Slashdot Mirror
The Daily Harassment of Women In the Game Industry
An anonymous reader writes: Brianna Wu, leader of a game development studio, has an article exposing the constant harassment of women in the games industry. She says, "I'm not writing this piece to evoke your sympathy. I'm writing to share with you what prominent, successful women in the industry experience, in their own words." She goes through the individual stories of several women targeted by this vitriol, and tries to figure out why it happens. Quoting: "We live in a society that's sexist in ways it doesn't understand. One of the consequences is that men are extremely sensitive to being criticized by women. ... This is why women are socialized to carefully dance around these issues, disagreeing with men in an extremely gentle manner. Not because women are nicer creatures than men. But because our very survival can depend on it. ... Growing a thicker skin isn't the answer, nor is it a proper response. Listening, and making the industry safer for the existence of visible women is the best, and only, way forward."
She's not talking about comments like "nice ass" as much as she's talking about comments like "die, you fucking cunt!"
I invite you to visit any developer's forum. Particularly for multiplayer games that get frequent patching.
Then tell me that they don't face harassment, irregardless of gender. People pick on whatever sticks out. Is the developer Russian? Russian insults. Are they of Chinese descent, and he comments? Expect some variation of "ching chong chow chee ho lee fuk sum ting wong chang chong ching wang chinky chong" in response.
If it's women, they get picked on for being women.
I'm a little segfault, short and stout.
I'll admit I was a little relieved after actually reading the article. I assumed it was talking about harassment of male game developers towards female coworkers, which would have really surprised me. I've worked in the industry for over fifteen years, and I've never even heard of any sort of sexism toward the women that were employed alongside me. It simply wouldn't have been tolerated at the places I've worked, so far as I know, and that's a good thing. While the programming department was, of course, largely male, the other departments (art, design, writing, production) were more evenly split. Everyone I've known has valued talent and hard work, and gender was pretty much an afterthought, at least so far as I could tell. Then again, I'm a guy, so I'm probably not quite as attuned to that sort of thing.
In fact, the article seems to be mostly about women (largely in the gaming press) interacting with the still-all-too-ugly disposition of the anonymous hoards of gaming fans that interact with them. That made a bit more sense to me, unfortunately, as such women are by nature already public figures, and will probably attract a lot more bile. Let's face it. People on the internet, including (especially?) gamers, are not only sexist, they're racist, homophobic, and unbelievably cruel at time. I care a lot about the gaming culture and community, and it pains me to admit this. There's a shocking disconnect between what would be acceptable in real life versus what's said online. I'd imagine very few of those idiots would ever have the courage to say those things to someone's face.
The only way to deal with this is absolute zero tolerance policies, at least on forums (literal or otherwise) that you have any control over. There's simply no excuse for this sort of behavior. The internet could really stand to collectively grow up a little, and realize that being anonymous shouldn't give you a free license to be an asshat. Frankly, I don't think that "normal" people turn into foul-mouth talking assholes when online and anonymous. My feeling is that they were assholes to begin with, but just didn't have the courage to say those things to anyone's face. These folks are not going to go away, I'm sorry to say. It would be nice if human nature could evolve a bit. But that doesn't mean anyone has to put up with this sort of shit any more than necessary. I'm also sorry to say that as a man, I'm pretty sure I'll never understand how a woman feels when she goes through something like this, and it makes me angry that so many would have to.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Well, it's a logical fallacy, called Poisoning the Well. You discredit what a person might say later by misrepresenting them now. You calmly and rationally tell them that it's a logical fallacy, and that's how you defend it.
I remember in the old days of debating on the internet logical fallacies were referenced a lot. I remember Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit getting a lot of hits when arguments got emotional. It doesn't happen so much anymore, because there's a large influx of people making highly emotive arguments but without much discipline in reasoned arguments. They may make valid points, but when they don't you should point out the logical fallacies in their reasoning. We're all prone to logical fallacies, so it's healthy for debate overall.
She's not talking about comments like "nice ass" as much as she's talking about comments like "die, you fucking cunt!"
Why is this moderated troll?
The very first paragraph of the article says she got a death threat and that they know where she lives. Do people even read the articles before moderating anymore?
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
It's sexist statements like this that cause a lack of sympathy in the first place:
One of the consequences is that men are extremely sensitive to being criticized by women
This is something that is simply not true of all men so why make statements like that? Do you really expect people to actively defend your cause if you are openly hostile to them just because of they are of the same gender as the people you have a problem with? That's a terrible start to conflict resolution.
You realize that there's more difference between your average man and your average woman than between your average NFL linebacker and your average man, right? (seriously, compare the stats some time - height, average bench strength, etc). You do realize how commonly women are raped and abused by men, and how they might happen to be more sensitive to the implicit or explicit threats of violence from someone that they're highly unlikely to be able to fight off?
I'm tall, 182 centimeters, and I still once had a guy literally pick me up and carry me back to his apartment when I tried to walk away from him.
People said I was dumb, but I proved them.
So *what* how they phrase it?
If you were Black Man who doesn't know perl, the crowd answer would be "dumb nigger".
People are assholes. They'll just pick on whatever is different about you.
I'm a little segfault, short and stout.
As a straight male, I've been called Noob, loser, moron, fag (though it doesn't apply), n*gga (though it doesn't apply), whatever.
As much as I hate internet tracking, something I wish it was a little better in terms of these losers. Maybe if the game corps could better track the useless trolls and accept feedback then things would clean up.
DOTA2 had a $10m tournament this year. It's big news. Yet the only real categories they have for reporting are the broad "communication abuse" and then feeding/etc. Maybe if had better ways of identifying (and warning/enforcing) the racist, sexist pricks we could clean some of this crap up. Steam and Origin capture most of the non-console game market, so getting a perma-ban from multiplayer on both platforms (not just the game, but the whole thing) would go a long away to showing that this shit isn't acceptable.
It's actually really easy to check this out, because you can use whatever name you want on the Internet.
Someone decided to prove that women were just whining, recently.
What happened? He lasted two hours. Then he deleted the account, because he couldn't take it. The women I've talked to report that what he encountered is normal for them.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
... one in every four women actually will be raped in their life ...
citation needed.
Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, Never drive a car when you're dead
And just to make clear, the problem of insulting people isn't along the lines of "ching chong chow chee" or whatnot. The problem case is along the lines of: Scenario 1: Man: "What does that do? Sorry, I don't know perl." Crowd: "You don't know perl? Geez, you're stupid." Scenario 2: Woman: "What does that do? Sorry, I don't know perl." Crowd: "Geez, women are stupid."
No, you're wrong, you didn't even read the article (should I say you are stupid?). Specific examples from the article, if you'd like to read it:
"Only 1 out of 5 is hot, and that is Jessica. The rest need to be in the kitchen."
"I have a guy who’s writing fan fiction starring me and him. It’s a pornographic fanfic, and he's on chapter 6. He anonymously submits chapters through my website"
"Rape fantasies and pictures of dead children were coming faster than I could block individual users."
That is the kind of thing we are dealing with.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
My daughter and I were talking about how much personally directed sexual violence geek girls must endure. She was talking about the obsessive personally detailed threats Anita Sarkeesian creator of Feminist Frequency endures from the male geek community on a continual basis. Some of these are threats include her personal details needed to carry them out. This is really scary stuff.
We were talking about this and she casually let drop:
"I received my first rape threat in a forum when I was eleven"
She casually went on:
"Eleven is the age when geek girls first start discovering the Internet and make their first posts. They comment on a game about some small feature they don't like. Some guy will flame them with a rape threat"
This is very shocking for a dad to hear his daughter say. "My eleven year old little girl!" She is twice as old now. But her saying it so casually is deeply disturbing.
My daughter has assimilated it. She has grown a "thick skin". I think she enjoys giving back as good as she gets. But not the violent rape stuff.
It is very sad that the male geek culture permits such abuse to go on.
We MEN need to start talking about this. We MEN need to ostracize the men who threaten rape.
* It is never funny.
* It is not "just a joke".
* It is not harmless.
It is really scary for geek girls because there is always a risk that it might be real. There are unbalanced men out there after all.
How do I change this? I start by writing about it. I talk with other people. I try to get MEN to understand the problem and see how scary it is for women.
A certain part of what he said ( not all) does ring true to a lot of us (male devs).. if you've worked on games, and I've only worked on open source games. Then you've gotten hate mail. People say the rudest most hurtful things they can think of and target you. The first time it happened to me, I was angry, humiliated, stomped around the room.. it was awful. Then it happened again, and again.
personally I would put the pornographic fanfic in a different category as the rest of the insults in the article simply because it didn't sound like it was someone just trying to insult the person. It just sounded creepy. I had a girl when I was in my twenties, whom I told that I wasn't interested in her that way call me repeatedly and just breath into the phone when I answered.. that was creepy. Being a guy didn't make me feel better about it either, I didn't know if she would try to cut my brake lines in my car, or burn my house down with me in it. It sucked.
All of the things mentioned in the article are truly lame, and should never happen to anyone , but I don't see them as sexist per se. It's more just about how shitty the world is. Sexism, seems more about inequality. Women getting lesser pay, having less opportunity in the work place. That is something everyone can agree on. But if you just want to claim that all shitty things that happen to women are due to sexism, then everyone else is going to start thinking about all the shitty things that happen to them, and wonder why your shitty things should garner more special attention than any one else's. It sucks to have people single you out for insults, but it sucks worse when it's someone keeping you from getting a job, or a pay raise, or not allowing you to drive, or vote, or wear pants. That's sexism.
once more into the breach
Freedom of speech.
Irrelevant in this context.
The first amendment protects you and me from the government. It does not protect you and me from each other.
If a private enterprise (DOTA2, Steam, Origin, whatever) wishes to curtail expression within their own domain, they're perfectly entitled to do so. There are valid exceptions to free-speech protections (e.g., restaurants can't refuse service based or race or sexual orientation of patrons) but none apply to the current discussion.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Half the time I don't think they even read the summary.
In all fairness, not reading the summary can only INCREASE your understanding of the article.
Ah yes, the old "sometimes a white man gets shit so sexism and racism doesn't exist" argument. You do know that's an unsound argument, right?
You do know that's not what the poster was saying at all, right? You do know that strawmaning is an unsound argument, right?
You continually repeat that white men don't deal with these issues. Then when a white man comes out a says "well actually I do have to deal with those issues" you insult them and say they're implying racism/sexism doesn't exit.
Congrats on exemplifying exactly why the parent poster is so fed up with you idiots.