billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him)
I doubt they're fictional - possibly a composite of her experiences and the accounts of other women who have related them to her. But I've heard enough similar accounts to give them the air of believability.
Harassment in gaming
I doubt they're fictional - possibly a composite of her experiences and the accounts of other women who have related them to her. But I've heard enough similar accounts to give them the air of believability.
Imagine, for a moment, that this were not a virtual forum. Imagine you were sitting in a room with the female gamers of this forum. You look them in the eye, in person, and tell them, "I don't think what happens to women in gaming is bad enough that we need to discuss it." I wonder how that would fly.
"We aren't as bad as others, so we get a pass!" Really? We don't have to work to be better so long as others are worse than us?
That makes it an *excellent* place to discuss the matter. We have a greater proportion of people who may be turned from passive, "I am not actively increasing the problem," to active, "I do things to reduce the problem."
All that is required for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.
And no, that's not the only concrete problem. A friend of mine was working for a woman game-writer who had to move out of her apartment because she got doxxed and threatened - that's problematic. But, the woman I know groped at a con was problematic. A woman entering a game shop getting *stared* at like she was the gunslinger stepping into the saloon is problematic. A woman being accused of making up stories of abuse is problematic. *All* the incidents she lists in that article are concrete problems.
The people who send those mails, and make those threats, do not do so in a vacuum. They do so in the midst of a lingering culture that supports such activity. That culture has its basis in the smaller forms of harassment and discrimination that still exist. And those, we don't have to tolerate. When there's a game store that allows behaviors like those described, they should have *men* standing up and telling their local communities that this is not okay.
I think you are on thin ice here, and will have to do some impressive rhetorical gymnastics to get, "She wrote an apparently non-fiction piece describing events that did not happen, *without* intent to deceive." In the context of the piece, those vignettes are present to drive home the point that harassment and discrimination happen. If those events did not happen (at least to *somebody*, if not the primary author), that's "make people believe these things are happening, when they don't," which is deception, and thus lying.
I'm about to say something that may make you, and others, uncomfortable.
As we discuss if she's presenting untruth, we should consider why we might reject the factual truth of her statements. Because we *do* have possible motives:
1) If what she reports are true events, then we may have to admit that a group we *identify with* is not as nice as we like to think. Since we identify with it, we tend to think this is an accusation that we, personally, are not as nice as we like to think. We, quite naturally, will look for reasons to accuse the other person of flaws, rather than admit our own. Humans quite frequently and demonstrably rationalize to attribute faults to others, rather than accept them in ourselves.
2) If what she reports are true events, we are presented with a moral/ethical responsibility - as good people we should not allow these things to occur. If what she describes is real, then we should *do* something, we should take action. And who in this world really wants more responsibilities, more work - especially work that some of our peers may not like our taking on? We, generally, will tend to seek for reasons why we might not have to take on that responsibility. That fastest way to avoid that responsibility is to question her veracity.
So, we have emotional and practical reasons to *want* to reject her presentation. We need to be very careful about that. These are some of the things that make us blind to mistreatment of others.
I XP'd you for the super-cool astronaut pic, but could you expand on this?
The problem with sexism and outright criminal harassment is an enormous one. You can't solve it by playing the right games. Whenever I talk about these problems in the nerd-o-sphere with my non-nerd wife, she reminds me that this happens to women everywhere they go. Any convention, their job site, the street. It's culture-wide. Also, as my friend to used to DM for more than one group of ass-kicking women gamers, gendered notions of what content women prefer are another part of the problem (whew... I almost said problemat... damnit!).
edit: and any large problem is best dealt with by breaking it into more manageable chunks. Or chunks that drive you into less anger & despondency.
Here's one simple suggestion (that I'm sure has been suggested before). Only attend cons & gaming stores with solid harassment policies and adequate staff to enforce them. If said con or store costs more, accept it, and feel good you're supporting a business that's trying operate ethically.
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evileeyore
Mrrrph
It's terrible that it takes a clickbait title to get your notice enough to talk about serious issues.
nedjer
Adventurer
Wasn't really thinking in terms of 'right' games so much as presenting alternatives on a variety of levels. If you pull someone up over 'mild' sexism there tends to be defensiveness/ being seen as laying down rules; still necessary but it does little to change opinions. However, if as DMs we put a bit of thought into gender roles when making a campaign then players may choose to spend many hours in a setting where instead of an Overlord running a city it's an Overlord in debt to a group of female merchants , , , That could be constructive in itself; but might also allow consideration of how the balance of power and influence would act on 'solid harassment policies' within the city. No need to draw up a 7 page legal code; but a PC who started groping women in public could hardly expect to act with complete impunity.
Me, personally? I'd been discussing the general issue *months* ago, when I took on a role in security for my local live-action role playing game convention. I can go into some of what we were taught about rape and sexual assault, if you like. I noted upthread the issue my friend had at a sci fi convention - I discussed it with her at great length, and with friends after that. Having noted my general interest, someone had passed a link to the article in the OP to me some time before it came up here. And, before this thread started, one of our users came to me privately to discuss whether a thread like this was okay, or would be considered politics. Oh, and I discussed some of this with one of my players, who was considering bringing a gender-neutral character into my new Ashen Stars campaign...
So, I, personally, have been engaged with the topic. Just not on EN World.
On EN World, nobody to my knowledge has started such a thread to discuss the topic for several months. WE, as a group, on EN World, would likely not be discussing it now if this article hadn't been written. And that's okay - it isn't like everyone can be constantly engaged on all topics that are troublesome at all times. We have to have jobs, and live our lives, and such. And that's part of why sometimes you need something like this article, that raises an issue above the constant noise of everyday life. It is good to have your attention focused on something especially from time to time.
Libramarian
Adventurer
That helps yes, thanks for the link.
I admit that on my reading I didn't consider that the co-worker could be trying to make a friendly but ill-considered joke. That's more plausible. I read it like they were being aggressively abusive to someone they just met.
Libramarian
Adventurer
Well, I don't infantilize women, so I imagine they could handle it? It's just my opinion after all.
I think it's important to maintain perspective.
I'm all for that! As long as "the problem" is operationalized and a solution-focused approach is taken. Posting a message of support or outrage in a thread like this, which the author of the article likely won't even read, is just slacktivism IMO. I find it especially repellant when the poster seems mostly interested in showing off how unthreatened they are relative to other white men. That sort of thing belongs in a private browsing window, if you get my meaning.
No. They send those threats because they're psychopaths. Nothing about gaming culture supports them in doing that. I'm generally in agreement with Christina Hoff Sommers about this; there's no connection between masculine gaming content and misogyny and sexual harassment. That's just as spurious as the idea that violent videogames breed violent people. The removal of chainmail bikinis from gaming art has prevented no incidences of harassment. The culture war going on in gaming between feminists and gamers who enjoy masculine content has no connection to real world violence.
My opinion is the author created the vignettes (either out of whole cloth or loosely based on real events) to illustrate what this sort of discrimination looks like, for the purpose of generating empathetic insight. I'm not going to vilify her for this (as long as she's not accusing real people of anything) but I am going to share this opinion when I see people getting depressed by it and hating themselves for being gamers, or for being men.
That was thoughtful, but I'm confident that the reason I'm skeptical about the article is because it's bizarre, not because I'm threatened or experiencing moral fatigue.
While I was offering other possibilities for that conversation's content, it's still possible the salesperson was being racist. After all, of there were no racist gamers, there would be no RaHoWa RPG.
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