I Can Be Just As Capable. Let Me.
kotaku.com.au
kotaku.com.au
People shouldn't judge books by covers, but they do. Best you can do is give them one good shot at understanding. This will separate the actual jerks from those who just guessed wrong. Most people don't want to offend you, so don't spend your time walking around with silent resentment over something that's done by mistake.
Well said. It's fairly obvious when you see some of the women reviewing games online for famous publications/websites : they play by the looks. That Kotaku writer may be an exception. People reason with rules of thumbs, and the rule of thumbs is that women involved in gaming professionally are not all hired because of their skills and knowledge as gamers.
And, again, quid bono ? She certainly did, a bunch of people who would never ever read her column now just gave her a bunch of pageviews.
btw, it's "Cui bono" - the literal translation being "who benefits"?
[1] - Actually, it did, if you read the article:
It happened during one of my first appointments of the
show, a half hour I’d booked to check out the sequel to a
well-known military shooter franchise.
It continued to happen through the next few days of E3.
Upon checking into a booth, I would often be asked by the
PR rep whether I wanted someone to play my “hands-on” demo
for me. During booth tours, I would more often than not be
guided towards the Facebook games.The thing is, the guys didn't get the same treatment... but my point was simply that the PR people were exposed to a certain pattern (someone is a girl => they aren't that experienced playing shoot em up video games) and it was repeatedly reinforced through subtle social feedback, that expecting them to just be good at the game was not producing great results for them or for your brand. And since the PR person wants to do their job and give a good impression of the game, they would just assume this girl was like the others, and offer to show her the best parts about the demo, so that she can write about them.
"Those poor PR people, how were they supposed to know that a chick plays video games?"
What is the alternative? I am not calling them poor, but you are calling them deluded. And I am deluded. Basically we all believe a myth.
What is more likely is that there is an underlying reason for the PR people and others to believe it. It is the reason that should be analyzed and addressed, not the people who are the product of it.
This is starting to sound a lot like http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PublicChoice.html
You're making the same mistake that the PR guy made (Obviously women don't play games, therefore it's an understandable mistake). Stop doing that, would be a really good start.
secondly why do you keep saying that acting based on previously established patterns in one's life is a mistake?
how do you know I'm not a nobel prize winning sociologist, and that you are the one making the mistake
Anyway if it's the same man and woman each time it's a different situation.
As a foreign developer, I'm on the receiving end of that type of attitude all the time when there is talk about business, marketing, local trivia ... or most generally about a project they never thought I had heard before.
People make assumption, you can set things straight in the first seconds of the discussion. So I say in this case, grow up: they don't know you, swallow your pride and just tell them you mean business.
What would be more worrying is if their attitude do not change immediately after that. That is still a day-to-day problem for women in anything IT related, but I would except big show like the E3 to be quite smooth about that.
"Would you like me to give you a tour of the game?"
"Do you want me to drive, or just point things out as you go?"
"Do you have much experience with first person shooters?"
"It looks like you know what you are doing. Is there anything you would like to know about the game?"
All those are better ways he could have started the conversation. They do not assume anything, they make it easy for her to let him know her level of experience, and they are not insulting or condescending.
Of course, I am not female - I wonder if other female devs I know have this issue.
You shouldn't have to hold someone's hand through a game demo. And you certainly shouldn't need a PR person there to sell the game to your members of the press. The game should be as inviting and enticing to veterans who have been resting their fingers on WASD since they learned to walk as it is to someone who is just picking up a controller for the very first time.
Draw me in, let me lose myself in your entertainment, and don't make me think. A shining example of this is when first-person shooters stopped hiding the "inverse look" option in the deep recesses of a menu, and instead just asked you to "look up" when you first start a new game. Whatever direction you choose (up for up, or down for up (inverse)), the game then immediately flips the option for you behind the scenes. That's the level of UX and approachability that should be applied to every control and game mechanic in your title. A fact sheet shouldn't even be available. Make me fall in love in the first 5 minutes, like a well-crafted movie or book.
Games get away with so much because they can become addictive and time-consuming. And they'll still sell by the millions.
For one, the clever tricks that ease you in to the controls generally occur at the start of the game. It's not just the UI of the game that allow a first time player to be able to understand, it's the design of a level to teach you. This is often not the part of the game that an E3 demo wants to show.
The second point is that a lot of the more subtle stuff that hints to new players how to play may not even be in the game yet. These E3 demos are with an incomplete product, but the developers have slaved to create a section of the game that seems polished. However, they know their target audience for the demo are experienced gamers, not members of the general public, so it changes their development priorities accordingly.
1. buyers from retail who might "play" a game only at E3
2. Marketing people who are getting a sense for how your game is being received and might never play a game
3. Corporate tools who are checking how things are going and definitely never play games
4. journalists who may or may not play games or understand them.
The goal is not to let someone get lost in the entertainment but to get them to order a million copies in to retail, write a piece that gets everyone to buy the game, get marketing excited, keep your job or get a free trip to LA so you can drink your face off every night on the corporate dime. Plus it's E3, everything is cranked to a million decibels with a continuous strobe of nonsense.
My only bit of advice for the woman writing the article and others: Use Your Words. Tell the dude to go back to picking his wedgie and do your business.
But, male or female, somebody shouldn't have to say "back off" to get some respect.
I have toyed with the idea of writing a post about that concept. I was thinking along the lines of quoting Riddick -- "There is one speed: My speed. Keep up or get left behind." My experience has been that competent men do not necessarily treat me worse than other men. They sometimes are talking "down" to me because they talk that way to everyone. When you are far more competent than average, it becomes difficult to assume or behave as if others are your equal. I am at times guilty of the same faux pas. In my experience, if you can keep up, some of the most competent men will genuinely respect you. What is tricky is pulling it off in a social situation where other people will interfere or where a man will become uncomfortable with a woman challenging the status quo. Her description sounds like it was fairly one on one, which is part of why I think I would have been inclined to quietly call him on it.
I can fairly confidently admit to being a significant statistical outlier for a woman. Even one of the female big wigs at my former job remarked on me sitting up front (edit: at the time she made the remark, I was sitting closer to the front than she was and she was the highest ranking woman in the department -- however, she was sitting next to a very high ranking male) which other people routinely interpret as Type A behavior, somewhat to my bafflement. I do that for reasons like I have terrible eyesight. But I am aware that other women also have issues like terrible eyesight and still do not sit up front. I have speculated that if I come across like an alpha female it is due in part to having a yawning disinterest in pecking order, not because I am trying to be at the top of the heap.
Anyway, have an upvote. And have a great day.
Thank you for putting this into words. This summarizes part of what bothered me about this article.
My wife and I are both gamers. Neither of us have ever been treated without human-respect at LAN parties. Competence-respect is usually given to me due to prior reputation (I'm active in the community whose LANs I attend.) She is often assumed to be just tagging along, until she starts destroying people. Competence-respect comes pretty quickly if you demonstrate competence.
There were times in this article when it seemed the author wasn't given human-respect, and that's a circumstance where someone needs to be either told off or walked away from. But at other times, the issue may have been competence-respect, and that's a circumstance where the first attempt at respect-earning should be to say "I can take it from here", pick up the controller, and play.
I didn't have a driver's license or car, so was dependent on others for a ride. If the group chose to play a game that didn't interest me, I went to sleep on the couch until we all left together. So it somewhat annoyed me that my actions got interpretted that way when there were other explanations but I also could kind of understand why.
"Admiration".
Is this really true? I've had it pounded into my head my whole childhood that you have to stand up for yourself to get any respect in this world. It's the theme of basically any coming-of-age movie. If that's what has to change for equality to work, then I think we're doomed.
I make remarks like the one above in part to help other women realize they do have other options. My experience has been that providing an example of more effective behavior tends to go a very long way towards empowering other people.
> I make remarks like the one above in part to help other women realize they do have other options.
So, the "correct" option for a woman facing discrimination is to grow some balls, man up, and be assertive? Hmm. Still does not seem very fair to her.
In the eighties, a young woman was taking assertiveness training. The instructor was some Nazi-like drill seargent type of a woman. The course was teaching these women to yell at people and be extremely aggressive and pushy. At some point, it was the author's turn to yell and practice asserting herself. She told the instructor she didn't want to do that, she liked being nice to people. She was berated about how it is a tough world and she needed to learn to stand up for herself or people were going to walk all over her. She politely declined. Eventually the instructor moved on. She decided to quietly gather her things and leave. She didn't want to do this anymore. As she left, she overheard someone in the back row say to someone else "God, what a bitch."
So, yes, she should woman up, grow some bigger tits if necessary and wear her brass bustier to mixed gender events if that is what it takes.
Intended to be helpful, not critical. Have a great day and thank you for participating.
And judging by the comments in this thread alone, I hardly think it was posted to an audience that already agrees.
The fact that these situations occur frequently in tech circles is indicative that things still need to be done about embedding the issues into the general consciousness of people in tech circles. If it were a one-off situation, and everyone were horrified by it, it would be easier to say "well, it was just that one guy". But the fact that it still happens frequently, and reading the comments here and elsewhere that shift the blame of the outcome to the victim... makes me think that we haven't quite got to that stage yet. Sadly.
She made a bunch of observations. Firstly, that sexism in tech, while it happens, is nothing compared to the sexism you'd find in the average tattoo parlour or mechanical workshop. At least in tech there is the option of sitting down and writing blog posts about things and getting validation even weeks after the fact. In other sectors, you either confront the sexist in their face immediately, or you will lose face and not be taken seriously.
But she also rightly pointed out that establishing a "code of conduct" and expecting people to abide by it will not change the behavior of those who act sexist or inappropriate today. Either they do it out of ignorance, or they don't care. But they're not going to change until specific instances are pointed out.
Additionally, I've noticed on multiple occasions that putting sexism on a special pedestal and making it a mission to eradicate it just has the opposite effect. People start seeing it as a right to never be offended, based on their own narrow personal and/or cultural view. For example, there was an entire shitstorm in this community about a 'sexist' tweet, which literally did not contain any gender reference. It merely implied that there was a gallery where you could view all the conference attendees that had uploaded a picture and, tongue-in-cheek, suggested you go look for that attractive developer you saw last time. Which isn't that strange, it's hard to remember faces and names in large groups.
You'd think the tweet said "Come perv over hot geek chicks here." It would invite harrassment, sexualizes things unnecessarily, etc., and all this in a completely one-sided debate about validating the hurt feelings of a few women, completely ignoring all the men and women who didn't see any offense, who 'obviously' didn't 'get it'.
And actually, that offended me. Because it implies that a) the only people who picture-stalk are straight men b) if given the opportunity to do so, men can't help themselves.
It takes the discussion away from the individual who did something wrong, and instead paints a giant target on a nebulous generalization of a very diverse group of people.
I agree that sometimes it goes a little overboard. But there are also genuine moments when sexist bullshit should be called out for what it is. I don't know anything about the "gallery" tweet, but you need to consider a wide contextual impact of things you say and do, especially when it comes to minority groups. Having a gallery of people involved in the conference is fine, but why bring attractiveness into it? Why not just say "interesting" or "talented" instead? It strikes me as just being a bit thoughtless of the promoters, really.
Also worth noting that the fact that a woman wrote the article has little to do with how "true" it is; maybe this goes without saying, but "woman" don't have selected representatives who can reasonably speak for all of their experiences. Unless the article author is citing some actual data, she's just guessing as much as you are.
Codes of conduct really can help, if they achieve widespread acceptance. People are social animals; they care if everyone around them thinks less of them because of their actions. They find out what the people around them think sometimes because of direct confrontations, sometimes because of other things... imagine "John Doe" at a popular conference, sitting through a presentation on some retarded code of conduct, dumb modern political correctness cranked up to 11! -- and John leans over to crack a joke about it to the normal-looking guy next to him, but then he realizes the guy is nodding along with the presenter, and was now standing up to give a frickin standing ovation -- what, really? -- and, oh come on, just about everyone was standing up now? Cheering all that rubbish? He'd feel a bit lost, I think -- recognizing the disconnect -- and that probably wouldn't change his habits of thinking all that much... but it could certainly give him pause before telling that same joke about blondes and whiteout on computer screens in front of so many of these same people.
This isn't data; this is my hopeful imagining... but it's worth putting some energy into trying to fix this problem, in many ways at once (why not?) vs. putting energy into stopping others from trying to fix it.
At the very least, if you agree there's a problem, say so (instead of finding ways to dismiss it) when the topic comes up; people are listening.
You're missing the point of what assertiveness is. It's about creating opportunity, not sitting on your ass and waiting for the world to cater to your needs. Life is what you make it and one has nobody to blame but themselves for where they go. True, we don't choose the starting point, but we do choose the destination.
> you'll always stand on the side-lines and will forever be relegated to being a spectator.
Yeah, if the men are allowed to be in charge.
I think that a distinction must be drawn between being assertive and being abusive. Assertiveness is, in my opinion, nudging your way forward and reacting to people's objections by talking to them then taking their opinions into account and, if they lack assertiveness, representing their opinions. If someone else is also fighting for that spot, team up with them and work together.
In contrast, abusiveness is nudging your way forward at the expense of peoples' well-being and not respecting others' right to assert themselves.
In other words, it's the difference between fighting for yourself and fighting for everyone including yourself.
It's incredibly perverse, the way I was socialized in the US. I was taught essentially that love was always "at stake" in every discussion with the opposite sex, and that if I didn't have love, whether by commitment or conquest, then I was worthless. I ultimately had to resolve the problem that I wasn't treating ladies as genuine human beings by jumping off the deep end, and accidentally inventing a personal religion. Basically I committed to the worthlessness and resolved to make it my own, because it was better to treat others as real human beings. In doing so I suddenly discovered that love isn't static, isn't a substance, and that along that earlier path, real love was in fact impossible. So by embracing worthlessness I accidentally discovered worth.
I can't apologize to those I have wronged before, and those that have wronged you can't apologize to you now, but though it is empty, I would apologize to you on their behalf. I'm sorry; I've learned.
As to whether an illegitimate apology means anything, that I leave to liedra's discretion.
We seriously need a social protocol for situations where A says something which makes B feel very sorry, but the proper recipients of B's apology are no longer available to hear it. It felt way too cheesy to just apologize to myself, so I apologized to you, but that doesn't make me feel any better about my womanizing and discriminatory past. Live and learn, I guess.
The 20/20 hindsight in this thread is ridiculous.
Those people may well have stereotyped her, but when she fails to speak up about it and sits there silently giving no indication that something is wrong, what would you expect. This isn't kindergarten. These people don't get paid to read minds. What it sounds like, is at least part of the time these people genuinely thought they were helping her, and she gave no indication yo the contrary.
She is not a professional, pure and simple. If you aren't a professional, then what are you doing at E3? What are you doing in any situation where assertiveness is expected in order to get your job done?
"Any professional in her situation, male or female, would have spoken up if they had a problem. Period."
There are no exceptions to this rule. This is not male/female issue. If a male had written that article I would say the exact same thing.
Learn to form a valid argument before you open your mouth. Your comment is not even deserving of a retort.
But this girl was far from powerless in this situation. That doesn't excuse the guy for being an unthinking sexist dick, but her blog post is a little too much of a pitty party.
I am 47, a good bit older than most people posting on HN or writing tech blogs. I did a lot of journalling pre-internet, thus only read by me and sometimes my therapist. I now routinely examine my belly button in public, but a lot of what I write is stuff I have thought about deeply for many years. I assure you I threw myself plenty of pity parties when I was younger. In fact, I eventually stopped doing therapy because I reached a point where I felt that whining and crying to a therapist was helping me to keep alive a victim mentality and victim self image and I wanted to genuinely move on. But first I had to go through all that.
Both sexes are struggling to leave behind old paradigms. We all have a growth process to go through.
But certainly have an upvote for furthering the discussion.
The interesting thing about victim-blaming is that it's paradoxical. It both presumes that the victim is vulnerable and that they're superhuman: that they can both be hurt and power through that hurt like a storybook hero without more cost than a few extra words.
This is one of the nastier side effects of the self-empowerment movement. By accepting personal responsibility and demanding others do the same, we isolate each other and make it harder to override the Bystander Effect.
Of course the PR people should not be sexist.
But if a person doesn't take even the slightest, tiniest effort to defend themselves against something that is wrong, they're "going to have a bad time" whether that thing which is wrong is something politically charged like sexism, or simply individual malice.
Also, prejudice like this is most likely due to ignorance, and the best antidote to ignorance is education.
From an armchair, it's terribly easy for you to say, "Well, instead of backing down, you should have told him off." Not everyone is, or should be, the strong and assertive, constantly vigilant culture warrior shrugging off the whips and scorns of ignorant simpletons. Most especially, as the Derailing for Dummies link explains, most people have finite energy and even if they are strong and assertive some of the time, they cannot be that way all of the time.
A direct quote out of the article:
Every time I protested [over "the next few days of E3"], the offender would say —
as if it were a proven fact — “Well, girls aren’t usually into this stuff, you know.”
By the time she starts educating, she is no longer doing her job as a member of the press reviewing games. She is doing an entirely different job, which she did not arrive prepared to do, and for which she receives no compensation except the desperate hope that one person might possibly listen.
How would you feel, if you were constantly distracted from your job in order to fill in for something for which you have no training, no interest, and no pay?
Suppose a student leaves his laptop on a table in the school library while on a bathroom break and it is stolen. Is it "blaming the victim" to tell him not to leave his valuables unattended, just because it is clearly the thief who did something morally wrong?
The first is that you're insisting on excerpting from the "How to React to Every Situation" book. Your claim is that "if you are oppressed, you should always stand your ground". No exceptions. No compromises. Every deviation from the right and true way is a failure.
This is wrong.
The second is that the entire condescending piece of advice is being offered as if she hadn't already done it. You seem to feel that, because her first and immediate reaction was not confrontational, this makes her a failure. It doesn't matter that, the second time, she did stand up for herself and did speak up. You only care about the first time.
Why?
Victim-blaming is reinforcing a victim's status as victim by giving unwanted and unneeded advice. It's saying, "You poor wretch. If only you worked harder, you'd be as awesome as me. Work harder." That is what you are doing.
When you are a male, every shortcoming, every bad situation is chalked up to your own personal inadequacy. There are no social forces to blame anything on.
Maybe it makes us stronger. Maybe it makes us dicks. Maybe a bit of both.
How else could a tread about a woman's experience in gaming journalism turn into a discussion about how oppressed you are as a man? This very thread is an example of how male perspective dominates discussions, even about people who don't identify as male.
1. The guy was a sexist prick.
This was his fault, and she obviously doesn't deserve any of the blame for his broken worldview.
2. She didn't get to play the game.
This was partly her doing. He still deserves some of the blame because it's his job to represent his company well to her and he didn't do that. But she didn't so much as indicate a desire to play it, which I don't think is too much to expect from an adult acting in a professional capacity. Non-videogame journalists have to deal with much fiercer opposition to their reporting than some sexist twit making unwarranted assumptions, but somehow political stories still get written (by women, no less).
Its ridiculous to demand the same amount of experience in dealing with adverse situations to people who choose to review commercial products for a living and to political or war journalists. Specially when you are demanding expertise in approaching a hostile subject in order to get your facts prior to forming your opinion.
In this case the sexism is obvious in the stories, but in general most PR reps believe it is their job to "manage" (manipulate) journalists. Journalists need to be ready to fight this--with anything from friendly persuasion to persistent confrontation.
The PR rep's job is to deliver a carefully crafted story to the public; the journalist's job is to tell the truth. The roles are inherently confrontational.
(Of course, there may be some differences of interest, since they're not employed in the same corporation.)
If you address your complaint about someone's action, not to the person doing that action, but to a large anonymous audience, how do you expect it to be rectified?
There is nothing she could have done to prevent the discrimination other than being a man. The entire article is set up to emphasize the way that anyone should be able to tell she's a gamer from the way she holds her hands on the keyboard, and yet they still treated her like someone who does not belong in the industry.
The point of the article is to increase awareness of discrimination among the "large anonymous audience." It is offensive to suggest that victims of discrimination should just act differently to prevent it.
If she had spoken directly to him about it, we could be certain that he knew his behavior was not appreciated. If he's not hopelessly clueless, he might even modify his behavior in the future. The number of people acting in a discriminatory fashion would then be decreased by one. That is something that could be considered progress.
I'm on your side here. I would also like to live in a world where there's no discrimination. I don't think we get there by "raising awareness" among people who are largely already aware of the problem.
I honestly don't see how it's offensive to suggest something a person could do to bring about the change that they want to see. Yes, you shouldn't have to. Yes, in a perfect world, nobody would ever encounter a jerk. But we don't live in that world. You have little to no control over how other people act. The only control you have is in how you act. Simply acknowledging that discrimination exists is not going to change anything if you don't confront the people who are doing the discriminating.
Naming it like this article is obviously important and I also don't think anyone thinks she is in any way responsible or in the wrong (quite the contrary) but the most effective way to make an offender change his (or her) ways is to simply communicate with him (or her).
The article shares an experience of being marginalized, and we're focusing on what she could've done to feel more welcome where she felt unwelcome. By continually suggesting that she stand up for herself, we're creating an atmosphere that basically says, "It's on you," which further marginalizes her. Despite best intentions, it's treating her like a problem and distracts from the greater problem of condescension towards women in games.
Yes, the article is an important part of effecting a macro-level change to the industry culture, but it's of minimal help in solving the micro-level problem at hand. That's all I'm saying.
Yes. Discrimination doesn't happen magically: is is perpetrated by people. If people are aware that they may be subtly discriminating they can stop themselves. If people around them are aware of the dynamics at work, they can speak up or intervene. This is the way to change things: not to focus on each individual person, but to raise the general consciousness.
On the other hand, demanding that victims confront discrimination in the way you expect them to isn't fair, and it sounds like you're saying she shouldn't be complaining. I think you failed to understand that this is a systematic problem, and it sounds like you just don't want to have to listen to her.
If even two PR people read that article it will have had a broader reach than if she had stood up to the guy in the moment, and it additionally brings attention to the culture so that other people confronting these issues know that they aren't the only ones. She would have been entirely within her right to stand up to the dude right then and there, but she is not required to. Saying that she must is like saying if you don't punch the guy with the knife you deserve to have your wallet stolen and shouldn't complain: it makes no sense.
Citations that awareness of gender issues is directly linked to actual sexist behavior: http://www.springerlink.com/content/v6204116h3k45494/ http://vaw.sagepub.com/content/13/1/70.short
That's kind of egotistical. I have played computer games since I was a kid and WASD is natural for me too, but I don't think of myself as 'a gamer' because I probably devote less than 1 hour/week to games.
People are going to make judgements based on what they think they know. They do it all the time and sometimes it is a completely subconscious process. Sometimes it is deliberate. Sometimes it is a result of a lifetime of conditioning. It happens with gender, height, skin colour, attire, and pretty much anything else that you can quickly identify by looking at a person. If someone is judging you incorrectly, help them out and say so. It might be nothing more than an honest mistake.
If he has even the slightest idea of how to do his job, he might appreciate the insight into how to make the demo the best possible experience for her. There's a good chance he walked away thinking "I sure did a good job showing that lady reporter how to play our game".
I remember the silence that filled this space beyond this question. I was horrified that anyone could even ask such a thing. Here I was, sitting with my fingers spread across WASD, admiring a game world — and somehow, for some obtuse reason, being assumed to be someone who didn’t know anything about the world or how to interact with it.
“I think I better play it for you,” he said finally, prying my hands away and turning the keyboard towards himself.
If it had been me, I'd have said "Yeah" as I continued playing instead of refraining from both talk and play until the silence was uncomfortable and then going home and writing an article about how oppressed I was. The poor guy was very possibly just trying to do his job and be helpful.
On the other hand, the article she did write made the front page here and it's unlikely that any article about the game itself, however good, would have gotten this kind of circulation. I guess that's why she's a successful journalist and I'm just a gamer.
Contacts don't make themselves - cub reporters have to wear out shoe leather walking the beat, talking to the right cops and the right people on the street. Clueless PR people should be the least of their worries.
whether that is a good thing or not is beside the point that standards of professional conduct at E3 aren't the same as a staid business professional gathering.
I am interested in articles about female gamers and how they deal with the unpleasantness surrounding the gaming industry, but I wish that blog posts were held to a slightly higher standard--I am a fairly fast reader, and had to double back to reread large parts of the article to recalibrate as the article started talking about being directed to games with fuzzy animals and facebook games instead of shooters, when I expected the author to be complaining about the wasd keys opening different menus rather than moving around the character.
This seems to be a pretty good argument for paying for better quality journalism. I bought a copy of GQ, not exactly the highest brow magazine in the business, admittedly, and the articles weren't riveting, but it was efficient to read them, because they were written carefully and in the traditional journalistic style, with a lede, nut graf, and transitions. Furthermore, it's a magazine FOR MEN so most of the words were Anglo-Saxon and avoid the errors that Orwell rails against in "Politics and the English Language." I never felt like I was being jerked from one idea to another, and I understood the point of the article if not from the titled or the images associated with it, then at least from the first few paragraphs.
TL;DR: May there be truth in advertising, if bloggers can't write a proper lede, we will have to pay for news.
> Furthermore, it's a magazine FOR MEN so most of the words were Anglo-Saxon and avoid the errors that Orwell rails against in "Politics and the English Language."
I don't even know what you're trying to say here. I mean, I can guess, but it makes me queasy.
GQ prefers short Anglo-Saxon words because they think it's a style that men prefer to read, and what I am trying to say is that using too many words that were imported from French is generally used to make people sound smart because it was once the language of bureaucracy, but generally makes things harder to read.
Consider, "I don't even know what you're trying to say here. I mean, I can guess, but it makes me queasy." This is an extremely clear sentence, and would be pretty similar if translated into Middle English. This is generally the argument that Orwell makes in Politics and the English Language.
This kind of "girls not accepted in tech" was something "that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" at first. Now it's just repeating the same stuff, and I don't think it's gratifying anyones curiosity.
Not that there isn't sexism in geek culture either. I'm just genuinely curious if the PR types in the game industry are this colorblind.
Pink skirt? Face paint? Guy in a suit with comb-over would be treated with similar condescending stance unless he could prove he actually plays.
I know it sucks and I hate it but people profile you by your look.
I can assure you the sexism doesn't change when you stop wearing skirts and start wearing pants. I speak from years of experience. And honestly, as a man, you don't have to even think about whether what you choose to wear would suddenly get you treated as if you were a vapid teenager, or a toddler. You do not have to make a choice about what you wear in order to avoid getting a keyboard snatched away from you by a member of the opposite sex who assumes you are stupid because of how you look.
If anyone ever wonders why there aren't more women in tech, you don't have to look much further than these comments to understand. I am a proud, strong fighter and I have been a successful tech CEO for years. But even I grow weary of battling these types of comments so often.
But if I wear homeless guys clothes to interview at the bank I might not get hired. I don't like it because I know that the things I wear have no impact on my skills as long as they are comfortable, but I won't be surprised by it. People judge people by their clothes.
I think that women if anything have easier time with that. Some of their clothes are really ridicules and still they are tolerated. Man wearing skirts or stockings would have trouble even asking what time it is.
You want to be perceived as gamer. Look like gamer. Or be ready to override your looks by strong character and/or language. Man value women gamers much more then men gamers but they have to believe that they actually met one.
> I am a proud, strong fighter and I have been a successful tech CEO for years.
I am honored with your response and sorry that I've upset you.
Notice lack of pink skirts or anything pink for that matter.
(Former gal gamer who sometimes wasn't taken seriously because I was "too pretty" or "just a mom", which was always a good opportunity to take advantage of some fool while his guard was down. The second game was always more challenging because they didn't make that mistake again.)
Rather than proceeding to stare at the screen until somebody takes away your keyboard and plays for you.
If you want to be perceived as a gamer, you can get away with not looking the look -- but you've got to show up ready to play.
That's a gamer attitude: Wreck his shit. If you aren't comfortable with it, then you are likely to have trouble with a gamer social environment.
Rape would be a lack of human decency. Treating someone as a non-gamer is treating them like a "normal" person.
How is assuming someone is incompetent because of their gender treating someone as "normal"? It's normal in the sense that such attitudes are prevalent, but it is a terrible way to treat anyone.
> " as a man, you don't have to even think about whether what you choose to wear would suddenly get you treated as if you were a vapid teenager"
I'm a stay-at-home dad. On the rare occasions I'm able to leave my toddler home, I have to be careful about how I dress in order to avoid being treated as a vapid teenager or, worse, a creepy stalker.
More generally, men do have to worry about dressing in a way that identifies them as competent or fitting in to whatever subculture they're trying to fit in to.
There's no point in blaming the representatives: they probably try any angle they can find to approach you unless you decline. Suppose you go to a bookstore and the clerk comes over, asking "Can I help you?" and then you answer "No, thanks. I'm just browsing." They don't know you if you're a good gamer or a newbie, so you just need to tell them yourself.
More often than not it's not developers who decide to add the achievements for looking up skirts. It's the business monkeys and other people who have "studied" game design but forgot to do hello world some where along the way.
Usually developers who decide the course of a game work their own indie studio. And are smarter then that.
If I was a PR guy hanging out all day with guys playing games in a booth near me, and a girl showed up, the thought of "offering advice" to her would seem appealing.
Just applying simple human logic here.
just no
Yes, theoretically they should all act professionally and give reporters equal attention regardless of gender. But I find that in reality human nature dictates behavior more than guidelines.
If a woman is there to play a game and I take the opportunity to hit on her, I'm failing to do my job (which is definitely not to hit on chicks) and I'm treating her like a sex object instead of a fellow professional. Professional spaces demand professional behavior: it is part of being an employed adult.
"Actually, that is correct. You should help people in 3rd world countries first. Most of the homeless in America are "voluntarily" homeless, or have drug/mental problems. Even still, as homeless in America, they have it better off than most people in 3rd world countries. The average person in a 3rd world country lives off a few American dollars (equivalent) a day - and that is your average person"
Let's say your next door neighbour gets into an accident and becoming disabled in the process, cannot afford hospital bills and becomes homeless, you're not going to care, because you're donating to your favourite charity for third word countries already? Personally I don't see anything wrong with people helping people closer to them. - The helpers can help with more effectiveness than people 5000km away because being closer they will have better perspective. I also see nothing wrong with helping with your siblings mortgages just because they're closer to you, starving children in the 3rd world or not.
If you don't want to "waste" your breath, then don't. I just don't see how you telling people how to allocate their resources will ever work out. How do you know your preferred allocation is the best? How do you know the relative effectiveness of a person voicing their opinion about this issue rather than some other? Maybe they are much better at articulating issues relating to computer games than, food, for example. There's no way you can know that for sure.