Gender Inequality in Vid Games industry

[wakka]

I agree Asura. At least by exposing and discussing this behaviour we are acknowledging that it exists, it's ugly, and it's a problem. No one (except the tabloid press) is suggesting all game players act this way.

[noobish hat]

Seems like the same debate about rape culture. A lot of people saying "not all men are rapists, and you can't change the ones who are." The point is that there are too many people who, while not rapists themselves, create a culture where it can happen more easily and where support is weaker for victims. A judge or a jury who thinks a woman was "asking for it" is a major problem that can be changed through discussion (hopefully). It's the same with this. Obviously, not all men/gamers/commenters are misogynistic assholes, but if even the "good guys" are saying "just ignore it" or "quit the game/forum/industry if you're bothered by it," this problem is never going to be solved.

[fishbowlhead]

I don't think anonymous abuse is ok in any walk of life or situation, it's downright cowardly for a start, which is a particular irk of mine.

Regarding the ladies in question, it's must be pretty horrific. There just doing their jobs, making games, writing about them. To get abuse like that for doing your job is not ok at all.

Going back to the anonymity, making people accountable for it would stop alomost all of it, proper id checks for signing up for anything would sort it all out so people can be easily traced by authorities for threats.

I once had a person posting threatening letters through my business door on a weekly basis (death threats, plus other really nasty stuff), this went on for about 5 weeks, I'd never met the guy before and he wasn't a customer, just some guy that didn't like my products because he used someone else's and thought it would be funny.
Now I waited in the factory all night for him, with all the lights off so it appeared empty. When he posted the letter though the door I opended it up and grabbed the little weasel, I took a photo of his face, took his id out and copied his address, and told him if there's any more hate mail of any kind, email or physical, he would be personally held accountable and will be visited. Shockingly, never heard a peep out of him or his mates again.

Accountability and consequesnses, and all that kind of crap goes away.

[FelixofMars]

I never said that, just the fact that it's not moving towards any goal. These articles are pretty much daily now and don't actually have any effect of the root of the issue and well we all know about the carrot and the stick. This is pretty much the equivalent of being hit by the stick daily. You cannot say anything because whatever is said is seen as a negative unless your answers lean exactly towards what their expectations are but I am sorry life isn't like that I may not agree 100% with you.

Clearly the correct causes of action would be to report the matters that happen inside of a company to whoever deals with harassment or bullying issues or the authority's if its really serious again externally the police. I would also add if the company lets this go on without having these safeguards in place then that is a pretty ****ty company to work for. Sadly most of these people in the articles probably need to go in for counselling and NOT be feeding more of the trolls that exist in comments sections and certain other forums.

This response though isn't an "end" to the debate. Many people say things like "well, not everyone's like that" or "not all men are like that" but that isn't the point. We all know that not all men are genuine misogynists, posting hate on Twitter, and there's no "conspiracy" in the industry to keep women down, but that's like saying "it's OK if a woman gets sexually harassed in one job; there are dozens of jobs where that doesn't happen". The fact of the matter is that women are given a lot of **** in gaming purely for being female, and there definitely is a bias that men are judged for their work, whereas women can be judged for their appearance.

[kryss]

Why is it so hard for people to just be civil?

[Wools]

Anonymity + Internet will unfortunately cause that civility to be thrown right out the window for some people.

[FelixofMars]

A long time ago I learned not to leave the comments sections open on things like YouTube and in real life some people are complete p**cks no matter who they are speaking to.

[bash]

For me, I don't agree we should just accept that article writers are just "feeding of trolls" and that said people need counselling. Indeed it could be for some of them its probably a form of therapy to vent their thoughts and feelings in a constructive manner. If they do need counselling then its the result of the online fooktards and in real life who harass them and cause psychological trauma. To be honest they should be defended from getting abused not lambasted for speaking their mind.

[Duncan James Waugh]

It's sad but this is the reality of being a woman in this day and age and isn't really about anonymity or the internet - lots of men are happy to say these things to women's faces on a daily basis. Whether it's sexual abuse being shouted across petrol station forecourts or people that think it's funny to joke about sexually assaulting people at work in order to get a rise out of them, for a lot of these people anonymity is never a factor. There's a whole lot of extremely nasty people out there.

[Asura]

Whether it's sexual abuse being shouted across petrol station forecourts or people that think it's funny to joke about sexually assaulting people at work in order to get a rise out of them, for a lot of these people anonymity is never a factor. There's a whole lot of extremely nasty people out there.

On the one hand, that's definitely true, but on the other, it isn't really about "nasty people".

Often people online mention "rape culture" or "patriarchy" and people roll their eyes, but I think many misunderstand these terms. What they mean is actually something quite simple.

Take for example a regular bloke, we'll call him Steve. Steve occasionally does charity work. He never forgets to buy his mother a card on her birthday, he thinks the situation in Gaza is terrible, he feels sorry for the people who lost family in the recent Ukraine flight disaster. Steve works hard, and his liked by his team-mates. He's an allround good guy.

On his way home from work one night, it's really warm and Steve shouts out of his car to some girl walking by in a pair of hotpants. I don't know what he says, "nice arse" or something, and honks his horn. This, naturally, is a twattish thing to do. It might compliment her, but most likely (like 999 times out of a thousand) it's just harassment. The girl worries about whether or not to wear those shorts again, maybe even avoids that part of town.

Steve isn't a "nasty person". In fact, he might be a very good person in most respects. However, Steve grew up occasionally seeing his father do the same thing. He thinks his harrassment is complimentary and believes the girl was wearing that for his amusement, as he's grown up with that expectation.

Steve, of course, isn't an "active" misogynist. He doesn't hate women in the sense that a racist hates other races. He might have many female friends, and maybe he respects them a great deal. He might approve of women being firefighters and fighter pilots, and believe deep down that men/women should have equal pay for the same job.

It doesn't change the fact that Steve's attitude is related to the concept of "patriarchy", as it's a learned behaviour from his father. His father might have even made him do it the first time, "well are you a man or not?".

The girl goes home and tells her mother what happened. Instead of being angry about Steve, she tells the girl "what do you expect is going to happen, walking around with those things on?!". In turn, the mother his perpetuating "rape culture", because the only one at fault, even if it was 2am in a backstreet in urban Manchester and the girl was blind drunk, the only one who is ever at fault is the harasser.

Anyway, what this is all about is that Steve isn't a bad person, even if he does this. If confronted about it, if he read an article about it, he might actually sit and think "wow, maybe I shouldn't do that again. If I have a son, I'm not going to let him do that to women", and there you have it. That's how the world can have an "issue" with misogyny, but not actually be filled with terrible, terrible people. It's the old phrase, "for good men to do nothing".

[Duncan James Waugh]

Regarding the forecourt incident the two guys then tailed her in their van for the next 5 minutes before she managed to shake them at an intersection. The one who had to put up with the constant rape jokes at work got groped by one of her customers in his home while his wife and kid were in the next room. And the jokes weren't things like "nice arse" they were detailed accounts of what the men would do to her. Another woman I know has to put up with similar attempts at humour on a semi-regular basis. I know people like to think that humanity is generally good, it certainly makes life more palatable, but look at the rape statistics in this country - abuse happens and is widespread.

[Resonance]

There is a big part of me that cares about women in gaming, but after the assault of tumbler feminists and the fraud that is Anita Sarkesian, I would rather just stay away from the entire topic. To many liars/idiots on both sides.

[Asura]

[QUOTE=Resonance;2152088the fraud that is Anita Sarkesian[/quote]

Remember though that the message is more important than the messenger.

[BaronSqwelch]

Writing lots of blogs and reports on men being disgusting is a good thing. So many of us are...but the tone is important.

Aswell as giving sociopaths (and that's what these death threat dealing ***** are) free reign to spew poison everywhere, the internet has turned the word misogyny into a meaningless buzzword.

Before it had weight...but now it gets thrown around so much that a builders wolf whistle gets bracketed in with a knifepoint rape and it loses all meaning.

Leading decent men to just switch off and ignore any mention of the problem due to being sick of hearing how awful 'they' are, while the scumbags go about their business unchallenged by them.

[Kit]

^

spot on.

Lets be honest here. These 'threats' are coming from fat sexually frustrated teenagers who don't get laid, or older nerds who don't get laid.

If any of these fannies turned up and threatened her like that in real life they'd end up getting the **** kicked out of them by the girls boyfriend/husband.

The IGN case study is daft, also. Nobody who has a worthy gaming opinion considers ign a good review source, and one of the reason is THEY DO hire super attractive females TO ATTRACT young sexual frustrated idiots and have done for ages. Assume the average age of an ign user must be 13 or something.