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Our annual review on sexual harrasment from Claire in HR (with a very good finale):
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It’s simply a fact that in the WoW realm in which I was playing, there were many female players who were generally known to be female, and who didn’t have a problem chatting or playing in pick-up groups. All the downvotes and gifs in the world won’t make that less a fact. It’s also a fact that I didn’t get all that much in the way of sex-related whispers despite extensive play on female avatars. (And my main avatar was pretty, honest!)
I’m sure there are differences between then and now, not least the fact that realms were isolated and movement between them was not that easy, as well as cultural differences between the US and Europe and between now and a decade ago. And in the game format that was the subject of this experiment, one would expect much less in the way of social cohesion anyway compared to a MMORPG.
Nevertheless, the apparent complete silence of female players seems worthy of attention. I have to wonder how many of the comments were something like “Gosh, I didn’t know girls played this game”. And if they weren’t, how does it fit with the findings? Are there many fewer female players in-game at any time than is thought? Sure, test your hypothesis against the data. But if you’re going to the trouble of gathering data, why not look at the stories it is telling, not just the answers to the specific question you chose to ask?
It also makes me wonder again why everyone seemingly wants to play games with voice communication, at least until vocoders are perfect. Seems like it’s just asking to break down the barriers between the real and virtual worlds.
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Gerry, I don’t think you understand. So let me share a MANecdote with you:
Female players in FOnline are rare, for a simple reason: the men who play the game are toxic beings. Not juat racists, not just skeevy, these guys make a crusade of it. They dox, they brigade,and they hire people to go sfter you offline. Walk into a voice channel - nine times out of ten, there’s a misogynist slur in the first minute.
Men. Fucking. Suck.
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Historically males have been the target audience for games, and for the most part it still is though more studios have making a concerted effort to appeal and make games that are more inclusive to other demographics.
The toxicity women experience just shows how much of a boy’s club mentality some gamers have. I hesitate to bring it up but the Gamergate fiasco just further illustrates how far guys will go to make women’s inclusion in games such a nightmare. Go look at any game reporting done by women, particularly stuff that’s on Youtube. Hell even women involved in videogame production get singled out and harassed.
Anyone that says harassment is not the norm or as big of a deal is being willfully ignorant. The signs that this happens are everywhere, just because your personal experience doesn’t reflect this does not change the facts. Hell i don’t even care about this study, i don’t need it to realize how problematic these man-childs can be and how endemic the problem of toxic masculinity is.
I’ve been relatively benign despite my snarking, but Gerry leave the ladies here alone and check yourself. You’re making a fool out of yourself. Hell you’ve gone as far to let my direct responses to you slide and taken to arguing with the women. What are you really trying to say and who are you really trying to defend? Stop dude, just fucking stop.
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Especially since the floodgates on sexual harassment have been opened these past couple of months. Anyone who denies this is a systemic problem is simply either lying to themselves or is actively trying to preserve the status quo because they genuinely believe that the status quo is fine.
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Just a pedantic point here, this was only true after the great game market crash. Prior to about 1984, games were marketed equally to boys and girls.
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I’m just gunna leave my thoughts as it before i go on a rantpage [sic]
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The plural of anecdote is not data. It’s nice you saw none of that shit going on though dollars to donuts you just didn’t see it and the women of the group might have a different story.
Back in the pre web days I hung out quite regularly on a MOO… Hell I ended as an official officer of sorts for awhile and it allowed me to make a second character. For funs and curiosity I made a female character with a description along the lines of ‘stressed IT worker who could use a haircut’ how that is interesting or sexy boggles me. Not that I doubted the stories but jeebus I would get random hey baby shit when I had been idle for fucking hours. I hate to think what the broflakes with no social skills on WOW League Of Legends, etc act like.
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This is Words with Friends for fuck’s sake:
I mean, it was an obvious romance scammer but still.
I was also told in an online pool game that I shouldn’t be online playing a game if I was married. Being online means I’m single, or that I want to fuck around. And, that if my husband doesn’t share every one of my hobbies, I shouldn’t have married him.
I get rather a lot of single men telling me I’m being married “wrong”. Ironic.
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