Harassment in gaming

[DEFCON 1]

I took one look at the heading with white terrorists in it and the tone of the first few paragraphs and clicked close. Had the hyperbole and attacks against all men not been in there, I would have read the whole thing. That sort of language drives away a lot of people who would otherwise be interested.

It's not wrong or even bad to be defensive when attacked. Her attack on "all men" warrants a defense of "not all men." It doesn't make her wrong for speaking out, but any distraction caused by men being defensive can be traced back to her generalized attack.

Do you consider yourself a "white male terrorist"? If the answer is 'Yes', then okay, I can understand getting defensive about her comments.

But if you don't consider yourself a "white male terrorist"... then you don't fall into the category of people she was insulting, and thus there should be absolutely no reason to feel defensive. She wasn't talking about you.

But if you (the general 'You') DO feel defensive when she calls out "white male terrorists" and have to always go "Hey man, it's not me, I'm not like that!"... I'm willing to bet its because you *do* feel a bit of guilt when she brings stuff like that up. As a result, perhaps you aren't as free from blame in the situation as you might want to believe. You might not actively DO the things that she's defining as white male terrorism... but if you're doing nothing whatsoever to help or fix it, you're passively allowing it to happen. Whether or not (general) you get defensive about that says a whole lot about who you are as a person.

Speaking personally... I try to behave as well as I think I can. I also know I don't go nearly that far out of my way to actively help situations when I could. So yeah, the privilege I have as a straight, white, man to basically ignore all of this crap means I am tacitly guilty. So the question comes down to whether or not I feel guilty (or get defensive) when I'm called out on it. And for me... I'm luckily quite capable of not identifying with any group so closely that an insult to the group is an insult to me (again due to my privilege). If someone insults all white people and say we are not doing enough to help racism in this country... I don't take it personally. If someone insults all straight people and say we are not doing enough to help homophobia in this country... I don't take it personally. If someone insults all gamers and say we are not doing enough to help other gamers who are being crapped upon in this country... I don't take it personally. The only time I'd take it personally would be if someone said to me "Hey, Fish... you had a chance to help out here in this situation and you didn't do it. That was a crappy thing." At which point, yes, THEN I might be within my rights to get defensive... but hopefully at the same time my compassion and empathy would kick in and I'd instead take a good hard look at what I did or didn't do, and whether I needed to apologize and/or learn from the mistake for the future.

 

[cmad1977]

Any men who are offended may have the appropriate anatomical parts but certainly aren't behaving in a particularly masculine way about it.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Rottle]

I don't know if I agree with the idea that as long as there are scantily clad males ( of whatever type we agree those who enjoy ogling men prefer) that it is ok to have scantily clad females. I mean if it doesn't belong well adding something else that doesn't belong really doesn't make it any better. For me I would like to see the art make sense. If art of a scantily clad man makes sense, then add it with no need to balance that with a female dressed similarly. If the reverse do that. To me artificial balance leaves a bad taste and I just want sense to rule the day.

just as an aside so I don't come off as a prude or whatever I enjoy scantily clad females much as others, but in my gaming material its not needed or wanted unless it makes sense.

All that said to me harassment isn't about art so much as it is about interactions between people and it should never be tolerated. Stand up to those who harass, stand with those harassed, and never let it simply pass by unchallenged.

"Tomorrow hopes we have learned something from yesterday"....John Wayne

 

[billd91]

I have been gaming for 37 years, I regularly do conventions and have LARPed for 20 years.

So I have to ask myself why I haven't seen much of this? I think the problem is 'selection bias' - and it is something everyone should try to take into account as they consider their own experiences. After all - the common thread of any experience you have is that YOU are the one there - and in 'RPG-land', you are commonly around your friends, and one doesn't make friends with people one doesn't like...

I think that there are other issues that might come in here other than selection bias, particularly in group situations like conventions, parties, or busy stores. One I can think of is situational awareness. A lot of people just haven't developed much of it and what they have is probably more focused on their own security and not in assessing threats to other people. Then there is the issue of crowds - the bigger the crowd, the more we focus on our own conversations and interactions, not the interactions going on or the needs being expressed around us. How can someone get away with groping or acting in a threatening manner toward a woman in an area with witnesses? Not just because nobody comes forward for whatever reason (assuming it's consensual, assuming that someone else will take care of it, not wanting to get involved, whatever), but because most people honestly don't really notice it. It's happening over there and not where their focus is.

I think we should, and apart from making a firm commitment to stamp on this when we witness it, and to go out of our way to ensure it is dealt appropriately, we also need to go a step further.

I think one step forward we could and take is to spend some time to actively watch for it and commit to reporting it. I don't mean to patrol for it like Batman through Gotham City, but with some downtime at a con, just sit back and people-watch. Observe how people act around cosplayers, around women, around people who give off a different vibe for any reason. You may not notice anything particularly serious or blatant - but you may still notice some unpleasant behaviors that aren't strictly harassing but could still make for an unwelcoming environment. I'll probably do a bit of this at the Madison ComicCon this weekend.

 

[Beleriphon]

I think one step forward we could and take is to spend some time to actively watch for it and commit to reporting it. I don't mean to patrol for it like Batman through Gotham City, but with some downtime at a con, just sit back and people-watch. Observe how people act around cosplayers, around women, around people who give off a different vibe for any reason. You may not notice anything particularly serious or blatant - but you may still notice some unpleasant behaviors that aren't strictly harassing but could still make for an unwelcoming environment. I'll probably do a bit of this at the Madison ComicCon this weekend.

Let us know how it goes.

My personal experience is that I don't go to Cons, I don't visit stores regularly. The ones I do don't have creeps, and if somebody ever tried harrassing the only woman that games with my group (my wife) would quickly find themselves on the wrong end of a framing hammer.

As for the article, I don't think each one of the listed experiences is a personal one of the author, but rather a compilation of personal experiences and those from other women. That said, finding out she lives in Winnipeg I wouldn't honestly be that surprised, especially on the police side of things. The city has an unfortunately high crime rate, particularly violent and sexual crime.

 

[Celebrim]

Actually, she didn't attack "all men", she attacked "white male terrorists"*. Being a PoC, I'm not in her sights.

Presumably I am. Which makes it very hard for me to say anything that is in any way constructive, since the first thing I have to prove is that I'm not a "white male terrorist".

I think that unfortunately, everyone is going to end up speaking past each other on this issue. And it's not just owing to the overly aggressive tone the essayist adopts. It's just that we come from completely different worlds.

I read an essay about how a woman has been sexually assaulted, including multiple physical assaults, up to and including rape as many as a dozen times while involved in the gaming community, and I'm appalled and fully understand - even as I disagree with it - why she'd think of gamers as white male terrorists. Seriously, all that's happened to you? Ok, I can make allowances for your feelings in that case. You'd have to be a saint to maintain your emotions with that sort of background.

But at the same time, that's just not where I come from, either as a man who is less likely to be victimized in this way, or as the spouse, friend, or father of female gamers. Her stats show that 25% of women gamers report sexual harassment, and a non-trivial fraction report physical harassment. But that means that like 75% of them don't. They may experience some sexism or discrimination in other ways, but their experience - and the experience their female friends may have - don't reflect this woman's experience. Her experience is certainly more common than it should be, and really is inexcusable, but it isn't necessarily universal.

The sort of sexism that I think more common in the circles I've gamed in, looks nothing like what she describes. I feel confident in saying that in either of the high school groups I was in, the way sexism would have manifested itself would have been in competing to see which of us could beat the crap out of whomever offended a woman in our vicinity to show how masculine we were. We might not in any way conform to the SJW ideal, whatever that is because it seems to very depending on who you talk to, but you could have been quite confident that if you got harassed within arms length of any of us, that it would have provoked a roll for initiative and not silence or complicity. Masculine posturing maybe, but not complicity. And now, most gamers I know are married with daughters of there own, and the first thing that enters into our mind reading something like that is along the lines of, "If anyone talks to my 13 year old that way, there will be body bags."

I don't know of the culture she talks about, and that's the honest truth. The very existence of it shocks me, coming from a background where profanity wasn't used publically except as a warning that actual violence was about to occur - and even then never in mixed company. The closest I've ever had a brush with that was I went over to another gamer's house to play a game, and he referred to his live in girlfriend (already slightly shocking to my standards) affectionately and to her face by a word that has never come out of my mouth to refer to a woman. The real culture shock for me was she seemed ok with this, and didn't need someone to hit him in the face. I was terribly confused and uncomfortable, and needless to say decided not to pursue that friendship further.

Traditional? You bet. Sexist? In the sense that I'd probably respond at least a little differently to a woman the object of violence than I would a man, maybe so. But I'm finding it a bit odd and ironic that there is this sudden call for chivalry after having heard for the last 20 years how darn sexist chivalry is. And I'm finding equally odd that the essayist thinks the solution is men stepping up and speaking out against this sort of behavior when we see it (as if someone needs to tell me that you don't tolerate violence against a woman in your presence) and yet also apparently thinks calling those same men "white male terrorists" is an effectual way to rally support.

If this really is this prevalent, and I walk into Origins or GenCon with a lady with me and I should expect this sort of vile human filth to come crawling out of the wood work, then I'm going to have to evaluate my future plans. Because I suspect security is going to take a dim view of my temptation to 'smite evil', and I really don't want to subject my daughters to such a scene. So I'd really like it if some people were honest about whether this is the real view women have of such conventions, and such places are really this dangerous. Because hitherto, the only person I've ever known to have been sexually or physically assaulted at a convention - a story I admittedly heard in second person, but had no cause to disbelieve - was a man, by a drunk woman during a LARP that got a bit out of hand at DragonCon.

 

[MechaPilot]

I largely agree with much of what you wrote, but I sectioned a couple pieces off for a special mention.

Presumably I am. Which makes it very hard for me to say anything that is in any way constructive, since the first thing I have to prove is that I'm not a "white male terrorist".

Well, there is nothing wrong with being of any ethnicity or gender, so you really don't have prove that you are not white or male. If you felt the need to prove anything, it should only be the not a terrorist part, because the other two adjectives are not bad things to be.

And that's not to say that you need to prove you are not a terrorist before saying anything constructive. The things you say and do will illustrate your character to those who witness those words/actions. Or, to put it another way, a bad tree will not bear good fruit.

And I'm finding equally odd that the essayist thinks the solution is men stepping up and speaking out against this sort of behavior when we see it (as if someone needs to tell me that you don't tolerate violence against a woman in your presence) and yet also apparently thinks calling those same men "white male terrorists" is an effectual way to rally support.

As I read the article (or essay, or whatever one wants to call it), I didn't get the impression that she was calling all gamers white male terrorists. The ones who sent death and rape threats clearly were/are terrorists though, because they were trying to weaponize fear against her simply because she stood up for her right to not be harassed.

 

[Celebrim]

As I read the article (or essay, or whatever one wants to call it), I didn't get the impression that she was calling all gamers white male terrorists. The ones who sent death and rape threats clearly were/are terrorists though, because they were trying to weaponize fear against her simply because she stood up for her right to not be harassed.

First, it was the essayist that wrote: " I have no way of knowing whether the person with whom I’m gaming is safe or the person who wants to...", and the rest censored out. So yes, as a white male, she puts the burden on me to prove I'm safe and not what she now (perhaps understandably) first assumes of all white men she is with. And likewise, yes, the article is a call to assume the worst of all white men until they prove otherwise that they are "safe". And many in this conversation have read or treated it as such, even going so far as to assert that denial was proof of guilt.

I tend to be very conservative with regards to how I use the word 'terrorist' (surprise, surprise) in that the word has been very broadly misused over the last 15 years or so as the word has been more and more in the national conversation (for better or worse). I don't think 20 years ago, anyone would have accepted the idea that simply terrorizing someone made you a terrorist nor do I think she would have reached for that word. While nailing down a definition of terrorism everyone is willing to agree to is always hard, certainly that casual loose usage of the word wouldn't have been accepted in the national security or geo-political community.

I strongly prefer that the word terrorism be confined to a military tactic that involves making total war against the weakest members of your opponent in order to convince them that the costs of waging war with you will be too high, or to otherwise engage in asymmetrical warfare against a superior foe by attacking those foes least able to resist you. This can then be understood in the framework of Westphalian nation states and challenges to them, as well as Clauswitzian escalation of force (and depravity), and we can then have a meaningful conversation about what is normally called terrorism rather than labeling virtually all violence and threats of violence (uselessly) terrorism to the point the word loses any specific meaning.

Comparison of people to terrorists has become as lazy as comparing people to Hitler. It both trivializes an issue that should be serious, and obscures and muddles the conversation, both about sexism (in this case) and terrorism. Since terrorism refers to a deliberate act of war, to suggest that her abusers are terrorists is to suggest that the proper and reasonable response to their acts of terror is to make war on them using actual military force. Bad as the abuse she has received is, and as terrorizing as it may be to her or in its intent, I don't think terrorism is the right paradigm to put it under.

And even to the extent that you don't agree with that definition of terrorism, the fact that the definition of terrorism is itself so controversial and such a hot button issue, suggests invoking it is not very useful to your cause.

 

[Rottle]

I think this artical is getting in the way at this point.

Lets instead focus on harassment in the gaming world.

Lets agree to stand together against it whenever we see it.

Look out for each other, speak up for what is right, make our community better one small voice at a time.

To me that's all we need, just each of us trying.

 

[Elf Witch]

I really wish she had not used the term white male terrorist because it has clouded the conversation. But I understand why she did it. When you have been marginalized or harassed and it has been at the hands of a member or members of the majority who has the privilege and sometimes protection that comes with that a lot of pent up anger and frustration. There is also the fact that provocative titles makes your blog post stand out from the thousands of others.

You see this kind of thing when a person of color who speaks up about the racism they have faced and uses the term white people instead of some white people. Instead of just looking at the person experience many feel the need to defend the people who are not like this. If you are not a racist, sexist jerk then why do you feel the need to defend and deflect from the point being discussed? As a white person I had to develop a thicker skin when reading stories of racism. My first inclination was to defend myself and say I am not like that not all white people are like that. Then I realized no one is saying that we are and anyone who actually believes that has a lot of anger and bigotry of their own that need to work through.


First, it was the essayist that wrote: " I have no way of knowing whether the person with whom I’m gaming is safe or the person who wants to...", and the rest censored out. So yes, as a white male, she puts the burden on me to prove I'm safe and not what she now (perhaps understandably) first assumes of all white men she is with. And likewise, yes, the article is a call to assume the worst of all white men until they prove otherwise that they are "safe". And many in this conversation have read or treated it as such, even going so far as to assert that denial was proof of guilt. Celebrim wrote that and I had to get up walk away after reading it to think of way to respond.

I was livid at first at his complete blindness of what it means to be a woman then I calmed down and realized well he is a man and his experiences will be very different than mine. You see women are taught from the time they are children that we need to be wary of men we don't know that we need to protect ourselves from being raped. We are taught not to meet a strange guy any other place than a public one and to make sure someone knows where we are. We are taught to watch our drinks and never take one from a stranger. We are taught to use the buddy system we we go to bars and never drink with men you don't now and if we break that rule and get raped then a lot of people including women believe you asked for it by not being more careful. So we are basically taught that all men have the potential to be rapists and to be safe that is how we should look at them until they prove not to be.

I have been playing since the 1970s and I still have some anxiety when I join a table with men I don't know anything about. I am a little worried that I might be harassed that I will ave to deal with sublte sexism in the form of a DM or other players ideas of the realistic way to show a female PC. I have seem one to many times rape used as backstory or hinted at to outright described by DMs who some how don't know better or can't grasp why a female player may not want to deal with that in game. Then there are the DMs who feel the need to stick a female PC who is sexually active with a pregnancy. Unless the player is interested in that why go there? I have had arguments with DM on this with them taking the stand that since it is not a technological world there is no birth control. I have even had an argument with a GM in Shadowrun over this with him saying no birth control is 100%.

I have run into the guys who really don't want to play with a woman but are in the minority at their table and they make it unpleasant sometimes very openly and sometimes subtly. And often the other players either don't realize it or don't want to cause trouble or are waiting for the DM to do something about it.

So yeah my experiences have taught me to be a little wary. Is that really surprising?