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Comment by smallnamespace | Hacker News Reader

I agree with your assessment, but the lesson that society seems to have learned is that 'all-male communities are bad', even when those communities are not loci of prestige and power.

For example, I think a lot of the hostility coming out of the Gamergate community is partly an attempt to claim 'gaming' as an all-male space. These aren't country-club millionaires figuring out how to buy the next local election.

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Unless I've misunderstood you, you seem to have a weirdly different view of the Gamergate fracas than I had.

I thought the whole thing was a rejection of the attempt by members of the gaming media to paint "gaming" as some exclusively male (and explicitly anti-woman) subculture. There was no shortage of women speaking out as "members" of gg.

Via the avenue of widespread harassment of women, starting with Zoe Quinn and continuing with Anita Sarkeesian and Brianna Wu amongst many others. Thats certainly a different history.

That is a lovely joke though.

Yeah, Gamergate was probably closer to an attempt to claim gaming as a space for gamers (which might sound tautological, but the term "gamer" was heavily politicized by the gaming press because... it's complicated). It's not a good example in any case.

The example that personally comes to mind is a Daily Show segment a long time back about an all-male retreat, hosted by one Samantha Bee and shot through with mockery of the idea it was needed, condescension, and the general assumption that she understood men better than they did. (This idea that women know men's own needs, desires and experiences better than they do seems pretty commonplace. Think I've even seen men accused of "mansplaining" their own personal experiences.)

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