Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

/grabs popcorn

[gojira]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

/wheels up with a fork lift and a pallet of Orville Redenbacher's.

[Tasha]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

So what you are saying is "Sorry, that's the way life is. You shouldn't try to change it no matter how screwed up it is"

 

Sorry, that kind of argument is BS and you know it.

 

I am not Judging you or any other Geek male. Nothing in this thread suggests that I hold geek males as a whole in contempt. If I held that view, I would have never started this thread. If I thought that every geek male was an unrepentant creeper who wasn't worth anything. I would never have bothered trying to start a dialog here.

 

I will repeat myself again. I am not and have never advocated banning all sexy images from media. What I would like to see is more diversity of body styles in Computer Games and in PnP RPG books. You mention that women on tv shows are all pretty. I have to point out that isn't true. The Chief Prosecutor in Bones is a very large women, The Star of Harry's Law is also a large woman. We see large women in many many shows doing very positive things and not just being the villain or other negative things. Also, who said I wanted "Fat Women" in video games. I said I would like women with more realistic proportions. That means that waist line that can be slinder, but not so exaggerated and small that the woman wouldn't be able to stand IRL.

 

It also sounds like you are possibly taking one segment of my Gender and assuming we are all alike. Believe me, I don't do that with geek guys. In a store I assume that they are stand up guys till they prove me wrong (and more than once). Because sometimes guys make mistakes we all do. It's understandable that when a guy would get really comfortable around me and forget that I am a different gender that they might forget and say something that is less than decorous. I can deal with that. Sometimes guys are just guys. I have learned to roll with it. If stuff gets out of hand, I know how to shut that down in a way that usually isn't confrontational.

 

Also, I LOVE how you can just dismiss the real experiences of many women. How you can just say that we can complain about sexism, but you doubt that it really exists as much as we say. I will counter that with the fact that most women DON'T complain about the way we are treated. There's a strong cultural push for women to not complain about such things (as proven by your dismissal of our complaints). What I am saying is that if there are this many of us complaining about the way we are being treated in Geek spaces. Then the Problem is probably WAY LARGER than you can possibly imagine. I know former gamer women who don't game because the guys at the table though that her character was only there for them to take sexual advantage off, and that was when their characters weren't casually sexually assaulting NPCs in game. All without one guy at the table saying a word. Did she complain at the time. Nope. She just told her Boyfriend (later Husband) that she didn't like gaming and she didn't want to attend anymore. I have personally heard similar things from other women who don't game anymore because of creeps.

 

So no I am not judging you. I expect that you are a pretty nice guy IRL. You seem to have some anger issues from the way some women treated you when you were younger though I could be wrong about that (so ok that last is a bit of a judgement).

 

I have said this before. Everything that I have ever been taught by my parents and by life tells me that if I don't complain about injustice nothing ever changes. That's why the early Gay/AIDS activist movements used the slogan Silence = Death. If you keep your mouth shut and don't talk about crappy stuff, then it will never change.

 

Oh, yeah, there are as many Jerk guys who are "perfectly Handsome" they pick up women etc. Just like all of the Pretty Women who have no problem getting guys because of their looks. They can both be jerks. They can also be pretty shallow. I know that most guys aren't like the pretty douchebags you see on TV and at the Clubs. You should also know that most women aren't like the popular girls from College and High School.

 

Oh and Handsome guys can be creepers too. There are plenty of guys that are handsome and are just as creepy as you say that Stinky Mortie is.

 

I said this before too. Looking is ok. Leering is not ok. People (Men and Women) dress up in nice clothes to project confidence and to look good. Being seen is part of why one dresses up nicely (not just because someone tells us we have to).

 

That Link that Cygnia posted in her last post has some really good info. I think he gets it. He may not be 100% correct, but that's just because women are different. We ARE individuals, not just one "hive mind" of gender.

[Tasha]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

/grabs popcorn

 

/wheels up with a fork lift and a pallet of Orville Redenbacher's.

 

ROFL guys VERY funny. It takes a lot more than that to get a real rise out of me.

[Guest Celt]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

ROFL guys VERY funny. It takes a lot more than that to get a real rise out of me.

 

Yeah, but this is just the overture.

[Greywind]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

Oh, not the rise. Just the debate.

[gojira]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

It's been ages since I've seen anyone use ROFL in a non-ironic sense. I think we're all showing our age here.

[Tasha]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

I like looking at pretty girls. In reality. In photos. In artwork. In games. Beauty attracts the eye.

 

I don't know about you but I like looking at Pretty Women. In reality. In photos. In artwork. In games. It's why I am partnered with a woman.

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

ROFL guys VERY funny. It takes a lot more than that to get a real rise out of me.

 

Well, I didn't expect it to get a big rise out of you, I just didn't feel like commenting directly, since you were addressed in the post. I figured you'd hit any points I would have in replying, and do it better anyway. I was torn between /popcorn and a rolleyes emoticon.

[Greywind]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

I don't know about you but I like looking at Pretty Women. In reality. In photos. In artwork. In games. It's why I am partnered with a woman.

...anything over the legal limit. While the legal limit is based on age, maturity is what separates girls from women. From that I'll go with "I like looking at females I find attractive" and call it good.

[Tasha]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

...anything over the legal limit. While the legal limit is based on age' date=' maturity is what separates girls from women. From that I'll go with "I like looking at females I find attractive" and call it good.[/quote']

 

Ok that's something I can agree with

[Ranxerox]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

Early socialization is a big part of it, as well as changing the basic way we generally educate.

Humans are clannish (fractally so), social pack animals with a dominance hierarchy.

We can't alter that basic fact, but with what we know we can subvert the programs to more socially functional ends.

A lot of the core paradigms in our school systems are still firmly rooted in producing Industrial Age citizens

The ones I've looked at that are working along more modern theory, such as some of the private schools (Waldorf comes to mind) and many of the Scandinavian countries seem to be doing a much better job at producing more broadly socialized children. Promoting subcultures rather than suppressing them would be a good start. Sub-cultures form so like minded people can find each other, and new orders can form. It's a (generally) healthy expression of tribalism as surely as the fans of your local sports franchise are.

Step down hard on bullying, and generally make a point of focusing on individualism, reasoning, personal responsibility, and respect, without regard to how a person is put together or wired, and we might be on the right path.

 

You lived it and IIRC are in a relationship. Tell me how you would change things.

 

I don't know if Omega status will ever be completly removed, but perhaps culturally we will move toward that being not as nasty a thing. I was hoping that some of the stuff I talked about with giving boys and girls more time together when they are fairly young could pay off for both Genders as they get older.

 

I have to admit, I fix computers. I am VERY good at that. Fixing social problems, I am not an expert. I can only put forward ideas and hope that someone will run with them or present their own solutions. We can't fix everything here, but perhaps we can come up with solutions that work.

 

Yes, I lived it and I did basically what I said in my earlier post. I studied hard, got good grades, got a college degree, a good job and a wife. And, oh yes, at some point I ditched my omega status. Of course this took quite a while and it doesn't seem to happen for everybody.

 

My quest to rid myself of my omega status was helped by the fact that I was never an omega in my home growing up. In (relatively) non-dysfunctional homes there are no omegas. In a functional home there are only alphas, betas and alphas and beta in training. IMO, that is how society should be; no omegas, just alphas, betas and alpha and beta in training.

 

As for the how to get there, I thought AmadanNaBriona had some good suggestions in the post which I quoted above.

 

Yes, this is slow stuff which would probably need at least decade to really pay off in a more emotionally healthy geek community. However, this approach of early socialization and the approach of confronting creepy behavior in the here and now are not mutually exclusive. Both can be done with each yielding different but complimentary goods.

[Ranxerox]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

You have the Omega Male (though honestly I think that term should represent someone much cooler, I'm imagining Darkseid with the glowing eyes) who is desperate to lose his omega status.

 

You aren't alone in thinking that Omega Male is too cool a term for the wolf that all the other wolves pick on. The people at Urban Dictionary agree. However, I was interested in the animal behaviorist definition not the sorority girl definition.

[input.jack]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

My first point in all of my responses in this thread has been relatively straightforward. We've got environments that have traditionally been inhabited solely by males. Not just any males, but frequently males who are poorly adjusted socially. Not only are they rude to women, they are frequently rude to each other. They may be rude in a different manner to women, but they are no less rude to men. We are talking about a group of people who, as I understand it, "teabag" defeated opponents by repeatedly crouching over their face, representing placing their balls upon the opponent's mouth. You have the Omega Male (though honestly I think that term should represent someone much cooler, I'm imagining Darkseid with the glowing eyes) who is desperate to lose his omega status. They look for weakness. If something bothers you, they will do it more. They smell blood in the water and react accordingly.

 

If you are easily offended, you deserve what you get by going into a place like this, be it game store or online roleplaying. You don't go into a Steelers bar and wear a Philadelphia Eagles jersey and expect no one to react. I am not saying that women shouldn't go into these environments. You can go wherever you want, I don't care. But I don't go to the Angry Divorced Women's Book Club and expect to be welcomed with open arms. The Young Democrat doesn't go to the Mitt Romney watch party and expect everybody to be nice. There is a certain percentage of the nerd crowd who have real problems with women. This is where they go. You couldn't find them more easily if you were Batman and found their shoeprints at the scene of a crime.

 

I dont know of a single game shop where someone who acts like a troll / B-Net Baby in real life would be tolerated for more than a few days. And Ive been to game shops on both coasts of the US, on both hemispheres of the planet, and worked in several different game shops in both the Southwest USA, and in California. A game shop is NOT the same as a private book club, or a political rally. If youve found a game shop that permits or (God forbid) encourages this kind of asshettery among its patrons, I pity the gamers in that area, and stronly recommend you try to find a better game shop!

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

You aren't alone in thinking that Omega Male is too cool a term for the wolf that all the other wolves pick on. The people at Urban Dictionary agree. However' date=' I was interested in the animal behaviorist definition not the sorority girl definition.[/quote']

 

LOL, totally. I'm big into behavioral psyche, so yeah, it's the right term.

And... I don't think I said that...

[Zeropoint]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

I am . . . OMEGA MALE! The last word in masculinity!

[Ranxerox]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

LOL, totally. I'm big into behavioral psyche, so yeah, it's the right term.

And... I don't think I said that...

 

Opps, sorry. Somehow I goofed the quote.

[massey]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

I dont know of a single game shop where someone who acts like a troll / B-Net Baby in real life would be tolerated for more than a few days. And Ive been to game shops on both coasts of the US' date=' on both hemispheres of the planet, and worked in several different game shops in both the Southwest USA, and in California. A game shop is NOT the same as a private book club, or a political rally. If youve found a game shop that permits or (God forbid) encourages this kind of asshettery among its patrons, I pity the gamers in that area, and stronly recommend you try to find a better game shop![/quote']

 

Every game store I've been to has that sort of element. Some more than others. I think I used the earlier example of the guys who were playing D&D during store hours and started screaming about raping virgins and things like that. Certainly not cool, but they weren't doing it to be offensive to anyone (they did that purely by accident). They were doing it because they just don't know how to behave. In my experience, game stores can frequently bring out the worst behavior in certain people.

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

Every game store I've been to has that sort of element. Some more than others. I think I used the earlier example of the guys who were playing D&D during store hours and started screaming about raping virgins and things like that. Certainly not cool' date=' but they weren't doing it to be offensive to anyone (they did that purely by accident). They were doing it because they just don't know how to behave. In my experience, game stores can frequently bring out the worst behavior in certain people.[/quote']

 

I've never seen it personally in a game store. Saw the HS jock equivalent in a McDonald's once, told them to stow it, and they did. I have a low tolerance for that level of rudeness in a public place.

[massey]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

So what you are saying is "Sorry, that's the way life is. You shouldn't try to change it no matter how screwed up it is"

 

Sorry, that kind of argument is BS and you know it. (snip)

 

I don't think I'm saying what you think I'm saying.

 

Sexism exists. It especially exists in places where people dislike the other gender. As I said, if I go to the Angry Divorced Women's Book Club, I don't expect I'll be greeted with open arms. What you have, in many geek circles, is the Angry Rejected Men's Game Club. So I say it should come as no surprise to you that you aren't getting nice treatment there. I'm not saying the sexism doesn't exist, it's very real. It's also from a minority of gamers. But they are a vocal minority.

 

I do have a problem with some of the articles posted, however. In those articles we have women who are upset over what I believe to be either 1) incredibly easily foreseeable consequences of her own actions, or 2) perfectly logical reactions of men. The first example we see is a woman who posts a Kickstarter request, asking for money to study how video games discriminate against women. Now perhaps I'm just an old guy who is out of touch with the young kids these days, but most of the things I've seen on Kickstarter are kind of nerd-related. So she goes to nerd-land and requests money for something guaranteed to piss off nerds. This generates the expected response. She decries it as sexism. And it IS sexism. But her initial request is ABOUT sexism. So what you have are responses, offensive and tasteless though they may be, that directly correlate to her chosen topic of conversation. If you walked into a Republican convention and started a conversation about how white men have discriminated against lesbians for decades, would you expect positive responses? If I walked into a Democratic convention and talked about how social programs are killing our economy, I would not expect to make friends. She basically went in and used her superpower Detect A$$h*le: 15- and it worked.

 

The second example I want to focus on (there were others but that's been several days ago and I forgot some of them) involved a woman at a comic convention. She attended several and had a great time. She was talking to someone who she considered some sort of friend, and after a long conversation, he asked her which guy she was with. She becomes offended that he would say such a thing. He says "oh well you were always with guys before" and she points down the long row of tables to show him that she was always with guys before because there are no women on this side of the building. See isn't she vindicated? No. She's not vindicated because she just pointed out that she is the only woman in the entire place. Presumably previous conventions were equally sausage fests. It is reasonable for Unnamed Guy to assume she was there with a guy friend because apart from her, women apparently don't go there. It's like being the one black dude at a Merle Haggard concert. People are going to assume you came with someone or wandered in and got lost. The problem with this story is that in her specific example she points out how she is literally the only woman in sight. She is then offended that this person would not automatically know her to be the one shining exception.

 

That is what I mean by women over-reacting. We don't see people with realistic proportions in most video games. Now I am going to be hampered in this part of the discussion because I don't play any video games that don't come on an iPhone or involve someone carrying a football.

 

I don't judge all women for the actions of some. I even say that in the last paragraph or so of my long post. As far as me? I don't have a problem with women. I do think there are a number of women eager to blame things on sexism when it suits them. Just like there are black people who say they got fired because of racism, when really it's because they showed up late for two weeks straight. Just like there are white people who say they didn't get a job because of affirmative action, when really it's because the black dude was way more qualified. And I feel many of the examples given in this discussion were these types of situations. There's real sexism out there, but these examples aren't them.

 

Again, you will get sexism in the geek community because there are a lot of old wounds that have never healed. There are a lot of 30-50 year old men who have never married and never got a girlfriend. You are not gonna fix that, and if you choose to hang out with them, well, you better pull some Blazing Saddles stuff to earn acceptance. To quote Gene Wilder: "What did you expect? 'Welcome sonny?' 'Make yourself at home?' 'Marry my daughter?'" If you find a group of people who react to you poorly, get a different group. They aren't worth being upset over.

 

My own personal issues? I've been on the receiving end of bad treatment from women. And good treatment from women. Good is definitely better. It's not good to be the 15 year old kid who hasn't gone through puberty yet and is still 5' tall and weighs like 85 lbs. Especially when you're the one of the youngest kids in your class (I was never Stinky Mortimer, I was the kid Stinky Mortimer could push around -- and our Stinky Mortimer was actually a girl). It's a situation many guys here can probably relate to. But then something really cool happened. I got hot. I don't mean that to brag, but I grew up real good. 2-3 years of not getting the girl is countered quite easily by some cute 19 year olds. It's really nice to have girls hit on you at the bar. Whatever anger issues I had are long gone. I have seen things from both perspectives, and trust me, women are frequently just as shallow and superficial as men. I was once working a summer job in grad school and got sexually harassed by a bunch of ugly middle aged women. Gross! One girl who was dating my best friend made him call me up, had him hand her the phone, and he was still in the room with her when she asked me out on a date. I deal with women whose eyes bug out and their tongues drop on the ground when they hear what I do for a living. I can actually see the dollar signs appear in their eyes. So yes, sometimes hearing women talk about how men mistreat them and only care about their boobs feels like listening to an African warlord who just slaughtered a village talk about how horrible slavery was.

[massey]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

I've never seen it personally in a game store. Saw the HS jock equivalent in a McDonald's once' date=' told them to stow it, and they did. I have a low tolerance for that level of rudeness in a public place.[/quote']

 

See and that's exactly what I mean. When you get a group of people together, they get a bit of a pack mentality that forms. It's "us" against "them". It can be jocks, nerds, snotty high school girls. Anything. What you get at a game store, from my experience, is a group of nerds who go on high alert when a woman walks in. They'll either stare or flee.

 

I'm not approving of this behavior. If I ran a store and I saw guys treating a potential customer like that I'd flip my lid. The purpose of the store, after all, is to make money. But I do understand the behavior.

[death tribble]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

Tasha,

 

before you post was deleted in the Champions forum (inn my thread) you alluded to women in sci-fi/comics/TV that are beloved by men being designed or created by men. Who had you in mind in particular ?

[Tasha]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

Tasha,

 

before you post was deleted in the Champions forum (inn my thread) you alluded to women in sci-fi/comics/TV that are beloved by men being designed or created by men. Who had you in mind in particular ?

 

No what I meant is that there are characters in Sci-fi/Comics/TV that are loved by everyone who were designed originally as Male Characters. Only later in production where they changed into kick ass women characters.

 

Ellen Ripley from the Alien series of movies. That character was originally supposed to be played by a guy. The dialog etc was written for a guy. They gave the part to Sigourney Weaver and history was made.

 

Of Course the one everyone knows was Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica. Originally Played by Dirk Benedict, was going to again be played by Dirk Benedict in the what was going to be a Sequel Version. When the Production team changed, it was eventually decided to give the role of Starbuck to Katie Sackoff. Many Fans (myself included) were unsure that such an Alpha Male role could be done well by any woman. Katie really surprised me in the first episode being just as kick ass, devil may care as Dirk's Starbuck and I think she took the role to new Heights.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/meet-the-new-action-heroines-1980491.html

Has a list of TV and Movie roles that were originally wrote for a guy and then rewritten for a woman.

 

I saw a very interesting article on this. That when creating interesting character that one should create a character first without worrying about gender. I am personally trying to do something similar for a demo game that I am working for the Champions Complete Launch. I plan on writing up 7-9 characters, but write them without gender. Which should allow anyone playing them to assign what gender they wish to the character.

 

I just keep thinking that the best female characters are ones that are competent, powerful etc. Who are written with few stereotypes burdening them. Though I do love the touches that women authors add to their characters. ie I love when Laurel K Hamilton's Anita Blake has to deal with wearing heals, hose, skirts and silk blouses to crime scenes and zombie raisings as that is what is acceptable attire for a business women. I love when she has problems with shredded hose and broken heels when she does anything more than just walking normally. I also love that when she knows trouble is coming she will wear Sensible shoes and clothing. Totally Kick Ass character dealing with what a lot of women deal with every day (shredded hose, and broken heels etc, not the gunshots, zombies etc).

[Tasha]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

a Great Article from Greg Rucka about how he writes Women Characters.

http://io9.com/5912366/why-i-write-strong-female-characters

[input.jack]

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

 

Go Joss!