I truly believe there are people who live to be offended and those that live to offend. In my opinion neither one should get away with it.
Having worked in male-centric careers most of my life, military and corrections, I could not disagree more with the rare women comments. To say 1 to 10 is the ratio would be generous in both cases. I would rather say that most of the women I work with are so empowered they DEMAND respect and are assertive about securing equality. Most them even recognize that the difference of the sexes exist and each has their strong points. Most of the guys I work with are not toned out and indeed step hard to those that think the women I've worked with are weaker or made for derision. I would even say that in both cases management was the driving force behind the equality not the employees. If it exists in the gaming industry then be a force for change, don't allow for defeat and if the managers won't back your play find a lawyer who would love to. The average guy I work(ed) with has a HS diploma and might possess a few credits of junior college. It doesn't take learning to make a respectful male it takes training.
Over the 20 years of gaming I've gamed with women and girls regularly in home games, con-games and society style play. A few of them have been inappropriate and some of the guys have been inappropriate. Poor behavior is a personality trait, not a trait of the sexes. One of the most awkward moments at my table was between two guys; one play was excited to beat the BBEG and wanted high fives, the other guy was distracted and missed the high five. Guy 1 high fived guy 2's forehead in his boisterousness. Stunned silence surrounded the table and those two players have stayed in their separate groups since. We even had a girl who thought inner wear was outer wear. We lost two players due to her dress mode; the religious guy who was offended and her because we asked her to tone down the dress. She refused and he didn't want to have breasts thrown in his face (IDK either!?) so he stopped attending and she got upset with us for our request of the middle ground of appropriate dress.
I truly believe there are people who live to be offended and those that live to offend. In my opinion neither one should get away with it.
Ten star post, every last word of it. Says what I have been trying to say a bit more eloquently. You beat the DC my friend. Add XP, level yourself up Weaponbreaker.
Chief Technical Officer
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Jessica, I really wanted to comment on this post of yours, specifically, the 2nd paragraph. You jump right from "the game industry caters to straight men" (which I'd say is true because that is their customer base and any industry needs to please its customer base) to "It's enthusiastically, defiantly, and often militantly misogynistic," which I disagree with. Do you feel those 2 things are identical or equivalent, or that one must follow the other? It certainly seems so, as you went from one to the next as though it were the same thing. They very definitely are NOT the same thing.I'm really not interested in arguing about whether men are on the receiving end of sexism outside of the game industry. As I noted in my post, I think there are ways that our society is sexist against men.
But you know what isn't sexist against men? The game industry. I'm hard-pressed to think of an industry that caters more to straight men. It's enthusiastically, defiantly, and often militantly misogynistic. Which is what this thread is about. I did an interview about what it's like to be a woman in the game industry, which currently is an experience that includes, for most of us (at least most of us who have worked at large game companies): harassment, dismissal, gender policing, outright objectification, and so on. And the person who started this thread asked how to make women feel more comfortable in game environments.
That is what this thread is about. If you want to talk about how hard white men have it, go somewhere else and do it, because you are way off topic.
And many of you are helping me win Derailment Bingo. I hate winning Derailment Bingo.
After reading the interview linked in the original post, I feel pretty strongly that a distinction needs to be made regarding the term "gaming industry." Jessica's horror stories come from the videogame industry, which I have relatively little knowledge of, and they detail pretty terrible things that I've not heard of in the business side of the hobby game industry—or at least, not in the last decade or so. Certainly, in that time I have heard about a small number of unpleasant incidents, but I feel pretty confident that the majority of companies in our industry aren't places where women "go to work ... feeling like [they're] headed into hostile territory." Whether that's how it is in the videogame industry or not, I think it's pretty unfair to paint hobby industry businesses with that same brush, even if Paizo is called out as an exception.
I alternate playing female/male and race for my characters...
I like playing female characters because it adds some variety to my game.
When I start to construct my female character I look up a historical figure for inspiration.
The benefit of this is I get some education in women's history. I also pick a female movie role that I found interesting and look at a country or culture from the past to see what life was like for a woman of that period.
So for Curse of the Crimson Throne I chose Coco Channel, Glenn Close's character from Dangerous Liaisons and the Aristocrats that fled Revolutionary France.
I used the above to draw elements from to form my character. My character was a 35 year old Galtian noble woman who had fled Galt with her daughter after her husband and sons were killed.
She was making her way by designing haute couture and perfumes. She had no desire to remarry but wanted to obtain noble rank in Korvosa. She was willing to do underhanded things to get ahead, but not to kill unless it was in self-defence. She made a pact with a power that wanted to stop the Big Bad and became a witch.
Her highest skills were Alchemy and profession fashion designer. She was one of the most fun, interesting and effective characters I have ever played.
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The topic is sexism in gaming and how you reduce it. Privilege is an artifact of any kind of institutionalized discrimination, in this case, institutionalized sexism.
If I cannot question a concept that I do not think is valid then my only option is to ignore it. This may make subsequent responses rather odd. If you would, try to use different terminology in your response, or something narrower in scope.
Why is there sexism in Gaming?
Because its male dominated. We*'re sexist as hell.
Why is it male dominated?
A large list of reasons, one if which is the sexism.
When you have a game made by guys for guys you get a lot of fantasy fulfillment: and I don't just mean being the hero and slaying the dragon. An entire world created by guys for guys the fights are just hard enough to get your blood churning but you always win, all your problems can be solved with violence, the beer flows freely, and the barmaids are easy... because that's what guys want*. Easy barmaids, scantily clad princesses, and bikini mail wearing warrior maidens got written into the fabric of the game.
Not every guy likes this mind you (i'm one of the odder examples), but enough that your chances of putting together a gaming group without a plurality that minds is pretty slim. A guy taking offense to it is almost a non issue: most guys seem to like it , most of those that don't don't mind, and most if not all of that tiny minority that do mind don't seem to see the need to speak up.
Now for this there's a few responses. One can try telling the guys that what they're doing is inherently badwrongfun: that their activities are inherently wrong regardless of who's present. That the way they interact with each other is wrong, and they will conform to the proper ways of interaction (ie, hers)
I don't think there's a good argument for that (because whatever story people want to collectively write is no business but theirs), but I KNOW that that approach is just going to raise hackles and result in more exclusion.
One can just go along with things as they are, which I don't think would be a happy situation for long.
Or you can try to reach some kind of accommodation between what the rest of the group wants and what you want, the same way anyone else would. This is a very tricky balancing act and I'm sorry, but its going to lean heavily male in most groups simply because there are more guys there. That's the same way any other group decides what it social mores are going to be.
Women are not the undiscovered country, dude.
Maybe you have them mapped out but I keep getting lost...
Probably because I wont' pull over for directions.
When you have a game made by guys for guys you get a lot of fantasy fulfillment: [...] scantily clad princesses, and bikini mail wearing warrior maidens got written into the fabric of the game.
And, here is an interesting point: women need not be "adversaries" on this point. (This goes to the point that women don't normally speak with a unified voice.)
It became a problem when female gamers were/are not treated with the same respect that you would give any male gamers. (Yes, a "gamer girl" is different, but she is also the same.)
From a writing/publishing perspective, a modified Bechdel test is still useful.
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Alright, can points #2 and #3 be better adapted to the gaming table?1. Does the adventure have at least two named, reasonably important female NPCs? (i.e. someone with as much a presence as Sheila Heidmarch, Ameiko Kaijitsu...)
2. Would the two female NPCs have reason to talk to each other (potentially off-screen)?
3. Is that reason unrelated to a man (including the PCs)?
I really like the idea of NPCs having offscreen lives! A slightly different approach, however, could be to ask whether there are
1) at least 2 named female NPCs2) for whom interacting with them advances the plot in a meaningful way
3) and who are neither romantic interests nor people in need of rescue.
BNW don't get me wrong... You are a stand up guy and probably the first person to call somebody out if they were being sexist.
I know you are searching for understanding and trying to share your experience and point out you are empathetic to the situation.
But you are in too deep, and you are getting repetitive, take a break from the thread and do some processing.
Oh, I really like that one, Judy! Although it disqualifies a number of Paizo AP chapters I believe... ;)
Certainly, a combination of increased character depth and diversity of women's roles in adventures would be the ideal end point.
True, but changing the past is often more difficult then setting a new course. :)
I think what is not being articulated well enough when a male poster shares an anecdote it's not my pain is bigger than yours... It's I have experienced something similar and I am sharing it with you, in order to both express empathy and understand what you are saying in relation to their own experience.
So it may not be intentional derailing but an attempt to establish common ground. Instead of dismissing the shared anecdote use it t.... Use it to communicate what your experience is so they can relate it to themselves and act on it.
Common experience = common understanding
"Yes it's like that but it was all of the time"
I got two questions on this topic.
1) Compliments. From time to time after I get a haircut, or shave, or let my beard grow out I get compliments from women. So with women I know I naturaly will compliment them on a new haircut, etc. Of course I generally only do this for women I know. My question is why are they complimenting me? And is offensive to compliment them back?
2)
1. Never compliment somebody on how they look in the workplace... When I have be asked "how do I look" I say to my colleague "confident and ready for this meeting or interview"... If pushed I say I don't feel its appropriate to comment on appearance in the work place.
As I said normaly I don't. When I am at work I believe in a total professional attitude. But on the other hand if somebody pays you a compliment...which I do believe to be mostly done as a sign of goodwill and kindness it is polite to return it. And I don neccessarily mean a about appearence either.
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John Kretzer, the difference between compliments and objectification is generally pretty obvious. For example, saying "nice haircut!" to your friend is in a totally different ballpark to saying "nice ass, sexy!" to a woman who walked down the street from you.
Good rule of thumb: if you don't know whether someone (either a woman or a man) would react to you talking about their appearance, then it's probably best that you avoid doing so until you can get a feel for what they're okay with. This kind of applies to just about everything that is potentially sensitive (politics, religion, sexuality, etc.)
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I got two questions on this topic.
1) Compliments. From time to time after I get a haircut, or shave, or let my beard grow out I get compliments from women. So with women I know I naturaly will compliment them on a new haircut, etc. Of course I generally only do this for women I know. My question is why are they complimenting me? And is offensive to compliment them back?
2)
1. Never compliment somebody on how they look in the workplace... When I have be asked "how do I look" I say to my colleague "confident and ready for this meeting or interview"... If pushed I say I don't feel its appropriate to comment on appearance in the work place.
As I said normaly I don't. When I am at work I believe in a total professional attitude. But on the other hand if somebody pays you a compliment...which I do believe to be mostly done as a sign of goodwill and kindness it is polite to return it. And I don neccessarily mean a about appearence either.
When I shave my beard off for summer, my colleagues will say things like you look so neat, or you look so much younger, you don't look as mean, hey you don't look like Ned Kelly or a bikey... Doesn't your wife prefer you without the beard, you look so much nicer.
I say thank you for their well intentioned remarks, I don't see the need to give them a compliment in return.
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I think people are often seeing things as they wish to see them and actively looking for offense you will find it.I'd say that the vast majority are well-intentioned, but also kind of oblivious to stuff that goes on sometimes right in front of them.
There's a really good essay on privilege by John Scalzi here. In it, he compares life to an MMORPG, and explains that privilege is like getting to play on a lower difficulty setting than everyone else.
I'd take it further, though. Not only are the rewards better and the challenges easier for playing on a lower difficulty setting, but some of the monsters other people are fighting are invisible to you..."Hey, why should she get help? I handled my zombies just fine by myself!"
I don't think guys who are oblivious to sexism in their workplace are bad people. I don't think guys who see sexism in their workplace and assume that, since they're not actively participating in it, it's not their problem are bad people. I think they are doing what's natural. But I do think that environments where women are rare create places and teams that, if not hostile, are often tone-deaf to and about women and the challenges...
I guess you didn't read the interview. Are you saying I shouldn't have been offended by the guy who wouldn't stop touching me, talking about my breasts, and acting in physically threatening ways when I told him to stop? Or by the people I went to for help asking, "Are you sure you didn't enjoy the attention?" I don't think I was looking for offense. In fact, I waited a long time to ask for help because I didn't want to be a complainer or make waves. <wry>
But again, I'd ask you to stop derailing. The point of this thread is to talk about how to make gaming spaces friendlier for women.
You know what's not relevant to that discussion?
"Men have it difficult in areas outside of gaming." (What does this have to do with making gaming spaces friendlier for women?)
"I don't think there's any discrimination in games." (Okay, but clearly a lot of people have felt uncomfortable or unwelcome, as evidenced by the stories in these threads, and clearly there are people who want to make sure that they're making their games friendly. You may disagree with them that it's a problem, but that's a different discussion.)
Honestly, I don't understand why people won't allow us to have this discussion in peace. Why can't we have one bloody thread in a gaming space about how to make the environment more welcoming to women and other gaming minorities without people trying to shut down that discussion?
You have all the rest of the internet to argue about whether privilege is a real thing, whether men are mistreated in various areas of society, whether gaming is hostile to women or not. You have the Off-Topic forum on this very site.
Let people who want to have the discussion about making gaming spaces safe, welcoming, and non-discriminatory toward women have our discussion.
Please.
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Jessica, I really wanted to comment on this post of yours, specifically, the 2nd paragraph. You jump right from "the game industry caters to straight men" (which I'd say is true because that is their customer base and any industry needs to please its customer base) to "It's enthusiastically, defiantly, and often militantly misogynistic," which I disagree with. Do you feel those 2 things are identical or equivalent, or that one must follow the other? It certainly seems so, as you went from one to the next as though it were the same thing. They very definitely are NOT the same thing.After reading the interview linked in the original post, I feel pretty strongly that a distinction needs to be made regarding the term "gaming industry." Jessica's horror stories come from the videogame industry, which I have relatively little knowledge of, and they detail pretty...
Sorry -- that's a fair point that I haven't always clarified. The militantly misogynistic stuff is very much from the videogame industry.
The hobby game industry, in my short experience with it, is generally both a lot more mild-mannered and there's a lot less hostility toward women. I think there's room to grow in roleplaying games generally, given some baggage carried over from earlier times, but I think that's largely legacy stuff, rather than active sexism.
And I hope I made it fairly clear in the interview that Paizo is a great place to work and as egalitarian as I could wish. As I've said elsewhere, people here make continual efforts to be inclusive both in the work place and in the characters portrayed in our products.
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Honestly, I don't understand why people won't allow us to have this discussion in peace. Why can't we have one bloody thread in a gaming space about how to make the environment more welcoming to women and other gaming minorities without people trying to shut down that discussion?
I think when you brought up the topic of privilege and that men are playing on easy mode it became a discussion point.
If the conversation stayed firmly rooted on behaviours and activities about how to make the environment more welcoming to women and other minorities, rather than what was taken as a broad brush attack on a significant portion of the player base the thread wouldn't have gone in this direction.
This group has managed to make the press here in Australia, and even got some nice encouragement from SOE. I suggest they might have some good views on incorporating methods of ensuring inclusive gaming.
http://blog.sydneygaymers.net/events/
On a side note, I am rather interested in how to make the hobby more accessible to female gamers, I have a daughter finding her way into the hobby, and she's a little unsure about expectations 'at the big kids table' and just looks at groups of guys and thinks it's not really for her.
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Samurai, please don't try to derail this conversation with more WHAT ABOUT THE MENZ?! commentary than we already have to deal with. Also, you're effectively demanding pornography have higher standards for characterisation. :P
"What about the menz" wasn't the point (and, by the way, that is a denigrating and belittling term, I doubt you'd like it if the response to this thread was literally "WHAT ABOUT DAH WOMENZ?").
And I never mentioned porn, I said romance novels, which are specifically geared toward women. The "Bechdel test for men's roles in a romance novel" would fail most every time because the men there are seldom realistic characters with their own needs and opinions, they are there to pursue the female lead of the story. If any 2 men in a romance novel do meet, it's to discuss the woman, and likely fight over her.
As was said before, fantasy RPG gaming is a hobby that was, at its roots, by and for men in the same way romance novels are by and for women. Therefore, catering to that male audience is to be expected, and it does NOT necessarily amount to hatred of women when it occurs, anymore than the cartoonish and unrealistic portrayals of men in romance novels amount to misandry. RPGs have opened up over the years and are drawing more female players and creators, and that's good. But let's understand where its roots lie, who its largest audience is, and why some things in the game are the way they are. That in no way excuses loutish behavior by players.
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So about that game industry...
Sticking with tabletop RPGs(and trying not to think about the videogame industry and the actual regression of mainstream comics)...I tentatively want to say things have gotten better? I mean, I can't see something like Slayer's Guide to Female Gamers getting printed today.
Admittedly there may be some optimistic naivety at play there. It at least seems like major publishers won't try to push products that hinge on female gamers being some sort of Other. That sort of stuff seems to have been pushed off into the fringe.
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@Shifty,
Inclusive gaming spaces for "gaymers" is not equivalent to inclusive gaming spaces for women. Case in point: a lot of the time, gaymer spaces are VERY male focused and often continue with many problematic aspects of the gaming community at large (belittling the use of the word 'rape' for one). Especially when it comes to "nerdy" activities like gaming, tabletop roleplaying, computers, etc., the "LGBT" communities generally have a focus on the "G" and not a lot of consideration for the "LBT".
Inclusiveness should indeed consider more things than just gender--and the gay community might have some good ideas--but I think that they will be less applicable to this particular topic than you expect.
Sorry -- that's a fair point that I haven't always clarified. The militantly misogynistic stuff is very much from the videogame industry.
I worked in the Video Game industry (SOE from 1999 to 2007) and I never saw or even heard of the types of blatant sexual harassment that you described enduring in your article. I am not saying it didn't happen, just that I do find it shocking.
More to the point, from the anecdotal stories in this thread, there are still too many RPG gaming groups that have stunted social development, but we cannot control what happens beyond our own tables.
I am not really sure what more a publisher can do to help with this problem.
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And I never mentioned porn, I said romance novels, which are specifically geared toward women.
Romance novels are functionally equivalent to porn as far as I'm concerned. :p
Also, this thread is not trying to look for an explanation of why the gaming hobby is like it is. This thread is looking for ways to move away from that, and to encourage women to play.
By the way, if you want to consider the video gaming industry as well, the largest audience for that is in fact women! (You can thank Facebook and mobile apps for that.) But the video game industry is woefully inept at understanding that women are people and should be treated as such.
I think there's a whole lot about TTRPGs that would appeal to women if it were not for the many things that make the hobby uncomfortable and unapproachable.
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Honestly, I don't understand why people won't allow us to have this discussion in peace. Why can't we have one bloody thread in a gaming space about how to make the environment more welcoming to women and other gaming minorities without people trying to shut down that discussion?I think when you brought up the topic of privilege and that men are playing on easy mode it became a discussion point.
Honestly, pretty much this.
I mean, I understand where you're coming from, but your first post in this thread sent mixed signals to a group of people (us) who, as it is, have a hard enough time receiving clear signals.
And, I know, in subsequent posts you tried to herd this pack of cats in another direction, but there are well-known problems with trying to herd cats.
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Ok, let's get to the heart of the matter then: What do you feel is needed to make a tabletop RPG group "friendlier to women"? Let's leave out the obvious stuff like "don't try to rape her" and say that it's just an ordinary group of guys, none of them are overly nasty or childish. You are the first female joining the group, and they are unsure of exactly how to treat you, if they need to adjust their ordinary behavior or just treat you as an equal, "one of the guys", no better and no worse.
It seems that the response will vary from one woman to another on this, but what would your response to that be?
And then, let's turn it around. Say you have a group of all female gamers, and then 1 male joins the group. Would you all treat him as "just one of the girls", or would you change your behavior, maybe curtail some of the things you'd do with an all-female group? Would you be welcoming of him joining or would you feel maybe he should go join a group of guys to play with? Would a single male at the table change the way the women there play? Should it?
@Shifty,
Inclusive gaming spaces for "gaymers" is not equivalent to inclusive gaming spaces for women.
Oh absolutely, that said, they apear to have a much better male to female ratio at their group than what I would normally expect to see at a PFS meet, and lightyears ahead of the CCG groups I have seen.
The LBGT community has enjoyed a very strong presence in gaming in Australia since the late 80's, blooming in the mid 90's, and still fairly strong today. And yes, they include more than just the G, but I certainly understand what you mean.
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I worked in the Video Game industry (SOE from 1999 to 2007) and I never saw or even heard of the types of blatant sexual harassment that you described enduring in your article. I am not saying it didn't happen, just that I do find it shocking.
I've noticed some wildly different cultures between different companies and development houses over the years. I don't recall hearing much in the way of horror stories coming from some of the larger, more respected names as far as bad behavior between or towards employees, but when you get to some of the places that seemed to foster a reputation for being "edgy"...
Not an Itagaki or Team Ninja fan at all, I admit.
Oh dammit I just remembered that damn disgrace that came out of Techland or whoever it was that made Dead Island. The one where some programmer left a tag for a female character's skills naming it "Feminist Whore" in the code of the final game that went out over Steam. Whether it was one skeeze or an in-house environment that emboldened him, I don't know, but there's still a lot of bad behavior going on on the developer side of things.
Just remembered something else, and I do recall this one making me angry. Game Informer is not what I would call a good gaming publication, but GameStop sends it to me for free and it is allegedly a piece of journalism.
Anyway, the article was about sexism and the state of female characters in gaming. IIRC, most if not all of the developers, from different companies, were male. The matter of strong, non-sexualized(or even just non-overlysexualized) female characters came up. Stuff like presenting a wider range of body types. Stuff like that.
The general sentiment expressed was so damn defeatist I wanted to punch the magazine itself. "It's what sells", "it just doesn't have a chance in this market", "we made an option for muscular females and they wound up looking like unappealing Russian bodybuilders", etc.
To think that game developers today would be so skittish about taking chances on presenting strong non-oversexed female characters after Alyx Vance, April Ryan, and....Samus Aran...
Damn it, Nintendo. >:(
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Samurai, many people have already discussed the answer to your first paragraph in this very thread!
In short: "don't be a creeper", "don't assume she is weak/inept", and "try not to talk over her/control her actions in game" are probably the key ideas.
I also don't think that a single man would change the way women play, largely because I'm unaware of anything that a group of women would do that would be unacceptable in some way to the man joining in. I'm having trouble imagining a scenario where a bunch of girls treat a guy as being weak/inept, talk over him, and be generally creepy. But hey, if it happened, that should probably be stopped. Whereas the opposite is very much true.
I mean, I can't see something like Slayer's Guide to Female Gamers getting printed today.
Ugg. That was sitting on the front counter of a gaming store by us last year during Free RPG Day when TanithT and I dropped by. Not the best way to make the place feel welcoming and accepting. :(
Ugg. That was sitting on the front counter of a gaming store by us last year during Free RPG Day when TanithT and I dropped by.
Wait... that's an actual book!?
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Wait... that's an actual book!?
Ugg. That was sitting on the front counter of a gaming store by us last year during Free RPG Day when TanithT and I dropped by.
Yep. Not the gaming industry's brightest moment. Like Todd said, not the most helpful move to bring new players into the community, and it probably didn't make many female gamers already playing feel at home.
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Samurai, many people have already discussed the answer to your first paragraph in this very thread!
In short: "don't be a creeper", "don't assume she is weak/inept", and "try not to talk over her/control her actions in game" are probably the key ideas.
I also don't think that a single man would change the way women play, largely because I'm unaware of anything that a group of women would do that would be unacceptable in some way to the man joining in. I'm having trouble imagining a scenario where a bunch of girls treat a guy as being weak/inept, talk over him, and be generally creepy. But hey, if it happened, that should probably be stopped. Whereas the opposite is very much true.
"Don't be creepy" is covered by my saying an ordinary, non-nasty or childish group. A mature group of guys without Chr as a dump stat.
"Don't assume she's weak or inept" and "don't control her actions in game" in my experience has much more to do with game mastery than gender. In my experience, women who show they know the rules and how to play and are decisive in their actions rather than asking for help and advice usually are respected, and males who show they don't know the rules and are unable/unwilling to learn them and don't know what to do in a round are treated as weak and inept and told what their character should do. There was a guy I knew a while back that had a terrible grasp of the rules, and his turn always took 2 or 3 times as long as everyone else's, and typically ended with the others at the table saying "just do this, now roll".
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Samurai, the thing I'm trying to get at is that a woman is much more likely to be assumed that she is weak/inept and doesn't know what she's doing. Read through some of the earlier posts in this thread where some women posted their experiences of this.
But do we know why that's the case, if in fact it is? (Personally, I've known many more men that were treated like that than women). Perhaps some women are more likely to seek a communal agreement on their actions, asking for directions and advice, "what do you think is best", etc, while men are less likely to ask for help and advice. If that's the case, then being offered advice on what they should do is going to be more common.
Samurai, the thing I'm trying to get at is that a woman is much more likely to be assumed that she is weak/inept and doesn't know what she's doing. Read through some of the earlier posts in this thread where some women posted their experiences of this.
...to be honest, that mind-set is alien to me.
It just seems less common around here in Finland, for some reason.
Well, aside from the cases where a drunken man beats up his GF or wife.
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Icy, you're living in a region that has achieved perhaps the most in terms of gender equality of all the planet - Scandinavian countries are paragons of social advancement in several areas, including changing the mindset about who is weak and who is wearing the trousers.
You can safely assume that everywhere else it's more or less worse (in some places badly so). Over here (democratic country, EU member, yadda yadda) average wage of a woman is lower (because they're seen as not as efficient as men), their position on labour market is worse (many companies refuse to hire women for they afraid that she'll get pregnant and go for a paid maternity leave, stranding them with a phantom employee for a year) and don't get me started on abortion.
So you're kind of sitting on the top of a tree and are looking down.
Honestly, I don't understand why people won't allow us to have this discussion in peace. Why can't we have one bloody thread in a gaming space about how to make the environment more welcoming to women and other gaming minorities without people trying to shut down that discussion?I think when you brought up the topic of privilege and that men are playing on easy mode it became a discussion point.Honestly, pretty much this.
I mean, I understand where you're coming from, but your first post in this thread sent mixed signals to a group of people (us) who, as it is, have a hard enough time receiving clear signals.
And, I know, in subsequent posts you tried to herd this pack of cats in another direction, but there are well-known problems with trying to herd cats.
Also table top gamers are highly intelligent, stubborn, pedantic wonderful people. You hit a hot topic button and people will strongly argue their point. People refuse to give ground and you had too many issues in the post and people focused on what wasn't important to you but was very important to them.
I read Jezebel and Daily Life on SMH, Jez has an active female readership that will stomp on dickishness in seconds.
Daily Life is Moderated and has some very active stalwarts that jump on trolls.
While it would be excellent if we had a greater female presence, on the boards to keep a thread like this focused, the greater number of male posters will skew things, unintentionally.
They are not trying to shut you down on purpose or derail the thread on purpose it's just that so many of the voices are theirs. 90% of them want more women in the game, yes they are all shouting at once yes they are talking over you, but be patient and persistent and you will find, that you will have a group of eager allies.
After reading your article I got the impression you came from a horror show to a nice place to work and that the game Industry (companies and customers) were a group of knuckle dragging mouth breathers, I wondered what your opinion of me as an average customer would be. When you added up post what was left out of the I revised my concerns.
I am more than interested in growing the game and more people buying and making product keeps my hobby healthy and alive.
I kinda figured from the interview that it was the video game industry. I don't know what makes it so radically different from hobby gaming, but they really could take some cues from Paizo and some other companies here. I've sadly heard similar horror stories from a good friend about her time at EA.