Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

[Pattern Ghost]

Do we know what deity she's an Inquisitor to?

 

That looks suspiciously like an inquiry. That's her job, infidel!

[Cygnia]

 

Your Princess Is in Another Castle: Misogyny, Entitlement, and Nerds

 

[Cygnia]

 

Cosplayer Nicole Jacobs On Harassment At Comic Cons… And What We Can All Do About It

 

[Sociotard]

There's No Such Thing as a Slut

A new longitudinal study examined how college students slut-shame—and found that the practice is as illogical as it is damaging.

[Enforcer84]

There's No Such Thing as a Slut

A new longitudinal study examined how college students slut-shame—and found that the practice is as illogical as it is damaging.

 

And like any good prejudice, it was along class lines. 

[Zeropoint]

I can't help thinking that "Inquisitor" should be a "bad guy" class.

[Enforcer84]

I can't help thinking that "Inquisitor" should be a "bad guy" class.

it's not bad. 

[Sociotard]

Just Unexpected.

[Enforcer84]

Just Unexpected.

Well done!

[Cygnia]

*facepalm*

 

San Diego Comic-Con Doesn’t Want To Address Its Harassment Problem Because People Might Think It Has A Harassment Problem

[SKJAM!]

Ayup.  I've seen this attitude before.  To put it another way, they're like the mayor in "Jaws":  "If we warn people about the shark attacks, people will think we have a shark problem!"

[Lord Mhoram]

Do we know what deity she's an Inquisitor to?

Pharasma

 

She's a neutral Death deity who's position is to shepherd the dead to their rightful reward. Her church finds undead to be an abomination, and actively work to stamp it out whenever possible.

 

The character is named Imrijka.

[Pattern Ghost]

I hope she shows up in the card game.

[Enforcer84]

Pharasma

 

She's a neutral Death deity who's position is to shepherd the dead to their rightful reward. Her church finds undead to be an abomination, and actively work to stamp it out whenever possible.

 

The character is named Imrijka.

I didn't see Pharsma's symbol, but I'm still working my way through the Inner Sea Gods book. I'm still amazed at how fresh Paizo's take on the old stand by trappings of d20 has been (by and large) 

 

Thanks for the info, LM!

[Cygnia]

[Cygnia]

What did they do to you: Our women heroes problem

 

 

It seems that when you want to make a woman into hero, you hurt her first. When you want to make a man into a hero, you hurt... also a woman first.

[BoloOfEarth]

What did they do to you: Our women heroes problem

 

Caveat: I play precious little computer / online / video games, so my comment doesn't apply to the article directly so much as a general comment on female heroes.

 

It seems to me more likely to make a woman into a hero (in a story, RP game, etc. as well as historically) by threatening or hurting her family, particularly her children, rather than herself.  Heck, it doesn't even have to be her children - take teachers that risk their lives to protect their students during a school shooting.

[薔薇語]

What did they do to you: Our women heroes problem

 

 

On whole I like the article. I think that the trope of abused woman ergo motivation is tired and uninspired. I do not like the quote you have, though. I think the article did a fairly good job, especially nearing the end of expressing that things are not as black and white as they might otherwise be portrayed, but that quote is doing quite the opposite. 

 

Why do I say that? First and foremost, post-facto narrative interpretations are fine when limited to the realm of pure opinion but the veracity to which certain people establish their beliefs as facts based largely on their personal interpretation of the quite speculative meaning behind something is disheartening. How does that come into play here? When we look at the comic books and games that inspire these kinds of stances (abuse of women) we are capable of bringing forward personal interpretation of what they mean. But because they are our personal interpretations they will always be colored by our own established biases. Thus a more feminist individual is naturally going to read into the narrative an abhorrent view of women. And I can understand why. But while I understand that view, I think it is wrong to think that that view is the only correct or legit way to view it and that doing so blinds oneself from being able to understand what other messages could be read into it (and I do mean "read into" and not just "understood"). To give an example to illustrate this: why aren't men portrayed more often as the victims of abuse and thus the motivation for other female or male characters? Is it because such a state is unmanly and thus not portrayed (a more feminist view) or is it because male victimhood is unimportant and non-inspiring -male disposablity-  (a more MRM view). Is it the message of Super Mario that women are weak and need saving by strong men OR is it that women are precious, so precious that men are expected to throw everything away (including their lives) at the drop of a hat for just a single woman? 

 

Now, I am not trying to say that either view from above is right; quite the opposite. I am trying to say that both stances require the viewer to create their own views and those views are going to be highly biased. Thus analysis that ever references them is going to be inherently weakened by that bias. Any attempts to claim a non-biased analysis of a source material is going to find itself fighting one hell of an up hill battle to somehow claim objective understanding of a vague concept that was probably given little to no-thought by a team of random individuals. 

 

Again, I liked the article. I think they do capture an important point: the female victimhood (especially as perpetrated by exclusively male characters) is an old and tired trope. It is kind of like watching a sports movie. We all know the plot before we ever see it (Underdog team gets a new McGuffin. They play their heart out, are on the precipice of losing it all due to "unforeseen twist X" but narrowly pull out the win). It doesn't mean it is a bad plot or that movies using it are inherently bad movies. Just that after you have seen that play out a few dozen times, you start wanting something new. That is how I feel about the issue. My only gripe with the article is summed up with the above quoted line that speaks to a mindset behind the analysis. 

 

La Rose. 

[Cancer]

I don't think soccer fandom counts as geeky, but misogynism is there too in ways which are wearyingly familiar.

[Ranxerox]

What did they do to you: Our women heroes problem

 

 

 

I'm far from the first person to criticize the focus on "strong" when it comes to female protagonists. As Sophia McDougall puts it in this New Statesman piece, "Sherlock Holmes gets to be brilliant, solitary, abrasive, Bohemian, whimsical, brave, sad, manipulative, neurotic, vain, untidy, fastidious, artistic, courteous, rude, a polymath genius. Female characters get to be Strong."

 

Rebuttal: 

 

[Enforcer84]

That quote is rubbish anyway. Because they make women characters like that. Bones checks a number of those boxes, as do many characters developed over the years. 

 

That's not even taking to account the general use of "Strong Character" isn't referring to physical or emotional strength...it's referring to a powerful presence, which includes having a decent personality -which is demonstrated by Sherlock's occasionally contradictory behavior. 

 

I'm not even sure what the author and her quoted author mean by "strong." So I could be reading that wrong.

[Cancer]

In a number of ways, Holmes is an anti-hero, a deeply flawed human being, who just happens to be brilliant at deduction. Not someone I would be interested in emulating or being compared to or even having among my acquaintances, really. That doesn't invalidate the premise of the essay, but it borders on a different apple/orange comparison.

[Pattern Ghost]

I'm inarticulate today, but I basically agree with the video. (Well, with the intent behind posting it, maybe. I don't think the video was trying to make the exact point.)

 

If you make Lara a male, is she still a good character? That's the basic acid test. Sure, characters will have particular aspects to them, or face particular challenges, that are related to their sex/gender. But if the story isn't strongly driven by sex/gender issues (say, an action game story), then stripping the character's sex/gender away should still leave you with an interesting character if you've done it right.

 

As to this version of Lara Croft, I answer with . . . Daniel Jackson. He's a bit less of a person of action*, but they follow similar development paths.

 

 

 

 

 

*It may be telling that "man of action" is the more normal-seeming phrase there, and that I had to edit it to make it inclusive of Lara.

[BoloOfEarth]

(If this was posted previously, my apologies.) 

 

On the other side of the "fake" geek girl label:

 

http://www.dorktower.com/2014/02/26/sick-burrrrrrrn-dork-tower-26-02-14/

[Cygnia]

We’re losing all our Strong Female Characters to Trinity Syndrome

 

There’s been a cultural push going on for years now to get female characters in mainstream films some agency, self-respect, confidence, and capability, to make them more than the cringing victims and eventual trophies of 1980s action films, or the grunting, glowering, sexless-yet-sexualized types that followed, modeled on the groundbreaking badass Vasquez in Aliens. The idea of the Strong Female Character—someone with her own identity, agenda, and story purpose—has thoroughly pervaded the conversation about what’s wrong with the way women are often perceived and portrayed today, in comics, videogames, and film especially. Sophia McDougall has intelligently dissected and dismissed the phrase, and artists Kate Beaton, Carly Monardo, Meredith Gran have hilariously lampooned what it often becomes in comics. “Strong Female Character” is just as often used derisively as descriptively, because it’s such a simplistic, low bar to vault, and it’s more a marketing term than a meaningful goal. But just as it remains frustratingly uncommon for films to fail the simple, low-bar Bechdel Test, it’s still rare to see films in the mainstream action/horror/science-fiction/fantasy realm introduce women with any kind of meaningful strength, or women who go past a few simple stereotypes.

 

And even when they do, the writers often seem lost after that point. Bringing in a Strong Female Character™ isn’t actually a feminist statement, or an inclusionary statement, or even a basic equality statement, if the character doesn’t have any reason to be in the story except to let filmmakers point at her on the poster and say “See? This film totally respects strong women!”