genius.

Anyway #1: So one of the big #Gamergate advocates turned out to be an actual Nazi. This comes as no surprise.

Anyway #2: Every so often I read a sensible piece on this sort of thing that says, "why are you going after a woman who blogs and an indie designer? How can these people possibly constitute a threat to you? It is a rhetorical challenge that doesn't expect an answer.

The problem with rhetorical challenges that don't expect answers is, as I found out earlier in this thread, is when they have answers.

The answer is, counterintuitively, quite a lot. It's not a material threat, no, but it is a threat.

It's a threat because, probably without really understanding why, by accommodating the existence of women, you cease to be the default.

The fear of being hated just for being white, straight, male and middle-class is a thing I hear expressed a lot, both directly and in subtext (and not just in this thread). Why do they hate us? they ask.

Of course, mostly they don't, but it's a sort of distress that comes from a) someone pointing out privilege and b) someone suggesting that privilege is a bad thing.

Like, I did not ask to be born white, male and British. I was born solidly working class but I had a couple of opportunities in my life (at least one of which, crucially, I could not have had if I was female - namely a free scholarship into a local private school, which was historically boys only) and now I live the existence of someone who really isn't working class and can't pretend to be.

I worked hard to be who I am, and have the career I have, and the family I have, and the beautiful home I have. I worked a lot harder than my rich contemporaries at that school, because I had to, because their futures were secure in a way that mine wasn't.

But I did not work as hard as I would have had to have worked if I had been born black, or female. I did not work as hard as I would have had to if I had not married someone who was from a significantly wealthier background than me.* If I had been born in Sub-Saharan Africa, or India, or the USA, or forty years earlier, or ten years later, I wouldn't have had those opportunities at all.

I don't think that this discounts how hard I've worked. But I have been helped by my privilege, and these have helped my merits, and talents, and skills along. I'm good at what I do.

But in several ways, I am the default. White, male, respectably Christian and married to someone of the opposite sex. Society is built in my shape.

This isn't fair. I know this isn't fair. I am not the bad guy here, but I share an identity with the bad guys. I didn't ask to be, but I am part of a history that favours, well, me. The weird uncomfortable feeling that this creates is the foundation of what people like to think of as white liberal guilt.

But what if society wasn't built in my shape? What if the doors that opened for me opened for other people too?

I would have had to have work harder for my wonderful life, and I might not have it now. If I had failed it would be my own fault and I would have no backups.

So I don't want to be the bad guy. I don't want to be identified with the bad guy. If I am identified with the bad guy and something is done about social injustices, then I will lose out, without ever personally doing anything bad (I hope).

Now let's think about a lot of the #Gamergate boys.

Like the ones who (and I am not joking) were angry at Zoe Quinn for making a game about depression because "she's an attractive woman, she can't understand depression!"

Like the ones who, thanks to experiences at high school (and in my experience it is interesting how many online and pen and paper gamers' understanding of society stops at high school) consider themselves marginalised, and can't understand how they are privileged. Because even though they're short of cash, maybe lonely and maybe marginalised, the games industry is made in their shape. It fits around them, and when a thing fits comfortably around you, you don't notice it nearly as much as when it's a poor, itchy fit.

And more than that, you have the problematic identity of the gamer. To be a "gamer" as an identity is to consume games. It is to buy stuff and play it, and keep up with the next new releases that you can buy. It is Warcraft subscriptions and new hardware.

An ideologically-fired friend once told me that "geek is a synonym for late-capitalist consumer," and I see what he is getting at.

But when you base your identity on what amounts to buying stuff, and not a whole lot else, what happens when, in the product, you cease to be the default.

I remember how horrified some self-identified gamers were when one of the Mass Effect games had the option of a gay relationship subplot (and of playing the protagonist as a female). I mean, you didn't have to play that plotline, and it wasn't given the same prominence as the straight guy option, but the very fact it was there meant that there was the choice of a game that no longer fit that traditional gamer demographic.

And they went mental.

What I am trying to say is simply this: if your identity is founded on buying stuff, what happens when it looks like the basis of your identity will no longer be designed for you?

Thee guys didn't want to be told they are the bad guys. Ironic, then, that they become the thing they are so desperate to prove they are not when faced with the thought of the stuff they like to buy ceasing to be the stuff they like to buy.
__
*Of course I didn't marry her for the money, but seriously, I'd be disingenuous if I pretended that being part of a much wealthier family hadn't have been easier, because I have had a lot of help from my wife's family over the years.

Meanwhile, in the D'n'D dept:

quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
In happier news-- did you see this, did you see this, did you see this?

I did. Hilariously, at the same time there were complaints about the gender balance of the Monster Manual. And the issues surrounding some of the consultant credits (not unrelated to the issues in the OP).

Still, good on them.

(My favourite version is 4th edition, btw.)

[ 10. October 2014, 12:01: Message edited by: Wood ]

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

Excellent, Wood. And of course all gamers have seen this?
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/

Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :

I hesitated to post this the other day, because it's long, a wee bit incoherent at times, and I feel for the hosts, but it's quite relevant on the GamerGate side.

Doubtless preaching to the converted in the main, but those on the periphery or to whom the whole "Gamer" thing is alien may find it informative.

It's a recent piece by Kathy Sierra, who was the subject of a harrassment campaign a few years back:

The Koolaid Point

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

The Scalzi article is pretty good. As for the Kathy Sierra one, how depressing is that? They win.

Ms Sierra's self appointed nemesis, by the way, is the Nazi I was talking about. No hyperbole here. He blogs about all sorts of hideous racist shit and has a swastika tattooed on his chest. That's #Gamergate's allies and heroes, ladies and gentlemen.

Going back to the thing about privilege, Scalzi's article reminded me of some thoughts I had on how we don't live in a patriarchy so much as a kyriarchy.

Kyriarchy is one of those useful neologisms that sociologists occasionally come up with, that defines the shifting Web of privileges that we all have.

Like, basically we are all more or less privileged than the people around us. Like me, I'm less privileged than the posh boys I went school with, or was, and more privileged than buttload of people. Our hypothetical #gamergate advocate - our fedora-wearing libertarian neckbeard who has never known the love of a human woman (he eschews the love of men) - is less privileged than me in a bunch of ways. He's poorer than me, socially marginalised, and so on. But he is still a straight white guy. He's still the default in some ways even when he is less privileged.

Like Anita Sarkeesian is attractive, conventionally attractive, middle class, and educated to a high level.

On the one hand she's more privileged than Ugly Hypothetical Neckbeard but UHN doesn't get sexually harassed or threatened with death for pointing out that people don't give women a fair shake.

Here's part of the problem. These guys are screaming, look at what she has! How could you dare to suggest that I with my problems am more privileged than her!

But see, UHN both is and isn't. And the problem is that they're different things and can't justify the UHNs doing what they do.

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

Definitely depressing, but I don't accept that there is no way but for them to win. Mind, I've never been there, so I can't say I'd do better than she did or take it less hard. Just that an equation which equals 1 they win, 2 you suffer first, and then they win isn't an equation I can believe in.

Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :

I don't think they have won the war, but I can accept her argument that they can win many battles. Annoying as it is.

I often find myself either not commenting, or walking away from conversations (particularly online) that are clearly not going to go anywhere, which gives the "other side" a victory of sorts. There are genuine no-win points - if I say X they will counter Y; if I say X but Y's an invalid response they will counter Z or "123 fallacy" etc. Wherever I go, the "others" will have a comeback. It might be bollocks. It might not make any sense. But there will be no communication, a lot of 'shouting', and no progress.

Those are the times you have to walk away.

If it was in RealLife(tm), face to face, verbal conversation, it wouldn't go that way. Body language, tone of voice, the inability to get away with clearly bullshit arguments etc. would put paid to an endless tit for tat childishness. But online, there are times when you're doomed.

And that's in much, much, much less heated situations than any from the article(s). A reasonable person can't "win" against the determinedly, wilfully and stridently unreasonable, especially online. You're not even playing the same game, let alone by the same rules.

Actually, I'm depressed too now. Bugger.

The non-depression aspect is that over time the strident fuckwits will fade, lose influence, and lose power. It's just no-one wants to be doing the waiting, for obvious reasons.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

There's not much I can add here other than to be very very confused by people who declare their opposition to be "Social Justice Warriors".

And point out that D&D art since 1999 has tried to be inclusive. Marketing however disagreed, and forced a white male fighter on the game as the central character - so the art almost all showed him being beaten up.

It's a battle that needs having, and winning. And it is absolutely telling that if people claim to be worried about game journalists being corrupt:
1: They go after the woman, not the journalist.
2: They take the ex's word for it.

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

Oh, Regdar and his many deaths. I even have a book from Wizards where he's squashed by Cthulhu himself.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

Wood, excellent points - though kyriarchy has long been acknowledged on platforms like tumblr, but because it's been mostly by young women (often non-white - I'm sure I read something about tumblr now having a non-white majority but don't quote me) so it's seen as frivolous and unimportant.

I read something about MRAs which went along the lines of them not being for all men at all, and their rhetoric having nothing about defending non-white men, gay/bi men, trans men etc. It's just all straight white cis men saying 'a feminist was mean to me once'. The lack of MRA voices protesting the targeting of young black men by the police during Ferguson was very noticeable.

There are many problems with feminism, but most feminists are aware of this and there are many intra-community discussions on how to fix those problems. There's self-awareness. You can't spend very much time in feminist circles without being aware of the historical and current exclusion of trans women and non-white women, for instance. I've yet to see MRAs talking about how to include more trans men and non-white men.

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Wood, excellent points - though kyriarchy has long been acknowledged on platforms like tumblr, but because it's been mostly by young women (often non-white - I'm sure I read something about tumblr now having a non-white majority but don't quote me) so it's seen as frivolous and unimportant.

I read something about MRAs which went along the lines of them not being for all men at all, and their rhetoric having nothing about defending non-white men, gay/bi men, trans men etc. It's just all straight white cis men saying 'a feminist was mean to me once'. The lack of MRA voices protesting the targeting of young black men by the police during Ferguson was very noticeable.

There are many problems with feminism, but most feminists are aware of this and there are many intra-community discussions on how to fix those problems. There's self-awareness. You can't spend very much time in feminist circles without being aware of the historical and current exclusion of trans women and non-white women, for instance. I've yet to see MRAs talking about how to include more trans men and non-white men.

It would REALLY help if those intra-community discussions were to take place publicly - as in the moderates to loudly critique the extremists on Newsnight... You know - as we see the rest of the church call out Westboro, or the Quilliam Foundation do with Anjem Choudhary.

Because it is very confusing from the outside where all you hear as a nonplussed straight white male member of the public is that you are everything wrong in the world - or called on to take up arms for entitled princesses (my takeaway from that Heforshe debacle was that Thompson would look at home handing out white feathers - fuck that).. or something.

I thought feminists were supposed to be strong and independent. Well - how about showing some?

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

Why would any male be non-plussed about the problems women have to endure (or the problems facing blacks, or Indians, or natives, or LGBTs) unless that male had made a determined effort not to process ANY of the news of the last 5, 10, 20 or 100 years?

Waking up suddenly and saying "what happened?" is only allowed for Rip van Winkle. Have you, AC, ever thought about anything but how confused you have decided to become? Is there no way to get you to process someone else's thought?

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
Why would any male be non-plussed about the problems women have to endure (or the problems facing blacks, or Indians, or natives, or LGBTs) unless that male had made a determined effort not to process ANY of the news of the last 5, 10, 20 or 100 years?

Waking up suddenly and saying "what happened?" is only allowed for Rip van Winkle. Have you, AC, ever thought about anything but how confused you have decided to become? Is there no way to get you to process someone else's thought?

Why should I? Surely it's up to an identity group to make their position completely clear through manifestos and the like - so they can be called out? When Feminism operates as a political entity and changes laws to make things VERY risky for men.. it's not up to a member of the public to have to read graduate-level stuff..

Doris Lessing told feminists to lay off men in 2001 - http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/aug/14/edinburghfestival2001.edinburghbookfestival2001

Posted by Spike (# 36) on :

ADMIN NOTE

Alex

You have been advised to stay away from topics such as this. There have been two Hostly warnings on this thread alone and you are very close to crusading.

In light of previous warnings, you have earned yourself two weeks shore leave.

Spike
SoF Admin

Posted by Amorya (# 2652) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Snags:
I often find myself either not commenting, or walking away from conversations (particularly online) that are clearly not going to go anywhere, which gives the "other side" a victory of sorts.

The reason this stuff is so scary, and the reason that people feel they are fighting for their life, is because it's impossible to walk away from.

People are getting doxed. This means that the trolls are using detective work to find people's real life contact details, and posting them online to entice other people to follow them into the real world and continue the argument. I've seen people have to move out of their house because of threatening letters, photos of their kids with comments about "I'll be waiting in a dark alley", harassing phone calls, rape threats and worse.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:

(Incidentally, I've just started watching Homeland. I'm only a few episodes in, and Carrie is a great character (though it's going to take a lot to knock Sara Lund off her Queen-of-awesome perch). The only thing that is making me feel uncomfortable is that, at least so far, it comes across as incredibly Islamophobic. Which is a whole 'nother discussion in its own right.)

First of amen to what you said about characters of color as frequently not owning their narrative.
Second, let's integrate this tangent about Carrie Matheson into the larger discussion-- because she was definitely not this gung -ho about nailimg civilian targets last season as she was last season, and I suspect this will be something she has to confront as the season progresses.

But, as you say, her toughness is not a direct result of sexual abuse, it comes from other trauma. Her shifting from a people- skill type job she was good at ( case officer) to a good position as a career move but is bound to change the personality of any person who occupied it, of either gender; her failure to bond with her kid could be down to her mental health issues or more specifically down to the fact that she had to put a toddler in a playpen and leave it next to its mother's dead body and can't tell anyone about it-- even when she is doing something that makes you cringe in horror, you know enough of her narrative to at least get why it happened.

And overexposirory "background" speeches don't cut it either-- to understand someone, you have to look through their eyes, even if only briefly. (That's a Who quirk that bugs the crap out of me, sometimes.)

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
I guess the level to which you can develop your support characters is an issue for writers in any genre. Too little depth and they just move around like ciphers. Too much, and you finish up with War and Peace, where nobody can even remember who the lead characters are. And that balance is surely driven by the genre you are writing for. Television plots on subscription channels and public service outlets, where you don't get interruptions every 5 minutes, are going to be able to support longer, more complex storylines.

Kelly, if you find the storyline of Homeland in respect of Carrie interesting, you may like to check out some recent European TV crime fiction. Goperryrevs has already mentioned "The Killing" (Forbrydelsen) with the lead character of Sara Lund. Two others that are each very different, but that also have a female lead that is complex and flawed, would be the French "Spiral" (Engrenages), and the BBC's "Happy Valley". Of course American crime TV series have moved on too, but what all these ones feature is a female lead who is far from stereotypical really (apart from Sara Lund's sweater). If they share anything at all, it's a sense of tension over whether the lead's complex life will actually get to overwhelm them. If they are heroes (and sometimes they aren't), it's because they pull through despite all that. Or sometimes not.

Like I said, complex.

( notes recommendations)
As to your "War and Peace" obsevation, I offer you John Irving and Robert Altman. Irving is probably who I would choose for a writing rolemodel, and Altman definitely tops the list of filmaking icons of mine, both for the same reason- even though they definitely have central characters, they both acknowledge that their protagonists are constantly stumbling into other people's storylines. And they seem to pull it off with grace.
( I have a never-developed Who fanfic idea revolving around a community in which the infrostructure is constantly in need of repair, and evrything that looks like the Doctor saving the day is actually caused by someone tightening a pipe somewhere, or initiating a sewer flush at the right time.) [Big Grin]

[ 10. October 2014, 23:41: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

Triple post! Oh, and let Sara have her "sweater," as long as it's clear that she had a life long before she wore it.

Posted by Amorya (# 2652) on :

On the subject of doxing, Brianna Wu (who I quoted earlier in this thread) has just been doxed, had her home address posted. She's now getting tweets including:

quote:
Your mutilated corpse will be on the front page of Jezebel tomorrow and there isn't jack shit you can do about it. If you have any kids they're gong to die too. I don't give a fuck. They'll grow up to be feminists anyway.

Of course, she's had to leave her house, in case this piece of scum isn't just all talk.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

Jesus God.

"By their fruits shall you know them." That really says it all.

Posted by AngloCatholicGirl (# 16435) on :

For those of you who are interested, here is an article that Zoe Quinn wrote about her experience: 5 things I learned as the internet's most hated person

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

Reading that lead to this.

Anybody who finds themselves defending people who did shit like this to an 11 year old girl has turned a really bad corner.

Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Amorya:

quote:
Originally posted by Snags:
I often find myself either not commenting, or walking away from conversations (particularly online) that are clearly not going to go anywhere, which gives the "other side" a victory of sorts.
The reason this stuff is so scary, and the reason that people feel they are fighting for their life, is because it's impossible to walk away from.

People are getting doxed. This means that the trolls are using detective work to find people's real life contact details, and posting them online to entice other people to follow them into the real world and continue the argument. I've seen people have to move out of their house because of threatening letters, photos of their kids with comments about "I'll be waiting in a dark alley", harassing phone calls, rape threats and worse.

I appreciate that, and wasn't seeking to minimise or belittle. Merely illustrating on a much smaller scale that, especially online, it is easy to find situations where whatever course of action you take, you "lose" and they "win".

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

I finally got around to reading the Kathy Sierra article this morning, and then (against my better judgement) read a bit of the comments section below. The comments on that article seem to be largely dominated by a quite articulate and intelligent-sounding man who seeks to convince everyone that as long as trolling, harrassment and personal attack stay firmly within the realm of the internet (i.e. no doxxing or real-life attacks), they must be not only allowed by vigourously defended in the name of free speech and a free internet.

He gave several examples, most too esoteric for me to follow, about very specialized areas of debate in which one point of view was considered unacceptable and people had tried to shut down discussion of that perspective. All in service of his main point: that the internet must be free and open to discussion of all points of view, including unpopular ones.

My question: Does nobody understand the concept of the ad hominem attack anymore? Is it really so difficult to say, "We believe in free speech and discussion of all views, including unpopular ones, but not in personal attacks"? We seem to manage it fairly well here in the small and civil world of the Ship, reminding people that you can attack the issue as vigourously as you like but not the person making the point (unless in Hell). But then, even in Hell we don't seem to draw many of the type of people who would link to a picture of a mutilated corpse with another Shipmate's head superimposed on it with the headline "YOUR NEXT" simply because they held a differing view on, say, transubstantiation. (Obviously the community would never allow anyone to get away with the egregious you're/your error, for starters).

So why is it hard for people who are fearless defenders of free speech on the internet to get this distinction? Is it really that hard to see the boundary between, "I disagree with what Anita Sarkeesian said about the portrayal of women in video games and here are sixteen examples from Grand Theft Auto that demonstrate why I'm right and she's wrong," and "She's a [insert derogatory term for a woman here] who should be [insert unpleasant thing to do to her here] and here's her home address so you can go do it." Freedom of speech can certainly allow one while forbidding the other.

Is this really such a difficult distinction to make?

Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :

No. But apparently yes [Frown]

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

Morbid curiosity makes me follow the comments sections on these debates, too and the sense I get is once the Usual Suspects spit out whatever talking points they've regurgitated from whatever MRA group they have bonded with, they have nothing left to argue with but anger, insults, and threats. And as Snags points out, people who are inclined to argue reasonably eventually just realize the futility of getting any other response, and drift away.

I would encourage the decent gamers to consider that their well-placed, occasional word of rebuke has more impact than they might realize in real life. On another thread I told a story about a godawful gaming companion of mine (A.) who used to harass the two women in the group with sexist (and racist) comments. This was the thing-- for the most part, the other guys in the group would squirm with embarrassment and beg us to ignore him rather than provoke argument, but when that one guy Brian slammed a Shadowrun manual shut and refused to run a game unless the rude guy apologized to us, it ended that problem fairly quickly.

Looking back, if the majority of men in the group had the rhetorical weapons that I see men using now, they would have settled A.s hash pretty quickly with an eyeroll and a muttered "#gamergate..."

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Snags:
No. But apparently yes

But then, that's because it really matters to these guys and actually the simple fact that it does is in and of itself troubling.

I find myself feeling the most pity for the ones who accuse other men of "white knighting" (ie defending a woman because they think they are in with a chance of getting laid) because I think, how stunted, how morally and emotionally crippled you must be to be unable to conceive of someone defending another's dignity without an ulterior motive.

Posted by saysay (# 6645) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
There's not much I can add here other than to be very very confused by people who declare their opposition to be "Social Justice Warriors".

I'm not a gamer. But I've been hanging with gamers and attempting to teach them basic social skills my entire life.

At this point, calling yourself a "Social Justice Warrior" is approximately equivalent to admitting that you are a sociopath and proud of it.

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
My question: Does nobody understand the concept of the ad hominem attack anymore? Is it really so difficult to say, "We believe in free speech and discussion of all views, including unpopular ones, but not in personal attacks"? We seem to manage it fairly well here in the small and civil world of the Ship, reminding people that you can attack the issue as vigourously as you like but not the person making the point (unless in Hell). But then, even in Hell we don't seem to draw many of the type of people who would link to a picture of a mutilated corpse with another Shipmate's head superimposed on it with the headline "YOUR NEXT" simply because they held a differing view on, say, transubstantiation. (Obviously the community would never allow anyone to get away with the egregious you're/your error, for starters).

So why is it hard for people who are fearless defenders of free speech on the internet to get this distinction? Is it really that hard to see the boundary between, "I disagree with what Anita Sarkeesian said about the portrayal of women in video games and here are sixteen examples from Grand Theft Auto that demonstrate why I'm right and she's wrong," and "She's a [insert derogatory term for a woman here] who should be [insert unpleasant thing to do to her here] and here's her home address so you can go do it." Freedom of speech can certainly allow one while forbidding the other.

Is this really such a difficult distinction to make?

Apparently.

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

Sometimes feminists can be dicks too. Go you for showing us that!

Social Justice Warrior is a term of abuse created by people who think fighting for social justice is something to be abused rather than admired.

Posted by Leaf (# 14169) on :

I've lurked on reddit for many years, and noticed the repeated juxtaposition of these two typical threads on the sub askreddit:

"Lol middle-aged women are so stupid when it comes to computers"
"Hey does anyone around here know how to cook?"

It occurred to me that some social tides have increased the drifting apart of young men (stereotypically a large component of the gamer community) and middle-aged women (stereotypically a large component of the feminist movement). A hundred years ago in this rural area, both would be working together on family farms, and even if there was a division of labour, both were visibly and daily working toward the same goal.

ISTM that trolls are particularly vicious to younger, more attractive women who are feminists. I have a theory about that, but you can work out your own. [Smile]

In Canada, a very recent Supreme Court decision held that threats can constitute a form of violence. Link
here. Every "Freedom of Speech" fundamentalist should consider why threats of harm are illegal, and have been so under common law long before 'those pussy wimmin' got the right to vote.

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

I love how that page has as its subtitle "free minds and free markets" like they're not mutually exclusive.

/grumpy socialist

Posted by saysay (# 6645) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
Sometimes feminists can be dicks too. Go you for showing us that!

Oh, look. Progress.

A couple of years ago when I was complaining about people making up rumors and lies (in particular about my sex life) because I stepped off the liberal feminist party line on some issues I repeatedly got told that women wouldn't do things like that because they understand what it's like or would be like to be the victim.

quote:
Social Justice Warrior is a term of abuse created by people who think fighting for social justice is something to be abused rather than admired.

No. We may disagree on the origin of the term depending on when and where we first heard it. But Social Justice Warrior is an attack on the person making the argument rather than the argument. Generally used when the argument advanced is so stupid and irrational that, in Ship's terms, one person can't respond without calling the other person to Hell. It is, for example, a way to attack a particular feminist without attacking everyone who calls themselves a feminist.

It's just that there are people who seem to see the entire world (including the real world) as Hell.

Having been almost SWATTED (the cops in my small town having declined to follow orders to send the SWAT team rather than handle it themselves), Social Justice Warriors terrify me. They're like Black Panthers without goals or leadership or any ethics whatsoever. And they make others do their dirty work for them so they can claim their hands are clean and keep their liberal sanctimony.

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

SaySay, did you read the posts on the previous page pointing out feminism's internal problems?

Anyway, we know there are asshole feminists. Now tell me how that has one single fucking point of bearing on our reaction to the sort of people who post rape and death threats and dox people for doing non-asshole things.

I'm sure there were a fair number of assholes died in the World Trade Centre. So. Fucking. What? That makes this sort of hate all right?

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

I honestly don't know how to respond to respond to the rest of that post. It's so virulently and self-evidently wrong, like grass-is-pink wrong, that I do not have a clue where to start.

Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :

SaySay, words may have different meanings in different contexts. Whatever SJW means to you, in the context of the community under discussion it is a term of abuse used to deride, belittle and dismiss people who are against misogyny, racism, abuse etc. It just is.

Posted by saysay (# 6645) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
SaySay, did you read the posts on the previous page pointing out feminism's internal problems?

I did, but I really don't care about feminism any more. The movement has betrayed me so badly and made it so clear to me that there is nothing I can do to make myself acceptable enough to be included.

And that's fine. Not everyone has to be included in everything.

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
I'm sure there were a fair number of assholes died in the World Trade Centre. So. Fucking. What? That makes this sort of hate all right?

Who the hell said that this sort of hate was all right? Would it not make sense that as a person who has received those kinds of rape and death threats and was SWATTED that I would NOT approve of such behavior? Why would you read that kind of malice into a post on a Christian web site?

In the real world I tend to appeal to people's religious beliefs and the argument about how we should always either treat people how we would like to be treated or how they would like to be treated.

Try that with this type online and they go on and on about how they hope my sky daddy gives me some degree of comfort and wonder if I'll be able to eat that comfort when no one will employ me but oh at least I'll know where I'm going after I die which could be tomorrow. And then there's usually something about Pink Unicorns, teacups, the Flying Spaghetti monster, blah, blah, Dawkins, Hitchens, Sam Harris, blah.

The gamers I'm friends with get annoyed by the Mickey Mouse, trying-to-teach-your-grandmother-to-suck-eggs, I-didn't-even-have-to-graduate-from-Linoln-high-school-to-know-that approach to some of these issues that Social Justice Warriors tend to take.

And, it's true, we all refuse to redefine the word privilege from how it was defined back when we were doing spelling and vocab every Monday, seeing as how there are other perfectly good words you can use to get the idea across.

But the online arguing sounds like siblings squabbling and both claiming "but she/he started it!"

Only these eight-year-olds have Uzi's.

Posted by saysay (# 6645) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Snags:
SaySay, words may have different meanings in different contexts. Whatever SJW means to you, in the context of the community under discussion it is a term of abuse used to deride, belittle and dismiss people who are against misogyny, racism, abuse etc. It just is.

I'll take your word for it, not being a gamer.

Although I submit we may have different ideas what being against misogyny, racism, and abuse means. As well as possibly about what tactics it is acceptable to deploy in the battle.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

I feel like I'm reading half a conversation here. I genuinely (as a fairly young straight white male austistic socially awkward gamer) cannot fathom what the rage is about. The sheer level of anger directed at people doing the socio-political equivalent of trying on their mum's (or dad's?) make-up and making a mess of it.

I can kind of understand how men who feel they've been rejected by every woman they've shown an interest in start to feel hard done by (heck, there but for the grace of God go I in many ways) but I can't figure out why this gets turned into such apoplectic rage and hatred.

Two posters in this thread have backed up an anti-feminist position, which I naturally disagree with, but the rage that comes through in those posts in just incredible, way beyond anything I've seen from any feminist, or indeed any gay rights campaigner, anti-racism campaigner or anyone else who might have a genuine grievance.

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

To be honest it's more fun being a Social Justice Bard. Although I'd settle for Social Justice Cleric.

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

(Wood, that wins the thread in my book.)

I admit I am so far from the position of people like Kathy Sierra that I have trouble understanding it. If I felt generally unsafe I'd try to be a hard target (physically) and expect that bullies won't really attack someone who will fight back. (If I felt specifically physically unsafe, obviously I'd call the police.) I suspect it's mainly my privilege that makes me not be able to imagine living in the first world and leaving your home etc because you were scared of bullying MRA-type idiots. But I still can't imagine it.

Posted by saysay (# 6645) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
I admit I am so far from the position of people like Kathy Sierra that I have trouble understanding it. If I felt generally unsafe I'd try to be a hard target (physically) and expect that bullies won't really attack someone who will fight back. (If I felt specifically physically unsafe, obviously I'd call the police.)

Unfortunately, these types of bullies will attack someone who will fight back. They think it's funny when you try to fight back like you might win (and I've had martial arts training). Although, IME, frequently it's not about fighting to the finish, but keeping you on your toes afraid to speak out. Unfortunately there's not a lot the police can do when someone you've never seen before punches you with none of the normal warning signs and then runs. They can take a report, but unless there's video surveillance the report doesn't do much good when it describes 3/4 of a place's inhabitants. And of course tracing the online threats is impossible because the people making them are frequently too tech-savvy to allow for that.

quote:
I suspect it's mainly my privilege that makes me not be able to imagine living in the first world and leaving your home etc because you were scared of bullying MRA-type idiots. But I still can't imagine it.

Well, I don't know what it's like to leave my home because of bullying MRA-type bullies. But leaving your home because someone has set you up as a target really, really sucks.

In retrospect I think my big mistake was in trying to scrub any trace of the threats from everywhere so I didn't randomly encounter them when I was having nice peaceful calm day. I should have printed them out and taken them to the police and explained that I was just giving them a heads up in case something further happened. I just have such a mixed history when it comes to the success of my interactions with police and I knew there wasn't necessarily anything they could do about it.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:

I find myself feeling the most pity for the ones who accuse other men of "white knighting" (ie defending a woman because they think they are in with a chance of getting laid) because I think, how stunted, how morally and emotionally crippled you must be to be unable to conceive of someone defending another's dignity without an ulterior motive.

I hate that, too. Certainly my friend Brian had nothing to gain when he stood up for the two married women in our gaming group, except the irritation and possible backlash from his male friends.

Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :

Dealt with a misogynist jerk (he was a jerk in other ways as well) in a recent World of Warcraft raid. Still not sure of the best way to respond (I don't do the voice thing) whilst hitting the pew-pew-pew keys. (If I am trying to type comments, it means my character just starts STANDING there instead of fighting stuff, or following the group, etc.) I pointed out it was misogynist and such, as did some others, but had I left in protest or something it would not really have helped anyone, including the female players (at least one). I did keep trying to vote to kick the offender, though.

Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
the outcasts created geek culture...

This is part of what drives me nuts sometimes. I see people playing online video games acting like the same jerkish bullies who thought of all of us who played pen/paper/dice RPGs back in the 80s as geeky nerdy people etc. And I think, "Dude, you wouldn't have this kind of game now if it weren't for the kind of people you're putting down, including the computer geeks from back in the day."

Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
All true, Kelly. Especially the thing about being a hero of your own narrative. The same kind of thing happens a lot with non-white characters. They're there, but they're there to be disposable tools to drive the narrative, give comic interludes or whatever. But they can't be real heroes driving their own story.

I also think something that you often see is that women can't be strong for no reason. There was an article a while back (sadly, I can't remember where) that made the point that, even where you have strong women, they're written that they're strong because they were raped / abused when they were younger, and that trauma is what made them strong. Of course, that can happen. But for that to be the standard narrative is pretty shitty. It basically says that women can't be strong in their own right - they have to be abused into it.

Then there's the version that mushes everything together: women are strong because they were abused; but they have to be disposable, and strong women can't possibly be allowed to live--so they must be killed off. E.g. the movies "Spitfire Grill" and "Thelma & Louise". Both films made me furious.
[Mad]

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by saysay:

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
There's not much I can add here other than to be very very confused by people who declare their opposition to be "Social Justice Warriors".
I'm not a gamer. But I've been hanging with gamers and attempting to teach them basic social skills my entire life.

At this point, calling yourself a "Social Justice Warrior" is approximately equivalent to admitting that you are a sociopath and proud of it.

Did you mean to write "gamer" there? Or have you confused Social Justice Warrior (stereotypically hangs on Tumblr) with /A/nonymous (stereotypically hangs on 4chan)?

quote:
Originally posted by saysay:

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
I admit I am so far from the position of people like Kathy Sierra that I have trouble understanding it. If I felt generally unsafe I'd try to be a hard target (physically) and expect that bullies won't really attack someone who will fight back. (If I felt specifically physically unsafe, obviously I'd call the police.)
Unfortunately, these types of bullies will attack someone who will fight back. They think it's funny when you try to fight back like you might win (and I've had martial arts training). Although, IME, frequently it's not about fighting to the finish, but keeping you on your toes afraid to speak out. Unfortunately there's not a lot the police can do when someone you've never seen before punches you with none of the normal warning signs and then runs.

When your very own link suggests that that might not be a trend, it might be time to rethink your position.

Unfortunately the problem is that mass access to the Internet is new. And we're still figuring out what the normal signs are. After all, not everyone from Eliott Rodger's chatroom actually went on to commit mass murder.

Posted by saysay (# 6645) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:
Originally posted by saysay:

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
There's not much I can add here other than to be very very confused by people who declare their opposition to be "Social Justice Warriors".
I'm not a gamer. But I've been hanging with gamers and attempting to teach them basic social skills my entire life.

At this point, calling yourself a "Social Justice Warrior" is approximately equivalent to admitting that you are a sociopath and proud of it.
Did you mean to write "gamer" there? Or have you confused Social Justice Warrior (stereotypically hangs on Tumblr) with /A/nonymous (stereotypically hangs on 4chan)?

I meant to write gamer. As in, the kind of person who calls themselves a gamer. As in, the kind of person who you have to pester to take a break from playing World of Warcraft in order to eat dinner with you and, like, talk to a real live human being with real live body language.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
Unfortunately, these types of bullies will attack someone who will fight back. They think it's funny when you try to fight back like you might win (and I've had martial arts training). Although, IME, frequently it's not about fighting to the finish, but keeping you on your toes afraid to speak out. Unfortunately there's not a lot the police can do when someone you've never seen before punches you with none of the normal warning signs and then runs.
When your very own link suggests that that might not be a trend, it might be time to rethink your position.

From the link:

quote:
However, other media analysts have cast doubt on the reportedly widespread nature of the game and have labeled the trend, although not the attacks themselves, a myth.

Personally I'm of the belief that the game is a myth, but the random attacks themselves are not.

quote:
Unfortunately the problem is that mass access to the Internet is new. And we're still figuring out what the normal signs are. After all, not everyone from Eliott Rodger's chatroom actually went on to commit mass murder.

I went to a high school where the physics teacher was stabbed trying to break up a fight between two guys. I've been hit so many times that I know what the normal signs of an imminent physical confrontation are.

You're trying to make it sound as if I'm saying things that I'm not saying.

(also, I consider jezebel a hate site and won't click on links that lead there).

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
I meant to write gamer. As in, the kind of person who calls themselves a gamer.

I read the rest of your post through the lens that you had written what you meant, sorry.

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
(also, I consider jezebel a hate site and won't click on links that lead there).

There are some opinions to which the only response a reasonable person can furnish is to go, "well, that's just stupid."

This is one of them.

quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:

quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
the outcasts created geek culture...
This is part of what drives me nuts sometimes. I see people playing online video games acting like the same jerkish bullies who thought of all of us who played pen/paper/dice RPGs back in the 80s as geeky nerdy people etc. And I think, "Dude, you wouldn't have this kind of game now if it weren't for the kind of people you're putting down, including the computer geeks from back in the day."

Thing is, right. The idea that outcasts created geek culture is a myth. The original computer geeks weren't mavericks or outlaws in the way we think of them, they were educated middle-class men.

Geek culture. meanwhile is the purview of big business. Comic books started as a mass media for everyone; they became the purview of "geek culture" when it was noticed that they are a demographic you can sell to.

Geeks like mass market media, media that is churned out by big businesses and outlets that wish to ape big businesses.

You know what a geek does? A geek consumes. A geek buys stuff, and watches stuff, and consumes.

[ 13. October 2014, 12:49: Message edited by: Wood ]

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:

You know what a geek does? A geek consumes. A geek buys stuff, and watches stuff, and consumes.

Geeks are also behind the open source movement. Geeks are largely responsible for Wikipedia. Geeks do pretty well all the modding of existing games and adaptations to make old games run on new machines. Geekiness is about focus, the pre-occupation with certain topics and areas of interest. The interests are there regardless of wealth, but pursuing ones obsessions (in any field) usually requires some disposable income. The making of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy pretty much demonstrates what geeks tend to be like in my experience - they're not people who will do a job they hate to make lots of money, they're people who will work all hours in awful conditions on a job they love even if it pays them peanuts.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
Thing is, right. The idea that outcasts created geek culture is a myth. The original computer geeks weren't mavericks or outlaws in the way we think of them, they were educated middle-class men.

At this point I really should mention Ada Lovelace and Admiral Grace Hopper. (I know it's tangental to the point that you were making - but it's something that shouldn't be forgotten especially while on the subject of Gamergate).

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

( a tangentsl thank you, Justinian-- without those two ladies, we would't even have computers as we know them. Smoke that, 4chan.)

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
Thing is, right. The idea that outcasts created geek culture is a myth. The original computer geeks weren't mavericks or outlaws in the way we think of them, they were educated middle-class men.
At this point I really should mention Ada Lovelace and Admiral Grace Hopper. (I know it's tangental to the point that you were making - but it's something that shouldn't be forgotten especially while on the subject of Gamergate).

Awesome point. Although it's arguable that they invented "geek culture" [Big Grin]

But yeah. Ada Lovelace, guys. Hell yes.

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

On my own relationship with geek culture, I appreciate that my experience of it has been profoundly negative. But while that colours my view, I don't think it affects the main point.

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
On my own relationship with geek culture, I appreciate that my experience of it has been profoundly negative. But while that colours my view, I don't think it affects the main point.

I'm not quite sure about your main point, Wood - is it that this whole area is a symptom of derelict consumerist culture? Debatable but - OK.

Or is it that "geek culture" is that thing? I'm pretty sure that these people may well use that term that way. But why do we have to? "Geek" has a different valence in common parlance and more generally refers to people able to demonstrate a high level of knowledge in a certain area. Confusion between these two understandings isn't going to help, especially as it's going to play to the meme that specialist work is for the boys. So I'd want to reject that terminology.

Posted by saysay (# 6645) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:

quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
(also, I consider jezebel a hate site and won't click on links that lead there).
There are some opinions to which the only response a reasonable person can furnish is to go, "well, that's just stupid."

This is one of them.

Yeah, well, I spend a lot of time dealing with the assumptions people make when they look at me and decide what kind of person I am because of the way that I look.

Visiting a site described as "Jezebel is a blog aimed at women's interests, under the tagline "Celebrity, Sex, Fashion for Women. Without Airbrushing."", a site that seems devoted to trying to convince the world that, no, most women really are stupid, superficial, selfish, spoiled sluts is not how I like to spend my free time.

quote:
Thing is, right. The idea that outcasts created geek culture is a myth.

Not really, at least not in the US where the term seems to have originated from geek shows.

quote:
The original computer geeks weren't mavericks or outlaws in the way we think of them, they were educated middle-class men.

And in the US original computer geeks would be more likely to be referred to as nerds, although there's certainly some overlap in the current geek/nerd culture and terminology usage.

quote:
Geek culture. meanwhile is the purview of big business. Comic books started as a mass media for everyone; they became the purview of "geek culture" when it was noticed that they are a demographic you can sell to.

Geeks like mass market media, media that is churned out by big businesses and outlets that wish to ape big businesses.

You know what a geek does? A geek consumes. A geek buys stuff, and watches stuff, and consumes.

And maybe it's just because the Geek Squad is so big over here, but I wouldn't say that. Middle class Americans consume, middle class American culture is all about conspicuous over-consumption. Here Geeks tinker and know how to fix computers and many other mechanical devices. Geeks are the ones who collect people's old iPhones because they aren't the latest versions and sell the parts. Geeks are who you go to when you need a part for your relatively ancient computer because you can't afford a new one right now because they might be able to help you.

Posted by Amorya (# 2652) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
Awesome point. Although it's arguable that they invented "geek culture"

It has been argued [Smile]

Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :

FWIW Jezebel is very poorly regarded by many feminists, myself included.

SJW is mostly used negatively against intersectional feminists, in my experience (I'm not a gamer although I have been in geek-orientated fandoms which have had some similar though not as serious issues). While I wouldn't label myself as a Social Justice Warrior, I wouldn't be insulted if someone called me that. There are worse things to be a warrior for. But then I'm a leftist/Marxist feminist so I am on the more radical end of feminism* anyway, so I've been called much worse things!

*'Radical feminism' tends to be associated with a particularly gender-essentialist and transphobic form of feminism, so I don't identify as a radical feminist to distance myself from that. However, I am not a liberal feminist.

Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
Comic books started as a mass media for everyone; they became the purview of "geek culture" when it was noticed that they are a demographic you can sell to.

Geeks like mass market media, media that is churned out by big businesses and outlets that wish to ape big businesses.

I definitely see this and it makes me very sad.

I think this is why we're having "edgy" Superman films where he snaps necks. [Waterworks]

I think Marvel is doing much better right now than DC partly because DC seems to be much more--or much more overtly--focusing on trying to aim for this one demographic group and mindset (and not a very nice one--it's not just that it's mainly straight white males of a certain age, but the sense that it's for a certain negative mindset within that group which is the kind of attitude we've been discussing here), rather than telling good stories for everyone.

I think they may be improving very recently, though I'm sort of holding my breath, but this is the kind of negative thing I'm talking about. Lots of classic heroes made "cooler" by becoming more edgy and violent and to me more, um, jerkish and annoying.

Summed up also by this comic strip.

[ 14. October 2014, 02:37: Message edited by: ChastMastr ]

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

I'm glad to see a shout out to Love and Rockets up there, because yeah, if you want to see female characters that defy pigeonholing....

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
Middle class Americans consume, middle class American culture is all about conspicuous over-consumption. Here Geeks tinker and know how to fix computers and many other mechanical devices.

I think the term 'geek culture' has come to cover so many things that it is largely meaningless.

Not to mention people who reason in reverse ("geeks are socially awkward, I'm socially awkward, therefore I'm a geek") largely ISTM because they are trying to find a way of exculpating bad behaviour.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

I dunno; all the geeks I know are right-on lefties. But YMMV, of course.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

This issue managed to get itself a slot on BBC World Service business news this morning. I heard the beginning, but then fell asleep... normal for hearing something interesting at the time of day it was, though.

Posted by Alicïa (# 7668) on :

Yeah I woke in the early hours from a fever induced sleep to hear about this on the World Service via Radio 4. It was a good discussion as I kind of sleepily recall... note to self and everyone else on this thread. It is most likely on iPlayer. [Smile]

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I dunno; all the geeks I know are right-on lefties. But YMMV, of course.

I know a fair few - usually younger or from the US - who are some variant of glibertarian or conservative.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alicïa:
Yeah I woke in the early hours from a fever induced sleep to hear about this on the World Service via Radio 4. It was a good discussion as I kind of sleepily recall... note to self and everyone else on this thread. It is most likely on iPlayer.

Business Matters

Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I dunno; all the geeks I know are right-on lefties. But YMMV, of course.

Most of the female ones IME but not the male ones. Certainly the younger male ones tend to be centrist at best.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I dunno; all the geeks I know are right-on lefties. But YMMV, of course.
Most of the female ones IME but not the male ones. Certainly the younger male ones tend to be centrist at best.

Weird. I was thinking of male geeks. Mind, they're mostly late 20s on.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I dunno; all the geeks I know are right-on lefties. But YMMV, of course.
Most of the female ones IME but not the male ones. Certainly the younger male ones tend to be centrist at best.

Anarchism of some form is fairly common, but the geeks I know are liberal on social issues, tending socialist economically, tending towards atheism or neopaganism for the most part on religion.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

Pomona, Karl, how old are the geeks you both know? Most of the undergrads I remember (and used to be) skew right wing in the "I can do it, why can't everyone? The biggest problem is lack of opportunity" naivety. Most of the ones out in the real world tend to skew left in a "This is a system. It is broken. How can we fix it? Because everyone should have equality of opportunity, damnit." With a few not getting over Atlas Shrugged.

And I've met very few geeks who weren't extremely socially liberal. Those that weren't were also fundamentalist Christians.

[ 14. October 2014, 16:30: Message edited by: Justinian ]

Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Pomona, Karl, how old are the geeks you both know? Most of the undergrads I remember (and used to be) skew right wing in the "I can do it, why can't everyone? The biggest problem is lack of opportunity" naivety. Most of the ones out in the real world tend to skew left in a "This is a system. It is broken. How can we fix it? Because everyone should have equality of opportunity, damnit." With a few not getting over Atlas Shrugged.

And I've met very few geeks who weren't extremely socially liberal. Those that weren't were also fundamentalist Christians.

The majority are women under 30. The men are fewer in number but go up to middle age - there are a few that are more liberal but the rest are conservative both in their Christianity and their politics.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

I assume people have seen the latest? A threat of a mass shooting if Anita Sarkeesian speaks. In other words literal terrorism.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Hopefully the lower primates concerned are too stupid not to be traced and charged with whatever fits - breach of that amendment about free speech?

Meanwhile, last night's Business Matters had a followup interview with Brianna Wu about the way she had to evacuate her family from their home.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Pomona, Karl, how old are the geeks you both know? Most of the undergrads I remember (and used to be) skew right wing in the "I can do it, why can't everyone? The biggest problem is lack of opportunity" naivety. Most of the ones out in the real world tend to skew left in a "This is a system. It is broken. How can we fix it? Because everyone should have equality of opportunity, damnit." With a few not getting over Atlas Shrugged.

My own experience has been similar especially amongst generation Y and millennials. With a few running towards the neoreactionary extreme:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/01/occupying-the-throne-justine-tunney-neoreactionaries-and-the-new-1-percent.h tml

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Pomona, Karl, how old are the geeks you both know? Most of the undergrads I remember (and used to be) skew right wing in the "I can do it, why can't everyone? The biggest problem is lack of opportunity" naivety. Most of the ones out in the real world tend to skew left in a "This is a system. It is broken. How can we fix it? Because everyone should have equality of opportunity, damnit." With a few not getting over Atlas Shrugged.

And I've met very few geeks who weren't extremely socially liberal. Those that weren't were also fundamentalist Christians.
The majority are women under 30. The men are fewer in number but go up to middle age - there are a few that are more liberal but the rest are conservative both in their Christianity and their politics.

Ah, right. Confounding factor. Conservative Christianity. The sort of geeks who are attracted to conservative Christianity tend to be a specific subset and yes, they do skew politically conservative.

Edit: The neoreactionary extreme is part of the group that didn't get over Atlas Shrugged.

[ 15. October 2014, 13:34: Message edited by: Justinian ]

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
I assume people have seen the latest? A threat of a mass shooting if Anita Sarkeesian speaks. In other words literal terrorism.

The fact that Sarkeesian had to cancel her talk in response to this threat is incredibly discouraging to me. It gives these people so much power. As someone who was a young woman in Canada at the time of the Ecole Polytechnique shootings, the idea that someone would look up to Mark Lepine as a hero is also horrifying.

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

Where are all these fundamentalist christian geeks hiding?

I used to run a small IT business before retiring, so came into contact with plenty of IT type geeks in the companies we worked for. And before that I have always worked in highly technical roles. In all that time I have never once come across a single fundamentalist christian. Loads of atheists, and a smaller number of mainstream christians. A few muslims. Plenty of couldn't care less. Though of course many I never discussed anything like this with, so I can't be certain about them.

But if they are a significant demographic, it must be in a subsector I've never had any contact with. I can only speak about the UK.

Posted by Amorya (# 2652) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
I assume people have seen the latest? A threat of a mass shooting if Anita Sarkeesian speaks. In other words literal terrorism.
The fact that Sarkeesian had to cancel her talk in response to this threat is incredibly discouraging to me. It gives these people so much power. As someone who was a young woman in Canada at the time of the Ecole Polytechnique shootings, the idea that someone would look up to Mark Lepine as a hero is also horrifying.

I would have cancelled in that situation.

In Utah apparently it's illegal to prevent people taking guns into a public building. So there would be absolutely nothing stopping that individual carrying out the threat, if they wanted to and weren't just bluffing. If I were Sarkeesian, I wouldn't want to risk it.

Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :

I wouldn't describe the conservative Christian geeks I know as fundamentalist at all, they're all mainstream evangelicals and not as conservative as their US counterparts. And not all of them would identify as conservative politically.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

What a pity they did not set it up for her to speak from a remote location.

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
I wouldn't describe the conservative Christian geeks I know as fundamentalist at all, they're all mainstream evangelicals and not as conservative as their US counterparts. And not all of them would identify as conservative politically.

Fair enough, Pomona.

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Amorya:

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
I assume people have seen the latest? A threat of a mass shooting if Anita Sarkeesian speaks. In other words literal terrorism.
The fact that Sarkeesian had to cancel her talk in response to this threat is incredibly discouraging to me. It gives these people so much power. As someone who was a young woman in Canada at the time of the Ecole Polytechnique shootings, the idea that someone would look up to Mark Lepine as a hero is also horrifying.
I would have cancelled in that situation.

In Utah apparently it's illegal to prevent people taking guns into a public building. So there would be absolutely nothing stopping that individual carrying out the threat, if they wanted to and weren't just bluffing. If I were Sarkeesian, I wouldn't want to risk it.

I didn't mean to imply that I blamed Sarkeesian at all for cancelling -- she did the right thing, as she would have been putting not only herself but others at risk to continue. The ridiculousness of the fact that the university couldn't provide adequate security is what makes this sick. A culture in which people cannot be stopped from bringing weapons into a public place gives evil people the power to silence those who disagree with them.

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

And I'm not sure having her speak from a remote location would have helped, since the author of the threat clearly stated that he would attack other women on campus if the Sarkeesian talk went ahead -- which he could have done whether she was physically present or not.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

There was a piece on the one o'clock current affairs programme on BBC Radio 4 which might indicate that there is more going on than just little boys objecting to gurlies interfering with their game. Apparently, game play can now be a spectator sport, with very big money being made by winners. As in millions of whatever currency. In one evening.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

I guess I am a "sort of gamer" but mostly retired and anyhow probably too old (school) to count as part of today's "gamer culture". I used to compete in the German national league for LMCTF Quake 2 with a team, when I still had super-fast reflexes, and was on the programming team for a DikuMUD (Duris, a Sojourn derivative, if anyone cares...).

Like most (sort of) gamers, I care neither about gamergate nor about their opponents, much. I often played LMCTF as a woman, because the female skin had a smaller visual footprint (made you harder to hit). Actual gamers are in my experience interested in beating the game, or even better, other people playing the same game. That's it. All the rest is fluff that gets into the way of performance. At millisecond twitch times, nobody is a chauvinist.

Other than that, I would simply point out that games are essentially escapist phantasies. Given that the customers are still mostly male, you get your scantily clad "trophy women" with big boobs in some games. But frankly, it's neither that common nor in fact that important. It's more a measure of gaming success than anything else. As for why there's fewer female heroes in games (though that really isn't true so much anymore): google "her side of the hills" (NSFW!) and ask yourself why you don't see that point of view much in porn. Same reason: identification with character.

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
There was a piece on the one o'clock current affairs programme on BBC Radio 4 which might indicate that there is more going on than just little boys objecting to gurlies interfering with their game. Apparently, game play can now be a spectator sport, with very big money being made by winners. As in millions of whatever currency. In one evening.

I'm watching roughly 10 times more gaming broadcasts than regular TV. Mostly YouTube "Let's Plays" of strategy games (Europa Universalis IV, Crusader Kings 2, Total War: Rome II, Civilisation V, ...) these days but also some Twitch TV. I still watch Mindcrack's UHC (a Minecraft "Mad Max" tournament) whenever it is on, and I used to follow EthosLab a lot when Minecraft was new.

In my opinion, these "gaming" related shows are a bit like combining talk radio (you mostly only hear a voice, or sometimes a few) combined with a kind of "amateur sports" feel and modern, often quite spectacular, high tech computer visuals. Beats regular TV for me most of the time, I can't watch the crap on there but for the news and the occasional movie / nature documentary...

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Other than that, I would simply point out that games are essentially escapist phantasies. Given that the customers are still mostly male, you get your scantily clad "trophy women" with big boobs in some games.

I've always thought this bit of justification was somewhat bizarre. It seems to take the male skew of the gamer population not as evidence of a huge, untapped market or the result of focused hostility towards women by gamers, but rather as some kind of fundamental underlying principle of the universe, like gravity.

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

Croesos wrote:

quote:
I've always thought this bit of justification was somewhat bizarre. It seems to take the male skew of the gamer population not as evidence of a huge, untapped market or the result of focused hostility towards women by gamers, but rather as some kind of fundamental underlying principle of the universe, like gravity.

What male skew of the gamer population?

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I've always thought this bit of justification was somewhat bizarre. It seems to take the male skew of the gamer population not as evidence of a huge, untapped market or the result of focused hostility towards women by gamers, but rather as some kind of fundamental underlying principle of the universe, like gravity.

I've made a statement about the current reality, that's all. If you can tap this huge market, go right ahead. Notch just made 2.5 billion dollars selling the premier family-friendly game on the market - Minecraft, computational lego - to Microsoft. Perhaps you can find the formula that will make women all of the world turn to gaming for entertainment. Go right ahead, I won't stop you. In fact, put your idea on Kickstarter and I will likely put some money behind it.

What is bizarre though is the idea that the various software studios have systematically foregone literally billions of dollars out of "focused hostility towards women", or indeed that there is any such thing among gamers at large. There isn't. Serious gamers are at the moment still for the most part college-age males, usually at university or in their early career, and their attitude to women does not particularly differ from that of others in those groups. At least that's my experience (which is perhaps by now outdated, who knows?).

There are probably more men playing pool billiards than women as well. I'm not sure that that tells us anything deep about anything, really.

[ 17. October 2014, 15:28: Message edited by: IngoB ]

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
What male skew of the gamer population?

The one that actually exists when we talk about FPS type games and the like (which are the ones being complained about for objectifying women), rather than some kind of hypothetical built on a rather suspect statistic.

Which incidentally - upthread - is why I'm generally against arguments of the form of 'women are over X% of gamers .. therefore', both for the reasons Ingo alludes to, and because virtue should be its own reward and people should do the right thing because it is the right thing to do.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
What is bizarre though is the idea that the various software studios have systematically foregone literally billions of dollars out of "focused hostility towards women", or indeed that there is any such thing among gamers at large. There isn't.

Since #Gamergate seems to be a coordinated campaign of harassment and intimidation aimed at women in gaming, and they certainly seem to be "at large" enough to shut down public events and successfully pressure large corporations, I'm not sure what you're basing that last assertion on.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Since #Gamergate seems to be a coordinated campaign of harassment and intimidation aimed at women in gaming, and they certainly seem to be "at large" enough to shut down public events and successfully pressure large corporations, I'm not sure what you're basing that last assertion on.

That's like taking Fred Phelps to represent Christianity, Islamic State to represent Islam, Dawkins representing atheism, or what have you. The gaming industry is massive, they make more money than Hollywood. Steam, the largest of the PC download platforms, has 65 million users - and a lot of them would be accurately characterised as "gamers". Twitch TV has 45 million viewers, and practically all can be considered as gamers (or they wouldn't be watching...).

These are apparently some gamers doing nasty things. By all means, condemn them for that, but don't pretend that they are representative or a majority. That they apparently have caused a lot of damage (to some people at least) does not tell us anything about their size either, but simply about their dedication and the reach of modern technology (and about the cowardice and immoral opportunism of business, perhaps, but is there anything new about that?). We are hardly at a loss to come up with examples how a few people can hurt many, are we now?

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

Intel thinks that the gamersgate guys are bigger than those opposed to them or it would have restored its advertising. (Croesus's third article)

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
What male skew of the gamer population?
The one that actually exists when we talk about FPS type games and the like (which are the ones being complained about for objectifying women), rather than some kind of hypothetical built on a rather suspect statistic.

Which incidentally - upthread - is why I'm generally against arguments of the form of 'women are over X% of gamers .. therefore', both for the reasons Ingo alludes to, and because virtue should be its own reward and people should do the right thing because it is the right thing to do.

Well - this is precisely the sort of discussion that needs to be had, in identifying the demographic we are talking about, which is why I queried this unexamined assumption.

Though maybe I need to press you on why you see the discussion about "some kind of hypothetical built on a rather suspect statistic." Why is it a suspect statistic? What hypothetical? As somebody outside the whole gaming thing, ISTM that "a gamer is someone who plays games" (using some sort of intelligent device). The whole argument from the gamergate fraternity* is that gaming is being subverted by games written by or for women. If there's any hypothetical involved, then it's the artificial construct that "true gaming" involves the genres that include all this stupid misogynist crap. And you (and IngoB - and by implication Croesos) - seem to accept that. I reject it. It's part of the problem. It's a problem because it disenfranches everyone who likes other game types.

I understand why IngoB might say such a thing if he's been away from it for a time. It really did used to be a much more male thing. But even in the earliest days, there were far more genres than the FPS and adjunct categories that true gamers now declare to be those at risk.

I'm sure nobody (here) is going to disagree with the desire that people should do the right thing because it is the right thing to do. We can all agree on that. That's not going to stop anyone from making death, rape, etc. threats however.

* yes, I realise there truly is a genuine issue about journalism in there somewhere. It's long been drowned out by all this bad behaviour concern.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Intel thinks that the gamersgate guys are bigger than those opposed to them or it would have restored its advertising. (Croesus's third article)

And they are quite possibly right. However, the by far biggest group would be the "huh? what? where?" group, followed with a considerable distance by the "who gives a shit" group, after which presumably comes the "it's all lulz" group. Just because one group is bigger than another (and perhaps more importantly for Intel, more "weaponised" and more threatening to their bottom line) doesn't mean that it is particularly big.

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
I understand why IngoB might say such a thing if he's been away from it for a time. It really did used to be a much more male thing.

It sure as heck was. I used to go to LAN parties that were a few hundred strong, and they were practically all male. Anyway, here are some of the latest stats. Apparently 59% of Americans play video games. And 48% of them are women. So things clearly have changed. (Still, I bet female participation remains uneven across platforms and game types.)

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:

The whole argument from the gamergate fraternity* is that gaming is being subverted by games written by or for women. If there's any hypothetical involved, then it's the artificial construct that "true gaming" involves the genres that include all this stupid misogynist crap. And you (and IngoB - and by implication Croesos) - seem to accept that.

No, at least not 'true gaming' in the sense you want it to mean above.

There are different market segments across the different platforms. One of the biggest is still the the one that is traditionally male dominated and includes the various FPS/MMOs etc which contain the bulk of the stereotypes that people are complaining about.

quote:

I'm sure nobody (here) is going to disagree with the desire that people should do the right thing because it is the right thing to do. We can all agree on that. That's not going to stop anyone from making death, rape, etc. threats however.

I was referring to the end of misogynistic stereotypes, rather than the extremes above - which are the perpetrated by a small minority of people. Simply put, don't expect economics to lead you to the former (which seems to be the underlying thrust of the use of the 52% statistic).

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

IngoB, agreed. However, if Fred Phelps and his ilk were more numerous than those who objected to him, I would give up on Christianity.

(By the way, the second statement you quote as mine was Honest Ron Bacardi's.)

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
IngoB, agreed. However, if Fred Phelps and his ilk were more numerous than those who objected to him, I would give up on Christianity.

Really? I mean, yes, if something is overrun by badness, then the argument that the badness has nothing to do with its essence starts to wear thin. At the very least that gives pause for thought. But if there were 2% Fred Phelpses and 1% Anti Fred Phelpses and 97% Who the Fuck is Fred Phelpses, then that wouldn't make me give up Christianity... I think you mean more something like "a majority could be made to object to Fred Phelps by being informed properly about him"?

That's fair enough. For example, I just re-watched Damsel in Distress: Part 1 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games (I actually had seen this before, as I now remember), and sure, she has a point. Not that I would likely agree with all her opinions, or for that matter with the typical "solution" of just making women into differently shaped men in terms of game play. But yes, one certainly can do better than that.

(I've just gone mentally through the games I've played most across the years. Damsels did not particularly feature. Perhaps because I was never a big fan of platformers...)

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
(By the way, the second statement you quote as mine was Honest Ron Bacardi's.)

Sorry, copy fail.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
(Still, I bet female participation remains uneven across platforms and game types.)

This is anecdata, I know, but based on what I have seen young women playing, I think you'd be stunned at what games they get up to. I sure am.All of my step-nieces-- including the seven-year-old, not that I approve-- are absolute monsters at Walking Dead and Call of Duty. They play what their brothers play, to keep up with them.

And I played what my boyfriend/ husband played. And at least two generations have now evolved with the potential of mom and dad gamers. Which means this is probably their first generation of girls that grew up gaming-- and who don't necessarily start because their male acquaintances drag them into it.

[ 18. October 2014, 03:29: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

Well, the point I've been trying to get across is that as someone who has played games intensely I don't really care whether my opponent, or co-op partner, has boobs or not. Indeed, I don't really care whether he/she/it has virtual boobs or not. I care whether they perform in terms of the game mechanics and purposes. It's something that carries over from other games, tabletop, card, and the like. If you actually like playing the game, a lot, then that sort of anonymises the player while you are playing.

I agree that games overall still have male-heavy orientations, and that some of these stories are pretty shit as far as women are concerned. I would disagree that this is some deep-rooted sign of misogyny though. Rather, most game stories simply are shit, most games are the equivalent of pulp fiction. And pulp fiction written by and for men tends to not be particularly inspiring for women. Pulp fiction written by and for women is not particularly inspiring for men either though. And if women would start to play a big role in where games are going (from the consumer side, but perhaps even more importantly, from the creator side), then I bet you that we would get quite a bit of female oriented pulp stories in games as well.

Another problem is quite simply that gaming boils down to 1) rapid hand-eye coordination, 2) puzzle solving, or 3) strategic planning and organisation. In some sense, stories need to get written around this task load, to motivate the challenges to the player. And that pretty much means that story telling will remain stunted. To give an example, you first have the first person shooter, you second have the story that "explains" why you shoot everything in sight. Rather obviously, that story is going to be crap in most cases. Because well-developed characters do not shoot everything in sight.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

OK. Makes sense.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Intel thinks that the gamersgate guys are bigger than those opposed to them or it would have restored its advertising. (Croesus's third article)
And they are quite possibly right. However, the by far biggest group would be the "huh? what? where?" group, followed with a considerable distance by the "who gives a shit" group, after which presumably comes the "it's all lulz" group. Just because one group is bigger than another (and perhaps more importantly for Intel, more "weaponised" and more threatening to their bottom line) doesn't mean that it is particularly big.

This analysis only makes sense if Intel thinks the "huh? what? where?" and "who gives a shit" groups are unlikely to be influenced by their advertising. By pulling their ads, they're effectively giving up on reaching them via advertising, which seems a big step to take for the approval of a truly marginal segment, as you speculate.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
And if women would start to play a big role in where games are going (from the consumer side, but perhaps even more importantly, from the creator side), then I bet you that we would get quite a bit of female oriented pulp stories in games as well.

Given the level of harassment, intimidation, and threats the seem to go along with being a woman working on the creator side of games (e.g. Zoe Quinn), this seems like a particularly problematic proposal.

[ 18. October 2014, 05:33: Message edited by: Crœsos ]

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
This analysis only makes sense if Intel thinks the "huh? what? where?" and "who gives a shit" groups are unlikely to be influenced by their advertising. By pulling their ads, they're effectively giving up on reaching them via advertising, which seems a big step to take for the approval of a truly marginal segment, as you speculate.

That's correct, and they of course did get away with it. If we were not discussing this specific subject, who on SoF would have known about it? It's not like the cancelled a major ad campaigning in the New York Times, or anything like that. Somebody decided (wrongly, in my opinion, just to make this clear) that it wasn't worth the bother. And we have no reason to believe that the decision maker was not under the same impression as many people here, namely that he who shouts the loudest speaks for the most. Yes, maybe someone into tech marketing should know their target group better, but I for one wouldn't bet on it. This may well have been a managerial decision by some MBA person, ask Dilbert about that. Finally, pulling an ad is actually a pretty soft move. If nobody makes noise about it, then few people will notice. Of course, an intelligent person might have figured out that somebody would be making noise about this one. But you can ask Dilbert about intelligence in tech management, too.

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Given the level of harassment, intimidation, and threats the seem to go along with being a woman working on the creator side of games (e.g. Zoe Quinn), this seems like a particularly problematic proposal.

Your statement pretends that that sort of treatment is "normal". Do you have any evidence for this? Here are some comments by another female game developer on the whole issue, including the explicit statement that at least in the indie software world she has never encountered any sexism directed at her, rather the opposite. I would expect that at major commercial software studios, if they heap a truckload of men into one work environment with hardly a woman in sight (which is still more likely than not, I suppose), then you will get at least some of the unthinking sexism that that tends to produce. But that could be said for any similar situation, indeed, that's why I am expecting it. That's a far cry form saying that game software development just is sexist.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:

By pulling their ads, they're effectively giving up on reaching them via advertising, which seems a big step to take for the approval of a truly marginal segment, as you speculate.

Or some MBA somewhere has decided that even appearing to be associated with 'controversy' is a lose/lose situation as far as Intel is concerned. It wouldn't be the first time that some company has pulled out of being associated with a fairly clear cut situation because they felt the brand might be damaged by being dragged into something.

Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
... you can ask Dilbert ...

A side note, but I no longer read that comic, for this reason.

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Actual gamers are in my experience interested in beating the game, or even better, other people playing the same game. That's it. All the rest is fluff that gets into the way of performance. At millisecond twitch times, nobody is a chauvinist.

Other than that, I would simply point out that games are essentially escapist phantasies. Given that the customers are still mostly male, you get your scantily clad "trophy women" with big boobs in some games. But frankly, it's neither that common nor in fact that important. It's more a measure of gaming success than anything else. As for why there's fewer female heroes in games (though that really isn't true so much anymore): google "her side of the hills" (NSFW!) and ask yourself why you don't see that point of view much in porn. Same reason: identification with character.

I can't believe how disappointed I am in this post.

Simply, no. Just no.

Yes, there are a few bad apples, but the proverb doesn't go "a few bad apples means everyone else is fine."

The majority of gamers not caring about this #gamergate nonsense (or even knowing about it and simply being better than that) is not a reason not to care about it.

And the fact that this vocal and toxic minority have made a big deal about wishing harm on someone like Anita Sarkeesian for daring to make YouTube videos that saying nothing other than women are often represented harmfully in video games, here are a few ways, suggests a nerve of some sort has been hit.

Much of this gamer culture has become a thing in the last decade, and when you get the young men who are supporting a movement that is founded by men who threaten rape and murder calling their victims "bullies" in the same breath and doing so in vast numbers, you have to think of other minority movements in history that gained traction in the same way.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

I can't help seeing correlations between this western manifestation of gynophobia and the attitudes of Boko Haram, IS, and the Taliban. (And even that preacher mentioned elsewhere who delivered a tirade based on 1 Peter 3.)

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
I can't help seeing correlations between this western manifestation of gynophobia and the attitudes of Boko Haram, IS, and the Taliban. (And even that preacher mentioned elsewhere who delivered a tirade based on 1 Peter 3.)

I actually think that Boko Haram isn't the same thing, coming from an anti-western basis, while the #gg types come from a firmly western traditional position, although they doubtless wouldn't see it that way. It amounts to the same thing, I guess.

Posted by saysay (# 6645) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
And the fact that this vocal and toxic minority have made a big deal about wishing harm on someone like Anita Sarkeesian for daring to make YouTube videos that saying nothing other than women are often represented harmfully in video games, here are a few ways, suggests a nerve of some sort has been hit.

Much of this gamer culture has become a thing in the last decade, and when you get the young men who are supporting a movement that is founded by men who threaten rape and murder calling their victims "bullies" in the same breath and doing so in vast numbers, you have to think of other minority movements in history that gained traction in the same way.

I agree that a nerve has been hit.

However, a lot of our cultural commentary is telling us that:

quote:
The reasoning behind the targeting of these women is too batshit to unspool here—if you’re interested in falling down the rabbit hole, Deadspin has a decent primer on “Gamergate”—but what’s clear is that some people just don’t like seeing women play, design, and discuss video games, and seek to punish them with “virtual” violence.

IME that's likely to be the furthest thing from true - I can remember back to the days when gamers would complain about their parties being sausage fests because they spent all their free time playing Doom or whatever and they simply had almost nothing to talk to girls about because they didn't share any interests but they really really wanted girls to come to their parties.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
I can remember back to the days when gamers would complain about their parties being sausage fests because they spent all their free time playing Doom or whatever and they simply had almost nothing to talk to girls about because they didn't share any interests but they really really wanted girls to come to their parties.

No, that's simply stupidity. Which is fine when you're a kid, but it's assumed that by the time you reach the age of majority, you'll have attained something of a clue, and keep on advancing from there until you become a fully rounded human being.

Being in 'arrested development' isn't an attractive trait to women, so I'm told.

Posted by saysay (# 6645) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
No, that's simply stupidity. Which is fine when you're a kid, but it's assumed that by the time you reach the age of majority, you'll have attained something of a clue, and keep on advancing from there until you become a fully rounded human being.

Being in 'arrested development' isn't an attractive trait to women, so I'm told.

Yes, but the anonymity of the truly hateful behavior together with stories like this make me wonder if that isn't exactly what we're dealing with here. In the same way that most of the unacceptable street harassment I get comes from 14-17 year-old boys trying to be funny/ show off in front of their friends/ whatever, not from my peer group.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
I can't help seeing correlations between this western manifestation of gynophobia and the attitudes of Boko Haram, IS, and the Taliban. (And even that preacher mentioned elsewhere who delivered a tirade based on 1 Peter 3.)
I actually think that Boko Haram isn't the same thing, coming from an anti-western basis, while the #gg types come from a firmly western traditional position, although they doubtless wouldn't see it that way. It amounts to the same thing, I guess.

It's the attitude to women part of it that I was comparing - and the age group involved. What is stated as the political position driving the groups is one layer, the violence against women another. I would add the Lord's Resistance Army to the list - of one group of which their commander said, excusing their raping, "they are only human".

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
IME that's likely to be the furthest thing from true - I can remember back to the days when gamers would complain about their parties being sausage fests because they spent all their free time playing Doom or whatever and they simply had almost nothing to talk to girls about because they didn't share any interests but they really really wanted girls to come to their parties.

Now you see, I remember, long ago, like 25 years ago, being that guy, once. For me it was DnD rather than video games but it was the same experience.

And here's the basic problem that those boys who yearned for girls to come to the party - the same guys who are doing #gg now: when girls started to come to the nerdy boys' parties en masse, they came on their terms and with their perspectives. They did not turn into guys, and did not see themselves as the guys saw them. They came as actual people.

These guys are all "why don't they understand?" and "why do they hate us?" but that betrays a failing of knowledge in the very basic foundations of human interaction.

I've often thought that Western society would be a better place if secondary schools would teach compulsory courses in basic social skills. There is a reason why they are called social skills. The clue is in the name.

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

Being in 'arrested development' isn't an attractive trait to women, so I'm told.

Or indeed anyone.

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
I can't help seeing correlations between this western manifestation of gynophobia and the attitudes of Boko Haram, IS, and the Taliban. (And even that preacher mentioned elsewhere who delivered a tirade based on 1 Peter 3.)
I actually think that Boko Haram isn't the same thing, coming from an anti-western basis, while the #gg types come from a firmly western traditional position, although they doubtless wouldn't see it that way. It amounts to the same thing, I guess.
It's the attitude to women part of it that I was comparing - and the age group involved. What is stated as the political position driving the groups is one layer, the violence against women another. I would add the Lord's Resistance Army to the list - of one group of which their commander said, excusing their raping, "they are only human".

It's a fair point. And certainly you get what amounts to people literally treating women as another, inferior species, dehumanising them.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
Yes, but the anonymity of the truly hateful behavior together with stories like this make me wonder if that isn't exactly what we're dealing with here.

I moved away from New Hampshire sixteen years ago. While I lived there, I used to go over to Keene to the pumpkin festival. The attraction was thousands of pumpkins carved with great creativity.

From what I know of Keene, I am ready to bet that very few of the rioters were locals. The linked article spoke of Keene State College students and outside agitators. I feel very sad for the local people, that their enjoyable and creative festival has been trashed.

Moo

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
Yes, there are a few bad apples, but the proverb doesn't go "a few bad apples means everyone else is fine."

"There are idiots on the internet" is structurally the same as "there are barbarians at the gate." But the imminent threat level to civilisation is in fact rather different. On a relaxed definition ("playing computer games regularly"), there are several hundred million gamers out there. Even if you count only the "hardcore" by some definition, there will be tens of millions. We can hence roughly compare this to the entire population of the USA, plus say those among them that would call themselves particularly patriotic. And we find that among the entire population of the USA, or the subpopulation of avowed US patriots, there are a few thousand aggressive misogynists. Wow. The world stopped right there in shock, horror and disbelief...

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
Does this mean that it is OK for those people to be aggressive misogynists? Of course not! But one really needs to keep some perspective.

No, that's right. Instead we must post on a bulletin board running on ancient software, which is sort of about Christianity, and whose member are on average 50+ years old and think playing Minesweeper on a big grid is hardcore gaming. Because that will really make a difference.

Oh wait, I forgot. This is actually about that time when you got annoyed writing rule books for geeks. And now you have proof positive that they are as bad as you felt about your job. And you need people affirming your outrage. Because reasons.

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
The majority of gamers not caring about this #gamergate nonsense (or even knowing about it and simply being better than that) is not a reason not to care about it.

Actually, it pretty much is just that. And if one doesn't feed the trolls, they do go away eventually. Seriously.

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
And the fact that this vocal and toxic minority have made a big deal about wishing harm on someone like Anita Sarkeesian for daring to make YouTube videos that saying nothing other than women are often represented harmfully in video games, here are a few ways, suggests a nerve of some sort has been hit.

Let's see. Feminist reviews a few dozen super-popular games, guaranteeing that near anybody with a pulse and a gaming rig has played several of them. And she calls these games out for being horribly misogynist. Knee-jerk reactions of "Who are you calling misogynist, bitch?" ensue at some twitter hashtag, where those with poor impulse control join those who couldn't care less about games but really do hate women.

Yes, it is a complete mystery how this could possibly happen. I will stick to my rocket science, it clearly would require a genius to figure this one out.

Oh, by the way, if you actually bothered watching Sarkeesian's videos, you would have noticed that she did figure this one out in advance. Perhaps because she is smart, perhaps because she has done this sort of thing before and managed to turn hindsight into foresight. But she is actually putting a relevant disclaimers in front of every video.

It wasn't enough. Perhaps because one or two calm and reasonable sentences do not provide the emotional outreach that would have been needed. But we probably need another genius to figure that one out as well... [Roll Eyes]

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
Much of this gamer culture has become a thing in the last decade, and when you get the young men who are supporting a movement that is founded by men who threaten rape and murder calling their victims "bullies" in the same breath and doing so in vast numbers, you have to think of other minority movements in history that gained traction in the same way.

A pro tip for analysing rhetoric: if your opponent is starting to make really long sentences that begin with vague assertions and end in offensive ones, then he's probably trying to bury some blatant falsehood in the middle of it all - so as to sneak it past your radar for later deployment. Like say between "doing so" and "you have to" here...

Oh, and here's another one for geniuses to figure out. A bunch of trolls and worrywarts are locked into a fierce online battle about a feminist critique of computer games. What will random young men do that come across it? Of course, they will heroically take a stance for good and justice in a calm and reasonable manner, because it's entirely unheard of that young men would stoke the fire just for the hell of it. (Or for that matter young women. Or anybody, really...)

Anyway, knock yourself out. We all need to find some hill to die on to feel alive.

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Oh wait, I forgot. This is actually about that time when you got annoyed writing rule books for geeks. And now you have proof positive that they are as bad as you felt about your job. And you need people affirming your outrage. Because reasons.

Ingo, as much as I respect you, this sort of statement is beneath you.

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

To be honest, so is that entire post, actually. But the ad hom, mainly.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
To be honest, so is that entire post, actually. But the ad hom, mainly.

If you stop pissing from great height onto unsuspecting gamers, then I will happily stop calling you out for that. So get a grip, and use it to firmly direct your spray elsewhere...

Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
To be honest, so is that entire post, actually. But the ad hom, mainly.
If you stop pissing from great height onto unsuspecting gamers, then I will happily stop calling you out for that. So get a grip, and use it to firmly direct your spray elsewhere...

Wood/IngoB

I'm consulting with the other Purg hosts about what sort of hostly guidance is merited, but in the meantime, would you two please kindly refrain from any further personal comments before this escalates any more.

Thanks.

Eliab
Purgatory Host

Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :

Wood and IngoB - discussing someone's experiences when they have volunteered details about those experiences is allowed, but making the discussion personal isn't. If you want to develop the personal theme, take it to Hell.

Eliab
Purgatory host

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
If you want to develop the personal theme, take it to Hell.

Eliab
Purgatory host

I'll pass, thanks.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
This analysis only makes sense if Intel thinks the "huh? what? where?" and "who gives a shit" groups are unlikely to be influenced by their advertising. By pulling their ads, they're effectively giving up on reaching them via advertising, which seems a big step to take for the approval of a truly marginal segment, as you speculate.
That's correct, and they of course did get away with it. If we were not discussing this specific subject, who on SoF would have known about it? It's not like the cancelled a major ad campaigning in the New York Times, or anything like that. Somebody decided (wrongly, in my opinion, just to make this clear) that it wasn't worth the bother. And we have no reason to believe that the decision maker was not under the same impression as many people here, namely that he who shouts the loudest speaks for the most. Yes, maybe someone into tech marketing should know their target group better, but I for one wouldn't bet on it. This may well have been a managerial decision by some MBA person, ask Dilbert about that. Finally, pulling an ad is actually a pretty soft move. If nobody makes noise about it, then few people will notice. Of course, an intelligent person might have figured out that somebody would be making noise about this one. But you can ask Dilbert about intelligence in tech management, too.

Not that soft of a move. It clearly demonstrated that loud and threatening sexism can be used to successfully "work the refs". Given this has been demonstrated to be a winning strategy, why wouldn't it be attractive to anyone else with an agenda? I'm also a little skeptical that your main evidence that you know the gaming market better than professional game marketers is a syndicated cartoon that's basically been milking the exact same punchline for a quarter century.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Given the level of harassment, intimidation, and threats the seem to go along with being a woman working on the creator side of games (e.g. Zoe Quinn), this seems like a particularly problematic proposal.
Your statement pretends that that sort of treatment is "normal". Do you have any evidence for this?

I'm not sure. Let me turn to the comics page of my local newspaper. [Razz]

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Here are some comments by another female game developer on the whole issue, including the explicit statement that at least in the indie software world she has never encountered any sexism directed at her, rather the opposite.

I'm not sure what you're arguing here. Is it that since this one person hasn't encountered sexism and harassment that those things never happen and we should conclude that Sarkeesian and Quinn are making it all up? Or that since this one person hasn't encountered sexism and harassment it's so uncommon that Sarkeesian and Quinn are making a big deal out of nothing and should sit down and shut up?

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
I would expect that at major commercial software studios, if they heap a truckload of men into one work environment with hardly a woman in sight (which is still more likely than not, I suppose), then you will get at least some of the unthinking sexism that that tends to produce.But that could be said for any similar situation, indeed, that's why I am expecting it. That's a far cry form saying that game software development just is sexist.

Not a far cry at all. You're saying "here's why you get a lot of sexism in game development, but there's no sexism in game development". [Confused]

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
The majority of gamers not caring about this #gamergate nonsense (or even knowing about it and simply being better than that) is not a reason not to care about it.
Actually, it pretty much is just that. And if one doesn't feed the trolls, they do go away eventually. Seriously.

"Just ignore the death threats, even if they contain your real-life home address" is very chancy advice to give anyone, especially if based on pop psychology and Dilbert cartoons.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
Yes, there are a few bad apples, but the proverb doesn't go "a few bad apples means everyone else is fine."
"There are idiots on the internet" is structurally the same as "there are barbarians at the gate." But the imminent threat level to civilisation is in fact rather different.

<snip>

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
And the fact that this vocal and toxic minority have made a big deal about wishing harm on someone like Anita Sarkeesian for daring to make YouTube videos that saying nothing other than women are often represented harmfully in video games, here are a few ways, suggests a nerve of some sort has been hit.
Let's see. Feminist reviews a few dozen super-popular games, guaranteeing that near anybody with a pulse and a gaming rig has played several of them. And she calls these games out for being horribly misogynist. Knee-jerk reactions of "Who are you calling misogynist, bitch?" ensue at some twitter hashtag, where those with poor impulse control join those who couldn't care less about games but really do hate women.

Yes, it is a complete mystery how this could possibly happen. I will stick to my rocket science, it clearly would require a genius to figure this one out.

<snip>

It wasn't enough. Perhaps because one or two calm and reasonable sentences do not provide the emotional outreach that would have been needed. But we probably need another genius to figure that one out as well...

<snip>

Oh, and here's another one for geniuses to figure out. A bunch of trolls and worrywarts are locked into a fierce online battle about a feminist critique of computer games. What will random young men do that come across it? Of course, they will heroically take a stance for good and justice in a calm and reasonable manner, because it's entirely unheard of that young men would stoke the fire just for the hell of it. (Or for that matter young women. Or anybody, really...)

One of the most striking things to me about this exchange is the degree to which IngoB assumes that harassing, threatening misogyny is both an unalterable, eternal constant in human interactions and, more critically, that anyone calling attention to harassing, threatening misogyny is just some witless crybaby who should have known better.

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
One of the most striking things to me about this exchange is ...that anyone calling attention to harassing, threatening misogyny is just some witless crybaby who should have known better.

See, this is a prominent and common shutdown tactic.

I'm not especially bothered by it, being demonstrably neither witless nor a crybaby, but it always disappoints me when I see it, because this particular tactic usually comes from guys who have demonstrated that they absolutely should know better.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

Wood, you are misrepresenting the gamer community by pretending that this is a major issue for them, when it simply is not. I have called you out on that. I've tried it reasonably for a while, it didn't work; I tried it more forcefully, it isn't allowed. So far from shutting you up, I will now just let you talk to the void. Because that's what you will end up doing here anyhow. If you had any actual pretensions to make the gamer world better, you would be opening up a sub-reddit, or try to get a campaign of well-known YouTube LetsPlayers going, or support some indie software group making gender-balanced games, or something. You wouldn't vent your spleen in a place that must have one of the lowest gamer-per-participant ratios on the internet.

And I've (re-)watched three of Sarkeesian's videos now. I find them for the most part quite reasonable and informative, certainly food for thought. They don't make me angry. You however do. And why? Because Sarkeesian is in fact not unfairly judging a community I have some sympathy for (perhaps even sort of belong to). She objectively has a point, even if one doesn't buy everything that she is saying. You really don't. You are just badmouthing millions of people over the misdeeds of a few. Give it a rest. Or don't. Whatever.

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

I simply don't see why you are taking this so personally.

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

I agree though that there is a profound disconnect. I haven't been "called" on anything I've actually said, certainly.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
And I've (re-)watched three of Sarkeesian's videos now. I find them for the most part quite reasonable and informative, certainly food for thought. They don't make me angry. You however do. And why? Because Sarkeesian is in fact not unfairly judging a community I have some sympathy for (perhaps even sort of belong to). She objectively has a point, even if one doesn't buy everything that she is saying.

Which kind of demonstrates that the whole #Gamergate movement was never really about "journalistic ethics". Sarkeesian funds herself via Kickstarter, not with gaming industry funds or ads. Her work is an actual critique, not the kind of glowing pæans you often see from gaming journalists more dependent on maintaining access and advertising. And yet she's the second biggest target for #Gamergate.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Which kind of demonstrates that the whole #Gamergate movement was never really about "journalistic ethics". Sarkeesian funds herself via Kickstarter, not with gaming industry funds or ads. Her work is an actual critique, not the kind of glowing pæans you often see from gaming journalists more dependent on maintaining access and advertising. And yet she's the second biggest target for #Gamergate.

Well, we agree on that, and I have no sympathy for the #Gamergate agenda. I think Sarkeesian missed a few rather obvious ways for making her critique more palatable, and in consequence, actually more effective at generating light rather than heat. But she has the advantage that much of what she says (in the "Damsels in Distress" videos, I haven't seen her other work) is quite simply - and rather obviously - true. So on a fair assessment one has to deal with that truth, whatever one thinks of the packaging and wider interpretation.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Well, we agree on that, and I have no sympathy for the #Gamergate agenda. I think Sarkeesian missed a few rather obvious ways for making her critique more palatable, and in consequence, actually more effective at generating light rather than heat. But she has the advantage that much of what she says (in the "Damsels in Distress" videos, I haven't seen her other work) is quite simply - and rather obviously - true. So on a fair assessment one has to deal with that truth, whatever one thinks of the packaging and wider interpretation.

But is that a criticism that would be offered a male journalist; that he should tone down and sugar-coat observations that are "quite simply - and rather obviously - true"?

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
But is that a criticism that would be offered a male journalist; that he should tone down and sugar-coat observations that are "quite simply - and rather obviously - true"?

First, "tone down and sugar-coat" are your words, not mine. I was mostly thinking of making clearer that she is in fact a huge gamer herself, in dedicating less time to negative dissection and more time to positive examples and suggestions, and to bringing in a wider range of people speaking on these issues (including men) instead of having it all just come from her as a presenter. Second, if said male journalist was about to engage a huge group of women on their favourite pastime, wishing to point out to them that their entertainment was full of misandry that they might want to distance themselves from - then yes, I would very much hope that this man would be counselled to adjust his approach to engage rather than offend all those ladies. Not in order to compromise truth, but to communicate it more effectively.

Is it necessary? No. Would it be prudent if one's aim is to have the greatest possible positive impact? Yes.

Posted by saysay (# 6645) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
One of the most striking things to me about this exchange is the degree to which IngoB assumes that harassing, threatening misogyny is both an unalterable, eternal constant in human interactions and, more critically, that anyone calling attention to harassing, threatening misogyny is just some witless crybaby who should have known better.
See, this is a prominent and common shutdown tactic.

I'm not especially bothered by it, being demonstrably neither witless nor a crybaby, but it always disappoints me when I see it, because this particular tactic usually comes from guys who have demonstrated that they absolutely should know better.

And yet I've not heard IngoB call anyone a witless crybaby.

Out of curiosity, Croesus, what exactly is your cure for sin?

Because I know IngB's (even if I don't think it has a snowball's chance in hell of actually working). But I don't believe I've ever heard you offer one (although that could have happened on a thread I wasn't reading).

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

I'm going to risk the ire of the hosts who have asked this conversation to be dropped or taken to Hell, but I want to pick up a statement made after that directive and I'll risk the ire of the Hellhosts if I start a thread there just to post this.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
You wouldn't vent your spleen in a place that must have one of the lowest gamer-per-participant ratios on the internet.

So what? Why does the proportion or number of gamers on the Ship make any difference about whether we can discuss issues relating to gamers here? I don't see you posting on the Brazilian election thread saying it isn't relevant because we have a very small number of Brazilians here, for example. The fact that this thread is now on p5 shows that there are sufficient people here interested in gaming and/or the issues of gender equality, internet campaigning etc that #gamergate raises to keep the discussion going. It's hardly as though it's just Wood venting his spleen - a quick skim shows a page or so of posts during a week when Wood didn't post here at all. Which does rather beg the question why you have so forcefully and personally attacked Wood, but didn't show similar reaction to LeRoc for having the gall to post about elections in Brazil, including his personal experience?

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
But is that a criticism that would be offered a male journalist; that he should tone down and sugar-coat observations that are "quite simply - and rather obviously - true"?
First, "tone down and sugar-coat" are your words, not mine.

Fair enough. It was just an assumption based on your assertion that "palatability" should be a journalistic aim.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
I was mostly thinking of making clearer that she is in fact a huge gamer herself, in dedicating less time to negative dissection and more time to positive examples and suggestions, and to bringing in a wider range of people speaking on these issues (including men) instead of having it all just come from her as a presenter.

So instead of "sugar-coating" her reporting, she should have simply used a lot of positive examples to cover over the negative criticisms, sweetening them as it were, and making the bitter center more palatable. Thank you for clearing that up.

I'm also not sure how many male game reviewers have to start out every review with a CV listing their bona fides proving that they're really gamers themselves. That seems to encapsulate the whole 'fake geek girl' meme perfectly, with the underlying assumption that women are not gamers until they exhaustively prove otherwise.

I'm also not convinced that changing narrators (and possibly narratives, you weren't clear) would increase the effectiveness of her message rather than reduce it to a muddle or mish-mash.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Is it necessary? No. Would it be prudent if one's aim is to have the greatest possible positive impact? Yes.

I disagree. Including a lot of rah-rah boosterism as a counterweight to legitimate criticism blunts the impact of most journalism. For example, suppose Woodward and Bernstein had started up every Watergate column with a list of Nixon's positive achievements before getting to the corruption and abuse of power? I maintain that approach would have disastrously blunted the impact of their reporting, not enhanced it.

[ 20. October 2014, 23:51: Message edited by: Crœsos ]

Posted by saysay (# 6645) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Which does rather beg the question why you have so forcefully and personally attacked Wood, but didn't show similar reaction to LeRoc for having the gall to post about elections in Brazil, including his personal experience?

Not really. His reaction makes perfect sense to me.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

Would you explain then?

I find it perfectly understandable that some people have valid reasons to criticise some aspects of computer games, for example for the manner in which some of them portray women. Similar criticisms could be expressed in relation to other parts of the entertainment industry, and indeed western societies more generally. And, of course, we could have a serious discussion about the validity of those criticisms. Some people will find those criticisms unfair, that they reflect only a very small minority of games and people playing them, that the industry as a whole is improving and sorting out failings. And, that would be a reasonable discussion.

What I can't understand or comprehend is a reaction, even by a very small minority of people, that would be a criminal offense. Threats of physical assault or damage to property over criticisms of some aspects of some games is a response that I just can't fathom. And, certainly is a response that I can't imagine any reasonable person condoning.

Now, I admit not having followed this thread in detail. But, it seems to me that Wood's OP was basically a "WTF is this about?", similar to my paragraph above. Which has created a discussion that has mostly been reasonable, more or less following my first paragraph - with some discussion of related issues thrown in (there were a few points where things stepped beyond that, notably Alex getting all worked up about women oppressing and bullying him).

But, I still don't see why Ingo got so worked up about the issue. He stated he's no longer a frequent player of computer games, and has no direct current personal connection to the #gamergate issues. I find it difficult to believe that he's actually wanting to defend the actions of people who credibly threaten physical violence against someone else. But, he seems to have got himself worked up about something Wood had said, and I can't work out what that is - which is unusual as Ingo is usually tediously clear (in that I've understood him in his first sentance but he feels the need to spend another 3 paragraphs explaining the point in meticulous detail).

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

hosting/

Pursuant to Commandment 4, "If you must get personal, take it to Hell", I can't see a way of pursuing this highly personal tangent outside of Hell, and invite all interested parties to repair there.

/hosting

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

Well, that went well.

In an attempt to bring this back on track, I humbly submit this link to a very good video that interrogates #Gamergate with a discussion of base assumptions and some basic critical theory.

Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on :

Ingo's response to this reads to me as "this isn't important to me, or to many others, so it makes me angry that it's important to anyone."

It's not about you, Ingo. I'm really sick of this idea that because white, hetero guys don't see a problem somewhere there isn't one.

Gamergate has nothing to do with journalistic ethics. If it did, the GGers would be specific about what they wanted to see rather than doxxing and harrassing their opponents and calling women bitches and whores. What's happened here is a bunch of angry entitled men who don't want to let women into their treehouse because girls are icky. They may feel sad that their social circles are all male and they can't get laid, but they're not relating to women as human beings. The message here is clear: if you're a woman, or an ally of women, shut up. Don't try to change a damn thing about this misogynistic subculture. Get back into your place. Don't challenge anything about this culture.

THAT is a problem. You may look at this and see two or three women who are having a rough time with a lot of threats (which will probably never turn into anything) and think, "eh, sucks to be her but whatever. I'm not like that." But what I see, looking at this, is thousands of women and girls who want to get involved with this medium that they love. And they won't, because they're afraid of being treated the same way. Girls will continue to play games in which the men wear cool armour and the women wear chainmail bikinis and get raped so that the men can be more heroic. You may think that that's sexist bullshit and that it'd be good if it changed. But it won't change, if every time a woman opens her mouth about it she gets silenced by harrassment. Or, more likely, if thousands of girls and women keep their mouths shut out of fear.

That's why this matters. Not because every single gamer behaves this way - of course they don't. But ffs this is an opportunity to be one of the good guys and help women out. Or you could say "eh, yeah, sexism and harrassment happens but I'm not like that and my feelings of discomfort are more important."

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

Liopleurodon, I've sort of re-directed my efforts to the corresponding Hell thread. You might find the following posts of mine there relevant: here, here and here.

In my mind, you are confusing several things. First, the feminist critique by Sarkeesian et al. I find myself broadly supportive (which for me is not a given), though somewhat skeptical that equality will be achieved by major improvements of what has been critiqued. Instead, I expect some mild improvements and then things levelling out by similarly questionable pandering to the ever growing female consumer base. Second, the #Gamergate idiots. I believe the less public mention they get the better. And where they become seriously threatening, police and "white hats" should move in and shut them down. I do not think that public counter-shouting helps much, quite likely it makes them stronger. Third, the assumption that the #Gamergate idiots are somehow representative of gamers and that therefore something drastic must be done with (or even to) gamers. That was my actual bone of contention with Wood. I think this is simply not the case. I think gamers were a lot like a soccer club with a strong youth section. And they are becoming, well, us. Playing computer games is going to be like watching TV. So while there might have been a tendency to some dumb misogyny early on, it never was particularly serious (more the sort of unreflected nonsense you will get out of male teenagers / young men trying to impress each other) and it is fading into whatever residual misogyny there is in our society (as gaming becomes simply normal). Certainly that can be improved, but it does not make gamers a nefarious society of woman haters as best exemplified by #Gamergate. Fourth, the idea that women are held back from playing and/or developing games by chauvinism. Well, yes. But there are broader issues at work there as we still see a lack of women in STEM fields overall, and a lack of penetration into the most competitive parts in particular. It's not really a gaming-specific issue.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
I think gamers were a lot like a soccer club with a strong youth section. And they are becoming, well, us. Playing computer games is going to be like watching TV. So while there might have been a tendency to some dumb misogyny early on, it never was particularly serious (more the sort of unreflected nonsense you will get out of male teenagers / young men trying to impress each other) and it is fading into whatever residual misogyny there is in our society (as gaming becomes simply normal).

I'm not sure why a concerted and fairly sizable campaign of harassment, hacking, and threats of violence don't count as "particularly serious" to you. Does someone have to get actually assaulted or killed before you'll take them seriously? I'd suggest the whole "boys will be boys" routine you seem to use as an all-purpose excuse for any and all misbehavior is actually part of the problem.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Fourth, the idea that women are held back from playing and/or developing games by chauvinism. Well, yes. But there are broader issues at work there as we still see a lack of women in STEM fields overall, and a lack of penetration into the most competitive parts in particular. It's not really a gaming-specific issue.

Typically arguments of this sort (sexism is a problem in X, but it's also a problem in Y and Z) are advanced not as a reason to do something about sexism generally, or even in Y and Z, but to derail discussions of sexism in X. I'm not certain exactly why addressing sexism in #Gamergate (or even the gaming community at large) is supposed to prevent addressing it in STEM fields or anywhere else.

Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on :

I have never said that the GGers are representative of all gamers. Obviously they aren't (although they do claim to be). Most of my friends play video games. My husband is as hardcore a gamer as you're ever likely to meet. We met playing WoW. I know this is a small minority. And, like Wood, I'm more disturbed at the lack of peer pressure from the good guys to get these arseholes to stop.

But what I see here on this thread is a guy consistently insisting that the elements of this situation that affect him (people might think that he and his friends are horrible people) are vastly more important than the elements which affect others (threats, harassment, continuing sexism and misogyny in games). I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it isn't your call, as a man, to say how important or damaging sexism is, or how much of a priority it should be for the people who are directly affected by it. Just as it isn't my call, as a white person who has never directly experienced racism, to tell people who experience it daily to just get over it and stop acting like all white people are bad.

I think that the phrase "don't feed the trolls" is one that has become repeated so many times, and in such vastly different scenarios, that it has pretty much become meaningless. In fact I think that the word "troll" has itself become meaningless. Many kids get given the advice to just ignore bullies, and they'll go away. It doesn't work, and their lives are made a living hell for years. All it really does is provide adults with an excuse to do nothing. I think we're moving away from giving that advice to schoolkids now, but that's still the same basic advice we give to people online who are being bullied and harassed online.

But I'm pretty sure that when this phrase originated, it covered things like people who'd come to SoF and argue that all Christians are deluded idiots, in order to get a rise out of us. Refuse to argue with these people and they do get bored. That's not the same as messages that say "I am coming round to [your address] tonight to rape you to death. I am going to kidnap your parents from [their addresss] and make them watch." Do you really think that pretending this isn't happening will make it stop? Or will it only stop when feminists shut up and leave the internet? Because that's what these people want. They're not trying to wind us up so that we talk to them, like the hypothetical atheist on SoF in the above example. They're trying to scare us so that we don't talk at all.

Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :

Liopleurodon:

quote:
I think that the phrase "don't feed the trolls" is one that has become repeated so many times, and in such vastly different scenarios, that it has pretty much become meaningless. In fact I think that the word "troll" has itself become meaningless.

Well, indeed. When "troll" mean "To deliberately post provocatively in order to wind people up and get start a right" it had some merit, although very few people could resist. Trolls weren't even necessarily abusive in the past, just 'abusers' of the system and the social contract.

Now that "troll" has lost any meaning beyond "Someone being an arsehole on the Internet", where aresholery can range from not giving you 100% support through to actively trying to ruin your life, it's an increasingly vapid tag.

Interestingly, I agree with IngoB that what should happen when it moves from "bantz" to actual threats and unacceptable behaviour is that white hats and TPTB should shut them down. Thing is, part of that process is white hats creating a noise that says "No, not acceptable". Which is sort of what Wood was doing.

Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :

Sorry for doublepost but ha ha ha haaa!

(Hope the code's ok, posting from phone and it doesn't do popups)

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
You may think that that's sexist bullshit and that it'd be good if it changed. But it won't change, if every time a woman opens her mouth about it she gets silenced by harrassment. Or, more likely, if thousands of girls and women keep their mouths shut out of fear.

Case in point: Felicia Day Says She's Afraid of Gamergate, Immediately Gets Doxxed.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

This may help:
https://medium.com/human-parts/douchebag-the-white-racial-slur-weve-all-been-waiting-for-a2323002f85d

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Case in point: Felicia Day Says She's Afraid of Gamergate, Immediately Gets Doxxed.

Well, it is a case in point, but for what exactly? Perhaps you have already forgotten Anonymous, LulzSec and other groups like that. The spectacle #Gamergate has been creating must have been like a flame to moths for such people. Now you get the basic Hell dynamics we know all too well from SoF, the hellions, the peanut gallery, the dog pile, and Miss Day paints a bullseye on herself for them. Problem is, you have attracted weaponised assholes to the party by now, and they bring sticks and stones, not just words.

This certainly reflects something really sad and not a little dangerous about our society. But I maintain that it is not really about gaming or gamers, about how unaccessible gaming / the gaming industry is for women, or for that matter about bringing women into STEM subjects more generally. (And yes, I do know a bit about the last one. For example, I do have two PhD students at the moment in a highly "technical" field and both are young women who beat their male competitors fair and square in the selection procedure.)

FWIW, this rant about #Gamergate from the link is a rather good read, even though I do no think that it helps the situation particularly...

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Case in point: Felicia Day Says She's Afraid of Gamergate, Immediately Gets Doxxed.
Well, it is a case in point, but for what exactly?

For Liopleurodon's point, cited within my post, that organized campaigns of harassment and intimidation like we see in #Gamergate are a massive disincentive for women to have anything to do with gaming. From Ms. Day's article:

quote:
I have not said many public things about Gamer Gate. I have tried to leave it alone, aside from a few @ replies on Twitter that journalists have decided to use in their articles, siding me against the hashtag. Why have I remained mostly silent?

Self-protection and fear.

<snip>

I have been terrified of inviting a deluge of abusive and condescending tweets into my timeline. I did one simple @ reply to one of the main victims several weeks back, and got a flood of things I simply couldn’t stand to read directed at me. I had to log offline for a few days until it went away. I have tried to retweet a few of the articles I’ve seen dissecting the issue in support, but personally I am terrified to be doxxed for even typing the words “Gamer Gate”. I have had stalkers and restraining orders issued in the past, I have had people show up on my doorstep when my personal information was HARD to get. To have my location revealed to the world would give a entry point for a few mentally ill people who have fixated on me, and allow them to show up and make good on the kind of threats I’ve received that make me paranoid to walk around a convention alone. I haven’t been able to stomach the risk of being afraid to get out of my car in my own driveway because I’ve expressed an opinion that someone on the internet didn’t agree with.

So naturally the proper response to this was dox her so a variety of angry stalkers know where to find her.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Perhaps you have already forgotten Anonymous, LulzSec and other groups like that. The spectacle #Gamergate has been creating must have been like a flame to moths for such people. Now you get the basic Hell dynamics we know all too well from SoF, the hellions, the peanut gallery, the dog pile, and Miss Day paints a bullseye on herself for them. Problem is, you have attracted weaponised assholes to the party by now, and they bring sticks and stones, not just words.

While the threats and harassment are offputting enough to discourage most, this kind of victim-blaming has also got to be a factor. If we lived in a rational world it would be the people posting her address on the internet who would be considered to be "paint[ing] a bullseye on herself for them", but for a lot of folks it's Ms. Day's fault for saying anything at all about an organized campaign of threats and intimidation against women in the gaming world.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
This certainly reflects something really sad and not a little dangerous about our society. But I maintain that it is not really about gaming or gamers, about how unaccessible gaming / the gaming industry is for women, or for that matter about bringing women into STEM subjects more generally.

I'm a bit baffled about why you think an organized campaign of threats and intimidation isn't threatening or intimidating. To take an earlier-discussed incident, Ms. Sarkeesian decided to cancel a public appearance because of threats of a mass shooting. Are you arguing that this was an over-reaction and she should have gone anyway? Or that it was her own fault for "paint[ing] a bullseye on herself" by publicly expressing a controversial opinion? At any rate, insisting that risking death in a mass shooting, or never expressing an opinion anyone can disagree with aren't an impediment to women's participation in gaming seems willfully naïve.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
For Liopleurodon's point, cited within my post, that organized campaigns of harassment and intimidation like we see in #Gamergate are a massive disincentive for women to have anything to do with gaming.

It is possible that if #Gamergate continues to be given a very high profile in the mass media, then they might manage to make some non-negligible dent in the number of women playing computer games. And that's a huge number these days. If #Gamergate continues to be featured all over the place, then it is possible that some girls will decide against pursuing a career in computer science in general and game programming in particular. But let's be clear that this potential power would be given to #Gamergate by the mass media. They aren't even proper "cyber terrorists", they have only one real weapon for doing damage - beyond attacking some selected individuals. And that is publicity. Take away the publicity, and just what can they do to remove the millions of women from gaming, and to stop the game changing effect this is starting to have?

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
So naturally the proper response to this was dox her so a variety of angry stalkers know where to find her.

It wasn't the "proper" response, but it sure as hell was the expected response. What did she or you expect to happen? If you tell a bunch of bullies that you are really afraid of them doing this or that, do you expect them to pause, take stock of their actions, and repent and reform themselves? Or do you expect them to thank you for the good suggestions and do exactly what you feared?

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
While the threats and harassment are offputting enough to discourage most, this kind of victim-blaming has also got to be a factor. If we lived in a rational world it would be the people posting her address on the internet who would be considered to be "paint[ing] a bullseye on herself for them", but for a lot of folks it's Ms. Day's fault for saying anything at all about an organized campaign of threats and intimidation against women in the gaming world.

That it is evil to spread somebody's details on the internet against their will is one thing, that it is unwise to tell a bunch of cyberbullies that you are terribly afraid of that is another. I don't know what fraction of #Gamergate critics gets attacked. But if I had been asked to design some post that would most likely provoke attack, then it would have looked a lot like what Ms Day wrote.

This is just self-defence 101. If faced with potential threat, do your best to appear self-confident, strong and dangerous (or at least "a pain to subdue"). Do not make yourself small, show your fear, appear weak and quickly broken. Criminals, bullies etc. look for easy targets, for fights they know they will win before they even start. They are not looking for the honourable duel that is too close to call in advance.

Yes, it would be nice if we didn't have to think along these lines. Yes, ideally everybody could express whatever they want without having to fear anything. But we are talking about a bunch of assholes on the warpath here. Things are not ideal, and you need to think about how you tackle them, if you want to do that.

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm a bit baffled about why you think an organized campaign of threats and intimidation isn't threatening or intimidating.

#Gamergate can do diddley-squat to the gaming community by their own power. That's the simple truth. Yes, they can attack individuals. But we are talking here about a community that in total across the world probably has the size of the entire population of the USA. You don't move that many people with a bloody Twitter hashtag. If you manage to move them at all, then by a sustained and intense mass media campaign. And #Gamergate does not have the political power or financial means to get that going. The one and only thing they can go for is constant provocation to keep the publicity going on for free.

They need to be isolated and taken down. In particular so where they threaten and harm individuals. But we should not make them the centre of a massive storm of outrage that just goes on and on. If #Gamergate has the slightest chance of "winning" their game, then so because of that storm. It is the one and only multiplier of their power that they can hope for.

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
To take an earlier-discussed incident, Ms. Sarkeesian decided to cancel a public appearance because of threats of a mass shooting. Are you arguing that this was an over-reaction and she should have gone anyway? Or that it was her own fault for "paint[ing] a bullseye on herself" by publicly expressing a controversial opinion?

I cannot possible make any reasonable threat assessment for Ms Sarkessian, much less am I in a position to tell her what she should risk for her cause. However, she did not jump into the fray now, she is (one of) the original target(s). That's simply a different situation. I support her decision to speak up (and as I have said before, I think she had a point). I support punitive action against those trying to shut her down, including public statements of support for her and against #Gamergate. That however does not mean that I cannot look at the overall dynamics as it has developed, and say that taking away the oxygen of publicity would be a much better way to end #Gamergate now. I'm not against free speech, I'm for efficient means of defending it.

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
At any rate, insisting that risking death in a mass shooting, or never expressing an opinion anyone can disagree with aren't an impediment to women's participation in gaming seems willfully naïve.

I expect about 1-2 million women will log into their Steam account today to play games from their library. How many of them won't, in your opinion, because they are so impeded? Even now, I reckon, most of them will not even have heard of #Gamergate. #Gamergate doesn't command an army. They do not have a secret police. They couldn't control 1-2 million female Steam users if they wanted to. What they can do is to attack a few individuals, and milk that for publicity. If you stop them from doing that, it's game over for them.

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

I really don't know that you are right about most people not having heard of gamergate. Someone brought it up at lunch the other day at work, and all six of us had heard of it. And as far as I know only two of us play games at all, so that's not even why.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
I really don't know that you are right about most people not having heard of gamergate. Someone brought it up at lunch the other day at work, and all six of us had heard of it. And as far as I know only two of us play games at all, so that's not even why.

Interesting. I might try to do some straw polling of my own. I would love to do it with some students. Problem is I'm already done with my block teaching for the term...

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Gwai: I really don't know that you are right about most people not having heard of gamergate.

I'm far removed from the world of games, and I'd heard about it (before this topic was started).

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
It is possible that if #Gamergate continues to be given a very high profile in the mass media, then they might manage to make some non-negligible dent in the number of women playing computer games. And that's a huge number these days. If #Gamergate continues to be featured all over the place, then it is possible that some girls will decide against pursuing a career in computer science in general and game programming in particular. But let's be clear that this potential power would be given to #Gamergate by the mass media.

Wow. Is there any kind of abusive behavior where you don't think the right solution is a rigorously enforced code of silence? Pretending this doesn't happen or simply suffering in silence is not a solution, unless you think the problem is bad publicity, not bad behavior.

You know what I haven't heard at all in regard to #Gamergate? Anyone saying anything along the lines of "wow, I never suspected that there might be misogyny in the gaming community" or "this campaign of harassment is totally unexpected and not at all similar to anything that's happened before". The idea that a certain subset of gamers will harass and intimidate women is already out there and trying to suppress the stories is just a way of silencing the victims.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
So naturally the proper response to this was dox her so a variety of angry stalkers know where to find her.
It wasn't the "proper" response, but it sure as hell was the expected response. What did she or you expect to happen? If you tell a bunch of bullies that you are really afraid of them doing this or that, do you expect them to pause, take stock of their actions, and repent and reform themselves? Or do you expect them to thank you for the good suggestions and do exactly what you feared?

<snip>

That it is evil to spread somebody's details on the internet against their will is one thing, that it is unwise to tell a bunch of cyberbullies that you are terribly afraid of that is another.

Given the number of other women that have been doxxed by #Gamergate, claiming that it only happened because Ms. Day specifically mentioned it seems like a particularly fragrant grade of disingenuous bullshit. No one has to tell cyberbullies that people don't like having their personal information published. That's why they do it. You act as if no one had ever thought of doxxing before Ms. Day invented it.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
This is just self-defence 101. If faced with potential threat, do your best to appear self-confident, strong and dangerous (or at least "a pain to subdue"). Do not make yourself small, show your fear, appear weak and quickly broken. Criminals, bullies etc. look for easy targets, for fights they know they will win before they even start.

<snip>

I cannot possible make any reasonable threat assessment for Ms Sarkessian, much less am I in a position to tell her what she should risk for her cause.

It's waffling inconsistency like this that I can't take seriously. Why not apply the same logic to Ms. Sarkeesian as to Ms. Day? If you truly believed about "appear[ing] self-confident" and "[d]o not . . . show your fear", didn't Ms. Sarkeesian make a terrible error by giving away the fact that dying in a hail of bullets scares her?

Of course, all this proceeds from the very dubious assumption that anyone is uncertain about whether people generally fear being raped and murdered in their homes by some psychotic who got their address from the internet or dying in a hail of gunfire. I don't think a serious argument can be built on that premise.

Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on :

Yes, millions of women will log in to Steam and play their games. And quite a lot of those women will feel compelled to pretend to be men online so that they don't get sexually harassed, or threatened with rape when someone doesn't like how they play CoD. And some will get frustrated at playing games in which their entire gender is presented as sexy trophies rather than human beings. They'll do this because they like video games and they don't really have a choice because that's what's on the market. The fact that some women still play these games because they like games and these are the games that exist doesn't mean that the situation is fine and no change is needed. They're probably not going to say "better not play tonight because there are hateful, violent misogynists out there!" But they may well decide not to challenge the status quo, or not go to that geek convention, not get involved in the industry as a journalist or a developer or an artist. The games that are better than this won't get made, not because women are better than men or vice versa, but because if half the human population feels excluded from the industry a huge talent is lost and the standard can only go down. You don't seem to think that's a problem.

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