Do Gamers Need Sarkeesian's Feminism?

[Plu]

Would the backlash I get in gender threads be different if I was a male? Would it be less vicious? Probably.
How would the forum react to my opinions -related to anything, doesn't matter- which are labeled as 'extreme and radical' here if I was a male? Would it be the same? Most people would just ignore me.

While a large part of it is also in choice of words and the like, you're probably right. I often agree with you (including right now) but nobody ever gives me any shit. Most people don't even really respond. Don't know if it's gender related, but still.

Going into some random tangents because it just so happens this issue has been playing in my mind for a few days.

After having been on OkCupid for a few weeks along with my girlfriend, it has shown me some interesting things in the interaction. At first I was a bit jealous that she could get effortlessly generate dozens of visitors per day and multiple messages per day, but then I started to realise that most of the people there just spam everything with a pretty picture with inane comments up to the point of desperation.
On the other hand, most guys don't even get any responses, probably because most women have a hard enough time filtering through all the crap in their inbox to have any time left for anything.

Or maybe not. Can't be sure; maybe it is just her being awesome and me being boring that's causing it ;) But something tells me that the way women are treated, even on a dating site, isn't particularly pleasant.

Also heard through coincidence today that a friend of mine also seems to suffer from a lot of these negative comments at work. She works at a DIY-store and apparantly suffers quite a bit of sexism there. She has to fight her boss to get the physical jobs instead of the cleaning and still has guys making various remarks to her about them "taking her home and having some fun". Not the kind of shit anyone should be subjected to.

But I guess it goes even deeper than that, because even when I see and understand the issue, I still catch myself applying these kind of judgements automatically. It really is in how we are raised, and even when you're aware of what you're doing it's hard to stop. Even when I'm just trying to make friends, I catch myself subconsciously judging women by their looks or other irrelevant traits far more than I should, and I have to actively resist that kind of judgement in to order to not treat them unfairly.

It's harder than you think to judge someone as a person first and a woman second. Even when you realise you're doing it. And most people don't. I don't like calling myself a feminist because it's a stupid term, but I can get behind their values, and there's a lot of cultural crap still floating around that really needs to go, but most people don't even care or realise that they're part of it.

And yeah. I'm saying the exact same thing drunkenshoe is. So let's see the difference in treatment. There shouldn't be any, but I'm guessing even with me calling people out on it, there will be.

[SilentFutility]

Of course, this attitude is to be expected from you: "I disagree so everything you wrote is floating bullshit and not a real opinion". If it really were a "bad quality opinion" whatever your made-up definition of that might be, it should be easy to counter, yet you don't counter it, you tell me what I think instead of what I've written because that's easier to argue against, then counter that and dismiss it as bullshit.

Do you want me to quote your posts sentence by sentence? And your 'points' made in them as opposed to mine? All you babbled is that

-anonymity of the internet is the cause of the trash talk, but it is just that nothing more, so there is no problem at all.
-and knuckledragger is the same insult with bitch, if don't agree with this, I surely must be thinking insulting a male is less important than insulting a female.

The rest is getting back to 'drunkenshoe'.

[You are giving strong emotional reactions to my posts SF. So much, posts that you could write in a rational manner gets derailed by this. I get that you don't like me, but I don't get why you act as if you are constantly mad at me for some specific reason. (Don't say 'I am not' for fucks sake.) Write me a pm, pour every cuss and curse, insult into it or make a 'drunkenshoe' dart, whatever you do, get it over with so we can have conversation, because any other way haven't worked yet. I am NOT your enemy.]

Again, "your post is babble" without a refutation of it.

So far I'm the only person in this entire thread who has actually suggested a practical solution to the problem, one which would actually work as well, so by what metric am I babbling? Please, enlighten me. Let me guess, you can't.

Please show me where I'm "getting back" to you, what I've said that is in any way vengeful or mean, show me exactly where I got emotional, exactly where I indictated that I hate you, exactly where I suggested I was mad at you. It is all in your head. I cannot say anything that doesn't 100% agree with what you think without you thinking I hate you. Protip: responding to a point you've made by offering a counter point isn't "getting back" at someone, it is having a discussion like a grown up human being, something which you've stated several times is what you want.

I am actually attempting to have a conversation, I have responded to everything you've written, I haven't used insults nor dismissed what you've written without addressing it, and it is you who is not extending me the same courtesy so maybe you should consider that it is you who has irrational feelings of hatred. If I'd made a sock puppet and joined the thread and posted the exact same posts you'd likely at least attempt to talk to me like a human being because you wouldn't know it was me.

And yeah. I'm saying the exact same thing drunkenshoe is. So let's see the difference in treatment. There shouldn't be any, but I'm guessing even with me calling people out on it, there will be.

I challenge you or anyone else to show where in this thread I've treated her any differently on account of her being a woman. Maybe other posters have, but I cannot speak for them. Conversely, I am accused of emotional babbling for floating out my bad quality, bullshit opinion simply for having a differing opinion.

Who is recieving a backlash for sharing their views exactly? In any case, it certainly isn't originating from me.

[Jason78]

I don't think something is wrong with you or what you're doing, Jason. Women are not aware of it when they talk in a sexist language against the male gender either. You probably just don't recognise it between all that rush and fun. Frankly, usually men don't. That is not an insult to you or men.

I get that.  You even referred to the males in this very thread as "boys".  I figured that must have been a slip of the finger.

The difference is though as I keep saying, the language targeted to female gender as an insult usually the default language of insult that there is. Women use it against/for each other too, it s also a learned thing.  (It's in a degree that women become predujiced again all things female and feminine in a way.) There isn't much to say to a het man through his gender the same way, other than words and usage equal to 'dickhead'. Status of being a heterosexual male is not something derog, being a female and feminine, lesbian, homosexual, transgender 'naturally' are, because they are not het male, so less than it. Political correctness and gender or sex revolutions provided some freedom in social behaviour, they didn't 'correct' what has been forced upon societies for thousands of years. This is not an insult to het male, or ignoring what he suffers. This is stating a truth people don't like to hear and pretend that it doesn't exist. No, I don't see it this way just because I live in a more primitive country. Neither the world is that developed anywhere on the planet to create that much of a civilisation gap with where I live, nor people act like some other species, cutout from human culture in general in some other culture they live in. This is a primal issue. And sexism against males are directly related to this.

Bitch, cunt, slut, whore, hoe, twat, skank...etc. Skank has no gender indication, it's 'sleazy and unpleasant person', used for many other things, but it also means a slutty girl. ? Is there a word slut used for a man? Most of the negative and derogatory words we use are 'female' words. If I wanted to use the word 'whore' for a man in any sense, I literally need to put the word 'man' in front of it. (Same in my mother language) Because although there is no gender indication whatsoever in some of them as a word, it's evolved for used for females or from the name of the female genital organ.

I'm not sure that I can agree with you on the point; "the language targeted to female gender as an insult usually the default language of insult that there is".  Again, I don't believe that women are being targeted purely because they are women.  I believe that there is a wide variety of reasons, from skill level to being a poor sportsman.  There may be genuinely misogynistic men out there that truly believe that women have no right to play the same games they do.  But I think that they are a small vocal minority.  I think intent is more important here than the specific language used.

And all these insults are alive and thriving, because human culture is inherently 'against' any none het male gender group and fucks het male over severely the moment he steps out one profile it provides for him. (See, when one group is defined as the one that counts at the top of the food chain, this is the only 'balance' that occurs which has severe consequences for males. You cannot get out of that profile or you are condemned.) Females are prejudiced against their gender and adopted this culture itself.

Why the constant reference to heterosexual males?  Gender based insults are cast by every person on the sexual gamut.

I myself keep my distant and at times feel strong dislike when a female advertises her gender online with a nickname, avatar, style...etc you name it. But if you think about it, what's so wrong with this? It's her gender, she is a female. Nothing is wrong, but I know, because I experienced it countless times that it's going to be manipulative in one way or another. So I don't like it.

That makes me kind of sad.  We need more women in gaming.  It's one of the few arenas where your gender shouldn't count.  The only measure of your worth as a player should be how you play the game.

Would the backlash I get in gender threads be different if I was a male? Would it be less vicious? Probably.
How would the forum react to my opinions -related to anything, doesn't matter- which are labeled as 'extreme and radical' here if I was a male? Would it be the same? Most people would just ignore me.
There are cons and pros of this bullshit situation. And both ends change according to the group of people you interact with, but the norms stand.

I like to think that I would have treated you just the same if you were male.  I'd be no less vicious.  I've specifically replied to your posts due to their content, not the genital configuration of the person that posted them.

[Jason78]

After having been on OkCupid for a few weeks along with my girlfriend, it has shown me some interesting things in the interaction. At first I was a bit jealous that she could get effortlessly generate dozens of visitors per day and multiple messages per day, but then I started to realise that most of the people there just spam everything with a pretty picture with inane comments up to the point of desperation.
On the other hand, most guys don't even get any responses, probably because most women have a hard enough time filtering through all the crap in their inbox to have any time left for anything.

Or maybe not. Can't be sure; maybe it is just her being awesome and me being boring that's causing it ;) But something tells me that the way women are treated, even on a dating site, isn't particularly pleasant.

You know what?  My partner and I have experienced the exact same thing.  Women get hit on almost constantly.  Men don't.  I don't know why, but that's just the way it seems to work.

[Plu]

I have more or less stopped accepting "that's just the way it seems to work" as a valid reason for any kind of human interaction.

[Jason78]

I didn't say it was a valid reason.  What I'm saying is that you and I have had similar experiences.  Maybe that's a common point of reference for us to explore the topic together.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

Oh, Shoe, there you go again using facts to back up your arguments. Don't you know personal experience and dismissive attitudes trump all? [-X

[Plu]

I didn't say it was a valid reason.  What I'm saying is that you and I have had similar experiences.  Maybe that's a common point of reference for us to explore the topic together.

Okay, fair enough.

[Jason78]

I get that.  You even referred to the males in this very thread as "boys".  I figured that must have been a slip of the finger.

That's because I have at least ten years on the oldest one posted in this thread if I am not mistaken and why would you think being called a 'boy' is a negative thing. Because I haven't said 'men'?

If referring to a woman as a girl is derogatory, then by the same token referring to a man as a boy is also.  I believe that it implies that the target is immature.

I figured that you meant to say men.  I didn't think that you intended it as an insult.

In the article I posted there is a clear point made about 'skills' that which I quoted you twice. That research is important because, it's introductory and it is objective.

It is one study involving one game is not definitive!   And yes, I know that my anecdotes aren't evidence either.  

So far, all we really know is that Halo has a large amount of asshats playing it.

Why the constant reference to heterosexual males?  Gender based insults are cast by every person on the sexual gamut.

I explained that in the post. And in others please don't make me write it all over again. :( How is that you are not aware that a great majority of derog slang used as an insult is feminine and as much as females they are used against het males, gays, lesbians, transgender people, any other group. Have you ever seen someone being insulted because he acts like a 'normal' heterosexual male?

The majority of derogatory slang is feminine?  Really?  We've got more words for shit than we have for whore.

I have in fact seen a hetrosexual male referred to as "a breeder", and as "a closet case".

That makes me kind of sad.  We need more women in gaming.  It's one of the few arenas where your gender shouldn't count.  The only measure of your worth as a player should be how you play the game.

It was far worse, Jason. Now it is much better. I am old enough to remember the times when you never told you were a girl and memorise the male jargon not be found out. And this is not a joke or a exaggeration.

Exactly how old do you think I am? :D

I like to think that I would have treated you just the same if you were male.  I'd be no less vicious.  I've specifically replied to your posts due to their content, not the genital configuration of the person that posted them.

You know that is impossible, right? I mean seeing each other genderless. We can't do that.

If I was a male you wouldn't even respond to this thread in this length.

There's a reason I've been replying to your posts in length.

Eh, either address my posts and the points I make properly or fuck off, stop quoting some sentences to write one liners.

Would you look at that!  It's got nothing to do with your gender.

[SilentFutility]

There seems to be some sort of inference that I think that there is no sexism in gaming whatsoever, which I've actually never said. Also, the claim that my view is that there is no problem at all, which is also rather intellectually dishonest given that I've identified what I think the problem is and a potential solution.

Yes, there are mysoginistic dumb fucks that play video games, there are also retarded 12 year olds on call of duty who just learned the word "nigger", there are "hardcore" gamers who bitch about everything and so on. Congratulations, you just realised that the world is full of stupid fucks.
There is also a mute button for this precise reason, making all of this easily avoidable. If gamers felt that this wasn't enough, they could campaign for greater accountability for people's online behaviour.

The problem is that the world is full of stupid assholes, and they have ample opportunity to be themselves on the internet, sometimes this takes the form of mysogyny. That still does not make stopping assholes from being assholes a feminist issue.

Suggesting a solution to the actual problem that would almost definitely work whilst staying on topic is literally what I've been doing in every post ITT. Doing so does not make me dismissive, babbling, gender-biased, angry at anyone, out for revenge, or any of the other quite frankly ridiculous ad hominems stated ITT.

[Jason78]

And so Eskimos have hundreds for snow and Latinos for heroin and marihuana. Yes, majority of derog slang is feminine. And it works for males and females and all other groups. Closet case and shit are very bad examples. Mine was better; dickhead. Also pig is used but then no gender. Asshole has no gender. In my mother language there are more masculine natured insults I guess. Just a guess though. My English is not really good.  

I cannot insult a het male with having too much sex, being 'loose'. I cannot insult a het male with being a coward with a neutral insult other than coward which is not slang. Try to correspond to whore, bitch, slut, pussy, cunt, twat, skank...etc with neutral or masculine insults which are slang and used daily. You'll find very few. ('Prick' is not used in your country in like American meaning don't try that)

Breeder. Hmmm. May be. But again how much weight it has? Is it common?

How old are you and what's the reason you have been responding to my posts in length?

I said 'fuck off' because I was pissed off at the way you respond to me. 'Fuck off' is pretty neutral I guess, no?

E: I thought you wrote the last two lines separately,lol. And I was thinking what does he mean. Anyway, I complained about your short posts before. You didn't even hear.

You must have a breathtaking amount of arrogance to sit there and tell me what words are used in my country and which aren't!

[Hijiri Byakuren]

And so Eskimos have hundreds for snow and Latinos for heroin and marihuana. Yes, majority of derog slang is feminine. And it works for males and females and all other groups. Closet case and shit are very bad examples. Mine was better; dickhead. Also pig is used but then no gender. Asshole has no gender. In my mother language there are more masculine natured insults I guess. Just a guess though. My English is not really good.  

I cannot insult a het male with having too much sex, being 'loose'. I cannot insult a het male with being a coward with a neutral insult other than coward which is not slang. Try to correspond to whore, bitch, slut, pussy, cunt, twat, skank...etc with neutral or masculine insults which are slang and used daily. You'll find very few. ('Prick' is not used in your country in like American meaning don't try that)

Breeder. Hmmm. May be. But again how much weight it has? Is it common?

How old are you and what's the reason you have been responding to my posts in length?

I said 'fuck off' because I was pissed off at the way you respond to me. 'Fuck off' is pretty neutral I guess, no?

E: I thought you wrote the last two lines separately,lol. And I was thinking what does he mean. Anyway, I complained about your short posts before. You didn't even hear.

You must have a breathtaking amount of arrogance to sit there and tell me what words are used in my country and which aren't!

Or just more knowledge of the English language than yourself.

If you don't have an actual argument, don't presume to speak for those of us whose experience isn't contradicted by facts.

[Hopist]

I am from the UK and I have often heard the word prick used as an insult, probably more than used to mean jab with a small sharp object.

Mainstream US and UK culture have a lot of similarities, I think this is one, I really think it is quite common.

[SilentFutility]

There seems to be some sort of inference that I think that there is no sexism in gaming whatsoever, which I've actually never said. Also, the claim that my view is that there is no problem at all, which is also rather intellectually dishonest given that I've identified what I think the problem is and a potential solution.

Yes, there are mysoginistic dumb fucks that play video games, there are also retarded 12 year olds on call of duty who just learned the word "nigger", there are "hardcore" gamers who bitch about everything and so on. Congratulations, you just realised that the world is full of stupid fucks.
There is also a mute button for this precise reason, making all of this easily avoidable. If gamers felt that this wasn't enough, they could campaign for greater accountability for people's online behaviour.

The problem is that the world is full of stupid assholes, and they have ample opportunity to be themselves on the internet, sometimes this takes the form of mysogyny. That still does not make stopping assholes from being assholes a feminist issue.

Suggesting a solution to the actual problem that would almost definitely work whilst staying on topic is literally what I've been doing in every post ITT. Doing so does not make me dismissive, babbling, gender-biased, angry at anyone, out for revenge, or any of the other quite frankly ridiculous ad hominems stated ITT.

Apparently they started to realise that there is a gender specific problem and it is not just "Congratulations, you just realised that the world is full of stupid fucks."

This experiment is done by a lab. (Imagine the findings on a ground where people don't know they are observed and playing their own comfort of safety of their homes where they feel the most free and themselves.) It also emphasizes that the gaming skills (which is directly related to being hardcore or just a time to time simple gamer) has no correlation with these comments.

Do you also need every line quoted from the article one by one or you'll just read it yourself and THEN babble the same things you already did, adding how your personal experiences are different?

Read what I've written again, very, very carefully.

I've read the article. I've said that yes, there is mysogyny in gaming (agreeing with the findings of the article), and while this is true, it will be solved by my proposed solution, not online feminist youtube videos.

If you'd read ANY of my posts in this thread properly, you'd have realised that at no point have I challenged the findings of that article. Find one quote where I did. Yet, you then condescendingly infer that I'm too stupid to read and need specific points of it bolded. It is you who is incapable of reading.

You claim made-up shit about what I'm saying and thinking ALL the time. I didn't share my personal experiences in that post either but you made that up too.

Well done for repeatedly dismissing all of my posts as babble without reading them properly, and for putting words in my mouth that you have no evidence of. You've spent this entire thread claiming I've said things which I haven't and attacking those. It is intellectually dishonest in the extreme.

You are actually incapable of talking to me like a human being.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

None of you stupid, immature fucks

#-o

Okay, this is where you and I part ways on this topic...