AEON
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
I've been following this website for a while and I hope to god it's just a bunch of trolls who run it,
After reading that article and looking at a few links - I would say "trolls" is a safe bet.
I've been following this website for a while and I hope to god it's just a bunch of trolls who run it,
Just on the fake geek girl alone, it's painfully apparent guys often see women as invaders to what they consider their male only culture.
Don't you feel you learn something when you're thinking is challenged? Or - if you're thinking isn't challenged, at least to hear a different point of view?
I do like reddit for some topics (baseball, futurology, technology...), but I prefer Interference for social and political discussions. One the main reasons I like it here is because of the occasional debate.
I think Anitram did an excellent job in her discussion on abortion. I learned something there. And I'm learning from you. As I'm learning from Pearl and Galeongirl. I don't have to agree with you to learn from you.
I'm sure if you asked the women in my life if I were a bit chauvinistic - they would probably say "yes," at least a little. However - it's not a one or a zero. Meaning, I don't mistreat women and sincerely believe in equal treatment before the law. But I'm "old-fashioned" in that I still open the doors for women and I still stand up when a woman enters the room - lessons taught to me by grandmother.
We all have tendencies to categorize and define things in the most efficient way possible. We've evolved with that ability. The key to wisdom, of course, is to identify which thoughts are merely striving for efficiency vs. when they are actually pursuing/attaining truth.
Yes, it fails to register because I think it misrepresents male thinking (with a few exceptions).That very cartoon that you are so upset about lays out what feminism really is, and yet you failed to register that.
This phrase gets repeated often - what do you mean by threatened? There is nothing I can think of that a feminist through feminism could take from me.I do think you are threatened by anything related to feminism.
I only claimed the cartoon was propaganda - which it is.Turning each discussion, however small, into a male-oriented discussion and denouncing any dismay we women have toward sexism as propaganda just shows this.
Wikipedia - Propaganda is a form of communication aimed towards influencing the attitude of the community toward some cause or position by presenting only one side of an argument.
Yes, it fails to register because I think it misrepresents male thinking (with a few exceptions).
This phrase gets repeated often - what do you mean by threatened? There is nothing I can think of that a feminist through feminism could take from me.
I only claimed the cartoon was propaganda - which it is.
Any such attitude is weak minded. I won't argue that.
I did play WoW for many years (my wife played too). Yes, I came across some rudeness - but that was mostly directed toward "noobs" than anything else.
An arrogant jerk will say anything they think will be hurtful. Everyone annoys them for one reason or another.
However, (SUBJECTIVE EXAMPLE WARNING) I've know several of my IT co-workers that married female gamers. Some of them actually met playing games online. I don't perceive a general disgust toward female gamers - in fact, it was something the males would brag about. In the same way that some men would say how awesome it is that their wife was "into sports."
Aside from the fact that I wish it was, there isn't much on the return of kings site to indicate that it's satire. The fact that all the commenters take it quite seriously makes me think that it's not.
Yes, it fails to register because I think it misrepresents male thinking (with a few exceptions).
It's question of when does trolling cross the line. Say racist/communist comments in an article about Obama, yeah trolling. Creating a website and continually maintaining and updating it, is a bit more sinister.
It's question of when does trolling cross the line. Say racist/communist comments in an article about Obama, yeah trolling. Creating a website and continually maintaining and updating it, is a bit more sinister.
Your interest in continually recentering the discussion around men insures that you will not gain any real insight into the experience of women as affected by patriarchy, or ever have a part in correcting the imbalances that exist around you.
What will it take to feel equal? Even if you are already equal before the law? Is it ever possible to feel equal? For example - should we do away with men and women only sports (only one gender - equal tryouts)? Would that help or hurt?
Of course it is different. I just want to see more evidence it is an overall trend vs a few guys here and there.Do you not wonder why though your experience as a bloke is different to the women's here? (for that matter us other blokes as well).
No - they are both valid (and equally invalid because of their subjective nature)Is their experience invalid because it doesn't match yours? Does your experience of this matter more than there's?
Because if this is a societal issue - we need to look at it with a much bigger lens. We need to look at actual data. And perhaps we may find out there are some general differences between the sexes and these differences cause us to be interested in different things. It's not right or wrong - just simple biology.I'm not saying that is how your thinking, but I would ask you why you come across as so strongly against women's opinions on their own experiences...
Is it not more likely they are sharing a common experience of how they are regularly treated?
Anyway a couple of good articles from a games website I follow, it's relatively big over here in the UK. RockPaperShotgun often tackles the social issues in gaming as well as just gaming itself.
First one is on the #1reasonwhy campaign on why there weren't more women in the game industry. How female devs are treated, how journalists are treated etc.
#1ReasonWhy We Are All Responsible | Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Another one on general sexism in gaming.
Misogyny, Sexism and why RPS isn't Shutting Up
Lastly the recent experience of a female dev trying to release a game based around depression and the comments she faced on that ranging from women don't know what depression is, they can't relate, how can she complain she would never be with someone who had real depression etc.
Female Game Developers Can't Even Submit A Game To Greenlight Without Receiving Harassment - Indie Statik
Interesting reads anyway, small disclaimer I am part of a RockPaperShotgun guilld in Guild Wars 2
Are you seriously saying that if men and women are equal in the eyes of the law, then it doesn't matter what happens socially? In that regard, racism that is enforced by social attitudes doesn't matter because all races are legally equal.
Because if this is a societal issue - we need to look at it with a much bigger lens. We need to look at actual data. And perhaps we may find out there are some general differences between the sexes and these differences cause us to be interested in different things. It's not right or wrong - just simple biology.
I'm allowed to just be myself without receiving nasty criticism for how closely that aligns with some view about my gender. Women, I think, very often don't get that luxury.
Do you think if walked into an office wearing lipstick and heels you might receive some "nasty criticism"? From both genders?
It's a challenge for both genders to be both a career go-getter and awesome parent. But I would agree that women have it a bit harsher because of the criticism of other women.But if I'm a workaholic? Then I'm super productive, and nobody questions (or at least fewer people question) me about how I handle having a family at the same time.
No - they assume you're unemployed and can't find a job.If I'm a stay-at-home-dad, then people think it's wonderful that I'm sacrificing a career to let my wife do that.
This goes back to my earlier point - that I hear the career centered women in my life complaining about the unfair criticism/judgement of the stay at home "Super Moms"If I'm a woman choosing either, I am going to be criticized by a fair number of loud people from one perspective or another, even if the same people won't criticize me for both. There is a double standard here.
Do you think that women can't stray at all from these stereotypes? Aren't these changing on a regular basis? Do you think each gender has their self assigned "guardians" that love to point out the strays? It seems that both men and women should expect some reaction when they step outside of the norm - and the further they step out, the harsher the response will be.Also, I'm not exactly the most super-masculine guy; there are many, many male stereotypes that I don't fit, and I'm generally able to live free of criticism from both genders for it.
Yeah they shouldn't say mean things, yet kids still do. Bullying still happens everywhere, and victims are both male and female. Though I have to admit that bullying is rather different with the genders. The males were rude and mean to me, yet the girls are less physical, they're more excluding you from events, it's the more bitchy thing to do.
I can empathize with men that don't bully me, yes. In fact, I used to have more male friends than female until recently. Due to my nature I am usually considered one of the guys.
Yeah, true. I used to play Pokemon online(yeah yeah, I know) on servers, and as soon as guys found out I was female you'd have half of them trying to cyber you, and the other half claimgin you're lying and just doing it for the attention(calling you an attentionwhore if you will). It was quite baffling.
Luckily it does not occur with all games, as I am an avid gamer. Don't play COD or WOW though. It's not all women that get badly treated there, the insults flying around to less skilled players are horrible.
There's even a saying that "women on the internet don't exist".
Guess the gamer guys feel threatened that it's not just guys gaming anymore. I really do not understand why else you'd treat others like that. Then again I don't understand the unnecessary insult and rudeness towards other players in general either.
What will it take to feel equal? Even if you are already equal before the law? Is it ever possible to feel equal? For example - should we do away with men and women only sports (only one gender - equal tryouts)? Would that help or hurt?
I played wow for a few years and moved to Star Wars the old republic when it came out two years ago. Now, in my experience, there are plenty of female players. Probably plenty of players I've run into have been female that I haven't been aware of. Yet, as a female player, I'm just as guilty as anyone in assuming a few key things:
1) all characters are male until proven otherwise
2) most female players are mediocre healers, poor dps, and never EVER roll tanks
3) I don't necessarily subscribe to the opinion that all female players only play to pick up guys--that's ridiculous--but an inordinate number of the ones I have met roll healers to keep their boyfriends/husbands alive...see #2
4) they're too busy collecting pets and doing pointless achievements to learn to play their classes and that's why they suck
It's a pretty good example of people within their own category or group of people making biased assessments. Given the fact that I've always played tank classes (I'm main tank with my guild, and tank on two other characters in pugs all the time, and MY healer is actually a guy), never liked pet collecting or any sort of cosmetic in game type stuff (yet known plenty of guys who've done that stuff as well), you'd think I'd be more inclined to dispute some of these generalizations than perpetuate them. But instead, when I do run into a good player who happens to be female, my first thought is "hey, it's a girl, and she's actually good! You never see that!" I know they exist, it's just that I run into so many others that fit the stereotypes I listed that I come off as being just as obnoxious as the 12 year olds spamming general chat "boobs or we don't believe you." And whenever it's just assumed that I'm a guy (I play a tank, I don't suck, all my toons are males, I don't sound very girly in any of the voice chat programs, and I swear too much), it's just easier to run with it. Probably because I don't want to get lumped into the category of awful female players who use the wrong stats on their gear cos the gear looks prettier (which sadly, I've run into).
I feel like maybe you haven't been listening to what I've said. Patriarchy is a system that posits a gender binary with the male as the norm, the base model, and women and the female as other, a secondary variation. Equality under the law is only a tiny fraction of what it takes to redress the constant, pervasive othering. It's clear from your posts that you've done very little empathetic imagining of what it must be like to be othered, especially if you can't even see that women are more harshly punished for gender transgression than men are. It's so basic to anyone who has experienced it, and a little observation and questioning should go a long way towards figuring it out.
What would real equality look like? An absence of gender specific sex shaming might be a good start, a world where no madonna/whore dichotomy exists, where women are not judged on their sexual history differently from men and women never face questioning about how they should have prevented their own rape might be a good start. If women's bodies were presumed to be normal, healthy and good instead of problematic, ugly and out of control would be another. If women were not trained from infancy to focus on physical beauty and to pursue it to the exclusion of other important human concerns and yet still always feel that they are failing to be pretty enough, that would be great. If the world of work did not presume that women are worse workers than men and withold flex time and promotions based on that assumption, that would be good. If historically female work like teaching and caring for the elderly were not low status and low pay, that would be good too. If we did not financially penalize women for caring for children, that would be nice. If we could remove the stigma that assigns unpaid domestic work predominantly to women, even better.
Are you getting what I'm driving at here? The inequalities that women face are social, sexual, financial, and emotional--they are persistent and pervasive. Oftentimes they can pass as a constellation of individual choices, ie "women just choose to work in traditionally female professions because they like it" but really the causes of these phenomena are complex and interrelated. The patterns are repeated too often to simply be individual choice. Real equality is not just about equal access under the law, though that would be a good start. Real equality would be far involved and far reaching. It would affect everything.
Thank you for the response. I will have to spend some time with this. I'm a little confused by the "othered" statements (it seems obvious there are differences between men and women - but that doesn't mean that gender is #1 and the other is #2). I hope the goal is not to erase gender lines, because on a selfish level - I like being a man and don't want to give that up.
But I will read over this a few more times and post back.
I played wow for a few years and moved to Star Wars the old republic when it came out two years ago. Now, in my experience, there are plenty of female players. Probably plenty of players I've run into have been female that I haven't been aware of. Yet, as a female player, I'm just as guilty as anyone in assuming a few key things:
1) all characters are male until proven otherwise
2) most female players are mediocre healers, poor dps, and never EVER roll tanks
3) I don't necessarily subscribe to the opinion that all female players only play to pick up guys--that's ridiculous--but an inordinate number of the ones I have met roll healers to keep their boyfriends/husbands alive...see #2
4) they're too busy collecting pets and doing pointless achievements to learn to play their classes and that's why they suck
It's a pretty good example of people within their own category or group of people making biased assessments. Given the fact that I've always played tank classes (I'm main tank with my guild, and tank on two other characters in pugs all the time, and MY healer is actually a guy), never liked pet collecting or any sort of cosmetic in game type stuff (yet known plenty of guys who've done that stuff as well), you'd think I'd be more inclined to dispute some of these generalizations than perpetuate them. But instead, when I do run into a good player who happens to be female, my first thought is "hey, it's a girl, and she's actually good! You never see that!" I know they exist, it's just that I run into so many others that fit the stereotypes I listed that I come off as being just as obnoxious as the 12 year olds spamming general chat "boobs or we don't believe you." And whenever it's just assumed that I'm a guy (I play a tank, I don't suck, all my toons are males, I don't sound very girly in any of the voice chat programs, and I swear too much), it's just easier to run with it. Probably because I don't want to get lumped into the category of awful female players who use the wrong stats on their gear cos the gear looks prettier (which sadly, I've run into).
I think there are many things we can address beyond the law - and for the most part, it seems to me you "might" be asking for something impossible in the same way Anitram pointed out that it might be impossible for us to agree on the beginning of life. There will always be the obvious physical differences between men and women - while they often get downplayed, they are very real and obvious. And they are most real and obvious to children. The boys are simply bigger, stronger, faster - and this will translate into some forms of discrimination, especially when it comes to "playing". But there is no cause for outright bullying, and I think we as a society are doing much better at stopping it.I feel like maybe you haven't been listening to what I've said. Patriarchy is a system that posits a gender binary with the male as the norm, the base model, and women and the female as other, a secondary variation. Equality under the law is only a tiny fraction of what it takes to redress the constant, pervasive othering.
We've all been "othered" at some point in our life. Now - I can probably assume you're going to say, "but not as a woman." Of which I respond - of course not. All I can say is that I try my best to treat everyone equally in my life. Everyone deserves respect and kindness. When I'm hiring a position - I take the most qualified candidate. Some are men - some are women - some are what the world might consider "unattractive"...It's clear from your posts that you've done very little empathetic imagining of what it must be like to be othered, especially if you can't even see that women are more harshly punished for gender transgression than men are. It's so basic to anyone who has experienced it, and a little observation and questioning should go a long way towards figuring it out.
Aren't both sexes turned off by a promiscuous partner?What would real equality look like? An absence of gender specific sex shaming might be a good start, a world where no madonna/whore dichotomy exists, where women are not judged on their sexual history differently from men and women never face questioning about how they should have prevented their own rape might be a good start.
Are you asserting men think this? If you're referring to menstrual cycle - yes, that's about the only thing I hear men complain about the biology of women.If women's bodies were presumed to be normal, healthy and good instead of problematic, ugly and out of control would be another.
I agree, that's a tough one. I've always told that to my stepdaughter. That she was pretty enough and never needed makeup or excessive clothing to be attractive. But peer pressure for her is tough. She's still fairly confident and can doesn't obsess over her appearance, but her peers (mostly other females) are brutal at times.If women were not trained from infancy to focus on physical beauty and to pursue it to the exclusion of other important human concerns and yet still always feel that they are failing to be pretty enough, that would be great.
That is certainly changing. Especially for newer companies.If the world of work did not presume that women are worse workers than men and withold flex time and promotions based on that assumption, that would be good.
I 100% agree with you here.If historically female work like teaching and caring for the elderly were not low status and low pay, that would be good too. If we did not financially penalize women for caring for children, that would be nice. If we could remove the stigma that assigns unpaid domestic work predominantly to women, even better.
I do hear what you're saying - and if I saw everything in the world stacked up against me, I guess I would also be upset. It all starts with treating people with respect and kindness. If one does that - then so many other things fall into place.Are you getting what I'm driving at here? The inequalities that women face are social, sexual, financial, and emotional--they are persistent and pervasive. Oftentimes they can pass as a constellation of individual choices, ie "women just choose to work in traditionally female professions because they like it" but really the causes of these phenomena are complex and interrelated. The patterns are repeated too often to simply be individual choice. Real equality is not just about equal access under the law, though that would be a good start. Real equality would be far involved and far reaching. It would affect everything.