This is the sort of journalism I would expect to find on Jezebel, rather than Polygon.
Filled with us vs. them mentality: no man can understand, men all think this, men always tell us that. Men never deal with harassment, death threats, or rape threats. Well, here's a little variation on Hitchens' Razor: what can be proven with anecdotal evidence can be dismissed with anecdotal evidence.
The worst of it is, one paragraph opens with "Women in the industry are told by men what is valid for us to feel." and only a scant few paragraphs later is an entire article written by a woman telling men how they should act and feel. Part of which is "so great" that it deserved to be made into an "inspirational poster". Everyone thinks what they have to say is inherently valuable, I'm pretty sure that's a major component of the human condition.
Pretend for the moment we're in some crazy mirror world where women are frequently mistreated, in ways that many well-meaning men don't see. In this world, it makes sense for a woman to lecture those well-meaning men about empathy - to ask them not to tell women what to feel - because they're just missing some basic information.
Not all men, eh? Don’t be so sensitive, grow a thicker skin!
Is it really so hard for you to believe that you can’t understand – at least not completely – the situation someone is in? I would never be so arrogant as to believe that I, as someone who is straight, understand how it is to grow up gay, for example.
Am I wrong that this would have been the top upvoted comment on HN 5 years ago? If so maybe that counts as a tiny bit of progress/small strides. Or maybe this will be the top voted when I come back later, /sigh...
I'm making a video game myself right now, and this such a relevant issue that I never even thought about. It never occurred to me that women in the gaming industry were mistreated, but it kind of makes sense-- video games often cater to young males, and often the easiest way to cater to those young males is by over-sexualizing women.
I'm not going to say that that strategy doesn't work on me (I am, myself, a young male), but I am going to say that I don't think it's right for games and other media to capitalize so heavily on that. I think the over-sexualization of women in games and in other places often makes men think with their penises instead of their brains. They say and do stupid things that they really never should. It's inexcusable, and it's a two-way street: men should know better, and mass media shouldn't be encouraging that kind of thinking. I also don't think it's right that someone who just wants to follow their dreams in the gaming industry (or really any industry) should ever experience what any of the case studies in this article experienced.
I'm not sure what I can do to help here, but if I find a way, I hope I can! Right now I'm working on a gaming startup with a couple of my best friends and, at the very least, we have made a commitment to ourselves to never resort to over-sexualizing women in order to advertise our game (many similar games do, and it frustrates me). I'm also going to make a conscious commitment right now to be aware the way I behave around women in the gaming industry and make sure I'm doing my job to help stop the issue, not propagate it.
> I think the over-sexualization of women in games and in other places often makes men think with their penises instead of their brains.
Why do you think so? Personally, I think it's the other way around - the cause is that people (not just men) respond better to "shallow" things - i.e. pretty things/landscapes/photos/people, which is why marketers/companies create things that are pretty. If your target audience is males, then it makes sense to use what males most powerfully respond to in your ads - pretty women.
It is sort of related. It's a rant. I have many friends in the STEM field, or friends I play video games with. And I simply cannot introduce them to any of my females friends, or any friends from different social circles for that matter. They are a special breed of people, brilliant and quick, and they are also egotistic and mean.
They are very quick to make jokes of your mistakes or shortcoming. The way they pry and tease is the manifest of how exceptional they think they are. They believe they are above social norms. Being nice is for the weak and unenlightened mass. They have an opinion, they will have you know.
They deliberately choose to ignore and not understand why making certain remarks and some conversation topics make people uncomfortable. And when they want to insult you, they will insult in the most uncivilized way. When they want to hurt you, they simply do not understand when a line is crossed.
And I am sure they are not the minority. Even if they are, they are the loud and obnoxious minority that gives everyone a bad name. I absolutely understand why people decline to be part of that community, why there aren't as many females in that workspace. Stigmas and stereotypes are for a reason.
I always find it very strange that we don't apply spam filters and recent machine learning techniques to the problem of filtering comments.
If I looked at my email unfiltered, I'd think one in three of the people sending me messages in the past day were unusually concerned about the state of my penis.
From a not-adding-anything-to-the-discussion perspective, dead baby pictures and random threats of rape or acts of violence are even less useful than those adds telling me how to work at home. From a cost-benefit perspective for the people involved, it's very easy for someone relatively unimportant to get an outsized influence on social interactions if they can easily reach people who actually matter with harassing comments, at virtually no cost to themselves.
So why don't we use tools to shape the online discussion and feedback mechanisms, the same way we do with our email inboxes?
Perhaps I'm just too out of the loop to see it being done.
> I lead a development studio that makes games. Sometimes, I write about issues in the games industry that relate to the equality of women. My reward is that I regularly have men threatening to rape and commit acts of violence against me.
My suspicion is that she is not threatened because she leads a development studio, but because she is a writer. She's not asking for it, but she is making herself a public figure and they are usually targets of such behaviour.
I'd hope that the women I work with aren't regularly getting rape threats from my co-workers...
> I’ve personally never heard of a man in the games industry getting rape threats for having an opinion.
Because men are not women, and women are not men, it goes a little something like this: rape is an act of power (not sexual satisfaction). The threat of rape is the threat of asserting power over someone else. When these lowlifes are offended by a woman, they respond with the animal instinct of threatening to overpower them and rape is the closely available tool. None of them would actually ever have the guts to rape, I'm sure.
When men have contrarian opinions, rape is not threatened, but a whole chain of events occurs, the purpose of which is to remove as much power as possible from that man.
Consider famous causes that you know of where men who are not independently wealthy and have voiced opinions that are controversial to some. What happened to them? They were fired, demoted, jailed, investigated etc. The PyCon case some time back comes to mind.
Consider famous cases of women who did the same. What happened to them? Threats of rape. The same woman involved in the PyCon case, I'll bet, received rape threats. Additionally, she did get fired because she was a public spokesperson for her company.
These threats are about asserting power over dissenting viewpoints in a bid to make yours dominant. You perhaps won't outright hear of a man getting threatened with rape, except maybe in prison or during a competitive game, but you will definitely hear of men being hurt in different ways for having opinions that make people uncomfortable.
I read articles like this, and I think to myself, "Damn, I'm glad I'm not one of those guys."
Then every time I see a photo of Marissa Mayer, I think, "Damn, she's hot." And then I hate myself for making that my first thought instead of something more equal like, "Damn, she's accomplished and brilliant" like I do when I see a photo of Robert Downey Jr or Idris Elba or Benedict Cumberbatch. But no, if it's a woman, my first thought is about her looks instead of... well, instead of anything else.
I'm really glad I don't have kids (yet), and in a lot of ways, I hope I don't have a daughter. I'd rather raise a son to treat women fairly and with respect than to have a daughter who has to live in a world where articles like this are written. But if I had a daughter... I'd do my best to help her be strong and confident, and to make her way successfully in a world where this kind of shit goes on.
>I think, "Damn, she's hot." And then I hate myself for making that my first thought
It's pretty much my first thought when I see any woman (and some men). I can't help it, it's the product of us being animals. Who cares. I don't feel guilty, and certainly don't hate myself for it.
This is an example of useless guilt. Strive to blind yourself when there are consequences of your bias, otherwise acknowledge it. Beauty leaks into our perceptions of all other personal qualitative - both men and women are affected by it. Short of brain-modifcation, you will find it impossible to disregard beauty so don't feel guilty about it. And don't think "I'm glad I'm not one of those guys." Women are just as afflicted by "lookism" as Ted Chaing called it. Men and woman are people. People suck.
There are other biases like "force of personality bias", too, where we assume charisma is heavily correlated with correctness, which isn't necessarily true. In terms of solutions, things like blinded hiring and internal prediction markets might help mitigate these. However, if we are going to experience beauty and charm we have to accept the fact that these qualities will affect our opinions of those who possess them. There's no way around this without changing the nature of our perceptions of these phenomena, and thus the phenomena themselves.
I also think the same as you when I see a photo of Marissa Mayer. I don't think that's bad, it's just our instinct (and damn, she is hot). If our ancestors didn't have it we wouldn't be here. And by the way, women have this kind of thoughts when they see a hot man, too.
The problem is when people go from thoughts to words or even actions, and act as if we lived in prehistory instead of in a civilized society. Fortunately I think men behaving as disgustingly as in the article are a tiny minority. And unfortunately, that minority can still do a lot of damage. The duty of the rest of us is to not turn a blind eye to this. This kind of trolling cannot be permitted.
There's nothing wrong with registering the fact that someone attractive is attractive. Seriously, that's like waking up to blue skies and gentle breeze and saying "wow, what a nice day."
The trouble stars when a specific kind of odious and socially toxic person encounters an attractive person. The first thing they do is ignore the "person" and focus on "attractive" as though they were dealing with an inanimate object which can be owned, controlled, manipulated, and eventually discarded. Their response to the presence of the attractive person reflects their basic lack of regard for the other's humanity. These responses are both abusive in their own right, and - if unchecked - contributory to a culture in which the targets of this treatment are freely abused.
In other words, the problem isn't about your immediate, natural response. The problem depends on whether you're a respectable human or an contemptuous creep, and thus, how you respond. Needless to say, the assholes make themselves known pretty quickly. The problem gets out of hand when they're allowed to dominate a space or situation.
I don't know, I'm gay, and when I see a picture of Benedict Cumberbatch or Robert Downey Jr, I certainly don't think "Damn, he's accomplished and brilliant"; I think "Damn, he's hot!"
> ... "Damn, she's accomplished and brilliant" like I do when I see a photo of Robert Downey Jr or Idris Elba or Benedict Cumberbatch.
That's weird. When I see them I think they are good (or at least interestingly) looking and have pleasant voices. I would never think of them as brilliant or accomplished (even though I know they are) because they do something I have no idea about. Just the same when I saw worlds best CEO, lawyer, window cleaner, bus driver, mercenary or whoever. I have no idea and I don't really care what it means to be brilliant and accomplished at those jobs. It might be horrible. It's just too alien for me.
When I see Marissa Mayer I have a mixed feelings. I notice she's attractive, and I'm happy this didn't get in a way of her reaching her goals. On the other hand I'm sad that most of the attention she get's from the media is just because she's an attractive woman. I'm also sad that I see a geek that transitioned to management which is always a loss of a good brain.
Could people who downvote me explain why and in what way my thoughts are damaged?
> Then every time I see a photo of Marissa Mayer, I think, "Damn, she's hot." And then I hate myself for making that my first thought instead of something more equal like, "Damn, she's accomplished and brilliant" like I do when I see a photo of Robert Downey Jr or Idris Elba or Benedict Cumberbatch.
Are you really under the delusion that women do not react that way to an attractive man?
It cuts both ways though, doesn't it? Do women who see a photo of Robert Downey Jr see his acting career, his recovery from a drug rut, his philanthropy? Or do they see a hot guy?
> Then every time I see a photo of Marissa Mayer, I think, "Damn, she's hot." And then I hate myself for making that my first thought instead of something more equal like, "Damn, she's accomplished and brilliant" like I do when I see a photo of Robert Downey Jr or Idris Elba or Benedict Cumberbatch. But no, if it's a woman, my first thought is about her looks instead of... well, instead of anything else.
I wouldn't be so apologetic about it. I don't know your sexual orientation, but it's natural to not think of men as hot (or only think it as a second thought) when you're not sexually attracted to men.
You don't magically acknowledge Mayer's accomplishments and abilities better if you force yourself and others to not think of her attractiveness.
Just don't make someone's attractiveness their only accomplishment. It's easier said than done, but to illustrate, it's okay to think "Damn, she's hot" when you see a photo of a woman, but it's not okay to write a profile that focuses on her attractiveness and distracts from her other attributes; it's okay to think a man is hot, but it's not okay to tell your coworkers about it.
Be careful not to confuse systemic sexism with personal sexuality.
> Then every time I see a photo of Marissa Mayer, I think, "Damn, she's hot." And then I hate myself for making that my first thought instead of something more equal like, "Damn, she's accomplished and brilliant" like I do when I see a photo of Robert Downey Jr or Idris Elba or Benedict Cumberbatch.
My first thought about Robert Downey Jr is usually something about his hair or attire.
We're primed to study the physical appearance of others when we see them. I don't see any reason that it's bad to notice that someone is attractive, has a funny haircut, etc.
The key point is that it's just a thing, and to move on to more important things (such as they're accomplished, intelligent, etc) rather than dwelling on physical ones.
Insisting you not see that she's attractive seems as weird to me as just focusing on her being attractive.
You can't suppress feelings of attraction but you can control how those feelings influence general perception of that person. It's about realizing that that there is by no necessity correlation between features of a person. It is human to eagerly seek correlations that might not be there.
The issue is not whether or not you think Marissa Mayer is hot. People are attractive - that's alright.
It's whether or not your thoughts about Marissa Mayer stop at "Damn, she's hot" and don't acknowledge her (or any other woman) as anything other than pleasant set dressing for your life.
It's depressing that the first few top level comments here have been deleted due to their ridiculous content, people presumably read the article then decided to post things like "its banter, get over it. Men deal with it all the time".
The article is about case studies, but sometimes it helps to get some numbers too. e.g. "Accounts with feminine usernames incurred an average of 100 sexually explicit or threatening messages a day. Masculine names received 3.7." http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/women-ar...
The first few top level comments were from one or two people; green accounts at that. I don't attribute their malice to this community at large, or even as a representation of any remotely reasonable community.
>"its banter, get over it. Men deal with it all the time".
Just shows how deep the problem goes I guess.
Why, isn't it true? I mean, if one's going to argue one is much worse than the other, then some citation is needed.
Empirically, men don't (usually) get rape threats. But they do get death threats. And they don't usually get sexual comments on their looks. But they do get comments that they're "fat", "dorky", "idiots" etc. And the classic "gay" comments.
> We live in a society that’s sexist in ways it doesn’t understand. One of the consequences is that men are extremely sensitive to being criticized by women. I think it threatens them in a very primal way, and male privilege makes them feel free to lash out.
I don't mean to "Not all men" this, but I wish we would stop treating behavior like this as a normal part of the male psyche. It's not. It's seriously disturbed. It's an unfortunate consequence of the Internet and any area where you have a large audience that a small active segment is going to produce a large impression.
Yes, maybe your friend and even most men feel differently when a woman criticizes them than when a man does. No it is absolutely NOT a normal, male response to start making rape and death threats because of it.
I think these responses are a combination of seriously disturbed individuals and literal or mental children who haven't yet fully internalized that there are real live human beings on the other end of the keyboard and are trying to be shocking.
I think making a few examples would deter the idiots who think this is amusing. I mean, that one kid in Texas made an offhand, sarcastic comment about shooting up a school and got himself arrested within a couple of days. It would be nice to see police take other threats as seriously.
>I hate to "Not all men" this, but I wish we would stop treating behavior like this as a normal part of the male psyche. It's not. It's seriously disturbed.
I think that realization is the very opposite of the "Not all men" mindset. Saying "Not all men are like that" is a red herring - it's a way of distracting yourself from the fact that there are people out there who treat women like dirt by saying you don't do that.
I think where we're failing as a society is the inability to close the loop and turn "not all men" into "yo dude, not cool" - we don't seem to be very good at getting men to call out sexism in other men.
I would love some kind of resource for how to do that effectively.
I have to agree with most of this. I see these articles from time to time, and I know the facts behind them are real enough, but my immediate reaction is always the same: "I don't know any people who act this way, and I wouldn't stand for it if I ever saw something like this, but I have never seen it happen, so where the hell is this coming from?"
There must be some people with serious issues out there to generate things like this. Those people are not normal and this behaviour is not acceptable.
I'm a male in the software industry, and I never really know what to make of these sorts of articles. It's terrible that someone should have to go through this. The anonymity of the internet is a great and terrible thing -- some people really get off on being horrible to people, and unfortunately when that person is a male, and they know they're talking to a woman, the low-hanging fruit is base sexism. But what is supposed to be done about it? More specifically, what am I supposed to do about it? I know that I find that kind of behavior abhorrent. I would never think that stuff, let alone say it. Knowing my coworkers as I do, I'm 99% sure that the same can be said of them. So, I just don't know how to respond to this. Should I feel guilty? For what? I didn't do this stuff. The issue that I have with this is that I feel like I'm supposed to feel like a bad person because of my gender. Quotes like "men tend to inherently [insert stereotype here]" are apparently great enough to be made inspirational posters out of. Is the author oblivious to this sexism? Or is it OK, because it's targeting men?
I think it's deplorable what the author and the women she describes have gone through. I think that we all should re-examine our behavior to ensure that we aren't perpetrating this sort of thing. But I wish that the article, and others like it, weren't couched in terms of demonizing half of humanity.
Ironically, "woman is the nigger of the world" is a quote from Yoko Ono and the title of a song she did with John Lennon; it was meant to be a piece of feminist sloganeering.
While this is all horrible things human beings are saying to other human beings, the idea that men do not get criticized is false. I wish the article would stop trying to repeat this over and over again, since it distracts from the issue it brings up: The words use when people send insult directed at women.
Insults are different when directed at a women than men, and the cause is not as simple as typing the word sexism. Insults, like swearing, is rooted in social norms. People use terms and concept which is understood by others in their social environment. This is why men will not get rape threat, since in most social groups, people think men can not get raped. It make no sense to threaten others with something that they do not think could happen in the first place.
People who send insults are expecting a predicted reaction (Remember several research papers making this specific statement). If a specific insult directed at a woman would not result in the same reaction as if it was directed at a man, then the insulter will change which words they use when insulting men. Which words they use has actually very small meaning given that they receive the expected reaction.
Rather then talking about how women get harassment and men do not, maybe we should talk about why the culture of insults are so personal and violent against women, and so focused on skill and ability for men. Why do not men get insults like "dam, you look ugly" and women get "don't quit your day job, you suck!". When was the last time you saw someone go up to female speaker and say "you do not understand this!", or loudly being argued with by someone in the audience over a technical detail.
Culture for male and female behavior is not identical when it comes to bad behavior. The article says: "I have yet to talk to a man who has had to call a police officer due to a stalker". The obvious reason is that female stalkers tend to focus on celebrities (small number of people), while male stalkers tend to focus on people they find in the local area. Stalking is bad, be that male or female stalker, and who they target is not same. Pretend that one do not exist because it is different is not going to make sexism less in society.
I'd say that internet could use a whole lot more killfiles, hellbanning, spam filters trained not only against commercial messages, whitelisting. The only reason that default is to allow for communication is that it's easier to implement. In the old times only kings could afford decent cutlery. Nowadays every peasent can. When I try to communicate with Obama today I won't succeed. Maybe in not so distant future if someone would want to communicate with me he will have to prove that he has something I'm interested in hearing. And another rape threat is rarely interesting.
Despite the actual point of this article, I'm really happy to see the frequency of posts from many writers at Polygon/The Verge about sexism and related issued in the gaming industry and game development. I'd guess and say they publish at least one or two articles on the topic per week, and all of them are fantastic. To whomever at Polygon/The Verge that decided to go on this editorial route, thousands of kudos.
There has been a consistent onslaught of articles by the same cabal of the authors about sexism in the gaming industry. All of them include anecdotal evidence that rampant sexism exists and how terrible it is, but offering little concrete evidence proving the problem is getting worse. From the article "Things aren’t getting better for women on the internet; they’re deteriorating." By what measurement? Could it be because there now more prominent women on the Internet, or because the problem is actually getting worse? Is the expectation that the Internet becomes the one and only bastion of humanity where sexism doesn't exist?
I question whether this problem is so pervasive that the authors and editors feel readers need to be consistently bombarded with it, or whether the position is so salacious and instantly defensible that authors and editors have learned they can benefit from the attention the topic receives.
Perhaps I'm just bitter because I was just banned from Polygon for expressing this very perspective.
"Footnote: Two of the names of women that agreed to interviews for this article were changed at their request."
It's telling (about the state of the industry) that two of these women felt uncomfortable sharing their names even while interviewing for an article about this very topic.
It's sometimes sad to look at our social maturity or lack thereof. But articles like this are important to force us to look at ourselves. The problems highlighted in the article are a result of the anonymity of the internet and the immaturity and natural aggressiveness of young men. It seems we're fighting our primitive selves, and for that there are no easy answers.
Would just like to say though, that most men are not the perpetrators of such acts, and in fact are quite often victims of men like these in one way or another. Women have many natural allies amongst men.
Anyway, it seems to me that such behavior wont survive being exposed to daylight, and that over time progress will be made.
I would argue that men don't get rape threats because most men don't see rape as a realistic threat to themselves.
Instead, we have our masculinity, loyalty, abilities, work ethic, and/or integrity attacked, because those are the things that cut us to the core.
I'm not saying that women don't care about those things, I'm just saying that when someone is trying to be a dick they're going to go after the lowest hanging fruit.
Of course, I think we all need to keep working to end this kind of harassment. We all know it exists, and most of us guys disapprove of it, but few of us are taking the extra step of saying "that's not ok, dude" when it happens.
In the meantime, I've had some pretty hurtful/maddening stuff directed at me in the past by a group of people online, and I learned that you either take the Phil Fish route and flame out, or you have to find some way to distance yourself emotionally from the bullshit or ignore it. It's fucked up, but you have to protect your sanity until the problem is fixed (which it might never be).
Edit: Unrelated to the topic, but it's interesting how this comment got a large number of upvotes before the downvote brigade started trickling in. I'm not anti-feminist here, folks. Just trying to elaborate on the discussion and hopefully learn some things.
> "When a woman criticizes me, it goes to a different part of my brain than when a man on my team does. I get defensive really quickly."
This point isn't stressed enough. Majority of people treat criticism differently depending on the gender of the source. Other types of interaction are also hugely dependent on gender. We even refer to each other with different pronouns depending on the type of sexual organs our bodies are equipped with. This isn't right.
I was disappointed by the "Letters to Women" video because I kept waiting for a gender-specific slur, and there weren't any! A different "letter" might have been chosen to make the point better.
If you put your anthropologist hat on, being called a "tasteless, stupid-ass, bitch-ass f--ktard" who should "go f--k your slutty-ass bitch mother" is a kind of acceptance. You're on the receiving end of all the same deeply offensive, vaguely emasculating language you'd get if you were "one of the guys" who happens to be a stupid noob, being criticized for your taste in games(!) along with your general cluelessness and total impotence and inadequacy. It's the kind of acknowledgment you get when a fellow rapper pours his heart into explaining that you suck and he rules.
I guess what I'm saying is, this letter is an example of "you-are-a-low-status-male" invective, and it's pretty easy to walk into a stream of it in certain communities. The fact that it was knowingly directed at a woman is what strikes me first, and in that sense it seems less like sexism than some sort of f--ed up equality.
I'm going to leave this here, don't accept the form of argument from the article quite yet:
>Keeping in mind that actual stalking has never been dealt with in any significant way ever, the desire of a few female writers to curb online anonymity wouldn't be enough to get an @ mention, except that this happens to coincide with what the media wants, and now we have the two vectors summing to form a public health crisis. "Cyberbullying is a huge problem!" Yes, but not because it is hurtful, HA! no one cares about your feelings-- but because criticism makes women want to be more private-- and the privacy of the women is bad. The women have to be online, they do most of the clicking and receive most of the clicks. Anonymous cyberbullying is a barrier to increasing consumption, it's gotta go.
[+] [-] Zikes|11 years ago|reply
Filled with us vs. them mentality: no man can understand, men all think this, men always tell us that. Men never deal with harassment, death threats, or rape threats. Well, here's a little variation on Hitchens' Razor: what can be proven with anecdotal evidence can be dismissed with anecdotal evidence.
http://www.edge-online.com/features/toxic-games-community-co...
http://i.imgur.com/HBxSZBF.jpg
The worst of it is, one paragraph opens with "Women in the industry are told by men what is valid for us to feel." and only a scant few paragraphs later is an entire article written by a woman telling men how they should act and feel. Part of which is "so great" that it deserved to be made into an "inspirational poster". Everyone thinks what they have to say is inherently valuable, I'm pretty sure that's a major component of the human condition.
[+] [-] lukasb|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arrrg|11 years ago|reply
Is it really so hard for you to believe that you can’t understand – at least not completely – the situation someone is in? I would never be so arrogant as to believe that I, as someone who is straight, understand how it is to grow up gay, for example.
[+] [-] Steko|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] chiubaka|11 years ago|reply
I'm making a video game myself right now, and this such a relevant issue that I never even thought about. It never occurred to me that women in the gaming industry were mistreated, but it kind of makes sense-- video games often cater to young males, and often the easiest way to cater to those young males is by over-sexualizing women.
I'm not going to say that that strategy doesn't work on me (I am, myself, a young male), but I am going to say that I don't think it's right for games and other media to capitalize so heavily on that. I think the over-sexualization of women in games and in other places often makes men think with their penises instead of their brains. They say and do stupid things that they really never should. It's inexcusable, and it's a two-way street: men should know better, and mass media shouldn't be encouraging that kind of thinking. I also don't think it's right that someone who just wants to follow their dreams in the gaming industry (or really any industry) should ever experience what any of the case studies in this article experienced.
I'm not sure what I can do to help here, but if I find a way, I hope I can! Right now I'm working on a gaming startup with a couple of my best friends and, at the very least, we have made a commitment to ourselves to never resort to over-sexualizing women in order to advertise our game (many similar games do, and it frustrates me). I'm also going to make a conscious commitment right now to be aware the way I behave around women in the gaming industry and make sure I'm doing my job to help stop the issue, not propagate it.
Thank you so much for sharing this.
[+] [-] tomp|11 years ago|reply
Why do you think so? Personally, I think it's the other way around - the cause is that people (not just men) respond better to "shallow" things - i.e. pretty things/landscapes/photos/people, which is why marketers/companies create things that are pretty. If your target audience is males, then it makes sense to use what males most powerfully respond to in your ads - pretty women.
[+] [-] georgiapeach|11 years ago|reply
How do you feel about that?
[+] [-] s1300045|11 years ago|reply
They are very quick to make jokes of your mistakes or shortcoming. The way they pry and tease is the manifest of how exceptional they think they are. They believe they are above social norms. Being nice is for the weak and unenlightened mass. They have an opinion, they will have you know.
They deliberately choose to ignore and not understand why making certain remarks and some conversation topics make people uncomfortable. And when they want to insult you, they will insult in the most uncivilized way. When they want to hurt you, they simply do not understand when a line is crossed.
And I am sure they are not the minority. Even if they are, they are the loud and obnoxious minority that gives everyone a bad name. I absolutely understand why people decline to be part of that community, why there aren't as many females in that workspace. Stigmas and stereotypes are for a reason.
[+] [-] NotAtWork|11 years ago|reply
If I looked at my email unfiltered, I'd think one in three of the people sending me messages in the past day were unusually concerned about the state of my penis.
From a not-adding-anything-to-the-discussion perspective, dead baby pictures and random threats of rape or acts of violence are even less useful than those adds telling me how to work at home. From a cost-benefit perspective for the people involved, it's very easy for someone relatively unimportant to get an outsized influence on social interactions if they can easily reach people who actually matter with harassing comments, at virtually no cost to themselves.
So why don't we use tools to shape the online discussion and feedback mechanisms, the same way we do with our email inboxes?
Perhaps I'm just too out of the loop to see it being done.
[+] [-] cheez|11 years ago|reply
My suspicion is that she is not threatened because she leads a development studio, but because she is a writer. She's not asking for it, but she is making herself a public figure and they are usually targets of such behaviour.
I'd hope that the women I work with aren't regularly getting rape threats from my co-workers...
> I’ve personally never heard of a man in the games industry getting rape threats for having an opinion.
Because men are not women, and women are not men, it goes a little something like this: rape is an act of power (not sexual satisfaction). The threat of rape is the threat of asserting power over someone else. When these lowlifes are offended by a woman, they respond with the animal instinct of threatening to overpower them and rape is the closely available tool. None of them would actually ever have the guts to rape, I'm sure.
When men have contrarian opinions, rape is not threatened, but a whole chain of events occurs, the purpose of which is to remove as much power as possible from that man.
Consider famous causes that you know of where men who are not independently wealthy and have voiced opinions that are controversial to some. What happened to them? They were fired, demoted, jailed, investigated etc. The PyCon case some time back comes to mind.
Consider famous cases of women who did the same. What happened to them? Threats of rape. The same woman involved in the PyCon case, I'll bet, received rape threats. Additionally, she did get fired because she was a public spokesperson for her company.
These threats are about asserting power over dissenting viewpoints in a bid to make yours dominant. You perhaps won't outright hear of a man getting threatened with rape, except maybe in prison or during a competitive game, but you will definitely hear of men being hurt in different ways for having opinions that make people uncomfortable.
[+] [-] Jemaclus|11 years ago|reply
Then every time I see a photo of Marissa Mayer, I think, "Damn, she's hot." And then I hate myself for making that my first thought instead of something more equal like, "Damn, she's accomplished and brilliant" like I do when I see a photo of Robert Downey Jr or Idris Elba or Benedict Cumberbatch. But no, if it's a woman, my first thought is about her looks instead of... well, instead of anything else.
I'm really glad I don't have kids (yet), and in a lot of ways, I hope I don't have a daughter. I'd rather raise a son to treat women fairly and with respect than to have a daughter who has to live in a world where articles like this are written. But if I had a daughter... I'd do my best to help her be strong and confident, and to make her way successfully in a world where this kind of shit goes on.
So senseless. :(
[+] [-] hnnewguy|11 years ago|reply
It's pretty much my first thought when I see any woman (and some men). I can't help it, it's the product of us being animals. Who cares. I don't feel guilty, and certainly don't hate myself for it.
>I hope I don't have a daughter.
Oh brother...
[+] [-] JamesArgo|11 years ago|reply
There are other biases like "force of personality bias", too, where we assume charisma is heavily correlated with correctness, which isn't necessarily true. In terms of solutions, things like blinded hiring and internal prediction markets might help mitigate these. However, if we are going to experience beauty and charm we have to accept the fact that these qualities will affect our opinions of those who possess them. There's no way around this without changing the nature of our perceptions of these phenomena, and thus the phenomena themselves.
[+] [-] Al-Khwarizmi|11 years ago|reply
The problem is when people go from thoughts to words or even actions, and act as if we lived in prehistory instead of in a civilized society. Fortunately I think men behaving as disgustingly as in the article are a tiny minority. And unfortunately, that minority can still do a lot of damage. The duty of the rest of us is to not turn a blind eye to this. This kind of trolling cannot be permitted.
[+] [-] alexqgb|11 years ago|reply
The trouble stars when a specific kind of odious and socially toxic person encounters an attractive person. The first thing they do is ignore the "person" and focus on "attractive" as though they were dealing with an inanimate object which can be owned, controlled, manipulated, and eventually discarded. Their response to the presence of the attractive person reflects their basic lack of regard for the other's humanity. These responses are both abusive in their own right, and - if unchecked - contributory to a culture in which the targets of this treatment are freely abused.
In other words, the problem isn't about your immediate, natural response. The problem depends on whether you're a respectable human or an contemptuous creep, and thus, how you respond. Needless to say, the assholes make themselves known pretty quickly. The problem gets out of hand when they're allowed to dominate a space or situation.
[+] [-] samirmenon|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scotty79|11 years ago|reply
That's weird. When I see them I think they are good (or at least interestingly) looking and have pleasant voices. I would never think of them as brilliant or accomplished (even though I know they are) because they do something I have no idea about. Just the same when I saw worlds best CEO, lawyer, window cleaner, bus driver, mercenary or whoever. I have no idea and I don't really care what it means to be brilliant and accomplished at those jobs. It might be horrible. It's just too alien for me.
When I see Marissa Mayer I have a mixed feelings. I notice she's attractive, and I'm happy this didn't get in a way of her reaching her goals. On the other hand I'm sad that most of the attention she get's from the media is just because she's an attractive woman. I'm also sad that I see a geek that transitioned to management which is always a loss of a good brain.
Could people who downvote me explain why and in what way my thoughts are damaged?
[+] [-] _pmf_|11 years ago|reply
Are you really under the delusion that women do not react that way to an attractive man?
[+] [-] sliverstorm|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dictum|11 years ago|reply
I wouldn't be so apologetic about it. I don't know your sexual orientation, but it's natural to not think of men as hot (or only think it as a second thought) when you're not sexually attracted to men.
You don't magically acknowledge Mayer's accomplishments and abilities better if you force yourself and others to not think of her attractiveness.
Just don't make someone's attractiveness their only accomplishment. It's easier said than done, but to illustrate, it's okay to think "Damn, she's hot" when you see a photo of a woman, but it's not okay to write a profile that focuses on her attractiveness and distracts from her other attributes; it's okay to think a man is hot, but it's not okay to tell your coworkers about it.
Be careful not to confuse systemic sexism with personal sexuality.
[+] [-] NotAtWork|11 years ago|reply
My first thought about Robert Downey Jr is usually something about his hair or attire.
We're primed to study the physical appearance of others when we see them. I don't see any reason that it's bad to notice that someone is attractive, has a funny haircut, etc.
The key point is that it's just a thing, and to move on to more important things (such as they're accomplished, intelligent, etc) rather than dwelling on physical ones.
Insisting you not see that she's attractive seems as weird to me as just focusing on her being attractive.
[+] [-] worldsayshi|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Fomite|11 years ago|reply
It's whether or not your thoughts about Marissa Mayer stop at "Damn, she's hot" and don't acknowledge her (or any other woman) as anything other than pleasant set dressing for your life.
[+] [-] orf|11 years ago|reply
Just shows how deep the problem goes I guess.
[+] [-] sp332|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] falcolas|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eli|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] georgiapeach|11 years ago|reply
Do you see us crying about it?
Grow up already.
[+] [-] coldtea|11 years ago|reply
Why, isn't it true? I mean, if one's going to argue one is much worse than the other, then some citation is needed.
Empirically, men don't (usually) get rape threats. But they do get death threats. And they don't usually get sexual comments on their looks. But they do get comments that they're "fat", "dorky", "idiots" etc. And the classic "gay" comments.
[+] [-] imgabe|11 years ago|reply
I don't mean to "Not all men" this, but I wish we would stop treating behavior like this as a normal part of the male psyche. It's not. It's seriously disturbed. It's an unfortunate consequence of the Internet and any area where you have a large audience that a small active segment is going to produce a large impression.
Yes, maybe your friend and even most men feel differently when a woman criticizes them than when a man does. No it is absolutely NOT a normal, male response to start making rape and death threats because of it.
I think these responses are a combination of seriously disturbed individuals and literal or mental children who haven't yet fully internalized that there are real live human beings on the other end of the keyboard and are trying to be shocking.
I think making a few examples would deter the idiots who think this is amusing. I mean, that one kid in Texas made an offhand, sarcastic comment about shooting up a school and got himself arrested within a couple of days. It would be nice to see police take other threats as seriously.
[+] [-] cushychicken|11 years ago|reply
I think that realization is the very opposite of the "Not all men" mindset. Saying "Not all men are like that" is a red herring - it's a way of distracting yourself from the fact that there are people out there who treat women like dirt by saying you don't do that.
I think where we're failing as a society is the inability to close the loop and turn "not all men" into "yo dude, not cool" - we don't seem to be very good at getting men to call out sexism in other men.
I would love some kind of resource for how to do that effectively.
[+] [-] lotsofmangos|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asuffield|11 years ago|reply
There must be some people with serious issues out there to generate things like this. Those people are not normal and this behaviour is not acceptable.
[+] [-] thinkpad20|11 years ago|reply
I think it's deplorable what the author and the women she describes have gone through. I think that we all should re-examine our behavior to ensure that we aren't perpetrating this sort of thing. But I wish that the article, and others like it, weren't couched in terms of demonizing half of humanity.
[+] [-] JonnieCache|11 years ago|reply
Somebody got a bit confused.
[+] [-] belorn|11 years ago|reply
Insults are different when directed at a women than men, and the cause is not as simple as typing the word sexism. Insults, like swearing, is rooted in social norms. People use terms and concept which is understood by others in their social environment. This is why men will not get rape threat, since in most social groups, people think men can not get raped. It make no sense to threaten others with something that they do not think could happen in the first place.
People who send insults are expecting a predicted reaction (Remember several research papers making this specific statement). If a specific insult directed at a woman would not result in the same reaction as if it was directed at a man, then the insulter will change which words they use when insulting men. Which words they use has actually very small meaning given that they receive the expected reaction.
Rather then talking about how women get harassment and men do not, maybe we should talk about why the culture of insults are so personal and violent against women, and so focused on skill and ability for men. Why do not men get insults like "dam, you look ugly" and women get "don't quit your day job, you suck!". When was the last time you saw someone go up to female speaker and say "you do not understand this!", or loudly being argued with by someone in the audience over a technical detail.
Culture for male and female behavior is not identical when it comes to bad behavior. The article says: "I have yet to talk to a man who has had to call a police officer due to a stalker". The obvious reason is that female stalkers tend to focus on celebrities (small number of people), while male stalkers tend to focus on people they find in the local area. Stalking is bad, be that male or female stalker, and who they target is not same. Pretend that one do not exist because it is different is not going to make sexism less in society.
[+] [-] EarthLaunch|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scotty79|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] caio1982|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] admyral|11 years ago|reply
I question whether this problem is so pervasive that the authors and editors feel readers need to be consistently bombarded with it, or whether the position is so salacious and instantly defensible that authors and editors have learned they can benefit from the attention the topic receives.
Perhaps I'm just bitter because I was just banned from Polygon for expressing this very perspective.
[+] [-] rafaelCosman|11 years ago|reply
It's telling (about the state of the industry) that two of these women felt uncomfortable sharing their names even while interviewing for an article about this very topic.
[+] [-] georgiapeach|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tux1968|11 years ago|reply
Would just like to say though, that most men are not the perpetrators of such acts, and in fact are quite often victims of men like these in one way or another. Women have many natural allies amongst men.
Anyway, it seems to me that such behavior wont survive being exposed to daylight, and that over time progress will be made.
[+] [-] jarin|11 years ago|reply
Instead, we have our masculinity, loyalty, abilities, work ethic, and/or integrity attacked, because those are the things that cut us to the core.
I'm not saying that women don't care about those things, I'm just saying that when someone is trying to be a dick they're going to go after the lowest hanging fruit.
Of course, I think we all need to keep working to end this kind of harassment. We all know it exists, and most of us guys disapprove of it, but few of us are taking the extra step of saying "that's not ok, dude" when it happens.
In the meantime, I've had some pretty hurtful/maddening stuff directed at me in the past by a group of people online, and I learned that you either take the Phil Fish route and flame out, or you have to find some way to distance yourself emotionally from the bullshit or ignore it. It's fucked up, but you have to protect your sanity until the problem is fixed (which it might never be).
Edit: Unrelated to the topic, but it's interesting how this comment got a large number of upvotes before the downvote brigade started trickling in. I'm not anti-feminist here, folks. Just trying to elaborate on the discussion and hopefully learn some things.
[+] [-] avz|11 years ago|reply
This point isn't stressed enough. Majority of people treat criticism differently depending on the gender of the source. Other types of interaction are also hugely dependent on gender. We even refer to each other with different pronouns depending on the type of sexual organs our bodies are equipped with. This isn't right.
[+] [-] dictum|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dgreensp|11 years ago|reply
If you put your anthropologist hat on, being called a "tasteless, stupid-ass, bitch-ass f--ktard" who should "go f--k your slutty-ass bitch mother" is a kind of acceptance. You're on the receiving end of all the same deeply offensive, vaguely emasculating language you'd get if you were "one of the guys" who happens to be a stupid noob, being criticized for your taste in games(!) along with your general cluelessness and total impotence and inadequacy. It's the kind of acknowledgment you get when a fellow rapper pours his heart into explaining that you suck and he rules.
I guess what I'm saying is, this letter is an example of "you-are-a-low-status-male" invective, and it's pretty easy to walk into a stream of it in certain communities. The fact that it was knowingly directed at a woman is what strikes me first, and in that sense it seems less like sexism than some sort of f--ed up equality.
[+] [-] joyeuse6701|11 years ago|reply
>Keeping in mind that actual stalking has never been dealt with in any significant way ever, the desire of a few female writers to curb online anonymity wouldn't be enough to get an @ mention, except that this happens to coincide with what the media wants, and now we have the two vectors summing to form a public health crisis. "Cyberbullying is a huge problem!" Yes, but not because it is hurtful, HA! no one cares about your feelings-- but because criticism makes women want to be more private-- and the privacy of the women is bad. The women have to be online, they do most of the clicking and receive most of the clicks. Anonymous cyberbullying is a barrier to increasing consumption, it's gotta go.
http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2014/05/cyberbll.html