Harassment in gaming

[flametitan]

What was the actual joke? the censor machine must be in full swing as I can't actually find the damn quote!!! LOL

It was something along the lines of "Actually it's about ethics in Adventuring."

A fairly harmless but satirical line.

 

[Gradine]

http://www.nsvrc.org/bystander-intervention-background-and-general-information

Bystander invention is a fairly politics-neutral method towards addressing harassment and violence in any type of community. It's kind of the big new things on college campuses the last few years (disclaimer: I work at a university. Shocker, no?) and one of its key selling points is that while it does require buy-in from many members of a community to be effective it doesn't require any further buy-in on any other sort of divisive political issue (like addressing any potential underlying societal issues or "rape culture"). That tends to be why I think it falls woefully short as a long-term solution, but in the short-term it's proven to be pretty effective. I think introducing concepts of bystander intervention to convention monitors (and ultimately more con attendees) would be a pretty good first step.

 

[Fildrigar]

Out of curiosity, I noticed that you capitalized the word "women" multiple times in your post, but you didn't capitalize the word "men". Why did you do that?

English capitalization rules mystify me. Sometimes I misspell things, too. did I misspell anything in my post? Any sentences end with prepositions? I may have used two spaces after punctuation.

Where's the proof that she's received death/rape threats from Wyrd staff members?

If you look through her Tumblr, she has some screen caps of some of the harassing messages she's received. Some have Wyrd employee's names attached. But since they're screen caps, and made of pixels, I'm sure you would just say they're 'shopped.

 

[Obryn]

It was something along the lines of "Actually it's about ethics in Adventuring."

A fairly harmless but satirical line.

Yeah, certainly no goofier than Simpsons jokes.

 

[Elf Witch]

The underlining cause of the harassment is simple it is good ole sexism coupled with entitled men feeling that they have a right to a woman attention's and body because they are attracted to her.

Sexism is very much a part of geek hobbies. Someone pointed out the comments on the new Rogue One trailer and I went and looked and I couldn't believe the whines of feminism out control and how Disney has ruined Star Wars by social engineering. All because in two films the lead have been females. Though in my mind Finn got as much screen time as Rey. They bring up crap like you will never see women being Navy seals and leading troops in combat so this is not realistic. There is rage about it like some how having female lead has ruined their fandom.

Even before any trailer came out about the Ghostbusters film the nerdrage from angry men was poring out any place the film was mentioned. Like some how changing things up and having three women instead of three men was a personal affront and that the evil feminist and SJW entire goal was to ruin this film for them.

And you see this kind of rage a lot. When Mojo started MSMojo the anger from the cis white male geeks was apparent like some how having a channel run by women for women geeks was a personal affront and whose sole purpose was to take something away from them.

Then you add to the mix these young men who believe in the whole pick up artist culture. Who are told by other men that they have a right to have sex with any woman and that some how if a woman is not interested than she is a broken and only wants a bad boy not a good guy. These guys really believe they are good guys but they are not they are entitled selfish jerks. A lot of their rage is directed at attractive women who they feel they are entitled to and since you are seeing more women joining geek hobbies the percentage of attractive women has risen and the rage that these guys feel towards these women joining the hobby and still not being interested in them is huge.

You take all this anger directed at women and that is where harassment and violence comes from.

Women can't change it if we speak up and try to explain why they are wrong they are not going to listen the only one who can change this is other men.

I was on a Marvel Agents of SHIELD page and the sheer amount of hate directed at Simmons for having emotions for the guy on the planet she was trapped was over whelming a lot of the guys were calling her a slut any female fan who spoke up for her got dog piled. I know some of the guys on the page and asked them why they didn't speak up when they disagreed with these guys and they said they didn't want to get involved that it would do no good and what does it matter it is only a TV show.The main reason for the hate was how dare that slut put Fitz in the friend zone. They feel the same about the other slut Daisy she had no right to have slept with her old boy friend because Fitz liked her. They honestly believe if a guy likes a gal then she has no autonomy she must give herself to him.

Guys need to speak up when they see stuff like that. They need to call out the gate keepers of their fandoms who try and force female fans to prove their geek cred.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Occasional offensive stereotypes aside, I generally like when men play female characters. When a man has a female character and he is actively trying to be/stay in character, you often get the truest glimpse of what that man thinks a woman is really like. It's always particularly enlightening when those character choices include wild mood/emotional swings, sluttyness/nymphomania, or being a cold-hearted

I played a female character who was ALL of those things...but it was also 100% clear that the character in question was essentially a female modern Sci-fant analog of certain classic male fantasy literature characters everyone in the group knew. The shoe on the other foot, as it were.

Very popular character.

 

[MechaPilot]

I played a female character who was ALL of those things...but it was also 100% clear that the character in question was essentially a female modern Sci-fant analog of certain classic male fantasy literature characters everyone in the group knew. The shoe on the other foot, as it were.

Very popular character.

Well, I think we've all played at least one character who was a parody, a slightly altered version of a film or literature character, or who was something of a commentary on a stereotype.

I remember playing a black male mercenary character in Rifts who was basically a post apocalyptic version of Shaft. His name was Leroy Brown, and he was the baddest merc' in the whole dang town (of Free Quebec).

I also recall a friend and I both deciding to play Crazies in one Rifts campaign. We made them a brother & sister version of the Blues Brothers, with one of their insanities being that they literally thought they were on a mission from God.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'd have loved to see that.

IME, when players can come up with interlinked PCs, it usually leads to fun times.

One of the last times I had a chance to do that was when I played a giant dwarf warrior (@ 5'8" tall) who was best buds and battle partner with a dwarf giant warrior (@ 6'3").

 

[MechaPilot]

I think it was pretty fun, and the friend who played my character's brother said he enjoyed it as well. When you have two people who commit to playing characters that heavily interact with each other like that I do think it tends to add to everyone's enjoyment at the table, but that's just my personal theory.

The only downside to it was that my knowledge of blues and R&B music is mostly limited to what I've heard in the original Blues brothers movie. Just this day, which was a payday for me, I thought of that movie. Every time I go to the bank to deposit my check I'm reminded of the "I've got 50 cents more than I'm gonna keep" line from Let the Good Times Roll.

Edit: I never did get to have that in D&D though. I feel that's a missed opportunity. Hopefully I'll be able to rectify that eventually.

 

[Libramarian]

Listen. And believe. Just by starting there, we might very well be on the right path to maybe seeing things get better.

A lot of the "talking past each other" issue comes down a matter of belief. Either you believe the stories women share about their varied experiences with harassment[...]or you don't believe them, in which you are completely dismissing their lived experiences[...]

There's an almost religious fervor in your posts that is creeping me out. "Listen...believe...have faith...submit..."

I find the exhortation to 'just believe' repellant, not just because the willful stupidity involved but because it infantilizes women to consider them incapable of lying or trolling for their own aggrandizement.

There is a third option to belief and denial: skepticism. One is skeptical when they're withholding belief but open to changing their mind as further evidence comes to light.

I believe this woman received threats for her opinions on the Malifaux game. I'm skeptical they came from Wyrd staff.

I believe she was harassed by a regular customer at the game store she worked at, and the owner didn't do enough to stop it. I'm glad he was reprimanded. I believe she has been groped at cons. That's awful and I support measures such as those mentioned by [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] upthread to try to make game stores and cons as safe and welcoming as possible for all.

I'm skeptical that a Canadian police officer told a woman reporting a rape "I'm not writing a report for a drunk slut" and hung up on her. I'm skeptical that a group of middle-aged men in a game store chanted in unison sexually abusive language to a thirteen year old girl and laughed as she ran away. This stuff is out of a '70s horror movie, not real life Winnipeg.

I've been reading the thread about this on the Malifaux game forum. At one point she says "men are worse than babies because at least babies know what breasts are for" (and this is a thread where the most inflammatory posts have been deleted!). On her Tumblr she says "gamers are the scum of the earth" and "nerds are the literal worst". She was not driven away from this game because she's a woman and they want it to be for men only. She was driven away because she demanded changes to the game that most of the other fans disagreed with and she trolled them for disagreeing with her.

I DO NOT condone threats of violence as a means to silence someone! But I think she should have been banned from their forum for trolling before that happened.