You’re right: we’re a group of men and women. There might even be some teenagers involved.
If you don’t feel the need to communicate with the group, then don’t. Spewing a monologue isn’t communicating, btw.
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You’re wrong. Apples and oranges. Instead of recognising that people like different sorts of games, you’re arguing that the games should be changed until people like them equally. It just happens that guys are responding better, but not exclusively, to the games you want to change - and because it’s guys, you see that as a bad thing. It’s just a thing. There is a huge choice of entertainment media available, yet time and again we hear that games should change because they’re catering to men. They’re not catering for men, they’re generally made by men for men, or by boys for boys. Why that’s bad, I don’t understand. Is all media supposed to be equally appealing to everyone? How is that useful?
You’ll say oh I don’t get it, girls are being marginalized, ignored or worse. Yeah. Guys who like mini-vans aren’t going to buy sports cars just because you add some more cup-holders.
If you make the violent, brash, sexy games appeal to more women then they’re no longer going to be violent, brash and sexy. You’ve just removed the appeal of that game from its core audience.
IF you want to make the argument that games shouldn’t be violent, brash or sexy, then make it and come out and say you want to see games like that banned, because that’s what you’re proposing. But you know what, games are a relatively new medium, so how about you come for them AFTER you’ve taken the violent, brash and sexy out of comics, books, radio, television, movies and, oh you know, everything else.
Applying specific examples of running across a small element of bad apples doesn’t validate taking away the entertainment from the majority who enjoy it. No-one is suggesting that book groups should have more strippers and beer kegs. I’m done flogging that horse - last time at book group this guy called me an ignoramus for suggesting we have a push-up contest, so all book clubs are bad and all the members are asshats. right?
And can we stop conflating two things. There are a ton of options available in most on-line games, or social networks or forums, to block people who give you a hard time. Use them. Assholes being assholes and games appealing more to a specific gender are two different things, unless you want to stereotype all males as assholes, which seems to be the latent argument here.
Incidentally,
I didn’t suggest it.
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I see you’ve decided to completely misrepresent what I’m saying. I never said games should be forced to have an aqual amount of women, or that they shouldn’t be “sexy” or that they should be banned.
I explained why women don’t often play games like that. And you somehow found that a really offensive position. I don’t understand why.
I have a hard time believing that men want their games to have cardboard characters and sexist representations of women. There might be a niche for games like that and people are free to make them, but men complain all the times about bad characters. If the games had better stories, everyone would win. It’s true there are many amazing games out there and better ones come out all the time, but that that doesn’t mean I should just shut up and not criticise something I don’t like.
Also, I LIKE BOOBS. But there is a difference between sexy and sexist, and we should definitely criticize them, just like we should critize racism and homophibia in media. I don’t agree with the position that bigoted representations should be okay because freedom and because I can always look elsewhere.
I also never said anything against violence in games. But don’t let reality stop you from hating.
And sure, assholes online can be blocked. I do. But that doesn’t make what they say okay, and that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight against it. You seem to be arguing that it’s not a problem, which clearly shows that you haven’t experienced it yourself.
But I’m going to leave it at that, unless you decide to answer to what I’ve really said. Your strawman arguments about how I’m an evil woman on a mission to stop the games that men just love are highly offensive and I don’t need to take any bullshit like that.
Edit//
What else could “You don’t need to change “military science fiction” into “romance”” mean, except that romance is something that a woman would want instead of military science fiction if a game-banner like me were to change all games to something that “suits women”. The point still stands; women love stuff like sci-fi just as much, and the only change needed to make games for everyone is not have sexism in them.
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Not adieu, but eaten!
I am curious as to what you were thinking when you wrote the last part (beat up an effeminate classmate). Is it “masculine” to beat people up? How is that something to be proud of?
I assume by “effeminate” you are saying that she beat up a guy who was too girly by your standards. Why is that important? Does it make it better to know that the person getting beat up has feminine qualities?
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Well, statistically speaking, if A is beating up B, then A is almost certainly a male. The odds are high B is male too, but not nearly as high as the odds of A being male.
I am curious what you were thinking when you wrote this response. Do you think yourself clever, or merely superior?
She beat him up because she considered him a sissy and a whiner, and he was annoying the crap out of her. Her standards, not mine, though these days she’s quite mortified by it. Remember, we were talking about all those pink-dress and Barbie Doll values being ruthlessly imposed on baby boomer kids. Seems she was willing to follow her own instincts, though she also loved Barbies and always projected herself as a future Miss America whenever the pageant came on.
And yeah, getting into physical fights has historically been considered a “boy” thing. I guess you weren’t aware of that.
You’ve never seen a British nightclub at chucking out time, I’m guessing.
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Pretty much how I feel too. I’ve never once even referred to YOUR gender. I don’t think I’ve referred to the gender of any critics of the status quo either, as most of them are “White Knights”. I tend to be very precise with how I term things. You’re also the one getting “ad hominem”, for no good reason I can see. Since you’re arguing with what you think I’m writing and not with what I’m actually writing, I’ll agree to leave it at that and you can reply all you want - I’ve no need to see where you go next.
Oh, you’re cute. We both know I’ve never attacked you in any way or used strawman arguments. My original post was quite polite. The worst I said was “that’s insulting”.
You might not have mentioned my gender, but I mentioned it (my own), so why couldn’t I use it to refer to myself? And being “precise with how [you] term things” doesn’t really make a difference when you say direct accusations such as “IF you want to make the argument that games shouldn’t be violent, brash or sexy, then make it and come out and say you want to see games like that banned, because that’s what you’re proposing.” or “and because it’s guys, you see that as a bad thing.” I’m arguing with lines like that, exactly what you said - I don’t need to assume anything.
You implied that I want to change or ban all the brass, sexy, violent “man games”, or that I think all men are assholes, none of which I did. You tried to paint a completely different picture of me based on what you assumed and not what I said. I never implied anything about your intentions. If you can’t see anything wrong with what you’ve said, it’s a lost cause.
(Edited to make my message clearer)
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Did you really just say that? Really? You’re saying that with a daughter with likes games, lego, and dragons? That’s kind of sad, dude. it really is. I think women have made themselves more evident in various geeky activities in recent years. However, there are plenty of women (as the couple of threads about this have shown, at least anecdotally) where women AREN’T making themselves known because of the kind of shit we get, just for showing up.
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I think you misunderstand - that really wasn’t meant to come out as a statement. It’s more of an observation based on my experience - most of the women that I know just aren’t interested in games or geeky movies.
Like I said previously, I’m raising my daughter without gender bias. I want to see a change as much as you do.
Then it’s anecdotal, and isn’t really a basis for making an observation about the world in this case (or any, really). Given how many women are in the world, how much do you think the women you know mirrors the rest of the world? I think we (not just you, but everyone) forgets that we have our own biases that can color how we view reality. Also, I think we often act in ways that may not 100% match everything about ourselves to the rest of the world for any number of reasons and that is something to take into account when we think about how others act around us. We have different personas for different things–I act different with my family than I do when I’m in front of a class or at a conference for example. I’m not less me, I just have a different persona of sorts.
Good. I think that’s a positive step and I think it’s great that you are doing that. But she isn’t just learning from you and your partner and extended family (even if family is her primary model for how to be in life). She also soaks in the culture around us (which is DEEPLY sexist, racist, homophobic, transgenderphobic, etc) and picks up on some of our subconscious clues we express in our daily lives as we go about our business. With my own daughter, I’ve discovered the only thing that helps that is to encourage her to constantly think about the meaning of the culture around her–I try to get her to think about the embedded biases in our world, on a daily basis if I can. For example, we watched some movie from the 40s, one of the Mummy movies. It was incredibly over the top sexism and racism. We spent the whole movie mocking every stupid racist and sexist trope. I did this so she could see that the way the black character and the women were portrayed was completely unacceptable - also to make the damn thing tolerable. We also spent time after the movie explaining why the movie was so sexist and racist and why that was wrong.
Isn’t Orwell who said to see what is in front of our face requires a constant struggle? I think he was right. We might not see these things or think we are a part of them, but they are so much a part of the fabric of our culture, that it’s hard to see sometimes. Assuming because some women you know don’t enjoy geek culture doesn’t mean that all women dislike geek culture. Some of us are very much interested in that culture and call it our own.
Last, what if your daughter was into “girly” things? What if she liked barbies, and fashion and princesses? How would you react to that? Forbid it? Make her feel bad about liking those things… because as much as I dislike the gender biases embedded in that stuff, I also don’t feel femininity is a bad thing in and of itself.
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I want to emphatize this, because I think it’s very important.
Often times, we (I don’t have children of my own, but I mean we as a society) forget that not all kids automatically grow up to understand all the nuances of sexism or racism. We teach them about the history of slavery and segregation, and women’s suffrage and movements, but we forget to tell them how the past abuses have affected our culture and how some ideas still prevail, rooted deep in our cultural consciousness. No one thinks their kid will grow up to be racist, sexist or homophobic, but they can easily become clueless. If you aren’t taught about past and present unequality or experience it yourself, it’s easy to assume that the current state of affairs - the status, opportunities, way of life and preferences of people - is the way it is solely because it’s natural.
It’s important to poke the brains of our children as much as we can, to make them think about what they’ve learned about the world and question the messages around them. When watching TV or movies, point out the things you find sexist, racist or homo-, trans- or xenophobic, and then explain why you feel that way and ask the child’s opinion. Have a conversation about th issue. Or, if you hear a child try to insult someone by calling him a “little girl”, ask them why they used that phrase and where they think it stems from. Some people don’t seem to like the implication that language might have sexist or racist connotations - perhaps they fear it’s the same as calling them sexist or racist. But it’s not that, at all. Certainly not in the case of children - they get their words and ideas from around them, they don’t think about why. So it is good to try to be aware of everything around you, and to teach your children to do the same. This article is a good example of a bias that sneakily got itself rooted in one part of our culture through a cycle of marketing, and often we forget to question it.
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Yes it’s anecdotal. You do realise that I don’t live in a cave right? Over the years as I’ve moved around London I’ve noticed that a large percentage of women I’ve known or met are just not interested in games. Is that so offensive to you? Just because you’re passionate about something does not make it untrue. And yes I realise that this is not a representation of the whole planet but still worth mentioning, no?
You seem to be portraying me as some sort of misogynist bully. I’ve never forced my kids to think a certain way and never will (well except for eating their vegetables). For instance I’m an atheist and am currently dealing with my kids learning about religion at school. It would be easy for me to sway them towards atheism but I want them to embrace atheism for themselves so we openly talk about “why” they “believe”. I want my daughter to develop into her own person be it religious or feminist. She’s her own person.
I never said you did. My point was that even if we are widely traveled, we can’t really know even a wide swath of humanity. Making judgements based on only our own experiences are going to be inherently biased… not just you or men or me or everyone on this board or every geek–this is true of everyone on the planet. The truth is no matter how much we travel, read, write, or engage, there is only so much experience we can soak up. That’s not a slight aimed at you, I think it’s just the reality of the frailties and limitations of the human condition.
I really don’t see how you got this out of what I said. I think you are working hard to give your daughter the tools she needs to negotiate a tough world. I think that’s great and I really do applaud you for it. I wish more people would. It’s not easy for those of us looking to give our kids a more open mind, because we all have our own biases, both which we are conscious and unconscious of. I asked you that because it really is something I myself struggle with too. I came realize my own rejection of feminine stuff often stems from my own internalization of misogynistic ideas about women and the value of “feminine” pursuits versus “masculine” ones - collecting comics is cool, but collecting beanie babies is not, for example. Not only do we live in a culture which denigrates women, it embraces “traditionally masculine” things over “traditionally feminine” things–notice the scare quotes.
Let me see if I can make my point clearer by using anecdotal evidence… 
Kevin Smith gave a talk a couple of years ago a San Diego comic-con. He mentioned Twillight Fandom during the course it, which his daughter was into. The crowd booed and he pointed out how misogynistic it was to bash twillight fandom, but to act like Star Wars or Star Trek fandom is any less weird… I think he made some comment about guys dressed up like Wookies or Spock while slamming Twi-hards and how silly that is. His point was that the reason why people crap all over Twillight was because it was “girly” hence less worthy of a fandom somehow. Without arguing for Twillight (which I really have no interest in and I think has real issues), I do think he’s right in that lots of the vitriol hurled at the franchise is less about how good the stories are and more about the target market, which is young women. People kind of do the same to the My Little Pony fandom, I think, but to a lesser extent. I think some of that comes from the Brony phenomenon, though I’ve seen some nastiness aimed at bronies because they are into a “girls” show.
I honestly am not trying to tear you down. I don’t think you’re a bully and I do think you care about this stuff in the way that matters. When someone offers an alternative opinion, it might not just be that they are looking to make you into the bad guy. I have no interest in that and think it just alienates people–there fore, it is not a useful tactic. I just think that saying that because most of the women you know aren’t into fandom/geek culture sort of misses the point about misogyny in geek culture.
And honestly, being a young woman in America, Britain, or really ANYWHERE is really hard. I know because I used to be one and barely escaped with my sanity/life. I want for your daughter the same I want for mine–to be strong and have the tools she needs to not only live in the world as it is, but maybe do something to make it better. If I came off as harsh and rude, my apologies. It was not my intent to do so.
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I picked up on a tone in your response and it put me on the defensive. I apologise.
It is tough. My thinking with atheism for example was that i shouldn’t force it on my kids. That would brainwashing which is exactly how religions are passed down. It’s up to us to “guide” but not to “force”.
It’s really tough though you’re right. I wish you luck with your daughter though i don’t think you need it. It sounds like you’re doing a excellent job 
During the past week I have seen multiple women on this board state that they are interested in games, but avoid discussing with people because they do not want to deal with the reaction. So, I would not be surprised if you know some women who are interested in games/geeky stuff and they are just not sharing that information with you, especially if you give off the vibe that you think women “simply aren’t interested” in them.
In my experience, most men that I know are not playing video games … how is that for an anecdote?
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How dare you!
