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General Discussion => The Speakeasy: OOG/Off-topic Discussion => Topic started by: kalaratiri on 24 Jan 2014, 17:07
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Hello folks.
A friend of mine is doing research on women and sexism within gaming as part of her English course, and I offered to help her collect some opinions. So, if you could all be extremely kind and answer the questions below in as much detail as you can, both she and I would be very grateful :)
She is working around the question, "How is sexism exemplified through language use within the online gaming community?"
The questions:
1. What is your opinion on girl gamers?
2. After finding out an opponent or teammate is the opposite gender, do you feel different about them?
3. Do you feel gamer girls are their own clique within gamers as a whole?
4. Do you feel there is a rivalry or alliance between the genders in the gaming community?
5. Do you feel sexism is an issue, and if so, have you experienced it?
As her question is based around the use of language centered around women in gaming, your answers are far more important that the questions themselves. Feel free to go off on tangents and explore ideas, but attempt to stick at least generally to the topic.
Thank you very much :)
(I'm not totally sure this is in the right sub-forum, mods please move it if it's not)
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Uh, in order, I guess...
1. I married one.
2. No, I just hope they can get out of the fire, like everyone else should be able to in LFR.
3. Not that I know of.
4. The funniest thing in the world is when a woman shows up somewhere in a mostly-male raid and getting to see the more desperate, single men competing in an asshattery contest to impress her. I don't know if there's an alliance or rivalry anywhere else, but single computer nerds will fight over women in games like their lives depended on it, regardless of their respective chances to actually fly halfway across the country to meet said woman. Truly the spectacle we're all playing MMOs to witness.
5. Honestly, if you can hold your numbers and not die, no one really cares what gender you are in any of the games I play, and I play some with a lot more testosterone floating around in them than EVE.
I think if you're looking for derogatory wording, I rarely hear guys insulted for their poor DPS or healing by being called girls. If you want to see some casual derogatory behavior, gamers are often a bit more homophobic than sexist. I'm sure gay male gamers could tell you all kinds of stories about what a mixed bag gamer culture is for them.
Not as much women, though. Besides the occasional elephant seal impressions some guys will put on when a woman shows up, nobody really cares what gender you are. DPS numbers don't have penises or vaginas.
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1. They are gamers, which as a group can be competitive, focused, and energetic. They are girls (vs boys): such gender differences mean even less in the digital world than in the physical.
2. No.
3. I think there is a subset of girl-gamers which seek to highlight themselves as "special." I think this has a negative effect as it only contributes to unicorn perception and digital bravado of a particular set of male gamers. However, on the whole, I think most of them want to just be gamers (like the rest of us).
4. For the most part I think not. I think in some boys there can arise the desire to prove they are better than "the girl."
5. I have not experienced sexism. I have seen/heard content/players that I think is sexist or based in misogynistic culture most certainly. Which is really what it comes down to. I was discussing the topic with my wife concerning the English language and what to me appeared to be a dearth of words equating a heterosexual male (of any species) with lesser or negative. By contrast, the number of negative words with negative connotations connected to a female (of any species) are more readily apparent. A "clean" example would be the difference between witch and warlock/wizard. Witch can easily be used in derogatory manner (being nearly synonymous with bitch). By contrast, to describe someone as a wizard is most likely a positive description (meaning being very good at an often technical task). So, I think the gaming community's sexism challenges are a reflection of society's own challenges with it to include the very language we use.
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1. What is your opinion on girl gamers?
Not sure I have one. I have opinions on individual gamers, male and female, but I haven't noticed that the female gamers I've known were particularly more or less competent than their male counterparts. In general, I think that I largely rate my appreciation of other players by their competence at the game, save for one female gamer (Ciarente), who was the only gamer I've known who consistently produced a large volume of fiction I enjoyed reading. Most others I knew, male and female, produced less.
2. After finding out an opponent or teammate is the opposite gender, do you feel different about them?
Not unless they expect me to treat them differently. When playing Eve, my behavior towards female gamers was not significantly different from the way I treated the male ones - I liked working with Stitcher, Dex, Killjoy Tseng, Susan Black, and Ciarente, who were male, male, male, female, and female, but who I enjoyed playing with. On the other hand, I spent a reasonable time trying to kill (in-game) people like Hitome Kei, Esna Pitojee, and Aldrith Shutaq, who, to the best of my knowledge, were female, male, and male. Their RL gender mattered far less to me than the possibility of blowing up their spaceships and selling their frozen corpses.
3. Do you feel gamer girls are their own clique within gamers as a whole?
I've rarely noticed that they have. Almost never, in fact. One or two of the very competent girl gamers I've known became sort of a "queen bee" in their organization, around which most of the guys orbited, but that was due, I think, to their competence and personality, since I knew several guys who held nearly identical positions within purely male-composed organizations.
4. Do you feel their is a rivalry or alliance between the genders in the gaming community?
In the gaming community as a whole? I haven't seen it. I think most people who play games just want to do that. But there is a significant minority of jerks who seem to think that attacking female gamers is the thing to do, which puzzles me. I also think that there is the occasional girl who wants to use her rarity in a certain community as a means to advantage within that community. But I don't see a truly systemic rivalry, no.
5. Do you feel sexism is an issue, and if so, have you experienced it?
I think it's quite obviously an issue, although not quite a clear-cut one. I've heard people say that Dragon Age is very non-sexist, while I found that there were things in it that made me roll my eyes. On the other hand, I've seen people making allegations of sexism in games that I couldn't quite follow.
As for the players, sure. I've seen sexists in games. They were rarely the most pleasant people to be around, and there is always the possibility that I'm blind to sexism in myself. I was in one group where a female gamer led the way in calling other players d---s, c---s, and a variety of other gender-related insults that nonetheless had more to do with a desire for insult variety than sexism. I was also in another group where the lone girl asked everyone to refrain from such language, which was generally observed without much griping. In neither group did there seem to be much concern over the gender of the players in our group.
That said, I can sometimes be oblivious to such things, and also in that vein, it is true that I don't believe I've experienced sexism personally while gaming. In real life? Absolutely. In games? No.
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1. What is your opinion on girl gamers?
They are gamers too, aren't they? Their gender is irrelevant when they are firing Scorch at me.
2. After finding out an opponent or teammate is the opposite gender, do you feel different about them?
No.
3. Do you feel gamer girls are their own clique within gamers as a whole?
Nope. I find that gamer girls get along with male gamers just fine far as I had experienced it. Hell, I actually thought they got along with the guys better than they would in real life! They are usually alot less chatty however, probably to avoid being ratted out as being gamer girls and the associated asshat-ery. However, I also know gamer girls who are chatty enough to lead fleets or guilds or raids and nobody has anything to comment about it.
4. Do you feel their is a rivalry or alliance between the genders in the gaming community?
Speaking for the part of the community I am in, no, there aren't any. They are so much one of us that there is hardly a gender-specific rivalry or alliance. Whatever rivalry or alliance are within guild/corp/faction lines, rather than gender lines.
5. Do you feel sexism is an issue, and if so, have you experienced it?
I don't feel that it's an issue. So long as we are all having fun working with or killing one another, we are good.
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1. What is your opinion on girl gamers?
I tend to get along with them better than male gamers, but I don't really think that has much to do with gaming itself - I get along with women better IRL as well.
2. After finding out an opponent or teammate is the opposite gender, do you feel different about them?
I feel safer interacting with them, especially with mediums like TS. I feel like I am much less likely to be harassed. Experience has backed up that feeling time and time again.
3. Do you feel gamer girls are their own clique within gamers as a whole?
Not that I've noticed.
4. Do you feel their is a rivalry or alliance between the genders in the gaming community?
I don't think either of those words would describe the dynamics accurately.
5. Do you feel sexism is an issue, and if so, have you experienced it?
It is absolutely an issue. Rampant, pervasive, insidious, and virtually everywhere. I haven't experienced it obviously, since I'm male. But I see it on a weekly basis at the minimum.
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The questions:
1. What is your opinion on girl gamers?
I think we need more of them? I'm not sure but this question seems odd. I guess I need more context in order to put more of an "opinion" on them. I tend to evaluate actions and behaviors rather than just pure Gender.
2. After finding out an opponent or teammate is the opposite gender, do you feel different about them?
Yes. I know it's been mentioned before but Guys tend to act very differently the minute a female voice shows up. I am just as guilty of it as well as I tend to lump many of the female gamers into a few groups. The "try hards" who tend to try and outdo the guys in everything, be it dirty jokes, skill or what not. The "attention whores" who really don't need much more explanation and the "cool chicks" who for the most part, just get on with gaming and don't let their Gender or peoples reaction to it define their gaming experience.
3. Do you feel gamer girls are their own clique within gamers as a whole?
If they are, they have not invited me to any of their meetings so I really don't know.
4. Do you feel their is a rivalry or alliance between the genders in the gaming community?
I think there can be some rivalry. Especially with the try-hards and even some times the cool chicks. The latter can be a healthy rivalry and it's quite funny to hear some Woman going "you just got owned by a GIRL!" or something like that. With the former it tends to be a bit more on the unhealthy side.
5. Do you feel sexism is an issue, and if so, have you experienced it?
Massively. Women get treated all sorts of badly and so do Men. As a guy in an MMO, I am just a number. Another random guy, doing his thing. I tend to feel overlooked most of the time. I imagine with most Women, it's probably the exact opposite. I can only guess at the amount of attention, wanted and unwanted that they get and have to deal with the minute their Gender becomes known.
Hopefully I did this right-ish
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1. What is your opinion on girl gamers?
Gamers is gamers. The girl part is superfluous.
2. After finding out an opponent or teammate is the opposite gender, do you feel different about them?
Gender is for meatspace. My opinion of a teammate or opponent is based on the match.
3. Do you feel gamer girls are their own clique within gamers as a whole?
Hm, not really a clique, maybe a class. Due to gaming's demographics (chiefly young doods), females seem to have certain qualities foisted on them. I wouldn't say I know of evidence that they operate in cliquish fashion, but I think many of them deal with the same sort of issues.
4. Do you feel their is a rivalry or alliance between the genders in the gaming community?
No, but again, due to the demographics, I think females end up taking a lot of guff, especially when young doods are threatened by being outperformed. I don't really see that behavior coming from a place of healthy rivalry.
5. Do you feel sexism is an issue, and if so, have you experienced it?
I think it is, but I'm basically harping on the young doods at this point. I've never experienced it, though I did have one young girl who was in my Aion legion spend a few months sending me daily mails of lewd and suggestive language, which is not a comfortable situation to be in.
If this is too sparse, I can clarify. Cheers.
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You will get massively skewed answers in a public setting. There's a reason this is done anonymously. Unless the goal is to collect a basis from which to design the questions for a proper survey I see no real benefit in answering these bullet points, as it is very unlikely that someone will come out of the closet in this (moderated!) forum with chauvinistic opinions they might harbor that will go against the already skewed mainstream of opinions here.
But to give you an opinion on the topic: Sexism in gaming. I tend to treat everyone as "generic gamer", which likely means "generic male", because doing the 'find out game' is so bloody retarded, and I'm here to play a game, and not to find a partner. As such I'm not going to give Lady Gamer more extra credit than Mister Gamer, because if people deserve that it's through the merit of their character or their actions, not what they have or don't have in the pants department. If you're really interested in seeing the dynamics of females entering male dominated areas you might find interesting results in those areas: the Armed Forces, Corporate Management, possibly professional sports such as soccer.
I think one can draw great parallels from these 'real life' cases to what happens in the gaming scene.
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The questions:
1. What is your opinion on girl gamers?
As I'm 30-years-old, I dislike being called a 'girl.' The majority of gamers I spend time with are women and I'm rather fond of them.
2. After finding out an opponent or teammate is the opposite gender, do you feel different about them?
Sure, I find them far more boring.
3. Do you feel gamer girls are their own clique within gamers as a whole?
Yes.
4. Do you feel their is a rivalry or alliance between the genders in the gaming community?
'There' not 'their.'
I don't think the genders are homogenous entities, but the majority of interactions I've witnessed have been non-antagonistic.
5. Do you feel sexism is an issue, and if so, have you experienced it?
Yes, and possibly.
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Ok why not...
Please note that my answers mostly refer to hardcore gaming in general, and certainly not to casual gaming, where female gamers are already more or less playing as much as male gamers, if not even more. I think sexism is mostly a non issue these days in the casual gaming milieu besides a few cases here and there, but I may be wrong. I also think that the fact that the main revenue in the game industry being these days made on casual gaming (cf the 10 most successful titles in the world the last years, all Nintendo titles, starting with Wii-fit and Nintendogs, and also the emergence of new medias like tablets and smartphones), the hardcore gaming milieu tracing back its roots from the early games where mostly male nerds dominated the market is being more and more defensive and aggressive as their market has now become a minority and they tend to be very protective of that milieu in particular, often artificially drawing a big wedge between the "omg retarded casual games" vs "the awesome and manly new AAA titles".
So yes, hardcore gaming, the most visible of the game markets and also the ones where most problems still arise.
1. What is your opinion on girl gamers?
Respectful and rather impressed how they can deal with it, must not be easy. They surely show more strength than most males gamers.
2. After finding out an opponent or teammate is the opposite gender, do you feel different about them??
Sure, in a positive way. cf question 1. We don't see enough of them in core gaming.
3. Do you feel gamer girls are their own clique within gamers as a whole?
Not that I know of. They always seem rather isolated to me.
4. Do you feel their is a rivalry or alliance between the genders in the gaming community?
Between casual and hardcore yes. Inside the hardcore milieu, yes, definitely. Cf Anita Sarkeesian case (Feminist Frequency) as a textbook case now. It does not take much time to witness how the usual male population react to the presence of females. Either in a very artificial manner "omg a girl, can I have a date ?" , or just "shut up bitch", to speak crudely with their terms. Generally, it's one of the most macho milieus I have witnessed so far.
5. Do you feel sexism is an issue, and if so, have you experienced it?
On various online games, yes. But more importantly, in most games themselves as a medium. Created by males mostly (which is slowly fading these days though), they often embody the most ridiculous clichés and prejudices that only contribute to make male gamers as they are. As a game developer, I can safely say that even if most devs do not really want to create sexist games, they actually often do. A good part of sexism in games does not come only from gaming communities, but also from development studios as well as their publishers. In the language, the art direction, the story, through characters... Sexism is rather pervasive in video games.
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You will get massively skewed answers in a public setting. There's a reason this is done anonymously. Unless the goal is to collect a basis from which to design the questions for a proper survey I see no real benefit in answering these bullet points, as it is very unlikely that someone will come out of the closet in this (moderated!) forum with chauvinistic opinions they might harbor that will go against the already skewed mainstream of opinions here.
But to give you an opinion on the topic: Sexism in gaming. I tend to treat everyone as "generic gamer", which likely means "generic male", because doing the 'find out game' is so bloody retarded, and I'm here to play a game, and not to find a partner. As such I'm not going to give Lady Gamer more extra credit than Mister Gamer, because if people deserve that it's through the merit of their character or their actions, not what they have or don't have in the pants department. If you're really interested in seeing the dynamics of females entering male dominated areas you might find interesting results in those areas: the Armed Forces, Corporate Management, possibly professional sports such as soccer.
I think one can draw great parallels from these 'real life' cases to what happens in the gaming scene.
I think the bigger problem is that EVE is a pretty bad game to ask this in. It's such an androgynous game to begin with since it's such a hard-numbers, PVP-centric game where we aren't really playing characters as much as we're flying around in ships. The closest we ever experience each others' avatars in person tends to be in a still shot. Nor is there an awful lot of style involved in flying; its not as if you can paint your ship pink and purple or put a hula girl on the dash.
EVE's not very sexy, in short.
In fact, the game itself is a little cold and sterile. When you see someone, you can barely tell what kind of equipment they have, much less whether their avatar is female and even especially whether the player is a girl. EVE just doesn't provide you with a very personable context. In the game, we're essentially not people flying the spaceships. We're spaceships. They don't have a female Harbinger.
When all is said and done, you might see more sexism (and every other kind of human interaction) in games where the player base has a bit more chance to showcase their own personality through the avatar rather than simply being a more attention-worthy icon in the overview. It would also be a bit more prevalent in games with a more difficult and varied PVE endgame, as the communication is a little different when your opposition is trying to do exactly the same thing you're doing. What I mean there is that the PVP experience varies from flight to flight and personal performance is a little more difficult to guage in a setting with ambiguously defined roles. In WoW, for example, when you hit a raid boss, it's like hitting a brick wall. You know who isn't making it over the top and why.
I've seen both praise and scorn heaped in more substantial numbers there than in EVE, and that scorn is where you really hear some of the most disgusting things you'll ever hear said in a game. I think that's only outdone by games that are pure skill-based PVP games like first-person shooters where your opponents can talk to you live. I think that might be because of the segment of gamers who play that game. EVE might also be a little more distant and civilized because of the focus on the game towards numbers and preparation over, say, fast-reaction technique. While you may fail in a raid or in a CTF game because you simply don't have the skill to overcome the same challenges as everyone else, there really isn't that element if a gate camp team blows up your freighter. If you blow up, you sort of shrug and say, "Meh, I guess this ship isn't really built for drones," and you move on.
As the direct competition rises, the means become more balanced, and the action becomes faster and more technique-heavy, you get a LOT more cross-communication and a lot more e-peen wavers. EVE is a lot more about indirect self-action, your fit is rarely the same as the people hunting you, and the action is a lot more methodical. It's just not the kind of game people are going to kill you and send you a message calling you a f****t.
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Tbh Vic, the most sexist attitudes I have experienced were on Eve (platinum achievement to homophobic slurs though). The most hardcore the game... Added to the obnoxious community atmosphere in that game, can detonate very quickly when female gamers are involved.
Actually, especially regarding your last paragraph, it's exactly the contrary in my experience. I have rarely witnessed a community so disgusting as the one living on Eve. Everything is about smack, testosterone contests, taunts, tears drinking. And everything is allowed to reach your goal for that, and that usually starts with the most inventive ways I have seen to be offensive. Only matched in power by FPS games online, except the latter are rarely as insidious as the ones happening in Eve.
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1. What is your opinion on girl gamers?
In what sense? Most of the time, it doesn't make any difference to me, in interacting with people. There are some people that sometimes bug me, because they attempt to use their gender as a tool, to try and receive gifts, or other assistance from other people. Or to use their gender as a weapon against an opponent. Usually over trivial things.
2. After finding out an opponent or teammate is the opposite gender, do you feel different about them?
Sometimes. I might change my opinion about what sorts of interactions I might want/expect from them.
3. Do you feel gamer girls are their own clique within gamers as a whole?
Sometimes. And I don't think this is entirely a good thing. Sometimes, there are cliques formed out of self-preservation, which shows there are external factors that create a hostile environment, where a "girl gamer group" is necessary for people to just enjoy playing a game.
4. Do you feel their is a rivalry or alliance between the genders in the gaming community?
Yes. There are many, loud, persons with a long list of insults and an attitude to match. Culture of macho and all that.
5. Do you feel sexism is an issue, and if so, have you experienced it?
Yes. see above. And yes. "Go back to kitchen", "make me a sandwich", "avatar-based gameplay would attract female players, with new industries such as clothing". These things are common, amongst players, and in many instances, developers of games.
Sexism in games appears in many places. I recently played Deus Ex Human Revolution, and there were many instances which felt sexist. Almost all the major characters are male. There is a female character, a pilot, but she is largely just an assistant to other major characters. There is a female antagonist, who does not speak at all. There is an AI newsreader, who is female, and is mentioned as being "appealing to the male demographic". There is a female police officer, who asks for the player's help in an investigation. She's undercover, dressed as a prostitute in a revealing outfit. Of course she is. Why is that necessary to the plot? She could easily have been in uniform, in the police station, or in plainclothes elsewhere. There are other instances, where the player has to rescue a girl from kidnappers, who were going to fit her with augmentations to work as a prostitute. That quest, is given by a female prostitute who operates a brothel. Is it dramatically necessary for so many quests to revolve around rescuing prostitutes from difficult situations? Many female characters require rescuing in the game. There is an element within Deus Ex Human Revolution, involving using people as drones, to augment the capabilities of a large computer. The research behind this device, ingame called "the Hyron Project", does not discriminate between male and female persons, yet all the drones encountered in the game are female. Women who were abducted and turned into drones. In this day and age, it is simply laughable to claim technical reasons for this, such as "limiting the number of models". There are frequent mentions in ingame emails to people fondling these drones, amongst other such activities. In short, this game, set in 2027, features a lot of casually sexist incidents, which may indicate unconscious sexist behaviour by the game's writers and other developers.
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I think the bigger problem is that EVE is a pretty bad game to ask this in. It's such an androgynous game to begin with since it's such a hard-numbers, PVP-centric game where we aren't really playing characters as much as we're flying around in ships. The closest we ever experience each others' avatars in person tends to be in a still shot. Nor is there an awful lot of style involved in flying; its not as if you can paint your ship pink and purple or put a hula girl on the dash.
EVE's not very sexy, in short.
What the flying fuck is that. It's a numbers game and not about dressing up an avatar, so it's inherently "not for girls"?
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Tbh Vic, the most sexist attitudes I have experienced were on Eve (platinum achievement to homophobic slurs though). The most hardcore the game... Added to the obnoxious community atmosphere in that game, can detonate very quickly when female gamers are involved.
Actually, especially regarding your last paragraph, it's exactly the contrary in my experience. I have rarely witnessed a community so disgusting as the one living on Eve. Everything is about smack, testosterone contests, taunts, tears drinking. And everything is allowed to reach your goal for that, and that usually starts with the most inventive ways I have seen to be offensive. Only matched in power by FPS games online, except the latter are rarely as insidious as the ones happening in Eve.
We may have simply had different circles we ran in? Full confession: for a year my "other game" slot besides WoW was taken up by Battlefield 2. I don't know what kind of slimy bastards you ran into here in EVE to give you the opinion that this game is the pinnacle of broski bullshit, but there has never been said anything anywhere in any other game that I've ever heard that could even break the top 10 of things I've heard in Battlefield.
In the year I played that game, I only ran into two women. Ever. And the things said by the all-male audience was.... yeah. I don't even want to repeat some of it. Suffice it to say that mass online FPS games are the Cannibal Corpse of gamer culture: so ridiculously offensive that it makes a full circle around making you feel disgusted and just starts entertaining you instead.
.... I should also disclose that I listen to Cannibal Corpse. I think I might be a little less civilized than I thought....
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I think the bigger problem is that EVE is a pretty bad game to ask this in. It's such an androgynous game to begin with since it's such a hard-numbers, PVP-centric game where we aren't really playing characters as much as we're flying around in ships. The closest we ever experience each others' avatars in person tends to be in a still shot. Nor is there an awful lot of style involved in flying; its not as if you can paint your ship pink and purple or put a hula girl on the dash.
EVE's not very sexy, in short.
What the flying fuck is that. It's a numbers game and not about dressing up an avatar, so it's inherently "not for girls"?
No, I highlighted the relevant word in the paragraph.
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BOYS RULE! GIRLS DROOL! :P :P :P
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No, I highlighted the relevant word in the paragraph.
I know, I've read your post! It still sounds like an awful lot of stereotyping with conclusions I'd disagree on, but I guess it does showcase a bit of the issue we're discussing here in the first place. :)
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1. They're gamers.
2. Yes and no; If they're a 'random' I don't devote much/any thought to the subject. I do have an admitted personal bias in that I'm more willing to pay (passive) attention to a woman speaking/involvement in personal circles. That usually goes away the better of an opinion I build on them, which is my normal procedure for people over all.
3. Yes and no. There's the normal 'we formed a group based on mutual interest', and then there's the 'we formed a group due to hostile predation'. Refer to answer 5 for detail.
4. If I'm honest this feels like another way of rewording Question #5.
5. Sexism is an issue, but in gaming it's merely a symptom of a larger, more systemic problem.
Keeping attention focused, however, some of the most casual ways I've seen it operate : signaling out of women for griefing/stalking purposes, exclusion of women from activity based on their sex, degradation of the female gender entirely and intentional association of it with weakness, hypersexualized female character design to the point of little more than masturbation fantasy bait, sabotaged female character design where usual design principles are shelved in favor of turning them into male-character enhancement bait, so on and so forth.
One could argue it's "getting better" in recent years, but I think that's also because the vector of harassment has changed. Anonymous cyber stalking is the most popular choice right now, and with its ability to attack without fear of reprisal, it's usually the most virulent. This is merely on the consumer level, from what I know in game development and management, there is a slew of workplace issues there as well. And, as I mentioned, there is a host of issues with the presentation of female characters in the gaming world - but arguably, this is true of men as well. You don't see gentle men, or strong women, generally speaking.
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Will answer the questions first, then jump in to debate :D
The questions:
1. What is your opinion on girl gamers?
2. After finding out an opponent or teammate is the opposite gender, do you feel different about them?
3. Do you feel gamer girls are their own clique within gamers as a whole?
4. Do you feel their is a rivalry or alliance between the genders in the gaming community?
5. Do you feel sexism is an issue, and if so, have you experienced it?
1. Jaaa...Welp, I am one. Or was. Uh, meaning I don't play games as often in my dotage, not that I've grown a penis :| If this is going to be used in research I should probably start again.
It's difficult to answer what my opinion is on 'them' if I am one - it's almost like the question presupposes I won't be.
My opinion on the label varies though. I suppose I'd rather we were all gamers and gender was irrelevant - but that's a utopian dream as gender seems so deeply emotively loaded as an issue in the gaming community.
2. That they're a man? I'd be profoundly unsurprised, to be honest. Which sounds sexist; but it's not like I don't expect other women to play games, just that it's been my experience men have been the majority in the games I've played. I've played with other women, and suspect they're more prevalent than people may assume, but the only woman I ever heard on TS was Foyle.
I've interpreted the question to mean "the opposite gender" to me, rather than "the opposite gender" to their avatar. In which cases, if they're representing themselves as one gender (by name, appearance, whatever) or roleplaying a character in any way, I'll refer to them as that gender unless told otherwise. Though that's less being surprised of any gender dissonance and treating someone how I think they want to be treated (though personally I think gender is a role we all play anyway).
3. Yes and no. Not sure clique is the right word. I think women tend to be a minority, or appear to be, in the games that I play. But that doesn't necessarily mean they will band together or even meet eachother. (Though that said, there is/was a female only chat channel in EVE. I didn't find even that cliquey though, as an idea. I think the idea was to create a safe space.)
4. No, I wouldn't have said rivalry or alliance that's gender based. I do think that certain men will feel very threatened by the mere presence of a woman playing a game with them, but that's not the same thing. That said, I also feel that women will probably have to prove themselves in some way to be treated as an equal in terms of skill for the same reason. But depends very much on the maturity of who you're playing with.
5. Hahahahaha. Yes. God yes. Sexism is absolutely an issue. I have experienced it, but the level of which has depended on what game I've played. (EVE has actually been one of the better ones). With the anonymity of an online presence I'm fairly thick-skinned about it and quite happy to put them back in their box (particularly when none of it is inventive or clever, variations of tits or gtfo, send me your photo etc*) though I'd be irate if I saw someone being harassed and taking it to heart. The exception is team speak when I'm suddenly (disappointingly) self-conscious at having to use my real voice, and the surprise it garners :|
*that happened once in EVE, many years ago. I forget how the encounter happened but ended up chatting to this guy and he wanted naked photos for iskies. I encouraged him, and agreed under the proviso that he send me the iskies first. He did. I think he was drunk. Obviously I then reneged on the deal :P Angered, he put a bounty on me, so I got a friend to pod me and we split the difference. Was a profitable encounter :D
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Thank you all very much for your answers so far :)
I understand a few of the questions are bit ambiguous so I'm adding a specific, Eve related one of my own :)
"Eve is well known as a male dominated game, with approx 95% of players being men. This has led to the long running joke/tagline "there are no girls in eve (or on the internet)". What sort of impact do you think this has on female Eve players, or women just starting to play the game? For those of you who are female Eve players, have you encountered this often? Do you feel a need to 'prove' that you are female, or do you prefer to just get on with playing the game?"
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I think the bigger problem is that EVE is a pretty bad game to ask this in. It's such an androgynous game to begin with since it's such a hard-numbers, PVP-centric game where we aren't really playing characters as much as we're flying around in ships. The closest we ever experience each others' avatars in person tends to be in a still shot. Nor is there an awful lot of style involved in flying; its not as if you can paint your ship pink and purple or put a hula girl on the dash.
EVE's not very sexy, in short.
Tbh Vic, the most sexist attitudes I have experienced were on Eve (platinum achievement to homophobic slurs though). The most hardcore the game... Added to the obnoxious community atmosphere in that game, can detonate very quickly when female gamers are involved.
Actually, especially regarding your last paragraph, it's exactly the contrary in my experience. I have rarely witnessed a community so disgusting as the one living on Eve. Everything is about smack, testosterone contests, taunts, tears drinking. And everything is allowed to reach your goal for that, and that usually starts with the most inventive ways I have seen to be offensive. Only matched in power by FPS games online, except the latter are rarely as insidious as the ones happening in Eve.
Right then. I disagree with both of you :D
I've heard a lot of people express the sentiments that 'hard numbers', the abstraction from an avatar, or that it's relatively brutal for an mmo, or that it's sci-fi - these things don't attract the girls.
But I think perhaps what gets overlooked is (when I played, which is going to be the caveat for everything I'm saying here) EVE, even for MMOs, is a highly social game. Which also sounds somewhat sexist; that girls don't like hard numbers or brutality but they do like chatting, which is not something I believe, but just trying to give the other side of the coin of how the game is perceived.
EVE is set up much easier to just start talking to people than other games - just clicking open a tab to evemail or pm someone, joining a channel - it's all very nice and intuitive. When I played WoWs beta I was all like...wtf how do I talk :( In Ultima Online from what I could see you could only talk to someone you encountered if they were on the same screen as you - people used ICQ to organise things. So there's the ease with which you can communicate.
There's also the need to be sociable to realistically survive in the game world. Even the essentially 'solo' players in school corp who hadn't joined a corp banded together to do this or that - mining ops or ratting or whatever. You could do things alone, but it was either not profitable or comparatively very dangerous. This was before missions became remotely viable (which to me happened when implants came in) or mining barges or anything. You could still afk an indy but, well, that's not really playing as such.
And there's the social aspect of everyone sharing the same game world rather than individual shards - I'm finding it difficult to articulate exactly how that shared experience makes a difference, but I have a gut feeling that it does; I've certainly had the experience before of finding it difficult to play games with friends in the US because they've been forced into another version of the game. Maybe a broader more diverse community. I dunno.
Also, I think perhaps what makes EVE harsh and brutal (basically, the risk/reward loss element and the steep learning curve) also tends to encourage camaraderie and forge relationships because you have to rely on your friends and corp-mates - your virtual life may depend on it. And I'm aware there's a lot of politicking, scamming and backstabbing - but the same applies, if anything it does seem to make the friendships you do make more worthwhile. Again, not articulating well here. Other than my corp-mates felt like brothers to me - jokey, idiot brothers but I knew they'd have my back if I needed it.
In fact, I feel all nostalgic and maudlin now.
My experience is different in that EVE has had the absolute best people I've played a game with. I think it very much depends on who you play with, and I'm aware that the community has grown from something quite niche to quite mainstream and perhaps that changes things massively. Not to be a snob, but also in some ways the difficulty has dropped (though the complexity hasn't) since when I first played and maybe there's more stupid around now :P
(I mean, they get a tutorial now and everything. They get a free ship at the end of it. I was given a mining laser and a rock and I had to figure out everything else for myself. In my day, etc etc.)
I've experienced more stupidity and hate in other games, more childish tantrums in games where you don't actually stand to lose anything. Which is not to say I haven't encountered all these things in EVE - I have, but not to the same degree as in other games and I was lucky to be in a good corp with a good circle of friends and contacts outside of that as well. There may be a lot of random factors about experiences here. The social adhesive stuff around camaraderie re: tangible loss I talked about earlier comes into it too, I think. Though it can go the other way as well.
It might be that the age demographic is broadly higher in EVE than some other MMOs I've played, too. (Though I have indeed met some very immature 40 year olds :P)
And EVE isn't sexy? Bah. Even at release, to me it was beautiful, glossy and sleek in it's design. Plus some ships are undoubtedly phallic (thorax, I look at you).
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"Eve is well known as a male dominated game, with approx 95% of players being men. This has led to the long running joke/tagline "there are no girls in eve (or on the internet)". What sort of impact do you think this has on female Eve players, or women just starting to play the game? For those of you who are female Eve players, have you encountered this often? Do you feel a need to 'prove' that you are female, or do you prefer to just get on with playing the game?"
Yeah. I hate that one the most, I think. Or the "MMORPG stands for Many Men Online Role Playing Girls" :mad:
There's some truth to it with the demographic - but yes, it's off-putting. Either your existence is automatically denied, or yes, you are asked to prove it in some way (usually derogatory) - or if you do assert that you exist then you're "attention seeking."
Further, even if people do accept your existence as a Real Life Female (or hear you on TS) you're treated like some bizarre novelty zoo animal. ZOMG! A girl! Online!
(http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a89/KalahariWayrest/h4xgirlseve-1.jpg)
There's no way to win that one, really. The game is rigged.
The best I've ever managed to re: that scenario is shrug things off as much as possible, mock people who are idiots and hang about with those who have a modicum of sense. I've never felt the need to prove anything to anyone, as no one worth knowing has asked me to prove anything.
(Though I've heard the surprised sentiments from people I like, mind :P but they've never been of the dogged 'prove it!' persuasion, or hostile deniers)
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Okay, I think I'm being taken a bit out of context. See below from Miriam-Webster:
an·drog·y·nous adjective \an-ˈdrä-jə-nəs\
Full Definition of ANDROGYNOUS
1
: having the characteristics or nature of both male and female
2
a : neither specifically feminine nor masculine <the androgynous pronoun them>
b : suitable to or for either sex <androgynous clothing>
3
: having traditional male and female roles obscured or reversed <an androgynous marriage>
Gaming culture may be, on the whole, geared towards men, but EVE isn't that game. Essentially, EVE doesn't have a gender. I don't see EVE players as women or men playing women, in fact I really don't make any kind of distinction between men and women in EVE. It's absolutely meaningless. That hard-numbers, PVP style doesn't discourage women, it completely eliminates the idea of gender, even persona, in the game. A Dramiel is a Dramiel, it has no color, no gender, no difference from model to model. You can't make it look like a "girly" Dramiel, nor can you make it a "masculine" Dramiel. It's just a Dramiel, and all of them are the same until you start playing with the likewise androgynous fittings.
Maybe the weird thing about EVE is that I really don't know who is a woman or man even IN THE GAME WORLD, much less if the person in real life is playing one. There's not an awful lot of personality from ship to ship, so everything gets obscured. It's nothing but ships, equipment, and corporations. It's about as sterile as it gets.
Which is sort of the point. EVE is meant to be a sandbox's sandbox, something neutral to everything, therefore reflecting no bias. There's actually a LOT of girls playing EVE compared to some of the other games I've been in, and the thing is that I really don't think that's a reflection of anything specific. The game isn't brutal or masculine, it's very clinical and clean. It's a damn sight nicer than most of the FPS games I've ever played, especially Battlefield, where the actual learning curve for someone who's never played an FPS is a lot harder to deal with than EVE's.
EVE gets a really bad reputation for complexity and difficulty, so if women aren't playing for some reason it's more than likely its reputation, but it's really just not that game. It's very much the Eurythmics of MMO games, sort of futuristic and stripped down to undertones. In a world of games where you get more and more customization so your personality can shine through, you can't even change the color of your ship in EVE.
It's not a matter of the game being masculine or not, it's like Marilyn Manson in his boobed bodysuit thing he wore during the Mechanical Animals phase. There is no gender in your ship or your fit, or really anything else. EVE's not the place where sharp discrepancies are going to show up.
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Okay, so if the character's gender in EVE is utterly meaningless, why is it of importance in other games?
Also +1:
It's a numbers game and not about dressing up an avatar, so it's inherently "not for girls"?
No.
[...]
EVE gets a really bad reputation for complexity and difficulty, so if women aren't playing for some reason it's more than likely its reputation, but it's really just not that game. [...] In a world of games where you get more and more customization so your personality can shine through, you can't even change the color of your ship in EVE.
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My friend is reading the thread, so I'm including my own answers to her questions :)
The questions:
1. What is your opinion on girl gamers?
2. After finding out an opponent or teammate is the opposite gender, do you feel different about them?
3. Do you feel gamer girls are their own clique within gamers as a whole?
4. Do you feel there is a rivalry or alliance between the genders in the gaming community?
5. Do you feel sexism is an issue, and if so, have you experienced it?
1. As someone who has met quite a few of them, I mostly see female gamers as just like any other gamer. Some of them are toxic and annoying, some of them are extremely good fun to be around just like any male gamer.
2. I hope not. When I am playing a social game like Eve, I do my best to ignore gender as a factor. It simply doesn't matter to me what a person's biology is as long as they are fun to be around. I have encountered a few people (all male) who makes jokes about women being unable to pvp, but my encounters with people such as Ava means that I tend to ignore them.
3. I would say no, however, there are examples such as the Women Gamers of Eve channel and the old Hellcats pirate corp that show that this can happen. I think those specific examples might be more to do with Eve than gaming as a whole though, due to the huge disparity in gender. Women may just simply want somewhere to hang out that isn't infested with men :P
4. Yes to rivalry, but I also feel it to be mainly one sided. There seems to be a considerable amount of hate directed towards women by some male gamers who see women as enroaching on their territory. "Gaming is for men, women are bad at it, get back in the kitchen" sort of hate. It's totally stupid in my eyes, and as far as the "women are bad at gaming" sentiment goes, it's provably false. My sister consistently beats the shit out of me at racing games.
5. Definitely. I see widespread issues of sexism in the gaming world, from the vitrolic attitude of some male gamers to the utter lack of characterisation of many female characters in gaming. Female characters are constantly used as eye candy to bait men into buying the games, such as Ivy in Soulcaliber and Fran from Final Fantasy XII (it would be difficult for either of them to be wearing less clothes), rather than making them important story drivers in their own right. Either that or they end up dead to inspire the righteous fury of their male counterpart :l
I have personally never been the target of sexist comments, but I have been present while female players were. Several years ago, I was invited to a public Teamspeak channel where around 50 or 60 Eve players were talking. When a woman happened to speak up, there was a short pause followed by a storm of every kind of stupid, meme based sexist comment you can think of. Tits or gtfo was a popular one. This kind of behaviour, in my opinion, is the biggest obstacle to equal numbers of each gender being involved in social mmos such as Eve.
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Okay, I think I'm being taken a bit out of context.
If you mean me, I prefer to think of it as 'used what you said as a springboard to have a ramble' :P Which it was in a lot of ways rather than a direct response (as well as muddled in with getting ideas from what Lyn said) Re: hard numbers and the like, it's reminded me of what other people have said about EVE when wondering why the female demographic was so small compared to contemporaries such as WoW (though I think at the time being a smaller, more niche and less known game may have had something to do with it!) so I rehashed it and ran with it. Wasn't deliberately attributing things you didn't say to you.
I know what androgynous means, just was unclear how you were using it or in what ways EVE is androgynous. (Or whether you're talking design, mechanics or community as I'm certainly conflating all of the above when describing it)
Flying a ship doesn't eliminate gender, though. It does form less of an association with an avatar - but still. There are people. Who talk to eachother. It would be wonderful if they all thought like you that because we fly ships EVE is completely gender neutral - but honestly, they don't. Some do, and those are the good ones. But a lot don't.
If you wanted to take part in 0.0 PVP you're probably going to have to get on teamspeak at some point. You're probably just going to have to take my word for it that when people hear a female voice they don't equate you with your tempest. I wonder how that voice synthesiser thing will effect things. Is that a thing yet?
But even before I'd ever got on teamspeak, there were plenty of examples of um - non neutrality from other players. I suspect from people who don't get out much.
By brutal, I didn't mean masculine, or brutalism in a design sense, I meant in the sense that many MMOs - the vast majority since Ultima Online in fact, have no sense of loss. You don't lose your stuff. I guess I also mean the relative scope of nasty things the game allows you to do to other players. (Which, for the record, I'm perfectly fine with).
But yeah. There's always idiots, but my experience with the EVE community has largely been that they've been fluffy bunnies. Including the pirates. (Especially the pirates).
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1. What is your opinion on girl gamers?
They're... gamers? I don't tend to distinguish; in my experience they can be every bit as competent as male gamers.
I'll note at this point that of the 7 corps I've been in, 5 have had female members (of the remaining two, I still interacted with female members of an alliance or bloc on a regular basis). Of those 5, in every case there was a woman in some form of a command or director position. So, pretty early on in EVE I was hit with the point that you don't judge someone by their sex, but by their rank in your corp. Coming off of my Halo experience (see question #5), that was actually a pretty enjoyable angle for me.
2. After finding out an opponent or teammate is the opposite gender, do you feel different about them?
I don't really think so. As said above, EVE has deeply impressed on me the idea that you don't judge someone by their gender, but their personality and capabilities. Doing so can lead to meeting some nice, smart, seriously capable people - and failing to do so will make the same rather angry at you.
3. Do you feel gamer girls are their own clique within gamers as a whole?
At times. This can be motivated by outside pressure or hostility, but also at times by the self-motivated desire to "better" than anyone else. This can happen to any group, but does occasionally happen "simply because". I will note that this behavior can at times cycle back in a feedback loop, where they will get more negative attention because they stand out. However, I don't think that this is related to gender differences, so much as it is the habit of the internet to make fun of any group that promotes themselves as "special" or "different".
4. Do you feel there is a rivalry or alliance between the genders in the gaming community?
I don't think one can definitively say either way, because that would suggest the genders are absolutely unified in either direction - this is, of course, absolutely untrue. I think the vast majority of gamers simply don't care and would rather focus on meeting their game-objectives; if that counts as an 'alliance' then I guess I'd go with that. There are, naturally, a few who insist there's some kind of rivalry, but they are few and the gamer community is vast.
5. Do you feel sexism is an issue, and if so, have you experienced it?
Yes. Yes it definitely is. Before going any further, I'll split my answer into the separate issues of directed sexism and casual sexism.
Directed sexism - when someone experiences an extended personal attack aimed directly at them as an individual, based on their gender - is rarer than you might think, but it does happen. In some cases, it is entirely unwarranted; this forms the vast majority of these cases. It is also the only kind of sexism I can say I have even remotely experienced, as two female EVE players I know have gone through it and it was extremely unpleasant for both of them, yielding the two or three people who I continue to harbor a deep hostility to in EVE. Suffice to say I have a very low tolerance for it. In other cases, equally unfortunately, it can be exacerbated by the 'victims' themselves - for instance, Mintchip. Use your gender to personally enrich yourself, post nude photos online, then act surprised when people bring it up? WHO'D HAVE THOUGHT!
I will note that the prevalence of this varies significantly by game. Before I came to EVE, I played a lot of Halo 2 - which fully lived up to its reputation as a game in which speaking with a remotely female voice would unleash a hail of catcalls and unpleasant comments. I, for one, found this frustrating more than anything else - I came here to play a game, not listen to a bunch of people display how many sexual euphemisms they can come up with - but in retrospect I can understand how much worse it could be for the people on the receiving end.
Casual sexism is far more common. I'm talking about using sexually derogatory phrases, making crude jokes, posting pornography in game or game-related sites, anything which is not a directed, specific attack but could still make someone of a specific gender feel uncomfortable. I don't think one can go on the internet without experiencing this, and it does in fact run in both ways - male and female. Thing is, gender's hardly the only thing to be targeted: Religions, races, countries, mental disorders, tones of voice, poor spelling - the internet has decided nothing is sacred and all shall be mocked and denigrated. Whether this is a good or bad thing is an entirely separate discussion which I will not get into here; my point is that the casual sexism is not anything especially significant compared to the others. It can merit an eyeroll and frustration, but I don't feel going into apoplexy over it contributes either.
"Eve is well known as a male dominated game, with approx 95% of players being men. This has led to the long running joke/tagline "there are no girls in eve (or on the internet)". What sort of impact do you think this has on female Eve players, or women just starting to play the game? For those of you who are female Eve players, have you encountered this often? Do you feel a need to 'prove' that you are female, or do you prefer to just get on with playing the game?"
I can't answer the latter part, obviously, but I'd file the former under what I referred to as 'casual sexism' above - and then promptly go on to note that it's hardly the only kind of joke you run into on the internet or EVE. In my personal opinion, giving serious ear to that kind of thing isn't real helpful and if you can't learn to ignore it then you're going to have a rough time on the internet in general. Trying to "prove" that you are female isn't real helpful; trying to prove that you're a competent, smart, capable person who deserves respect is.
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Okay, I think I'm being taken a bit out of context.
If you mean me, I prefer to think of it as 'used what you said as a springboard to have a ramble' :P Which it was in a lot of ways rather than a direct response (as well as muddled in with getting ideas from what Lyn said) Re: hard numbers and the like, it's reminded me of what other people have said about EVE when wondering why the female demographic was so small compared to contemporaries such as WoW (though I think at the time being a smaller, more niche and less known game may have had something to do with it!) so I rehashed it and ran with it. Wasn't deliberately attributing things you didn't say to you.
Nah, I was just wondering if people had missed the androgynous thing. Which kind of brings me to...
Okay, so if the character's gender in EVE is utterly meaningless, why is it of importance in other games?
Also +1:
It's a numbers game and not about dressing up an avatar, so it's inherently "not for girls"?
No.
[...]
EVE gets a really bad reputation for complexity and difficulty, so if women aren't playing for some reason it's more than likely its reputation, but it's really just not that game. [...] In a world of games where you get more and more customization so your personality can shine through, you can't even change the color of your ship in EVE.
I think maybe you don't realize how badly I want to change the color of my ship and make it look different. I'm not a girl. The whole problem is, in the game, I'm not anything. All the personality my character has is on the IGS and in the RP channels. Compare and contrast that to my primary game, where I've intentionally removed my helm and cloak. I was one of the people that squeed hard when transmogrification was brought in. I love character customization that you can see in game because, let's face it, I get bored very quickly if I feel like another blip on the radar. I'm one of those random idiots that collects a buttload of mounts, has certain summonable pets set on macro for certain characters, and I still have severely outdated class gear for a warlock just because it's the only green robe with writing on it.
In short, I'm the person you think the girl should be. I was only saying that, if girls are being told that the game's got a high learning curve and they shouldn't play it because they won't get it, it would certainly explain things. I was also saying it's bullshit, EVE's not that hard of a game to play.
To answer the question though, that level of painting your personality right where everyone can see it puts a lot of parts of your own personality into the game, and that necessarily brings gender into it. It's a big part of who everyone is. It tends to come out. It happens a lot more when you've got that opportunity to represent yourself in game more overtly. Your Machariel isn't anything that can reflect your gender, or anything else, it's just a ship.
Now, imagine you could paint it, and you saw one painted pink with a Hello Kitty logo painted on the side.
Whether it was actually a girl flying it or not, certain thoughts about gender are necessarily going to run through your head. It's not just "Machariel" anymore, it's "WTF Pink Machariel, is it a girl or a guy flying it ironically? Are they twelve?" It's that sort of thing. We have sparkly horses and giant scorpions with guild flags on them, that's obviously flown through my mind a few times. More importantly, in WoW, if you see someone playing a girl, they might not/probably aren't actually a girl in real life. But as you see them in a girl's avatar, rather than the gender-neutral ships of EVE, you unconsciously confront the idea. Is it really a girl? Is it not? If not, why play one? Why would I think it is one? Why would I care?
Doesn't happen in a ship; I don't bother checking someone's profile picture before I take off from my data site on Roman. They're either a battleship or they're a mining ship, they're not a person.
That's sort of what I'm getting at. I'm sort of surprised at Lyn having seen a lot of sexism and such in EVE because I can't see why anyone would ever know or care if the people they play against or with are women or men. They could be sentient rocks for all it matters; your personal presence is sort of left behind by the vast distances involved and your in-game presence being represented by a standardized ship model, not by the character you spent all your time customizing.
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Okay, I think I'm being taken a bit out of context. See below from Miriam-Webster:
an·drog·y·nous adjective \an-ˈdrä-jə-nəs\
Full Definition of ANDROGYNOUS
1
: having the characteristics or nature of both male and female
2
a : neither specifically feminine nor masculine <the androgynous pronoun them>
b : suitable to or for either sex <androgynous clothing>
3
: having traditional male and female roles obscured or reversed <an androgynous marriage>
Gaming culture may be, on the whole, geared towards men, but EVE isn't that game. Essentially, EVE doesn't have a gender. I don't see EVE players as women or men playing women, in fact I really don't make any kind of distinction between men and women in EVE. It's absolutely meaningless. That hard-numbers, PVP style doesn't discourage women, it completely eliminates the idea of gender, even persona, in the game. A Dramiel is a Dramiel, it has no color, no gender, no difference from model to model. You can't make it look like a "girly" Dramiel, nor can you make it a "masculine" Dramiel. It's just a Dramiel, and all of them are the same until you start playing with the likewise androgynous fittings.
Maybe the weird thing about EVE is that I really don't know who is a woman or man even IN THE GAME WORLD, much less if the person in real life is playing one. There's not an awful lot of personality from ship to ship, so everything gets obscured. It's nothing but ships, equipment, and corporations. It's about as sterile as it gets.
Which is sort of the point. EVE is meant to be a sandbox's sandbox, something neutral to everything, therefore reflecting no bias. There's actually a LOT of girls playing EVE compared to some of the other games I've been in, and the thing is that I really don't think that's a reflection of anything specific. The game isn't brutal or masculine, it's very clinical and clean. It's a damn sight nicer than most of the FPS games I've ever played, especially Battlefield, where the actual learning curve for someone who's never played an FPS is a lot harder to deal with than EVE's.
EVE gets a really bad reputation for complexity and difficulty, so if women aren't playing for some reason it's more than likely its reputation, but it's really just not that game. It's very much the Eurythmics of MMO games, sort of futuristic and stripped down to undertones. In a world of games where you get more and more customization so your personality can shine through, you can't even change the color of your ship in EVE.
It's not a matter of the game being masculine or not, it's like Marilyn Manson in his boobed bodysuit thing he wore during the Mechanical Animals phase. There is no gender in your ship or your fit, or really anything else. EVE's not the place where sharp discrepancies are going to show up.
Vic, you forgot that ships are usually referred to with the female pronoun. Since we are all playing as spaceships, we must therefore be Many Men Online Role Playing Girls.
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Okay, I think I'm being taken a bit out of context. See below from Miriam-Webster:
an·drog·y·nous adjective \an-ˈdrä-jə-nəs\
Full Definition of ANDROGYNOUS
1
: having the characteristics or nature of both male and female
2
a : neither specifically feminine nor masculine <the androgynous pronoun them>
b : suitable to or for either sex <androgynous clothing>
3
: having traditional male and female roles obscured or reversed <an androgynous marriage>
Gaming culture may be, on the whole, geared towards men, but EVE isn't that game. Essentially, EVE doesn't have a gender. I don't see EVE players as women or men playing women, in fact I really don't make any kind of distinction between men and women in EVE. It's absolutely meaningless. That hard-numbers, PVP style doesn't discourage women, it completely eliminates the idea of gender, even persona, in the game. A Dramiel is a Dramiel, it has no color, no gender, no difference from model to model. You can't make it look like a "girly" Dramiel, nor can you make it a "masculine" Dramiel. It's just a Dramiel, and all of them are the same until you start playing with the likewise androgynous fittings.
Maybe the weird thing about EVE is that I really don't know who is a woman or man even IN THE GAME WORLD, much less if the person in real life is playing one. There's not an awful lot of personality from ship to ship, so everything gets obscured. It's nothing but ships, equipment, and corporations. It's about as sterile as it gets.
Which is sort of the point. EVE is meant to be a sandbox's sandbox, something neutral to everything, therefore reflecting no bias. There's actually a LOT of girls playing EVE compared to some of the other games I've been in, and the thing is that I really don't think that's a reflection of anything specific. The game isn't brutal or masculine, it's very clinical and clean. It's a damn sight nicer than most of the FPS games I've ever played, especially Battlefield, where the actual learning curve for someone who's never played an FPS is a lot harder to deal with than EVE's.
EVE gets a really bad reputation for complexity and difficulty, so if women aren't playing for some reason it's more than likely its reputation, but it's really just not that game. It's very much the Eurythmics of MMO games, sort of futuristic and stripped down to undertones. In a world of games where you get more and more customization so your personality can shine through, you can't even change the color of your ship in EVE.
It's not a matter of the game being masculine or not, it's like Marilyn Manson in his boobed bodysuit thing he wore during the Mechanical Animals phase. There is no gender in your ship or your fit, or really anything else. EVE's not the place where sharp discrepancies are going to show up.
Vic, you forgot that ships are usually referred to with the female pronoun. Since we are all playing as spaceships, we must therefore be Many Men Online Role Playing Girls.
I would love to see freighters or mining frigs with those dangly truck ball things hanging from the back.
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Only in english. In french ships are male, and i'm pretty sure it's also the case in other languages as well.
Which is sexist trololo :D
I mean, both could be considered as sexist. The male ships bringing no place for female ships because you know, male is only what matters in the language in question. And the female ships just because it's objectification of females. But that would be rather pushing it to ridiculous places though. :P
Thank you all very much for your answers so far :)
I understand a few of the questions are bit ambiguous so I'm adding a specific, Eve related one of my own :)
"Eve is well known as a male dominated game, with approx 95% of players being men. This has led to the long running joke/tagline "there are no girls in eve (or on the internet)". What sort of impact do you think this has on female Eve players, or women just starting to play the game? For those of you who are female Eve players, have you encountered this often? Do you feel a need to 'prove' that you are female, or do you prefer to just get on with playing the game?"
Since I'm not female IRL I couldn't say, but all I know is that there was always almost more females connected than males in KotMC when I played. That girlie corp :3
Tbh Vic, the most sexist attitudes I have experienced were on Eve (platinum achievement to homophobic slurs though). The most hardcore the game... Added to the obnoxious community atmosphere in that game, can detonate very quickly when female gamers are involved.
Actually, especially regarding your last paragraph, it's exactly the contrary in my experience. I have rarely witnessed a community so disgusting as the one living on Eve. Everything is about smack, testosterone contests, taunts, tears drinking. And everything is allowed to reach your goal for that, and that usually starts with the most inventive ways I have seen to be offensive. Only matched in power by FPS games online, except the latter are rarely as insidious as the ones happening in Eve.
We may have simply had different circles we ran in? Full confession: for a year my "other game" slot besides WoW was taken up by Battlefield 2. I don't know what kind of slimy bastards you ran into here in EVE to give you the opinion that this game is the pinnacle of broski bullshit, but there has never been said anything anywhere in any other game that I've ever heard that could even break the top 10 of things I've heard in Battlefield.
In the year I played that game, I only ran into two women. Ever. And the things said by the all-male audience was.... yeah. I don't even want to repeat some of it. Suffice it to say that mass online FPS games are the Cannibal Corpse of gamer culture: so ridiculously offensive that it makes a full circle around making you feel disgusted and just starts entertaining you instead.
.... I should also disclose that I listen to Cannibal Corpse. I think I might be a little less civilized than I thought....
Just fly around in pvp and you will see what I mean. Or just read the general section of the official forum (like any similar MMO forum really, but here especially). Look at the goon 'ideology' (not the core one of the old founders, just the common grunt one). Look at what the game community has turned into (it was definitely not like that when I started playing, it was a LOT more mature).
That's why I said only matched by FPS games, where it can be a lot more crude and terrible. But less insidious as a whole. In FPS games they are just retards, in Eve the global level is different, and that's what is scary.
As a whole, Eve deeply contributed to my misanthropy.
I think the bigger problem is that EVE is a pretty bad game to ask this in. It's such an androgynous game to begin with since it's such a hard-numbers, PVP-centric game where we aren't really playing characters as much as we're flying around in ships. The closest we ever experience each others' avatars in person tends to be in a still shot. Nor is there an awful lot of style involved in flying; its not as if you can paint your ship pink and purple or put a hula girl on the dash.
EVE's not very sexy, in short.
Tbh Vic, the most sexist attitudes I have experienced were on Eve (platinum achievement to homophobic slurs though). The most hardcore the game... Added to the obnoxious community atmosphere in that game, can detonate very quickly when female gamers are involved.
Actually, especially regarding your last paragraph, it's exactly the contrary in my experience. I have rarely witnessed a community so disgusting as the one living on Eve. Everything is about smack, testosterone contests, taunts, tears drinking. And everything is allowed to reach your goal for that, and that usually starts with the most inventive ways I have seen to be offensive. Only matched in power by FPS games online, except the latter are rarely as insidious as the ones happening in Eve.
Right then. I disagree with both of you :D
I've heard a lot of people express the sentiments that 'hard numbers', the abstraction from an avatar, or that it's relatively brutal for an mmo, or that it's sci-fi - these things don't attract the girls.
But I think perhaps what gets overlooked is (when I played, which is going to be the caveat for everything I'm saying here) EVE, even for MMOs, is a highly social game. Which also sounds somewhat sexist; that girls don't like hard numbers or brutality but they do like chatting, which is not something I believe, but just trying to give the other side of the coin of how the game is perceived.
EVE is set up much easier to just start talking to people than other games - just clicking open a tab to evemail or pm someone, joining a channel - it's all very nice and intuitive. When I played WoWs beta I was all like...wtf how do I talk :( In Ultima Online from what I could see you could only talk to someone you encountered if they were on the same screen as you - people used ICQ to organise things. So there's the ease with which you can communicate.
There's also the need to be sociable to realistically survive in the game world. Even the essentially 'solo' players in school corp who hadn't joined a corp banded together to do this or that - mining ops or ratting or whatever. You could do things alone, but it was either not profitable or comparatively very dangerous. This was before missions became remotely viable (which to me happened when implants came in) or mining barges or anything. You could still afk an indy but, well, that's not really playing as such.
And there's the social aspect of everyone sharing the same game world rather than individual shards - I'm finding it difficult to articulate exactly how that shared experience makes a difference, but I have a gut feeling that it does; I've certainly had the experience before of finding it difficult to play games with friends in the US because they've been forced into another version of the game. Maybe a broader more diverse community. I dunno.
Also, I think perhaps what makes EVE harsh and brutal (basically, the risk/reward loss element and the steep learning curve) also tends to encourage camaraderie and forge relationships because you have to rely on your friends and corp-mates - your virtual life may depend on it. And I'm aware there's a lot of politicking, scamming and backstabbing - but the same applies, if anything it does seem to make the friendships you do make more worthwhile. Again, not articulating well here. Other than my corp-mates felt like brothers to me - jokey, idiot brothers but I knew they'd have my back if I needed it.
In fact, I feel all nostalgic and maudlin now.
My experience is different in that EVE has had the absolute best people I've played a game with. I think it very much depends on who you play with, and I'm aware that the community has grown from something quite niche to quite mainstream and perhaps that changes things massively. Not to be a snob, but also in some ways the difficulty has dropped (though the complexity hasn't) since when I first played and maybe there's more stupid around now :P
(I mean, they get a tutorial now and everything. They get a free ship at the end of it. I was given a mining laser and a rock and I had to figure out everything else for myself. In my day, etc etc.)
I've experienced more stupidity and hate in other games, more childish tantrums in games where you don't actually stand to lose anything. Which is not to say I haven't encountered all these things in EVE - I have, but not to the same degree as in other games and I was lucky to be in a good corp with a good circle of friends and contacts outside of that as well. There may be a lot of random factors about experiences here. The social adhesive stuff around camaraderie re: tangible loss I talked about earlier comes into it too, I think. Though it can go the other way as well.
It might be that the age demographic is broadly higher in EVE than some other MMOs I've played, too. (Though I have indeed met some very immature 40 year olds :P)
And EVE isn't sexy? Bah. Even at release, to me it was beautiful, glossy and sleek in it's design. Plus some ships are undoubtedly phallic (thorax, I look at you).
I may have not conveyed what I meant then. You speak about social private circles, I speak about the community in general. I have been in my own nice and warm social circles full of awesome people, and backstage is the continuity of this. Especially in Eve yes, you can find awesome people.
That's the community as large I despise/loathe. It directly conflicts with my own principles as a player that I can't overlook. And when I see fanfest, that seems like a good collection of cheerful and happy people all around sharing the same passion. And then I look back at what is truly ingame around, or on the forums, or even Mittens going full retard at fanfest, and Eve suddenly seriously feels schizophrenic to me.
That's mostly a perception of mine, not necessarily the truth. But you will have a hard time to make me change my mind after so many years spend on it. :/
That's sort of what I'm getting at. I'm sort of surprised at Lyn having seen a lot of sexism and such in EVE because I can't see why anyone would ever know or care if the people they play against or with are women or men. They could be sentient rocks for all it matters; your personal presence is sort of left behind by the vast distances involved and your in-game presence being represented by a standardized ship model, not by the character you spent all your time customizing.
Suppress the gender orientation of the art direction of the game, the community still remains. You will maybe lose most sexist comments based on avatar and personal customization, yes, but the root of the issue is located in the community, tied and influenced by the wider gaming and non gaming society at large. The player behind still exists, and has - I hope - a gender and a sexual orientation.
And Eve manages pretty well to offset completely that lack of character customization (though, there is still that character creator that was here since day 1, so that eve is perfectly androgynous is not entirely true, just less sex oriented than other MMOs). It does through the main culture of Eve, which is directly based on the macho and testosterone culture 100 times more than any other MMO I have played. Which stem partially from goon culture, but not only.
You will probably laugh since I'm no female but I find all this enormously offensive/disrespectful, and most importantly, hinting to seriously despicable sides of our current society, but maybe that's because I'm sort of a sold out paladin to the feminist cause.
Edit : but as I said earlier in my first post, sexism, while an issue, is far from being what the homophobic issue is. Sexism is still widespread in the world and western society, but it's a lot more discreet and passive these days than homophobic tolerance, which has started to appear much later (women rights started to emerge at the beginning of the last century, gay rights, are just starting to). And it can vary a lot depending on the countries people live in and are educated.
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The questions are clearly geared toward misogyny, not sexism in it's totality. The tone seems to presuppose sexism only goes one way. Even if not intentially malicious such presuppositions could be considered a subtle and perhaps even subconcious form of misandristic sexism.
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The questions are clearly geared toward misogyny, not sexism in it's totality. The tone seems to presuppose sexism only goes one way. Even if not intentially malicious such presuppositions could be considered a subtle and perhaps even subconcious form of misandristic sexism.
Misandry is largely a joke, and frankly the concept itself is typically used as tool of traditional sexism. On any societal, metacultural, or hierarchical level, sexism indeed does only go one way. Only in a strict dictionary definition can sexism be thought to go both ways.
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Sexist.
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Well there sure exist sexism in both ways, in video games or elsewhere and I don't see why it would not be the case. We have seen already how some so called 'feminists' can become extremist enough to actually become guilty of misandry.
As far as I understand the OP, it tries to look into 2 things :
- The case of female gamers which is usually the cause of much issues, prejudices, etc. Thus questions 1 & 3.
- The more general case of sexism in video games, which is for most of it happening through prejudices around female gamers, but maybe not necessarily exclusively. Thus why questions 2, 3, 4 & 5 do not specify female gamers. As far as I can tell, anyone is totally able to actually speak about misandry as well, even if I doubt we will find a lot of cases of that happening (especially in video games).
[edit : nvm]
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Well there sure exist sexism in both ways, in video games or elsewhere and I don't see why it would not be the case. We have seen already how some so called 'feminists' can become extremist enough to actually become guilty of misandry.
As far as I understand the OP, it tries to look into 2 things :
- The case of female gamers which is usually the cause of much issues, prejudices, etc. Thus questions 1 & 3.
- The more general case of sexism in video games, which is for most of it happening through prejudices around female gamers, but maybe not necessarily exclusively. Thus why questions 2, 3, 4 & 5 do not specify female gamers. As far as I can tell, anyone is totally able to actually speak about misandry as well, even if I doubt we will find a lot of cases of that happening (especially in video games).
It is far more likely that the questions do not specify females because it is assumed given the topic at hand.
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Misandry is largely a joke, and frankly the concept itself is typically used as tool of traditional sexism. On any societal, metacultural, or hierarchical level, sexism indeed does only go one way. Only in a strict dictionary definition can sexism be thought to go both ways.
Yeah, you're being sexist. Most reasonable feminists can agree that, even if one accepts the idea of patriarchy, men have suffered quite a lot at times due to gender expectations. Consider the white feather campaign in WW1, or the fact that there are virtually no aid programs for single, homeless men in this country (U.S), or the fact that domestic violence against men is considered a non-issue despite being at least half as much a problem as the one women faced (1 in 4 women and 1 in seven men will experience severe physical violence in a relationship, according to the CDC).
That's misandry, and you don't have to be an MRA nutter to accept it. It's why men should want gender equality as well. If you're a feminist, you destroy your own cause by asserting that men have no disadvantages, because in that case, no rational man would ever want to change anything. If this is as good as it ever gets for the male gender, we're pretty fucked as it is.
Fortunately, it isn't.
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I don't disagree that men deal with stereotypes. I just don't believe that misandry or male stereotyping is a form of sexism in anything but the dictionary sense. It is a distinction between stereotyping or prejudice and the type of systemic oppression that denotes one of the "isms".
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Only in english. In french ships are male, and i'm pretty sure it's also the case in other languages as well.
Which is sexist trololo :D
I mean, both could be considered as sexist. The male ships bringing no place for female ships because you know, male is only what matters in the language in question. And the female ships just because it's objectification of females. But that would be rather pushing it to ridiculous places though. :P
Thank you all very much for your answers so far :)
I understand a few of the questions are bit ambiguous so I'm adding a specific, Eve related one of my own :)
"Eve is well known as a male dominated game, with approx 95% of players being men. This has led to the long running joke/tagline "there are no girls in eve (or on the internet)". What sort of impact do you think this has on female Eve players, or women just starting to play the game? For those of you who are female Eve players, have you encountered this often? Do you feel a need to 'prove' that you are female, or do you prefer to just get on with playing the game?"
Since I'm not female IRL I couldn't say, but all I know is that there was always almost more females connected than males in KotMC when I played. That girlie corp :3
Tbh Vic, the most sexist attitudes I have experienced were on Eve (platinum achievement to homophobic slurs though). The most hardcore the game... Added to the obnoxious community atmosphere in that game, can detonate very quickly when female gamers are involved.
Actually, especially regarding your last paragraph, it's exactly the contrary in my experience. I have rarely witnessed a community so disgusting as the one living on Eve. Everything is about smack, testosterone contests, taunts, tears drinking. And everything is allowed to reach your goal for that, and that usually starts with the most inventive ways I have seen to be offensive. Only matched in power by FPS games online, except the latter are rarely as insidious as the ones happening in Eve.
We may have simply had different circles we ran in? Full confession: for a year my "other game" slot besides WoW was taken up by Battlefield 2. I don't know what kind of slimy bastards you ran into here in EVE to give you the opinion that this game is the pinnacle of broski bullshit, but there has never been said anything anywhere in any other game that I've ever heard that could even break the top 10 of things I've heard in Battlefield.
In the year I played that game, I only ran into two women. Ever. And the things said by the all-male audience was.... yeah. I don't even want to repeat some of it. Suffice it to say that mass online FPS games are the Cannibal Corpse of gamer culture: so ridiculously offensive that it makes a full circle around making you feel disgusted and just starts entertaining you instead.
.... I should also disclose that I listen to Cannibal Corpse. I think I might be a little less civilized than I thought....
Just fly around in pvp and you will see what I mean. Or just read the general section of the official forum (like any similar MMO forum really, but here especially). Look at the goon 'ideology' (not the core one of the old founders, just the common grunt one). Look at what the game community has turned into (it was definitely not like that when I started playing, it was a LOT more mature).
That's why I said only matched by FPS games, where it can be a lot more crude and terrible. But less insidious as a whole. In FPS games they are just retards, in Eve the global level is different, and that's what is scary.
As a whole, Eve deeply contributed to my misanthropy.
I think the bigger problem is that EVE is a pretty bad game to ask this in. It's such an androgynous game to begin with since it's such a hard-numbers, PVP-centric game where we aren't really playing characters as much as we're flying around in ships. The closest we ever experience each others' avatars in person tends to be in a still shot. Nor is there an awful lot of style involved in flying; its not as if you can paint your ship pink and purple or put a hula girl on the dash.
EVE's not very sexy, in short.
Tbh Vic, the most sexist attitudes I have experienced were on Eve (platinum achievement to homophobic slurs though). The most hardcore the game... Added to the obnoxious community atmosphere in that game, can detonate very quickly when female gamers are involved.
Actually, especially regarding your last paragraph, it's exactly the contrary in my experience. I have rarely witnessed a community so disgusting as the one living on Eve. Everything is about smack, testosterone contests, taunts, tears drinking. And everything is allowed to reach your goal for that, and that usually starts with the most inventive ways I have seen to be offensive. Only matched in power by FPS games online, except the latter are rarely as insidious as the ones happening in Eve.
Right then. I disagree with both of you :D
I've heard a lot of people express the sentiments that 'hard numbers', the abstraction from an avatar, or that it's relatively brutal for an mmo, or that it's sci-fi - these things don't attract the girls.
But I think perhaps what gets overlooked is (when I played, which is going to be the caveat for everything I'm saying here) EVE, even for MMOs, is a highly social game. Which also sounds somewhat sexist; that girls don't like hard numbers or brutality but they do like chatting, which is not something I believe, but just trying to give the other side of the coin of how the game is perceived.
EVE is set up much easier to just start talking to people than other games - just clicking open a tab to evemail or pm someone, joining a channel - it's all very nice and intuitive. When I played WoWs beta I was all like...wtf how do I talk :( In Ultima Online from what I could see you could only talk to someone you encountered if they were on the same screen as you - people used ICQ to organise things. So there's the ease with which you can communicate.
There's also the need to be sociable to realistically survive in the game world. Even the essentially 'solo' players in school corp who hadn't joined a corp banded together to do this or that - mining ops or ratting or whatever. You could do things alone, but it was either not profitable or comparatively very dangerous. This was before missions became remotely viable (which to me happened when implants came in) or mining barges or anything. You could still afk an indy but, well, that's not really playing as such.
And there's the social aspect of everyone sharing the same game world rather than individual shards - I'm finding it difficult to articulate exactly how that shared experience makes a difference, but I have a gut feeling that it does; I've certainly had the experience before of finding it difficult to play games with friends in the US because they've been forced into another version of the game. Maybe a broader more diverse community. I dunno.
Also, I think perhaps what makes EVE harsh and brutal (basically, the risk/reward loss element and the steep learning curve) also tends to encourage camaraderie and forge relationships because you have to rely on your friends and corp-mates - your virtual life may depend on it. And I'm aware there's a lot of politicking, scamming and backstabbing - but the same applies, if anything it does seem to make the friendships you do make more worthwhile. Again, not articulating well here. Other than my corp-mates felt like brothers to me - jokey, idiot brothers but I knew they'd have my back if I needed it.
In fact, I feel all nostalgic and maudlin now.
My experience is different in that EVE has had the absolute best people I've played a game with. I think it very much depends on who you play with, and I'm aware that the community has grown from something quite niche to quite mainstream and perhaps that changes things massively. Not to be a snob, but also in some ways the difficulty has dropped (though the complexity hasn't) since when I first played and maybe there's more stupid around now :P
(I mean, they get a tutorial now and everything. They get a free ship at the end of it. I was given a mining laser and a rock and I had to figure out everything else for myself. In my day, etc etc.)
I've experienced more stupidity and hate in other games, more childish tantrums in games where you don't actually stand to lose anything. Which is not to say I haven't encountered all these things in EVE - I have, but not to the same degree as in other games and I was lucky to be in a good corp with a good circle of friends and contacts outside of that as well. There may be a lot of random factors about experiences here. The social adhesive stuff around camaraderie re: tangible loss I talked about earlier comes into it too, I think. Though it can go the other way as well.
It might be that the age demographic is broadly higher in EVE than some other MMOs I've played, too. (Though I have indeed met some very immature 40 year olds :P)
And EVE isn't sexy? Bah. Even at release, to me it was beautiful, glossy and sleek in it's design. Plus some ships are undoubtedly phallic (thorax, I look at you).
I may have not conveyed what I meant then. You speak about social private circles, I speak about the community in general. I have been in my own nice and warm social circles full of awesome people, and backstage is the continuity of this. Especially in Eve yes, you can find awesome people.
That's the community as large I despise/loathe. It directly conflicts with my own principles as a player that I can't overlook. And when I see fanfest, that seems like a good collection of cheerful and happy people all around sharing the same passion. And then I look back at what is truly ingame around, or on the forums, or even Mittens going full retard at fanfest, and Eve suddenly seriously feels schizophrenic to me.
That's mostly a perception of mine, not necessarily the truth. But you will have a hard time to make me change my mind after so many years spend on it. :/
That's sort of what I'm getting at. I'm sort of surprised at Lyn having seen a lot of sexism and such in EVE because I can't see why anyone would ever know or care if the people they play against or with are women or men. They could be sentient rocks for all it matters; your personal presence is sort of left behind by the vast distances involved and your in-game presence being represented by a standardized ship model, not by the character you spent all your time customizing.
Suppress the gender orientation of the art direction of the game, the community still remains. You will maybe lose most sexist comments based on avatar and personal customization, yes, but the root of the issue is located in the community, tied and influenced by the wider gaming and non gaming society at large. The player behind still exists, and has - I hope - a gender and a sexual orientation.
And Eve manages pretty well to offset completely that lack of character customization (though, there is still that character creator that was here since day 1, so that eve is perfectly androgynous is not entirely true, just less sex oriented than other MMOs). It does through the main culture of Eve, which is directly based on the macho and testosterone culture 100 times more than any other MMO I have played. Which stem partially from goon culture, but not only.
You will probably laugh since I'm no female but I find all this enormously offensive/disrespectful, and most importantly, hinting to seriously despicable sides of our current society, but maybe that's because I'm sort of a sold out paladin to the feminist cause.
Edit : but as I said earlier in my first post, sexism, while an issue, is far from being what the homophobic issue is. Sexism is still widespread in the world and western society, but it's a lot more discreet and passive these days than homophobic tolerance, which has started to appear much later (women rights started to emerge at the beginning of the last century, gay rights, are just starting to). And it can vary a lot depending on the countries people live in and are educated.
Yeah, I think we're on skew lines here, Lyn. I was talking pretty specifically about the game, and the game itself I think is very gender neutral. Once you get into the community, you're stepping a bit outside the game as far as I'm concerned (but not that you're wrong for thinking it's more important than I do). I just think that once you talk about the community, you're beyond the concept of a game and into the concept of the world at large. You'll always have forum trolls.
EVE just isn't a sexy game not because it's not pretty, it's because it's not populated by "people". It's populated by ships. I just don't think a Harbinger, however awesome it looks, is going to give me the same reaction as an avatar that looks like Floor Jansen in a skimpy plate metal bikini with a battleaxe. I can't lie, there's a hopefully-not-so-small part of me that likes that. I can't pretend that doesn't have some kind of effect on me in the back of my mind.
I don't think that necessarily makes me a sexist, but it certainly makes a game less gender-neutral for me when it's around.
With that being the case, EVE just doesn't give you enough tools in the actual game world to transmit your personality through, so your gender doesn't really ever come through. The size of the fleets might have something to do with that, too. I know raids in the new WoW xpack will be down to 20 people, so just few enough people that you get to know them all very closely and individually. When you're a girl among a 1,000 man fleet, your ability to hit F1 on your assigned targets isn't usually called into question. If you're a girl in a 20 man raid and your DPS doesn't match muster, it's a lot easier to blame it on gender. Nevermind if you're not last, if you managed to live, if you're trying to pull support because some other asshole doesn't know how to get back to the group before mind control and DPS is lost in the six seconds it takes to turn and run over and solve problems. It doesn't even matter if a male counterpart would just be called piss poor DPS. Nope, it very often comes into question that it's a woman.
Honestly, the weird thing is that it doesn't mean women get kicked from the raid; sexism tends to take the form of patriarchy in WoW. Women who can't pull their weight in their roles will be dragged through content long after men who aren't as terrible are gone. Maybe that's because some raid leaders simply expect women aren't as good. Maybe it's because groups of men just like having women around to break up the monotony.
It's also very possible that it happens that way because women aren't as likely to have a violent blowup and scream at the raid, thus get kicked. Maybe it's sexist to say, but the women I play with have a tendency to accept blame and internalize angst as opposed to guys, who have a higher probability of blowing up and playing the audible victim to the raid leader.
I'm not sure about all that. I know it's definitely sexism of some flavor or another; the expectations for women and consequences for poor performance can both be different than they are for men, for better or worse.
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I don't disagree that men deal with stereotypes. I just don't believe that misandry or male stereotyping is a form of sexism in anything but the dictionary sense. It is a distinction between stereotyping or prejudice and the type of systemic oppression that denotes one of the "isms".
Well if we're throwing out the dictionary, what do you think "sexism" means?
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I don't disagree that men deal with stereotypes. I just don't believe that misandry or male stereotyping is a form of sexism in anything but the dictionary sense. It is a distinction between stereotyping or prejudice and the type of systemic oppression that denotes one of the "isms".
I think that there's a very good argument to be made for certain views of men as being both systemic and operative upon most men.
That said, you seem to be essentially appealing to ad hoc definition..."if x could qualify as misandry, then I will redefine misandry until it doesn't".
This sort of thinking seems to stem from the idea that because one group is oppressed, another can't be, or at least its oppression, because it isn't as bad, doesn't matter. So, for example, we might decide that white women in western countries shouldn't matter as much, because historically, westerners have oppressed other groups. This leads to an "oppression olympics" in which the only winner can be the one most oppressed minority on earth, who are the truly oppressed ones.
A more rational approach is that of MLK: injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
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I don't disagree that men deal with stereotypes. I just don't believe that misandry or male stereotyping is a form of sexism in anything but the dictionary sense. It is a distinction between stereotyping or prejudice and the type of systemic oppression that denotes one of the "isms".
I think that there's a very good argument to be made for certain views of men as being both systemic and operative upon most men.
That said, you seem to be essentially appealing to ad hoc definition..."if x could qualify as misandry, then I will redefine misandry until it doesn't".
This sort of thinking seems to stem from the idea that because one group is oppressed, another can't be, or at least its oppression, because it isn't as bad, doesn't matter. So, for example, we might decide that white women in western countries shouldn't matter as much, because historically, westerners have oppressed other groups. This leads to an "oppression olympics" in which the only winner can be the one most oppressed minority on earth, who are the truly oppressed ones.
A more rational approach is that of MLK: injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
It comes from the fact that systemic oppression must come from a place of societal power - so if a group is not marginalized, but is instead the group with dominant social power, they cannot be oppressed by definition. Stereotyped? Sure. Subject of prejudice? Sure. But not oppressed. It is taken from the perspective of society and metaculture as a whole, not individual cases or circumstances.
All that said, this is one of those topics that tends to devolve to pointlessness fairly quickly if people aren't coming at it from remotely the same perspectives. It isn't uncommon for terms to have varying definitions depending on the discipline someone is referencing from or the narrative they are speaking from, but it does tend to discombobulate discussion to an extent.
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I may have not conveyed what I meant then. You speak about social private circles, I speak about the community in general. I have been in my own nice and warm social circles full of awesome people, and backstage is the continuity of this. Especially in Eve yes, you can find awesome people.
That's the community as large I despise/loathe. It directly conflicts with my own principles as a player that I can't overlook. And when I see fanfest, that seems like a good collection of cheerful and happy people all around sharing the same passion. And then I look back at what is truly ingame around, or on the forums, or even Mittens going full retard at fanfest, and Eve suddenly seriously feels schizophrenic to me.
Well, I'll speak about both really, as I've encountered people in my nice social private circles and the random encounters with 'the community' (plus, without knowing them in real first, the nice social private circles are going to be formed from initially unknown random people). I think the community has changed a lot in EVE since I first started, mind - so that's a disclaimer.
I think it's difficult in some ways to talk about the community 'at large' without generalizing - but yeah as part of the 'gaming community' overall that EVE is a part of there's a lot that's fairly horrific about it as well as good. I'll say I've encountered less shit in EVE than other MMOs (though obviously just personal experience); but the 'full retard' contingent exists as well.
sexism, while an issue, is far from being what the homophobic issue is.
I think they tie in to eachother tbh. Or, not going to say "homophobia is a worse issue than sexism" - just that they're both crappy issues that I think tend to stem from a similar place. Which is deep insecurity often rooted in gender roles (e.g hyper masculine individuals may feel more threatened by the perceived femininity of The Gay in other men)
I wonder, perhaps, if some of that insecurity translates to things like avatars in MMOs (most of which play as straightforward adolescent power fantasies anyways) because there's dissonance and uncertainty between representation and reality. I mean, I've heard people be pissed off that a female avatar has been played by a guy. Usually because they've hit on them and been rebuffed. Which makes them fearful that they have somehow inadvertantly caught The Gay. The conservation plays out as follows:
person a) *hits on skimpy female avatar*
person b) "dude. I'm a guy."
person a) * gets all defensive, like it's the other persons fault they didn't live up to expectations* "why would you pick a girl to play then? gay."
person b) *gets defensive at accusation* "me gay? you're the one who's going to be staring at a guys ass all day. I pick a girl because girls are hot. fag."
and so on. I take Vic's point that in EVE we *don't* have a girls ass to stare out (well, there's ambulation, but eh) and I do think that mitigates things somewhat. But we still have idiots, and I've seen that conservation played out in EVE as well, honest to god; even if it is only a picture in a chat window. Also, I think for the OP, a really useful thing to do would be to go on to EVE Search and put in certain key terms, as there's definitely been numerous threads about gender and avatars over the years.
(I could try and dig them up at some point if she's interested, as I'm pretty sure I posted in most of them -.-;)
Also as well as it being so normal for being gay to be an insult in games, I remember feeling somewhat dismayed that the forum mods in EVE-O forums were censoring the words "gay" and "lesbian" as offensive words. Which changed, but I think it needed someone with some kind of cred blogging about it to do it. And I get that wasn't necessarily homophobic - I think they had good intentions there; recognized it was so normal and casual to use that as an insult and acted accordingly. But perhaps not understanding by automatically censoring it into '***' that's saying the only way those words can be used in is derrogatory. Which is...so unhelpful.
The other reason to censor was it's inappropriate language for a teen rated game - as if teens don't have, or aren't discovering, their sexuality :s
I don't disagree that men deal with stereotypes. I just don't believe that misandry or male stereotyping is a form of sexism in anything but the dictionary sense. It is a distinction between stereotyping or prejudice and the type of systemic oppression that denotes one of the "isms".
re: definitions, my perception of the terms is...you can't have misandry or misogyny without sexism, but you can have sexism without misandry or misogyny, necessarily.
Misandry is hating men. Misogyny is hating women. I'm painting with broad strokes, but I think that's a product of feeling angry and threatened - for whatever reason, and, (much like homophobia) far more to do with you and your own gender issues than the people you're hating.
Sexism doesn't need to involve hate (but can) - it could be antiquated views based on things that no longer seem relevant to a lot of people, gender roles that are stereotypical and restrictive, generalisations that are ignorant, habitual reinforcement from social groups...It's always going to be unfair and should be challenged, but doesn't have to be hate-based on an individual level.
I think someones earlier distinction between 'casual' and 'directed' sexism was really useful. I imagine we all draw the lines in different places in what constitutes sexism from a community; as if asked how sexism affects me I would be purely referring to the directed sexism I've experienced or witnessed. Other things, like certain word choices that have become part of gaming lexicon have seemed like background noise (wrongly or rightly). Where the lines are being drawn is going to depend on the person.
I was talking pretty specifically about the game, and the game itself I think is very gender neutral. Once you get into the community, you're stepping a bit outside the game as far as I'm concerned (but not that you're wrong for thinking it's more important than I do).
How could you talk about your experiences of sexism within a game without talking about the community who plays it, though?
edit: I'd also wonder how you can separate the two; given all sorts of things about the game is going to attract a certain audience, and how the game is played is, or allowed to be played via mechanics or rules, is going to influence behaviour of the players. I think there has to be some sort of symbiosis between a game and its community, even at times if that means the developers and the playerbase end up being at odds due to competing interests.../ponder
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Er. that went a bit wrong.
I seem to have an ongoing hit-quote-instead-of-modify problem. How do I delete a post -.-;;;;;
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I don't know about you, but I like staring at glowing thruster exhausts all day.
On the issue of community and sexism, one has got to take into account exactly who most of these buggers are. They are some of the most immature, loud-mouthed 'frat-boys' who only think with and about their dangling bits. This is true almost everywhere unmoderated on the internet. Lowest common denominator infesting the place spewing their bile and phlegm just begging to be shot, burnt, stabbed, quartered, obliterated and decimated.
However, we must also take into account exactly what sort of media rubbish they are absorbing, and the fact that these gutter-thrash have a tendency of coagulating like oil spills over seawater, creating echo-chambers while at it. While social programming (extending from many previous generations) play a role, I say the real problem is a combination of unchecked media consumption, the availability of such media online and the sheer ease of retreating away from real life and into the internet to propagate their pigheaded sentiments about gender and sexualism. Unless we could figure out how to deal with this issue without public outrage and other nasty, possibly illegal things, these venomous ideals are just going to propagate, condense and stir up a foul stench in the internet wasteland.
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I don't know about you, but I like staring at glowing thruster exhausts all day.
On the issue of community and sexism, one has got to take into account exactly who most of these buggers are. They are some of the most immature, loud-mouthed 'frat-boys' who only thinks with and about their dangling bits. This is true almost everywhere unmoderated on the internet. Lowest common denominator infesting the place spewing their bile and phlegm just begging to be shot, burnt, stabbed, quartered, obliterated and decimated.
That's probably why I do not feel the prevalence of sexism. I do not pay attention to them. I do not even speak to them. My only real meaningful interaction with these people always involve unprovoked violence from either side.
What do you mean by these people?
Sorry, couldn't help it. :yar:
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I don't know about you, but I like staring at glowing thruster exhausts all day.
On the issue of community and sexism, one has got to take into account exactly who most of these buggers are. They are some of the most immature, loud-mouthed 'frat-boys' who only thinks with and about their dangling bits. This is true almost everywhere unmoderated on the internet. Lowest common denominator infesting the place spewing their bile and phlegm just begging to be shot, burnt, stabbed, quartered, obliterated and decimated.
That's probably why I do not feel the prevalence of sexism. I do not pay attention to them. I do not even speak to them. My only real meaningful interaction with these people always involve unprovoked violence from either side.
What do you mean by these people?
Sorry, couldn't help it. :yar:
I admit I'm...what do you call the bias against loud-mouthed chest-beaters with swollen, blister-covered dangling bits?
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I don't know about you, but I like staring at glowing thruster exhausts all day.
On the issue of community and sexism, one has got to take into account exactly who most of these buggers are. They are some of the most immature, loud-mouthed 'frat-boys' who only thinks with and about their dangling bits. This is true almost everywhere unmoderated on the internet. Lowest common denominator infesting the place spewing their bile and phlegm just begging to be shot, burnt, stabbed, quartered, obliterated and decimated.
That's probably why I do not feel the prevalence of sexism. I do not pay attention to them. I do not even speak to them. My only real meaningful interaction with these people always involve unprovoked violence from either side.
What do you mean by these people?
Sorry, couldn't help it. :yar:
I admit I'm...what do you call the bias against loud-mouthed chest-beaters with swollen, blister-covered dangling bits?
Dudebroism.
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I admit I'm...what do you call the bias against loud-mouthed chest-beaters with swollen, blister-covered dangling bits?
Dudebroism.
Apparently, and predictably, herpes is a prerequisite for derpes.
(I actually want to contribute a serious response to this thread and the survey questions asked; will try to do so later.)
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@Kala : pretty much agree yes. Also I still tend to think there is a difference in the kind of crass idiocy we see on Eve and the generic MMO. It has often seemed a lot more... cunning, or intelligent in Eve. Which does not make it anyless offensive.
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@Kala : pretty much agree yes. Also I still tend to think there is a difference in the kind of crass idiocy we see on Eve and the generic MMO. It has often seemed a lot more... cunning, or intelligent in Eve. Which does not make it anyless offensive.
Even in major station local chat, I'm not sure anything I've heard in EVE's general community is going to even hit the top ten, and it's not like Tenla Amarr isn't trying. Disclaimer: I play Alliance on Moon Guard on WoW, so it might not be a fair competition. The things said on that server's Elwynn genchat is the reason a lot of you should probably be thankful you play EVE.
I was talking pretty specifically about the game, and the game itself I think is very gender neutral. Once you get into the community, you're stepping a bit outside the game as far as I'm concerned (but not that you're wrong for thinking it's more important than I do).
How could you talk about your experiences of sexism within a game without talking about the community who plays it, though?
edit: I'd also wonder how you can separate the two; given all sorts of things about the game is going to attract a certain audience, and how the game is played is, or allowed to be played via mechanics or rules, is going to influence behaviour of the players. I think there has to be some sort of symbiosis between a game and its community, even at times if that means the developers and the playerbase end up being at odds due to competing interests.../ponder
I think it's actually something that's fairly common, but not easy to notice if you're not paying attention. Essentially, communities are communities; you'll get the same issues pretty much anywhere to some degree or another. However, if you're talking about sexism in games, you have to talk about setting and substance within the game, and this can amplify and quiet that sort of sexism.
Nevermind the inherent sexism when you're playing a game when you're a seven foot shirtless barbarian carrying an axe the size of an office desk and your female counterparts are wearing what looks like a leather bikini wrapped in tinfoil, but you're simply going to react differently seeing men and women. EVE very intentionally plays down not just gender and gender roles, but also the idea of the person in general. It's very much a game about spaceships, not necessarily the people flying them. You can't even see yourself in 3d unless you jump into the captain's quarters, and even then other players will only ever see a still shot of you. You are represented by your ship, an interchangeable one that looks precisely the same as everyone else's who bought your particular model.
It might be part of chatting and such, but that happened on chat forums and instant messengers without the benefit of a game. As far as sexism in games goes, EVE just doesn't give you much of that to think about in-game.
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Oh ? And yet I have been approached in... certain ways by random strangers on Eve.
And that also happened before Incarna, with the old portraits as well.
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It might be part of chatting and such, but that happened on chat forums and instant messengers without the benefit of a game. As far as sexism in games goes, EVE just doesn't give you much of that to think about in-game.
Sure, but it's not exclusive to external stuff like forums and TS, there's also the ingame chat channels
Oh ? And yet I have been approached in... certain ways by random strangers on Eve.
And that also happened before Incarna, with the old portraits as well.
Me too, but this was my portrait so...can't entirely blame them
(http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a89/KalahariWayrest/kalahariwayrest92.gif)
:p
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Also putting that here for great prejudice :P
(http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/1462491322487655141.jpg)
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1. What is your opinion on girl gamers?
I am one. It has it's own subculture as well -- 'gamer girls' versus 'girl gamers', for example. But that is pretty equal to a "guy gamer" versus a guy who plays one game on an Xbox and calls himself a "gamer".
2. After finding out an opponent or teammate is the opposite gender, do you feel different about them?
Okay, this is odd - the answer is yes, and I've always been aware of it. I'm going to include all MMOs in this example and try to explain.
Number one, their general social behavior is going to be different, because men and woman tend to be raised differently. As a 'tomboy' with four brothers, I never related well to other women in social settings in my entire life save in very rare circumstances - mainly only if they had upbringings similar in enough ways to my own what we share some personality patterns.
(Ask some of the other ladies about the rather explosive arguments we've had on and off over the year - because I don't 'fight like a girl' the altercations tend to be relatively short, highly violent, and discarded afterwards - by me anyway - instead of the stewing on topic X for years (ie. a more 'masculine' way of handling it - after a few punches are swung and noses are bloodied by brain says it is time to laugh it off and drop it.)
Number two as I was raised with some 'stereotypes' especially in the fantasty genre, it was always apparent to me that even if a male player was playing a female character who was "main tank" there was always some added nervousness. It could have to do with the art of teeny little women and giant raid mobs, versus slightly larger men avatars, but who knows.
3. Do you feel gamer girls are their own clique within gamers as a whole?
They try to be at times. I avoid those groups. They simply end up a digital version of high school girls, which I again never fit in with.
4. Do you feel there is a rivalry or alliance between the genders in the gaming community?
That I've never actually detected.
5. Do you feel sexism is an issue, and if so, have you experienced it?
"Trolling" and "flaming" is universal. Sexism is an easy attack point. Usually only takes a girl about thirty seconds or less if she is competently skilled at the game to make her sex, gender, whatever, a non-issue. A lot of words are thrown around the gaming subculture who's definitions are skewed into 'new slang', for example "That's so gay" is rarely referring to homosexuality, but to something ludicrous or unfair, for example. Part of my brain had muddled over whether it didn't end up shifting in definition due to unrighteous persecutions over people in that gender-group, and when something is referred to as 'gay', it is this larger more "meme'd" definition of "Rediculous thing happening that is unfair for no reason" - especially since a good part of the "gaming/MMO subculture" also seems to include a higher percentage of people who are part of other existing subcultures. I know when I say something is gay I am not referring to it having intimate relations with something of the same gender, but being "unecessarily unfair and/or rediculous" - and that's not the same definition of the word.
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Also putting that here for great prejudice :P
(http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/1462491322487655141.jpg)
You haven't seen my wife play Diablo. We explore every little bit of the map and collect every single thing for cash. We annoy my brother who only picks up blues when we teleport out twice or three times a dungeon to drain the bags.
And her monk styles are no joke.
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Also putting that here for great prejudice :P
(http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/1462491322487655141.jpg)
You haven't seen my wife play Diablo. We explore every little bit of the map and collect every single thing for cash. We annoy my brother who only picks up blues when we teleport out twice or three times a dungeon to drain the bags.
And her monk styles are no joke.
This is interesting, because I notice that my own exploration and quest habits are highly, almost compulsively utilitarian. That is to say, if I think I can get xp/levels/items from a location, I will investigate every nook and cranny. On the other hand, if I'm at max level, or I have the best gear already, I will simply head for the objective, often even without reference to surroundings, unless they directly threaten me.
A good case study for this was my recent play through of Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 - solo character challenge, core rules. In both games, I found myself intent on completing every side-quest and exploring every area - until I hit max level, and suddenly lost all interest in anything but completing the game.
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1. What is your opinion on girl gamers?
Don't have one.
2. After finding out an opponent or teammate is the opposite gender, do you feel different about them?
No. Well, apart from liking them just a bit more because the odds that I could have sex with them have increased ~0.01%. I don't really see much difference in how females and males act, and can't really tell which gender they are until they reveal it, which surprises me quite often. I'm usually not very interested in the gender of the gamer, so I can play with them for a long time before I find out.
3. Do you feel gamer girls are their own clique within gamers as a whole?
No.
4. Do you feel there is a rivalry or alliance between the genders in the gaming community?
Neither.
5. Do you feel sexism is an issue, and if so, have you experienced it?
It is whenever is pops up, but apart from news articles I don't really see or hear much about it. I've had little personal experience, and none in the gaming community.
As her question is based around the use of language centered around women in gaming, your answers are far more important that the questions themselves. Feel free to go off on tangents and explore ideas, but attempt to stick at least generally to the topic.
I kinda suck at questionaires. I tend to overthink the questions and how to interpret them. I didn't do very well in working in some language related stuff. Only things that come to mind is that they get and give a bit more *fluffles, *hugs, and that they tend to use and be called sweet nicknames like "honey" a bit more often.
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I know I call people "hon" more often myself. Only once I do that is it ever reciprocated from those people or others who witness that I use the term and don't care, so I've seen that as something more bridging in dialogues than a separation, at least in my own experience.
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Well if we're throwing out the dictionary, what do you think "sexism" means?
Most '-ism' are defined as power + prejudice. Sexism, racism, and heteronormativity are all sociological terms but dictionaries rarely reflect what the words mean in in sociological/academic writing.
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Also putting that here for great prejudice :P
(http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/1462491322487655141.jpg)
Soo...In Skyrim the girl almost immediately obtains her objective from the cave, where the guy goes round in circles like a headless nooblet for 3 and a half hours trying to find the same thing?
Or was that not the point? :P
(in fairness, in Daggerfall wandering around dungeons like a headless nooblet for hours - sometimes days - on end was my MO. Also forgetting to use the mark/recall spell. d'oh. :bash: Less opportunity to get properly lost in Skyrim's caves)
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I have never met a woman who's spent $876 on pants in one trip to the mall. According to this (http://www.businesspundit.com/where-women-spend-their-money/), the average woman spends $1,069 on clothing a year (not counting shoes).
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Also putting that here for great prejudice :P
(http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/1462491322487655141.jpg)
Soo...In Skyrim the girl almost immediately obtains her objective from the cave, where the guy goes round in circles like a headless nooblet for 3 and a half hours trying to find the same thing?
Or was that not the point? :P
(in fairness, in Daggerfall wandering around dungeons like a headless nooblet for hours - sometimes days - on end was my MO. Also forgetting to use the mark/recall spell. d'oh. :bash: Less opportunity to get properly lost in Skyrim's caves)
So, you mean women are better fleet members?
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I remember missing Daggerfall immensely, and then finally getting it to "work" on a newer machine. Yay!
.. nowaitnowait the mobs move on the internal clock!
... owowowowow*dead*
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Most '-ism' are defined as power + prejudice.
Capital-ism ? Commun-ism ? :P
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Most '-ism' are defined as power + prejudice.
Capital-ism ? Commun-ism ? :P
Plagiarism?
Opportunism?
... Prism?
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The questions:
1. What is your opinion on girl gamers?
2. After finding out an opponent or teammate is the opposite gender, do you feel different about them?
3. Do you feel gamer girls are their own clique within gamers as a whole?
4. Do you feel there is a rivalry or alliance between the genders in the gaming community?
5. Do you feel sexism is an issue, and if so, have you experienced it?
1. I don't have an opinion. A gamer is a gamer, and if you're a gamer then you're a friend of mine.
2. Nope.
3. Not really. But as I am not a female, it would be hard to determine as I am not an "insider."
4. There probably is, but if so I wouldn't know. I think such a thing is stupid and don't hang around groups where such a thing would exist.
5. I feel in certain gaming communities it may be an issue. For example, all those fantasy games that have ads with female magicians dressed in skintight suits with breasts big enough to break their spines. I think the sexualization of females in video games is stupid and extremely cliche. It is one of the reasons I love EVE, though. In a sense, it feels more meritocratic in that gender (in the long run) isn't important in EVE...at least, from what my experience in the game says anyway.
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The questions are clearly geared toward misogyny, not sexism in it's totality. The tone seems to presuppose sexism only goes one way. Even if not intentially malicious such presuppositions could be considered a subtle and perhaps even subconcious form of misandristic sexism.
This. The questions are slanted in favor of only one gender by the way it asks about sexism and female gamers specifically.
Misandry is largely a joke, and frankly the concept itself is typically used as tool of traditional sexism. On any societal, metacultural, or hierarchical level, sexism indeed does only go one way. Only in a strict dictionary definition can sexism be thought to go both ways.
Misandrist. Given your answers in the questionnaire I'd theorize there may be a personal issue or condition with you that renders you unable to see any sexism against men, but because I don''t know you I'm not going to explore that option to much. Regardless, if you are going to claim that misandry is a joke or don't exist I will need some good arguments, otherwise I'll just have to write you off as some sexist and leave you at that.
... wow the dictionary don't even catch misandrist or misandry as words even. What.the.actual.fuck. :evil:
@ Lyn Farel: Given your answer to the 4th question I'd point out something regarding Anita Sarkeesian, but I already did that in the tread about equality (http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=5611.msg94007#msg94007) so if you want to respond re. A. Sarkeesian that's the place to do so.
As for this questionnaire itself I'll give it some thinking over and maybe I'll pitch in later on.
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@ Lyn Farel: Given your answer to the 4th question I'd point out something regarding Anita Sarkeesian, but I already did that in the tread about equality (http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=5611.msg94007#msg94007) so if you want to respond re. A. Sarkeesian that's the place to do so.
Can be summarised thus: "I disagree with the message. I must shoot the messenger."
On the topic of importance, there has been some absolute horse crap spouted about misandry from both side, but the absolute king of all bullshit points is claiming so unilaterally that feminists care nothing about men's troubles.
Well firstly, most people who make that assertion have almost always never gone to the effort of talking about the topic to a feminist. I spend a great deal of time with feminists, I live with one who herself heads up a feminist group and participates in others. Whenever I bring up, and I do, the subject of how men are affected by gender stereotyping, I am never rebuffed, derided or dismissed, or at least not yet. But bringing up the topic of women and gender stereotyping with so-called men's advocates, the exact opposite. I am rebuffed, called everything from "effete Jessie" to "f***ing faggot" and generally attacked for holding a different view.
On a side-note, one of my favourite little quasi-historical applause buttons to look at in that regard is the old "women get the vote but didn't fight in wars! Unfair!" Well putting aside the fact that the statement is a wholesale lie, some people clearly missed the memo that women weren't allowed to fight in the same capacity as men. Legally forbidden. In fact pretty much until recent times, having women on the frontline in conventional warfare was rare in the extreme, and most nations will not allow them into frontline combat units. But aside from that, taking an example from this country and the war that is most used as reference, WW2, women contributed an incredible amount to the victory. I mean, for starters they kept industry going, and kept food growing and administered the huge war machine in action. And even though they were forbidden from even joining the regular services, a great number volunteered to be dropped behind enemy lines on some of the most dangerous missions of the war. More than one died in appalling conditions having been captured by the enemy. As I said, it's only recently that women are being allowed into the proper frontline units of conventional warfare, so for someone to say that women want to have their cake and eat it, have power and no responsibility re. Not fighting in war, that's as stupid as sitting down to play chess, making no moves and declaring checkmate.
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The questions are clearly geared toward misogyny, not sexism in it's totality. The tone seems to presuppose sexism only goes one way. Even if not intentially malicious such presuppositions could be considered a subtle and perhaps even subconcious form of misandristic sexism.
This is why I am not going to answer the questionnaire, for the record.
As a male victim of sexism in this very game by this very community, I'll simply state that yes it does exist.
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1. What is your opinion on girl gamers?
Some are rancid mentally challenged cunts, some are extremely awesome peeps. Really no different from the dudes.
2. After finding out an opponent or teammate is the opposite gender, do you feel different about them?
Fuck no.
3. Do you feel gamer girls are their own clique within gamers as a whole?
Meh. Some like to clique, some don't.
4. Do you feel there is a rivalry or alliance between the genders in the gaming community?
Eh, I guess there is always the childish pricks and cunts going for this but generally I'd say no.
5. Do you feel sexism is an issue, and if so, have you experienced it?
M'yeah all sort of socially challenged neckbeards like to sperg at girls. It's why we can't have nice things. Sometimes chicks work the angle themselves for their benefit. It's a two way street, and relatively busy one at that too.
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@ Lyn Farel: Given your answer to the 4th question I'd point out something regarding Anita Sarkeesian, but I already did that in the tread about equality (http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=5611.msg94007#msg94007) so if you want to respond re. A. Sarkeesian that's the place to do so.
Can be summarised thus: "I disagree with the message. I must shoot the messenger."
Come on you can do better than to try and tell me what I actually mean and think as if I don't know that better than you do. Don't be dishonest.
There are parts of A. Sarkeesian's message I agree with. But that don't excuse all the things I take issue with. Regardless, take this to the other topic.
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No one is going to answer that questionnaire with anything other than socially acceptable responses. On one hand, it's good that so many of us feel that way, but on the other hand, it makes the questionnaire a bit useless.
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@ Lyn Farel: Given your answer to the 4th question I'd point out something regarding Anita Sarkeesian, but I already did that in the tread about equality (http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=5611.msg94007#msg94007) so if you want to respond re. A. Sarkeesian that's the place to do so.
I'm not even going to get bogged down into the main thread/argument because honestly, I don't want to start an endless drama. I believe in what she says, and strongly agree with most of what she points out, and that both as a gamer and as a game developer myself. I also happen to believe that the con artists are the people campaigning against her on the internet. I have watched tons of videos of counter criticism directed at her, and most of them are just wretched losers trying to speak at her level and using so many sophisms and bad faith that it's just nauseous.
I just am unable to understand why people take issue with her. She talks perfect common sense to me.
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No one is going to answer that questionnaire with anything other than socially acceptable responses.
1. What is your opinion on girl gamers?
Some are rancid mentally challenged cunts
:D
(I know I cut the quote short, so it's wilful misrepresentation, but it was more lolzy that way :P)
Quote from: purple on 26 Jan 2014, 09:15
The questions are clearly geared toward misogyny, not sexism in it's totality. The tone seems to presuppose sexism only goes one way. Even if not intentially malicious such presuppositions could be considered a subtle and perhaps even subconcious form of misandristic sexism.
This. The questions are slanted in favor of only one gender by the way it asks about sexism and female gamers specifically.
You're losing me a bit here.
You might be correct by the thread title ('sexism in gaming' can indeed refer to either sex) but the OP specifically states "A friend of mine is doing research on women and sexism within gaming as part of her English course." That's why the questions are slanted and the tone presupposes - it's the topic of a paper.
As an analogy, I was reading the other day someone accusing people arguing for reproductive rights of being transphobic because they used the word 'vagina'. Apparently this presupposed that all women would have vaginas, thus (subconsciously or otherwise) writing out people identifying as women who didn't have one. That's a fine point in general, but not really when reproductive rights is the specific issue.
Likewise, when it's specifically looking at women and sexism within gaming, that's probably what the questionnaire is going to be asking about.
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@ Lyn Farel: Given your answer to the 4th question I'd point out something regarding Anita Sarkeesian, but I already did that in the tread about equality (http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=5611.msg94007#msg94007) so if you want to respond re. A. Sarkeesian that's the place to do so.
I'm not even going to get bogged down into the main thread/argument because honestly, I don't want to start an endless drama. I believe in what she says, and strongly agree with most of what she points out, and that both as a gamer and as a game developer myself. I also happen to believe that the con artists are the people campaigning against her on the internet. I have watched tons of videos of counter criticism directed at her, and most of them are just wretched losers trying to speak at her level and using so many sophisms and bad faith that it's just nauseous.
I just am unable to understand why people take issue with her. She talks perfect common sense to me.
Your opinion has been noted.
As has your inability to even speak of her detractors and opponent in any kind of respectful manner. Because it is obvious you have no interest in conversation on this matter I will leave this be and not mention it again, especially not here.
Have a great day Lyn.
This. The questions are slanted in favor of only one gender by the way it asks about sexism and female gamers specifically.
You're losing me a bit here.
What I mean is that the way the request for answers to the questions and the questions themselves are presented, it give off the impression that sexism in games only go one way, male->female, and that this is not something I feel very much interest in answering, because no matter what the answers are, it's not a gender-neutral questionnaire and so the results will be slanted one way no matter what you do, by design. Now, if the OP's friend was the one that wanted it this way or someone else laid out what questions were to be asked (and IIRC they did dictate the topic she needs the questions for) is irrelevant to my perception on the purpose of asking the questions to begin with.
In short, I simply feel the questionnaire is dishonest in it's intentions and I don't feel very compelled to answer, even if I do have opinions I can lay out in my answers.
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A friend of mine is doing research on women and sexism within gaming as part of her English course
Given that, how is the questionnaire dishonest in it's intentions? :|
Agreed it's not gender neutral (and is in many ways ambiguously or awkwardly worded - questionnaires are tricky things!) it also tends to presuppose men are answering the questionnaire about women (which is ironic!). But again, I don't see it as dishonest.
Confused also how the purpose of the questionnaire is irrelevant to your perception of the purpose of asking the questions. As in, you believe the answers are being used for something other than the stated purpose?
edit: Or that you feel they're leading questions which will slant the answers in a particular direction thus biasing the data?
(though I figure for an English paper it's not going to be 'hard' research here, but more the subjective anecdotal kind)
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edit: Or that you feel they're leading questions which will slant the answers in a particular direction thus biasing the data?
(though I figure for an English paper it's not going to be 'hard' research here, but more the subjective anecdotal kind)
Mostly this. I just got the impression the questions were loaded to get a predictable series of results. I could be wrong on this, obviously, but I can't much change my impressions on things.
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You can perfectly answer positively or negatively to each question. That might not be politically correct for some cases, but then it's not the questionnaire's fault but rather political correctness.
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Posted without comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsf25G5IArA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsf25G5IArA)