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IMPress Polly
04-12-2015, 07:36 AM
You've heard opponents complain about "the humorless feminist" before? Well although I hate playing into stereotypes, this one actually isn't totally untrue. Many feminists publicly display no sense of humor, or for that matter any real personality in general. Up until the last summer, and more especially the last four months, I myself largely sought to avoid displaying much personality here on PF. Ever think there might be a reason? Well there is one. I think I'll let a prominent feminist of today (whom you may have noticed I respect a lot) explain why she's opted to refrain from showing her human side to the public in recent years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhgEuY64ECw

Yeah that's right: political correctness isn't just something that affects the political right and men and so forth. Quite to the contrary, it's if anything applied in more extreme forms to feminists. I mean for example remember last year when the merits of the term "bitch" (the B word for those with the filter turned on) were discussed here and how the overwhelming majority opposed banning that word on PF, and then shortly thereafter a mass movement calling for the prohibition of the terms "sexist" and "racist" emerged and was actually taken seriously...ironically, by all the same people who previously complained about the "the word police" and how repressive that approach to forum moderation is? Yeah. I think that illustrated a certain truth: that many people are hyper-sensitive about gender and other discrimination issues. Lots and lots of people feel that even discussing things like gender discrimination amounts to a personal challenge to their masculinity or to their right to be a happy housewife (as applicable) and as such respond to even the most mundane discussions thereof quite disproportionately and in very personal ways that many feminists would rather avoid dealing with. Such avoidance, such mandatory self-censorship, however, takes an emotional toll, just as discrimination itself does.

Compiled on top of this are social stigmas against women telling jokes and being humorous: the whole "women aren't funny" cultural belief that's easily observed in the ratio of male-to-female professional comedians, for example. (Survey illustrating this point. (https://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/02/13/are-women-really-less-funny-men/)) Most all of the prominent ones are men, regardless of the target audience. When polled on the subject, the vast majority of people of both sexes value "a sense of humor" in the opposite sex. However, breaking down the details reveals that for women to "have a sense of humor" is believed to mean mean something very different than it does for men to "have a sense of humor". For a man to "have a sense of humor" means for him to be good at telling jokes (active role), where for a woman to "have a sense of humor" means for her to laugh at those jokes (passive role). Furthermore, if you as a woman do break this taboo by telling a joke, it had better be a self-depreciating one if you hope for it to be well-received.

Now I don't claim this point as a license to demand that others find my idea of humor (which is often combative rather than self-depreciating, as I'm sure you've noticed) funny and "lol" all my jokes or what have you. I'm just pointing out that gender roles exist even vis-a-vis simple things like humor, that women are graded more harshly than men, and that feminists are graded more harshly than average women. Feminist DO have a sense of humor just like you do! Many just find it impractical to display it because of the inevitable, repressive backlash, which tends to be way more extreme and ridiculously nitpicky than anything "the word police" have likely visited upon you. It would be nice to be allowed a sense of humor.

Peter1469
04-12-2015, 07:41 AM
I am not sure what she thinks the State can do about online harassment. Outside of existing case law.

We need to be careful about handing the State more power. Then we will really be a lot more screwed than we are with random asshats saying bad stuff about us on the Internet.

Hint, carry conceal.

Common
04-12-2015, 07:47 AM
Im going to get in trouble here <story of my life> I dont see a need for militant feminizm any more.
I think it actually does more harm than good at this point. Just like anything else when a movement progress' and gets basically what they set out for, at times they get overbearing and when that happens their fortunes start to reverse. Its the Crying Wolf syndrome. After awhile your audience becomes immune, indifferent or Hostile towards you.

IMPress Polly
04-12-2015, 08:08 AM
Well that didn't take long. :rollseyes:


Peter wrote:
I am not sure what she thinks the State can do about online harassment. Outside of existing case law.

We need to be careful about handing the State more power. Then we will really be a lot more screwed than we are with random asshats saying bad stuff about us on the Internet.

Hint, carry conceal.

I'm pretty sure "lighten up a little" is the essence of what she, and I for that matter, were saying.

Death threats, rape threats, etc., are already illegal, as the Supreme Court has found that threats are not a constitutionally protected form of free speech. Hence why she reports the ones she receives on a daily basis to the FBI. But what she's pointing out there is that "I shouldn't have to", as in to say that the response to her body of work has been wildly disproportionate and shouldn't be. I was just using that case as an example.


Common wrote:
Im going to get in trouble here <story of my life> I dont see a need for militant feminizm any more.
I think it actually does more harm than good at this point. Just like anything else when a movement progress' and gets basically what they set out for, at times they get overbearing and when that happens their fortunes start to reverse. Its the Crying Wolf syndrome. After awhile your audience becomes immune, indifferent or Hostile towards you.

Sorry for being a lying, overbearing nag by pointing out, with references, that inequity exists and that many feminists feel emotionally repressed! I forgot that only your feelings matter! :wink:

And I don't think it took "a while" for THIS audience to become hostile. Try after the very first post.

Peter1469
04-12-2015, 08:10 AM
My point: she thinks she doesn't have to report the harassment. Methinks the power she wishes to give to the State will squash us all.


Well that didn't take long. :rollseyes:



I'm pretty sure "lighten up a little" is the essence of what she, and I for that matter, were saying.

Death threats, rape threats, etc., are already illegal, as the Supreme Court has found that threats are not a constitutionally protected form of free speech. Hence why she reports the ones she receives on a daily basis to the FBI. But what she's pointing out there is that "I shouldn't have to", as in to say that response to her body of work has been wildly disproportionate and shouldn't be. I was just using that case as an example.



Sorry for being a lying, overbearing nag by pointing out that inequity exists and that many feminists feel emotionally repressed! I forgot that only your feelings matter! :wink:

And I don't think it took "a while" for THIS audience to become hostile. Try after the very first post.

IMPress Polly
04-12-2015, 08:14 AM
You're misunderstanding, Peter. Where do you see her calling for additional laws? She's calling for cultural change.

Common
04-12-2015, 08:16 AM
Well that didn't take long. :rollseyes:



I'm pretty sure "lighten up a little" is the essence of what she, and I for that matter, were saying.

Death threats, rape threats, etc., are already illegal, as the Supreme Court has found that threats are not a constitutionally protected form of free speech. Hence why she reports the ones she receives on a daily basis to the FBI. But what she's pointing out there is that "I shouldn't have to", as in to say that response to her body of work has been wildly disproportionate and shouldn't be. I was just using that case as an example.



Sorry for being a lying, overbearing nag by pointing out, with references, that inequity exists and that many feminists feel emotionally repressed! I forgot that only your feelings matter! :wink:

And I don't think it took "a while" for THIS audience to become hostile. Try after the very first post.

NO NO NO I wasnt insinuating any such thing about you Polly and what I said was a general statement that had no direct bearing about you. Im sorry if you took it that way. I was speaking generically about feminism as a whole.

I guess men shouldnt comment in these threads, we cant understand the passion behind it or reason it out in the same way women can. I will respectfully and Fearfully remove myself from this conversation :) again My apologies if I gave your the wrong impression :(

Peter1469
04-12-2015, 08:36 AM
You're misunderstanding, Peter. Where do you see her calling for additional laws? She's calling for cultural change.


Maybe.

But men don't complain like this.... Suck it up buttercup.

Mister D
04-12-2015, 08:59 AM
...many feminists feel emotionally repressed!

I have no doubt that your average feminist has all sorts of emotional problems.

IMPress Polly
04-12-2015, 09:03 AM
Common wrote:
NO NO NO I wasnt insinuating any such thing about you Polly and what I said was a general statement that had no direct bearing about you. Im sorry if you took it that way. I was speaking generically about feminism as a whole.

I guess men shouldnt comment in these threads, we cant understand the passion behind it or reason it out in the same way women can. I will respectfully and Fearfully remove myself from this conversation :) again My apologies if I gave your the wrong impression :(

No need to "fearfully remove [your]self". I guess I just expected something other than a casual dismissal for thoughts I put a fair amount of effort into composing and articulating, though it was really the terms "overbearing" and "crying wolf" that annoyed me because I thought I was pretty calm and collected in my approach in the OP and included references to help substantiate my case and all. I didn't understand those parts especially. In context, when I was explaining that feminists often display no humor or personality because many of us feel like everything we say is put under a microscope and reacted to disproportionately, it kind of felt like you were saying that I'm not allowed to protest real discrimination or even to have feelings because that's not convenient for you. Maybe I misunderstood. Either way, we should be able to feel comfortable talking these sorts of subjects out.


Peter wrote:
Maybe.

But men don't complain like this.... Suck it up buttercup.

Men don't complain? How long have you been here now? :grin:

Peter1469
04-12-2015, 09:05 AM
No need to "fearfully remove [your]self". I guess I just expected something other than a casual dismissal for thoughts I put a fair amount of effort into composing and articulating, though it was really the terms "overbearing" and "crying wolf" that annoyed me because I thought I was pretty calm and collected in my approach in the OP and included references to help substantiate my case and all. I didn't understand those parts especially. In context, when I was explaining that feminists often display no humor or personality because many of us feel like everything we say is put under a microscope and reacted to disproportionately, it kind of felt like you were saying that I'm not allowed to protest real discrimination or even to have feelings because that's not convenient for you. Maybe I misunderstood. Either way, we should be able to feel comfortable talking these sorts of subjects out.



Men don't complain? How long have you been here now? :grin:

:smiley:

I meant about the subject of the OP. Yes guys complain as well.

Running away.

Mostly about nagging women.

PattyHill
04-12-2015, 09:05 AM
I'm just pointing out that gender roles exist even vis-a-vis simple things like humor, that women are graded more harshly than men, and that feminists are graded more harshly than average women. Feminist DO have a sense of humor just like you do! Many just find it impractical to display it because of the inevitable, repressive backlash, which tends to be way more extreme and ridiculously nitpicky than anything "the word police" have likely visited upon you. It would be nice to be allowed a sense of humor.

Nicely said. Thanks.

Mister D
04-12-2015, 09:10 AM
If a woman so much as smiles in my presence there shall be a backlash!

Common
04-12-2015, 09:11 AM
No need to "fearfully remove [your]self". I guess I just expected something other than a casual dismissal for thoughts I put a fair amount of effort into composing and articulating, though it was really the terms "overbearing" and "crying wolf" that annoyed me because I thought I was pretty calm and collected in my approach in the OP and included references to help substantiate my case and all. I didn't understand those parts especially. In context, when I was explaining that feminists often display no humor or personality because many of us feel like everything we say is put under a microscope and reacted to disproportionately, it kind of felt like you were saying that I'm not allowed to protest real discrimination or even to have feelings because that's not convenient for you. Maybe I misunderstood. Either way, we should be able to feel comfortable talking these sorts of subjects out.



Men don't complain? How long have you been here now? :grin:

The comments overbearing and Crying Wolf was intended to mean the overall general movement.
On another forum Polly there was what I call a feminazie, this young woman tried to turn every thread into an attack on women. Most men just disregarded her or began insulting her, even the few that tried to be respectful like me got attacked.

Any movement that over reachs can cause a reversal in attitude and support.
The gay movement is right on the cusp of that. If you read alot of sources there are people that have no animosity at all and were for them that are becoming increasing annoyed at all the incessant whining and believe its become too overbearing and demanding. That was the point I was trying to make.

PattyHill
04-12-2015, 09:13 AM
Im going to get in trouble here <story of my life> I dont see a need for militant feminizm any more.
I think it actually does more harm than good at this point. Just like anything else when a movement progress' and gets basically what they set out for, at times they get overbearing and when that happens their fortunes start to reverse. Its the Crying Wolf syndrome. After awhile your audience becomes immune, indifferent or Hostile towards you.


"Militant"? I haven't seen any feminists out in the streets blowing up government buildings or anything.

Can we be quick to point out inequalities? Sure. After thousands of years of inequality, we're pretty tired of it. We don't think asking for equal pay for equal work is that big a deal. Or asking that the press not focus on the wardrobes of female politicians while they focus on policies of male politicians. Or asking that normal, rational people say that "gamergate" is way out of line and people who propagate it and other hate messages against women should be called out as the creeps they are.

If that's militant, oh well, we're militant.

One year, at the annual sales kickoff event that my company holds, 50% of the awards went to women - who are 10% of the salesforce. That was held up as an example of how wonderful our company was toward women. But - 100% of the sales management were men. If the women were so awesome, why weren't any of them managers? They can get an award - a glass monolith, as I call them - but not power. "We've patted you on the head, told you how great you are, why aren't you happy?"

The moment a feminist gets at all "militant", she is immediately attacked as unfeminine, too harsh, nasty, etc. It's really hard to effect cultural change while still say please, thank you, and making sure male egos aren't wounded. But that's what we're told to do.

IMPress Polly
04-12-2015, 09:55 AM
Peter wrote:
:smiley:

I meant about the subject of the OP. Yes guys complain as well.

Running away.

Mostly about nagging women.

What?? You mean to tell me that men don't complain about male privilege? I'm shocked!! :shocked::wink:

Kidding, I get what you're saying -- that men don't complain about being oppressed along gender lines -- but two thoughts on that:

1) Not true. Ever hear of men's rights activists? Or *sighs* GamerGaters (whom no I will never let up on until they cease to exist because they tirelessly pester me like every day on the game sites I frequent.)? And...

2) To whatever extent there might be truth to what you're suggesting, have you ever stopped to consider that that might be because men enjoy a privileged social status rather than a disadvantaged one and thus have comparatively little to (validly) complain about in the first place?

Anyway... *chases you down street with kitchen pan or other nagging wife cliche "weapon" in hand*


PattyHill wrote:
"Militant"? I haven't seen any feminists out in the streets blowing up government buildings or anything.

In all fairness to Common, "militant feminist" is a term I've used to describe myself here on PF before. That's what Common was referencing. As I've explained elsewhere, my use of the term "militant" is meant to imply that I am principled. Although as you also point out...


The moment a feminist gets at all "militant", she is immediately attacked as unfeminine, too harsh, nasty, etc. It's really hard to effect cultural change while still say please, thank you, and making sure male egos aren't wounded. But that's what we're told to do.

...I am also, with the term, seeking to be a little defiant that way, as you're right: the warrior archetype, prejudice has it, is something to be associated with masculinity and men and I'm just the kind of person to challenge people's assumptions rather than submit to them, even if just in a purely symbolic manner. :wink: Other little language gestures work just as well. For example, if one writes "men and women" when listing something it's thought nothing of because it's tradition, but if one reverses the word order and writes "women and men" instead, it's suddenly a big deal because you're subtly, implicitly challenging the idea that women are supposed to always be of secondary importance or an afterthought. I'm just the kind of person who enjoys little rebellions like that. :grin:


Common wrote:
Any movement that over reachs can cause a reversal in attitude and support.

I think where we run into problems is that your definition of "overreach" is so conservative that it stops far short of actual equality. For example...


The gay movement is right on the cusp of that. If you read alot of sources there are people that have no animosity at all and were for them that are becoming increasing annoyed at all the incessant whining and believe its become too overbearing and demanding.

I don't know if you've looked at the statistics on this, Common, but gay people who come out remain one hell of a lot more subject to physical violence and murder than their straight counterparts and same-sex couples aren't even yet allowed to marry or legally obliged to receive equal pay for equal work in all U.S. states yet, so I'm pretty sure the movement is not quite "on the cusp" of overreaching as yet.

Or for another example, you complain that feminists are going too far even though, according to the World Economic Forum, American women are even today only treated as 75% the equals of men.

Yes there are some truly mindlessly belligerent people and annoying loudmouths who will complain about anything they possibly can in every mass movement. That does not mean that the general movement has no valid points and should cease to exist. Neither does it mean that militants, for that matter, have no valid and vital role to play therein.

Peter1469
04-12-2015, 10:09 AM
Are men's rights activists real men?

And no I have not stopped to consider that I a privileged because I am a man.

Still running. :smiley:






What?? You mean to tell me that men don't complain about male privilege? I'm shocked!! :shocked::wink:

Kidding, I get what you're saying -- that men don't complain about being oppressed along gender lines -- but two thoughts on that:

1) Not true. Ever hear of men's rights activists? Or *sighs* GamerGaters (whom no I will never let up on until they cease to exist because they tirelessly pester me like every day on the game sites I frequent.)? And...

2) To whatever extent there might be truth to what you're suggesting, have you ever stopped to consider that that might be because men enjoy a privileged social status rather than a disadvantaged one and thus have comparatively little to (validly) complain about in the first place?

Anyway... *chases you down street with kitchen pan or other nagging wife cliche "weapon" in hand*



In all fairness to Common, "militant feminist" is a term I've used to describe myself here on PF before. That's what Common was referencing. As I've explained elsewhere, my use of the term "militant" is meant to imply that I am principled. Although as you also point out...



...I am also, with the term, seeking to be a little defiant that way, as you're right: the warrior archetype, prejudice has it, is something to be associated with masculinity and men and I'm just the kind of person to challenge people's assumptions rather than submit to them, even if just in a purely symbolic manner. :wink: Other little language gestures work just as well. For example, if one writes "men and women" when listing something it's thought nothing of because it's tradition, but if one reverses the word order and writes "women and men" instead, it's suddenly a big deal because you're subtly, implicitly challenging the idea that women are supposed to always be of secondary importance or an afterthought. I'm just the kind of person who enjoys little rebellions like that. :grin:



I think where we run into problems is that your definition of "overreach" is so conservative that it stops far short of actual equality. For example...



I don't know if you've looked at the statistics on this, Common, but gay people who come out remain one hell of a lot more subject to physical violence and murder than their straight counterparts and same-sex couples aren't even yet allowed to marry or legally obliged to receive equal pay for equal work in all U.S. states yet, so I'm pretty sure the movement is not quite "on the cusp" of overreaching as yet.

Or for another example, you complain that feminists are going too far even though, according to the World Economic Forum, American women are even today only treated as 75% the equals of men.

Yes there are some truly mindlessly belligerent people and annoying loudmouths who will complain about anything they possibly can in every mass movement. That does not mean that the general movement has no valid points and should cease to exist. Neither does it mean that militants, for that matter, have no valid and vital role to play therein.

Peter1469
04-12-2015, 10:37 AM
Oh my!

IMPress Polly
04-12-2015, 10:39 AM
Sorry, in case anyone is confused, I had some pic problems a minute ago with a post I accordingly deleted. Here are the remarks I had originally posted, with the pic I meant to insert:


Peter wrote:
Are men's rights activists real men?

No, they're women because they're whiney, overreaching nags. :wink:

11142


And no I have not stopped to consider that I a privileged because I am a man. Still running. :smiley:

I suppose that, in your position, stopping in general might not be a good idea. :wink:

PattyHill
04-12-2015, 10:45 AM
Yes there are some truly mindlessly belligerent people and annoying loudmouths who will complain about anything they possibly can in every mass movement. That does not mean that the general movement has no valid points and should cease to exist. Neither does it mean that militants, for that matter, have no valid and vital role to play therein.


Totally agree that every movement has people who are annoying. And they are usually the ones the media covers.... Again, back in my NOW days: media would take pictures of the women who were most flamboyant, ignoring the fact they were a small percentage of the crowd... Now don't get me wrong - those women were powerful and fun and help move the movement forward. But because all feminists were portrayed that way, when I would tell someone I was a feminist they would be all "but you don't have purple hair! you shower! you wear shoes!"

PolWatch
04-12-2015, 10:47 AM
Totally agree that every movement has people who are annoying. And they are usually the ones the media covers.... Again, back in my NOW days: media would take pictures of the women who were most flamboyant, ignoring the fact they were a small percentage of the crowd... Now don't get me wrong - those women were powerful and fun and help move the movement forward. But because all feminists were portrayed that way, when I would tell someone I was a feminist they would be all "but you don't have purple hair! you shower! you wear shoes!"

you forgot the first remark: Did you burn your bra? I still have people asking me that when they found out I was in the early NOW movement.

PattyHill
04-12-2015, 10:53 AM
you forgot the first remark: Did you burn your bra? I still have people asking me that when they found out I was in the early NOW movement.

Oh yeah! that old comment!!

Pretty funny what people thought/think about us! but hey - we don't have a sense of humor, so guess I can't laugh about it (smile)

IMPress Polly
04-12-2015, 10:57 AM
PolWatch wrote:
you forgot the first remark: Did you burn your bra? I still have people asking me that when they found out I was in the early NOW movement.

Do you shave your pits, PolWatch? Are you bald? Do you weigh 45 metric tons? I'll bet you've never had sex and are just jealous, aren't you? Never got invited to parties back in high school and college, did you? Probably never been able to get a date.

:wink:

IMPress Polly
04-12-2015, 11:03 AM
I feel the need. The need to maliciously post another pic making fun of MRAs because of how annoying I find them. Cannot...resist...

11143

I feel guilty of participating in the lowering our of debate standards as a community now. (Not really.)

PattyHill
04-12-2015, 11:11 AM
I feel the need. The need to maliciously post another pic making fun of MRAs because of how annoying I find them. Cannot...resist...

11143

I feel guilty of participating in the lowering our of debate standards as a community now. (Not really.)

Oh, I think you could have done much worse! you showed amazing restraint!

The Xl
04-12-2015, 11:16 AM
While it does seem that females do get it harsher, threats and insults, all that jazz, seem to come with the territory of being famous and on the internet. It sucks, but that's what it is.

As far as banned words on the forum go, bitch isn't one, but I believe c*nt is the only banned word here, and it's a derogatory female slur. Worth noting.

IMPress Polly
04-12-2015, 11:38 AM
The Xl wrote:
While it does seem that females do get it harsher, threats and insults, all that jazz, seem to come with the territory of being famous and on the internet. It sucks, but that's what it is.

What's interesting is that, if you look at Feminist Frequency's first annual report on their traffic levels and number of followers over the course of 2014, bearing in mind the time frames that certain events occurred, one discovers that were it not for the wave upon wave of death threats and resultant media coverage that began in earnest in August and ran properly through October, Feminist Frequency would just be a fringe web site and YouTube channel followed by only a few thousand people rather than the 100,000+ they have now. They didn't even ask for the fame they've gotten. It just happened because the over-the-top reaction to their videos has made their point for them: that the game industry and community has a real problem with women, or at least with those who speak out. I'd triumphantly laugh and thank the GamerGate movement for their invaluable contribution to the advancement of the women's movement on Feminist Frequency's behalf if it weren't for the very real human toll that these threats (posting people's home addresses in public and such) have taken on the hitherto very normal people who work there, and most of all on one Anita Sarkeesian. She's become kind of my hero. I'm not as brave as she is. I couldn't live like that.

But anyway, to your actual point, there's a degree to which, yes indeed, the anonymity of the Internet erases the social consequences people would face doing the same things, saying the same things, in real life, I agree. However, I also think that that "It's just the Internet being the Internet" is too often used as an excuse for doing nothing in response; for game communities not creating policies against this sort of thing or not enforcing them. The world can't be made perfect, but it can be made better.

What's more, the "women aren't funny" gender biases and the "humorless feminist" image both predate the Internet by a lot.


As far as banned words on the forum go, $#@! isn't one, but I believe c*nt is the only banned word here, and it's a derogatory female slur. Worth noting.

I actually didn't know that!

IMPress Polly
04-12-2015, 11:42 AM
PattyHill wrote:
Oh, I think you could have done much worse! you showed amazing restraint!

Have you seen how I'm treating Peter? :wink:

PattyHill
04-12-2015, 12:10 PM
While it does seem that females do get it harsher, threats and insults, all that jazz, seem to come with the territory of being famous and on the internet. It sucks, but that's what it is.

As far as banned words on the forum go, $#@! isn't one, but I believe c*nt is the only banned word here, and it's a derogatory female slur. Worth noting.


but if you look at studies, women - whether famous or not - DO get it worse. There are some sites that hound them. Or if a female posts a blog, the comments are horribly harsh, at times threatening.

I realized a few sites ago that I don't need to let that crap into my eyes. If a site I'm on gets too nasty towards women or people of color, and if there doesn't seem to be any willingness on the part of other posters to call it out - I leave the site.

I really do believe most men are not that way towards women in their daily life; and so far on this site you all don't seem to be going after women just because they are women and dare to speak up.

But sadly, the assholes are numerous out there, and anonymity certainly aids them. I don't want to leave the internet to the jerks; it's too valuable a tool; but I would hope over time we can educate them and use peer pressure to get them to back off on nastiness, threats, and whatnot.

Gamergate is totally disgusting. I don't know how to shut that down. But it's disgusting.

PolWatch
04-12-2015, 12:15 PM
The internet provides cowards with a place to act like Billy-Bad-Azz. They can threaten, talk dirty and make themselves feel like Rambo. At least until their mother catches them....:laugh:

The Xl
04-12-2015, 12:19 PM
What's interesting is that, if you look at Feminist Frequency's first annual report on their traffic levels and number of followers over the course of 2014, bearing in mind the time frames that certain events occurred, one discovers that were it not for the wave upon wave of death threats and resultant media coverage that began in earnest in August and ran properly through October, Feminist Frequency would just be a fringe web site and YouTube channel followed by only a few thousand people rather than the 100,000+ they have now. They didn't even ask for the fame they've gotten. It just happened because the over-the-top reaction to their videos has made their point for them: that the game industry and community has a real problem with women, or at least with those who speak out. I'd triumphantly laugh and thank the GamerGate movement for their invaluable contribution to the advancement of the women's movement on Feminist Frequency's behalf if it weren't for the very real human toll that these threats (posting people's home addresses in public and such) have taken on the hitherto very normal people who work there, and most of all on one Anita Sarkeesian. She's become kind of my hero. I'm not as brave as she is. I couldn't live like that.

But anyway, to your actual point, there's a degree to which, yes indeed, the anonymity of the Internet erases the social consequences people would face doing the same things, saying the same things, in real life, I agree. However, I also think that that "It's just the Internet being the Internet" is too often used as an excuse for doing nothing in response; for game communities not creating policies against this sort of thing or not enforcing them. The world can't be made perfect, but it can be made better.

What's more, the "women aren't funny" gender biases and the "humorless feminist" image both predate the Internet by a lot.



I actually didn't know that!

A lot of gamers are douchebags, and I'd guess they target women because they figure they're easier to bully. They do it to kids too. Really though, especially on games like Call of Duty and whatnot, there are people being obnoxious trolls to everyone.

The Xl
04-12-2015, 12:29 PM
but if you look at studies, women - whether famous or not - DO get it worse. There are some sites that hound them. Or if a female posts a blog, the comments are horribly harsh, at times threatening.

I realized a few sites ago that I don't need to let that crap into my eyes. If a site I'm on gets too nasty towards women or people of color, and if there doesn't seem to be any willingness on the part of other posters to call it out - I leave the site.

I really do believe most men are not that way towards women in their daily life; and so far on this site you all don't seem to be going after women just because they are women and dare to speak up.

But sadly, the assholes are numerous out there, and anonymity certainly aids them. I don't want to leave the internet to the jerks; it's too valuable a tool; but I would hope over time we can educate them and use peer pressure to get them to back off on nastiness, threats, and whatnot.

Gamergate is totally disgusting. I don't know how to shut that down. But it's disgusting.

I do acknowledge that women get it worse. Although their is plenty to go around for everyone.

I'm a gamer, but don't hang around sites like 4chan and shit like that. Didn't even know this gamergate shit existed before today. Sounds like a bunch of retards acting retarded.

Ethereal
04-12-2015, 01:22 PM
Well that didn't take long. :rollseyes:



I'm pretty sure "lighten up a little" is the essence of what she, and I for that matter, were saying.

Death threats, rape threats, etc., are already illegal, as the Supreme Court has found that threats are not a constitutionally protected form of free speech. Hence why she reports the ones she receives on a daily basis to the FBI. But what she's pointing out there is that "I shouldn't have to", as in to say that the response to her body of work has been wildly disproportionate and shouldn't be. I was just using that case as an example.



Sorry for being a lying, overbearing nag by pointing out, with references, that inequity exists and that many feminists feel emotionally repressed! I forgot that only your feelings matter! :wink:

And I don't think it took "a while" for THIS audience to become hostile. Try after the very first post.

You think disagreement with your opinions is "hostility"?

Ethereal
04-12-2015, 01:26 PM
...though it was really the terms "overbearing" and "crying wolf" that annoyed me...

And how did you characterize libertarians that one time? As a bunch of Neanderthals oozing machismo and harboring misogynist notions, if I recall correctly?

kilgram
04-12-2015, 01:27 PM
And how did you characterize libertarians that one time? As a bunch of Neanderthals oozing machismo and harboring misogynist notions, if I recall correctly?
Are you confusing Libertarians with Conservative?

Conservative fit very well in the definition of Neanderthals oozing machismo and harboring misogynist notions.

Libertarians should not be like that.

Ethereal
04-12-2015, 01:30 PM
Are you confusing Libertarians with Conservative?

Conservative fit very well in the definition of Neanderthals oozing machismo and harboring misogynist notions.

Libertarians should not be like that.

You should ask Polly. She's the one who tried painting libertarians as such.

IMPress Polly
04-12-2015, 01:34 PM
Nope, not taking the bait.

Ethereal
04-12-2015, 01:34 PM
(Incidentally, libertarianism as a political movement does seem to ooze the whole sleazebag / macho-man type of image. I mean a study by Pew Research from a couple years back found that 60% of all ideological libertarians in America are men, which made libertarianism the single most lopsidedly male political grouping. There are reasons why, you know?)

So if it's okay to make baseless generalizations about libertarians, then it should be okay to make baseless generalizations about humorless feminists, no?

Mister D
04-12-2015, 01:37 PM
So if it's okay to make baseless generalizations about libertarians, then it should be okay to make baseless generalizations about humorless feminists, no?

Thankfully, when she does it our male members don't post a wall of text lamenting the fact.

Ethereal
04-12-2015, 01:37 PM
Libertarians have traditionally been known for leading rather decadent lifestyles that logically correspond to their exceptionally permissive attitudes, which is from whence I'm drawing the term "sleazebag".

The hits just keep on coming!

Ethereal
04-12-2015, 01:38 PM
Thankfully, when she does it our male members don't post a wall of text lamenting the fact.

I rather enjoy her style of posting, but I do not appreciate the self-righteous and inconsistent aspects of it. If you are going to lament generalizations, then you ought not engage in them yourself.

Mister D
04-12-2015, 01:40 PM
I rather enjoy her style of posting, but I do not appreciate the self-righteous and inconsistent aspects of it. If you are going to lament generalizations, then you ought not engage in them yourself.

Agreed.

Ethereal
04-12-2015, 01:44 PM
Nope, not taking the bait.

It's not "bait", it's a valid point that you don't want to address for some reason.

IMPress Polly
04-12-2015, 02:17 PM
I apologized ages ago for that ancient thread and you know it. It was supposed to be a joke anyway.

PattyHill
04-12-2015, 02:18 PM
I do acknowledge that women get it worse. Although their is plenty to go around for everyone.

I'm a gamer, but don't hang around sites like 4chan and $#@! like that. Didn't even know this gamergate $#@! existed before today. Sounds like a bunch of retards acting retarded.

glad to hear. I'm sure there are many gamers like you. But the Gamergate people are sure making gamers look bad. Of course, they are just a subset. But wow - yuck!

IMPress Polly
04-12-2015, 02:52 PM
The XI wrote:
I'm a gamer, but don't hang around sites like 4chan and $#@! like that. Didn't even know this gamergate $#@! existed before today. Sounds like a bunch of retards acting retarded.

Oh Lord, if it were only confined to sites like 4Chan! We have one of those people here on PF actually, or at least we did a few weeks ago (I haven't seen the guy post in a while now): you remember Dragonborn Herald? Yeah he was one of those people. Imagine a doxing army of Dragonborn Heralds (men's rights activists) composing about half the membership of the average gaming site (e.g. more than 40% of VG Chartz members, according to a February survey of their members).

The movement today known as GamerGate started in 2012 in reaction to a then-obscure culture criticism group called Feminist Frequency, headed up by one Anita Sarkeesian, launching a Kickstarter campaign to crowd-fund a YouTube video series called Tropes vs. Women in Video Games. They launched a doxing (online harassment and intimidation) campaign to stop her, in turn drawing a growing amount of attention to the video series (rather ironically). They adopted the #gamergate Twitter hashtag last August to identify themselves as (try not to laugh) an anti-corruption movement. They made national news in late August of last year after a series of their doxing campaigns successfully pushed a few female game developers out of the industry and forced Anita Sarkeesian to flee her home in response to her home address being traced and released and people threatening to kill her family. The GamerGate people have developed an elaborate conspiracy theory that they proceed on the basis of wherein Sarkeesian and Feminist Frequency hate video games and video gamers collectively and are working with just about all professional video game critics to stigmatize and undermine the hardcore gamer community by flooding the market with lousy games that aren't fun and criticizing good ones as anti-woman and yeah you get the picture.

They actually have developed a whole ideology vis-a-vis games at this point. For example, they claim that their core goal is to preserve, to quote one of these people, "traditional gamer culture". To that end, the movement takes the position that video games should not be considered an artistic medium because that leads to the creation of games that aren't fun to play, and likewise that no one has the right to insert culture critiques (e.g. socio-political analysis) into game reviews. If it all sounds like a game-world application of the conservative principles of the Republican Party, that's because yeah GamerGaters are basically politically conservative, Republican-type gamers. You can usually identify them by their use of very Rush Limbaugh-sounding rhetoric like "feminist queen mothers" and "cultural Marxism" and so forth. The female variation is known as Not Your Shield.

Ethereal
04-12-2015, 03:07 PM
I apologized ages ago for that ancient thread and you know it. It was supposed to be a joke anyway.

I don't think I knew that, otherwise I wouldn't have brought it up. And you didn't appear to be joking when you described libertarians as you did.

If you really were joking, then I guess I was mistaken, but it should be noted that feminists aren't the only ones who have to deal with damaging stereotypes.

PattyHill
04-12-2015, 03:12 PM
I don't think I knew that, otherwise I wouldn't have brought it up. And you didn't appear to be joking when you described libertarians as you did.

If you really were joking, then I guess I was mistaken, but it should be noted that feminists aren't the only ones who have to deal with damaging stereotypes.

and besides, everyone knows feminists don't joke!!! (smile)

(sorry, just had to say it)

Ethereal
04-12-2015, 03:13 PM
glad to hear. I'm sure there are many gamers like you. But the Gamergate people are sure making gamers look bad. Of course, they are just a subset. But wow - yuck!

Which "gamergate people" are you referring to, exactly? The ones who don't like seeing "social justice" agendas polluting the video game industry or the insane misogynist trolls who can be found all over the internet, including within the "Gamergate" community?

Ethereal
04-12-2015, 03:13 PM
and besides, everyone knows feminists don't joke!!! (smile)

(sorry, just had to say it)

Quite alright... :grin:

Ethereal
04-12-2015, 03:17 PM
Oh Lord, if it were only confined to sites like 4Chan! We have one of those people here on PF actually, or at least we did a few weeks ago (I haven't seen the guy post in a while now): you remember Dragonborn Herald? Yeah he was one of those people. Imagine a doxing army of Dragonborn Heralds (men's rights activists) composing about half the membership of the average gaming site (e.g. more than 40% of VG Chartz members, according to a February survey of their members).

The movement today known as GamerGate started in 2012 in reaction to a then-obscure culture criticism group called Feminist Frequency, headed up by one Anita Sarkeesian, launching a Kickstarter campaign to crowd-fund a YouTube video series called Tropes vs. Women in Video Games. They launched a doxing (online harassment and intimidation) campaign to stop her, in turn drawing a growing amount of attention to the video series (rather ironically). They adopted the #gamergate Twitter hashtag last August to identify themselves as (try not to laugh) an anti-corruption movement. They made national news in late August of last year after a series of their doxing campaigns successfully pushed a few female game developers out of the industry and forced Anita Sarkeesian to flee her home in response to her home address being traced and released and people threatening to kill her family. The GamerGate people have developed an elaborate conspiracy theory that they proceed on the basis of wherein Sarkeesian and Feminist Frequency hate video games and video gamers collectively and are working with just about all professional video game critics to stigmatize and undermine the hardcore gamer community by flooding the market with lousy games that aren't fun and criticizing good ones as anti-woman and yeah you get the picture.

They actually have developed a whole ideology vis-a-vis games at this point. For example, they claim that their core goal is to preserve, to quote one of these people, "traditional gamer culture". To that end, the movement takes the position that video games should not be considered an artistic medium because that leads to the creation of games that aren't fun to play, and likewise that no one has the right to insert culture critiques (e.g. socio-political analysis) into game reviews. If it all sounds like a game-world application of the conservative principles of the Republican Party, that's because yeah GamerGaters are basically politically conservative, Republican-type gamers. You can usually identify them by their use of very Rush Limbaugh-sounding rhetoric like "feminist queen mothers" and "cultural Marxism" and so forth. The female variation is known as Not Your Shield.

I was under the impression that "Gamergate" began when Eron Gjoni accused his ex-girlfriend Zoe Quinn of sleeping around in order to get good reviews for her "game" Depression Quest.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/gamergate

The Xl
04-12-2015, 03:31 PM
glad to hear. I'm sure there are many gamers like you. But the Gamergate people are sure making gamers look bad. Of course, they are just a subset. But wow - yuck!

Yeah, there are a lot of bad gamers out there. Immature kids, 40 year olds living with their moms, people with over 20% body fat that don't exercise outside of walking to their car. That type of shit will breed aggression and hostility.

The Sage of Main Street
04-12-2015, 03:35 PM
Can we be quick to point out inequalities? Sure. After thousands of years of inequality, we're pretty tired of it. We don't think asking for equal pay for equal work is that big a deal. Or asking that the press not focus on the wardrobes of female politicians while they focus on policies of male politicians. Or asking that normal, rational people say that "gamergate" is way out of line a

If that's militant, oh well, we're militant.

One year, at the annual sales kickoff event that my company holds, 50% of the awards went to women - who are 10% of the salesforce. That was held up as an example of how wonderful our company was toward women. But - 100% of the sales management were men. If the women were so awesome, why weren't any of them managers? They can get an award - a glass monolith, as I call them - but not power. "We've patted you on the head, told you how great you are, why aren't you happy?"

The moment a feminist gets at all "militant", she is immediately attacked as unfeminine, too harsh, nasty, etc. It's really hard to effect cultural change while still say please, thank you, and making sure male egos aren't wounded. But that's what we're told to do. This pointless movement is a sign of weak males not deserving the respect of women. Irrationally, women demand equality but they are really begging for men to start acting like men again. With today's emasculated fathers, women are first set off on this hopelessly wrong track far back in childhood.

Opportunistic power-hungry upper-class women mislead gullible and desperately unsatisfied women in order to further emasculate males excluded by birth in our postmodern faddish and terminally decadent system. Those stunted men would have been rebels and stood up to the heiresses' doting fathers. Empowerment of these sorority nags doubles the rulers' hereditary positions and has created a crashing society doubly dominated by birth and not worth. A man who submits to women's fantasies about oppression is incapable of asserting himself and reaching his potential.

PattyHill
04-12-2015, 03:35 PM
read this in another thread.

http://thepoliticalforums.com/threads/42631-Florida-Wants-Kids-To-Rot-In-Group-Homes?p=1042164&viewfull=1#post1042164

Don't worry about it. The militant gays have destroyed all goodwill and set gay relations back 50 years.

Back into the closet with them.

Closes door.


And yet - no one says "the militant gamers have destroyed all goodwill and set gamers back 50 years. Shut down all the games"

or

"the white militia men have set the cause of white men back 50 years. Shove them all in a hole in the ground"

I still don't know who those militant gays are that he doesn't like. But isn't it interesting how that kind of language never seems to be used on white men?

Still not sure if Peter was being sarcastic or not.

The Xl
04-12-2015, 03:38 PM
Oh Lord, if it were only confined to sites like 4Chan! We have one of those people here on PF actually, or at least we did a few weeks ago (I haven't seen the guy post in a while now): you remember Dragonborn Herald? Yeah he was one of those people. Imagine a doxing army of Dragonborn Heralds (men's rights activists) composing about half the membership of the average gaming site (e.g. more than 40% of VG Chartz members, according to a February survey of their members).

The movement today known as GamerGate started in 2012 in reaction to a then-obscure culture criticism group called Feminist Frequency, headed up by one Anita Sarkeesian, launching a Kickstarter campaign to crowd-fund a YouTube video series called Tropes vs. Women in Video Games. They launched a doxing (online harassment and intimidation) campaign to stop her, in turn drawing a growing amount of attention to the video series (rather ironically). They adopted the #gamergate Twitter hashtag last August to identify themselves as (try not to laugh) an anti-corruption movement. They made national news in late August of last year after a series of their doxing campaigns successfully pushed a few female game developers out of the industry and forced Anita Sarkeesian to flee her home in response to her home address being traced and released and people threatening to kill her family. The GamerGate people have developed an elaborate conspiracy theory that they proceed on the basis of wherein Sarkeesian and Feminist Frequency hate video games and video gamers collectively and are working with just about all professional video game critics to stigmatize and undermine the hardcore gamer community by flooding the market with lousy games that aren't fun and criticizing good ones as anti-woman and yeah you get the picture.

They actually have developed a whole ideology vis-a-vis games at this point. For example, they claim that their core goal is to preserve, to quote one of these people, "traditional gamer culture". To that end, the movement takes the position that video games should not be considered an artistic medium because that leads to the creation of games that aren't fun to play, and likewise that no one has the right to insert culture critiques (e.g. socio-political analysis) into game reviews. If it all sounds like a game-world application of the conservative principles of the Republican Party, that's because yeah GamerGaters are basically politically conservative, Republican-type gamers. You can usually identify them by their use of very Rush Limbaugh-sounding rhetoric like "feminist queen mothers" and "cultural Marxism" and so forth. The female variation is known as Not Your Shield.

Aren't female gamers like 40 or so percent of the community? Considering that, all of this seems kind of silly. I'm not even sure what preserving traditional gaming culture is supposed to mean, lol. Sounds like some made up nonsense.

One thing I'm not fully getting is, and this is my comprehension levels being lower than usual due to a horrible headache in conjunction with ADHD, lack of sleep, and not being fully informed in this gamergate thing is, what is the true issue with these people? Were they just mad at this chick sleeping around? Do they not like female game developers? Do they not like games being steered in a different, more "feminist" direction? Do they not like women period? What's the deal here?

I remember Herald but don't recall anything he posted regarding females and gamers.

IMPress Polly
04-12-2015, 03:55 PM
Ethereal wrote:
I was under the impression that "Gamergate" began when Eron Gjoni accused his ex-girlfriend Zoe Quinn of sleeping around in order to get good reviews for her "game" Depression Quest.


Which "gamergate people" are you referring to, exactly? The ones who don't like seeing "social justice" agendas polluting the video game industry or the insane misogynist trolls who can be found all over the internet, including within the "Gamergate" community?

Noooooooooooooooooo!! Is there no escape from you people anywhere on the Internet??

Okay sorry, I'll try to be nice. :tongue:

See, this is just it: when a game comes out that you don't like and I might, you question whether it's even really a game at all. Depression Quest is an educational game designed to teach people what it's like to live with depression, which is a condition that I have. As you might imagine then, Depression Quest is a game I can appreciate. No, it's not supposed to be "fun" because its purpose is to communicate what depression is like and depression isn't fun to live with; it's frustrating. I can understand if that's not your kind of game, just like I can understand someone not being into educational films like documentaries, but nobody questions whether say a documentary is a real movie. You see what I'm getting at? If you're square enough that blockbuster titles are the smartest ones you can appreciate then fine, but leave me and my library be and don't call me a "fake gamer".

(I'm not even going to get into the personal accusations against Zoe Quinn, which have long since been proven false. For example, the review in question was published well before a relationship between the two parties came into existence.)

To your next point, I would respond to the whole 'social justice issues don't belong in games or critiques' argument by pointing out that, like other artistic works, video games are all but intrinsically political. You just don't notice it because they're mostly political in ways that benefit the particular demographic group you belong to. For example, the fact that only 15% of video game playable characters are female while 52% of gamers are female works to your advantage in that it provides you with disproportionate options that you're simply used to presuming.

Beyond the intrinsic value I find in fairness and fair representation, there's also another, equally compelling reason I support it: because I'm very much about the advancement of video games as an artistic medium. Most of the games I like best are story-driven because a game's storyline is usually the main reason I play. I play to find purpose if you will, at least most often anyway. And here's the thing about that: when 70-80% of game narratives focus on the stories of one demographic group...well other groups (women, people of color, etc.) have different life experiences. They offer the possibility of other kinds of narratives. If more games centered around these more marginalized groups then the range of stories we'd see in games would expand.

As to the two categories of GamerGater you describe, the way I see it said division is a recent invention: a direct response to widespread press criticism of GamerGate following the events of August. It does not negate the essence of the movement as far as I'm concerned.

Dr. Who
04-12-2015, 05:30 PM
You've heard opponents complain about "the humorless feminist" before? Well although I hate playing into stereotypes, this one actually isn't totally untrue. Many feminists publicly display no sense of humor, or for that matter any real personality in general. Up until the last summer, and more especially the last four months, I myself largely sought to avoid displaying much personality here on PF. Ever think there might be a reason? Well there is one. I think I'll let a prominent feminist of today (whom you may have noticed I respect a lot) explain why she's opted to refrain from showing her human side to the public in recent years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhgEuY64ECw

Yeah that's right: political correctness isn't just something that affects the political right and men and so forth. Quite to the contrary, it's if anything applied in more extreme forms to feminists. I mean for example remember last year when the merits of the term "bitch" (the B word for those with the filter turned on) were discussed here and how the overwhelming majority opposed banning that word on PF, and then shortly thereafter a mass movement calling for the prohibition of the terms "sexist" and "racist" emerged and was actually taken seriously...ironically, by all the same people who previously complained about the "the word police" and how repressive that approach to forum moderation is? Yeah. I think that illustrated a certain truth: that many people are hyper-sensitive about gender and other discrimination issues. Lots and lots of people feel that even discussing things like gender discrimination amounts to a personal challenge to their masculinity or to their right to be a happy housewife (as applicable) and as such respond to even the most mundane discussions thereof quite disproportionately and in very personal ways that many feminists would rather avoid dealing with. Such avoidance, such mandatory self-censorship, however, takes an emotional toll, just as discrimination itself does.

Compiled on top of this are social stigmas against women telling jokes and being humorous: the whole "women aren't funny" cultural belief that's easily observed in the ratio of male-to-female professional comedians, for example. (Survey illustrating this point. (https://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/02/13/are-women-really-less-funny-men/)) Most all of the prominent ones are men, regardless of the target audience. When polled on the subject, the vast majority of people of both sexes value "a sense of humor" in the opposite sex. However, breaking down the details reveals that for women to "have a sense of humor" is believed to mean mean something very different than it does for men to "have a sense of humor". For a man to "have a sense of humor" means for him to be good at telling jokes (active role), where for a woman to "have a sense of humor" means for her to laugh at those jokes (passive role). Furthermore, if you as a woman do break this taboo by telling a joke, it had better be a self-depreciating one if you hope for it to be well-received.

Now I don't claim this point as a license to demand that others find my idea of humor (which is often combative rather than self-depreciating, as I'm sure you've noticed) funny and "lol" all my jokes or what have you. I'm just pointing out that gender roles exist even vis-a-vis simple things like humor, that women are graded more harshly than men, and that feminists are graded more harshly than average women. Feminist DO have a sense of humor just like you do! Many just find it impractical to display it because of the inevitable, repressive backlash, which tends to be way more extreme and ridiculously nitpicky than anything "the word police" have likely visited upon you. It would be nice to be allowed a sense of humor.
TBH, I think it's more a case of women getting male humor better than men being able to get female humor. Some women are able to cross the line and appeal to both audiences. The fact is that women understand men better than men understand women, so women will laugh at things that men don't understand. Women understand men better because it is still largely a man's world and that dominates the culture.

GrassrootsConservative
04-12-2015, 05:58 PM
read this in another thread.

http://thepoliticalforums.com/threads/42631-Florida-Wants-Kids-To-Rot-In-Group-Homes?p=1042164&viewfull=1#post1042164



And yet - no one says "the militant gamers have destroyed all goodwill and set gamers back 50 years. Shut down all the games"

or

"the white militia men have set the cause of white men back 50 years. Shove them all in a hole in the ground"

I still don't know who those militant gays are that he doesn't like. But isn't it interesting how that kind of language never seems to be used on white men?

Still not sure if Peter was being sarcastic or not.

Gamers and white men are not forcing people to work for and accept them like the gays are. Peter wasn't being sarcastic, he was being realistic.

GrassrootsConservative
04-12-2015, 06:00 PM
Noooooooooooooooooo!! Is there no escape from you people anywhere on the Internet??

Okay sorry, I'll try to be nice. :tongue:

See, this is just it: when a game comes out that you don't like and I might, you question whether it's even really a game at all. Depression Quest is an educational game designed to teach people what it's like to live with depression, which is a condition that I have. As you might imagine then, Depression Quest is a game I can appreciate. No, it's not supposed to be "fun" because its purpose is to communicate what depression is like and depression isn't fun to live with; it's frustrating. I can understand if that's not your kind of game, just like I can understand someone not being into educational films like documentaries, but nobody questions whether say a documentary is a real movie. You see what I'm getting at? If you're square enough that blockbuster titles are the smartest ones you can appreciate then fine, but leave me and my library be and don't call me a "fake gamer".

(I'm not even going to get into the personal accusations against Zoe Quinn, which have long since been proven false. For example, the review in question was published well before a relationship between the two parties came into existence.)

To your next point, I would respond to the whole 'social justice issues don't belong in games or critiques' argument by pointing out that, like other artistic works, video games are all but intrinsically political. You just don't notice it because they're mostly political in ways that benefit the particular demographic group you belong to. For example, the fact that only 15% of video game playable characters are female while 52% of gamers are female works to your advantage in that it provides you with disproportionate options that you're simply used to presuming.

Beyond the intrinsic value I find in fairness and fair representation, there's also another, equally compelling reason I support it: because I'm very much about the advancement of video games as an artistic medium. Most of the games I like best are story-driven because a game's storyline is usually the main reason I play. I play to find purpose if you will, at least most often anyway. And here's the thing about that: when 70-80% of game narratives focus on the stories of one demographic group...well other groups (women, people of color, etc.) have different life experiences. They offer the possibility of other kinds of narratives. If more games centered around these more marginalized groups then the range of stories we'd see in games would expand.

As to the two categories of GamerGater you describe, the way I see it said division is a recent invention: a direct response to widespread press criticism of GamerGate following the events of August. It does not negate the essence of the movement as far as I'm concerned.

I think your feminism is causing your depression. You need to stop thinking of yourself as a "victim of the male society" or something and just think of yourself.

Let it stop there. Be happy you are who you are and quit trying to blame and label everyone.

PattyHill
04-12-2015, 06:18 PM
To your next point, I would respond to the whole 'social justice issues don't belong in games or critiques' argument by pointing out that, like other artistic works, video games are all but intrinsically political. You just don't notice it because they're mostly political in ways that benefit the particular demographic group you belong to. For example, the fact that only 15% of video game playable characters are female while 52% of gamers are female works to your advantage in that it provides you with disproportionate options that you're simply used to presuming.



How many video games out there support the USA view of the world and our military might? That show our US forces taking on and killing "terrorists"? Absolutely a lot - if not most - video games are political.

Even SimCity which I played in the mid-90s was political - enforcing that building cities is a good thing. It was fun....

Ethereal
04-12-2015, 06:20 PM
Noooooooooooooooooo!! Is there no escape from you people anywhere on the Internet??

Okay sorry, I'll try to be nice. :tongue:

See, this is just it: when a game comes out that you don't like and I might, you question whether it's even really a game at all. Depression Quest is an educational game designed to teach people what it's like to live with depression, which is a condition that I have. As you might imagine then, Depression Quest is a game I can appreciate. No, it's not supposed to be "fun" because its purpose is to communicate what depression is like and depression isn't fun to live with; it's frustrating. I can understand if that's not your kind of game, just like I can understand someone not being into educational films like documentaries, but nobody questions whether say a documentary is a real movie. You see what I'm getting at? If you're square enough that blockbuster titles are the smartest ones you can appreciate then fine, but leave me and my library be and don't call me a "fake gamer".

It's a purely text-based application. That's about as rudimentary a "game" as can be. That was my only point.


(I'm not even going to get into the personal accusations against Zoe Quinn, which have long since been proven false. For example, the review in question was published well before a relationship between the two parties came into existence.)

I'm not saying it's true or untrue. I'm just saying that GamerGate, as far as I can tell, started with these accusation against Zoe Quinn.


To your next point, I would respond to the whole 'social justice issues don't belong in games or critiques' argument by pointing out that, like other artistic works, video games are all but intrinsically political. You just don't notice it because they're mostly political in ways that benefit the particular demographic group you belong to. For example, the fact that only 15% of video game playable characters are female while 52% of gamers are female works to your advantage in that it provides you with disproportionate options that you're simply used to presuming.

Beyond the intrinsic value I find in fairness and fair representation, there's also another, equally compelling reason I support it: because I'm very much about the advancement of video games as an artistic medium. Most of the games I like best are story-driven because a game's storyline is usually the main reason I play. I play to find purpose if you will, at least most often anyway. And here's the thing about that: when 70-80% of game narratives focus on the stories of one demographic group...well other groups (women, people of color, etc.) have different life experiences. They offer the possibility of other kinds of narratives. If more games centered around these more marginalized groups then the range of stories we'd see in games would expand.

If there is demand for more females in games, then the market will meet that demand. There is no need for social justice warriors to crusade for "equality" in the gaming industry.


As to the two categories of GamerGater you describe, the way I see it said division is a recent invention: a direct response to widespread press criticism of GamerGate following the events of August. It does not negate the essence of the movement as far as I'm concerned.

What is the "essence" of the movement?

PattyHill
04-12-2015, 06:21 PM
Gamers and white men are not forcing people to work for and accept them like the gays are. Peter wasn't being sarcastic, he was being realistic.


OH MY GAWD, that is the funniest thing I've heard in a long time! Just in this country straight white men have been forcing their agenda on the rest of us since they arrived!

Now when we speak up and say "gee, we'd like a say" WE are the ones being militant?

oh how funny!

gamewell45
04-12-2015, 06:22 PM
You've heard opponents complain about "the humorless feminist" before? Well although I hate playing into stereotypes, this one actually isn't totally untrue. Many feminists publicly display no sense of humor, or for that matter any real personality in general. Up until the last summer, and more especially the last four months, I myself largely sought to avoid displaying much personality here on PF. Ever think there might be a reason? Well there is one. I think I'll let a prominent feminist of today (whom you may have noticed I respect a lot) explain why she's opted to refrain from showing her human side to the public in recent years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhgEuY64ECw

Yeah that's right: political correctness isn't just something that affects the political right and men and so forth. Quite to the contrary, it's if anything applied in more extreme forms to feminists. I mean for example remember last year when the merits of the term "$#@!" (the B word for those with the filter turned on) were discussed here and how the overwhelming majority opposed banning that word on PF, and then shortly thereafter a mass movement calling for the prohibition of the terms "sexist" and "racist" emerged and was actually taken seriously...ironically, by all the same people who previously complained about the "the word police" and how repressive that approach to forum moderation is? Yeah. I think that illustrated a certain truth: that many people are hyper-sensitive about gender and other discrimination issues. Lots and lots of people feel that even discussing things like gender discrimination amounts to a personal challenge to their masculinity or to their right to be a happy housewife (as applicable) and as such respond to even the most mundane discussions thereof quite disproportionately and in very personal ways that many feminists would rather avoid dealing with. Such avoidance, such mandatory self-censorship, however, takes an emotional toll, just as discrimination itself does.

Compiled on top of this are social stigmas against women telling jokes and being humorous: the whole "women aren't funny" cultural belief that's easily observed in the ratio of male-to-female professional comedians, for example. (Survey illustrating this point. (https://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/02/13/are-women-really-less-funny-men/)) Most all of the prominent ones are men, regardless of the target audience. When polled on the subject, the vast majority of people of both sexes value "a sense of humor" in the opposite sex. However, breaking down the details reveals that for women to "have a sense of humor" is believed to mean mean something very different than it does for men to "have a sense of humor". For a man to "have a sense of humor" means for him to be good at telling jokes (active role), where for a woman to "have a sense of humor" means for her to laugh at those jokes (passive role). Furthermore, if you as a woman do break this taboo by telling a joke, it had better be a self-depreciating one if you hope for it to be well-received.

Now I don't claim this point as a license to demand that others find my idea of humor (which is often combative rather than self-depreciating, as I'm sure you've noticed) funny and "lol" all my jokes or what have you. I'm just pointing out that gender roles exist even vis-a-vis simple things like humor, that women are graded more harshly than men, and that feminists are graded more harshly than average women. Feminist DO have a sense of humor just like you do! Many just find it impractical to display it because of the inevitable, repressive backlash, which tends to be way more extreme and ridiculously nitpicky than anything "the word police" have likely visited upon you. It would be nice to be allowed a sense of humor.

I always thought that Bella Abzug had a very good sense of humor as did Shirley Chisholm.

Cthulhu
04-13-2015, 01:57 AM
You're misunderstanding, Peter. Where do you see her calling for additional laws? She's calling for cultural change.
Problem is Polly, most want to affect cultural change by force - the law.

Some changes need to happen, but not by the barrel of a gun.

Sent from my evil, kitten eating cell phone.

Cthulhu
04-13-2015, 02:02 AM
I feel the need. The need to maliciously post another pic making fun of MRAs because of how annoying I find them. Cannot...resist...

11143

I feel guilty of participating in the lowering our of debate standards as a community now. (Not really.)
Most MRAs are handicapped chimpanzee's.

A few have some very compelling points.

Sent from my evil, kitten eating cell phone.

Cthulhu
04-13-2015, 02:10 AM
read this in another thread.

http://thepoliticalforums.com/threads/42631-Florida-Wants-Kids-To-Rot-In-Group-Homes?p=1042164&viewfull=1#post1042164



And yet - no one says "the militant gamers have destroyed all goodwill and set gamers back 50 years. Shut down all the games"

or

"the white militia men have set the cause of white men back 50 years. Shove them all in a hole in the ground"

I still don't know who those militant gays are that he doesn't like. But isn't it interesting how that kind of language never seems to be used on white men?

Still not sure if Peter was being sarcastic or not.

Because they are entirely avoidable and enact zero government policy which would violate another's beliefs.

Want to avoid a gamer? There is a giant yellow/orange ball of fire in the sky called a sun.

If it can shine on you without going through a window - your safe from teh ebil gamers.

Can't exactly ignore the ramifications of the rabid homosexual lobby.

Sent from my evil, kitten eating cell phone.

Common
04-13-2015, 05:47 AM
I always thought that Bella Abzug had a very good sense of humor as did Shirley Chisholm.

If you remember Bella Abzug your an old goat :)

Common
04-13-2015, 05:53 AM
All the feminist issues, I of course cant possibly truly understand them. So Ive asked people that are actually experts on it. My wife and adult daughters. None of them have ever felt persecuted and My wife and two of my daughters actually feel theyre on the top of the heap today.

When theres talk of equal pay, that is so disengenous that is a small segment of the workforce.

ALL public jobs women make the same as men, all union jobs women make the same as men.
All min wage jobs women make the same as men.

Its always the pigs at the top of the heap that screw everyone else, including women managers.

Dr. Who
04-13-2015, 07:30 PM
All the feminist issues, I of course cant possibly truly understand them. So Ive asked people that are actually experts on it. My wife and adult daughters. None of them have ever felt persecuted and My wife and two of my daughters actually feel theyre on the top of the heap today.

When theres talk of equal pay, that is so disengenous that is a small segment of the workforce.

ALL public jobs women make the same as men, all union jobs women make the same as men.
All min wage jobs women make the same as men.

Its always the pigs at the top of the heap that screw everyone else, including women managers.
That is true and the old boy's network would probably die out, except for the fact that the network continues to gain new members (all male) in the secret societies formed in the ivory tower learning institutions.

Mister D
04-13-2015, 07:38 PM
Doesn't sound like a group you'd want to be part of anyway. What we need is substantive cultural change. Making sure there are some more female pigs at the top of the heap, so to speak, doesn't quite cut it. Such idiocy is part and parcel of how this society continues to be ruled by the very same folks in question.

Polecat
04-13-2015, 07:40 PM
I think it is like this. Most of the gay guys I know are happy go lucky funny guys that are good company. The exception seems to be the few that get militant and start obsessing over a cause. It is a form of self isolation and makes them unsociable. The feminist is still fighting a battle that they already won. Chill out and turn your attention to negotiating terms of surrender.

IMPress Polly
04-14-2015, 08:12 PM
Sorry for the delay everyone. Big things are going down on my end right now, but I should be able to get back to this topic on Thursday morning.

Peter1469
04-14-2015, 08:15 PM
Sorry for the delay everyone. Big things are going down on my end right now, but I should be able to get back to this topic on Thursday morning.

Hope everything is OK.

IMPress Polly
04-16-2015, 05:53 AM
The XI wrote:
Aren't female gamers like 40 or so percent of the community? Considering that, all of this seems kind of silly. I'm not even sure what preserving traditional gaming culture is supposed to mean, lol. Sounds like some made up nonsense.

One thing I'm not fully getting is, and this is my comprehension levels being lower than usual due to a horrible headache in conjunction with ADHD, lack of sleep, and not being fully informed in this gamergate thing is, what is the true issue with these people? Were they just mad at this chick sleeping around? Do they not like female game developers? Do they not like games being steered in a different, more "feminist" direction? Do they not like women period? What's the deal here?

Well in my opinion, the answer lies in the first thing you said: that something in the neighborhood of half the gaming population today is female. Or even more generally, just that gaming is an increasingly ubiquitous hobby today, almost like watching TV or movies. We don't call people "movie-goers" or "TV watchers" because basically everyone watches movies and TV now. That's not really anything unique, in other words. But many people still prefer to call themselves gamers today; to have their identity bound up with this hobby amidst a changing cultural situation wherein gaming is becoming a very ubiquitous hobby. Thus, for many, there is a sort of identity crisis going on these days and it's the feeling of a need to have that distinct identity that's fueling this movement, IMO. Distinction exists only when things are exclusive. Back in the old days, games were well understood as a hobby for boys specifically. Game companies sometimes even named their systems accordingly (e.g. Game Boy). Those people are now grown up and mad about the increasing diversity of the community and of, accordingly, how that growing diversity is starting to more and more often be reflected in the structures of the games they play because they feel that it takes away their identity. Hence games that are fair or made by women or which target a female audience or people of color or something of this nature have to derided as fake, false, illegitimate, and shut down, the people who make them discredited and run out of the business, and those who propose more fairness treated likewise. Getting back to tired old, exclusionary tradition: traditional gamer demographics and play structures and such. That's the mentality that seems to be at the root of it in my opinion.

(None of this is to say that there's no legitimacy to distinguishing between the average player and the hardcore hobbyist, just as there is legitimacy to distinguishing between the average person and the filmophile. But the validity of average gamer, of the average game, and the value of drawing more people into the scene of dedicated gamers rather than consigning all 'non-traditional gamers' to other, more general casual scenes, is something I think most people would consider worthy of basic respect.)


Ethereal wrote:
I'm not saying it's true or untrue. I'm just saying that GamerGate, as far as I can tell, started with these accusation against Zoe Quinn.

Well you're right in the sense that the hashtag #gamergate formalizing and unifying the movement was created last August in response to those accusations, but the social movement corresponding to the ideology in question existed informally for two years before that, with the same people simply adopting the hashtag after last August. Let's take this example from a year earlier so you can see what I mean:

The top-selling video game of today is Grand Theft Auto 5, which came out in the summer of 2013. We know this. Well when it came out, a transgendered woman named Carolyn Petit posted this review of the game for the gaming news and reviews site Game Spot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABiPHyaKgTw

As you can see, she scored the game a 9 out of 10, which equates to giving it an A. In response, she was assaulted by an unprecedented torrent of some 20,000 overwhelmingly hostile comments demanding that she change her score to a perfect 10, and people in the same movement created a Change.org petition demanding that she be fired. Game Spot responded by firing her. For failing to score the latest Grand Theft Auto installment a perfect 10. Yeah that really happened. Why did this happen, you ask? Well, as you can see in the above review, one very small and secondary part of her otherwise glowing review of the game was a criticism of how offensively sexist she found the game to be, with this being her reason for knocking off one point. That's what professional game critics are there for: to act on behalf of the consumer (preferably all consumers!), alerting the consumer to aspects of a game they might find bothersome or faulty before they buy. Just about every other professional reviewer out there felt the same way about that aspect of the game, incidentally, also lamenting it's sexism. But unlike the others, Carolyn Petit was a transgendered woman (an easy target, we might say) and so this could not be allowed to pass.

This is a perfect example of how the movement corresponding to the later hashtag was alive and in full swing long before last August.

GrassrootsConservative
04-16-2015, 06:05 AM
Yeah, it happened because it's "transgendered."

:biglaugh: everyone on the left is such a victim. How do they get by?

I guess giving them a black president wasn't enough after all.

Liars.

/Edit: And I watched literally a minute of the video before I heard it say "serious issues with women." Really? It's a fucking video game. Quit trying to be such a hack about it.

PattyHill
04-16-2015, 08:41 AM
Yeah, it happened because it's "transgendered."

:biglaugh: everyone on the left is such a victim. How do they get by?

I guess giving them a black president wasn't enough after all.

Liars.

/Edit: And I watched literally a minute of the video before I heard it say "serious issues with women." Really? It's a $#@!ing video game. Quit trying to be such a hack about it.


So IMPressPolly wrote a long, thoughtful post about the Gamergate issue, why it might be happening, why they are so hard on women. She then gave an example of a review where, because the game wasn't given 10 out of 10, the author, a transgender woman, was hounded out of her job. She did her job -she reviewed the game; and, for her readers that are looking for non-sexist games, highlighted the sexism in it. That's being a complete reviewer. She still gave it 9 out of 10. and she lost her job for it.

And all you get from this is "everyone on the left is a victim"?

Um - the reviewer IS a victim - she lost her job because gamers hounded her employer. But I didn't see anyone setting up a gofundme account for her.... instead, you are blaming her for doing her job.

IMPressPolly, thanks for your thoughts. I hadn't heard about the reviewer losing her job because of gamers. That sucks.

Captain Obvious
04-16-2015, 08:43 AM
Well in my opinion, the answer lies in the first thing you said: that something in the neighborhood of half the gaming population today is female. Or even more generally, just that gaming is an increasingly ubiquitous hobby today, almost like watching TV or movies. We don't call people "movie-goers" or "TV watchers" because basically everyone watches movies and TV now. That's not really anything unique, in other words. But many people still prefer to call themselves gamers today; to have their identity bound up with this hobby amidst a changing cultural situation wherein gaming is becoming a very ubiquitous hobby. Thus, for many, there is a sort of identity crisis going on these days and it's the feeling of a need to have that distinct identity that's fueling this movement, IMO. Distinction exists only when things are exclusive. Back in the old days, games were well understood as a hobby for boys specifically. Game companies sometimes even named their systems accordingly (e.g. Game Boy). Those people are now grown up and mad about the increasing diversity of the community and of, accordingly, how that growing diversity is starting to more and more often be reflected in the structures of the games they play because they feel that it takes away their identity. Hence games that are fair or made by women or which target a female audience or people of color or something of this nature have to derided as fake, false, illegitimate, and shut down, the people who make them discredited and run out of the business, and those who propose more fairness treated likewise. Getting back to tired old, exclusionary tradition: traditional gamer demographics and play structures and such. That's the mentality that seems to be at the root of it in my opinion.

(None of this is to say that there's no legitimacy to distinguishing between the average player and the hardcore hobbyist, just as there is legitimacy to distinguishing between the average person and the filmophile. But the validity of average gamer, of the average game, and the value of drawing more people into the scene of dedicated gamers rather than consigning all 'non-traditional gamers' to other, more general casual scenes, is something I think most people would consider worthy of basic respect.)



Well you're right in the sense that the hashtag #gamergate formalizing and unifying the movement was created last August in response to those accusations, but the social movement corresponding to the ideology in question existed informally for two years before that, with the same people simply adopting the hashtag after last August. Let's take this example from a year earlier so you can see what I mean:

The top-selling video game of today is Grand Theft Auto 5, which came out in the summer of 2013. We know this. Well when it came out, a transgendered woman named Carolyn Petit posted this review of the game for the gaming news and reviews site Game Spot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABiPHyaKgTw

As you can see, she scored the game a 9 out of 10, which equates to giving it an A. In response, she was assaulted by an unprecedented torrent of some 20,000 overwhelmingly hostile comments demanding that she change her score to a perfect 10, and people in the same movement created a Change.org petition demanding that she be fired. Game Spot responded by firing her. For failing to score the latest Grand Theft Auto installment a perfect 10. Yeah that really happened. Why did this happen, you ask? Well, as you can see in the above review, one very small and secondary part of her otherwise glowing review of the game was a criticism of how offensively sexist she found the game to be, with this being her reason for knocking off one point. That's what professional game critics are there for: to act on behalf of the consumer (preferably all consumers!), alerting the consumer to aspects of a game they might find bothersome or faulty before they buy. Just about every other professional reviewer out there felt the same way about that aspect of the game, incidentally, also lamenting it's sexism. But unlike the others, Carolyn Petit was a transgendered woman (an easy target, we might say) and so this could not be allowed to pass.

This is a perfect example of how the movement corresponding to the later hashtag was alive and in full swing long before last August.

And yet most women like you will vote for Hillary even though she looked the other way and rode the coat tails of one of American histories biggest sexists.

Hypocrisy is a funny thing.

PattyHill
04-16-2015, 08:44 AM
And yet most women like you will vote for Hillary even though she looked the other way and rode the coat tails of one of American histories biggest sexists.

Hypocrisy is a funny thing.

And being totally off-topic is a funny thing as well.

Captain Obvious
04-16-2015, 08:50 AM
And being totally off-topic is a funny thing as well.

How is that off topic?

If it's ok to point out how other people are "sexist" but hey, it's off topic when it's pointed out how the accusers look the other way when it's discovered in their back yard, sorry - that's spot on topic.

nic34
04-16-2015, 08:59 AM
Hint, carry conceal.

Warning: Bad Advice

nic34
04-16-2015, 09:02 AM
And yet most women like you will vote for Hillary even though she looked the other way and rode the coat tails of one of American histories biggest sexists.

Hypocrisy is a funny thing.

Sometimes a vote for is just a vote against. Have you seen the clowns that are running on the other side?

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/imgs/2014/140905-meet-the-gops-2016-golden-boys.jpg

Captain Obvious
04-16-2015, 09:08 AM
Sometimes a vote for is just a vote against. Have you seen the clowns that are running on the other side?

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/imgs/2014/140905-meet-the-gops-2016-golden-boys.jpg

Agreed so I guess "a vote against" is more important to a woman than a woman's integrity.

That's fine, I just want to know where some people's priorities are.

It's all part of the hypocrisy thing that I pointed out and if that's no biggie then I rest my case.

GrassrootsConservative
04-16-2015, 01:48 PM
And being totally off-topic is a funny thing as well.

Tell that to IMPress Polly . She keeps obsessively talking about video games even though this thread is about feminists.

GrassrootsConservative
04-16-2015, 01:51 PM
So IMPressPolly wrote a long, thoughtful post about the Gamergate issue, why it might be happening, why they are so hard on women. She then gave an example of a review where, because the game wasn't given 10 out of 10, the author, a transgender woman, was hounded out of her job. She did her job -she reviewed the game; and, for her readers that are looking for non-sexist games, highlighted the sexism in it. That's being a complete reviewer. She still gave it 9 out of 10. and she lost her job for it.

And all you get from this is "everyone on the left is a victim"?

Um - the reviewer IS a victim - she lost her job because gamers hounded her employer. But I didn't see anyone setting up a gofundme account for her.... instead, you are blaming her for doing her job.

IMPressPolly, thanks for your thoughts. I hadn't heard about the reviewer losing her job because of gamers. That sucks.

That's what happens sometimes when you try to score political points.

It should have known that and kept to a straight forward review instead of a commentary on gender roles or whatever. I would have fired both it and Polly basically for not staying "on topic."

And it has nothing to do with it being transgendered.

Redrose
04-16-2015, 02:05 PM
Many of the feminist women I've worked with or known socially have strong aggressive personalities. IMO some are not very feminine. The old sterotype of the "little woman" sweet, quiet, obedient, having no opinions of any value, is the crux of their issue. I agree with that, but I also do not want to see women lose their femininity in the process. I like a man (or anyone) hold a door for me, I do likewise, or pull a chair out for me, or stand when a lady leaves the table. That's good manners, not sexist. I don't need to beat a man in soccer or golf, and compete in co-ed games, with a lot of high fives and butt slapping.

I like clearly defined sexes, a man who looks and acts manly, masculine, and women, ladylike and feminine. Those traits have no bearing on their mental aptitude and employment capabilities.

I agree with the feminist movement as to equal pay for equal work. No glass ceiling. We do have female CEO's, Carly Fiorina to name one, so progress has been made.

IMHO it's appears to be much overblown, and it's getting to a point where many people tune it out.

Women are not barefoot and pregnant chained to the stove anymore. We vote, we drive, we work, we can marry and divorce and work anywhere in just about every job known.

IMO many have no sense of humor because they are taking themselves too seriously.

Mister D
04-16-2015, 02:44 PM
Many of the feminist women I've worked with or known socially have strong aggressive personalities. IMO some are not very feminine. The old sterotype of the "little woman" sweet, quiet, obedient, having no opinions of any value, is the crux of their issue. I agree with that, but I also do not want to see women lose their femininity in the process. I like a man (or anyone) hold a door for me, I do likewise, or pull a chair out for me, or stand when a lady leaves the table. That's good manners, not sexist. I don't need to beat a man in soccer or golf, and compete in co-ed games, with a lot of high fives and butt slapping.

I like clearly defined sexes, a man who looks and acts manly, masculine, and women, ladylike and feminine. Those traits have no bearing on their mental aptitude and employment capabilities.

I agree with the feminist movement as to equal pay for equal work. No glass ceiling. We do have female CEO's, Carly Fiorina to name one, so progress has been made.

IMHO it's appears to be much overblown, and it's getting to a point where many people tune it out.

Women are not barefoot and pregnant chained to the stove anymore. We vote, we drive, we work, we can marry and divorce and work anywhere in just about every job known.

IMO many have no sense of humor because they are taking themselves too seriously.

Except perhaps for a brief period in the early modern era I doubt they ever were.

The Sage of Main Street
04-16-2015, 02:46 PM
Sometimes a vote for is just a vote against. Have you seen the clowns that are running on the other side?

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/imgs/2014/140905-meet-the-gops-2016-golden-boys.jpg

Better double-down on Rom, boys
To take down Demi tomboys

Redrose
04-16-2015, 02:49 PM
Except perhaps for a brief period in the early modern era I doubt they ever were.



".....barefoot and pregnant....."


Figuratively speaking.

Mister D
04-16-2015, 02:54 PM
".....barefoot and pregnant....."


Figuratively speaking.

I know what you meant. What I meant is that people generally did the same work under the same conditions regardless of sex. Theoretically, the man was head of the household but what did that mean? Practically nothing.

Common
04-16-2015, 02:55 PM
Tell that to @IMPress Polly (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=399) . She keeps obsessively talking about video games even though this thread is about feminists.

She can talk about what she wants, You de rail threads constantly with dumbass right wing comments.

PolWatch
04-16-2015, 02:57 PM
That's what happens sometimes when you try to score political points.

It should have known that and kept to a straight forward review instead of a commentary on gender roles or whatever. I would have fired both it and Polly basically for not staying "on topic."

And it has nothing to do with it being transgendered.

odd, Polly opened the thread and her remarks are on point with the OP...go figure

Common
04-16-2015, 02:58 PM
I know what you meant. What I meant is that people generally did the same work under the same conditions regardless of sex. Theoretically, the man was head of the household but what did that mean? Practically nothing.

Life was much simpler and better in my opinion in the 50s and 60s when a man had a job and could support his family of 4. They had a house a car and went on vacation. Mom stayed home and took care of the home and the kids. Mom was there when the kids got home from school and made sure they stayed straight.

Im sure many women werent happy with that roll and thats ok. Look around you today, two people working most times cant have a home and car and go on vacations. Women have to go to work and then go home and be a mother anyway and bust their ass even more.

Nothing seems better to me. Even the kids today are WORSE behaved because there arent parents around.

Common Sense
04-16-2015, 02:59 PM
Life was much simpler and better in my opinion in the 50s and 60s when a man had a job and could support his family of 4. They had a house a car and went on vacation. Mom stayed home and took care of the home and the kids. Mom was there when the kids got home from school and made sure they stayed straight.

Im sure many women werent happy with that roll and thats ok. Look around you today, two people working most times cant have a home and car and go on vacations. Women have to go to work and then go home and be a mother anyway and bust their ass even more.

Nothing seems better to me. Even the kids today are WORSE behaved because there arent parents around.

I think we look at the past with rose colored glasses.

Mister D
04-16-2015, 03:04 PM
Life was much simpler and better in my opinion in the 50s and 60s when a man had a job and could support his family of 4. They had a house a car and went on vacation. Mom stayed home and took care of the home and the kids. Mom was there when the kids got home from school and made sure they stayed straight.

Im sure many women werent happy with that roll and thats ok. Look around you today, two people working most times cant have a home and car and go on vacations. Women have to go to work and then go home and be a mother anyway and bust their ass even more.

Nothing seems better to me. Even the kids today are WORSE behaved because there arent parents around.

The nuclear family is a cultural phenomenon but I understand what you're saying. The idea that women being forced out of the home and into the workforce by economic forces is a victory for anyone is beyond me. That said, the gender roles in question are modern ones. Although in Christian society the male was titular head of the household both sexes did the same work under the same conditions. Children too. That began to change with capitalism and industrial society.

Mister D
04-16-2015, 03:06 PM
I think we look at the past with rose colored glasses.

Or with a smug sense of superiority.

Common
04-16-2015, 03:06 PM
I think we look at the past with rose colored glasses.

Thats true to a degree CS but, there are no denying that pay has stagnated to a depressed levels across the board.

Go research in the 50s and 60s just the father working could afford a modest home a car and a vacation, provide food and decent clothes. The lionshare of america cant do that today because corporate america has assured wages fell behind the cost of living by lightyears while the top pigs have taken more and more.

Kids that had supervision from the time they got up and left for school until they went to bed were far better behaved than they are today.

Today mom works dad works they cant be home when the kids get home from school and they are left to their own designs.

I dont think my statements on this issue are wishful mis memories. I believe they are fact

Common Sense
04-16-2015, 03:07 PM
...says the kettle.


Edit: Not you Common.

GrassrootsConservative
04-16-2015, 03:07 PM
odd, Polly opened the thread and her remarks are on point with the OP...go figure

The topic has nothing to do with the person that opened the thread. They merely decide what the topic is with their OP. The topic here is not video games or transgender victimization, last time I checked.

Mister D
04-16-2015, 03:08 PM
Thats true to a degree CS but, there are no denying that pay has stagnated to a depressed levels across the board.

Go research in the 50s and 60s just the father working could afford a modest home a car and a vacation, provide food and decent clothes. The lionshare of america cant do that today because corporate america has assured wages fell behind the cost of living by lightyears while the top pigs have taken more and more.

Kids that had supervision from the time they got up and left for school until they went to bed were far better behaved than they are today.

Today mom works dad works they cant be home when the kids get home from school and they are left to their own designs.

I dont think my statements on this issue are wishful mis memories. I believe they are fact

That's true Common but it's at the cost of a particular life style that I'm not so sure is worth it in the long run.

GrassrootsConservative
04-16-2015, 03:08 PM
She can talk about what she wants, You de rail threads constantly with dumbass right wing comments.

"Derail," not "de rail."

And thank you for remaining on topic.

Not.

Peter1469
04-16-2015, 04:03 PM
She can talk about what she wants, You de rail threads constantly with dumbass right wing comments.

right wing doesn't need to be in that sentence.

GrassrootsConservative
04-16-2015, 04:07 PM
right wing doesn't need to be in that sentence.

Oh?

Dr. Who
04-16-2015, 07:12 PM
The nuclear family is a cultural phenomenon but I understand what you're saying. The idea that women being forced out of the home and into the workforce by economic forces is a victory for anyone is beyond me. That said, the gender roles in question are modern ones. Although in Christian society the male was titular head of the household both sexes did the same work under the same conditions. Children too. That began to change with capitalism and industrial society.
I think that I like the idea of choice. A woman can be a homemaker if both parties and economics allow or a woman can choose to work and both parents share the roll of nurturing children and taking care of the home. The problem only occurs when no one is nurturing the children and parents are so caught up in making money that they are ignoring their real mandates as parents. Women have worked farms side by side with their husbands for millenia and children of age contributed to the family welfare as well. Working outside of the home is not the problem, it is the parental focus. Middle class people seem to think that out of some misplaced sense of guilt that they have to enroll children in every possible after school activity known to man, and then work even harder to pay for it and then also spend all of their free time shuttling children to one event or another. Yes the kids get exercise, but there is no family time. Parents don't even know their children because they have no time to talk to them. Alternatively poorer parents must work all the hours they can possibly work to keep a roof over their heads, food on the table and their children often economic competition with their wealthier school mates, because materialism seems to drive social acceptance in schools. The bottom line is that materialism is the new god and everyone is worshiping at it's alter, however family values and the emotional well being of children is being sacrificed.

Common
04-16-2015, 07:12 PM
right wing doesn't need to be in that sentence.

When it refers to him it certainly does

Common
04-16-2015, 07:17 PM
I remember I believe it was sometime in the 70s, some big corps coming out and cheerleading for the womens movement and saying how they were going to provide daycare at their companies so women could work. THE WOMEN CHEERED them an clamored it was a huge victory. While all the Ceos were giggling and having drinks over it.

See their purpose was to hire lots of women for half the pay. Not only did they get qualified employees and save a bundle. Everyone open position after that had 5 men and 10 women apply. Of course the salary and beneifts were cut in half.

Now 40 yrs later women still havent gotten pay equality WHO benefited from that all these years

Mister D
04-16-2015, 07:25 PM
I think that I like the idea of choice. A woman can be a homemaker if both parties and economics allow or a woman can choose to work and both parents share the roll of nurturing children and taking care of the home. The problem only occurs when no one is nurturing the children and parents are so caught up in making money that they are ignoring their real mandates as parents. Women have worked farms side by side with their husbands for millenia and children of age contributed to the family welfare as well. Working outside of the home is not the problem, it is the parental focus. Middle class people seem to think that out of some misplaced sense of guilt that they have to enroll children in every possible after school activity known to man, and then work even harder to pay for it and then also spend all of their free time shuttling children to one event or another. Yes the kids get exercise, but there is no family time. Parents don't even know their children because they have no time to talk to them. Alternatively poorer parents must work all the hours they can possibly work to keep a roof over their heads, food on the table and their children often economic competition with their wealthier school mates, because materialism seems to drive social acceptance in schools. The bottom line is that materialism is the new god and everyone is worshiping at it's alter, however family values and the emotional well being of children is being sacrificed.

My point was that, more often than not, there is no choice involved. You can question our values and priorities. I will certainly join you in doing so but in order to lead a particular lifestyle women were pressured into the workforce. Most of the couples I know whose income allows for it the female stays at home with the young children. I think most females would prefer that if they could afford it. I feel blessed to have been raised with a mother who was usually home with us.

PolWatch
04-16-2015, 07:26 PM
I can remember one employment evaluation in the mid 70's. My boss actually told me that I had done an excellent job but I wouldn't get as large a raise as the men....they needed more $$$ for their families & women were just working for extra $$$.

GrassrootsConservative
04-16-2015, 07:31 PM
I can remember one employment evaluation in the mid 70's. My boss actually told me that I had done an excellent job but I wouldn't get as large a raise as the men....they needed more $$$ for their families & women were just working for extra $$$.

Did you stay at that job after that or quit?

PolWatch
04-16-2015, 07:33 PM
I was working to support my family...I stayed until I could find another job....which was not very long.

Redrose
04-16-2015, 07:37 PM
I can remember one employment evaluation in the mid 70's. My boss actually told me that I had done an excellent job but I wouldn't get as large a raise as the men....they needed more $$$ for their families & women were just working for extra $$$.


In '70 I received a huge raise, and the men in the department were not happy about it. I went from executive sect'y. to Admin. Ass't. and the raise was deserved. One man in particular said "she has a husband with a good job (NYC cop) and no kids, why should she make as much as us we have families to support?

My boss told them off. I could feel the chill in the department for a long time after that.

Dr. Who
04-16-2015, 07:40 PM
My point was that, more often than not, there is no choice involved. You can question our values and priorities. I will certainly join you in doing so but in order to lead a particular lifestyle women were pressured into the workforce. Most of the couples I know whose income allows for it the female stays at home with the young children. I think most females would prefer that if they could afford it. I feel blessed to have been raised with a mother who was usually home with us.
Different generation. The current generation includes both women who want to be homemakers and those who want more intellectual stimulation. Not every woman wants to spend their entire day cooking, cleaning and talking to infants. There are men who don't mind being the family stay at home dad. I think that if someone can stay home with the little ones until they are in school, that is great, but sometimes it's not the woman who is best equipped for the role.

PolWatch
04-16-2015, 07:40 PM
You were fortunate your boss was willing to do the right thing. I don't think there were many of them like that during that time frame. When I retired in 1999 my replacement was a man who was paid double what I was making....he also got 2 assistants to do the same job I had been doing.

Dr. Who
04-16-2015, 07:44 PM
In '70 I received a huge raise, and the men in the department were not happy about it. I went from executive sect'y. to Admin. Ass't. and the raise was deserved. One man in particular said "she has a husband with a good job (NYC cop) and no kids, why should she make as much as us we have families to support?

My boss told them off. I could feel the chill in the department for a long time after that.
Reverse social engineering was at work in those days. Wages for women were based on social considerations and not on performance.

Mister D
04-16-2015, 07:49 PM
Different generation. The current generation includes both women who want to be homemakers and those who want more intellectual stimulation. Not every woman wants to spend their entire day cooking, cleaning and talking to infants. There are men who don't mind being the family stay at home dad. I think that if someone can stay home with the little ones until they are in school, that is great, but sometimes it's not the woman who is best equipped for the role.

This generation is different only in so far as the economic dislocation occurred decades ago. The female homemaker, however, is still the predominant pattern across the country for couples that can afford it. I'm not saying women can't or shouldn't work. I am saying women who choose to have children and can afford to stay home with them often do. Why that upsets some feminists is obvious but it is what it is.

Redrose
04-16-2015, 07:55 PM
Reverse social engineering was at work in those days. Wages for women were based on social considerations and not on performance.


Even though PolWatch said my boss did the right thing for me, and my salary was as much as the men were making, they were not doing my job. I had more responsibility than they did. I should have been making more. In my case it was based on performance. I worked circles around the former AA whom they fired. There were no male AA's. So I can't say what a man would have made in that position. When I left in '74, they hired 3 people to replace me. Maybe I was really underpaid????

Back then and at my age, I was thrilled with the raise and promotion. I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Dr. Who
04-16-2015, 08:17 PM
Even though @PolWatch (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=1099) said my boss did the right thing for me, and my salary was as much as the men were making, they were not doing my job. I had more responsibility than they did. I should have been making more. In my case it was based on performance. I worked circles around the former AA whom they fired. There were no male AA's. So I can't say what a man would have made in that position. When I left in '74, they hired 3 people to replace me. Maybe I was really underpaid????

Back then and at my age, I was thrilled with the raise and promotion. I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
The problem is that male AA's were an anomaly, however, since they were male they were paid more, just because. Your boss was fair minded, but most were not. It wasn't until pay equity legislation came into force that women started making the money that they deserved. Until that point employers could legally exploit female labor for illogical social reasons. It's the reverse of the minimum wage argument. The min wage argument says that we cannot pay you more because you have a family to support. Back then, men were paid more because they were expected to have a family to support and women were working for extras.

PattyHill
04-16-2015, 09:28 PM
Many of the feminist women I've worked with or known socially have strong aggressive personalities. IMO some are not very feminine. The old sterotype of the "little woman" sweet, quiet, obedient, having no opinions of any value, is the crux of their issue. I agree with that, but I also do not want to see women lose their femininity in the process. I like a man (or anyone) hold a door for me, I do likewise, or pull a chair out for me, or stand when a lady leaves the table. That's good manners, not sexist. I don't need to beat a man in soccer or golf, and compete in co-ed games, with a lot of high fives and butt slapping.

I like clearly defined sexes, a man who looks and acts manly, masculine, and women, ladylike and feminine. Those traits have no bearing on their mental aptitude and employment capabilities.

I agree with the feminist movement as to equal pay for equal work. No glass ceiling. We do have female CEO's, Carly Fiorina to name one, so progress has been made.

IMHO it's appears to be much overblown, and it's getting to a point where many people tune it out.

Women are not barefoot and pregnant chained to the stove anymore. We vote, we drive, we work, we can marry and divorce and work anywhere in just about every job known.

IMO many have no sense of humor because they are taking themselves too seriously.

You can like what you like. We're fighting against discriminating against women (and men) who don't match your stereotypes (which are way outdated)

No glass ceiling? now that is funny. How out of touch are you?

PattyHill
04-16-2015, 09:29 PM
I know what you meant. What I meant is that people generally did the same work under the same conditions regardless of sex. Theoretically, the man was head of the household but what did that mean? Practically nothing.

Oh, except for things like property rights - women used to give them up when they got married. Right to their kids. Right to their income. You know, things like that. Used to just be a golden era for women until they wanted those pesky equal rights. (eye roll)

That was sarcasm, for those of you who don't get it.

PattyHill
04-16-2015, 09:32 PM
Life was much simpler and better in my opinion in the 50s and 60s when a man had a job and could support his family of 4. They had a house a car and went on vacation. Mom stayed home and took care of the home and the kids. Mom was there when the kids got home from school and made sure they stayed straight.

Im sure many women werent happy with that roll and thats ok. Look around you today, two people working most times cant have a home and car and go on vacations. Women have to go to work and then go home and be a mother anyway and bust their ass even more.

Nothing seems better to me. Even the kids today are WORSE behaved because there arent parents around.


psst - I'll let you in on a secret. Women of color and women from poor backgrounds were working their butts off for very low pay back then. AND going home after a long day to try to take care of their family. Don't they count as women?

PattyHill
04-16-2015, 09:33 PM
The topic has nothing to do with the person that opened the thread. They merely decide what the topic is with their OP. The topic here is not video games or transgender victimization, last time I checked.

If you can't see why those topics tie in to the op, then you may want to reread all the posts again.

PattyHill
04-16-2015, 09:36 PM
This generation is different only in so far as the economic dislocation occurred decades ago. The female homemaker, however, is still the predominant pattern across the country for couples that can afford it. I'm not saying women can't or shouldn't work. I am saying women who choose to have children and can afford to stay home with them often do. Why that upsets some feminists is obvious but it is what it is.

I know a lot of feminists, and not one of us is upset if a woman chooses - and is able to afford - to stay home with her kids. We also aren't upset if a man chooses it. We also aren't upset if a parent/parents choose day care. Honestly, we are happy if people have choices.

all too many don't.

Redrose
04-16-2015, 09:48 PM
You can like what you like. We're fighting against discriminating against women (and men) who don't match your stereotypes (which are way outdated)

No glass ceiling? now that is funny. How out of touch are you?


I wasn't saying there isn't a glass ceiling, I know there is. I should have phrased it better. I was agreeing with feminists as to equal pay for equal work, and not having a glass ceiling.

Sterotypes? What are my sterotypes? I referred to the old outdated image of a woman, as only a wife, mother, cook and bottle washer, and most feminists today are as far from that as they can get.

I raised 5 girls, and except for one year home with each of my babies, I worked a full time job. I've picked up the tab at dinner when necessary, and I will hold a door for anyone behind me. That is politeness.

I am not a feminist, a bra burner, but I never let myself slip into the mold of a voiceless submissive, mindless, opinionless, servent wife, so many women were forced to be in past decades.

I also do not want to lose civility, and good social manners. I never want to be so "liberated" that a man, a gentleman would not hold a door for me, or hold a chair for me. Those sterotypes are not outdated, at least not in the circles I travel in, and they are not all "older" people. Having good social skills and manners is not sexist. I also never want to see feminism go so far as to blur the lines between the sexes. I like to see feminine women and mascline men. If you consider that "way outdated" well, that's your privilege.

To answer your last comment, I am not out of touch, far from it.

The Xl
04-16-2015, 09:56 PM
Well in my opinion, the answer lies in the first thing you said: that something in the neighborhood of half the gaming population today is female. Or even more generally, just that gaming is an increasingly ubiquitous hobby today, almost like watching TV or movies. We don't call people "movie-goers" or "TV watchers" because basically everyone watches movies and TV now. That's not really anything unique, in other words. But many people still prefer to call themselves gamers today; to have their identity bound up with this hobby amidst a changing cultural situation wherein gaming is becoming a very ubiquitous hobby. Thus, for many, there is a sort of identity crisis going on these days and it's the feeling of a need to have that distinct identity that's fueling this movement, IMO. Distinction exists only when things are exclusive. Back in the old days, games were well understood as a hobby for boys specifically. Game companies sometimes even named their systems accordingly (e.g. Game Boy). Those people are now grown up and mad about the increasing diversity of the community and of, accordingly, how that growing diversity is starting to more and more often be reflected in the structures of the games they play because they feel that it takes away their identity. Hence games that are fair or made by women or which target a female audience or people of color or something of this nature have to derided as fake, false, illegitimate, and shut down, the people who make them discredited and run out of the business, and those who propose more fairness treated likewise. Getting back to tired old, exclusionary tradition: traditional gamer demographics and play structures and such. That's the mentality that seems to be at the root of it in my opinion.

(None of this is to say that there's no legitimacy to distinguishing between the average player and the hardcore hobbyist, just as there is legitimacy to distinguishing between the average person and the filmophile. But the validity of average gamer, of the average game, and the value of drawing more people into the scene of dedicated gamers rather than consigning all 'non-traditional gamers' to other, more general casual scenes, is something I think most people would consider worthy of basic respect.)



Well you're right in the sense that the hashtag #gamergate formalizing and unifying the movement was created last August in response to those accusations, but the social movement corresponding to the ideology in question existed informally for two years before that, with the same people simply adopting the hashtag after last August. Let's take this example from a year earlier so you can see what I mean:

The top-selling video game of today is Grand Theft Auto 5, which came out in the summer of 2013. We know this. Well when it came out, a transgendered woman named Carolyn Petit posted this review of the game for the gaming news and reviews site Game Spot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABiPHyaKgTw

As you can see, she scored the game a 9 out of 10, which equates to giving it an A. In response, she was assaulted by an unprecedented torrent of some 20,000 overwhelmingly hostile comments demanding that she change her score to a perfect 10, and people in the same movement created a Change.org petition demanding that she be fired. Game Spot responded by firing her. For failing to score the latest Grand Theft Auto installment a perfect 10. Yeah that really happened. Why did this happen, you ask? Well, as you can see in the above review, one very small and secondary part of her otherwise glowing review of the game was a criticism of how offensively sexist she found the game to be, with this being her reason for knocking off one point. That's what professional game critics are there for: to act on behalf of the consumer (preferably all consumers!), alerting the consumer to aspects of a game they might find bothersome or faulty before they buy. Just about every other professional reviewer out there felt the same way about that aspect of the game, incidentally, also lamenting it's sexism. But unlike the others, Carolyn Petit was a transgendered woman (an easy target, we might say) and so this could not be allowed to pass.

This is a perfect example of how the movement corresponding to the later hashtag was alive and in full swing long before last August.

That makes sense. I guess some do feel that their "culture" is being attacked in a way with the influx of female gamers and their expanding influence. I do wonder what the percentage of female gamers has been over time in contrast to what it is now. Really though, a lot of gamers online and on message boards are already douchebags to everyone. It's not terribly surprising that they rev it up against people perceived to be weaker, and people perceived to have damaged their way of life.

For the record, I'm one of the few that agrees with the 9/10 score for GTA 5. Hopefully no one calls me any bad names, lol. It's pretty terrible if that chick got fired on that review alone.

GrassrootsConservative
04-16-2015, 11:54 PM
For the record, I'm one of the few that agrees with the 9/10 score for GTA 5.

For what reason?

IMPress Polly
04-17-2015, 05:55 AM
Peter wrote:
Hope everything is OK.

They're okay now, thanks. :smiley:


Dr. Who wrote:
TBH, I think it's more a case of women getting male humor better than men being able to get female humor. Some women are able to cross the line and appeal to both audiences. The fact is that women understand men better than men understand women, so women will laugh at things that men don't understand. Women understand men better because it is still largely a man's world and that dominates the culture.

I think this argument relies on the notion that men and women find different things amusing, as if there is "male humor" and "female humor". Although these things are hard to quantify, to the best of our knowledge as yet, there exists no such distinction. What data we have on this subject indicates that men and women have the same sense of humor, i.e. are equally apt to laugh at the same jokes and so forth. The difference in people's response lies not with the joke itself, but with the teller. In other words, if a man and a woman tell the same joke in the same way to the same demographic group, the man will inexplicably get more laughs from both sexes. That's what the data we currently have available suggests anyway. Like I said, these things are hard to quantify.


Cthulhu wrote:
Most MRAs are handicapped chimpanzee's.

A few have some very compelling points.

Yeah I used to give them the benefit of the doubt as well. All my doubt is gone at this point though because, on at-length investigation, no, their claims really don't have any merit. Not once you broaden out the data they supply anyway. For example, the MRA claims that, rather than patriarchy, matriarchy instead is what characterizes the state of the world today. What's the evidence? Well here's an example of the "evidence" they use: men are more likely to die in wars. Well yes, but men, controlling both governments overall and the armies, also start the wars in the first place, and, usually denying women equal access, also insist on fighting the wars and what's more are statistically more likely to indicate supporting war, so...kinda their own fault I'm gonna say! Or take this claim for example: men are more likely to commit suicide than women. True, BUT women are three times as likely to attempt suicide in the first place (being a lot more likely to have corresponding conditions like depression). We just don't succeed as often, being far less likely to own guns and just generally not being as masterful at the art of taking life. This is the sort of "evidence" they've got. Show me a claim of their's and I'll show you how it's either a total fabrication or removed from proper context.


GrassrootsConservative wrote:
Gamers and white men are not forcing people to work for and accept them like the gays are. Peter wasn't being sarcastic, he was being realistic.

I dare you to substantiate the above claim that "the gays" are "forcing people to work for" them.


I think your feminism is causing your depression. You need to stop thinking of yourself as a "victim of the male society" or something and just think of yourself.

Let it stop there. Be happy you are who you are and quit trying to blame and label everyone.

Yeah well my therapist tells me that the origins of my psychological condition have a lot more to do with being routinely abused as a child than with becoming a women's liberationist a decade after my diagnosis, but hey, maybe you're theory has merit. And maybe two seconds from now gravity will reverse and we'll all start floating to the ceiling.

What's more, there is no cure for depression. Don't you think I've tried 'just thinking happy thoughts' a billion times before? Do you think I LIKE being depressed and haven't tried everything imaginable to terminate said condition? I manage my condition, but I can't get rid of it. But thanks for your helpful long-distance assessment, doctor.


Tell that to @IMPress Polly (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=399) . She keeps obsessively talking about video games even though this thread is about feminists.

Alright, that tears it! First of all, this is my thread. I determine what is and is not on topic, NOT you. Yeeesh, you're an arrogant person! Secondly, as to the logical connection between the OP and video games, notice that I included a video in the OP of Anita Sarkeesian, creator of the YouTube video series Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, discussing how resultant doxing campaigns have impacted the way she expresses herself, namely in the vein of eliminating personality and humor from her videos and other public expressions. The connection has been pretty direct from the beginning. So that in the second place. In the last place, you who have taken, and supported taking, this thread onto topics like gay rights, abortion, your idiotic, cynical prescription for a depression cure, and the freaking 2016 presidential election, are OBVIOUSLY the one going off-topic and trying to derail this thread! And YOU have the audacity to accuse ME of derailing my own thread?? Where do you get off??

The Sage of Main Street
04-17-2015, 09:20 AM
dumbass right wing comments. Wings are for birdbrains.

Mister D
04-17-2015, 09:27 AM
I know a lot of feminists, and not one of us is upset if a woman chooses - and is able to afford - to stay home with her kids. We also aren't upset if a man chooses it. We also aren't upset if a parent/parents choose day care. Honestly, we are happy if people have choices.

all too many don't.

But men typically don't choose that. Women do. That's probably the nature of things. :wink:

The Sage of Main Street
04-17-2015, 09:28 AM
Life was much simpler and better in my opinion in the 50s and 60s when a man had a job and could support his family of 4. They had a house a car and went on vacation. Mom stayed home and took care of the home and the kids. Mom was there when the kids got home from school and made sure they stayed straight.

Im sure many women werent happy with that roll and thats ok. Look around you today, two people working most times cant have a home and car and go on vacations. Women have to go to work and then go home and be a mother anyway and bust their ass even more.

Nothing seems better to me. Even the kids today are WORSE behaved because there arent parents around. Eliminate the status of spoiled richgirls and they won't have the power to use the rest of us in a hopeless attempt to solve their peculiar personal problems.

Mister D
04-17-2015, 09:39 AM
Oh, except for things like property rights - women used to give them up when they got married. Right to their kids. Right to their income. You know, things like that. Used to just be a golden era for women until they wanted those pesky equal rights. (eye roll)

That was sarcasm, for those of you who don't get it.

No, it would be sarcasm if you actually knew what you were talking about. The vast majority of people didn't own property or have an income. You really need to crawl out of your ideological shell.

The Sage of Main Street
04-17-2015, 09:45 AM
If you can't see why those topics tie in to the op, then you may want to reread all the posts again. That is the politically correct connection, not any logical one. What femininnies can't see is that this silly whining movement is all connected to the desire of the plutocracy to double its hereditary dominance by having its daughters have the same unearned power over unprivileged males as its sons have always had.

The Sage of Main Street
04-17-2015, 09:52 AM
I can remember one employment evaluation in the mid 70's. My boss actually told me that I had done an excellent job but I wouldn't get as large a raise as the men....they needed more $$$ for their families & women were just working for extra $$$. Another one of the lies you've been told by the Preppiette Progressives. If true, the bosses would have paid more to the fathers with bigger families to support. Corpies will grab on to any excuse and pretend they believe it, but it is contradicted by the fact that it didn't fulfill its logical extension of paying according to the number of children each male had.

PattyHill
04-17-2015, 10:45 AM
I wasn't saying there isn't a glass ceiling, I know there is. I should have phrased it better. I was agreeing with feminists as to equal pay for equal work, and not having a glass ceiling.

Sterotypes? What are my sterotypes? I referred to the old outdated image of a woman, as only a wife, mother, cook and bottle washer, and most feminists today are as far from that as they can get.

I raised 5 girls, and except for one year home with each of my babies, I worked a full time job. I've picked up the tab at dinner when necessary, and I will hold a door for anyone behind me. That is politeness.

I am not a feminist, a bra burner, but I never let myself slip into the mold of a voiceless submissive, mindless, opinionless, servent wife, so many women were forced to be in past decades.

I also do not want to lose civility, and good social manners. I never want to be so "liberated" that a man, a gentleman would not hold a door for me, or hold a chair for me. Those sterotypes are not outdated, at least not in the circles I travel in, and they are not all "older" people. Having good social skills and manners is not sexist. I also never want to see feminism go so far as to blur the lines between the sexes. I like to see feminine women and mascline men. If you consider that "way outdated" well, that's your privilege.

To answer your last comment, I am not out of touch, far from it.

While I apologize for misunderstanding part of your post, just wanted to mention re stereotypes - "feminine women" and "masculine men" are stereotypes that have helped keep those that don't match the stereotypes more at the edges of society.

And personally, I think all people should hold doors for other people - I do. I don't care if it's a woman or a man, it's polite to hold a door for someone else. But holding a chair? Um, I'm capable of handling my own chair, thank you very much. I assume others (barring physical disabilities) can as well.

Good social skills is fine. Applying them to one gender or the other doesn't make sense to me.

IMPress Polly
04-17-2015, 11:18 AM
PattyHill wrote:
Good social skills is fine. Applying them to one gender or the other doesn't make sense to me.

I agree!

Redrose has characterized feminists as aggressive and rude based on her experience. I doubt that experience comes from this message board though because I mean consider the feminists we have here: women like Chloe, PolWatch, and Dr. Who. Are these women really more aggressive and rude than some of the more conservative ones -- ones who largely believe in traditional gender roles -- we've had here over the years, like Trinnity and Alyosha for example? That's more reflective of my own experience in the movement. I think people, including women, are pretty individual in terms of personality.

Now I won't go as far as to characterize myself as necessarily as kind and respectful as I could be all the time. I have a strong sarcastic side. It's fun. :grin: That doesn't mean I go around belching and farting and whatnot though, and I don't care to be characterized that way. I think probably you and me Patty are the more assertive women's libbers here, but I don't think we're that bad and we're also not the majority.

Anyway, I find traditional roles oppressive because many aspects thereof have never reflected my personality and interests. I have a soft and nurturing side and an adventurous, fun-loving side both. (And shopping and talking about food, clothes, and men isn't my idea of fun.) I don't think that's breaking the laws of nature, I think it's being human. I think there's a degree to which most all of us are that way and that people shouldn't be condemned for that.

Mister D
04-17-2015, 11:24 AM
And I don't particularly care for watching a bunch of sweaty black men put a ball in basket. I don't care for sports at all, actually. I'm also too shy and passive to chase women. I'm not aggressive at work. Not looking to compete. Somehow I manage not to feel oppressed by those male "roles".

GrassrootsConservative
04-17-2015, 12:38 PM
I dare you to substantiate the above claim that "the gays" are "forcing people to work for" them.



Yeah well my therapist tells me that the origins of my psychological condition have a lot more to do with being routinely abused as a child than with becoming a women's liberationist a decade after my diagnosis, but hey, maybe you're theory has merit. And maybe two seconds from now gravity will reverse and we'll all start floating to the ceiling.

What's more, there is no cure for depression. Don't you think I've tried 'just thinking happy thoughts' a billion times before? Do you think I LIKE being depressed and haven't tried everything imaginable to terminate said condition? I manage my condition, but I can't get rid of it. But thanks for your helpful long-distance assessment, doctor.



Alright, that tears it! First of all, this is my thread. I determine what is and is not on topic, NOT you. Yeeesh, you're an arrogant person! Secondly, as to the logical connection between the OP and video games, notice that I included a video in the OP of Anita Sarkeesian, creator of the YouTube video series Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, discussing how resultant doxing campaigns have impacted the way she expresses herself, namely in the vein of eliminating personality and humor from her videos and other public expressions. The connection has been pretty direct from the beginning. So that in the second place. In the last place, you who have taken, and supported taking, this thread onto topics like gay rights, abortion, your idiotic, cynical prescription for a depression cure, and the freaking 2016 presidential election, are OBVIOUSLY the one going off-topic and trying to derail this thread! And YOU have the audacity to accuse ME of derailing my own thread?? Where do you get off??

That's not how it works. You don't get to dictate the thread topic minute-by-minute. The topic was determined by the title and the OP. Can't change it now.

And gays want to make it so people that don't want to work for them are forced to. They don't want businesses having the right to refuse service. That's slavery, Polly.

Your therapist, like all therapists, is a joke. Maybe go outside and get some sunlight. That'll make you happy.

And finally, IMPress Polly, where did I bring up the 2016 election in this thread? Point it out to me.

PolWatch
04-17-2015, 12:51 PM
And I don't particularly care for watching a bunch of sweaty black men put a ball in basket. I don't care for sports at all, actually. I'm also too shy and passive to chase women. I'm not aggressive at work. Not looking to compete. Somehow I manage not to feel oppressed by those male "roles".

you're welcome! The freedom to behave in any manner that you feel comfortable with is allowed now (in large part) because the women's movement. That is why I changed my thinking from female liberation to human liberation. Ask your grandfather how men who did not meet the accepted standards of male behavior in his day were treated.

Mister D
04-17-2015, 12:59 PM
you're welcome! The freedom to behave in any manner that you feel comfortable with is allowed now (in large part) because the women's movement. That is why I changed my thinking from female liberation to human liberation. Ask your grandfather how men who did not meet the accepted standards of male behavior in his day were treated.

I can't pin a medal on your blouse quite yet! Feminine men are ridiculed. I find such behavior a little irritating as well, TBH. Like I've said before, you're gay? Who cares? But that doesn't mean you have to act like woman.

Mister D
04-17-2015, 01:03 PM
This is, BTW, the logical consequence of the radical individualism we've embraced as a society. Societal expectations are but another obstacle to our self-realization. They must go for us to be "free".

PolWatch
04-17-2015, 01:18 PM
I can't pin a medal on your blouse quite yet! Feminine men are ridiculed. I find such behavior a little irritating as well, TBH. Like I've said before, you're gay? Who cares? But that doesn't mean you have to act like woman.

I agree with you....but 50 years ago any male that didn't conform to the beer drinking, sports watching, female ogling stereotype of the lowest common denominator of male behavior = instant ridicule. Now, I know that it still happens but it is not as accepted....and men don't feel compelled to behave one way to avoid ridicule. They are more inclined to say, so what?

I don't think I need a medal for valor in the matter, just recognition that the woman's movement did benefit more than women. Men of the 50's would have never admitted to changing diapers....you did not see men shopping for groceries with children in tow (and no female). Doesn't sound like great accomplishments but it reflects major changes in how sexual roles were viewed then and now.

Mister D
04-17-2015, 01:37 PM
I agree with you....but 50 years ago any male that didn't conform to the beer drinking, sports watching, female ogling stereotype of the lowest common denominator of male behavior = instant ridicule. Now, I know that it still happens but it is not as accepted....and men don't feel compelled to behave one way to avoid ridicule. They are more inclined to say, so what?

I don't think I need a medal for valor in the matter, just recognition that the woman's movement did benefit more than women. Men of the 50's would have never admitted to changing diapers....you did not see men shopping for groceries with children in tow (and no female). Doesn't sound like great accomplishments but it reflects major changes in how sexual roles were viewed then and now.

Boys are pretty brutal and, while not as cruel as girls in this respect, they're more...shall we say upfront. Adult males will be less nasty but they will generally think you're a queer.

As I'm sure you would have guessed I disagree that this was a positive development overall. Society has come to expect little from men and they give even less. Divorce is rampant. Out of wedlock birth rates are astronomical. But were "free"...or something like that.

Bob
04-17-2015, 01:54 PM
I agree!

Redrose has characterized feminists as aggressive and rude based on her experience. I doubt that experience comes from this message board though because I mean consider the feminists we have here: women like Chloe, PolWatch, and Dr. Who. Are these women really more aggressive and rude than some of the more conservative ones -- ones who largely believe in traditional gender roles -- we've had here over the years, like Trinnity and Alyosha for example? That's more reflective of my own experience in the movement. I think people, including women, are pretty individual in terms of personality.

Now I won't go as far as to characterize myself as necessarily as kind and respectful as I could be all the time. I have a strong sarcastic side. It's fun. :grin: That doesn't mean I go around belching and farting and whatnot though, and I don't care to be characterized that way. I think probably you and me Patty are the more assertive women's libbers here, but I don't think we're that bad and we're also not the majority.

Anyway, I find traditional roles oppressive because many aspects thereof have never reflected my personality and interests. I have a soft and nurturing side and an adventurous, fun-loving side both. (And shopping and talking about food, clothes, and men isn't my idea of fun.) I don't think that's breaking the laws of nature, I think it's being human. I think there's a degree to which most all of us are that way and that people shouldn't be condemned for that.

You say you are depressed. Have you considered the offer by Dr. Phil known as doctors on demand? For free, you can chat with a doctor live and on all health matters.

Dr. Phil has done more for the public health than anything Obama has thought of.

PattyHill
04-17-2015, 05:17 PM
I can't pin a medal on your blouse quite yet! Feminine men are ridiculed. I find such behavior a little irritating as well, TBH. Like I've said before, you're gay? Who cares? But that doesn't mean you have to act like woman.


What's wrong with "acting like a woman"? We're strong, caring, loving.... what's wrong with it?

Or are you referring to some "idea" of "woman" in your head?

PattyHill
04-17-2015, 05:19 PM
Boys are pretty brutal and, while not as cruel as girls in this respect, they're more...shall we say upfront. Adult males will be less nasty but they will generally think you're a $#@!.

As I'm sure you would have guessed I disagree that this was a positive development overall. Society has come to expect little from men and they give even less. Divorce is rampant. Out of wedlock birth rates are astronomical. But were "free"...or something like that.

Well, I disagree with you. The traditional roles were stifling; an abused woman had nowhere to go. A woman who got pregnant while single was shamed. I don't think those are good things.

But you are entitled to your opinion. I'm just glad we aren't in those days anymore.

The Xl
04-17-2015, 06:19 PM
For what reason?

I find the replay value a bit limited, tbh. Same criticism I have for the series in general. The game is pretty great though, but I'm not a fan of throwing 10s out there unless a game is truly perfect.

Mister D
04-17-2015, 08:56 PM
Well, I disagree with you. The traditional roles were stifling; an abused woman had nowhere to go. A woman who got pregnant while single was shamed. I don't think those are good things.

But you are entitled to your opinion. I'm just glad we aren't in those days anymore.

Abused women had and continue to have plenty of places to go. They just don't go. That phenomenon you probably are well aware of. "Those days" are upon us.

Mister D
04-17-2015, 08:59 PM
What's wrong with "acting like a woman"? We're strong, caring, loving.... what's wrong with it?

Or are you referring to some "idea" of "woman" in your head?

It's unmanly...for a man. There is nothing wrong with a woman acting like a woman. It's odd that you feminists insist your intention is not to blur the distinction between the sexes but then you say things like that. Biology is a bitch to egalitarians.

PattyHill
04-17-2015, 09:26 PM
It's unmanly...for a man. There is nothing wrong with a woman acting like a woman. It's odd that you feminists insist your intention is not to blur the distinction between the sexes but then you say things like that. Biology is a $#@! to egalitarians.

See, feminists are trying to get away from the idea that something is "manly" or "womanly". You disagree; that's fine. But most of us are happier without being judged by predetermined roles which are mainly cultural, not really biological.

Mister D
04-17-2015, 09:28 PM
See, feminists are trying to get away from the idea that something is "manly" or "womanly". You disagree; that's fine. But most of us are happier without being judged by predetermined roles which are mainly cultural, not really biological.

Yes, I agree. You're trying to get away from biological reality and fucking society up in the process. Thanks for that.

Yes, gender roles can change and develop over time. That's historically demonstrable. No argument there. That those roles aren't rooted in biology is nonsense.

Peter1469
04-17-2015, 09:29 PM
I disagree, it is largely genetic. Boys and girls are different. Look up the studies of gender specific toys and children. Boys will turn barbie into a pistol and shoot you. :wink:

Boys are competitive by nature. Girls are collaborative by nature. Some grow out of that for some reason and back stab every other woman who they perceive as a challenge to them.

Mister D
04-17-2015, 09:32 PM
I disagree, it is largely genetic. Boys and girls are different. Look up the studies of gender specific toys and children. Boys will turn barbie into a pistol and shoot you. :wink:

Boys are competitive by nature. Girls are collaborative by nature. Some grow out of that for some reason and back stab every other woman who they perceive as a challenge to them.

I can appreciate a differentialist feminism.

The Sage of Main Street
04-18-2015, 11:54 AM
Ask your grandfather how men who did not meet the accepted standards of male behavior in his day were treated. They were treated like girlymen, as they should have been to straighten them out because of social pressure to grow up and become manly. We've come a long way downhill since then. Emasculated men are what really provoked this unnatural and self-destructive feminism.

IMPress Polly
04-19-2015, 07:55 AM
The XI wrote:
That makes sense. I guess some do feel that their "culture" is being attacked in a way with the influx of female gamers and their expanding influence. I do wonder what the percentage of female gamers has been over time in contrast to what it is now. Really though, a lot of gamers online and on message boards are already douchebags to everyone. It's not terribly surprising that they rev it up against people perceived to be weaker, and people perceived to have damaged their way of life.

Doing my best to answer your query on the gender ratios of gamers over time, defined for our purposes here as people who spend at least an hour a week playing video games, the change in my experience and observation has been pretty dramatic over the last two decades. Back in the 16-bit era, it felt like maybe 1 out of every 6 or 7 gamers was female, although it seemed like the gender ratio widened out a little in the late 1990s with the initial leap to 3D and the accompanying replacement of the platforming game with the first-person shooter as the dominant genre. There didn't seem to be quite as money of my female classmates playing video games during that period as either before or after, and I'll add that there were never very many. Things started to change really around the turn of the century, with the popularization of handheld gaming and the advent of more social forms of gaming like online play, aided by the popularity of the women's movement during that period. (Third wave feminism really reached its zenith of popularity and cultural impact during the period from 1997 to 2003, i.e. basically the run of the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.) The big leap though really came with the 2004 launch of the Nintendo DS (note: Nintendo's first handheld system not named "boy") and the 2006 launch of the Wii (which, as its name suggests, was literally built for social gaming). After that, the gender ratio closed very rapidly, largely over the span of just a few years. So yeah, basically one can credit Nintendo specifically. In the early 2000s, I'd say maybe 1 out of every 5 gamers was female, but by 2007 a survey found that 38% were now female, and a 2010 survey found that now 45% were. Current surveys find it's somewhere in the range of 48% to 52%, so most of the closure occurred specifically between the years 2005 and 2010. I can remember the impact very well. I was a reader of Cosmopolitan back then (I was not yet much of a feminist; the women's movement was unpopular at the time) and I remember the period when they decreed it officially fashionable for women to play video games, and more specifically to own a Wii. In 2010, Cosmo similarly decreed that the Wii was now officially out and the smart phone and the tablet were now in in its place, and that brings us to a rough approximation of where we are today, which brings us to certain nagging problems. Today it is no longer a quest and a dream to get women into gaming (that basic objective has now been achieved), but it remains a quest and a dream to break down gender divisions within the gaming scene.

What I mean by the remaining challenge before us is this: since the DS and Wii made a gamer out of the average female, society has come to increasingly market different video games to men and women, to boys and girls. There are a lot of stores today, for example, that have a "video games" section on the one hand and a separate, "girl games" section on the other, typically color coded in blue and pink respectively, much like the toy sections of your local supermarket, and the thematic differences are analogous: the former, being for boys and men, is much larger and primarily features comparatively lengthy and better-developed adventure-oriented games, with male-centric military games and franchises (Call of Duty, Battlefield, Kill Zone, Titanfall, etc.) generally being the most lavishly marketed top sellers. Conversely, a visit to the "girl games" section bears exposure to what we might call B games: a whole bunch of games that are simple, stupid, short, and non-adventurous in nature (sample franchises: Just Dance, The Sims, Barbie's Horseback Adventures, Cooking Mama, you get the picture). The result -- that women wind up spending less time playing video games -- is then used by movements like GamerGate to "prove" that women aren't real gamers. Defeating this fairly neat and clean gender division in the way games are marketed (military games for men, non-adventure games for women; analogous to G.I. Joes for boys and Barbies for girls) is really the principal challenge going forward when it games to achieving more parity in the world of video games, IMO.

The core gaming scene itself hasn't actually improved very much over time in terms of its gender ratio. In the 1990s it was really the only gaming scene and back then maybe 15% of participants were female. Today the prominent "core games" typically garner an online community that's around 22 or 23% female. That's really not very much improvement over the decades. It's the casual gaming scene right now that mostly attracts female gamers and it's not very hard for me to see why. Biology hasn't got anything to do with it. It's the way "core games" are made and marketed. Like when I talk to my female colleagues at work (these are teachers: about 70% female) about what games they're playing and talk a little about various "core" games, they're stunned to learn that so many "core" games oblige one to use a male avatar to play most or all of the game. Since they've started gaming, mostly in the last decade, they've just assumed that the option to use a female avatar is a right because all their games let them, and they feel that the core games I describe sound very backward just based on that one factor alone. Or maybe they've played some online core games before and got tired of seeing somebody's penis every 20 minutes or so regardless of whether they wanted to. I mean simply fixing things like this -- reducing sexual harassment and increasing the overall parity of gender representation -- would probably almost entirely close the gender gap in core gamer communities.

As to GamerGate, yeah their objective is more the opposite: what they seem to want is to revert back to the state of affairs from like a decade or two ago wherein "girl games" didn't exist and female gamers were very rare and knew their place in the community. :rollseyes:


For the record, I'm one of the few that agrees with the 9/10 score for GTA 5. Hopefully no one calls me any bad names, lol. It's pretty terrible if that chick got fired on that review alone.

Fag! Pussy! Feminazi! You're not really a gamer! :wink:

PattyHill
04-19-2015, 09:05 AM
IMPress Polly, Thanks for your informative post in post 152. I hadn't realized that the WII encouraged more women to start playing video games. Pretty cool!

I loved the show Buffy, The Vampire Slayer - but admit it didn't get me interested in games. But could see how it would get other women interested.

I am sad to hear that they are doing female/male sections in stores for video games....that's a step backwards.

But at least there are games now with female avatars.

Common
04-19-2015, 09:10 AM
Quake didnt seem to have many female gamers, but when quake 2 came out more and more started playing it and it increased with ver 3 and 4. Wow has tons of females playing it.

Mister D
04-19-2015, 09:26 AM
IMPress Polly, Thanks for your informative post in post 152. I hadn't realized that the WII encouraged more women to start playing video games. Pretty cool!

I loved the show Buffy, The Vampire Slayer - but admit it didn't get me interested in games. But could see how it would get other women interested.

I am sad to hear that they are doing female/male sections in stores for video games....that's a step backwards.

But at least there are games now with female avatars.

You don't agree that certain themes appeal overwhelmingly to one sex?

PattyHill
04-19-2015, 10:04 AM
You don't agree that certain themes appeal overwhelmingly to one sex?

Doesn't matter. We don't separate movies or books by male/female. We do it by genre. Then people can browse the genre of interest to them.

And advertising matters. We know that. If a section is all pink, most men won't go there to even see if there is something they would like.

Mister D
04-19-2015, 10:15 AM
Doesn't matter. We don't separate movies or books by male/female. We do it by genre. Then people can browse the genre of interest to them.

And advertising matters. We know that. If a section is all pink, most men won't go there to even see if there is something they would like.

Apparently, we do assuming your claim above is true. Anyway, so you agree that some themes appeal overwhelmingly to one sex, right? For example, we won't see many females obsessing over the John Madden football games.

PattyHill
04-19-2015, 11:27 AM
Apparently, we do assuming your claim above is true. Anyway, so you agree that some themes appeal overwhelmingly to one sex, right? For example, we won't see many females obsessing over the John Madden football games.

There are a lot of women who are ardent football fans. I don't know if they play John Madden games or not, and couldn't find any info on a quick search.

In a gross generalization, given our culture, yes, some themes tend to appeal mainly to men and others to women. But there are always exceptions, and smart marketers wouldn't block out potential buyers through biases.

But if a company shows only men playing their games and has only male avatars in those games and only sells them in some "men's aisle" in the store, they have pretty much blocked out half the market. Kind of stupid, isn't it?

You know, Mister D, I don't know why you want to limit your gender so much. You seem to want to keep them in your pre-conceived ideas of "manly" roles. Why? Do you hate men?

The Xl
04-19-2015, 12:06 PM
Doing my best to answer your query on the gender ratios of gamers over time, defined for our purposes here as people who spend at least an hour a week playing video games, the change in my experience and observation has been pretty dramatic over the last two decades. Back in the 16-bit era, it felt like maybe 1 out of every 6 or 7 gamers was female, although it seemed like the gender ratio widened out a little in the late 1990s with the initial leap to 3D and the accompanying replacement of the platforming game with the first-person shooter as the dominant genre. There didn't seem to be quite as money of my female classmates playing video games during that period as either before or after, and I'll add that there were never very many. Things started to change really around the turn of the century, with the popularization of handheld gaming and the advent of more social forms of gaming like online play, aided by the popularity of the women's movement during that period. (Third wave feminism really reached its zenith of popularity and cultural impact during the period from 1997 to 2003, i.e. basically the run of the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.) The big leap though really came with the 2004 launch of the Nintendo DS (note: Nintendo's first handheld system not named "boy") and the 2006 launch of the Wii (which, as its name suggests, was literally built for social gaming). After that, the gender ratio closed very rapidly, largely over the span of just a few years. So yeah, basically one can credit Nintendo specifically. In the early 2000s, I'd say maybe 1 out of every 5 gamers was female, but by 2007 a survey found that 38% were now female, and a 2010 survey found that now 45% were. Current surveys find it's somewhere in the range of 48% to 52%, so most of the closure occurred specifically between the years 2005 and 2010. I can remember the impact very well. I was a reader of Cosmopolitan back then (I was not yet much of a feminist; the women's movement was unpopular at the time) and I remember the period when they decreed it officially fashionable for women to play video games, and more specifically to own a Wii. In 2010, Cosmo similarly decreed that the Wii was now officially out and the smart phone and the tablet were now in in its place, and that brings us to a rough approximation of where we are today, which brings us to certain nagging problems. Today it is no longer a quest and a dream to get women into gaming (that basic objective has now been achieved), but it remains a quest and a dream to break down gender divisions within the gaming scene.

What I mean by the remaining challenge before us is this: since the DS and Wii made a gamer out of the average female, society has come to increasingly market different video games to men and women, to boys and girls. There are a lot of stores today, for example, that have a "video games" section on the one hand and a separate, "girl games" section on the other, typically color coded in blue and pink respectively, much like the toy sections of your local supermarket, and the thematic differences are analogous: the former, being for boys and men, is much larger and primarily features comparatively lengthy and better-developed adventure-oriented games, with male-centric military games and franchises (Call of Duty, Battlefield, Kill Zone, Titanfall, etc.) generally being the most lavishly marketed top sellers. Conversely, a visit to the "girl games" section bears exposure to what we might call B games: a whole bunch of games that are simple, stupid, short, and non-adventurous in nature (sample franchises: Just Dance, The Sims, Barbie's Horseback Adventures, Cooking Mama, you get the picture). The result -- that women wind up spending less time playing video games -- is then used by movements like GamerGate to "prove" that women aren't real gamers. Defeating this fairly neat and clean gender division in the way games are marketed (military games for men, non-adventure games for women; analogous to G.I. Joes for boys and Barbies for girls) is really the principal challenge going forward when it games to achieving more parity in the world of video games, IMO.

The core gaming scene itself hasn't actually improved very much over time in terms of its gender ratio. In the 1990s it was really the only gaming scene and back then maybe 15% of participants were female. Today the prominent "core games" typically garner an online community that's around 22 or 23% female. That's really not very much improvement over the decades. It's the casual gaming scene right now that mostly attracts female gamers and it's not very hard for me to see why. Biology hasn't got anything to do with it. It's the way "core games" are made and marketed. Like when I talk to my female colleagues at work (these are teachers: about 70% female) about what games they're playing and talk a little about various "core" games, they're stunned to learn that so many "core" games oblige one to use a male avatar to play most or all of the game. Since they've started gaming, mostly in the last decade, they've just assumed that the option to use a female avatar is a right because all their games let them, and they feel that the core games I describe sound very backward just based on that one factor alone. Or maybe they've played some online core games before and got tired of seeing somebody's penis every 20 minutes or so regardless of whether they wanted to. I mean simply fixing things like this -- reducing sexual harassment and increasing the overall parity of gender representation -- would probably almost entirely close the gender gap in core gamer communities.

As to GamerGate, yeah their objective is more the opposite: what they seem to want is to revert back to the state of affairs from like a decade or two ago wherein "girl games" didn't exist and female gamers were very rare and knew their place in the community. :rollseyes:



Fag! Pussy! Feminazi! You're not really a gamer! :wink:

Yeah, it would seem that Nintendo has been trying to fill in the female gamer market, which is understandable, they started to lose the male demographic to Sony and Microsoft, and especially when the Wii, PS3, and XBox 360 were released. I'm guessing that was because the graphics were a bit less impressive and the games weren't as "hardcore," so to speak, in conjunction with the Wii being more physically interactive.

I had no idea until recently that the percentage of gamers by ratio was so close. All of what you said makes sense. I do wonder though, are females outright ashamed or embarrassed to admit they're gamers? I mean, judging by my interactions on forums, in gamestop, online while gaming, etc, I'd never have assumed the splits to be so close. I certainly don't see as many women buying games in stores, and on forums, it's pretty easy to identify who a male is, yet females either don't admit their gender, or at least, stay quiet about it, and they're not nearly as vocal on mics and whatnot online. Not to mention, some of their usernames don't obviously give their gender away, like many male ones do.

I suppose some of this could be chalked up to the fact that some of the games I play don't appeal to females, but I think I have a decently diverse taste, so maybe it's more than that?

Mister D
04-19-2015, 01:30 PM
There are a lot of women who are ardent football fans. I don't know if they play John Madden games or not, and couldn't find any info on a quick search.

In a gross generalization, given our culture, yes, some themes tend to appeal mainly to men and others to women. But there are always exceptions, and smart marketers wouldn't block out potential buyers through biases.

But if a company shows only men playing their games and has only male avatars in those games and only sells them in some "men's aisle" in the store, they have pretty much blocked out half the market. Kind of stupid, isn't it?

You know, Mister D, I don't know why you want to limit your gender so much. You seem to want to keep them in your pre-conceived ideas of "manly" roles. Why? Do you hate men?

There are certainly women who enjoy football but the audience is overwhelmingly male. Moreover, many women watch the games because their man does.

It's not a gross generalization. It was a general question. I asked if some themes appeal primarily to one sex. Granted, it was rhetorical. It's obvious that that is true.

The games are marketed to men and have male avatars perhaps because they're made by men? Did that ever cross your mind? That males are likely to make games that are more marketable to other males shouldn't surprise anyone.

How have I limited men in any way? I'm simply describing a reality that you can't quite stomach.

IMPress Polly
04-19-2015, 01:49 PM
PattyHill wrote:
I loved the show Buffy, The Vampire Slayer - but admit it didn't get me interested in games. But could see how it would get other women interested.

Actually, when it came to the Buffy reference, I was more in essence referring to the impact that the popularity of the girl power movement of the era had on game developers and publishers. The industry for a brief time seemed to feel that since the girl power thing was popular on TV, it would therefore be popular in game format as well, so the early 2000s in particular saw a lot of, if you will, girl power games published by major game companies. For example, in 2002 and 2003 alone, you had games like Metroid Prime (publisher: Nintendo), Primal and Drakan: The Ancients' Gates (publisher: Sony), Kya: Dark Lineage (publisher: Atari), my favorite of the era: Beyond Good and Evil (publisher: Ubisoft), as well as Final Fantasy X-2 (publisher: Square Enix) and the Lost Kingdoms games (publisher: Activision) to name a few. Most of those were dude-in-distress games at least in part: games where you played as a female hero and, at least as part of the game, rescued a male character from kidnap in a deliberate reversal of traditional character roles. After 2003 though, that moment was really over and things quickly reverted back to more or less normal in the core gaming scene, as girl power games proved appealing mostly to a niche market at the time (Hi, that's me! *waves* :tongue:) and were thus deemed not generally worth the investment. I wasn't much of a feminist at the time, but hey I too enjoyed the popular media of the era, including shows like Buffy, Charmed, Xena, The Powerpuff Girls, Sailor Moon, etc., the Spice Girls (who I believe coined the term "girl power"), and the girl games such as I've just listed. That was my childhood! Buffy, Charmed, and other "magical heroine" shows like it were basically displaced by a wave of macho-man shows like The Sopranos and logically corresponding video game franchises like Grand Theft Auto and Saint's Row, harumph! Then Twilight (shudders) came out as the novel cultural successor to Buffy...yuuuugh! "Post"-feminism sucked. I'm glad it's over.


Common wrote:
Quake didnt seem to have many female gamers, but when quake 2 came out more and more started playing it and it increased with ver 3 and 4. Wow has tons of females playing it.

According to the most recent survey data I have, only 15% of WoW players are female, which is a lower female-to-male player ratio than even most shooting-type core games today have. (Although it could be worse. The latest Call of Duty game's online community is only 8% female.) Most of the female avatars you see wondering around in the World of Warcraft universe are actually being used by guys.

PattyHill
04-19-2015, 03:01 PM
There are certainly women who enjoy football but the audience is overwhelmingly male. Moreover, many women watch the games because their man does.

It's not a gross generalization. It was a general question. I asked if some themes appeal primarily to one sex. Granted, it was rhetorical. It's obvious that that is true.

The games are marketed to men and have male avatars perhaps because they're made by men? Did that ever cross your mind? That males are likely to make games that are more marketable to other males shouldn't surprise anyone.

How have I limited men in any way? I'm simply describing a reality that you can't quite stomach.

You have placed limits on those who share your gender throughout this thread.

And to clear up some of your other confusions - the NFL audience is 45% women ; that is NOT overwhelmingly male

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/women-are-pro-footballs-most-important-market-will-they-forgive-the-nfl/2014/09/12/d5ba8874-3a7f-11e4-9c9f-ebb47272e40e_story.html


Women make up an estimated 45 percent of the NFL’s more than 150 million American fans and have become perhaps pro football’s most valuable players. Female fans, a group beloved by advertisers, represent the league’s biggest opportunity for growth. Keeping these women spending has become a chief goal of the NFL, which has funded research, expanded merchandising and sponsored spreads in women’s magazines.

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-09-26/the-nfl-is-growing-only-because-of-female-fans


A key point lies buried in the controversy around the National Football League’s string of image-wrecking missteps, many of which might alienate women: The league’s future depends on female fans.
For the NFL to grow, it has to court women, its fastest-growing fan demographic. No matter how you measure it, female viewership has grown much faster than male viewership in the past several years. Conventional wisdom suggests that every man who could be a football fan already is. The NFL has squeezed everything it can from that segment of the population. There’s still potential to convert more women into full-time fans, and that’s where the league’s revenue growth must come from. Data from Ebiquity (http://www.ebiquity.com/), a media marketing and analytics firm, show exactly how much the female fan base means to the league.

PattyHill
04-19-2015, 03:03 PM
Actually, when it came to the Buffy reference, I was more in essence referring to the impact that the popularity of the girl power movement of the era had on game developers and publishers. The industry for a brief time seemed to feel that since the girl power thing was popular on TV, it would therefore be popular in game format as well, so the early 2000s in particular saw a lot of, if you will, girl power games published by major game companies. For example, in 2002 and 2003 alone, you had games like Metroid Prime (publisher: Nintendo), Primal and Drakan: The Ancients' Gates (publisher: Sony), Kya: Dark Lineage (publisher: Atari), my favorite of the era: Beyond Good and Evil (publisher: Ubisoft), as well as Final Fantasy X-2 (publisher: Square Enix) and the Lost Kingdoms games (publisher: Activision) to name a few. Most of those were dude-in-distress games at least in part: games where you played as a female hero and, at least as part of the game, rescued a male character from kidnap in a deliberate reversal of traditional character roles. After 2003 though, that moment was really over and things quickly reverted back to more or less normal in the core gaming scene, as girl power games proved appealing mostly to a niche market at the time (Hi, that's me! *waves* :tongue:) and were thus deemed not generally worth the investment. I wasn't much of a feminist at the time, but hey I too enjoyed the popular media of the era, including shows like Buffy, Charmed, Xena, The Powerpuff Girls, Sailor Moon, etc., the Spice Girls (who I believe coined the term "girl power"), and the girl games such as I've just listed. That was my childhood! Buffy, Charmed, and other "magical heroine" shows like it were basically displaced by a wave of macho-man shows like The Sopranos and logically corresponding video game franchises like Grand Theft Auto and Saint's Row, harumph! Then Twilight (shudders) came out as the novel cultural successor to Buffy...yuuuugh! "Post"-feminism sucked. I'm glad it's over.



According to the most recent survey data I have, only 15% of WoW players are female, which is a lower female-to-male player ratio than even most shooting-type core games today have. (Although it could be worse. The latest Call of Duty game's online community is only 8% female.) Most of the female avatars you see wondering around in the World of Warcraft universe are actually being used by guys.

Thanks. Love how knowledgeable you are in this area!

I agree Twilight sucks... and yet I read all the books, and then wondered why? I did not see the movies though.

Mister D
04-19-2015, 04:10 PM
You have placed limits on those who share your gender throughout this thread.

And to clear up some of your other confusions - the NFL audience is 45% women ; that is NOT overwhelmingly male

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/women-are-pro-footballs-most-important-market-will-they-forgive-the-nfl/2014/09/12/d5ba8874-3a7f-11e4-9c9f-ebb47272e40e_story.html



http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-09-26/the-nfl-is-growing-only-because-of-female-fans

Could you cite an instance?

From your own source:


Overall, women represent about one-third of the NFL’s viewing audience throughout the regular season and playoffs, a figure network executives say they expect to hit 45 percent in the next few years.

I'm not confused but apparently your sources are. Patty, the gals watch the games with their favorite guys. If their men didn't watch it most of them wouldn't either but if I ever see the girls at work arguing about last night's game I'll let you know. :laugh:

Anyway, so we agree that some themes appeal to primarily to one sex, right?

Mister D
04-19-2015, 04:11 PM
Patty, do you honestly believe the male love for sports if cultural? IOW, do you seriously believe females and males are equally aggressive and competitive by their nature?

PattyHill
04-19-2015, 05:30 PM
Mister D, I honestly believe I don't want to discuss this with you anymore. Maggie Thatcher alone shows women and men are equally aggressive, but you aren't interested in hearing different thoughts, and I'm not interested in wasting my time.

My first source had the 45% number. You chose to ignore that. You choose to ignore that, regardless of the norm, there are those of both genders who follow things that YOU believe don't belong to their gender.

So I shall stop wasting my time with you, and instead look for more great posts from IMPress Polly

Mister D
04-19-2015, 05:52 PM
Mister D, I honestly believe I don't want to discuss this with you anymore. Maggie Thatcher alone shows women and men are equally aggressive, but you aren't interested in hearing different thoughts, and I'm not interested in wasting my time.

My first source had the 45% number. You chose to ignore that. You choose to ignore that, regardless of the norm, there are those of both genders who follow things that YOU believe don't belong to their gender.

So I shall stop wasting my time with you, and instead look for more great posts from IMPress Polly

One woman demonstrates that men and women are equally aggressive? Seriously? Males and females are quite different and it's precisely this bizarre egalitarian aspect of contemporary feminism that I find...well ridiculous.

Yes, and your second source contradicted your first. Read them next time. Anyway, women watch games with their men. Do you really thin the gals flock to the bars for Monday Night Football? Total sausage party, trust me.

You're just like Polly, actually. You feel "oppressed" by disagreement and you take it personally. It's weak and very feminine. :wink:

Peter1469
04-19-2015, 05:56 PM
Men and women are not equally aggressive. A few women can play with the big dogs. Most women are not interested in the least with that game.

Chloe
04-19-2015, 08:20 PM
Patty, do you honestly believe the male love for sports if cultural? IOW, do you seriously believe females and males are equally aggressive and competitive by their nature?

I think by nature men tend to be more physically aggressive for both good and bad things, but I know that while I'm not physically aggressive in a harmful way to others I know for a fact that I'm pretty competitive. I think that male aggression tends to be more physical and prevalent than female aggression.

PattyHill
04-19-2015, 08:22 PM
Patty, do you honestly believe the male love for sports if cultural? IOW, do you seriously believe females and males are equally aggressive and competitive by their nature?

Yes.

Redrose
04-19-2015, 08:43 PM
Men and women are not equally aggressive. A few women can play with the big dogs. Most women are not interested in the least with that game.


Women are usually passive aggressive, sneaky, covert. With men, you get it straight in the nose, so to speak, with a female, very often you never see it coming.

Common
04-19-2015, 08:46 PM
I showed my wife this thread and she sends me an email that says I should post it.
I said are you nuts the women would run me off.

Chloe
04-19-2015, 08:47 PM
Women are usually passive aggressive, sneaky, covert. With men, you get it straight in the nose, so to speak, with a female, very often you never see it coming.

Yes, girls can be vicious without lifting a finger

Common
04-19-2015, 08:53 PM
Women are usually passive aggressive, sneaky, covert. With men, you get it straight in the nose, so to speak, with a female, very often you never see it coming.

Women can be ridiculous to try and control physically too, part of that may be men unconciously hold back because they are female.

Redrose
04-19-2015, 09:00 PM
Women can be ridiculous to try and control physically too, part of that may be men unconciously hold back because they are female.


I've told this before, my friend in NY caught her hubby with a woman. She is a large girl, very, very strong, a weight lifter in great shape. Hubby was a good sized man, but she was enraged and got the better of him. She beat the other woman to a pulp and pulled hair and scalp from her head and threw hubby out the window followed by all his belongings.

Common
04-19-2015, 09:02 PM
I've told this before, my friend in NY caught her hubby with a woman. She is a large girl, very, very strong, a weight lifter in great shape. Hubby was a good sized man, but she was enraged and got the better of him. She beat the other woman to a pulp and pulled hair and scalp from her head and threw hubby out the window followed by all his belongings.

YO lol,...I assume he never ever went back

Redrose
04-19-2015, 09:11 PM
YO lol,...I assume he never ever went back


No, very nasty divorce. She came out better than he did. The female judge helped I'm sure.

Like I said, passive aggressive, hurts much more than just plain aggressive.

Cthulhu
04-20-2015, 04:15 AM
What's wrong with "acting like a woman"? We're strong, caring, loving.... what's wrong with it?

Or are you referring to some "idea" of "woman" in your head?
Acting like a woman is great - if you're a woman.

Otherwise it makes for juvenile comedy I suppose.

Sent from my evil, kitten eating cell phone.

Cthulhu
04-20-2015, 04:23 AM
That's true Common but it's at the cost of a particular life style that I'm not so sure is worth it in the long run.
Bingo.

Cable TV, iPad, high speed internet with a snazzy phone, new car etc...

^^^These are not needs.

Many are under the illusion they are.

Americans need and want priorities are dangerously mixed mixed up.

Sent from my evil, kitten eating cell phone.

Cthulhu
04-20-2015, 04:45 AM
IMPress Polly

Off the top of my head?

I would say child support and abortion rights.

Her right to choose right? What about his choice? None whatsoever. But if she chooses to keep the kid, she can also choose to raid his wallet via the legal system.

When women are busy trying to drain a guy for child support because of rage or legit reasons - the company line of "tough, strong, and independent" goes right out the window. Because if you are, you don't *need* assistance.

If women have the right to whack the unborn over the objections of the father, the father should be able to "abort" fatherhood over her objections as well.

Rectifying this however would be to embrace more traditional and virtuous values - the very ones many feminists oppose, irrationally or otherwise.

Sent from my evil, kitten eating cell phone.

Polecat
04-20-2015, 09:47 AM
Women are usually passive aggressive, sneaky, covert. With men, you get it straight in the nose, so to speak, with a female, very often you never see it coming.

You are painting a very accurate picture there.

PolWatch
04-20-2015, 09:49 AM
You are painting a very accurate picture there.

intelligent people adapt to the situation. a dumb woman would hit a male in the nose and get killed for her boldness.

Polecat
04-20-2015, 10:09 AM
intelligent people adapt to the situation. a dumb woman would hit a male in the nose and get killed for her boldness.

I have known a few of them types. Hyper combative. I had a friend that was living with one of these firecrackers. She would back him into a corner slapping and cussing and after his internal abuse timer would run down he would knock her silly. They did not stay together long enough for it to go really bad thank goodness.

IMPress Polly
04-21-2015, 06:00 AM
The XI wrote:
Yeah, it would seem that Nintendo has been trying to fill in the female gamer market, which is understandable, they started to lose the male demographic to Sony and Microsoft, and especially when the Wii, PS3, and XBox 360 were released. I'm guessing that was because the graphics were a bit less impressive and the games weren't as "hardcore," so to speak, in conjunction with the Wii being more physically interactive.

Yeah like you say, it was kind of a marketing strategy born out of necessity. The last home console they had that was a hit with guys was the Nintendo 64. The failure of the Game Cube ensured that the company could not produce a truly next-generation follow-up system after that -- that they could not afford to compete on the terms of Sony and Microsoft anymore -- so they had to focus on appealing to a different, largely untapped market: the casual gamer. It worked out extremely well for them, as the Wii proved to be easily the best-selling home console of all time. But after Microsoft came out with the Kinect and the cell phone market started eating up hitherto Wii casual gamers, that's pretty much left Nintendo back in their previous predicament and they don't seem to have a way out. At this point, they've largely lost both the hardcore and casual gamer markets, though I would say that the female-to-male Nintendo fan ratio has definitely closed a lot since the N64 era and you see it reflected in a lot of their more recent titles like Hyrule Warriors (which has a mostly female roster of playable characters, for example), Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (wherein you actually spend about as much time playing as Toadette as you do Captain Toad himself), and even 2013's Super Mario 3D World (the first classical-style Mario platformer to offer the player two female avatars to play as), and certainly in their upcoming game Splatoon.


I had no idea until recently that the percentage of gamers by ratio was so close. All of what you said makes sense. I do wonder though, are females outright ashamed or embarrassed to admit they're gamers? I mean, judging by my interactions on forums, in gamestop, online while gaming, etc, I'd never have assumed the splits to be so close. I certainly don't see as many women buying games in stores, and on forums, it's pretty easy to identify who a male is, yet females either don't admit their gender, or at least, stay quiet about it, and they're not nearly as vocal on mics and whatnot online. Not to mention, some of their usernames don't obviously give their gender away, like many male ones do.

I suppose some of this could be chalked up to the fact that some of the games I play don't appeal to females, but I think I have a decently diverse taste, so maybe it's more than that?

Well...genre-wise yeah, I'd say you're an unusually broad-minded gamer, as I've said elsewhere. Most people have a favorite game genre or two and rarely, if ever, diverge from it, much like how most people might have a favorite type of music from which they never diverge. So yeah, I'd say you're more diverse in your tastes than most gamers to judge by the titles you listed in your list of favorites from over the years. However, that said, looking over that same list...mmmm, you might not be quite as broad-minded as you think in other ways. :wink: For example, there is not a single female-centered game on your entire list. Contrast that with how many of mine are male-centered for a logical comparison. Or, you know, maybe we could point out things like that your list is a very commercial one with lots of blockbuster megahits and no indie games and how most of the titles you seem to like these days are simply sequels to long-standing franchises you've been playing for at least a decade rather than original games. Not to be critical, but just to point it out. :wink:

But anyway, to your actual point, you wonder why there seem to be fewer female-than-male gamers in stores and on game community sites and stuff. Well that has everything to do with the organized gender split I described earlier in terms of what games are marketed to whom these days. To be maybe a little explanatory as to how this works, let's take like my mom as an example because, in my observation, she's a pretty typical female gamer. Here's how it all came about for her and where it wound up:

Back in the old days, I struggled to get my mom to play video games with me. I couldn't get her into Sonic games because they moved too quickly for her. I tried getting her into simple RPGs like Super Mario RPG and Pokemon, but to no avail, as she found them too complicated to sustain her interest; the learning curve too steep for her. My first real success was Mario Kart 64. I could get her to play that with me. The bigger success though was the Mario Party franchise when that came out. Since my mom grew up in an earlier, pre-video-gaming era, she was much more accustomed to playing board games than video games, so the Mario Party series' board game-inspired format proved a natural fit for her. But even with the Mario Party games, I never really saw her playing independent of me. Clearly she was just playing those games to have something additional in common with me.

The first game I saw my mom playing on her own was a 2006 Garfield the Cat online exploration/mystery game that she stumbled upon on the official Garfield web site because it (the game) was new. It quickly got to where she'd play it for 30 minutes or an hour a night. After about a year of this, my older Cousin Caprice introduced her to a new freebie online game they could play together, and from this web site she found many others simple online games and downloadables to her liking over time. Facebook ads, recommendations from friends and family members...this is how my mom discovers games, not by frequently online gaming magazines like Polygon (my personal favorite, and not just because one can sound out my name in the title :grin:) and gaming message boards and stuff like that that you and I might. It's analogous to how most people discover movies. Most people discover movies through commercials and word-of-mouth recommendations, not by frequenting online filmophile communities and message boards. That stuff is for hardcore hobbyists, not the average, casual consumer. And the type of games we're talking about with respect to my mom have been games like Zuma, Farmville, Candy Crush, that sort of thing. She spends about as much time playing video games as I do these days -- about two hours a day typically -- but she'll do so in quite a different way. Where I might spend most or all of that time playing a single, relatively complex game, she'll have like a three-game rotation of simple games like the ones I've just mentioned and maybe run through the cycle twice per session. I think that's how the average girl and woman got into video games. Women have never really, I don't think, felt connected to the formal game community. Though my mom plays video games about as much as I do these days, she wouldn't describe herself as a gamer, for example. That to her might be like describing one's self as a filmophile; as a hardcore hobbyist, which she doesn't consider herself to be.

That's why I say that the real challenge going forward is ushering more of these newer gamers into the actual gaming community because it's really not very inviting right now, especially to women. I mean I've been in this community in a sense for decades now and still don't really feel a connection to many aspects of it. You know, when I've watched that old gaming TV network G4 or the annual trade show E3 or read the classical gaming monthlys like Electronic Gaming Monthly and Ultra Game Players...I dunno, it just comes across me me as almost like a Spike TV / frat party / Sports Illustrated/Maxim type of atmosphere (as applicable). When you can watch an industry trade show and have the theme be big explosions and booth babes (who seem to outnumber female developers by like a 10 to 1 margin), I dunno. It just doesn't feel like I'm supposed to be part of that scene, or at least not as anything more than decoration. I hear folklore about basement geek parties and stuff, but I was never invited to any of those. When male cousins would come over and join me for games at my place, they'd just like rip the controller out of my hands like it was their game and their system. So I mean I'm the only woman here who uses our Gaming forum for example and even I don't feel that connected to the gaming culture after some 24 years of being a gamer, so I can see where the average female casual consumer would find it even more challenging.

PattyHill
04-21-2015, 09:49 AM
The only video game I really got into was SimCity; played it for a few weeks back in the late 90s. But I would just rather read a good book than play a game. But glad to hear the games are getting more diverse.

The Xl
04-21-2015, 01:06 PM
Yeah like you say, it was kind of a marketing strategy born out of necessity. The last home console they had that was a hit with guys was the Nintendo 64. The failure of the Game Cube ensured that the company could not produce a truly next-generation follow-up system after that -- that they could not afford to compete on the terms of Sony and Microsoft anymore -- so they had to focus on appealing to a different, largely untapped market: the casual gamer. It worked out extremely well for them, as the Wii proved to be easily the best-selling home console of all time. But after Microsoft came out with the Kinect and the cell phone market started eating up hitherto Wii casual gamers, that's pretty much left Nintendo back in their previous predicament and they don't seem to have a way out. At this point, they've largely lost both the hardcore and casual gamer markets, though I would say that the female-to-male Nintendo fan ratio has definitely closed a lot since the N64 era and you see it reflected in a lot of their more recent titles like Hyrule Warriors (which has a mostly female roster of playable characters, for example), Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (wherein you actually spend about as much time playing as Toadette as you do Captain Toad himself), and even 2013's Super Mario 3D World (the first classical-style Mario platformer to offer the player two female avatars to play as), and certainly in their upcoming game Splatoon.



Well...genre-wise yeah, I'd say you're an unusually broad-minded gamer, as I've said elsewhere. Most people have a favorite game genre or two and rarely, if ever, diverge from it, much like how most people might have a favorite type of music from which they never diverge. So yeah, I'd say you're more diverse in your tastes than most gamers to judge by the titles you listed in your list of favorites from over the years. However, that said, looking over that same list...mmmm, you might not be quite as broad-minded as you think in other ways. :wink: For example, there is not a single female-centered game on your entire list. Contrast that with how many of mine are male-centered for a logical comparison. Or, you know, maybe we could point out things like that your list is a very commercial one with lots of blockbuster megahits and no indie games and how most of the titles you seem to like these days are simply sequels to long-standing franchises you've been playing for at least a decade rather than original games. Not to be critical, but just to point it out. :wink:

But anyway, to your actual point, you wonder why there seem to be fewer female-than-male gamers in stores and on game community sites and stuff. Well that has everything to do with the organized gender split I described earlier in terms of what games are marketed to whom these days. To be maybe a little explanatory as to how this works, let's take like my mom as an example because, in my observation, she's a pretty typical female gamer. Here's how it all came about for her and where it wound up:

Back in the old days, I struggled to get my mom to play video games with me. I couldn't get her into Sonic games because they moved too quickly for her. I tried getting her into simple RPGs like Super Mario RPG and Pokemon, but to no avail, as she found them too complicated to sustain her interest; the learning curve too steep for her. My first real success was Mario Kart 64. I could get her to play that with me. The bigger success though was the Mario Party franchise when that came out. Since my mom grew up in an earlier, pre-video-gaming era, she was much more accustomed to playing board games than video games, so the Mario Party series' board game-inspired format proved a natural fit for her. But even with the Mario Party games, I never really saw her playing independent of me. Clearly she was just playing those games to have something additional in common with me.

The first game I saw my mom playing on her own was a 2006 Garfield the Cat online exploration/mystery game that she stumbled upon on the official Garfield web site because it (the game) was new. It quickly got to where she'd play it for 30 minutes or an hour a night. After about a year of this, my older Cousin Caprice introduced her to a new freebie online game they could play together, and from this web site she found many others simple online games and downloadables to her liking over time. Facebook ads, recommendations from friends and family members...this is how my mom discovers games, not by frequently online gaming magazines like Polygon (my personal favorite, and not just because one can sound out my name in the title :grin:) and gaming message boards and stuff like that that you and I might. It's analogous to how most people discover movies. Most people discover movies through commercials and word-of-mouth recommendations, not by frequenting online filmophile communities and message boards. That stuff is for hardcore hobbyists, not the average, casual consumer. And the type of games we're talking about with respect to my mom have been games like Zuma, Farmville, Candy Crush, that sort of thing. She spends about as much time playing video games as I do these days -- about two hours a day typically -- but she'll do so in quite a different way. Where I might spend most or all of that time playing a single, relatively complex game, she'll have like a three-game rotation of simple games like the ones I've just mentioned and maybe run through the cycle twice per session. I think that's how the average girl and woman got into video games. Women have never really, I don't think, felt connected to the formal game community. Though my mom plays video games about as much as I do these days, she wouldn't describe herself as a gamer, for example. That to her might be like describing one's self as a filmophile; as a hardcore hobbyist, which she doesn't consider herself to be.

That's why I say that the real challenge going forward is ushering more of these newer gamers into the actual gaming community because it's really not very inviting right now, especially to women. I mean I've been in this community in a sense for decades now and still don't really feel a connection to many aspects of it. You know, when I've watched that old gaming TV network G4 or the annual trade show E3 or read the classical gaming monthlys like Electronic Gaming Monthly and Ultra Game Players...I dunno, it just comes across me me as almost like a Spike TV / frat party / Sports Illustrated/Maxim type of atmosphere (as applicable). When you can watch an industry trade show and have the theme be big explosions and booth babes (who seem to outnumber female developers by like a 10 to 1 margin), I dunno. It just doesn't feel like I'm supposed to be part of that scene, or at least not as anything more than decoration. I hear folklore about basement geek parties and stuff, but I was never invited to any of those. When male cousins would come over and join me for games at my place, they'd just like rip the controller out of my hands like it was their game and their system. So I mean I'm the only woman here who uses our Gaming forum for example and even I don't feel that connected to the gaming culture after some 24 years of being a gamer, so I can see where the average female casual consumer would find it even more challenging.

No, it's a fair point. Most of the games I play are sequels, or at least, stand alones with franchises I'm acquainted with. I still play games frequently(1-2 hours a day, give or take) but I have less free time overall than I did when I was a kid, and I'm also not actively hunting new franchises down, nor do I have classmates to rely on for recommendations, so that cuts my options. This leads me to replay old games I love, or games I know are quality because of the name. I'm sure there are many good games that I'm unaware of that I would play if only I was privy to their existence or quality.

It's another fair point about me not playing 'female-ish' games, but I'd think RPGs, strategy games and the like would appeal to females more than a fighting game or a 1st person shooter, and I play plenty of those. Also consider some of the lead or at least co-lead protagonists in the games I play are female (Lyn Fire Emblem, Aeries FF7, Terra FF6, etc)

The marketing element of what you say makes sense. Certain genres are marketed to certain bases, that much seems to be true. I will say though, that does make it difficult for me to even try to give a female centered or indy game a shot. I have no idea of their existence or quality. If I saw one and it seemed interesting, I'd probably try it.

IMPress Polly
04-22-2015, 05:52 AM
The XI wrote:
No, it's a fair point. Most of the games I play are sequels, or at least, stand alones with franchises I'm acquainted with. I still play games frequently(1-2 hours a day, give or take) but I have less free time overall than I did when I was a kid, and I'm also not actively hunting new franchises down, nor do I have classmates to rely on for recommendations, so that cuts my options. This leads me to replay old games I love, or games I know are quality because of the name. I'm sure there are many good games that I'm unaware of that I would play if only I was privy to their existence or quality.

Aaah, I see what you're saying. Kinda finding yourself becoming more of a casual consumer these days. I definitely understand what you mean about enjoying more leisure time as a kid!


It's another fair point about me not playing 'female-ish' games, but I'd think RPGs, strategy games and the like would appeal to females more than a fighting game or a 1st person shooter, and I play plenty of those. Also consider some of the lead or at least co-lead protagonists in the games I play are female (Lyn Fire Emblem, Aeries FF7, Terra FF6, etc)

Well...I mean yes those were in one sense or other co-leads, but when I say "female-centered", I hasten to say that, using Final Fantasy 6 as an example, a game with 14 main characters (the developers considered all the game's team members to be lead protagonists) out of which only 3 are female to be exactly female-centered or even equally representative, no matter how well the 3 or portrayed and fleshed out. :wink: I mean that's not what I consider a knock on the game really. It's one of my two favorite games of all time, surpassed only by Persona 4, and both of those are male-centered games. I mean I could go into a whole long speech here about what it is I find so appealing about these games, but namely it's really about how eternally poignant I find their particular stories. FF6 is a very emotional game that's all about social alienation versus comraderie and the consequences, which is frankly something that's always spoken to me very, very deeply, and which dare I say is a very big issue in the game community. I cry every time I play through FF6. The game's female characters are also yes more prominent and better fleshed out than those of just about any other game of its era and that's something I also consider complimentary. But 'better' is not the same thing as 'equal' or 'female-centered' by any stretch of the imagination. Probably the most egalitarian RPG of the 1990s I can think of is Dragon Warrior 4 for the NES, wherein you choose either a male or female lead character and their stats build up in the same way and at the same rate regardless of which of the two protagonists you pick and the storyline is almost completed unaffected by your choice save for semantics. That's more in the neighborhood of what actual equality looks like in an RPG, IMO, though obviously it doesn't automatically make DW4 the better game overall.


The marketing element of what you say makes sense. Certain genres are marketed to certain bases, that much seems to be true. I will say though, that does make it difficult for me to even try to give a female centered or indy game a shot. I have no idea of their existence or quality. If I saw one and it seemed interesting, I'd probably try it.

Well hey, if you ever want help finding some really good ones, all ya gotta do is ask because I can think of dozens off hand. :grin: In fact, I might just start a thread on the Gaming forum some time to this end, dedicated specifically to promoting the better female-centered games, which would be added to periodically. I mean only 4% of modern video games revolve primarily around women according to the most recent data I have, which means only 1 out of every 25 games, so I definitely understand why you might have a hard time finding the better ones on your own! I've had difficulty myself even though I make a conscious effort.

The Xl
04-22-2015, 01:41 PM
Aaah, I see what you're saying. Kinda finding yourself becoming more of a casual consumer these days. I definitely understand what you mean about enjoying more leisure time as a kid!



Well...I mean yes those were in one sense or other co-leads, but when I say "female-centered", I hasten to say that, using Final Fantasy 6 as an example, a game with 14 main characters (the developers considered all the game's team members to be lead protagonists) out of which only 3 are female to be exactly female-centered or even equally representative, no matter how well the 3 or portrayed and fleshed out. :wink: I mean that's not what I consider a knock on the game really. It's one of my two favorite games of all time, surpassed only by Persona 4, and both of those are male-centered games. I mean I could go into a whole long speech here about what it is I find so appealing about these games, but namely it's really about how eternally poignant I find their particular stories. FF6 is a very emotional game that's all about social alienation versus comraderie and the consequences, which is frankly something that's always spoken to me very, very deeply, and which dare I say is a very big issue in the game community. I cry every time I play through FF6. The game's female characters are also yes more prominent and better fleshed out than those of just about any other game of its era and that's something I also consider complimentary. But 'better' is not the same thing as 'equal' or 'female-centered' by any stretch of the imagination. Probably the most egalitarian RPG of the 1990s I can think of is Dragon Warrior 4 for the NES, wherein you choose either a male or female lead character and their stats build up in the same way and at the same rate regardless of which of the two protagonists you pick and the storyline is almost completed unaffected by your choice save for semantics. That's more in the neighborhood of what actual equality looks like in an RPG, IMO, though obviously it doesn't automatically make DW4 the better game overall.



Well hey, if you ever want help finding some really good ones, all ya gotta do is ask because I can think of dozens off hand. :grin: In fact, I might just start a thread on the Gaming forum some time to this end, dedicated specifically to promoting the better female-centered games, which would be added to periodically. I mean only 4% of modern video games revolve primarily around women according to the most recent data I have, which means only 1 out of every 25 games, so I definitely understand why you might have a hard time finding the better ones on your own! I've had difficulty myself even though I make a conscious effort.

I see your point. Sure, if you have some recommendations, I'll take a look at them.

Maybe I should give Dragon Warrior 4 a look. I've always meant to give the Dragon Warrior/Quest series a look.

The Sage of Main Street
04-22-2015, 02:16 PM
You are painting a very accurate picture there. Women are devious not by intent, but only because their minds are haywired.

Unintentionally giving the game away, there was this article by a pandering professor, a male "feminist," who actually praised this ditziness as some secret way to get to the truth without the use of reason. He claimed that such wandering impulsive emotionalism was the real meaning of the literary form called the essay.

IMPress Polly
04-23-2015, 05:55 AM
The XI wrote:
I see your point. Sure, if you have some recommendations, I'll take a look at them.

Maybe I should give Dragon Warrior 4 a look. I've always meant to give the Dragon Warrior/Quest series a look.

I was just using DW4 as an example from the '90s, as you were mentioning '90s RPGs in context. :tongue: One can do much better than DW4 really, even within the Dragon Quest franchise. For example, Dragon Quest 9: Sentinels of the Starry Skies has a much better and less predictable storyline than the fourth game in the series (and it also affords you the same type of gender choice) and also includes a range of social play options to boot. That's my favorite game in the series and the one I'd most recommend.

However, that's more an example of (relatively) equal options than of a game that's actually female-centered, which is what I was actually aiming to point to before. I think going into a list of games in detail would be beyond the scope of this thread and inappropriate for here. That's a topic for the Gaming forum really. But to simply name a few female-centered games that are among my top favorites and come as most recommended...I would recommend looking into Beyond Good and Evil, Beyond: Two Souls, and Gone Home as a good starting place.

donttread
04-23-2015, 07:34 AM
You've heard opponents complain about "the humorless feminist" before? Well although I hate playing into stereotypes, this one actually isn't totally untrue. Many feminists publicly display no sense of humor, or for that matter any real personality in general. Up until the last summer, and more especially the last four months, I myself largely sought to avoid displaying much personality here on PF. Ever think there might be a reason? Well there is one. I think I'll let a prominent feminist of today (whom you may have noticed I respect a lot) explain why she's opted to refrain from showing her human side to the public in recent years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhgEuY64ECw

Yeah that's right: political correctness isn't just something that affects the political right and men and so forth. Quite to the contrary, it's if anything applied in more extreme forms to feminists. I mean for example remember last year when the merits of the term "bitch" (the B word for those with the filter turned on) were discussed here and how the overwhelming majority opposed banning that word on PF, and then shortly thereafter a mass movement calling for the prohibition of the terms "sexist" and "racist" emerged and was actually taken seriously...ironically, by all the same people who previously complained about the "the word police" and how repressive that approach to forum moderation is? Yeah. I think that illustrated a certain truth: that many people are hyper-sensitive about gender and other discrimination issues. Lots and lots of people feel that even discussing things like gender discrimination amounts to a personal challenge to their masculinity or to their right to be a happy housewife (as applicable) and as such respond to even the most mundane discussions thereof quite disproportionately and in very personal ways that many feminists would rather avoid dealing with. Such avoidance, such mandatory self-censorship, however, takes an emotional toll, just as discrimination itself does.

Compiled on top of this are social stigmas against women telling jokes and being humorous: the whole "women aren't funny" cultural belief that's easily observed in the ratio of male-to-female professional comedians, for example. (Survey illustrating this point. (https://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/02/13/are-women-really-less-funny-men/)) Most all of the prominent ones are men, regardless of the target audience. When polled on the subject, the vast majority of people of both sexes value "a sense of humor" in the opposite sex. However, breaking down the details reveals that for women to "have a sense of humor" is believed to mean mean something very different than it does for men to "have a sense of humor". For a man to "have a sense of humor" means for him to be good at telling jokes (active role), where for a woman to "have a sense of humor" means for her to laugh at those jokes (passive role). Furthermore, if you as a woman do break this taboo by telling a joke, it had better be a self-depreciating one if you hope for it to be well-received.

Now I don't claim this point as a license to demand that others find my idea of humor (which is often combative rather than self-depreciating, as I'm sure you've noticed) funny and "lol" all my jokes or what have you. I'm just pointing out that gender roles exist even vis-a-vis simple things like humor, that women are graded more harshly than men, and that feminists are graded more harshly than average women. Feminist DO have a sense of humor just like you do! Many just find it impractical to display it because of the inevitable, repressive backlash, which tends to be way more extreme and ridiculously nitpicky than anything "the word police" have likely visited upon you. It would be nice to be allowed a sense of humor.

I think their lack of personality makes them easier to make fun of and much harder to see them as people. Also, banning a word never got anything changed

The Xl
04-23-2015, 11:25 AM
I was just using DW4 as an example from the '90s, as you were mentioning '90s RPGs in context. :tongue: One can do much better than DW4 really, even within the Dragon Quest franchise. For example, Dragon Quest 9: Sentinels of the Starry Skies has a much better and less predictable storyline than the fourth game in the series (and it also affords you the same type of gender choice) and also includes a range of social play options to boot. That's my favorite game in the series and the one I'd most recommend.

However, that's more an example of (relatively) equal options than of a game that's actually female-centered, which is what I was actually aiming to point to before. I think going into a list of games in detail would be beyond the scope of this thread and inappropriate for here. That's a topic for the Gaming forum really. But to simply name a few female-centered games that are among my top favorites and come as most recommended...I would recommend looking into Beyond Good and Evil, Beyond: Two Souls, and Gone Home as a good starting place.

I'll check those out when I can, thanks for the recommendations. I'm a little busy recently though and am playing a lot of handhelds and roms, is there a snes, gba, etc, game you can recommend?

IMPress Polly
04-23-2015, 12:00 PM
Hmmm...well let's see...Super Metroid for the Super NES is the best game for that system that's truly female-centered, and it's also the best game in the Metroid franchise, it's generally agreed. On any list of top favorites for the Super NES, I'd place Super Metroid in fourth or fifth place, so I mean I think it's a really good game. Especially the ending.

Oh, and Drill Dozer! That's a 2006 game for Game Boy Advance. It's basically a very Japanese mockery of Grand Theft Auto that's really fun to play. :tongue:

(Sticking to the two systems you mentioned.)

The Xl
04-23-2015, 12:53 PM
Hmmm...well let's see...Super Metroid for the Super NES is the best game for that system that's truly female-centered, and it's also the best game in the Metroid franchise, it's generally agreed. On any list of top favorites for the Super NES, I'd place Super Metroid in fourth or fifth place, so I mean I think it's a really good game. Especially the ending.

Oh, and Drill Dozer! That's a 2006 game for Game Boy Advance. It's basically a very Japanese mockery of Grand Theft Auto that's really fun to play. :tongue:

(Sticking to the two systems you mentioned.)

I'll check them both out, thanks.

For the record, it's not limited to those two systems, it's any system that I can get a rom that'll run on my phone(Nes, Genesis, DS maybe, etc)

The Xl
04-27-2015, 12:09 AM
So, I got around to playing a little bit of Drill Dozer tonight. My thoughts on it....

- I like it so far. It's surprising fun drilling through shit.
- The controls are pretty good and it's easy to play, even on my phone.
- The fact that you can save at any time is awesome, I love that feature

Those are my early impressions. I'm kinda stuck, need a third gear drill or something to get by an obstacle, so I'll try and figure that out tomorrow. Will keep you posted.