Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

[Cygnia]

It's my brother-in-laws...

[Sociotard]

Amusing: I was looking for a statistic I'd seen too long ago to remember the actual source.  Look what happened when I typed the following question into Google:

 

Anyway, the point I was going for, was I do kind of empathize with the "earing money" portion of his argument.  A lot of the wage gap and glass ceiling gap does seem related to things besides actively hating women.  Like the hours issue he pointed out, or the way Wal-Mart was targeted for wanting new managers to relocate , or the way women are more likely to have taken a few years out of the workforce.  These are areas where policies, even ones with completely rational, hate-free purposes behind them, can affect women differently than men.  Its what makes Feminism hard to put in practice. (but we should work on it anyway)

 

The bonus prize is that if we do work on those hard places, we might help some dudes too.  I was taken by an article about the Ban Bossy campaign, which points out that people are more likely to tell assertive girls they are bossy than boys, who are being good, take charge leaders. They made a lot of good points, but what really stood out to me was the way it reminded me of Cracked's article on 6 Ways Life Is Different If You're Short and Male. It actually seemed similar, in that it pointed out that an assertive short man has "a Napoleon Complex" or "small dogs disease". Okay, this is unlike the above paragraph in that it's more "subconscious sexism" rather than "accidental sexism".

 

Anyway.  Feminism is hard.

[薔薇語]

As to the pay gap I know that there many studies that claim to have determined actual gaps and all of them seem to be conflict with each other. But the general labor statistics that just calculate total median pay for men and women for all full time workers is what generates the 81% value. That value would obviously be the maximum general gap as it takes raw numbers without any consideration to hours, type, years in work force, or any other considerations. Given that, I think it would be reasonable to assume that the wage gap is going to be a good deal less than 19% when comparing apples to apples. 

But in general I am always weary of quoted statistics. One person may generate some excellent data that is useful. But by the time it has reach mass awareness it has undergone the telephone game treatment and is no longer anything like the original data. As they say, there are lies, damned lies, and then statistics. 

La Rose. 

[Cygnia]

 

Trolls and hiring practices: Women on fixing the games industry

 

[Cygnia]

http://www.funomena.com/2014/04/on-women-in-gaming/

[Enforcer84]

We should start asking men what it's like being a male in the video game industry. Ok maybe not.

[Cygnia]

http://gimpnelly.tumblr.com/post/82704464182/lets-talk-about-how-some-men-talk-to-women-in-comics

[Enforcer84]

There are a lot of "men" who fear that wimmins will take their boobies away. (No not their man boobies, I think they'd be cool with that)

 

But to me that's always been the crux of the anti-girl argument. 

 

I say this as someone who likes boobies. It's still pathetic. 

[Cygnia]

http://casualraiding.blogspot.com/2014/04/on-being-gender-blind.html

[Greywind]

http://comicsalliance.com/sexual-harassment-online-rape-threats-comics-superheroes-lessons-men-geek-culture/?fb_action_ids=10203798145532860&fb_action_types=og.comments

[Cygnia]

http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2014/04/ending-sexual-harassment-geek-culture/

[Cygnia]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/04/18/what-are-misogynist-geeks-so-afraid-of/

[Cygnia]

http://gaygamer.net/2014/04/amy-schumer-presents-a-very-realistic-military-game/

[Cygnia]

http://www.polygon.com/2014/4/23/5640678/playing-with-privilege-the-invisible-benefits-of-gaming-while-male

[Vondy]

Has this thread just become a link-drop without commentary?

[Sociotard]

I've certainly commented. But yes, largely a link drop. 

[薔薇語]

Vondy:

Yes, it does seem to be largely about dropping links. 

While I read some of the links dropped, a large number of them seem to be re-hashes of extremely similar accounts. As such, I haven't felt the need to comment. 

 

Likewise, being a white male I feel like my opinions on such topics are usually unwanted, so it is best for me to bow out. But maybe that is just me. 

 

---

 

As to the most recent link about male gamer privilege:

 

I think one of my biggest concerns with such enumerations of "male privilege" is that such "analysis" tends to be trying to push a view without examining it in context and ignoring any parallels. 

 

Without trying to combat the whole list of 25 items, let me pick off a few:

 

Number one talks about how males can ignore female problems - It ignores the fact that women can do the same (disregarding other women). It also inadvertently would seem to indicate that men don't face issues in the gaming sphere; rather that only women suffer from adversity. 

 

Number three finely tunes itself to "sexual harassment" as a way to ignore the fact that men, no more than women, can post information. The likelihood of actually suffering from harassment or violence is likely equally high for both genders. And if real life does have a barring on this sphere, realistically men are at far greater risk of violence and harassment than women. Just not of a "sexual" nature. That will predominantly be women who are affected. Such selective exclusion draws my ire. 

 

Number four slaps in the "because of my gender" at the end. That may indeed be the case. I would doubt a guy is required to "prove his gamer cred" because he is a guy. But it assumes that men don't have to "prove their gamer cred" at all. Given the way some like to limit the title "gamer", I know many men who, while being enjoyers of games, would not label themselves as gamers because the "gamer community" questions their cred because they like more "casual" games. All that is to say that this point focuses solely on female exclusive problems (not bad) in such a way as to imply a lack of a male counterpart (not good). 

 

Number nine mentions that individual women are seen as ambassadors and representative of their whole gender. Thus when they do something wrong, the larger community holds all women accountable. But this seems to be a bit one sided. It think that such "group think" is not exclusive to men. After all, how many women have we known who go through a bad break up and then pronounce to the world "all men are scum" (or some variant there of)? I was just talking with one last night. Both men and women do this and are the victims of this sort of behavior. 

 

Number fourteen talks about how games are "specifically designed to cater to [the male] demographic." While I think it would be hard to argue this on the macro level, it is absurd on the micro level. A Japanese publisher of J.RPGs isn't targeting my (The Rose's) demographic. It is targeting young Japanese people. Indeed, most games are going to be targeting more specific demos than just "male". It is like saying HERO targets the male demographic - while perhaps true, it doesn't capture reality in the most accurate fashion as there is a plethora of other factors involved other than "male". 

 

All in all, I think that there are unique issues women face in the gaming sector (and in life in general) but that the way people talk about such things is generally inaccurate, pushy, and/or possibly dishonest far too often. 

 

La Rose. 

[Cygnia]

Gee, maybe it's because every time a link is posted, nearly most (male) posters disregard any commentary anyway, so really, it ain't up to me to say anything if you don't want to listen/get defensive/WHAT ABOUT THE MENZ~?!

 

Oh, but if you want some commentary?

 

https://twitter.com/radicalbytes/status/459176331365089280

 

Men have privilege.  Acknowledge it.

[Balabanto]

Men have privilage up to a point. A man who is widely known is more privileged. But a guy like me who writes one supplement a year and works sixty hours a week at his day job is hardly any more privileged than the next gaming shmuck. What I do is time consuming and difficult. I do it for the fun of it. I don't really make money doing this, guys! There is no privilege at the low end freelance level. Just a bunch of people clawing to get name recognition down in the mud.

 

At this level whether you're male or female as a designer doesn't matter at all. We're all equals at the sinister level of zero.

[SKJAM!]

Fame and work cred are different kinds of privilege that can intersect nicely with "straight white male" or mitigate lack of privilege in other areas.  For example, consider the recent kerfuffle when a woman dared critique an upcoming Teen Titans cover.  Part of the reason she got such a fierce defense when attacked by a male artist is because she isn't some random evil fake geek girl, but someone who actually has worked in the field and demonstrated that she knew what she was talking about.  Work cred helps offset some of the lack of privilege she might otherwise have when talking about the comic book industry.

[Cygnia]

I lack knowledge of anime, but I can see the writer's point here.

 

Sexist Static: How a lust for crude misogyny is hobbling an important artform

[Vondy]

Gee, maybe it's because every time a link is posted, nearly most (male) posters disregard any commentary anyway, so really, it ain't up to me to say anything if you don't want to listen/get defensive/WHAT ABOUT THE MENZ~?!

 

Oh, but if you want some commentary?

 

https://twitter.com/radicalbytes/status/459176331365089280

 

Men have privilege.  Acknowledge it.

 

Wow. That's how you react to a simple question?

 

Playing the enfant terrible is an excellent way to ensure no discussion happens.

 

As for men having privilege. Some men do. Some, not so much. We aren't one size fits all.

 

And, perhaps we aren't so much disregarding commentary as we are picking our battles.

 

We know how these "discussions" generally go.

 

If we don't fully agree with the view presented we automatically get labeled with unflattering terms.

 

Even if we mostly agree, but dissent on nuance or tone or tenor that generally holds true.

 

We are, as you so aptly demonstrate with your parting line, ordered to bow to your views.

 

That's not a discussion -- its a dictat. At that point, why bother?

[Cygnia]

Mr. Scalzi, would you like to say a few things here?

 

The Four Levels of Discrimination (and You) (and Me, Too)

 

 

At the crux of the “Not all… ” formulation, it appears, is the (honest or otherwise) assertion that in order to participate in discrimination, one has to actively and with malice aforethought choose to discriminate — in order to be sexist, one has to be a sexist, in other words (or to be racist, one has to be a racist; in order to be homophobic, one has to be a homophobe, etc).

 

And, well. No. In fact, you don’t actively have to go out of your way to discriminate in order to participate in discrimination — that’s kind of the point. Some of that is already built into the system that everyone is part of. You get it, positively and/or negatively, no matter what; everyone does. You may then also decide to support discrimination in one way or another, and that’s the thing that changes you from being (for example) sexist to being a sexist. But to deny that baseline discrimination we all deal with because you’re not by your own lights actively trying to promote that discrimination is silly. It’s there, it’s real and it’s measurable, and you take part in it, one way or another.

[Enforcer84]

All that's necessary for Evil to flourish is that good men do nothing?

That's a fair cop, I suppose. 

 

I'm not a fan of self-righteousness though I'm an occasional purveyor of it. 

 

And that's still not giving us an idea of what to do to be proactive. If we want to promote a minority in gaming (Beyond heartfelt well wishes)  we need to a) be able to find them and  they need to produce something good. Because I'm not comfortable supporting a Gay Stereotype Fighting game just because it was created by a gay development team. (To reach back to a prior Link) 

 

And honestly, I've already stopped giving my money to the Comic Book Industry and the bulk of the gaming industry. 

In my Table Top games I have generally had one or two female players - and both times I was a bit disheartened by the behavior towards them (not them so much as their characters, cause our boys were passive aggressive and unwilling to openly be gross)

 

And one of the girls married one of the guys - who I thought was pretty uncool about a girl gamer. They were a couple when they started gaming and I was surprised she was with him considering the things he'd day about her character. I was not surprised that their marriage lasted less than three years. 

 

...but I digress. 

 

I have met many more women playing MMO's than I have playing Tabletop RPGs. That's probably my fault to tell the truth. But I consider myself pretty lucky and fairly easy to get along with. I don't like the phrase "Male Privilege" (in part because I have trouble spelling it) but mostly because I feel I'm always looking at it from a distance.

 

At the bank I was usually one of 2 guys at our branch once we had 4. My managers were 1 man and 7 women over 12 years. But the further up the managerial ladder you went the more good old boys club you could argue. When our long-time CEO left the sinking ship (before we knew it was sinking) he wasn't replaced with the next officer in line who was a woman, they replaced him with a guy from another industry. She went to another bank and our bank went down the crapper within 18 months.

 

(She didn't fair better going to HSBC and it had it's share of problems later on. Banks just kind of suck that way...but I'm digressing again)

 

So from personal anecdotes I don't see it a lot - unless I think about it. I'm now in IT where there's considerable push back against women. My classes had probably 15-20% female membership and my tiny IT department (of 3) is all men. We have women at our more remote offices (usually Admins) who are the hands on people for us when we can't be there, but it's just the three of us. I'd say the engineers I work iwth are probably split 50/50 and the Industrial Hygienists/Health and Safety are mostly guys. (...geez my alignment is off I'm veering all over the place.)

 

The Links posted are more evidence of what I already knew, and I see plenty of it on places like Reddit but there's so much rancor on the internet it's hard to point to one group and say they're getting the worst of it. In some places you'd get more crap for being a Patriots (or Browns) fan than for whatever your background is. 

 

I'm tired and rambling, I don't think I've said anything to advance the discussion but I've written too much to just delete it. I'm sorry.

[Pattern Ghost]

Gee, maybe it's because every time a link is posted, nearly most (male) posters disregard any commentary anyway,

 

I'm not sure this is entirely fair. The initial responses to this thread were largely positive. There were a batch of posts that were a bit defensive from some of our male members, but at least an equal number of male posters responded telling them that they were being over defensive. At a certain point, I think the discussion shifted back to mostly sympathetic.

 

However, over time the thread has simply lost steam. It happens. There is no such thing as thread privilege, I guess.

 

I haven't responded to many of the links that are posted without commentary. I used to read nearly all of them, but stopped clicking on them because so many of them were redundant. A little blurb explaining what it is about a link that may make me want to visit it would be helpful, even if it's just to say that the person has a unique point of view on a subject that's been covered, be sure to read that little part near the end, etc.

 

Another board I'm on has a policy that you're not allowed to post links without commentary. I think that's a fair policy. I also don't think we need it here.

 

As far as "male privilege" goes, while I've read up on the term, and while I agree that a lot of the things brought under the umbrella of the term do happen . . . I'm not sure it's always applied appropriately. A lot of "male privilege" situations occur due to gender role biases that have been baked into human genetics since the stone age. Those instances should be labeled as such, as the problems they cause affect both men and women. And some of the factors in "male privilege" that I've seen mentioned, such as a male intimidating a female in social interactions because males are bigger and stronger . . . also apply to male-male interactions.

 

So, "male privilege" fuzzy term, at least in its application. When a fuzzy term starts being thrown around with great authority, it starts looking suspiciously like a buzz word. Maybe there's a strictly academic definition that's more accurate than the term's common usage, but I'm not personally inclined to accept the common labeling of so many disparate situations as examples of "male privilege" any more than labeling every energetic and disobedient child as having ADHD.