What do you think of this threat?

[kenny]

Misogyny in gaming vs. freedom of speech.
Oh Boy! What a mess!

I strongly support our first amendment's freedom of speech, even (though vile and repulsive) the right of Nazis to march in the streets of heavily-Jewish Skokie, Illinois ... even (though vile and repulsive) the right of pedophiles to march for the right to legalize what they do.
Supporting freedom of speech does not not mean you support what people say.
And often sunlight becomes the best disinfectant so these folks end up shooting themselves in the foot when public pressure suppresses them.
I think Fred Phelp's 'GOD HATES FAGS' posters on the media did more to reduce discrimination against gays than all of the Ellen, Glee and Will and Grace episodes combined.

But this gaming thing is extraordinarily insidious.
A large percentage of impressionable boys game and they are being trained that large-breasted, long legged, scantily-clad women are ... oh you know what I mean.

I don't know what the answer is.
I don't want the government nannying the gaming industry, but I also want equality for women and IMO the gaming industry is a very powerful and influential powerhouse working against that.

Sex sells, just like fat, sugar, and salt in foods ... and capitalism is all about making money not doing the 'right' thing.

 

[kenny]

When someone wants a group to change just to suit them it is wrong.

Not when what that group does violates the civil rights of others.

Equality outranks anyone's "freedom" to discriminate.

Equality is contagious.
Women wanted what men had, the vote, so they got all uppity.
Blacks saw that whites had advantages so they got all uppity and we got the civil rights movement and helpful legislation.
Gays saw straights and even interracial couples had the right to marry so the gays got all uppity.
Women see men get more pay for the same work so they get all uppity.

It's not about, "someone wants a group to change just to suit them".
It's about equality.

Equality is good, not bad.
If games train boys to discriminate against women, that's bad.

 

[Karl_K]

If a system is exclusionary, then, yeah, pretty much universally, I'm going to be on the side of the people who're on the outside looking in ... just because I can see a practical gain for the larger whole in that system, whereas I see absolutely no net positive in keeping the Nice Things for an exclusive minority.

You must be assimilated, you must conform, all sub-cultures must be destroyed.
Being different is not acceptable.
There is nothing stopping women from buying a game and playing it and fitting into the culture, it is trying to change the culture to suit their own ideas of what it should be that is wrong.
I am not saying that there are not things in gaming that need to change and like I said I don't have a horse in this race I am just pointing out the other side.

 

[Circe]

Synechdoche: the USU incident has gotten a few new articles with old links up in the ether. To wit: the inarticulate hamster who started it all, in his own words at Buzzfeed: http://www.buzzfeed.com/josephberns...ergate-regrets-the-harassment-but-say#14k32e6....

... and a link to the teal deer of a break-up screed that started it all; http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/

Good god. He started a hate-blog about his ex, and has the nerve to self-righteously bleat that it's about ethics? Looks more like straight-up harassment to me, and I hope she eventually gets around to suing his ass for defamation.

Why are men so afraid of women? (some men, I should say)

Compare the threat that prompted this post to the manifesto of Elliot Rodgers, the California dude who went on a killing spree because he was pissed off about his inability to get a date. Compare both of them to Pittsburgh's George Sodini, who shot over a dozen people because - and this is in his own words, mind - he couldn't get laid. And compare the whole lot to Marc Lepine, our stalwart letter-writer's inspiration, who murdered 14 women back in 1989, because they had the nerve to have done better than he did on the entrance exams to the university (and also wouldn't date him).

It's an interesting pattern where lots of guys will kill their own wife (& frequently kids), whom they see as property, but a stand-out few will kill as many random women as they can take with them, justifying it by saying that women as a class brought it on themselves by refusing to accede to their will, sexual or otherwise. It's kind of why I say the current system hurts men as well as women: when capital-M Manhood is defined by the ability to dominate women, to use video game terms, their inability to score makes them feel like losers.

They're sore losers.

Or, at least, that's how they see themselves under the current asinine system. I think they'd have better luck seeing some value in themselves if they could grant some to their female counterparts.

 

[Circe]

If a system is exclusionary, then, yeah, pretty much universally, I'm going to be on the side of the people who're on the outside looking in ... just because I can see a practical gain for the larger whole in that system, whereas I see absolutely no net positive in keeping the Nice Things for an exclusive minority.

You must be assimilated, you must conform, all sub-cultures must be destroyed.
Being different is not acceptable.
There is nothing stopping women from buying a game and playing it and fitting into the culture, it is trying to change the culture to suit their own ideas of what it should be that is wrong.
I am not saying that there are not things in gaming that need to change and like I said I don't have a horse in this race I am just pointing out the other side.

I know, Karl, and I'm enjoying the conversation - a good, civil debate is an excellent way to delve more deeply into the issues at hand.

I'd say that if a sub-culture is based on dehumanizing some other group, then, yeah, it should be, if not destroyed, at least modified.

Gaming is really cool. It's an amazing form of story-telling. Why diminish it with a dull, fill-in-the-numbers narrative where women are virgins/prizes or whores/targets?

And, again ... how is questioning a subculture the same as destroying it? Shouldn't all elements of society be open to debate & improvement?

I feel like there's a weird mixed message coming out of geek culture as a whole. In my corner of it, I see all of this wounded ego about how geeks were always ostracized, marginalized, made fun of, beaten up. But when it goes mainstream - when being a geek gets cool, when everybody is quoting Star Wars & dressing as a character from the MCU - suddenly, woe, geek culture is being diluted, we're surrounded by posers, there are enemies at the gates! (Many of them also female: see also, the Fake Geek Girl meme.) I feel like it stems from this fear of being beaten at their/our (because, see, I DO identify as a geek) own game by the same people who beat us at being popular in high school. I feel like geek culture ought to be better than that. The original geeks ought to have enough confidence to face the "competition" (or, better yet, to be secure enough not to see it as competition in the first place, but just companionship). YMMV.

ETA: Cross-post again; I think we must space work-breaks on the same clock. Put the second-to last post up before I saw you'd replied to the previous exchange.

 

[telephone89]

I think this feeds into the larger phenomenom that men are asked to be responsible for themselves, and stop blaming women. (which I find funny the pushback, because 'gamers' have been blamed for school shootings and the like)

ie dress codes. Women (or in actuality 13 year old girls) are asked not to wear spaghetti straps, or shorts too short because it is distracting to boys. This puts no responsibility on the boy to respect women, and to 'keep his eyes on his studies'. This directly feeds into blaming a rape victim, because she was wearing something suggestive and the rapist 'probably couldn't help himself'. Most people would not agree with the latter statement any longer, and would say 'no no, it was the rapist. That's not all men', however few are likely to jump to the defence of the 13 year old girl being sexualized for wearing a spaghetti straps tank top.

This whole thing originally started as a discussion on gamer journalists vs gamers, and how they are starting to alienate their 'hardcore' (generalized as white male) audience. And it somehow spiralled into an attack on women.

Anyways, like I said I find the pushback from this particular community very odd, because they want to continue to view women as objects, people who have less to offer (or nothing besides sex), when they have been the subject of so many poor reviews in the past. Whenever something terrible happens in the world, they blame it on the video games s/he played, and that makes it sounds like the rest of the people who play those same games are a bunch of crazed psychopaths about to go off their rocker at any moment, which obiously isn't true. The crazed psychopath who shot up a movie theater/school/workplace/whereever did it for other reasons, and needs to take responsibility for those reasons, and not to try to blame an entire community.

 

[Karl_K]

I feel like there's a weird mixed message coming out of geek culture as a whole. In my corner of it, I see all of this wounded ego about how geeks were always ostracized, marginalized, made fun of, beaten up. But when it goes mainstream - when being a geek gets cool, when everybody is quoting Star Wars & dressing as a character from the MCU - suddenly, woe, geek culture is being diluted, we're surrounded by posers, there are enemies at the gates! (Many of them also female: see also, the Fake Geek Girl meme.) I feel like it stems from this fear of being beaten at their/our (because, see, I DO identify as a geek) own game by the same people who beat us at being popular in high school. I feel like geek culture ought to be better than that. The original geeks ought to have enough confidence to face the "competition" (or, better yet, to be secure enough not to see it as competition in the first place, but just companionship). YMMV.

lol sorry I am chuckling.
Real geeks don't care how society sees them and don't care what others do they are too busy doing their own thing.
There are male and female true geeks and always have been and again they don't really care.
I and many others sit back and chuckle while those who are pretend geeks attack wannabe geeks and again do our own thing.
To a real geek what goes on in the world is more like a movie rather than being something they are involved in.

Myself I am a lot less of a true geek than I was when I was younger and more engaged in the world out of necessity but really prefer the true geek world and withdraw into it when I am working on a project.
Many people will not get that but I have a feeling you will.

 

[ericad]

When someone wants a group to change just to suit them it is wrong.

Not when what that group does violates the civil rights of others.

Equality outranks anyone's "freedom" to discriminate.

Equality is contagious.
Women wanted what men had, the vote, so they got all uppity.
Blacks saw that whites had advantages so they got all uppity and we got the civil rights movement and helpful legislation.
Gays saw straights and even interracial couples had the right to marry so the gays got all uppity.
Women see men get more pay for the same work so they get all uppity.

It's not about, "someone wants a group to change just to suit them".
It's about equality.

Equality is good, not bad.
If games train boys to discriminate against women, that's bad.

Standing ovation

 

[ericad]

If a system is exclusionary, then, yeah, pretty much universally, I'm going to be on the side of the people who're on the outside looking in ... just because I can see a practical gain for the larger whole in that system, whereas I see absolutely no net positive in keeping the Nice Things for an exclusive minority.

You must be assimilated, you must conform, all sub-cultures must be destroyed.
Being different is not acceptable.
There is nothing stopping women from buying a game and playing it and fitting into the culture, it is trying to change the culture to suit their own ideas of what it should be that is wrong.
I am not saying that there are not things in gaming that need to change and like I said I don't have a horse in this race I am just pointing out the other side.

EXPLOITING WOMEN IS NOT CULTURE. Misogyny is not culture. Teaching young boys and men to sexualize, marginalize and objectify women is NOT CULTURE.

 

[ericad]

I mean seriously, striving to better the gaming industry for women, being socially responsible and contemplating the effects of this type of misogynistic imagery on kids and adults, making gaming a BETTER PLACE for all participants IS NOT A THREAT TO THE INDUSTRY OR CULTURE OF GAMING!

Why wouldn't men support these types of changes?! Is it more manly to objectify women? Is violence against women FUN? or FUNNY? I know Karl thinks it's just "boys being boys" and, yanno, women who can't "hang with the boys" (because we're too busy playing silly number games and knitting and baby making) are a threat to this awesome "subculture" of violence and objectification and sexualization of half the population.

 

[packrat]

Does anyone remember a few years ago, the thread on the rape video game? I can't find it so am wondering if it was deleted. Pretty sure I posted in it and don't see it in my post list. I don't think it was too long after I came here, so 2010 or so.

 

[Karl_K]

Why wouldn't men support these types of changes?! Is it more manly to objectify women? Is violence against women FUN? or FUNNY? I know Karl thinks it's just "boys being boys" and, yanno, women who can't "hang with the boys" (because we're too busy playing silly number games and knitting and baby making) are a threat to this awesome "subculture" of violence and objectification and sexualization of half the population.

I never said i believed any of that... I made it clear I was explaining how the the other side thinks for sake of discussion here.

 

[ericad]

I did not see this article until after this thread was well underway. It has a lot more information on the entire phenomenon of women and video games and a lot of history on Ms. Sarkeesian and the hatred towards her, too.

Article from "The New York Times"...http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/technology/gamergate-women-video-game-threats-anita-sarkeesian.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C{%221%22%3A%22RI%3A6%22}&_r=0

That is a very one sided story.
There is a lot of history to it.
I am hesitant to get into it because a lot of it I don't agree with and some I do and it would upset some people here.
Gamers have been under attack for years, from first ladies to presidents to senators to celebrities.
They get blamed for mass shootings and many attempt to marginalize them.
Many view it as the last place on earth where men can be men and boys be boys without the nanny state and do-gooder PC types breathing down their necks.
There are a few Women and girls who hang with the boys and they are honored.
Those that come in and demand that everyone change because they want it their way get a very negative reaction.

That statistic on woman gamers are way off they are not playing the same games.
They are counting games like words with friends and facebook games which are 99% Women in the same category as more hardcore games that are played by 99.9999% men.

There is much more to it than that but like I said I am not going to get into it.

The threatening letter was uncalled for and whoever sent it should be prosecuted.

Nowhere in the post above did you break down what you believe (which would upset some people here, per your own words) versus what you don't believe. The entire post reads as your opinion.

 

[Karl_K]

I am out of this thread.
I thought I could present the other side and generate some interesting discussion.
Thank you to those that took it that way and engaged in discussion.
I apologize to anyone who was upset at anything I wrote.

Karl

 

[ericad]

I am out of this thread.
I thought I could present the other side and generate some interesting discussion.
Thank you to those that took it that way and engaged in discussion.
I apologize to anyone who was upset at anything I wrote.

Karl

I have no issue with exploring the problem from the position of Devil's advocate. It wasn't clear from your post that this is what you were doing - I was reacting and responding to you what you wrote. So you were writing about the issue from the POV of the predominantly male gamers, and not what you specifically believe. Fair enough, but not a compelling argument for keeping the status quo.

Clearly female gamers are still in the minority, but like everything else we've had to fight for, this wouldn't even be an issue or a topic of conversation if we didn't have women who want to play the "hardcore games" and "hang with the boys".

Instead of fighting to keep things the same, I can't understand why, in this day and age, men aren't standing up for mutual respect and equality. THAT is what we, as a society, should be teaching kids in the first place, and what we should always be striving for.

 

[ericad]

Does anyone remember a few years ago, the thread on the rape video game? I can't find it so am wondering if it was deleted. Pretty sure I posted in it and don't see it in my post list. I don't think it was too long after I came here, so 2010 or so.

Ugh, no, I was blissfully unaware of that little nugget of a thread.

 

[ericad]

This thread mentioned some rape video game, but not sure if it's the one you're after?

[URL='https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/the-pedophiles-guide-to-love-and-pleasure.152094/']https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/the-pedophiles-guide-to-love-and-pleasure.152094/[/URL]

 

[Karl_K]

Erica, its kewl it kinda freaked me out that someone thought that is what I believe because it isn't.

My real thoughts is there is some room in the middle to meet and extremists on both sides are going to keep that from happening for a very long time.

 

[AGBF]

This thread mentioned some rape video game, but not sure if it's the one you're after?

[URL='https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/the-pedophiles-guide-to-love-and-pleasure.152094/']https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/the-pedophiles-guide-to-love-and-pleasure.152094/[/URL]

It has to be. There couldn't have been two games like that sold on Amazon! This one was apparently called, "Rape Play". I wonder where I was when this was discussed. (Back in 2010...packrat got the year right as well as remembering the thread!). At any rate, it doesn't ring a single bell.

Deb/AGBF

 

[packrat]

Nope, although the game is mentioned I saw, Rapeplay. It was a thread that I'm pretty sure was started about the game, not about that pedophile book. What I remember is the general consensus here being that as long as a guy/boy wasn't actually going out and raping a female, it was ok to play the game.

Don't shoot me if I am remembering wrong and someone else has a link to the thread or remembers it more clearly-but I remember sitting at the computer and my hands shaking, unable to type responses. B/c it was opined that probably it *prevented* rapes b/c the man/boy could rape a computer female rather than a real one. I was less than a year old on the board and didn't have the guts to tell people they were f-ing stupid.

I remember it b/c it turned my stomach and wrenched my heart so badly I almost left the forum. I was hoping the thread was still around and that I had misinterpreted responses. (which I don't think I did)

 

[Karl_K]

Nope, although the game is mentioned I saw, Rapeplay. It was a thread that I'm pretty sure was started about the game, not about that pedophile book. What I remember is the general consensus here being that as long as a guy/boy wasn't actually going out and raping a female, it was ok to play the game.

Don't shoot me if I am remembering wrong and someone else has a link to the thread or remembers it more clearly-but I remember sitting at the computer and my hands shaking, unable to type responses. B/c it was opined that probably it *prevented* rapes b/c the man/boy could rape a computer female rather than a real one. I was less than a year old on the board and didn't have the guts to tell people they were f-ing stupid.

I remember it b/c it turned my stomach and wrenched my heart so badly I almost left the forum. I was hoping the thread was still around and that I had misinterpreted responses. (which I don't think I did)

I remember the game and how disgusted I was about it but don't recall a thread on here about it.
It may have got shut down before I read it.
On another forum I posted on which was mostly guys they wanted to hunt down the people who made it and hurt them very badly.

 

[HopeDream]

Women in videogames?



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsyt__ybb8M

Threats to call off speakers? Definitely not cool. Hunt down and prosecute the terrorist.

 

[smitcompton]

Hi,


I think one of the issues is --are people able to separate real life from fantasy. Most gamers probably can, but there are those, like the person who made the threat who can not. He has proved her point. He believes it is OK to threaten a woman, even to kill her. We have to find this person, as he is one of the dangerous ones that she is speaking about.

We can certainly can say the same thing about movies , comics, girlie magazines. But we really can't change them all. What kind of female characters do we want to see? I's say I want a variety. I think that the young men of today respect women far more as equals then when I was younger, although they seem to need more training and education on refraining from sexual assaults on women. This is a disgrace in our colleges. And women must learn danger signs as well. To be too trusting is a fault.

I want the police to find this guy. Right now, he is the problem.

Annette

 

[Circe]

Brianna Wu, I love you. http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/brianna-wu-gamergate