Hmm . . . that might be true in some cases, but it seems like a better environment for them would be one that allowed more adult interaction, and skill-development that had more real-world application than gaming. Also, it seems counter-intuitive to suggest that isolating themselves from girls for years is going to make their future interactions with women more successful.
Surely there are more than two options for socially-awkward teenage boys.
Me too - Iâd love to see that funded. The indie game I am currently loving is The Swapper. Also gender neutral and very well done.
Personally, I suspect the idea comes from much the same place that causes many young women to be attracted to young men who will inevitably make them miserable: Insecurity x sexual desire x limited empathy. i.e. being an adolescent. Iâm not convinced thereâs much that can be done about it except minimizing the amount of harm they can do to themselves and others until they reach young adulthood. Adolescence is a temporary (for most) madness.
Note, this does not mean not trying to turn them into decent human beings. I just donât expect it to be successful for 4-5 years.
And, of course, thereâs always a significant minority who somehow make it through adolescence being decent human beings. Theyâre just not the subject of discussion here.
Are you sure the idea doesnât come from a media that is saturated with male heroes (especially white male heroes) who always get the girl in the end as a reward?
One thing you learn over time as a parent is that almost everything is just a stage. Also, that most advice is wrong about how soon/quickly a child can move on to the next stage. Canât go under it, canât go over it⌠got to go through it. (Extra points for knowing which toddler book that comes from.) One day, the kid âgets itâ and you realize the angst wasnât worth itâŚof course they were going to get there, eventually.
But yeah, I spend a lot of time telling high school girls that the guys who are jerks to them now will be better people in a few years. Doesnât mean they should put up with sh** from them now, however.
It goes deep, and it goes 100% passed-over when it happens to men. Weâre saying we want to destroy the âwomen on a pedestalâ trope but our actions keep supporting it over and over again.
Whenever someone claims that âWomen claim to want equality but still special treatment!â, it always seems to be someone trying to claim that curbing sexism and ill treatment of women is bad because⌠itâs ignoring men or something. And thereâs never anyone actually wanting to be âput on a pedestalâ.
I also love your line about how women are being âhystericalâ about this issue, because Iâve seen nothing of the sort - just people pointing out a real problem.
Look, itâs true that sexism is not the only problem in online gaming. There are a lot of insults hurled at men AND women, which are sometimes racist or homophic and always childish. But thereâs a difference between general asshattery and sexism. When calling people gay, people arenât actually referring to a person who is gay. When making racist comments, itâs usually some guy just trying to be obnoxious and not made because thereâs actually a member of some minority present.
Sexist comments, on the other hand, are always spesifically made towards women. Itâs made towards their gender, a major characteristic of who they are. When people notice youâre a woman (from your voice), some might yell at you to show your boobs. Iâve also noticed that some men get really competetive and try with all their might to win you or kill you, and if they do, theyâll make a really big scene out of it. âDie bitch!â, some have yelled at me.
No one ever targets a man because heâs a man. No one ever yells âLol, youâre a dude, you have balls! Show me your dick!â
So yes, it is different when half the time you play people insult you because youâre a woman, because of who you are. Itâs much easier to take general insults from someone who is just trying to be an ass, because it happens in the presense of certain people, not due to your own presense.
What youâre saying is akin to complaining about campaigns targeted towards racist bullying. âEveryone gets bullied, so why are we focusing on racism? No one cares what happens to white people!â
I come from the side, as always. I have noticed that boys and men refuse to let anyone narrate their story, ever. Boys who you call boys insist they are men, which is B.S. since as under 18 years old they are children, but women will let you call them anything you want as long as it isnât derogatory and will answer. You can count the number of times someoneâs name is said and reference to their gender and see this is true.
Men are also very good at narrating other peopleâs story, and games are great because they get to pretend they are narrating their own story. We know there is a bias against âwomen who talk too muchâ when the evidence is that men talk more and gossip more then women, which points to my thesis. Keeping the origination of narration away from women is referential to the Bechdel test, there is a reason why males do it - I donât understand its purpose for our species but it is pretty endemic. I do think it may be a default, as a parent I work to allow my kids to narrate their own story, give them the ground and materials but they put it together - perhaps as a woman that works against me narrating my own world.
I also wonder if women are keeping men out of say, Pinterest and other visual (concrete) means of expression and communication. This isnât just about Virginia Wolf (âA Room of Oneâs Ownâ), I think it is more substantial to it. Games and geeky movies can be kept for the inner language of men, just as long as they donât try to tell me my own story.
[quote=âGeth, post:46, topic:18498â]
Are you sure the idea doesnât come from a media that is saturated with male heroes (especially white male heroes) who always get the girl in the end as a reward? [/quote]
Iâm certain media helps influence young male (and female) behaviour. However, Iâm quite convinced that media is basically paddling downstream. All the drives are there and the media is simply happy to take advantage of the insecurities to peddle products. A âresponsibleâ media would, in my opinion, have as much influence as anti-drug campaigns. That is to say, a small amount of success among the edges, but no significant difference in the end.
Again, that is not to say we shouldnât try. But I think itâs unrealistic to expect much success.
My Gods, it even runs on Linux! OK, Iâm in.
You donât have to go as far as sex - what about games with âromancingâ options? Iâm not interested in playing these characterâs sex lives, but if I am presented with a option to win a partner then I want more options that actually match my life. (Thank you, Skyrim for letting me make the choice about my characterâs orientation!)
As for games I donât see this feedback loop as amplifying. Thatâs to say that while historically games were seen as a predominantly male hobby thatâs no longer the case as the percentage of female gamers are increasing year over year. Since they have a financial incentive to reach a growing demographic, itâd be against their best interests to try and suppress it (although that doesnât stop them from often misstepping in reading their audience.) In addition you have an industry thatâs seeing an explosion in smaller studios that are able to be less risk-adverse compared to the larger studios, who tend to keep the variation from game to game very minimal. Thereâs still a significant gap between the audience and the representation, but it seems to be closing not widening.
If there was a quote to be framed for new parents, thatâs it.
Seems like a pretty egregious example of circular reasoning, literally. What I can tell you is the reason geek-stuff is marketed to guys instead of girls is that boys were the ones who developed a strong interest in this stuff before it was marketed to anybody. It may have been appealing to some girls, but it was the boys who gravitated to it naturally. So itâs really just a matter of knowing your market and selling to people who are likely to be receptive to your products.
And why did boys gravitate to it rather than girls? Was it because oh, âgirls are homemakers, science is hardâ?
The marketing existed long before the products did.
See, thatâs where youâre wrong. Because I can remember when there was virtually no marketing of âgeekâ stuff to anyone. No one was marketing oscilloscopes or other electronics to geeky kids - they were reading the magazines and other publications targeted at an adult audience and working it out for themselves.
When I was a kid, we had my older brothersâ Erector Set and Bridge and Turnpike Set and similar things lying around the house. My sisters would join me sometimes in playing with them but they never really got into it like I did. They gravitated toward creating character-based worlds using cowboy and other plastic figures, horses, a farm set and the like, eventually moving on to Barbies and other larger dolls. But they didnât do dress-up, they developed this really intricate society. But they didnât care to tinker with stuff like I did. And I found playing âfarmâ a bit tiresome. I saw similar things in my friendâs families, though with occasional exceptions. So Iâd have to say that while gender tendencies are not hard and fast, there are inborn traits associated with both, and to complain about marketing reinforcing such traits is to try to impose a neutrality that just doesnât exist and fail to recognize natural traits.
Really? Your family wasnât soaked in the âwomen are homemakersâ? âGirls like pinkâ? âGirls like dollsâ? âGirls donât talk unless spoken to?â
If you canât see the inherent bias and see it as âgravitationâ, you are part of the problem.
If you knew my family, youâd know how ridiculous that was. My mother was very outspoken, an early feminist and made it very clear to my sisters that all options were open to them. She also made sure I learned how to cook, sew and do laundry so I could look out for myself and not feel I needed to find a wife to do such things. My older sister wasnât mechanically inclined and loved playing with dolls, but she was also a rough-and-tumble tomboy who loved sports and outdoor activities, and once beat up an effeminate classmate.
It seems like youâre the one bent on stereotypes, since you think you know what the family atmosphere of all postwar households was like. It was far more diverse than you could ever imagine.
There are some neat experiments on children literally days old that show statistically significant differences in males and female interaction. As well, I think almost all parents who have had both boys and girls are pretty aware that while there are some innate differences in the averages. Plenty of overlap, but the peaks donât coincide.
However, as pointed out in the original article, what marketing, and more importantly culture do is exaggerate differences and reinforce them. If 20% of young boys might actually enjoy the sort of social play that comes from playing with dolls, you can be damn certain itâs pretty close to zero by the time social conditioning has finished with them.
Itâs why it sucks to be a minority of any sort, and will always suck to be a minority no matter how. Human beings are programmed to generalize, and youâll always be fighting up-hill. Once again, that doesnât mean you shouldnât bother fighting. After all, fighting to be better than what nature has given us is why weâre not living in the forest and dying at 30.
But it also means that assuming malice in people who incorrectly generalize is usually a mistake. The error is part of human nature, and it takes significant intellectual effort to think beyond it.
Do not underestimate the power of the rest of society over children.
wow.
I commented here earlier, insinuating that the word âmenâ was a misnomer in this case.
my comment was âhiddenâ because enough people flagged it.
(hereâs the âcritiqueâ I got: âplease consider how you might revise your post to reflect their feedback.â READ AS: âTHINK LIKE US!â âYou can edit your post after 10 minutes, and it will be automatically unhidden. This will increase your forum trust level.â READ AS: âYOU THINK INDEPENDENTLY SO WE DON"T TRUST YOU!â
âHowever, if the post is hidden by the community a second time, the moderators will be notified â and there may be further action, including the possible suspension of your account.â READ AS: WE ARE THREATENING TO CENSOR YOU PERMANENTLY!")
I donât know if I should call you cowards or fascists.
Clearly youâre NOT men.
Cory, how do expect to get the respect you deserve in international communications of your ideas if you treat your readers thus? seriously. itâs appalling behaviour. dissent is healthy. donât your readers refer to themselves as âdeviantâ?
Flag away, boys. And Adieu.
