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Gender Diversity / Politics in games (was Tropes Vs. Women)

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Anne Summers

Anne Summers

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I heard about the dolphin developer the other day on a smash bros board. No one mentioned any of that stuff about harassment or her illnesses or anything.

I find it upsetting that people were taking her death out of context and using it to try and make a point, that's terrible.

I'm not sure they were. I think its more likely the case that a couple of people might have mentioned the harassment, and then gamergaters felt they were somehow under attack and launched a furious counter-offensive way out of proportion to the original comments. That's how these thing have tended to go down.

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MechE

MechE

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I'm not sure if it was mentioned here but a couple of months ago the Washington Post published an op-ed by a twelve year old girl who wondered why the main character in Temple Run was a man who you could play for free but if you wanted to play as a woman you had to pay extra. This promoted her to research how prevalent this was.

In her sample of endless runner games that featured human characters 98% offered male characters and 48% offered female ones. And only 15% offered female characters for free.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/03/04/im-a-12-year-old-girl-why-dont-the-characters-in-my-apps-look-like-me/

What's most interesting to me about this comes from the follow-up by the Planet Money podcast.

It's easy to assume this situation has come about because games are made by young guys for other young guys. So the Planet Money folk talked to the creators of Temple Run, and it turns out that it's actually made by a woman (as a husband and wife team). Apparently when they were deciding on a main character they chose a man because they thought that the game would mainly be popular with young men. It seems that some women who are passionate about games consider themselves to be an anomaly and target games at what they are told is the core gamer demographic.

It turns out that 60% of Temple Run players are female. My wife is certainly a big fan.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2015/04/08/398297737/a-12-year-old-girl-takes-on-the-video-game-industry

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George Clooney

George Clooney

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I'm not sure they were. I think its more likely the case that a couple of people might have mentioned the harassment, and then gamergaters felt they were somehow under attack and launched a furious counter-offensive way out of proportion to the original comments. That's how these thing have tended to go down.

I have seen some opponents of GG tweet the news of her death saying she had been "harassed to commit suicide by GG". The most commonly sourced story did also put a heavy implication not on GG directly (though I think it did mention them) but on harassment as the reason she took her life. Several people close to her are trying to make people aware that while she had been harassed, including by some people who seemed to be part of GG, the main reason was that she was in a lot of constant pain, and did not earn enough to pay heathcare expenses. Its pretty obvious from what I've seen that people are quite willing to jump to conclusions or take rumours at face value to paint GG in a bad light. Well, worse light. It's pretty shitty behaviour really - if you're going to accuse an entire group of people of driving someone to suicide, you better damn well make sure you have your facts right first.

In other news that I dont think has been mentioned, Brianna Wu was at a recent convention called Ravencon to do a talk about Gamergate. Crack GG reporter "The Ralph Report" decided to go along, specifically to her talk. While she was setting up, he took a picture of her, tweeted it out, which got seen by her somehow, and she got him thrown out. Despite all his talk, Ralph leaves without saying a word like a scolded schoolboy, but claims he did it on purpose to "make her look bad".

At the same convention, this happened....

Basically, a gater who went ends up meeting Brianna and her husband, and realises that they are actual people, and the GG image of them isnt entirely accurate. Also hears about the Ralph thing, and realises that as no one really seemed to give a shit in GG about him turning up to a convention with the intention of getting kicked out or something in the hope it would make someone look bad, decides that maybe GG isnt actually something he wants to closely associate with. Of course, his video shows why he was a gater in the first place, and why perhaps he needs to think about the stuff he realised about Wu a bit more. He basically says that he realised that she "isnt like Anita, and doesnt want to change games", but that she wanted more games with better female representation, but he didnt realise this till after he met her. In fact, he compares her to Anita a few times, and obviously has some pre-conceved ideas about about her and what she wants to do to the games industry....a bit like he did about Wu, until he met her. He never once seems to think that maybe if he's wrong about Wu, he could be wrong about Anita. Which is kinda ironic seeing as the views he seems to think Anita has are the typical ones gaters assume she has, rather than the ones she's actually said she has.

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Nick R

Nick R

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The full interview that's from:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/adambvary/joss-whedon-on-leaving-twitter#.eqjRa02LW

(The interview's relevant to this thread even if you have no interest in the Avengers film.)

For those who haven't been following: lots of people got angry at Whedon for several things he wrote into Avengers 2. Spoilers for the movie:

- Tony Stark making a joke about Prima Nocta

- Pairing Black Widow up with Bruce Banner (some fans get really into their shipping!)

- Black Widow describes herself as a "monster" not long after she's discussed being forcibly sterilised, making it sound like being infertile is an affliction equivalent to being the Hulk. (Yeah, it's unfortunate that the lines were close enough together that it could be interpreted that way, but otherwise it's clear "monster" referred to being made into an assassin.)

- Black Widow gets captured and doesn't break out on her own. Apparently this would have been handled differently if Scarlett Johansson hadn't been pregnant. (Someone complained that Whedon turned her into a love interest that needed saving, to which Mark Ruffalo responded, "Weird I thought he turned Banner into a love interest that needed saving." :D)

- At one point Black Widow suggests running away and leaving her life as a superhero behind. The critics say that this completely goes against the her character at the end of The Winter Soldier, in which she's willing to stand up and publicly, proudly admit who she is and the secrets in her past.

When I watched the film and saw some of those bits, I guessed certain members of the "Whedon is not a real feminist" crowd would have a field day. Unfortunately I was right.

So those people started hurling abuse at him on Twitter, for being a regressive portrayal of the character compared to previous films. (Jaime Weinman suggested that it mostly came from people who've only recently started learning about feminism, who are the most zealous: "If you believe oppression is composed of tiny microaggressions, then every microaggression is equally bad.")

Whedon subsequently deleted his Twitter account. There was speculation that he'd done so because of the messages he was receiving, and people were starting to spin it for use in their war on SJWs. So he did that interview to refute that, and explain what the real reason was.

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Jarik

Jarik

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During one my visits to Reaxxion.com I found something I thought was interesting. Theres a commenter there called GunsmithKitten who (as a girl Gamer herself) doesn't hesitate to call the articles out when they frequently slip up & say that all women are the problem in gaming rather than just SJW's & Feminists.

She doesn't appear to be that pleasant a personality herself, but I thought it was interesting as this is a like Gamergate coming across a real life example of #notyourshield, but then the ingrained misogony coming into conflict with that.

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Anne Summers

Anne Summers

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Oh they let a woman write for them? They were quite adamant that would never happen when they were advertising for writers recently, to the point I had my account banned from commenting on their articles for asking "Why?"

(Literally just "why?", not "Why are you doing this you misogynistic caveman nazi wankers" or anything, even though that would be deserved).

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Jarik

Jarik

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Oh they let a woman write for them? They were quite adamant that would never happen when they were advertising for writers recently, to the point I had my account banned from commenting on their articles for asking "Why?"

(Literally just "why?", not "Why are you doing this you misogynistic caveman nazi wankers" or anything, even though that would be deserved).

Not a writer, a commenter. She's already had the usual accusations of 'trolling', being a 'Fake' Gamer & trying to make it all about her when she's questioned articles that say women have no place in gaming, but she hasn't been banned...yet.

Like I say, it's interesting because this is like Gamergate being challenged to put its money where its mouth is. Here is a women gamer who appears to share the views that Gamergate should be a consumer revolt & that Feminists & SJW are the enemy, & also for its supporters to prove that women who play by its rules will be welcomed, & its flunking it.

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Tangent

Tangent

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See, I don't like that.

You help nothing but replying "LOL Men" to "LOL Women".

It's OK to point out when someone is being misogynistic, if he was.

It wasn't an attack on men in general, it was an attack on a man who was abusive to her.

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rumblecat

rumblecat

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Guy from Star Trek NG sums it all up quite succinctly.

post-9022-0-54060000-1431237940_thumb.pn

edit: for some reason in this shot the 'screed' is blurred out- it's the original 'Zoe Post' about Zoe Quinn and what a terrible woman she was for breaking up with the writer of it etc etc.

The same guy is begging $10,000 off KotakuInAction at the moment so he can hire a lawyer to fight Zoe's restraining order which prevents him from posting about her or their life together . He's raised over $5,000 so far. Something something ethics video games etc.

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Dudley

Dudley

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That's a little hard to judge based on the fact the original message appears to be gone.

If the other person was being a dick, was Rowling supposed to just shrug it off?

Possibly. But if you insult, don't go for a sexist one, it just immediately reduces you to the same level.

It's OK to point out when someone is being misogynistic, if he was.

It wasn't an attack on men in general, it was an attack on a man who was abusive to her.

No, it was a sexist insult that could only apply to a man.

It's on the level of a man replying "Get back in the kitchen".

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