I saved this link, ages ago, for just this eventuality:
A small excerpt:
- Geek media long ago has decide to optimize towards a straight cis
male mostly white audience. This means most content of geek media,
the way geek media is advertised, and also geek media related
merchandise are all catering to that target audience. Leading to very
few properties with female protagonists or the idea that female
models in multiplayer are too expensive.- To optimize the messaging for their target audiences – meaning making
them feel superior to anybody else – they sell male power fantasies,
with few to none strong women. They make women obtainable like
objects and present women as sexually available, dependent on men and
needy by sexualizing them. Secondary outlets (websites, print
magazines, tv shows and such) about geek stuff – if depending on
advertising revenue – need to actively avoid getting a too gender
diverse audience. Simply because publishers of geek media are
hesitant to buy ads in spaces, where the potential viewer is too much
likely to be a woman, since women are not their target.- Conventions need to be careful about how they implement
anti-harassment policies or if they prohibit exploitative marketing
(like booth babes), if they are dependent on big name publishers.
Because publishers need conventions to be a welcoming space for their
target audience, meaning men who respond to sexual objectification of
women and who dig the idea, that they are superior to women. When
media outlets allow for gated content – meaning that publishers can
decide if the ads they buy will be shown only to specific
demographics – women will not get to see a lot of content that might
be interesting to them, even though they are enjoying the same
subjects and hobbies men do.- The list is longer and some of the points above have many sub-forms
of their own, but you get the idea. It is a huge network of
self-perpetuating bullshit and self-fulfilling prophecies. It poisons
everything and is biased towards confirming itself.
