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Sexism in Gaming


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11 hours ago, cegorach said:

those in power (in this case generally straight white males

Just wanted to use this as a starting point. If we straight white males have so much power why don't I have any? This is generalization at it's worst. True that many of the most powerful and influential people are white and male doesn't mean white males are somehow more privileged. There is actually a good explanation to why it is (at least on the male part White is mostly because of history and abuse of other races). Males are more likely (not all but in the average) to take risks. This means males occupy the most successful roles in the society  and the worst. I will make this an example. A man starts his own business because he is willing to take the risk. He succeeds and makes it into a new Microsoft and dies as a multi-billionaire. On the other hand if he fails he risks of losing everything. Maybe he needed to put his house as a insurance for the big loan he needed and now he is homeless and broke with no way to get back on his feet again and dies young with a needle in his arm. This is why men have a higher number in many places of power. But this is actually quite beside the point. Just ticked me the wrong way to generalize that all White Men have power as many of us don't. Rich have power, poor don't is the normal way of things not male have power and the women don't.

About the note of 0,5% example you gave of harassment statistics or whatever it was. This would be a huge thing. Of course bad for the people who still are inflicted but if someplace has in average much lower amount of any crime, not just harassment, it means that crime isn't as prevalent at that place. And that means in average that place is better then the surrounding area. I will again use an example. Here is District 1, in average say stealing happens to 10% of the population of the district in average, but in the campus that is located at said district stealing only happens to 2% of the campus population. This means that the campus people are better protected from stealing then other people are at District 1. So in said imaginary district it would be really odd if there were people marching on the street to stop Campus wide EPIDEMIC of stealing because some one lost their iPhone. This is what I meant on my first post about needing the evidence to prove that wargaming has a worse situation on harassment then the population outside of our group.

And Thanks for Aaron for keeping the discussion civil. I have actually wanted to talk to this kind of people before but it is hard when the discussion is derailed by trolls and such. At least I haven't seen any real bias on your part. I am interested to see where this discussion will head.

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I do disagree with that.

Men lose the custody of their kids more in divorces, men are more likely to die from violent crimes etc. There are ways that even the white men can get shit on them. The fact is that all people born into the first world are privileged to a great decree. And the fact is a Homosexual Black Female who was born into a rich family will be much more privileged then me as a Straight White Male born into a well-off family.

The most important point that I try to make in this is that we are all individuals. And people who keep bashing on white men or cis-gender or heterosexuals or what ever that is the norm (And yes even though some don't like it there is such a thing as a norm) just try to gather a huge demographic into one easily dismiss able group. So they can just say "You are just a Cis-Hetero White Male so I don't need to listen to you." Because of this attitude men and women like me get strong reaction to this "power" word play. Because this is not the first time this has crawled up.

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9 minutes ago, Dirial said:

Just to address this one point:

It's not about every white man being powerful. Your privilege is that you do not have additional shit piled onto you. That is not generalisation. The argument is not "All white men oppress other people". The argument is "White men don't even realise how lucky they are not to be oppressed in addition to their socio-economic situation". (I know that some white men realise that indeed, and that this wording is kind of a generalisation. It's still pretty hard to even imagine what it means not to be a white man in this society.)

Being a white male I don't have access to the same financing for studies, I run the risk of being passed for a job because of quota's, a study shows thatwomen are twice aslikely to be hired in STEM then men, should my spouse start beating me up I have virtually no shelter that will accept me nor would people step up to help me if she did it in public. And I could go on.

That looks like a lot of extra shoit piled on to me. the point being, life can be shit for anyone and we're not participating in the oppression Olympics. We need to look at people like individuals.

About the subject at hand. I think it would be beneficial to make sure we're all talking about the same thing exactly.

Are there sexist, racist or homophobic people in gaming? There are in real life so it's safe to assume that some of those end up in the gaming community. Are there more or less of those people in gaming then in society at large and are they more tolerated? That's the question that's worth discussing in my opinion

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My gaming circle and I have been talking this issue back and forth all week now, and I think I've finally distilled my feelings on the matter down pretty well.

I don't know how often intolerance or harassment happens in the gaming community.  It might be more often than the public at large.  It might be less often than the public at large.  But I don't think anyone can say it does not happen at all, and if the amount of intolerance and harassment is not at zero, it means we still have some work to do.  No one should be subject to that.  We might be doing better than the world at large (again, I honestly don't know), but that's not a reason to stop making strides to make things even better still.

I think the point of articles and discussions like this isn't to make huge, grand changes, but rather to shine a light on something that isn't always lit up.  Right now because of these articles, I am hyper-aware of harassment.  I went to the game store this week and on the drive my mind wandered to how I would react if I saw it.  It's impossible to say until it happens, but I can say that I am more likely to speak up now than I was last week because these conversations forced me to consider my reactions.  If having these conversations helps a handful (or better still, a lot) of people consider those situations and be ready to not play the silent partner next time they see it happen, they will have done a good job.

I think we are moving the needle, but it's not something that happens overnight.  It requires people who are on the fence to get off the fence and offer some help.  That help could be in the form of preparing yourself so you know how to react if you see situations of intolerance and harassment.  It could be in determining a set of words you want to work out of your vocabulary because there are plenty of others that aren't harassment that convey the same message.

These conversations are important to have, because each time they come up, I believe there's a small subset of people who are at the right time in their lives to listen to them and will make positive change in themselves, and that just keeps making a better place to game.

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As a white straight man, I am less likely to identify myself to a woman or a gay guy. I also don't like to be remind how my belly has grown over time... However, I am likely to be attracted to a miniature showing a gorgeous and sexy woman.

This is just how my psyche works and I can't fight against that. So from a sales point of view, a miniature company is right to provide minis with only muscular supermen and only slutty super women.

However, as a father of a daughter, I do not want my daughter to be the subject of stupid stereotypes. Additionally, I don't want her to be harassed the way I see women harassed or downtrodden in real life (because it certainly happens).

As a guy having gay and bisexual friends, I wish them to integrate into the society as a whole. Sexual preferences are highly personnal so as long as they are not at the detriment of unwilling persons, nobody should bother about them.

So, at the end of the day, it does not matter if sexism or other bad behaviours happen more in the real world than in our gaming community. Most of us come to the hobby to relax and evade from the real world's often shitty situation. It is up to us to make it a better place for everybody.

All in all, I am very happy with the way Wyrd handles its miniature range. There are all kinds of body types, genders, races. I need to have sexy women to paint but I also like to be reminded that they stay exceptional :p. I think the job is well done overall.

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16 minutes ago, Ookami_Tez said:

I do disagree with that.

Feel free to. I do agree that people are individuals and ideally should be treated as such. I do agree that there are situations when being a man or white (or both) can be a disadvantage. I don't see how that counters my point, though. Prejudice exists, groups are salient social factors, people do not treat people as individuals all the time. The cases were being a man is a disadvantage are rare compared to the cases where it's an advantage. That doesn't mean that any man should be accountable for the actions of other men, and I never said that.

I just think (and have explained above why I do) that it isn't helpful to defend the current situation. It's a situation of inequality. The (mostly passive) oppression of certain groups has to stop, and that means that the behaviour of all people (including but not exclusively white men) has to change. We, white men, are the ones who get preferred treatment in multiple situations, and in those situations it is our task to give others the same treatment and stand with them.

That doesn't mean that this shouldn't be true for all situations white men are at a disadvantage. That shouldn't happen either. Those two arguments don't cancel each other, they are practically the same. But as long as nobody wants to move, nothing will ever change.

24 minutes ago, Pete said:

Are there sexist, racist or homophobic people in gaming? There are in real life so it's safe to assume that some of those end up in the gaming community. Are there more or less of those people in gaming then in society at large and are they more tolerated? That's the question that's worth discussing in my opinion

The even more important one would be: Does it matter if there are more or less? What should be the steps to make it so there are none at all?

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16 minutes ago, Ookami_Tez said:

And the fact is a Homosexual Black Female who was born into a rich family will be much more privileged then me as a Straight White Male born into a well-off family.

Really? I guarantee there are square kilometres of each and every city of the world where walking the streets would utterly disprove your point, in more ways than one. And shops and restaurants and plenty of other places too.

The thing is, you don't see the ways in which you are privileged - because they are never brought into question for you. Because, as someone close to the top of the world's privilege pyramid you don't have to undergo the everyday issues people less privileged than you do.

Are you seriously telling me you are envious of the way women are treated? Gay people? People of colour?

I tell you, as a white straight male, I'd be utterly terrified to swap places with any of them.

Yes, we are all individuals. But the number of places you and I can walk into and be treated as the individuals we are, not as our skin colour, religion, breast size, clothing choice or gender of partner, is exponentially wider than people not straight white males like us.

But since it doesn't happen to you, you don't see it. Unless you go to a gay bar with your gf/wife - and even then, you're likely to be treated a hell of a lot better than an openly gay couple will be in the majority of 'normal' bars.

That's fair enough and not your fault at all. And it's only from talking to a LOT of people from many, many different walks of life over many years have I come to grasp how privileged I am. And that grasp isn't real - I don't actually know what it's like to kiss my partner in public and have most people recoil in disgust. I don't actually know what it's like to have a store detective trail me around a shop because I have dark skin. I don't actually know what it is like to walk down a street and be viscerally, genuinely fearful that someone will attack me and sexually assault me.

I can only guess, and as I said, it terrifies me.

Which is why when it comes to gaming, an area where us white dudes are like a 90% majority and all the tropes are lined up to be as white-dudey as they possibly can be, I'm willing to err on the side of caution for other folks.

As many people here are saying, these issues are not everyday hot-button problems for the gaming community. If nothing else, the rarity of women and other non-white dudes means that numerically speaking these things don't happen amazingly often.

But it's about keeping the light on these issues so that they aren't dismissed, downplayed or marginalised when they do happen.

The whole 'I'm a white male and I feel oppressed' makes me raise not one, but two eyebrows. What I think is actually being said is 'I'm a white male who doesn't harass people and has no experience of being harassed, so all I'm hearing is people accusing white males in general and therefore I feel vaguely targeted'.

That's fair enough - because although these horrible dudes doing horrible things exist, they thankfully are relatively low in number and are very good at doing their horrible things in ways that don't bring attention to them.

That's all this is about - making people like yourself with a (thankfully!) low awareness of harassment just a bit more vigilant. So when you see that guy in your group brush up against a girl and she flinches, you don't just ignore it but pay close attention and see whether or not it was innocent or something else. That when someone who is being harassed tries to express it in a roundabout way, because they are afraid or ashamed, that you pick up on what it is they are trying to say and help them get it out.

 

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7 hours ago, Dirial said:

It's a situation of inequality.

Inequality of outcome or opportunity. I think sex isn't the factor that makes difference in the equality of opportunity, but wealth, family status and such. And Pete actually came with much better and solid points then I did. On the whole STEM, and collage roll in rates and quotas etc.

One thing I can't understand is how you think that ripping huge wholes between different kind of peoples is going to bring equality. How does homosexuality become just a normal if we always keep specifying how different it is to be homosexual. Same with race. How can different races ever be equal if we keep on pointing how damn different they are.

 

6 hours ago, cegorach said:

Are you seriously telling me you are envious of the way women are treated? Gay people? People of colour?

No I am not saying that everything else in my example was meaningless difference between us but one. She was born richer then I was. This is why we have inequality of opportunity. Though here in Finland social security makes it little less but still. What I am "envious" is RICH people. And specifically those who are born rich.

And in no way am I saying that I as a white male am oppressed in the first world. I am saying neither is the homosexual black woman. If someone smacks her ass at a party without consent it isn't evil all powerful patriarchy that made him do it. It was the person himself. If someone calls her a nasty name because she kissed a girl it wasn't xenophobes fearing that she will infect the gay. It was an individual douche. And most likely everyone who heard him thinks he is a douche. If she is questioned by a cop it isn't the great design of KKK that is doing it. It is a racist cop and she should ask him for his name and report it to the precinct so he can be punished. These are individuals doing this and as much as it is horrible. And I am sure all of us are in for ridding this place from such things we should also be realists. These things happen. This is why we lock the doors to our houses when we are away from home. This is why bars have bouncers. Because people tend to to shitty things. And fear mongering isn't gonna help. Reporting offenders to people of authority be it those who hold gaming clubs or stores, or if that doesn't work head to the police.

But yeah this is getting somewhat derailed and I actually have to be leaving for a wargaming hangout so I will leave it at that. I am sure there are others that more or less share my thoughts on this. Interesting discussion anyway. Gonna read up to date later.

Edited by Aaron
Remove an offensive word that may or may not have been okay, given context.
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The way the world is currently going however the white straight guy is going to become (if he hasnt already) the one that will need protection.

At the moment there are quotas in jobs to get people of certain ethnic or sexual back grounds in. There are groups that deal with all things under the sun if you come from a minority background but if you had the same issue as a white straight guy you would get less (if any) help.

 

The world is going far to far in the opposite direction and now there is very much so positive discrimination, and the white striaght guy is the one being discriminated against.

In gaming they are still a majority and I think there is alot less discrimination or oppurtunities for it (other than insults etc) but in the world things are changing.

 

Yes discrimination of any sort is bad, but just because a group has been discriminated against in the past doesnt mean they should have positive discrimination in the future.

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10 minutes ago, katadder said:

The way the world is currently going however the white straight guy is going to become (if he hasnt already) the one that will need protection.

At the moment there are quotas in jobs to get people of certain ethnic or sexual back grounds in. There are groups that deal with all things under the sun if you come from a minority background but if you had the same issue as a white straight guy you would get less (if any) help.

 

The world is going far to far in the opposite direction and now there is very much so positive discrimination, and the white striaght guy is the one being discriminated against.

In gaming they are still a majority and I think there is alot less discrimination or oppurtunities for it (other than insults etc) but in the world things are changing.

 

Yes discrimination of any sort is bad, but just because a group has been discriminated against in the past doesnt mean they should have positive discrimination in the future.

I'm pretty sure any unbiased analysis of wealth, social standing, employment, violence rates, sexual abuse rates and pretty much everything else will show you that it's going to be quite some time before we need safe spaces for white dudes.

On the point of quotas - have you actually thought about what that means? It means that it's a GIVEN that white dudes are hired first and that it requires forcible action to prevent this happening

I get the feeling that people who say 'the white straight man is now the world's biggest victim' don't talk to many people who aren't actually white straight males.

Having said that - you're quite right. Despite all the pearl clutching by certain kinds of folks, it's almost a certainty that within a short space of time (historically speaking) white males will lose their dominant position in the world. Can't build that many walls ;) They will be replaced by another ethnicity (or more than one) although their gender is unlikely to lose dominance for quite some time.

And then white straight males get to have a dose of what they have been serving everyone else in the world for a good few centuries now.

Some people might call it poetic justice, I just call it history and determinism. And I'll feel as sorry for those hypothetical white dudes when it happens as I do for the people they currently lord it over.

Which is why it behooves white dudes to make the effort now to try and change the power dominance structures of society - so that when the pendulum swings, they don't get treated as badly as they treated others when they were top dogs.

Enlightened self interest, the most awesome thing ever :)

 

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The thing is, if you travel over the world, you will see that there are far worse bullies in many countries than the white guys of the 21st century.

Honestly speaking, I hate discriminations one way or another (positive and negative) because it is a way of stating that people are not equal in skills/intellect... Basically when you put a quota on the number of females you have in your parliament (as it is in France), you are implying that women are weaker than men and need help. I don't like this notion.

Women are left our of positions of power because, according to the French statistics, women vote less (or more like their husbands) and men are not used to be ruled by women. Give it another 5-10 years and it will be a lot more different because the people will be used to have women holding positions of power with as much success (or lack thereof) as men.

If the positive discrimination rules had a 5-10 years time limit (the time required for the people's state of mind to change and accept women, black people... any minority), I would be very much more accepting. The fact is that there is no time limit. So you imply that the minority is indeed less intelligent / skillful... and that this is not related to the fact that habits have to change.

But this is getting off topic :p.

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Alright quite a lot going on and I don't want to derail too much. Also I suck at multi quoting so my apologies in advance

About being envious of women. Yes in some part I am. I've been looking for work for over a year in my field and everytime I apply for a job I see that part asking me if im disabled or a minority. This part is there only to discriminate against me. It's even said plainly in the form. This is unacceptable and I wouldn't stand for it, if it was the other way around. Also those quotas don't mean that there's a imbalance and it corrects it. It means that at some point there was a perceived imbalance and the mesure put in place are still there.

 

Should it matter if the sexism in the gaming community is more or less prevalent then in the rest of the world? yes. We're discussing the gaming community. We have an impact on our community. If you want to change the world, go for it, but I don't believe the gaming community is by any way the good place to start this "revolution". We can fight sexism in our ranks but, unless we screen new player, someone racist or sexist can always enter our community. This means that even if you could change everyone's mindset, it would only take a couple of new player who are sexist to destroy your perfect score. This is why we do our best but hoping for a community exempt of sexism is an Utopia in our society. Being realistic is important if you wanna achieve anything,

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33 minutes ago, cegorach said:

I'm pretty sure any unbiased analysis of wealth, social standing, employment, violence rates, sexual abuse rates and pretty much everything else will show you that it's going to be quite some time before we need safe spaces for white dudes.

On the point of quotas - have you actually thought about what that means? It means that it's a GIVEN that white dudes are hired first and that it requires forcible action to prevent this happening

I get the feeling that people who say 'the white straight man is now the world's biggest victim' don't talk to many people who aren't actually white straight males.

Having said that - you're quite right. Despite all the pearl clutching by certain kinds of folks, it's almost a certainty that within a short space of time (historically speaking) white males will lose their dominant position in the world. Can't build that many walls ;) They will be replaced by another ethnicity (or more than one) although their gender is unlikely to lose dominance for quite some time.

And then white straight males get to have a dose of what they have been serving everyone else in the world for a good few centuries now.

Some people might call it poetic justice, I just call it history and determinism. And I'll feel as sorry for those hypothetical white dudes when it happens as I do for the people they currently lord it over.

Which is why it behooves white dudes to make the effort now to try and change the power dominance structures of society - so that when the pendulum swings, they don't get treated as badly as they treated others when they were top dogs.

Enlightened self interest, the most awesome thing ever :)

 

So basically you are saying that striving for dominance is only bad of you are in power? Interesting.

 

Edited by Aaron
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1 hour ago, Math Mathonwy said:

Anyone having trouble understanding what privilege means should read this:

http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/09/what-is-privilege/

It isn't that being white means that you'll have an awesome life. It means that if you had your life and were black, you'd have it worse.

Math nailed it. Section 3 is what he's talking about.

And no, I have zero sympathy for you, Tez, that systems like laws protecting minorities or affirmative action laws give a group that isn't you an advantage that they wouldn't otherwise have. A half-century of legally patching our culture with things that support minorities or women* doesn't count for more than the time before or the ongoing racial profiling and general violence that goes on in this country.

*No, affirmative action isn't perfect or even close to it, it's a mess because it's more efficient and fair to make broad generalizations based on numbers than for government organizations to go case-by-case, but it's better than nothing.. Not to bring this full-circle, but I think you were saying something about statistics being an argument you'd believe?

In terms of "white guys need protection"... Are juries not going to believe you when you say someone hurt you? Are people going to use your identity in place of an insult? Are cops going to assume you're violent so shoot you when you move strangely? Are you going to be lynched for what color skin you have or who you like to sleep with? Do you have groups who claim it's their right to hate you and wave a flag proclaiming it as their heritage? Are you going to have to have states pass laws saying that it should be fine to hate you? With the most recent trend, are you going to have hoards of internet fanatics hound you from afar until your company fires you?

 

 

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9 minutes ago, Pete said:

Should it matter if the sexism in the gaming community is more or less prevalent then in the rest of the world? yes. We're discussing the gaming community. We have an impact on our community.

Could you please elaborate? What does the statistic whether the gaming culture is more or less unequal/sexist/racist/etc. have to do with the distinction whether I want to save the world or the gaming culture? What does it have to do with realism? What does it have to do with the question if even one such incident is one too much?

Especially since you claim that the gaming culture is the one we talk about and have the power to change.... Why does it matter if its better or worse than the rest of the world? Would the result that it's statistically better mean that we don't need to change it?

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12 hours ago, Kadeton said:

For what it's worth, I tried to show depth and intimacy in the relationship between Tara and Karina during their cameo in "The Dead Man's Ball" (in Shifting Loyalties).

Sorry for breaking curfew, Aaron!

I repeat myself; I love y'all and your compassion.

I love you more now that it's being turned outward into the real world of the gaming group. So I'll do the last bit of wasting it on fictions now, then join in.

I missed that one, Kadeton, sorry, but I didn't miss the other. Which goes to prove I can take a hint if and only if it's hammered in with a relic hammer.

Now the discussion of romantic entanglement was off-topic, but it is very useful to know y'all wonderful people can't take a hint even when it's applied with a relic hammer! because now I KNOW unless we speak up louder and more complaining than a relic hammer, y'all won't realize there's a problem.

Now the local 'problem' runs no deeper than a guy, teaching a girl, will talk over her--always helpful, always hints--and not let her think quietly. They back off the moment when asked, so I put 'problem' in punctuation that shows I feel it is not unsolved. But they must BE asked, whereas they do not so overwhelm when they demo to a guy, therefore it must be mentioned at all.

The girl vs. girl matches here run much longer. We banter, and then move pieces. (Yes, I who had to paint up a boy as a girl to identify with her first minis war game army am, and always was, a girl.) Guys banter-and-move, finish, and then start to talk over us and exacerbate the slowness because it turns into answer, then banter, then answer, then move, then point out it was faster play without the 'help', we love y'all but please spectate quietly (saying this is not something we enjoy).

TL;DR: Please think back to your last mixed matches and see if you were talking so much over the female players, and ASK whether it was welcome if so.

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What these discussions have highlighted for me is that there are plenty of people who just don't care about the abuses going on in their community, IRL or online. Which is fine, one is totally within their rights to not care about others, though it could be argued to meet certain pathological definitions. 

But for those who are choosing to care about stopping harassment, there is still a disconnect where many don't perceive a lot of the threatening behaviors going on. I think that is likely to be the more fruitful discussion.

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2 minutes ago, morella said:

What these discussions have highlighted for me is that there are plenty of people who just don't care about the abuses going on in their community, IRL or online. Which is fine, one is totally within their rights to not care about others, though it could be argued to meet certain pathological definitions. 

I'm going to jump in here because this can easily be construed as a fairly inflammatory statement.

I agree that there are plenty of people who don't care about it, but I want to specify that I think anyone currently engaging in the discussion clearly does care. They may care differently or disagree with other people, but they care enough to discuss it, and that's a good thing.

And there are plenty who care without wanting to discuss it, too.

TL;DR: Let's have no one assume this statement is about them in particular.

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