Why, IMO, it's hard finding a game to like as a female gamer

[Dollywitch]

Dollywitch - you need to be more careful with what you write. I spoilered one of your posts because it came very close to a personal attack. Please try to keep this about issues, rather than insulting users. (I didn't want to delete it, since it was borderline, especially in a thread where I'm involved.)

There are several problems with this. First off, who is trying to "shut down" this discussion? It is always feminists and activists type that start up these discussions in the first place - it's people like DragoonHP who probably don't want to see this talked about.

For example - there have been several cases in which someone is arguing that women are not marginalized, and as evidence they point out cases in which women are treated better than men. They then get told that they are "derailing", and that they should open their own thread if they want to talk about it - when they're replying to something in this thread.

Because the context in which they're using it is derailment. This is about how female gamers have it tough. Bringing in how females may have it easier in entirely unrelated sectors of society is largely irrelevant to that - it's what's known as a "red herring".

It's far better to address their point, rather than crying "derailing" or linking them to a blog written by third-wave feminists to convince other third-wave feminists.

People have been addressing their points. The side ignoring large wads of reasoning is DragoonHP's - not ours. There is nothing wrong with linking to a blog that explains something in better words that I can. It's not written just for feminists - it's written for gamers, and it says in the FAQ they welcome discussion from non-feminists. It's not all about our responsibility to convince, here, and this is what pisses me off about the conservative/libertarian version of "Personality Responsibility", it's nearly always about the responsibility of the underdog. The article I linked to blows several holes in the theory that men and women are equally objectified in games. They aren't. And it's an overly simplistic one anyway.

The fact that the opposing argument here never raises many of the ideas that article raises, but insists on an overly simplistic rhetoric, shows in of itself it's a weak and inconsiderate argument.

Stating that you have big muscly men therefore men are equally objectified does not prove anything. There are many problems with that assertion. When they are pointed out, you have to address them instead of falling back on intellectual dishonesty.

The quality of the majority here is important. Third-wave feminism implies a particular (modern liberal) political viewpoint that is far from unanimous among women. If it's a majority, it's a small one - I suspect postfeminism is about just as popular. It's pretty common - at cons and such - to see women dressing up as the characters some rail against. Are they part of the problem, and acting against their own interests? Do they not see this? Or do they simply see the problem differently than you do?

Getting away from the point. Most women will say they have a hard time as gamers.

The "modern liberal" political viewpoint here you're posting about here is largely intersectionality - considering the rights and privilege

There is a lot of evidence - reasonably objective evidence, that women have achieved equality with men. Women are 57% of the college freshmen. At the height of the recession, men had 10% unemployment, while women had 8%. Movies primarily appealing to women regularly show up in theaters. The NFL dresses up in pink to support breast cancer awareness. And so on.

What did I say about cherry picking? Not to mention I address most of those points later. One of the most important facts here is being ignored - women are underrepresented in positions of power. It's unbelievably obnoxious for you to say there's "Objective evidence that women have achieved equality with men".

You know what, I'm going to a step further and claim there are very few women here that don't hate you for saying that, even a little.

If

By contrast, the evidence against this is assumes something that I'm not willing to - that equality of outcome (rather than of opportunity) is desirable. Plus, making the change people suggest would require forcing people to do things against their will - create games that they otherwise wouldn't. So I'm not a fan of that change.

it's not about physically forcing someone to make a game they don't want to. You make it sound like requiring people not to be. One of many reasons why I hate "libertarian" logic as it focuses entirely on the responsibility for the underdog and awarding as much liberty to those on top as possible since you can't FORCE them not to be assholes. Libertarian logic does not care about whether or not women are in power, discriminated against, heckled, etc. only whether or not someone is FORCED not to be a jackass along the way. It is entirely focused on the means, not the end. I Again - a lot of women will hate you for even saying that, and rightfully so. It is a position you can only hold with a straight face as a privileged or naive individual.

If developers come up with largely sexist content - then yes, the publishers should turn them around and say this level of content is not acceptable - please change it. Saying they have to "create games they otherwise wouldn't" is intellectually dishonest because it's not what's happening. They're not being forced to make a platformer when they want to make a shooter. That's obviously not what's happening - but you choose your wording to imply something like that is. That is intellectually dishonest, you keep doing it and I'd like to see you own up to it. You are using overly weighted and irrational language while complaining about feminists doing the same(but in much more understandable scenarios).

It's reasonable that this should happen. It's reasonable that feminists should have enough power to make this happen without being called "feminazis".

Again, as a straight white privileged male - you don't really need any advocates. You already have plenty.

Gay marriage today is where sex discrimination was a few decades ago. If nothing is done, most states (in the US) will have gay marriage in 20 years or so. (But when activists pushed too hard, the time line slowed down substantially.)

[citation needed]

I would also be surprised if some of the southern states had gay marriage in anything less than 30.

The main fallacy here is that assuming the only thing that can spur conservative dominance is a reaction to "too much activism"(lol, as someone who's never needed any, what a rich thing to say). If there is no activism, there is no opposition to the status quo - rinse and repeat for "less". The reason people don't do certain things(the true identity perhaps of "Political Correcntess") is because people don't like to deal with hassle. If a business fires someone for being trans, and a circus is made out of it, it looks bad for them, it reflects badly on the employers as individuals and may lose them business. The average person is apathetic towards this unless someone else gets them riled up about it.

The only reason states will have gay marriage in 20 years or so is because people fight for it. Real people who have fought for their rights and have seen how their actions can affect the world around them will tell you otherwise. There are many victories activists have won on a local scale, and the larger scale is often dependent on that. Again this is the position of an armchair conservative who doesn't have to fight for his rights at all.

Not changing is an option - if you can't improve the situation, do nothing. Certainly, change for the sake of change is a terrible idea - we need to make things better, not merely different.

Who says it's change for the sake of change? Is making it so games aren't so ridiculously sexist. As a woman, I find it difficult being a gamer. As women, most here do. There is clearly a problem here for a lot of people and having some conservative dude telling us are problems aren't real is one of the most ridiculous things about this.

http://www.fugitivus.net/2009/08/25/a-f ... nist-blog/

I'm not sure this is relevant. LSF is not a feminist blog, and so I'm pretty sure the etiquette one would have on a feminist blog doesn't apply here.

Did you read it past the title? It takes down a lot of the kind of points you've been using throughout the thread. I was paraphrasing the argument. Those are meant to be arguments you stop using once you've been pointed to a feminist resources explaining the flaws in them. This just condenses it. You have this annoying habit of writing things off because they're "only written for feminists" or some other excuse. Stop it. If someone provides you with a resource to educate yourself, at least try to make use of it. Since we're talking about feminism here, anything written by feminists helping to define their position is relevant. You keep posting incredibly selective articles and I have to read them, yet you don't bother doing the same with mine. It's incredibly frustrating.

[Dollywitch]

Also, please let me point out the major flaw of "Opinion" based discussion - some of the people coming into this thread are incredibly ignorant of feminist issues. It's not just a matter of disagreeing, they have had less of these arguments and read less about the subject. Putting someone with relevant experience on the same level as someone like that is ridiculous. Of course someone is free to disagree, but it doesn't mean they are entitled to have their argument be put on the same level, but there is always a pretext in forum discussion that we must , and that we cannot simply make someone's argument look bad for being flawed. That's the same kind of artificial, forced relativism Renpytom would moan about if done elsewhere, and is why online discussions rarely go anywhere.

Some of the blogs I've linked to have dealth with the arguments here very succinctly and pointed out logical flaws. For example - the concept of the "Male Gaze" isn't something DragoonHP or Taosym had likely heard of before coming here. Yet they still presented an argument as if they knew all the breaks on this. When informed of a concept that should have caused them to step back and reform their argument, they carried on as if nothing happened. What? But this is always the case with social conservatives of one form or another. Everyone's an expert with limited knowledge. It's the same dangerous thinking that leads to things like SOPA. There are so many points that just haven't been addressed, at all.

You cannot have an argument where one side refuses to accept the experiences of the other, or when a concept is introduced that may undermine some of the assertions they had previously made. And again, this is a thread about women in gaming. If it was a men vs. women's privileges thread, that would be another matter, but that would turn into a shitfest even quicker than this one. It's also very hard to prove since there are only so many studies available, how one gender has it better than the other. The best measure is representation in terms of positions of power, since that measures ability to influence society to some degree. In which case, it's stacked against women.

This is why you can't push relativism here. The two arguments are not even remotely on the same level. An opinion and an argument are not on the same level either. I do not have to respect someone's argument if it is blatantly fallacious. Feminists are not man haters, and women have not achieved perfect equality with women(on that - this links back to a number of studies - http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-p ... checklist/ ).

I don't think the social conservatives here are going to accept this so I should probably drop out of the thread at this point.

Also - http://derailingfordummies.com/

Wasn't this a dicussion about how it is to be a woman in gamer's spaces? Isn't not listening to women's experiences and instead saying women have all the rights incredibly insensitive? Yes, it is. We should be talking about the original subject and the fact that people always feel a need to derail discussions about specific instances of sexism to men vs. women in general in of itself probably proves a point, or at least makes one more likely to be true. It's immature. We should be talking about how women feel and what we can do to help that, because that is the subject of the thread.

[Taosym]

Did you read it past the title? It takes down a lot of the kind of points you've been using throughout the thread. Those are meant to be arguments you stop using once you've been pointed to a feminist resources explaining the flaws in them. This just condenses it. You have this annoying habit of writing things off because they're "only written for feminists" or some other excuse. Stop it. If someone provides you with a resource to educate yourself, at least try to make use of it. Since we're talking about feminism here, anything written by feminists helping to define their position is relevant. You keep posting incredibly selective articles and I have to read them, yet you don't bother doing the same with mine. It's incredibly frustrating.

Using the phrase "educate yourself" in that manner, implies that we are wrong and that you are right. That is not how you change things. People will not even listen to you, read your links or do anything to appease you when you phrase it in a what that says "I'm right, you are wrong. You are dumb, you need to read this".

No one here is arguing against feminism. But when someone is so holier than thou about their position, that they look down at everyone who disagrees with them. People will not listen to you just to spite you.

Here's something that will save you a lot of grief in life. You are not right. I am not right. Those are just your opinions. You are trying to share your opinions. When you accept that your opinion can be changed. You can hear other people's opinions. They may never, ever agree with you. Accept that and move on. Saying they need to "educate" themselves because they are just dumb men-donkeys will not win the hearts of anyone.

[Dollywitch]

Using the phrase "educate yourself" in that manner, implies that we are wrong and that you are right.

This is true. You are wrong. You were largely ignorant of feminist issues coming into this thread and are using relativistic nonsense to defend that position.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with telling someone they need more education on a particular subject. Most people are poorly educated on feminism. You are pushing a severely anti-intellectual position by saying this. If you wish to enter into an argument with feminists, you must educate yourself on the matter, just as I have to read a lot of annoying rubbish if I want to argue with renpytom about libertarianism. You have refused to acknowledge any of the resources I or others have posted for you, so I have absolutely no reason to believe you've bothered to read anything like that prior to now.

Ironically it's probably partly your male privilege that makes you think you don't have to do this, that it should be the job of marginalised groups to prove everything when they already have to keel over for their masters constantly.

That is not how you change things. People will not even listen to you, read your links or do anything to appease you when you phrase it in a what that says "I'm right, you are wrong. You are dumb, you need to read this".

It's not actually not my responsibility to educate you on the issues the other half of the population may face. Convincing you would be nice, but there's no evidence I can do that anyway so really, the best I can do is try to educate.

It's not a case of being "dumb". It's a case of not being educated on a particular subject, which you're not. You are not overly familiar with concepts of feminism - we know this because those who are recognise you as being so. As such, instead of purely screaming in your face that you're wrong, people have actually tried to link you to resources that explain exactly what feminism is, and why things are still stacked against women on average.

I am a feminist, some people here have been feminists longer than I have, experienced many difference groups of feminists and the kind of things they get behind. You are not a feminist, have had little or no first hand contact with feminists. Would you at least admit to this much? Some people here(such as myself) are also transgendered so are also more qualified to talk about privilege on the other side of the fence.

Saying that your less educated position should be held on the same level as one of an experienced feminist is ridiculous. And this is at the heart of the problem I was trying to get that.

All you're really pushing for at the end here isn't some fair equality between opinions, it's for people with relevant experiences to be ignored or silenced so we can achieve a false level playing ground.

No one here is arguing against feminism.

Yes they are. Read DragonHP's posts. Or hell, even renpytom's(with regards third wave feminists), or yours. You're saying it's unnecessary.

But when someone is so holier than thou about their position, that they look down at everyone who disagrees with them. People will not listen to you just to spite you.

As a tip for you, once you start using words like "Holier than thou" you start to lose people fast. We don't look down at you because we disagree with you. We(or I anyway, I'm not going to speak for anyone) look down on you because it's been pointed that lines like this are utterly unproductive and little more than derailment tactics, but you continue to use them. You continually to be willfully ignorant. It is not about "agreement" and I have already dealth with this en length. Sexism is a real issue that affects people, it's not just a matter of subjective opinion. Frustrating someone this much by ignoring all their points is another reason why you are being looked down upon.

Why does all the responsibility lie on us, anyway? Where is this coming from? Why shouldn't you be making a better argument?

Most of us are fed up with dealing with this as we've had this argument day in day out all across the internet. You can walk away from it and it doesn't affect you. Regardless of whether you can pretend that men and women have it equal or not - opposition towards feminism is obviously a very real and tiring thing.

Here's something that will save you a lot of grief in life. You are not right. I am not right. Those are just your opinions. You are trying to share your opinions. When you accept that your opinion can be changed. You can hear other people's opinions. They may never, ever agree with you. Accept that and move on. Saying they need to "educate" themselves because they are just dumb men-donkeys will not win the hearts of anyone.

[/quote]

Look, I just wrote close to an A4 page on why "Opinion" based discussion is bullshit and you pull this on me. There is an objective, shared reality and some things are more true than others, some people more experienced with regards an issue than others. I explain exactly why it's irrelevant, exactly why it drives me insane, and why I don't accept it as an argument. Yet - in typical fashion for you - you represent the same argument completely oblivious to the fact that I already pre-emptively refused your offer. I am not interested in "sharing my opinions". I am interested in pointing out the privileged nature of your argument and inherent lack of respect you have for those living experiences outside the norm of a particular area, so that others may recognise it.

This sums up, very well, why I am looking down on your "argument". Also the way in which you say this will save me a lot of grief in life. It's funny, because if I drop out of this argument I still have to put up with daily sexism from gamers and being slammed for being feminist. You don't have to put up with that, at least in the sphere of gaming, which this argument is about. This only reinforces how ridiculous your insistence on subjectivity is.

This is why I dislike you. And if you continue to argue in conscious denial of this fact, I will copy and paste these lines to the end of the fucking earth until you accept it.

[sake-bento]

I've read through this thread about three times now, and I'm still not entirely sure what to say. I've actually had a really hard time following the discussion, because there seems to be a disconnect between the purpose of the thread and what we're talking about.

So, if it's okay, I'm going to sum up the first post in two points:

-It is difficult for females to find appealing video games. Many games "for girls" tend to be poorly made or uninteresting. Many games "for boys" tend to portray women in a fashion that makes female players uncomfortable. Overall, females have significantly fewer options than males.

-This is not fair, and we should change this.

I don't think anyone disagrees with these statements? At least, I hope not.

That being said, I'm inclined to lock this thread, as I really don't see this thread doing anything productive in the future. The most recent set of posts seem to be saying the same thing over and over, and once we start talking in circles, we just get stuck in the angry internet argument spiral.

[Taosym]

*snip*

It is unnecessary. The disparity of genders has skewed to the point where there now exists a modern movement that is literally for sexism against men (third wave feminism). And before you attack me, imagine if a man started a movement called "masculism" and it's credo was to get back at women politically and verbally for rejecting them. And you'll understand what it's like for someone who as never met you. Who has never sat down and talked to you, to tell you who you are, and what you are thinking. In that respect. You are doing the exact thing to others that has been done to you. And you can't even see it.

At this point, what the world needs is egalitarianism. Equality for all genders. The fact that you recoiled so strongly at that, tells me that's not what you want. I can understand that, as a female your attention is focused on your gender related issues. Which is why you don't see feminists arguing against sexist incidents against men. Why there's no feminist movement who has ever gone to the defense of an innocent man who was thrown in jail because he was accused of a rape he did not commit. Which is why you argue that we need to educate ourselves about women, but refuse to listen to counter arguments about male related sexism. I have not seen anything to tell me that you are not as overtly sexist as you appear to be. Nor have you tried to deny it, or clarify your position.

I can understand that you experience sexism in your life. But you are giving into that and doing the very same thing when you use that to justify being sexist against men. Not everyone is a sexist, believe it or not.

[PyTom]

Because the context in which they're using it is derailment. This is about how female gamers have it tough. Bringing in how females may have it easier in entirely unrelated sectors of society is largely irrelevant to that - it's what's known as a "red herring".

At best, this is a thread about if there aren't enough games for women out there - and if not, what's the cause and how we solve it. Showing how people are equal is a valid way to make a point here - and trying to discredit that point by shouting "derailment" presumes a conclusion.

People have been addressing their points. The side ignoring large wads of reasoning is DragoonHP's - not ours. There is nothing wrong with linking to a blog that explains something in better words that I can. It's not written just for feminists - it's written for gamers, and it says in the FAQ they welcome discussion from non-feminists.

Sure, but I don't see that blog as a reliable source for anything but the opinions of feminists - and of third-wave/gender feminists at that. They sort of implicitly assume equality of outcome is desirable. I don't, so the whole things fall apart.

What you're doing is pretty much the same thing as the people who quote Leviticus at gay people. If you don't accept the authority of the source text, that argument pretty much falls apart.

Ignoring that, many of these pages are bad choices because they tend to use jargon, which then has to be explained to people who don't understand the jargon. When we're talking here, we kind of know what we know, and can tailor our arguments appopriately.

It's not all about our responsibility to convince, here, and this is what pisses me off about the conservative/libertarian version of "Personality Responsibility", it's nearly always about the responsibility of the underdog.

Another way to put that is that it's the responsibility of people who want change to convince others change is needed. I see that as a good thing - otherwise, we just constantly change to the position of the people who yell the loudest, and life turns into a shouting match.

The quality of the majority here is important. Third-wave feminism implies a particular (modern liberal) political viewpoint that is far from unanimous among women. If it's a majority, it's a small one - I suspect postfeminism is about just as popular. It's pretty common - at cons and such - to see women dressing up as the characters some rail against. Are they part of the problem, and acting against their own interests? Do they not see this? Or do they simply see the problem differently than you do?

Getting away from the point. Most women will say they have a hard time as gamers.

No, I'm introducing evidence to try to make my point. Accept it, address it, or ignore it - but please don't try to portray it as off-topic.

The "modern liberal" political viewpoint here you're posting about here is largely intersectionality - considering the rights and privilege

Was this cut off?

What did I say about cherry picking? Not to mention I address most of those points later. One of the most important facts here is being ignored - women are underrepresented in positions of power. It's unbelievably obnoxious for you to say there's "Objective evidence that women have achieved equality with men".

It takes a career for people to achieve positions of power - enough time hasn't passed yet. We do have women in high government offices - the last two Secretaries of State have been women. If things had gone a little differently in 2008, we'd have had a female vice president. A woman won the Iowa Straw Poll, and was a legitimate contender for President.

Libertarian logic does not care about whether or not women are in power, discriminated against, heckled, etc. only whether or not someone is FORCED not to be a jackass along the way.

Sort of. We believe that the best way to promote equality is through liberty - taking away the ability of those with power to oppress others. If we do that, then a desirable outcome happens without us - based on what people actually consider to be desirable.

If developers come up with largely sexist content - then yes, the publishers should turn them around and say this level of content is not acceptable - please change it. Saying they have to "create games they otherwise wouldn't" is intellectually dishonest because it's not what's happening. They're not being forced to make a platformer when they want to make a shooter. That's obviously not what's happening - but you choose your wording to imply something like that is. That is intellectually dishonest, you keep doing it and I'd like to see you own up to it. You are using overly weighted and irrational language while complaining about feminists doing the same(but in much more understandable scenarios).

If it's not the creators being forced, it's the publishers. Either new people enter the market - my preferred solution - or people are forced to change. I think I'm using perfectly rational language.

It's reasonable that feminists should have enough power to make this happen without being called "feminazis".

That much power is scary. The one time it was gathered - the Equality Now incident - the result was a chilling effect on visual novels, one that didn't do a damn thing to make games that females want to play.

Gay marriage today is where sex discrimination was a few decades ago. If nothing is done, most states (in the US) will have gay marriage in 20 years or so. (But when activists pushed too hard, the time line slowed down substantially.)

[citation needed]

I would also be surprised if some of the southern states had gay marriage in anything less than 30.

The basic argument is based on data by, IIRC, Larry Sabato, that shows that pretty much everyone under 30 supports gay marriage, and people over 50 don't. The dividing line goes up one year by year, strongly suggesting that there will be a majority of people supporting it in another couple decades. (The line varies state by state, but shows up in even the most conservative states.)

Pushing too hard has lead to states - even liberal states, like California - passing constitutional amendments banning gay marriage. These are much harder to overturn, and will delay legalization in those states.

Not changing is an option - if you can't improve the situation, do nothing. Certainly, change for the sake of change is a terrible idea - we need to make things better, not merely different.

Who says it's change for the sake of change? Is making it so games aren't so ridiculously sexist. As a woman, I find it difficult being a gamer. As women, most here do. There is clearly a problem here for a lot of people and having some conservative dude telling us are problems aren't real is one of the most ridiculous things about this.

I worry about things like the Equality Now case. In attempting to "change", they made games a lot less accessible. That's not a good thing.

[Aleema]

-This is not fair, and we should change this.

I don't think anyone disagrees with these statements? At least, I hope not.

Except, if you read the thread, you would see that some people do think that it's completely fair, and that there is no change needed.

If this thread is going to be locked, it should be to keep the personal attacks from happening, or to keep ignorant people from suddenly jumping into the conversation and bringing up an issue already addressed - NOT because this never deserved to be discussed at all, or that we've reached some sort of "conclusion" or "solution," or to shut feminists up.

This is exactly what I feared would happen when people wanted to create some sort of "serious discussion" subforum; I would lose all respect for some people that I didn't want to.

[Blue Lemma]

People who have a chip on their shoulder and are here to push their own self-righteous agendas.

http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 13&t=13039

I don't even have to read all 21 pages of this thread to know that it's probably going in circles and doing little but causing hard feelings every which way (so-and-so is a sexist, so-and-so is a whackjob, so-and-so is a feminazi, etc.) When it comes to gender and society, everyone isn't going to agree - especially not on a global forum. And everyone could post 21,000 pages - it still won't make people change their minds. 21 pages is more than enough for people to state their cases and feelings on the topic (on all sides), so can we just call this one a day already?

There are better places to hash this one out if people want to continue. LSF is supposed to be for collaboration, understanding, and being positive, not pointing fingers and arguing controversial topics for 21 pages.

[DragoonHP]

@Aleema: Since you asked proof about my mentality, here are some proof...

http://ca.answers.yahoo.com/question/in ... 855AAK9Y10
http://alettertothetimes.wordpress.com/ ... -feminism/

Yes they have been posted before, but I am not bothering to put in new link because you have made it quite clear.
Reading what you like, ignoring what you want.

EDIT

People have been addressing their points. The side ignoring large wads of reasoning is DragoonHP's - not ours.

Please let me humbly state that it is not my side or anyone's side; I don't even know when I purchased the bragging rights to be called as such.
And secondly, if you call some photos large wad of evidence, yup I have been ignoring them because well I can post some photos and comic strip too and go around saying that they are ignoring large wads of reasoning.

[redeyesblackpanda]

That being said, I'm inclined to lock this thread, as I really don't see this thread doing anything productive in the future. The most recent set of posts seem to be saying the same thing over and over, and once we start talking in circles, we just get stuck in the angry internet argument spiral.

I agree with you. When this:

This is why I dislike you. And if you continue to argue in conscious denial of this fact, I will copy and paste these lines to the end of the fucking earth until you accept it.

is happening, I don't think there is any productive discussion going on, and more importantly, the language of this post shows the impact this thread has had in people. At this point, this thread seems to be breeding anger and I feel that this hate being expressed is compromising the positive culture of this forum.
I've actually been silently stalking this thread since it was started and feared something like this might happen.

Edit: This was written after I wrote this post up. I really agree with this:

There are better places to hash this one out if people want to continue. LSF is supposed to be for collaboration, understanding, and being positive, not pointing fingers and arguing controversial topics for 21 pages.

[Dollywitch]

At best, this is a thread about if there aren't enough games for women out there - and if not, what's the cause and how we solve it. Showing how people are equal is a valid way to make a point here - and trying to discredit that point by shouting "derailment" presumes a conclusion.

Sorry, but what the hell would you know? Some people in this thread are very experienced with these debates, some may have fought to earn recognition in their community and workplace(and succeeded) and saying people are just shouting "derailment" is an incredible strawman of what's actually being said. The argument of people like Taosym, Dragoon is flimsly as all hell yet you seem to take comparatively less issue with that.

What you're forgetting is that we're not necessarily fighting to convince you. We're fighting to convince others not to be like you. Hopefully then, your position eventually becomes unpopular enough that even you consider changing it. Debate is a spectator sport where the spectators are the goal.

I respect you for the hard work you put into ren'py but nearly every time you open your mouth on this subject you show yourself to be more and more clueless and utterly sheltered.

It's not just a matter of opinion - I, Aleema, and the others find the way in which you present your argument to be disgusting and disrespectful. The responsibility does not lie with us, when forum admin or no, you are the one causing the offense.

Step very closely here - you could be very close to chasing a lot of women off the forum, and I know it isn't the first time something like that has happened here. This is not a threat or anything - I am simply pointing out that acting like everything is an opinion and at the heart of it, not giving a shit about women's issues, does not convince anyone who's experienced real sexual harassment.

Sure, but I don't see that blog as a reliable source for anything but the opinions of feminists - and of third-wave/gender feminists at that.

They're not just opinion pieces. They're dissecting arguments. Arguments and opinions are not the same thing. Opinions are just viewpoints. Arguments contain logical statements, and logical statements can be as valuable as solid evidence depending on the context.

Also, the amptoons entry links back to actual studies, which are more numerous than the ones you have provided.

What you're doing is pretty much the same thing as the people who quote Leviticus at gay people. If you don't accept the authority of the source text, that argument pretty much falls apart.

No, it's not. That's an appeal to authority and is a logical fallacy. Those resources contain some amount of validity for anyone because they make logical statements and document the experiences of feminists. As much as I will tend towards rejecting any argument coming from Freerepublic and the like - it's still important to be familiar with them before making a judgement on that "movement" as a whole. And before you say - again, the responsibility to be rational should be absolved for for those with privilege. If that's what people are like, then a point needs to be made of it.

Quoting Leviticus at gays would be fine if it contained an actual logical argument. Comparing a single "do not do this" to an article explaining where a group of people are coming from is again, relativist absurdity.

Another way to put that is that it's the responsibility of people who want change to convince others change is needed.

Just because you are born gay, or a woman, does not mean you are born with a greater capacity to be an activist. If people make irresponsible decisions such as putting out sexist games or banning women from Battfield 3 LAN parties - they are the ones that have to be responsible. It may be that women & minorities need to stand up for themselves, and need to be the ones to incite change, but the status quo is not automatically valid and the moral and social responsibility does not lie with them.

The issue I have with this is that as a Libertarian you have all kinds of unreasonable ways in which to use "Personal Responsibility", such as a reason for reducing welfare, etc. yet when it comes to people who can actually cause damage to other people, suddenly personal responsibility goes out the window.

People are actively chosing to be sexist, and put out games which drive away women. That is wrong. The market nonsense does not remove the moral right or responsibility here.

It's wrong. If they do put out sexist content, it's wrong, and it's their responsibility not to do it.

Again this is a great thing to say for someone who does not require advocacy.

Sorry, but I've had enough of this BS. Saying the responsibility lies with the victim is utter nonsense and extremely abusive.

No, I'm introducing evidence to try to make my point. Accept it, address it, or ignore it - but please don't try to portray it as off-topic.

What evidence? We are talking about the experience of women in gaming here.

It takes a career for people to achieve positions of power - enough time hasn't passed yet. We do have women in high government offices - the last two Secretaries of State have been women. If things had gone a little differently in 2008, we'd have had a female vice president. A woman won the Iowa Straw Poll, and was a legitimate contender for President.

Stop deferring things. If it's 30 years away from states passing gay marriage, it's still an issue. If it takes time for women to reach power, it's still an issue. You cannot claim women have achieved equality when anything could happen in that period. Again, you can't cherry pick examples and the fact that you have to count off a small handful of prominent female politicians only proves my point.

If what you're saying is true, then it should be easy to dig up some statistics that over the last 10 years or so, there was a roughly equal number of men & women entering politics - beginning their career. I doubt you will find this. The same argument was being made 10 years ago and that's ample time for there to be some kind of turn up for the books. The majority of politicians are still male, this changes but at a slow and steady rate.

Women are under-represented in positions of power. Men & Women do not have true equality, even if there are areas which men are also discriminated against. Full stop.

Sort of. We believe that the best way to promote equality is through liberty - taking away the ability of those with power to oppress others. If we do that, then a desirable outcome happens without us - based on what people actually consider to be desirable.

How would this work in practice? Less government means more equality? As a transgendered person, I fear less from the government and far more from employers.

The freedom to not be mocked and jeered as I walk down the street is an important freedom. One you don't understand since you're privileged in that regard.

There is both positive and negative liberty. If I have certain avenues closed to me because I'm trans, gay, a man or a woman, whatever - whatever the reason, it's something that needs to be addressed. And you can't pull the personal responsibility rubbish when you've shown what an awful grasp you have on that idea earlier.

Things shouldn't be about "beliefs" or "opinions". People have real life experiences as a result of these issues and treating them like toys in the way you do is inherently disrespectful. People are not just components in your ideology. This is why I try not to subscribe myself to any one ideology, because I'm actually interested in what promotes the most equality and liberty, not picking an idea that sounds nice and hoping it works.

If it's not the creators being forced, it's the publishers. Either new people enter the market - my preferred solution - or people are forced to change. I think I'm using perfectly rational language.

The concept isn't rational at all and I already dealth with issues in terms of the market while addressing the other two.

How can this be solved purely using the market? if women refuse to buy sexist games, they miss out on games, and reinforce the message in the developers mind that girls don't play games. They, like so many in this thread, don't flag things as sexist in the same way we do. Putting out more games that appeal to women and everyone is great - but it presumes that anyone can enter the market and do such a thing. For one, you have to deal with an existing establishment where things are stacked against you. The borderhouse has some horrific examples of how women are treated working in games companies. They essentially have opportunities denied to them because not everyone can have thick enough skin to deal with it - nor should they be expected to when men don't.

Because of that, there is an issue that needs to be addressed that markets can't solve. Either some laws cracking down on workplace sexism need to be passed(not the same thing as censorship, which generally, I don't endorse), or pressure needs to be put on developers/publishers not to put out this content, or to improve the quality of the content they're doing.

Even just by tackling the rotten attitudes such as yours and Taosym we can help rile people up to the extent that they take action against this.

The worst thing is to do nothing, which is what you advocate, since it's not broken(for you, of course).

Also, what's important here is that we're talking about responsibility. Conservatives and libertarians love to talk about responsibility abstract of any legislation - developers should be responsible enough not to put out sexist content. It is morally wrong to do so. And that should really be the end of that.

That much power is scary. The one time it was gathered - the Equality Now incident - the result was a chilling effect on visual novels, one that didn't do a damn thing to make games that females want to play.

Funny how the power that sexism has over women in the games industry isn't even remotely "scary" to you.

Funny that isn't it? It's okay when it's privielged, white, straight males exert their power.

The problem with pretty much all your arguments is that you can phrase things in a way that looks innocent. Oh we can't force these poor developers to do this. Look at this big bad feminist group ruining Vns for everyone, etc. But again, that ignores entirely the actual end result of these actions. Women are heavily put off the gaming industry because of male dominance, patriarchal power.

Because people are so used to male dominance in this regard, and that it's insitutionalised, it doesn't register. But it's still there. People are still, as a group of society, making sexist decisions. Libertarians have a habit on focusing on things that are easy and simple to explain - it's easy to show the government making laws against certain things, but very hard to show knock on effects of certain policies or societal issues.

It's still power, and it's still scary. And it still destroys people's careers and chases them away. We should not make exceptions for the status quo in the way you do. That is another logical fallacy in of itself, appeal to common practice.

So focusing on a group like equality now and calling it "frightening", while rendering no such judgement on the gaming industry, shows up your immense double standards.

The basic argument is based on data by, IIRC, Larry Sabato, that shows that pretty much everyone under 30 supports gay marriage, and people over 50 don't. The dividing line goes up one year by year, strongly suggesting that there will be a majority of people supporting it in another couple decades. (The line varies state by state, but shows up in even the most conservative states.)

Post these stats so I can disect them. Also, people often become more conservative with age as it seems to be what society expeects of people. You can't blindly assume things will work out like that. And either way, it's still a problem now. If people stop making noise, that gives the anti crowd more breathing room. If this happens - homophobia will become more and more common place and accepted, and the trend will reverse. It's an ongoing battle. You can't claim advocacy isn't needed when people are campaigning against homosexuality, and this happens in places and eras regardless of the level of activism.

Do you think the opposition towards homosexuality in Uganda came from too much activism?

Pushing too hard has lead to states - even liberal states, like California - passing constitutional amendments banning gay marriage. These are much harder to overturn, and will delay legalization in those states.

Prove that this was due to "pushing too hard". There could be any number of reasons for that.

Again, personal responsibility. The flaw lies with the conservatives that pushed for these laws. Not the gay people. Gay people are not automatic experts in advocacy, it is generally not their profession. Of course, they'd still be far more experienced in it than you, so would know better.

If we're focusing on purely "What would the best game plan be", and ignoring responsibility, then frankly half of your ideas go out the window anyway.

I worry about things like the Equality Now case. In attempting to "change", they made games a lot less accessible. That's not a good thing.

[/quote]

The fact that this is your biggest worry speakes volumes to me - such things are things everyone can worry about - I don't most of the feminists in this thread support censorship(third wave feminists in particular, the ones you don't like, are the ones who tend to be "sex positive"), you said yourself that it did nothing to make games more appealing to women. Ignoring intersectionality will do you no favours - again, this is a concept you'd understand if you'd read one of those blogs supposedly only written for feminist, it explains an idea, it doesn't just say "Thou shalt not have buttsex", making arguments easier.

[Blue Lemma]

No one is going to change anyone's mind here, especially with all the insults and attacks flying around. It just makes people MORE entrenched in their views.

Everyone participating in the arguments here: You can't argue people into agreeing with you. That would be like getting 500 conservatives and 500 liberals into a room, letting them argue and argue, and then waiting for either 1000 conservatives and 0 liberals to come out, or 0 conservatives and 1000 liberals to come out. It's not happening.

Please just drop this already, everyone. There are forums and websites dedicated to extensive controversial gender/social issue discussion, and this is not one of them.

For crying out loud, someone please lock this already.

[sake-bento]

Talking about gender issues? Fine. Talking about the video game industry? Fine. Name calling and personal attacks? Not okay. I am not a fan of locking threads, but this discussion is absolutely not constructive. There's also been enough support (public and private) to warrant locking this thread, so thread locked.