So the top post in the Men’s Rights subreddit for a time yesterday, with hundreds of upvotes, was a post devoted to the question: “Why should male gamers change their behavior?” Yep, apparently the sacred right of men and boys to harass women and girls on Xbox live is one of the most important Men’s Rights issues of the day. Here’s how the OP, IsItRacistToAsk, framed the issue:
[G]amers themselves (until relatively recently) were a 90% male community. This goes back really far if you count non-video-game games (like Dungeons and Dragons and the like). Now all of a sudden they’re expected to just behave differently because some girls want to join?
I’m not saying girls shouldn’t be welcome in gaming communities, I’m just comparing them to someone who shows up, uninvited, to a house party and demands everyone go out and get blue plastic cups because red offends her.
Well, no, it’s more like a girl or a woman going to a public event, open to everyone, and facing a small army of creepy dudes who come up to her making sandwich jokes and calling her a bitch and a whore and a fat slut and demanding that she show her tits and when she refuses telling her “I hope your vibrator shorts out and fries your fucking vagina.”
The OP’s response to harassment? Well, guy gamers regularly get called “faggot” and “n*gger,” so girls and women should just suck it up.
Yeah, it would be too much to ask to suggest that guy gamers actually stop calling each other racist and homophobic slurs as well. Because, really, how can you possibly enjoy Call of Duty without calling some guy who’s just shot you a “fag.” Seriously, gals, you need to model yourselves on the mostly straight white dudes of Reddit who really don’t mind when people call them “n*ggers” and “fags.”
The discussion (more than 700 comments worth at the moment) is about as terrible as you might expect, filled with epic shitlordery and self-congratulation and calls for the gals to “man the fuck up,” with only a handful of commenters having anything bad to say about the culture of harassment in online gaming. Indeed, most of the gamers in the conversation seem to feel proud that online gaming culture is as shitty as it is.
Some highlights:
JonLR won himself more than a hundred upvotes for this self-congratulatory assholery:
By asking to never be made fun of, they’re essentially asking for special treatment. These days, ‘gamer girls’ go on and on about wanting to be treated like everyone else, but then cry when they are?
I used to play Quake 1 online, and a lot of the players knew I was short (5’7″). I got called a fucking midget every game, haha. My asian clanmate got called a chink every game. Fat people got called fat, girl players got called sluts, everyone made fun of everyone. No one cared. It was all aimed at throwing people off their game.
What the fuck happened in the past 15 years that made it the worst thing imaginable to insult a girl in gaming? Whatever it was, it’s embarrassing to witness.
Oneiorosgrip got nearly two hundred upvotes for her special snowflaking:
I’m not a video gamer – long time tabletop gamer though…
Remembering when I was the only girl in the group, it strikes me that modern gamer girls are spoiled princesses who expect to walk a path they did not forge, without ever seeing any of the dirt along the side. Those of use who played before there was internet, before there was linking between video game systems… before there were RPGs on video game systems, for that matter… we didn’t earn our place among the gaming community by whining about shit like that. You had to be able to take it, and dish back, or you took your dice and went home.
I took my dice and went home only once, and found that to be a wholly unsatisfying response. After that, I learned to eschew restraint and mouth off in kind. That was more effective, and more fun, and I think it would be the more appropriate handling of today’s gaming environment, as well.
In other words, IMO, modern girl gamers really just need to man the fuck up.
Men’s Rights subreddit regular Demonspawn was his normal charming self:
Men take the shit to make a niche, once it’s successful women want to take it over.
This is the world order, nothing new about it. I’m just glad that gamers are finally saying “No.”
Sidetracking got dozens of upvotes for suggesting that women and girls just hide their identity and pretend to be guys, because gamer girls who acknowledge their gender online are just attention whores hungry for female privilege anyway:
When anybody plays a video game, without talking, they are pretty much concealed. Nobody really knows what gender, age, etc. In real life, girls expect this privileged talking, because people want to engage in intercourse with them, however, over a video game, this privilege is gone. In order to get the privilege back they say “Hey, I’m a girl”, not knowing that this privilege is completely removed over the internet. Then they get over-sensitized when someone calls them a bad name, when they don’t realize that pretty much everyone calls anyone out over the internet.
Daysleepin83 also got dozens of upvotes for talking about the kinds of “gamer girls” he hates the most: The ones who complain and the ones who, evidently,wear no clothes.
For the most part i really don’t give two shits about what sex my opponent is.
But there are two types of “gamer girls” that really piss me off. There are those like Anita Sarkeesian who seem to bitch and nag about all that is sexist and wrong with video games. Doesn’t really offer any solution to the problems she digs up, aside from telling us we need to change. …
Then there is the second group, they don’t so much as piss me off but more like aggravate me. The sexy gamer girl. … Could she be a legitimate gamer? Sure of course she could be. I could also one day become the Pope. Till she puts some clothing on and picks up that controller i am not going to take her serious as a gamer.
MrDorph explained that he hates those “girl gamers” who “have to shove down your throat.” (Shove what? Your own assholery?)
The issue I have is girl gamers who have to shove down your throat. I imagine the majority just don’t give a shit and tend not to talk or if they do its not provocative. The moment I hear “hey guys” I leave, I can’t be bothered with the shit storm that comes with it.
Ghebert001 told the “poor things” to get used to shitty treatment, in online gaming and everywhere else:
Bottom line is women need to learn to adapt to the “environment” (environment meaning gaming community, workplace, etc.) instead of always expecting that the “environment” adapt to them and use language like “it makes me uncomfortable” to shame others in that “environment” to accommodate them at their own expense.
Throwing in the obligatory, “women” =/= all women…don’t want to offend the poor things. Oh wait, there I go accommodating again!
Yourotherusername wins points for pomposity with this response to the OP:
Well put. Like many things, the environment of gaming has it’s own language. It isn’t the language of Shakespeare or high-finance. It’s high context communication. It’s code. It isn’t (usually) to be take at face value. The problem for the people who complain, is that the marketers who attracted them to play the game, didn’t tell them how the game is played and the vocabulary needed.
If a person hangs out with a group of people not in their normal click, they need to understand that what is being said, might not actually be what was meant, and until they grasp the context, they need to keep their mouth shut if they don’t want to look like an asshole. I’d much rather ‘learn the language’ than try to change a sub-culture.
Take reddit for example. Expect masturbation jokes. Expect memes. Expect stereotypes. But in all of that, you will find that once you adapt and understand the context, it becomes more than a middle school locker room (especially in the smaller subreddits). IF you are so bold as to challenge the nature of communication on Reddit by admonishing others and trying to get them to change their way, you will be anathema, and most likely down voted to hell. The best you can do to change the language, is to be an example of what you want, and hope to flying spaghetti monster, that it catches on.
TLDR: Go with the flow or don’t go at all.
Reddit: Awful and proud of it.
Meanwhile, elsewhere on the Men’s Rights subreddit, someone has once again posted a link to the “The Catalogue of Anti-Male Shaming Tactics,” because god forbid anyone ever say anything “shaming” about MRAs for being the shitty people they are.
And why weren’t the medics shot on sight? I just don’t get that.
@katz: International Red Cross laws. Yes, they even pertain when the Allies have unstoppable killing machines that require large, obvious medical kits distributed all over the secret MacGuffin base.
I’m sure you realize there was nothing the Nazis could do.
@Falconer
Well, they did have Hitler in a robot suit with minigun arms, so I’m sure it evened out.
This just in – when women play XBox Live what happens is that men give them “kindness coins”. “Kind” is what you call it when random strangers say they’re going to rape and then kill you. This has been a dispatch from Scrapemind.
Also, games where the male characters shower together? I did not realize that yaoi games were a thing now.
Phil:
No, of course not. You just say there is nothing we can do about it. This is, of course, exactly the opposite of your attitude toward what you see as casual sex. That you think needs to be railed against.
I said that competition tends to lead some people to do these things.
And that we should ignore it. How do you feel about the War on Christmas? What about, ‘The Persecution of Christians”? Those are trivial nuisances too, right?
Prove it.
I mean it. You just said that keeping women (roughly half the population) from taking part in an activity; by harrassing them, insulting them, threatening them, is “no big deal”. So prove it.
Yes, you fucking are. You said it directly, in the part I quoted first.
Which leads me to wonder… either you think we are stupid, or you actually are stupid; because you aren’t even waiting one post to contradict yourself.
Way to both misrepresent the argument, and try to change the subject by conflation.
We aren’t talking (except tangientally) about the ways in which women are depicted. We are talking about the ways a vocal subset of male gamers try to exclude women by being abusive.
Remember the gamers who admitted they had problems with abusing women, and decided to fix the problem by banning them from their event.
You want to do that to all of gaming, and then say women are oversensitive. Blacks were just being touchy about the water fountains too.
That’s being an asshole.
So, I guess I was epically owned by you, but I’m not sure that you’re seeing the point of my argument. Yes, harassment is a problem, but your solution is much worse. Of course, that assumes your solution is similar to Sarkeesian’s. What is your solution? Do you care to explain how it’s a better alternative?
What’s worse about shaming men who are abusive into not being abusive?
What is the solution Sarkeesian has suggested; that you so disagree with?
Care to explain why letting assholes be assholes, and rewarding their bad behavior is a good solution?
There is no war on Christmas, and there is no persecution of Christians in America, so I’m not concerned about those things.
Now, if all you want to do is shame harassers, then I’m fine with that.
What bothers me about the Gamer Girl movement (not including average female gamers) is that they aren’t content to stop there. In fact, the way that the harassment is blown out of proportion and focused on to the exclusion of most everything else leads me to think it won’t stop there. Watching Anita Sarkeesian’s videos also explicitly state that her, and her like-minded followers, are not content to stop there. As one video puts it so eloquently there are “too many d*cks on the dance floor” when it comes to gaming. Nevermind that women make up at least half of all gamers, but whatever.
What feminists like Anita want to do is completely revamp the PART of gamer culture that is male-oriented. Nevermind that there consoles are already more female oriented (generally) with thinks like motion technology, and games that don’t involve violence and aggression (of course some women like those too, I’m just generalizing).
Harassment is one thing, but to then tell game companies that they should no longer be allowed to depict women in any sexualized manner (which is tough considering men can sexualize a women with a nice body and pretty face wearing cargo pants and a tank top) or in any way that puts women into stereotyped gender roles is ridiculous. Of course, Anita will hide behind the fact that she’s not using legal pressure to do so, but social pressure can work just as well, if not better.
I also think the harassment thing is overblown. I had a guy stalk me around while I was playing Call of Duty because he asked me to pay him money to level up my character and I politely told him where he could shove it. He proceeded to join every match I joined and swear at me and call me names and so on. If me, the 50% of gamers that are male, and the other 49.99999% of gamers that are female can handle this sort of stuff without batting an eye, then why do the .000001% of feminist fe/male gamers feel that swift and sure action needs to be taken to completely revamp the culture? Again, shaming is excluded, I’ll join in on that because I don’t like people like that either.
I guess I’m compacting two seperate issues here. Mostly because I’m also referring to material outside of manboobz.com. 1). Exclusionary harassment and 2). sexism in the games themselves.
The problem with 1). is that no one can exclude you from gaming, at least online. When I was stalked by that fellow who didn’t like me turning down his offer to cheat, I just moved along and kept playing and eventually put him on ignore.
Now, as far as other exclusion goes, the problem is that this is a facet of male gaming. It won’t go away until men go away. Not threats of rape per se, but rather the fact that people will try and push you and belittle you if you’re unproven. I’ve seen this in circles of male friends, or at the workplace, where people push on the new person to see how they’ll react then give them a chance to prove themselves. It’s a male social dynamic, and I think females may have a hard time adapting to it if they’re not used to it or they don’t understand the purpose of it.
I also think this is why the debate spirals out of control, because what you expect out of a person when you “push” them this way is for them to brush it off and push through to prove themselves. If they don’t, then they set themselves down a few notches and it shows weakness. So for instance, women moved into the competitive side of gaming (the male side) and when they were pushed (inappropriately or otherwise….) they recoiled and cried foul.
Some saw this as an opportunity to, for instance, leave threats of rape or racist slurs on Anita Sarkeesian’s (for instance) youtube page. MOST men however, did not, and instead just thought, “WTF? really?”
I suggest another approach. Instead of feminists getting up in a twist, continue with the shaming (via smack talking, since effective smack talking can shame a man publicly in ways that will more effectively shut him down), but then continue to show that women are strong enough to handle the “push” (yes even the a**hole inappropriate pushes) and remain cool about it instead push back by earning a niche in the competitive culture.
Would this fix everything? No, but I guarantee that many of the a**holes would have to respect a strong woman who, instead of quitting a video game tournament due to harassment, went on to do well for herself and then shamed every last one of the suckers who said something stupid to her during the tournament. Let them try and harass a woman like that, because all it will do is make them more marginalized and look more like fools.
That’s just one possible solution. Shaming on its own would work well too. I actually do it myself if I see it going on. Anyone who has to resort to lowest common denominator “humor” like rape and so on is an idiot and I have no qualms about letting them know this.
Shorter Phil: “I have no problem with shaming harassers, except I actually do because if you do that you’re overreacting and also Anika Sarkeesian wants to ban all men from video-games.”
Am I seeing things or did Phil just quote from flight of the conchords
ahaaha why so serious about that phrase?
LOLOL
@snowy
OMG NINJA grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Well what can I say, it’s a catchy song!
Too many dicks on this dancefloor see! Therefore too many videos!!…..
Spread the videos out a little bit, create some lady space! This isn’t the riverdance anymore!
Well done, you two.
Wow, he just keeps getting less coherent and more whiny every time he comments. It’s also kind of funny to speculate as to how he manages to reconcile the idea that men need tons of T&A in their games or their masculine essence will be destroyed with the whole oh-noes-casual-sex-will-ruin-your-life thing.
http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/215499488_8pSZr-L-2.jpg
Is a nice summation of what’s going on. Internet gaming is a cesspit of poorly-adjusted losers. There are good pockets here and there – usually ones that overcome the problem of anonymity by having an active outside-the-game community. Reddit may or may not be this for certain games, Penny Arcade certainly is, something awful may be, I don’t know, i’m not on it, but the people there are generally more intelligent than the average bear.
What strikes me about the reddit post is that it complains about women attacking the tone of humor on the internet – sometimes funny, sometimes the kind of stuff neckbeards say that sounds funny to them that makes you understand why they have to mediate social relations through the internet. The suggestion there is that women are shrilly demanding that the “locker room” conversations or whatever change. I haven’t seen anybody really advocate that, even in the instances where the conversations are dumb. So it strikes me as a bit of a straw man.
The issue as the OP points out is direct harassment. Short of having a community and the continuity that provides (“John was being a dick to Sara; don’t let John play with us again), I don’t know how you enforce behavioral standards in most games. There usually isn’t a “ref” figure. Games that do have server mods, like Team Fortress 2 sometimes does, you are reliant on the community doing the right thing. Older; smarter gaming communities tend to have better rules, but they are a fraction of the population. Better for women and non-differently abled men to form cohesive groups that have decent norms. I think you see the same thing at work in other societal units – tabletop gaming groups have wildly divergent norms, the difference between pathfinders and boy scouts, all sorts of businesses, etc.
Ultimately I think that’s ok – triage the situation and let the 13 y/o boys roll around in their own muck. It’s a waste of people’s time and resources to try to enforce basic levels of decency, as well as being impossible. Either society (in real life) will absorb ppl like it has in decades past as they hit puberty or we’re all doomed.
Yes, NWO! That is exactly what your Kickstarter should be!
Women DON’T fight you say??? 😛
I beg to differ. Unstaged catfights are some of the greatest of all human spectacles. And no, I am not talking about that MMA/UFC bullshit or WWF.
No-one cares about what your dick thinks, ZA0.
lowquacks:
a dick can’t think without a BRAIN. 😉
That’s nice.
Assumes facts not in evidence in this particular case.
I’m a total girly girl, so usually I restrict myself to Facebook games and strategy games where I crush my opponents with SCIENCE~ but I will never forget this one time on WoW. I was on a PVP server, fighting alone, right about at my level (which for people who know WoW PVP is never smart because the Alliance are cowardly scum) and almost dying killing this stupid spider in Ashenvale, when this little dwarf came up behind my bear-fighting butt (I’m a Druid, of course) and started backstabbing me. I knew if I took out the spider I’d level, get a full heal, and …well.. Hee hee hee. It was close to dead, so I manage to take it out, I get healed as I level, switch into panther, by now the dwarf knows somethings wrong as I take him DOWN. He tries to run, but yay +to speed in panther. Rrrowr.
Then I stealthed and camped his ass.
But, you know, girly, so totally not competitive.