Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

[bigdamnhero]

Yeah, I see what the author was trying to say but the article doesn't convey it very well. Trying to rephrase as generously as possible:

1. Subcultures that tend to obsess over certain things - sports, geekery, religion, etc - can be off-putting to people not fluent with or not interested in those things.
2. Professions that want to broaden their demographic appeal should be aware of how their cultural norms may be excluding the people they're trying to attract.

Both of those are valid points bordering on obvious. But the article could've been better about tying them together and maybe being a tad less preachy.

 

We've gone through a few years now where the big shame for nerds was excluding women by assuming they weren't 'real fans' of comic books or sci fi or video games. Now this is saying, no, those are for boys and you should put nice pictures of flowers in the computer science classroom so women feel welcome.

I get your point. But there's a big difference between treating women at a geek convention like they aren't geeky enough, vs treating women in a school or business setting like they aren't geeky enough.

 

It still feels like a disconnect, to say that I should never make assumptions about whether women like nerdy subjects, but also not enjoy nerdy subjects openly in school and other professional environments lest I alienate women.

I don't think that's what the author was trying to say. There's a fine line between "enjoying my stuff" and "making you feel unwelcome/inferior because you don't enjoy my stuff." But again I concede the author could've made that point better with less finger-wagging.

[Lucius]

 

There's a thread running on RPG net about characters not matching player gender.

 

https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?792137-Crossed-Gender-PCs-Thoughts-Difficulties

 

At least, so far, no one's talking about whether female Dwarves have beards.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary has a Y chromosome and a Y-not? chromosome

[Nolgroth]

Too extensive a thread to read the whole thing. I generally play male characters in roleplaying games and females in CRPG games. I have played a female D&D character who was basically a Laurana (Dragonlance) knock-off.

 

I usually play female CRPG characters because the voice acting is better. Sometimes, the game forces a gender (Witcher and Deus Ex come to mind). I just role with it.

[Pattern Ghost]

I always play male PCs in pen and paper games. As GM, I'll RP female NPCs, of course, but I may tend to just summarize the dialog. I've got a pretty deep voice, so doing elsewise in person is pretty jarring to other players and nobody would remember that I was playing a female a few minutes in anyway. Though, I only RP male not because of that, but because I'm male so it takes less effort for me to get into a male character.

 

In video games, I'll pick a character's sex based on aesthetics, concept, or if applicable in game abilities (usually not an issue, but some games give premade characters with set abilities, particularly single player RPGs and fighting games). In MMOs, I tend to have about an even split of male and female characters. While I don't RP in MMOs, I usually have a little back story for characters, so that or aesthetics usually drives my choice. In games with different races and classes, I also tend to have a lot of alts so adopt a "one of each" approach, then eliminate character models I don't like for some reason.

 

I remember raiding with my female Night Elf Warrior, and getting into Vent with my guild for the first time. Some of the reactions of the players who didn't know I was a male player were pretty funny. I sound nothing like a female NE.

[Cygnia]

My current mains in WoW are male -- but I have been harassed on Vent due to my gender as soon as it was known.

 

PBEMs, I play both genders equally.  Since I want to be a writer, I figure it's good practice.

 

E-wrestling, I play a majority of male characters.  Back when I started in E-W, I was TERRIFIED of my real gender being known because in that particular circle, some female players had been harassed and attacked before.  One notorious fed had

 

(spoilers for NSFW bit)

 

 

had a match held in a female character's vagina after she quit that fed, calling her every bit of slut-shaming in the book.

 

And the handlers just laughed about it.  Needless to say, I avoided that place and those handlers.

[bigdamnhero]

Cygnia: wow, that's seriously vile even by geek misogyny standards! Stories like that aren't the main reason I avoid MMOs or other online games, but they damn sure don't help.

 

In tabletop games, I play both genders pretty evenly depending on what character concept strikes me. (When I play...I GM more often than I play.) At convention games with pre-gens, I got in the habit years ago of grabbing one of the female PCs just because I know there are a lot of guys who aren't comfortable cross-playing. It's never been a big deal for me, maybe because I GM so much so I've always played female NPCs.

[SKJAM!]

I remember many years ago getting involved in a convention Victorian Era Horror game, and picking up the female pregen character because none of the other (all male) players would.  Upon actually looking at the sheet, I discovered that she'd randomly been given the highest Strength score in the character group.  For the rest of the game, I played her as Lady She-Hulk-very proper and feminine but prone to smashing things with her fists or a jimmy whenever she had the chance.  I am told it was pretty hilarious.

[Cancer]

Let's make everyone even more depressed....

 

Yes, even better-educated women prefer men with big ... paychecks.

[Outsider]

Hence Trump having had 3 wives...   Or is it his native charm and looks that draw them in?

[Sociotard]

In his day, he wasn't a bad looking man. And, in person, I'm told he is the king of concierge. That is is a sexual predator and he'll say inflamatory things to rile up the base does not negate that.

[Cygnia]

Super Mario Run’s Not-So-Super Gender Politics

 

In isolation, there’s nothing wrong with princesses or baking. My daughters love those things, too. But Super Mario Run relegates its female characters to positions of near helplessness. Peach and Toadette become playable only after you complete certain tasks, which makes the women in the game feel like prizes. (To be fair, the same is true of a few male characters.) Worse, should you then use Peach to defeat her kidnapper, Bowser, you’ll discover that neither Mario nor a kiss is waiting for her as a reward.

[Matt the Bruins]

I remember many years ago getting involved in a convention Victorian Era Horror game, and picking up the female pregen character because none of the other (all male) players would.  Upon actually looking at the sheet, I discovered that she'd randomly been given the highest Strength score in the character group.  For the rest of the game, I played her as Lady She-Hulk-very proper and feminine but prone to smashing things with her fists or a jimmy whenever she had the chance.  I am told it was pretty hilarious.

I never got to play the character, but ages ago I created a TORG character who was a Victorian socialite detective who was secretly also a vampire. I so wanted to play out a scene wherein a villain would grab her as the damsel/hostage and she could Darth Vader him by one hand at his throat.

 

 

In his day, he wasn't a bad looking man. And, in person, I'm told he is the king of concierge. That is is a sexual predator and he'll say inflamatory things to rile up the base does not negate that.

A friend of mine dated him way back in prehistoric times. And she is terrified by the prospect of him being POTUS.

[Sociotard]

[Cygnia]

 

If You Hear Someone Getting Harassed In An Online Game, Don't Stay Silent

 

[Nolgroth]

If You Hear Someone Getting Harassed In An Online Game, Don't Stay Silent

 

If I ever play in a game when I am communicating (a rarity), I do not tolerate that kind of behavior. My wife plays Battlefield and she is better than I am¹. Talking crap about her because she is a female is a surefire way for me to switch teams and go tag hunting (it is, for whatever reason, considered a great insult to kill somebody with a knife and be rewarded with their virtual dog tags). Being as I have absolutely no regard for my K/D ratio, I will get the scumbags tags, I will mock him for it and I will remind him of his manners. So yeah, I agree with that a lot. The persons sex has nothing to do with their ability to lay the virtual smack down on the virtual opponents. 

 

1.  Don't tell her I said that. She already has an overblown ego. No need to stoke the fires.

[Sociotard]

A new book prize has been announced for books in the Thriller genre "in which no woman is beaten, stalked, sexually exploited, raped or murdered.” 

jezebel.com/prize-launched-for-thrillers-that-dont-involve-violence-1822448103

 

Make them all dudes? Because the criteria seem to exclude what most of the genre uses for stakes. 

[wcw43921]

Sounds like they're looking for a book about Jeffrey Dahmer or someone like him--his victims were, like himself, homosexual men.

[Pattern Ghost]

Or a book with a female antagonist, stalking, etc. her male victims.

[Cygnia]

I'm checking with a few writer's forums to see how legit this is.  I don't know Lawless' reputation or work.

[bigdamnhero]

On 2/3/2018 at 9:24 PM, Sociotard said:

Because the criteria seem to exclude what most of the genre uses for stakes. 

I think that's precisely the point.

[Sociotard]

Right, but if the book doesn't use the stakes relevant to the Thriller genre, is it still a Thriller? 

 

Thrillers are characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving viewers heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety. Thrillers generally keep the audience on the "edge of their seats" as the plot builds towards a climax.

 

So, usually that suspense and anxiety comes from fear of violence.  So the obvious way to get the prize would be to make the victims dudes. I'm not certain any other stakes would work. Fear of losing a job? Fear of secrets revealed/ public humiliation?

 

 

[Cancer]

Blackmail to, e.g, start a war, or betray secrets should a war start, I suppose; that has happened historically.

[Cygnia]

37 minutes ago, Sociotard said:

Right, but if the book doesn't use the stakes relevant to the Thriller genre, is it still a Thriller? 

 

 

 

 

So, usually that suspense and anxiety comes from fear of violence.  So the obvious way to get the prize would be to make the victims dudes. I'm not certain any other stakes would work. Fear of losing a job? Fear of secrets revealed/ public humiliation?

 

 

 

As someone suggested on another forum...

 

"Threat of emotional death - losing love or respect from a close relative (ex: Leslie Lehr - What A Mother Knows)
Threat of economic death - losing a fortune, the family company (ex: Largo Winch)
Threat of social death - losing status, a career, being framed. (ex: Michael Crichton - A Case Of Need)
Threat of psychological death - losing one's mind, fall into eternal sorrow, revenge. (ex: Josin McQueln - Premeditated) "

[Zeropoint]

The formula for the contest does NOT preclude the usual stakes of the genre, it just requires that those things not happen to WOMEN. A book in which a MAN is "beaten, stalked, sexually exploited, raped or murdered" would qualify for the contest, and I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work as a thriller.

[Cancer]

I suspect that you'd need something beyond just killing men to make a thriller; men are just too ordinary, too disposeable, to get readers to care ("Men are expendable").  Killing men makes you a criminal; to become a real villain requires something especially heinous, and I don't think you get there by killing generic men until you have body counts in the hundreds at least. 

 

You would have to swap in some kind of limited special-case situation, perhaps killing lots of ten-to-thirteen year old boys (and only clearly subadult boys), to get a plausible and strong emotional hit, to bring out the desperate need to catch and stop the killer of some subpopulation deserving of special protection; that seems to be an essential element that makes the thriller premise work.