Harassment in gaming

[Rottle]

To me, the issue isn't about whether harassment is so minor it simply doesn't matter. ALL harassment matters. The issue is what to do about it. Using cheap shots like "white male terrorism" is counter-productive. In fact, it is harmful.

If all harassment matters then surely it's easy enough to move past the cheap shots and get to the fixing. Seriously if someone is on fire and calls me a name, that doesn't mean I let them burn. Grow a little thicker skin to her name calling, or just ignore her and her artical and get to dealing with harassment which we both agree cannot be allowed to continue.

Respect and support for each other. Let's all try to do a bit better with it each day.

 

[Gradine]

So you agree that harassment is a problem and worthy of discussion, but not as much of a problem or worthy of discussion as one woman's tone and phrasing? I'm sorry, but that is the textbook definition of missing the point.

A real ally doesn't disrupt a conversation about a systemic problem like harassment to declare personal umbrage at one individual's use of identity politics terminology. A real ally doesn't condescend about the person's "lack of maturity" even when they disagree with particular parts of their analysis, or if they think a certain sort of person might take it personally. A real ally wouldn't take it personally, because a real ally understands that it's not about them. A real ally understands a person can only put up with this crap for so long before needing to just f'in rant about it. A real ally understands that sometimes a person's just got to speak their own God damn truth.

What gets missed in this is that a post on a personal blog does not constitute outreach to a skeptical community. It is many ways preaching to a choir, and yes yes efficacy and impact yadda yadda, again, not the freaking point. Yes it ends in a call to action, but again a call to action to her followers, who are presumably on board with her analysis in the first place.

Would she have toned down her rhetoric, used more accessible language, if she were directly addressing and attempting to gain the buy-in of the gaming community? My guess would be probably. That's kind of what the folks in this thread have been attempting, with admittedly varying degrees of success (myself included). It's a hard topic not to get passionate about, which is frustrating when the opposition confuses passion with immaturity.

At the end of the day though, this thread isn't about one woman's one blog post leading a sole crusade against harassment in gaming. This thread, as both the title and Fearless Leader suggest, is about Harassment in Gaming.

 

[billd91]

To me, the issue isn't about whether harassment is so minor it simply doesn't matter. ALL harassment matters. The issue is what to do about it. Using cheap shots like "white male terrorism" is counter-productive. In fact, it is harmful.

Welcome to the "All live matter" deflection of the harassment issue. Again. For all harassment to matter, the harassment of women and minorities has to be made to matter. That's the crux of Black lives matter as well. Sure all lives and all harassment incidents matter - but in practice, it's clear they don't because of these particular weak points that are being highlighted by African-Americans in the Black lives matter movement and by women complaining about being harassed and the target of sexism in gaming culture.

As a certain cartoon illustrates, you don't pour water on the house not on fire saying "All houses matter" when there's one burning next door. The white male house isn't the one on fire.

 

[Darkwing Duck]

For all harassment to matter, the harassment of women and minorities has to be made to matter. .

Sure, the harassment of women and minorities has to matter. The sexual harassment of males and whites needs to matter, too.
Just a few weeks ago, a feminist actually asserted to me that we shouldn't have _any_ discussion of sexual harassment of men because, she asserted, it takes attention away from sexual harassment of women.

I'm confident in asserting that statutory rape jail time when women rape boys is almost certainly shorter than when men rape girls. (actually, according to a Star-Ledger report, 54% of male suspects go to prison, 44% of women go to prison, and men serve an average 1.5 x longer jail sentences). Men are raped more often than women. But, we can't talk about any of that because it doesn't fit the bulli liberal metanarrative.

 

[Obryn]

I'm not finding that.

I found this post http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...ge41&p=6878248&highlight=Winnipeg#post6878248 but it highlights the lack of ability to do any fact checking on her claims.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/taking-a-stand-against-abuse-284204591.html

 

[Darkwing Duck]

So you agree that harassment is a problem and worthy of discussion, but not as much of a problem or worthy of discussion as one woman's tone and phrasing? I'm sorry, but that is the textbook definition of missing the point.

Yes, the woman fit the textbook definition of missing the point. That's pretty clear.

We need to address the problem, not tolerate inaccuracies and fear-mongering.

 

[Darkwing Duck]

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/taking-a-stand-against-abuse-284204591.html

I don't understand the point you are making. What happened to this woman was horrendous. It should not be tolerated, EVER.
And, alongside her (not "instead of", there's room for every victim on that shelf), let's put the fact that, according to a recent survey, one-third of men have reported sexual harassment in the workplace at some point in their lives and it is very, very difficult for male victims to be taken seriously.

 

[Darkwing Duck]

If all harassment matters then surely it's easy enough to move past the cheap shots and get to the fixing. Seriously if someone is on fire and calls me a name, that doesn't mean I let them burn. Grow a little thicker skin to her name calling, or just ignore her and her artical and get to dealing with harassment which we both agree cannot be allowed to continue.

Respect and support for each other. Let's all try to do a bit better with it each day.

With all the slander going on, a person on fire will be afraid to go to people who can help put out the fire because the fire victim has heard all this slander and has come to believe that the people who can help will, instead, just dump gasoline on them.

Like I said, it isn't helpful.

 

[Obryn]

I don't understand the point you are making. What happened to this woman was horrendous. It should not be tolerated, EVER.
And, alongside her (not "instead of", there's room for every victim on that shelf), let's put the fact that, according to a recent survey, one-third of men have reported sexual harassment in the workplace at some point in their lives and it is very, very difficult for male victims to be taken seriously.

You complained about the lack of "documentation" and the ability to verify her claims. I provided it.

 

[Darkwing Duck]

You complained about the lack of "documentation" and the ability to verify her claims. I provided it.

You provided one isolated example. There's not much that can be learned from one data point.
I do believe that sexual harassment exists against women. I think that's obvious. But, the argument was made that we shouldn't talk about male victims because of lack of documentation. I pointed out that the woman who wrote the original letter provided no means to fact check.
You've provided a means to fact check one of her stories. Is that sufficient to support the claim that we shouldn't talk about male victims because of lack of documentation?

If you say, "yes," (which I think would be disingenuous, but *shrug*), then I give you this. In asking 40,000 households about rape, the National Crime Victimization Survey revealed that 38% of rape incidents were against men. The 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey added a category called "being made to penetrate" and discovered that the rates of nonconsensual sexual contact basically equalized with 1,270 million women and 1,267 million men claiming to be victims of sexual violence. A recent analysis of Bureau of Justice Statistics turned up that 46 percent of male victims reported a female perpetrator. In Juvenile Correction Facilities, 89% of sexual misconduct was reported by boys reporting abuse by a female staff member.