Feminism general thread

[Metcarfre]

Nah, I'm good.

[Tycherin]

I find it very strange to live in a world where offhandedly mentioning something that someone else made is understood to be a statement of fundamental personal philosophy.

[Matt]

Yeah, gonna have to side with met on this one.

The downfall meme has been around for years- it was, at one time, so common that it was regarded as the inevitable endpoint of any given Internet blow-out. "X is officially over now, there's a hitler video about it". So, I have to admit a degree of surprise that so many regular internet users wouldn't be at least passingly familiar with it. There was even one about the Extra Credits/Escapist debacle.

Regardless, I've also got to weigh in on the video itself as being, really, wickedly, bitingly funny. I mean, it's not my place to tell you you have to find it funny, but I sure as hell did.

Considering the extent to which gamergate has called their opponents "fascists", the extent to which they have accepted and even celebrated the support of actual white supremicists and neo-nazis, hell, the extent to which people have been referencing the Mitchell and Webb "Are we the baddies" skit in hopes that GG will find some self-awareness - it's really goddamn clever to see hitler slouch defeatedly, and spit "fucking feminazis" to the awkward shifting of three dudes in SS uniforms.

It was the most elaborate "actually, it's about ethics in games journalism" joke of the week - and did a pretty fantastic job of outlining both the absurdity of GG's positions, and the incompatibility of their stated intent and self-image with their public perception and the fact that they function as a hate group.

Multi-layered satire. Meta-commentary. Well written. Well executed. I shared it myself, a day or two before Anita did.

-m

[Duckay]

Fair enough. I mean, I was familiar with the meme before. I just found metcarfre's comments on the subject a little unnecessarily rude. I accept that I was wrong.

[Matt]

I don't think there is a "wrong". You're allowed to have not found it funny.

-m

[Deedles]

I think I mostly didn't find it funny because while there is a chunk of badness in GamerGate there are also normal people, and to be honest I've seen more and more things that disappoint me from the anti-GG folk I follow on Twitter.

I feel like this is becoming a shitstorm where everyone are too busy pointing fingers and taking stabs at each other(or, as has happened with Zoe, Anita, etc, get harrassed until they'll go quiet, which doesn't seem to of worked very well on the 'main targets'), but nothing constructive really seems to get done.

[Matt]

What is there constructive to get done.

GG has no demands, no actual ethical concerns. They exist solely for the purpose of harassment and sulf-sustainment at this point. Whether or not there are well meaning individuals involved, they have decided to join a mob.

You can't reason with a mob.

There is literally nothing left to do if you oppose gamergate at this point except hide, or ridicule, and the ridicule is, frankly, fully deserved.

-m

[korvys]

It's understandable to try to avoid grouping the more reasonable voices in GG in with the harassers, when it comes to condemning the group for something. Or, as seems more common, mocking the group. But the group is self selected. It's as easy to leave as it is to join.

Any person who aligns themselves with GG has seen all the same things we have, has seen all the same harassment, has seen literal Nazis join up, and has said "Yes. This is the group I want to be a part of."

It's understandable to try to avoid grouping the more reasonable voices in GG in with the harassers, but ultimately, they are grouping themselves in.

[Deedles]

I didn't mean anything constructive with GG, I meant constructive things within the gaming industry. I hope GG rots away and becomes only a memory, but I also think that dealing with the two issues of harassment within gaming and ethics in gaming journalism should be what people focus their energy on.

I know there are people already working on that, but it feels like this mocking of GamerGate is just adding fuel to an already wildfire; It's unnecessary and destructive, because it only antagonizes them more.

I'm sorry if you don't agree, but I can in no way, shape, or form see it as a good or helpful thing.

[Matt]

Yeah, I don't agree, but that's ok. We can agree to differ.

GG has been hellish for people targeted by it, and for people in the industry. For a lot of people, making their attackers into something they can laugh at is an important way to cope with the situation; otherwise, it's like looking into an abyss of human garbage. I know this is true of myself.

-m

[Deedles]

I can agree that people being able to laugh at it certainly can help, and I do hope it does. Fuck knows no one should have to go through what the targets of GG have gone through, but apart from the harassment(which I very much see in a black and white manner, it is simply wrong, there are no 'but's or 'if's there) I feel like the surrounding situations are being too simplified.

I've not been the most active on Twitter, mostly been lurking and posting the occassional message, but when I have said something I have, twice, ended up speaking to someone pro-GamerGate(two different people), and both times they were fiercely protective of the fact that people they knew(who were also pro-GamerGate) had been harrassed, had gotten things sent to them in the mail.

I realized at that point that the 'moderate' GamerGaters they DON'T see the harassment of Zoe, Anita, Brianna, Felicia, and everyone else in the same way as 'anti-Gamergate'(I hate that term, since there isn't really a 'side' against GamerGate). They're seeing harassment happening to their fellow GGers and are reacting in the same way that Anti-GGers are reacting to what's happened to Zoe and the others.

So, yes, the laughter can be helpful to the victims of harassment, but I think it also furthers the divide. It's easy to say that something is 'obviously this way' when you speak from your own perspective, but it might not be so obvious when you look from someone else's perspective.

[J_S_Bach]

By insulting an entire group you're lowering yourself in doing so. It's widening the divide of "us and them" it's one thing to view a video and get enjoyment out of it, it's another thing entirely to actively spread it through something like twitter. Both sides are simply hurling insults at each other and sabotaging any real debate that could happen. At the end of the day we're just arguing about entertainment media something that really shouldn't have a huge impact on the average persons day to day, yet it does and for some reason a lot of people get very defensive over it.

As our society evolves are entertainment changes. I can't help that feel that some people are trying to treat a symptom instead of the wider issue.

[Duckay]

I admit, I'm finding it harder to see what "real debate" can happen here. I mean, I spent more than a few minutes at PAX discussing issues around women in video games with people who agreed and disagreed with me, and that was fine. "GamerGate" feels like a whole other level to that though, and part of that is my poor experience with GamerGaters.

I don't think I can accept, though, that we are "just arguing over entertainment media". When I have a spirited discussion about whether Snape was good or bad, I'm just arguing over entertainment media. When I argue about GamerGate, I am arguing about harassment.

[Deedles]

Yeah, I think there's a difference in it too. Most people who are up in arms are so because they think that someone or some people have been treated in poor or outright appalling ways. The ones who just argue about games and get so heated they'll threaten or insult someone about that? Well... There are plenty of words in the English language to describe them, none of them good.

[Duckay]

I'm not sure this is the right thread for it, but I'd like to spend a moment talking about my PAX experience.

For a start, this year's PAX Aus was excellent in many ways, but notably it positioned itself as the most comfortable convention experience I have ever had as generally it felt very inclusive and positive. I attended panels on women in gaming, LGBT representation in gaming and female characters in video games, all of which were quite good and interesting. I really liked the way that the diversity lounge was implemented, despite having had some reservations about the idea when it was first announced.

That being said, of course, part of there being a very high percentage of things that made me happy, there were going to be other people who were disappointed because that wasn't what they wanted to see. One of those unhappy people and I had a lengthy discussion about these issues, in which he said his big concern was that putting this focus on diversity was running the risk of straying too far from games as a topic.

I don't see this as an issue (now or in the future), because I don't see why having diverse spaces and discussing these issues is in any way separate from gaming; hence, the idea of discussing them doesn't even raise the issue in my mind of getting further away from gaming.

(This is all besides the fact that PAX is already operating in a space discussing and presenting things a little outside gaming.)

However, obviously, I could be missing something, and I would really value other perspectives.

[Trisha Lynn]

I forget how much of the panel I'd missed, but one of the PAX Aus panels they broadcast on Twitch was about political activism and gaming in Australia. The speakers talked about how people can become involved in political issues related to gaming (such as lobbying for funding for public libraries so that they can have game centers inside), and I thought that was an actually lovely way to attempt to motivate people to constructively support the causes they believe strongly in.

I mean, just take a look at what the Twitch PAX Aus streaming schedule looked like for Friday alone:

http://imgur.com/0mP7Mvu

Look at how diverse that schedule was. There was a keynote! Some of the Rooster Teeth folk were there! Bioware had a panel! There was a panel on how to break into mobile gaming! And that wasn't the entire schedule at all!

Duckay, I feel sad for the person you spoke with because it doesn't seem like he wants video games and gaming to grow as a medium.

I'm glad you had a great time, otherwise.


Trisha Lynn
...was there a LRR-fan meetup...?

[Duckay]

The Friday schedule also had Queering Video Games (a panel about LGBTI exposure in gaming) and a Serious Games For Serious Issues panel about the Virtual Dementia Experience (a program designed using video gaming mechanics to demonstrate to nurses and personal carers what it is like to live with dementia). Among others, of course; those were just the ones that I personally attended.

And yes, there was a LRR fan meetup. It was at said meetup that I learned that other forum-goers think of me in terms of a) feminism and b) Magic: the Gathering.

[Deedles]

I'm not sure this is the right thread for it, but I'd like to spend a moment talking about my PAX experience.

For a start, this year's PAX Aus was excellent in many ways, but notably it positioned itself as the most comfortable convention experience I have ever had as generally it felt very inclusive and positive. I attended panels on women in gaming, LGBT representation in gaming and female characters in video games, all of which were quite good and interesting. I really liked the way that the diversity lounge was implemented, despite having had some reservations about the idea when it was first announced.

That being said, of course, part of there being a very high percentage of things that made me happy, there were going to be other people who were disappointed because that wasn't what they wanted to see. One of those unhappy people and I had a lengthy discussion about these issues, in which he said his big concern was that putting this focus on diversity was running the risk of straying too far from games as a topic.

I don't see this as an issue (now or in the future), because I don't see why having diverse spaces and discussing these issues is in any way separate from gaming; hence, the idea of discussing them doesn't even raise the issue in my mind of getting further away from gaming.

(This is all besides the fact that PAX is already operating in a space discussing and presenting things a little outside gaming.)

However, obviously, I could be missing something, and I would really value other perspectives.

I agree with you, I think those issues AREN'T(emphasis added because I miss-wrote) separate from gaming as I feel it really shouldn't have an impact on games in a bad way, other than making them more diverse.

I thus can't say for certain what someone's reasons would be to be worried, but I can guess. Gaming has been important to a lot of people while growing up, so I think people are worried that games will be restricted/diminished because of political correctness bogging it down with a long list of things that it must fulfill or be dog-piled with negative feedback. They're afraid that something they did as escape and for fun can't be such anymore. It might seem insane to some, but escapism can mean a lot to people, enough to be concerned when that might be taken away.

It might not be an excuse or even a brilliant reason to oppose change, but I always found that the easiest way to try to get someone to see things your way is to understand them first, because then you know what point you're working from.

[Avistew]

I tend to find the Hitler videos funny when about something completely mundane that I can't imagine anyone getting that upset about, and unfunny and "too real" when about serious issues, because I can see people actually having those views and it just depresses me.

So I totally understand people who didn't find it funny, or who thought Sarkeesian shouldn't have posted it. And I typically don't agree with "the other side is doing it too" or "the other side is doing worse" as a justification. I believe that what differentiates good guys from bad guys is that the good guys don't fight dirty, and I'm not too eager to see a side I agree with just become one of the two "bad guys" sides fighting each other. Just because we fight people who break the law doesn't mean we get to break the law. Just because we fight people who are assholes doesn't mean we get to be assholes.

The way I see it, those are the things that are wrong with the people we're disagreeing with. If we do it again, it makes no sense to me. We're just becoming the things that are bad about the other side. It's not about "winning" by having more people on her side using any tactics we can think of. It's about upholding the principles we believe in.

And I felt Met was out of line. People posting on an online forum are likely to be aware of the Internet. But for any meme, there are going to be people who have never seen it before, for whatever reason. I always disagreed with the argument "this is old so it's you're fault if you don't know about it". People's life experiences vary vastly, as do the things that matter to them. People might have seen such a video and not remembered it because they found it stupid or irrelevant. Or they might never have seen one. That's fine. There are probably things any single one of us hasn't experienced or isn't aware of that all the others have/are. And at some point, we heard/saw them for the first time, too. This just seems elitist to me, thinking that somehow people should be blamed or considered stupid because they have not experienced something you have.

I have not been to PAX so I cannot comment on that part of the discussion.

[Shandi]

Is it extreme to suggest that equity calls for the abolition of gender binary society?

Like, wouldn't it be cool if forward-thinking games, instead of giving the option of genders, just had you design and play an unlabeled character? Romance options could be determined by defining what traits NPCs are interested in, rather than by arbitrary gender and orientation.

I consider myself a feminist, but I also think sometimes a focus on problems as tied to a gender is shooting ourselves in the foot.

Take depression as an example. A far greater number of women have symptoms of depression than do men. I find it morbidly hilarious how much money, time and effort has been expended by people trying to understand why women are more prone to symptoms of depression than men are.

Studies have concluded that women as a rule just have more sucky stuff that happens to them. And there's also this thing researchers call "rumination" which explains that when men have sucky stuff, they have more agency to overcome it.

According to WHO: "Depression, anxiety, somatic symptoms and high rates of comorbidity are significantly related to interconnected and co-occurrent risk factors such as gender based roles, stressors and negative life experiences and events.
Gender specific risk factors for common mental disorders that disproportionately affect women include gender based violence, socioeconomic disadvantage, low income and income inequality, low or subordinate social status and rank and unremitting responsibility for the care of others."

Basically, I think our society just needs to get over this gendered lens on things.

Clearly, symptoms of depression are more common in people who experience bad things.

I can understand how men facing adversity and their close allies are frustrated by the focus on helping women. Maybe more women need help than men do, but not because they're women per se, because they have bad things happening to them.
I recognize that those things often happen because they are women. Granted, it is misleading to separate these challenges from gender. That's why I am gung ho for a feminist paradigm that eschews the gender binary.

But for people who may have had abusive or neglectful women in their lives, our first goal may need to be compassion and aid, rather than re-socialization. Lead by example, right?

I guess I think some people who are ticked off about feminism may not be just protecting their privilege. It's just that it can be hard for them to hear that they're privileged when their experience seems to contradict that.
Acknowledging the struggles of others is a great step toward understanding. It seems to me that it's people who think feminism doesn't do that who prefer to call themselves egalitarian.

World Health Organization — Gender and women's mental health

Time magazine — How Gender Stereotypes Warp Our View of Depression

Live Science — Can Biology Explain Sex Differences in Depression?

Sorry for the rant. I hope I contributed something of value to someone reading.

I do kinda wonder if people who oppose a sort of 'feminist intrusion' into gaming culture are probably just protecting their privileged space.

Peace

[AlexanderDitto]

...in which he said his big concern was that putting this focus on diversity was running the risk of straying too far from games as a topic.

I agree with you, I think those issues AREN'T(emphasis added because I miss-wrote) separate from gaming as I feel it really shouldn't have an impact on games in a bad way, other than making them more diverse.

I thus can't say for certain what someone's reasons would be to be worried, but I can guess. Gaming has been important to a lot of people while growing up, so I think people are worried that games will be restricted/diminished because of political correctness bogging it down with a long list of things that it must fulfill or be dog-piled with negative feedback. They're afraid that something they did as escape and for fun can't be such anymore. It might seem insane to some, but escapism can mean a lot to people, enough to be concerned when that might be taken away.

It might not be an excuse or even a brilliant reason to oppose change, but I always found that the easiest way to try to get someone to see things your way is to understand them first, because then you know what point you're working from.

Virtually every other medium of expression, from literature and music and poetry to painting and sculpting to cinema and television recognizes critique, including feminist critique, as being vital to the development of their art. These sorts of discussions arise around all good art. Video games are becoming recognized as valuable, as art, and thus these discussions are growing.

To this point, however, video games have been the purview of only a small subset of the population (a subset that has, for various reasons, included a lot of people who were in many ways entitled, but identified as victims). That subset is losing its grip on the medium, which makes them feel threatened.

"Gaming has been important to a lot of people while growing up.... They're afraid that something they did as escape and for fun can't be such anymore." This sums things up quite well. Many "gamers" are scared to see the medium mature. They don't want to grow up, and they don't want anybody else to grow up either, for fear they'll be left behind.

(When I say grow up, I mean leaving behind things that are hateful, mean, damaging in games, and thinking about what games mean. Not leaving behind fun. Children and adults both have fun. What children lack that adults tend to have is empathy and introspection.)

[Deedles]

I can definitely agree with that. Which is why(while I don't condone any harassment) I know that there are people out there who aren't harassing others, but still refuse to see why diversity is a good thing, and thus because they're afraid they end up shouting 'NO!'. They need help, because while I know plenty of people who would take the stance of 'They should just grow the fuck up', the human mind isn't that simple, and sometimes we ALL need help.

[Lord Chrusher]

Is it extreme to suggest that equity calls for the abolition of gender binary society?

Like, wouldn't it be cool if forward-thinking games, instead of giving the option of genders, just had you design and play an unlabeled character? Romance options could be determined by defining what traits NPCs are interested in, rather than by arbitrary gender and orientation.

I consider myself a feminist, but I also think sometimes a focus on problems as tied to a gender is shooting ourselves in the foot.

Take depression as an example. A far greater number of women have symptoms of depression than do men. I find it morbidly hilarious how much money, time and effort has been expended by people trying to understand why women are more prone to symptoms of depression than men are.

Studies have concluded that women as a rule just have more sucky stuff that happens to them. And there's also this thing researchers call "rumination" which explains that when men have sucky stuff, they have more agency to overcome it.

According to WHO: "Depression, anxiety, somatic symptoms and high rates of comorbidity are significantly related to interconnected and co-occurrent risk factors such as gender based roles, stressors and negative life experiences and events.
Gender specific risk factors for common mental disorders that disproportionately affect women include gender based violence, socioeconomic disadvantage, low income and income inequality, low or subordinate social status and rank and unremitting responsibility for the care of others."

Basically, I think our society just needs to get over this gendered lens on things.

Clearly, symptoms of depression are more common in people who experience bad things.

I can understand how men facing adversity and their close allies are frustrated by the focus on helping women. Maybe more women need help than men do, but not because they're women per se, because they have bad things happening to them.
I recognize that those things often happen because they are women. Granted, it is misleading to separate these challenges from gender. That's why I am gung ho for a feminist paradigm that eschews the gender binary.

But for people who may have had abusive or neglectful women in their lives, our first goal may need to be compassion and aid, rather than re-socialization. Lead by example, right?

I guess I think some people who are ticked off about feminism may not be just protecting their privilege. It's just that it can be hard for them to hear that they're privileged when their experience seems to contradict that.
Acknowledging the struggles of others is a great step toward understanding. It seems to me that it's people who think feminism doesn't do that who prefer to call themselves egalitarian.

World Health Organization — Gender and women's mental health

Time magazine — How Gender Stereotypes Warp Our View of Depression

Live Science — Can Biology Explain Sex Differences in Depression?

Sorry for the rant. I hope I contributed something of value to someone reading.

It did.

While you have to be very careful to control societal effects in the prevalence of mental health disorders between the sexes, I would be very surprised if their was no difference at all in the rates of metal health disorders between the sexes.


One interesting fact I came across is while females are more likely to attempt suicide in western culture, males are far more likely to succeed in killing themselves so the suicide rate is higher in males than females (Wikipedia).

[Tycherin]

(snip)

It did.

While you have to be very careful to control societal effects in the prevalence of mental health disorders between the sexes, I would be very surprised if their was no difference at all in the rates of metal health disorders between the sexes.


One interesting fact I came across is while females are more likely to attempt suicide in western culture, males are far more likely to succeed in killing themselves so the suicide rate is higher in males than females (Wikipedia).

Psychologists love trying to find gender differences in the incidence of various conditions, perhaps because it's such an easy manipulation to do. They are also routinely disappointed by a lack of any significant differences. There are some consistently demonstrable effects, like the suicide one you mentioned, but the majority of them are small or nonexistent.

Now that's somewhat up for debate, but the crux of the issue is that it's hard to separate biology from sociology with gender. Men are socialized to keep their feelings contained (in general in American society, which is where a lot of this research gets done), and that means men are less likely to report or be diagnosed with various mental illnesses. Controlling for the effects of society in this case is essentially impossible, at least with the current tools at our disposal.

As for the larger issue of abolishing the gender binary, I understand the theoretical argument, but at the moment that seems practically impossible. In the U.S., we decided decades ago that it wasn't okay to discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity, but we still have no real idea how to implement that. Despite the fact that we've banned institutionalized racism, there are still a lot of issues of power, wealth, and education that fall heavily along racial lines. For gender, you could try replacing all bathrooms with unisex ones, but that's not going to fix more deep-seated issues like the glass ceiling.

[Arclight_Dynamo]

Well, if we're talking gender, mental illness, and society... I do have to wonder about stigma as relates to men with mental illnesses. This is a bit of a walk; go with me, here.

I'm going to link a TED Talk by Brené Brown about shame. This is the quote, at 15:32, that I want to highlight (but, really, just watch the whole thing - it's brilliant):

For women, the best example I can give you is Enjoli the commercial: "I can put the wash on the line, pack the lunches, hand out the kisses and be at work at five to nine. I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan and never let you forget you're a man." For women, shame is do it all, do it perfectly and never let them see you sweat. I don't know how much perfume that commercial sold, but I guarantee you, it moved a lot of antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds. (Laughter) Shame, for women, is this web of unobtainable, conflicting, competing expectations about who we're supposed to be. And it's a straight-jacket.

For men, shame is not a bunch of competing, conflicting expectations. Shame is one, do not be perceived as what? Weak. I did not interview men for the first four years of my study. And it wasn't until a man looked at me one day after a book signing, said, "I love what you have to say about shame, I'm curious why you didn't mention men." And I said, "I don't study men." And he said, "That's convenient." (Laughter) And I said, "Why?" And he said, "Because you say to reach out, tell our story, be vulnerable. But you see those books you just signed for my wife and my three daughters?" I said, "Yeah." "They'd rather me die on top of my white horse than watch me fall down. When we reach out and be vulnerable we get the shit beat out of us. And don't tell me it's from the guys and the coaches and the dads, because the women in my life are harder on me than anyone else."

As Shandi was alluding to, we live in a society with extremely rigid gender norms and expectations. One of those expectations is that men do not show weakness. Ever. Because if they do, they're shamed. They're seen to be out of the hyper-masculine in-group, and anything that isn't hyper-masculine is, perforce, bad.

This is toxic when it comes to mental health and stigma.

If men cannot be weak, and if society views struggling with and seeking help for a mental illness as weak, men will shut up. They won't ask for help. They won't admit to being ill. They'll under-report. Hell, many probably won't even admit to themselves that they're ill... I know that, for a long time, I didn't. (And I still feel really uncomfortable admitting it here, even under an anonymous internet handle... what's that say?)

A narrow, rigid, policed understanding of masculinity is hurting men.

(To be clear, this isn't to say that women don't also have problems related to mental health specific to their gender; they just don't have this particular one. Because there is a gender binary. Though I'd argue that men's problems and women's problems on this issue stem from the same root societal cause...)

So how do we fix that our social expectations of what it means to be male hurts men? Why, we do what Shandi suggests: jettison these gender roles and binaries from our society. They just do harm. Get rid of them.

And, oh, that's what feminism wants us to do? Dismantling a social system that pigeonholes people based on their genders is the entire point of feminism? It's entire purpose is to get us to stop valuing certain (perceived) hyper-masculine traits over (perceived) non-masculine ones? Gee. It almost sounds like feminism doesn't only help women, it also helps men.

And that's important, I think. A lot of the push-back against feminism is of the "What about us?" or "I'm about equality!" variety.

Well, guess what? Feminism helps us all.

And if we want to get the people who push back to hop on board the feminism train, we need to make that clear to them. Feminists aren't looking to elevate women at the expense of men; feminists are looking to make a better world for everyone.