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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gradine" data-source="post: 6869630" data-attributes="member: 57112">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, threatened and/or real violence, and sexual assault, in which you sort of have to acknowledge that there is a problem and something ought to be done about it; or you don't believe them, in which you are completely dismissing their lived experiences and therefore should not be surprised that your protestations of "I don't agree..." or "I don't believe..." are met with the likes of "You don't seem to understand..." You are saying you don't believe in something that is actual fact, something that actually has happened and still happens.Now, if you do believe that there is a problem then obviously there should be some discussion has to the nature and scope of the problem as well as what, if anything, there can or should be done about it. These are productive conversations. Unfortunately, if you refuse to believe in the problem, insist that the endless multitudes of stories of harassment and violence are all works of fiction, there is sadly nothing you can really add to that discussion and in fact all that you will be capable of doing is disrupting it. We'd love to invite you to the real world where flagrant misogynists and predators actually exist in numbers far greater than most people seem to be willing to accept, and where the vast multitudes of "#notallmen" gamers enable these predators by either ignoring them, refusing to acknowledge their existence outside a few rare "bad seeds" that only exist in barely relevant "not my community"-land, or refuse to call them out on the less overtly dangerous behaviors and attitudes they exhibit that makes them feel like the overt violence they do commit is actual socially justifiable, or shout down the voices of those who do call predators out on these as "overly sensitive" or "feminazis" or "SJWs" or whatever the hip new derogatory buzzword is for people demanding to be treated with actual respect. We'd love everyone to join the real world and work towards changing it for the better, but a failure to believe in the real world is a barrier to entry to being a productive part of the conversation. The enduring problem, then, that comes with having this conversation is getting people to the point where they're actually willing to believe the multitudes of stories that exist and are occurring in plain view on internet and at conventions and game stores every god damned day. It's certainly not for lack of evidence, no matter how many people continue to insist on seeing it and dismiss it when it inevitably does get presented. In my mind it's a matter of empathy. Either, at some point in your life, you were raised or trained or learned on your own to have empathy for people whose lived experiences are vastly different from your own, or you weren't. I wouldn't know the first place where to begin in how to train empathy to total strangers over the internet, particularly ones who are inclined to be opposed, either civilly (as has been the case here) or uncivilly (see: most of the rest of the internet gaming forums) to the process in the first place. But I feel it's a process worth figuring out. Until it is I don't see how conversations between people who believe women's stories and those who don't will ever progress beyond talking past each other.To introduce a new topic, one I'm pretty curious about, but what does it say about how far the tabletop gaming community is along in the process of reversing decades of misogyny and homophobia that it doesn't have its own equivalent to "Gamergate" or "Rabid Puppies"? Is it a good sign? A bad sign? Does it say anything at all? I mean, I know there were assorted grumblings when the 5e PHB dropped its language of inclusivity towards gender identity and sexuality, but Gamergate started over far less and both those movements speak to anxieties about the types of changes to their respective industries that the 5e PHB clearly exemplifies. I mean, I know there's the Chainmail Bikini Enthusiasts Squad, a debate I had actually believed both sides had simply gotten tired of having until it cropped up again in this thread. And I know there's a certain sub-cultures in the darker recesses of the OSR movement that clearly wants to, to put it as indelicately as possible, "Make D&D Rapey Again." But no broad sweeping movement seems to have formed in opposition to the 5e PHB language. In fact, it seemed to get pretty much universal praise, again except for those assorted grumblings here and there. I'd like to think it's a good sign, but it could very easily be a bad one too; that is, the forces that would form such a movement don't feel, like Gamergaters or Rabid Puppies do, that they're losing their grip on their hobby at all, and therefore don't feel the need to establish a counter-culture around "restoring" it. Or does it really just not say anything at all, and that like-minded tabletop gamers have simply latched on to Gamergate?</blockquote>

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