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What can we do to help remove the industry misconception?

Started by October 17, 2014 11:12 PM
114 comments, last by Ravyne 10 years, 3 months ago

From reading IronMaggot's posts, I see heavy emphasis on ideas around the mythical lone man against the elements, a clear nod to a limited view of "survival of the fittest". I see less emphasis on the obvious social side of humanity, where working together was and is necessary for survival and for prosperity. In this context, we're clearly more than wild animals in a food chain. I think we can do better than that.

The broad solution I see IronMaggot putting forward appears to be that one can only fight to change the status quo from the bottom up. I don't see any hint that attempting to reach out in constructive dialogue to those who, consciously or not, are reinforcing the current bias could have a positive outcome. I think humanity has the potential to achieve great things by co-operation rather than conflict.

There are elements in IronMMaggot's posts relating to viewing any action that might be the outcome of this discussion as an attempt to prop up poorly performing individuals. I think this is a fear that many people have about any discussions about addressing discrimination, but it is a fear rooted in the belief that the current system is adequate for identifying and highlighting performance equally. I don't share this belief.

Software and games are made by teams. For a team to work, everyone must work well together. I'd rather work in a representative team rather than an exclusionary one. I don't want to work in a toxic environment. Most importantly, I don't want to be a contributor to such toxicity. We should, as individuals, attempt to understand the problem, and learn to see it when it happens in front of us, and watch vigilantly for aspects of such thinking in our own behaviour and thoughts.

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  • Sarkissian pointing out legacy games that people have been fond of as 'wrong' or worthy of a critique just for displaying damsels in distress. It's a bad move. There are damsels in distress, there have always been. Showing a damsel in distress doesn't make you sexist. She should've just picked the blatant ones like Duke Nukem, for example.

But that was the point of the critique, to show that the sexism is pervasive, it's even in the games that she likes and plays (she admits as much in her videos). And if you saw her video on damsels in distress, it's not that the trope is bad in of itself, or that because game X uses it, game X is bad. It's because it's a trope that is utterly overused. She goes down a huge list of games that uses it. We as an industry can do better, we could use a little more variety. It isn't even that hard.



No, we don't need to save the women, we need to stop perpetrating the injustices, and stop even tacitly supporting those who do.
[/quote]
Contradiction:

As far as I know the stopping of the perpetration of injustices still falls under the act of saving someone, a whole bunch of someones.

This might be another matter of perspective, but here's the deal in the West: Men hold the power in most aspects of business life by default. Some of these men who are in power -- as supervisors, superiors, managers, or business owners -- deliberately devalue, dismiss, and under-compensate their female team members, and sometimes the do the same without a deliberate thought behind it *because these biases have become "business as usual"*. Other men, who don't have equal power generally fall into two categories -- those that continue the pecking order by treating their female team members as their subordinates or simply giving them less respect than they ought to have earned, and those who see the biases but don't stand up when their female co-workers are treated unfairly (often, they justify their non-action with a thought process similar to the one you present here -- "its just the way things are", "they should know better", "its *their* problem, not mine" -- If you want a clue as to why everyone is jumping down your throat about this, this is the reason).

When a woman speaks up of her own volition to say she's not being treated fairly, she has to leap hurdles while running uphill to convince anyone to take her seriously. She first has to overcome the passive males (who tacitly accept the status quo: "its just the way things are") who may distance themselves from her for rocking the boat which makes it harder for her to do her work and makes her feel less welcome/valued, she then might have to report it to a superior who is more often than not also a male and inclined not to cause controversy in his department (thus, claims of unfairness often go uninvestigated or unpunished), if a warning or punishment is handed down, its often trivial, and the female worker might face retribution, either passive or aggressive -- being further ostracized, passing her over for promotion or raises because she's "not a team player" or "a troublemaker", or outright threatened. Its not that women have not stood up -- they continue to stand up -- its just that most times it goes nowhere because men are in charge, and this in turn has a chilling effect on the number of problems that get reported; it sends a clear message to women to not even try because it will affect them negatively 9 times out of 10.

The problem begins with men who actively or passively accept "the way things are" and don't do enough to support women in the workplace who come forward with reports. In many workplaces, a woman cannot expect to effect her own justice any more than you or I could do if we found ourselves caught in a corrupt justice system somewhere in the world. You cannot go to that system and ask it to change itself, it won't because it profits from the current arrangement, and almost always that system is defended or whitewashed by people who it doesn't profit from, and who think they might get to join the power structure some day.

What we have to advocate for, and what women cannot do on their own, is to stop feeding the current power structure by ignoring its trespasses and by aspiring to join its ranks one day. In fact, we need to take its power away by knocking it down when it treats people unfairly. Not just women, though they are a popular target, the same structures often discriminate against minorities and homosexuals (because its not just men who are usually in power here, but white heterosexual men).

throw table_exception("(? ???)? ? ???");

No, we don't need to save the women, we need to stop perpetrating the injustices, and stop even tacitly supporting those who do.

Contradiction:

As far as I know the stopping of the perpetration of injustices still falls under the act of saving someone, a whole bunch of someones.


Nonsense. If I stop punching you in the face, have I saved you? If I stop cheering for the other guy punching you in the face, have I saved you?

There's a world of difference between stepping in and saying "oh, you poor frail delicate women... how oppressed you are! But fear not, I, as a man, am now here to solve your problems" and simply treating women as equals.
if you think programming is like sex, you probably haven't done much of either.-------------- - capn_midnight

IMO, these are some but not all of the problems, and both sides ('feminism' vs. others) have them:
  • GamerGame lame death and rape threats. This shouldn't have happened at all. Shame on them.
  • Sarkissian pointing out legacy games that people have been fond of as 'wrong' or worthy of a critique just for displaying damsels in distress. It's a bad move. There are damsels in distress, there have always been. Showing a damsel in distress doesn't make you sexist. She should've just picked the blatant ones like Duke Nukem, for example.
  • Certain men who felt 'threatened' at the presence of women in their domain of work, and somehow felt less masculine when some women show higher mental/physical prowess than them.
  • Certain women who felt they got discredited at work simply because they are women. This varies stories by stories, but I suspect that some of them were really just because they proposed a Bad Idea that just got rejected simply because they were bad ideas. It's kind of like if you are the minority race in the population, then you could see all actions against you as racist. There are racist responses, but not all of them.
  • Women are not immune to mistakes and errors. Getting drunk and passed out on the street is always idiotic. Kind of like leaving the front door to your house open all week, but claim innocence when your stuff got stolen. Sure the robbers are wrong for robbing things, but you are also at fault for being stupid. There are contributory negligence at play here.

The irony of all this: aren't we all playing damsels in distress here, the very same idea that we are trying to minimize? "Oh look, there are injustices toward women, we should all save them!" If you truly believe in gender equality, then treat the gender the same. If these were to happen to men, where are all the noise?

  • Agreed. Threats are lame, usually criminal.
  • Again -- her critique is an academic exercise, not feminist game reviews. To not look at history does not present the full picture. And why should she only criticise Duke Nukem? Because its more comfortable for us to be able to dismiss the caricature of discrimination in that game, versus actually thinking about the subtle, culturally-engrained norms that are just as damaging? Which is more damaging for little girls to grow up on -- the fact that games sexualize women, or the fact that games present few women heroes and many women victims? Trick question, they both damaging enough to care about.
  • Yep, this happens. Nothing threatens a man more than being bested by not-a-man.
  • Sure, it probably happens. But in proportion to simply being devalued because of their gender, putting this idea of mistaken motives forward is just this side of being a strawman.
  • Again, that's victim blaming. I agree there are prudent things people can due to limit their exposure to bad things. But under no circumstance should a society accept that some people have to curb a behavior, privilege, or indeed a right, that the rest of the population enjoys just to avoid being victimized.

We want people to be treated the same. They're not. Women and minorities and other groups aren't looking for an unfair advantage to rocket past their oppressors in a game of catch-up, they just want the equal opportunity that's due to them. Women, unfortunately, cannot wrest power from the status quo because they lack the influence to do so within that same system, men need to do their part in helping change behavior.

And if they happen to men? They largely don't, unless that man is also a minority or a homosexual. They just don't happen, thus no noise. That's the point.

throw table_exception("(? ???)? ? ???");

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Uh, this is ridiculous. While I don't work in gaming, the events mentioned DO shed important light on corruption in the games journalism world, which would have otherwise remained hidden.

I'm a CTO for a midcap health company (You've probably heard of it), and age/race/sex plays absolutely no part in our hiring process. Yet we still hit that number of 15~% female developers.

Is our office sexist? Yes, honestly.

It goes both ways, though. Our males make jokes about the females, and females make jokes about the males. Honestly, it's just human nature. As a real life example from today, a male worker heard a single female worker was on a date over the weekend, and he yelled out "Baby why are you cheating on me? I'm going to marry (other female employee) instead now!"

Our CEO (male) walks around hugging our male workers if they don't see him walking up to their cubicles as well.

Seriously, outside of isolated cases, most people have thick skin and can take a joke. If not, I honestly don't want them working with me anyway.


It goes both ways, though. Our males make jokes about the females, and females make jokes about the males. Honestly, it's just human nature. As a real life example from today, a male worker heard a single female worker was on a date over the weekend, and he yelled out "Baby why are you cheating on me? I'm going to marry (other female employee) instead now!"

Our CEO (male) walks around hugging our male workers if they don't see him walking up to their cubicles as well.

Seriously, outside of isolated cases, most people have thick skin and can take a joke. If not, I honestly don't want them working with me anyway.

Joking is fine, as long as its a part of office culture that everyone is really ok with. The difference though is that one party, by virtue of being the minority, can be made to feel that they cannot question or rebuke this part of the office culture when it goes too far without suffering adverse consequences. Similarly, in most office cultures, only one side of that system actually holds the power when the jokes stop being jokes. Having fun is fine, and the office doesn't always have to be a G-rated political correctness haven, but "having a thick skin" for unjustified criticism or jokes-gone-too-far shouldn't be treated like a necessary bullet-point on one's resume. That's indicative of a wholly unprofessional environment.

throw table_exception("(? ???)? ? ???");

Uh, this is ridiculous. While I don't work in gaming, the events mentioned DO shed important light on corruption in the games journalism world, which would have otherwise remained hidden


Nope, that's bullshit. There hasn't been one documented instance of "corruption in the games journalism world" that was brought to light by gamergate. This started because some guy wanted revenge on his ex-girlfriend... that's it.

Meanwhile, actual instances of corruption, like the Shadow of Mordor youtube fiasco, are largely ignored by the gamergate crowd.
In fact, not only have they failed to highlight corruption, they instigated it, telling Nintendo to withhold review copies of a game because a game reviewer did his job and criticised it. Now, you can agree or disagree with his critique of the game, but if you tell a game company not to give out copies of a game to a publication because you don't agree with their views, that is the essence of what you were supposedly against.

if you think programming is like sex, you probably haven't done much of either.-------------- - capn_midnight

Another Youtube instance of journalism corruption. A YT member that critiques video games asked and got a beta of a game (can't remember all the details as it was covered in Angry Joe's 2012 or 2013 Top Controversies) and when the critic gave the game a poor review the developer pulled the YT Copyright crap to get the review pulled. There are other instances where indie developers will use copyright to get videos pulled that badly review their game even if it has no actual game footage (also covered in Angry Joe's Top Controversies of 2012 and 2013 videos). Sorry for being vague, but not watched either video for a month or so.

*2012

*2013

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