Rant/Complain Thread: u mad?

[Starfe]

Its not a high school issue. Racism, sexism, and other assorted bigotry doesn't go away when people get a diploma, adults are just better at hiding that stuff. One huge realization I have come to in teaching 13-15 year olds is that they have no filter on the things they say. They say what they think and have to be told when those things are not alright to say. Often they are legitimately surprised and apologetic that the things they are totally comfortable or familiar with saying are horrible. Adults are just better at hiding their inherent prejudices.

By the way, most surveys of the WoW (Blizzard's biggest title) community show that the average player is much older than high school. Maybe when the game came out almost 10 years ago the average player was a high school student, but the player base has aged with the game. The people playing that game are adults. They might not act it, but the average player in that game is definitely in their 20s.

And sure, some of that stuff gets educated out of people, but to say that sexism is something that only exists among teenager gamers is ridiculous. Just like with anything else when people are under a cloud of anonymity they degenerate quickly. Certainly the Call of Duty voice chat is fogged up with the shouts of teenager gamers spouting virulent sexism and other prejudice, but thats not where it stops. Sexism is absolutely not a teenage issue. Thats where it first starts to manifest, and so thats where it is the ugliest and most obvious. Teenagers feel totally comfortable saying that women are worse or better than men at whatever. That sexism matures in two ways. It either goes away, or it becomes more developed. I have met plenty of real life sexists, many of whom play video games. They aren't a myth.

Whats worse is that the industry is no better than the fans. Having friends who work in the industry I know that those are true boys clubs, and that working in those environments, as a woman, can often be so horrible as to push one onto new work as soon as possible.

Suggesting that a particular art style is the result of sexism is definitely an oversimplification. Many of the points that come up in this games and sexism thing are over simplifications of much more complicated issues. Suggesting that this is a teenage problem is one of those over simplifications, and its very much akin to the "boys will be boys" line of thinking.

You need to stop imagining things as black or white scenarios. The sexism in games issue is complicated, more complicated than most commentators on the internet, Sarkeesian included, make it seem. These things have nuance, and they cannot be brushed off as "this is a high school thing" just like we (as in people in the U.S) can't brush off racism as a "southern thing". The world is not all or nothing, neither is this issue.

[Starfe]

Garrett I didn't even read Max's post until just now when I became very confused about yours. I was too caught up in the problematic nature of your post. Don't play the victim.

When you characterize adult, working, influential, possibly parental, sexists as "manchildren" you are reducing the effect they can have on people around them. A persons chosen hobby or way of presenting themselves might make it easy to call them a "manchild" but it doesn't lessen the impact of their actions. When you equate an adults actions with that of a child you are dampening them, making them more acceptable in much the same way we have a higher tolerance for stupidity or tantrums in young children, because they simply don't know any better. Many of these "manchildren" are managers, older siblings, uncles, parents, friends, mentors, and other people of varied "authority" or "importance". They may use their chosen game as an outlet for their childish behavior, but that doesn't mean they are part-time sexists. Those opinions might be more obvious in Azeroth, but they are not so subtle as to not exist in the real world. It can be favoritism in the work place. It can be poor lessons taught to sons and daughters. It doesn't need to be the rape jokes of the online space to still be sexism, and a manchild in an oxford and tie is difficult to tell apart from anybody else.

You are leading this discussion down a hole that isn't all that important. Max mentioned Blizzard, you responded, etc, etc, I brought up World of Warcraft's age demographics, now we seem to be focused on specific games when that is not the issue, its just an example. Rather than wallowing in that mire we should move on and just discuss the issue in a larger gaming sense.

In regards to muting offensive players. You're right, people should mute them, because it shuts them down, but thats not solving the root of the problem, thats a bandaid. In most cases its all anyone can do, so they should do it, but telling people to just mute harassment is the exact same as telling people to ignore street harassment. If offensive voice chat becomes a non-issue when muted then women walking down the street listening to music shouldn't worry about being harassed, right? It doesn't address the actual problem, it just squelches it for the time being. And believe me, I've been playing online video games since you were a very young child, this issue has always been around and it hasn't gone away, even with mutes.

The only reasonable thing to do is to accept that sexism and harassment are an issue in the gaming community and try to solve it, rather than sticking our heads in the sand or simply assuming that its an issue of a minority group that will simply grow out of it. I think one of the issues with a lot of the criticism from feminists authors and bloggers is that they focus on the idea of games creating sexism. I dont believe that games create sexists in the same way I don't believe that games breed violence. But they sometimes provide a space to reinforce negative gender stereotypes and given the fairly anonymous nature of many online games and game forums they can often become a space for the already prejudiced to speak their backwards minds. A lot of the critics seem to miss this piece, that games often provide an anonymous outlet for sexists, rather than turning people into sexists.

By the next time I check this I'm sure this conversation will have gone in a different direction, so I will leave it at this, for anyone who is overly concerned about the whole sexism in games thing. Games have weathered storms like this before, and they have never gotten worse. Whether you believe the social justice movements are going to make games worse, or if you think they will make games better, just know that these kinds of things have happened before. I've been at this for a very long time now, its been more than 20 years since I played my first game, and I've seen outrage over violence, religious imagery, drugs, sex, you name it. There are more games available now than there ever were when I was young, and many of them are better than most things I played when I was young. A conversation and a bit of internet criticism about the nature of sexism or gender bias in games, the game industry, and the gaming community is absolutely not going to make anything worse. Jesus Christ when I was a child there were congressional hearings about Mortal Kombat, before I even knew what that meant. There is no reason to get so frustrated or outraged over criticism of gaming. Theres been a lot of criticism over the years, and I'm still happily playing games of all types, and will be for years to come.

[Maxine MagicFox]

^_^ And yet, as I have stated at the VERY beginning of this that 14+ years ago things were SO MUCH worse.

Considering that we have seen so much progress you think people should shut up now and just turn a blind eye because you think the situation cannot be improved upon?

I'm glad that the rest of the world is not so convinced as you, garrett, that it cannot change. Because I have seen the change. I can't wait to see how things are in 14 more years.

People do listen and even if they don't, I will continue to scream out the things that I do not find morally acceptable because I simply cannot be the type of person that just walks away. Perhaps it's fine for you garrett because you are male. If you had to endure a night of having your best net buddy of several months go "SERIOUSLY?! YOU'RE FEMALE?!" and people insisting that you cannot possibly be what you claim, you may feel quite different. While amusing it's so pathetically degrading. Enough that I remember that night 10+ years later.

It doesn't affect you so why should you care to raise your voice against it, huh? I'm glad others do not feel that way.

So, as I said in my first initial post: rage on, sexism haters, rage on.

[Trifkin]

Garrett, most of the sexists I first became aware of as a teenager and young adult were nice old men and mean old women, so do please stop dismissing the sexism thing as "just a high schooler and man child issue."

[Fluffernuff]

sexism, racism, religi.....sm?, and every other "ism" is a human issue.

[zamisk]

You get an opinion, but you shouldn't keep arguing it if several other people have rational arguments against it and you can't defend your position to their liking.

[Trifkin]

No one has pulled the You're A Man card or said you couldn't have an opinion.

[Maxine MagicFox]

[Fluffernuff]

I must apologize to you, Maxine. I misinterpreted your first message as something different, and i feel partly to blame for this to have even started.
I read your message as someone saying the community/industry has degraded into sexism, rather than what you actually said.

As for my stance on the matter, i agree on every point that Starfe said. though, our experiences on the matter are quite different.

[Maxine MagicFox]

Not at all. That's fine. Perhaps it's my fault for not making myself clearer. I'm both pleased and partly worried about my few sentences and random comment having escalated into this. Didn't mean to alienate anyone.

Let me explain myself a bit better hoping that maybe what I intended to come through will do so a bit better.

The gaming industry is not perfect, probably never will be. I can understand people raging over the latest endemic of sexism-hate because I do feel the comments are starting to become overly stated and the discussion in general is wearing thin.

However as a female who has seen who sexism has evolved, for the better, over the last 10+ years, it is pleasing to see that it is an issue at all. I have seen the community make great strides towards the better and I would like to see it continue to do so, even at the risk of beating the topic into the ground. Because honestly, I'm impressed to see it become a topic that has become so over exasperated. It means that people care. A lot of people. And they will not be silenced easily and/or feel the community has become good enough.

[Trifkin]

I hope I didn't come off as aggressive or annoyed in my posts. I just thought it was important enough to keep discussing it in a civil manner, even if we don't all agree.

[Archaic Sage]

Sleeeeep! I need more of it. I've not quite figured out this thing whereby getting up 2 hours earlier means I probably should go to bed 2 hours earlier.

::yawn::

[zamisk]

[noodles]

sometimes you really gotta use the bathroom, but the toilet is so clogged with shit that it's not even worth it. thats how this thread seems sometimes

anyway. im basically dead because work+school. but i definitely know more japanese and piano than i did when i was alive

[Maxine MagicFox]

-_- noodles, was the nasty comment plus imagery really necessary? do you feel better for saying that and turning a poor situation that has appropriately moved on into a nastier one? And at least the parties involved added something meaningful to correct the situation. I'm not even sure what your comment was designed to do other than foster bad feelings and a negative atmosphere.

So I'm going to throw your unnecessary imagery and comment back at you: sometimes there's always a plumber who just has to show his butt crack.