You'll never guess what misogynistic gamebros did to these two women in gaming! (HINT: Drove them out.)

I don’t think anyone believes playing video games results in kids shooting up convenience stores, just that video games often reinforce shit cultural narratives that are super harmful to some groups.

Samantha: you mean like the girl who was sent a dick pic on a dating app and forwarded it to his mom?

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/dating-app-user-gets-sent-a-picture-of-a-guys-wang-forwards?s=mobile

I hate people like this – take your toddler tantrums elsewhere, like to your room where no one can witness it. They absolutely have no excuse for acting like this and it’s really sad that many other people just say “ignore them”. I’m sorry, that doesn’t work for real-life bullies, and it won’t work for online bullies, because they are still the same bullies, IRL or online.

I dream of the day where, in response to the gamerbros virulent misogyny, a popular and beloved (to them) game franchise makes yet another installment of the same game, but without ANY white guys. Even better, there’s secrecy around the game, and no one’s mentioned that there aren’t any white guys in the game. Imagine that, a whole game that does not include one white guy. Instead, all of the characters and NPCs and customization choices are based around everybody else and there’s plenty of women characters that aren’t abused and/or dead and/or whores. And if this day should happen, I will gladly open my windows to hear the sounds of gamebro heads exploding in rage at such abominable changes. And maybe, just maybe, I will even record that sound on my phone to save it for posterity.

It won’t happen, but I can dream!

@sunnycombrera
That is one of the more creative ways I have seen someone deal with a dick pic.

This goes back to an earlier point in this comment thread about why guys send these pictures. What on Earth makes them think that a stranger wants to see that?!? He actually said that he “thought you would like it.” Why?!? I am so confused.

Also, boasting about how big your penis is after you tried to shame a woman for saying she didn’t want to see it, is not the way to get her to change her mind.

sunnycombrera: I can only assume that his reasoning for sending dick picks “I thought you would like it” is bc he’s very much in love with his own dick and thinks all women would love it too. After all women don’t have minds, tastes or wants or desires of their own to men like him.

Why do you think they act so shocked when women disagree with them? It never occurs to them that women would NOT want a picture of something he considers to be the most important thing in his entire universe.

Some men send pictures of their car or kids or their house. For some men, it’s their dicks.

So… they claim it as a victory, and I can’t see how they’re wrong. They’re quite successfully undoing years of hard-fought social progress, by running out people who stand up against their bigotry.

It’s like the KKK in the south attacking and sometimes killing people(of all races) who stood up for equal rights. That was only ended with a long-term anti-KKK campaign by the FBI.

I mean, obviously, the severity here is lower, with so far just the threats, and I don’t want to do that awful thing people do where they raise a current issue to the importance of past ones. I just want to compare the fact that they’re apparently succeeding at their awful goals by criminal means.

I think that perhaps a majority (though certainly not all) male gamers are at the very least complicit in the misogyny against female gamers, critics and developers. When you choose to either be silent, or get defensive or claim both sides are to blame, you’re part of the problem. If comment sections and twitter are any indication, the majority of male gamers are part of the problem.

We need more Jim Sterlings (game journalist that /was/ a sexist jerk but realized his error and now is labeled as a SJW by the gamergate chumps)

@weirwoodtreehugger

Do you have any studies showing that the majority of male gamers even read comments sections or have Twitter accounts? I think there may be a pretty large percentage of the world’s population who actually never bother to read comment threads on the Internet, at all, ever. (Although I also have no supporting data.)

I do get the whole argument that silence is sometimes complicity, but I just find it a little bit ironic to see this in the same thread where people were defending the rights of women to leave the industry because they need to preserve their own emotional and psychological wellbeings.

Personally, I wouldn’t read the types of comment threads David posts here outside this forum, where he and all of you make it safe for me. I certainly wouldn’t go over there and comment. That kind of confrontation makes me physically ill. I think maybe some male gamers who vehemently disagree with the behavior and speech of gamebros may also not feel up to that kind of confrontation. Some male gamers may disagree but simply lack the time or interest or inclination to read or comment in threads. Some male gamers may just want to focus on more positive aspects of their own lives than listening to whiny gamebros rant and be ugly. In WoW, I think a whole lot of male gamers are a lot more interested in going out and playing the game that they are paying to play than they are in typing and arguing in trade chat. That doesn’t mean they aren’t supportive of women in much quieter ways.

If I were going to guess anything about the majority of gamers, male and female alike, it would be that they probably just haven’t bothered to inform themselves about the issue. Ignorance is its own kind of complicity, but I don’t think it’s inherently evil.

@ikanreed

The sad thing is that they aren’t undoing any process, they’re simply re-enforcing existing structures. Remember that even while the creators of these games weren’t any more or less sexist than the culture they’re from, it still took about a decade and a half until we went from: “Roberta Williams is in charge of most of the interesting titles coming out this year” to: “Is the Anna Kurnikova effect making us report on these conventionally attractive female developers as if they were wierd (the answer is yes, but we do not talk about the Fight Club)” in gaming journalism itself.

They’re conservative revolutionaries, which is pretty much exactly the same shit as GirlWritesWhat, if memory serves me right.

Commencing delurking. Delurking activated!

Can anyone explain to this poor, confused soul, why it seems to be that the topic of video games arouses such…. umm.. lets just say, strong feelings? amongst the dudebro misogynist set?

I mean, I’m not the world’s biggest gamer or anything, but I play video games. I like video games. Video games can be fun! But why is the very though of a woman (or… shudder… women) designing or critiscising video games considered the worst thing in the history of the world? Why are video games the line in the sand?

Imagine a world in which Anita Sarkeesian got everything she wanted. A world where she was grand dictator of the video game, and all bent to her will. What would change? There would still BE video games, as it’s clear that Sarkeesian likes them. There would still probably be violent FSP, Doom clones (kids these days don’t know what they’re missing) and Grand Theft Auto, Macon, Georgia. Those games might not be so freakin’ sexist to be sure, but in the Sarkeesian dictatorship, they’d probably still exist.

Is this terrifying view of things to come so awful that it inspires the 12th keyboard commando regiment to engage the enemy, not with reasonable criticism of her ideas, but hideous threats and other stupidity? Seriously, why is “you can take our lives! But you’ll never take our… right to be sexist pigs in virtual reality!” the rallying cry?

/Recommence lurk procedure

But remember, GamerGate isn’t about misogyny, at all! Just about journalistic integrity! They’re not sexists, it’s just the corrupt gaming journalists using women as a shield from criticism!

Also, everyone’s favorite libelous PR expert has gotten into the debate. And an acquaintance actually thought about emailing her because she seemed more reasonable! Maybe Janet has learned from being banned by Twitter… to hide her unprofessionalism and general nastiness better.