The Internet is toxic, but its toxicity is usually equal opportunity
One of the more annoying trends in our society has been the substitution of action with rhetoric. This has really taken off in the age of Twitter where people think hashtags are a replacement for actually doing something.
Today I read an Opinion Piece on Polygon called “No Skin thick enough: The daily harassment of women in the game industry” by a woman named Brianna Wu. It's an article I recommend checking out.
However, I do have some criticisms of the piece. For starters, it is a bad piece of journalism. It relies completely on sensationalist emotionalism to back up its blanket assertion (“the daily harassment of women in the game industry”).
Such articles, even opinion pieces, are apparently not open to discussion. As soon as I expressed some criticism on Twitter the haters came out in force. All sense of reason evaporated. My criticism was: Be aware that sometimes allegations of sexual harassment are false (remember what happened to me). Sometimes, some women choose to take criticism/teasing/abuse as being due to their sex.
Let me give you the part from the article that caused me to write my tweet in the first place.
This is the example Ms. Wu provides as an example of sexual harassment women face:
Two things to point out about this: First, anonymous user (which is one of the sources of why Internet discussion can get so toxic) and second, while clearly abusive, this has nothing to do with the writer being female. I have gotten tweets to me very similar to this when I've made a casual tweet regarding a game console. Ask Phil Fish about internet abuse. Trolls will cater their trolling to their target.
The point of my tweet is that we need to be careful on this because *sometimes* the allegation that it's *sexual* harassment is false.
The article provides 4 such anecdotes. The Internet has plenty of vile behavior that many of us run into regularly. But this article tries to make sweeping conclusions with it. I take issue with articles that make sweeping (and arguably sexist) charges against men using 4 anecdotes as evidence.
If we were debating any other topic and someone made a broad, far reaching claim and backed it up with nothing more than 4 anecdotal examples they’d get reamed. But because we are talking about an ism, it is taboo to raise any skepticism about the article’s agenda.
I’ve been in the game industry a long time. I’ve seen its ugliness in many different forms. So let me tell you: This subject matter is delicate and should be treated as such.
So let's look at the responses I got when I tweeted that women sometimes make false claims of "sexual harassment" when in fact what they received had nothing to do with their sex:
To which I respond:
Which gets:
Buzzfeed's Nicol Leffel goes right to name-calling almost immediately.
Ugh. There were much more vile responses than these but I blocked them and now I can't find them on twitter. The point being, even attempting to discuss the topic invites assumptions of sexism and abuse.
There IS misogyny in the game industry but not where the professional victims would have you believe
The misogyny I've seen in our industry is not representative of game culture in general but is a manifestation of Internet toxicity. Let's start with the sexist reaction successful women in the game industry often receive. When a man does something impressive and gets some publicity, they get kudos and support. But if a woman does something impressive and gets the same publicity, their experience is likely to be terrible and humiliating. I’ve seen this first hand and it’s discouraging. But it would be wrong to imply that this is a general issue. Internet culture is toxic.
...But we have to be careful that this issue isn't exploited by opportunistic people to for professional or personal gain.
I have first hand experience with this. Those of you who know me know the hell I went through when I was falsely accused of "sexual harassment" by a former, opportunistic employee who was hoping for a quick pay off.
Let me say it plainly: There are women who will exploit this delicate topic for financial or professional gain. Maybe they’re “journalists” who know it’s a quick, easy way to get their article published on Kotaku. Maybe it’s a former journalist whose just gotten into the game industry who wants her upcoming project to get coverage. Or maybe it’s a young woman mad at her boss who wants to exploit the issue to make money. And of course, maybe it’s a legitimate reporting on a serious problem. But sorry, I’m a skeptic now. I didn’t use to be such a skeptic but 2 years of unwarranted smears and death threats have made me take these claims with a grain of salt.
So what can we do?
I’m an engineer, I’m interested in solutions and I think there is a lot we can do to address this issue:
Choose to be part of the solution: Do your part to make the Internet a less toxic environment. Don’t just blindly support empty, feel good pap. Keep your critical thinking cap on.
Update: Slashdot comments are very interesting and in stark contrast to the empty progressive rhetoric on Twitter. http://games-beta.slashdot.org/story/14/07/22/229256/the-daily-harassment-of-women-in-the-game-industry
Update 2: Added more content, added item #2 regarding anonymity. Fixed Typos. (see edit history).
Update 3: Added pics from Twitter.
Update 4: Typos, streamlined.
Update 5: Crossed out item 2. I've been persuaded that it's a bad idea.
Well holy crap. A woman wrote that, and it's about other woman denouncing feminism, men have been saying this for quite a while and have been nothing but trashed on with constant hate and shaming.
It was really Rush, using a pseudonym.
Doesn't quite match the writing style of Red Barchetta
Some of you may have noticed that in my posts here I have repeatedly pointed out situations in which men are also treated unequally and harassed. I would have pointed out a lot more of that but this topic is focused on treatment of women and I didn't want to derail it too much.
Have any of you ever objected to articles that call parenting, childcare, education and caregiving "women's issues?" Every time I see that, I flinch. Here is a partial list of people who may be responsible for a child's wellbeing fulltime, part-time, temporarily, or as needed: Parents, guardians, foster parents, legal guardians, child-minders, grandparents, siblings, other relatives, family friends, neighbors, daycare workers, teachers, nurses, doctors, sitters. Not all of those people are women. Women are a large subset, but at any given time there are many men responsible for children. The same is true of caregivers for the elderly and persons of any age who require legal guardians, medical assistance at home, or other help. Not all single parents are women. Not all stay at home parents are women. It's long past time that we recognize these things. The media needs to write more about stay at home dads, whether single fathers earn reduced wages, and other topics that are very rarely covered. I'm not asking for a clickbait fad here. I am asking for more balanced portrayals of men in the internet media. I want that for women as well. I want to see coverage of people in the news become less skewed by stereotypes. Ever seen a story about a white deadbeat mom? That's right, they do exist. http://www.in.gov/dcs/3473.htm
She made the list of most wanted child support evaders in her state. We will probably not see much coverage of situations like that any time soon.
I agree with a lot of the points made in the Time article, but not all of them. I do not think all men are rapists waiting to happen, but I do think our society does not take rape seriously enough unless it's good clickbait. Rape victims can be any age, any sex or gender identity, any color. There are still films that act as if rape only happens to supermodel type women and makes it look like a validation of how hot this woman is. A violent compliment even. I have also seen serious stories that are underreported, like this one: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/uk-launches-500000-fund-for-male-victims-of-sexual-abuse-9126846.html
It's pretty common knowledge that rapes tend to be underreported. Often victims are traumatized and embarrassed. The idea of having to get a medical exam, having to go to court and talk about what happened in detail, and then have to deal with proving the incident really happened, was not consensual, that the victim didn't "ask for it" by wearing the wrong clothes or flirting or letting a stranger buy a drink...some rape victims have said it feels like being raped all over again. There is not a lot we can do about that additional humiliation while also protecting the right of the accused to defend him or herself. Many victims don't want their friends to know. They worry their partners might dump them. We are starting to learn that male victims are even less likely to report than women are. If the victim is gay, the male attacker may claim he had a homophobic panic attack, the so-called gay panic defense. Male victims of rape by women may have the reasonable fear that nobody will believe that their story. Some male victims feel emasculated, which also discourages reporting.
In my opinion, the author of the article is correct that the men do not need to be taught not to rape except perhaps in cases where it's part of anger management training for a convicted rapist or attempted rapist whose trigger was rage. We do need to change how society treats rape victims, and find ways to be more supportive of victims who are afraid to report because of safety, humiliation, and social consequence issues. The media needs to stop portraying rape as sexy, a compliment, an acceptable form of revenge, or something that only happens to attractive adult women. It would really be great if the media stopped intentionally or unintentionally sending the message that rape is ever glamorous, funny, or morally/ethically acceptable.
My father was a stay-at-home dad for a while (though not of his own volition as it was in response to his industry tanking) so there were some issues related to that.
I do feel like egalitarianism would be a better term rather than feminism, at least for me. For instance, due to my personal experience with feminists that I have known most well (one was my ex, the other is the girlfriend of a friend), I naturally associate feminism with their actions, both of which were pretty negative towards men. The majority of my female friends just want to be treated equally under the law and then in terms of their interactions with individuals, be treated as people. The two that identified as feminists, while they would agree to the previous sentiment, had actions that suggested that they wanted to simply be treated better than men which is of course no better for society.
Also, I cannot think of a time where I came across a story where rape was presented as anything but terrible. To a certain extent, a woman looking for sex is likely to dress in a certain way, but not all women by any means that are dressed in such ways are interested in it. My girlfriend happens to be a prime example of this. She wears clothing of a certain kind that could be in certain lights seen as sexual, but in reality, she simply wears clothes of that sort because she finds them more comfortable for her body shape. The stupid error men sometimes make regarding the "she was asking for it" defense I believe is "correlation is not causation." Just because there are women that dress in that way looking for such doesn't mean that all women dressed in that way dressed as such for said reasons.
And then there's the <insert insult of your choice here> that don't think of women as equal humans and deserve poor treatment, but they're off in their own fringe category and I don't think we'd ever be able to keep their online interactions moderated unless, as mentioned earlier, we locked down accounts to real identities, and that has aforementioned problems.
I'm going to play devil's advocate here on this...
Imagine you park your Mercedes Benz in the ghetto overnight, and in the morning you find it has been broken into...sure, just because your car looks nice doesn't justify the actions of those who broke into it, but at the end of the day, you're still an idiot for parking your Mercedes Benz overnight in the ghetto...
That it was more convenient to park it there than, say, at a parking garage for $20 a night doesn't change the fact that you're still an idiot...
Is it fair that women get judged like that based on their looks? No. Is it right that women get judged like that based on their looks? No. But we all know it happens...
If I'm driving down the highway and the person behind me keeps tailgating me, I could rapidly decelerate at any time and if they hit me, it is totally on them...even if I slowed down quickly just for shits and giggles, I'd be in the legal right, and their insurance would be paying for it all....but my car is still damaged, my neck is still hurt, and I still wasted time dealing with an incident that could have been avoided by simply braking slowly...sure, it's their fault, but I'm still an idiot...
It has been said that director Francois Truffaut once said that it is impossible to make an anti-war film. Film theory at the time speculated that any movie about war would glamourize it due to the nature of film itself. Actually what he apparently said was that "to show something is to ennoble it." The point remains. The nature of film is that it activates different parts of your brain based on elements of what you are watching. That in turn can provoke emotions. The scary thing is that we are getting ever closer to understanding how to activate specific parts of the brain on demand. Have a look at the link below and you can speculate on what parts of the brain are activated when a man sees a rape scene with a sexy woman as the victim, and whether a woman's brain may respond differently. As always individuals have individual responses, but what makes money is when you can create a strong response in your target demographics. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727774.000-brain-imaging-monitors-effect-of-movie-magic.html
I want to be very careful here to say that there is not currently enough evidence in my opinion to state that the effects of violent movies, games, or tv have longterm effect. Some studies have concluded that there is a short-term effect that causes increased aggression (not violence) for a few days. Here is study that found that when the viewed violence is combined with an attractive star and sexuality, the aggressive behavior is stronger. http://www.massgeneral.org/children/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=3929
I'm really not very surprised by that result because I suspect that combination is going to activate several parts of the brain and engage the brain more than any one of those things alone. Do I think it will cause people to rape someone right after viewing a rape scene? No. Do I think there should never be a rape scene in a film? No.
There is a reason that rape and rape threats are common in movies and tv. If it didn't sell, you wouldn't be seeing it. Sure, it will usually be portrayed as a bad thing, but as Truffaut was aware, the effect on the viewer might be different. Also sometimes there are scenes shown in which the director tries to make it unclear whether a scene is a rape or consensual. By doing that, some viewers are able to be aroused by the scene without feeling as much guilt or outrage as they might have felt if the scene made it clear there is a violent rape against a helpless victim occurring on the screen. The Game of Thrones scene that caused people all over the internet to get into flame wars over whether or not Cersei was or wasn't raped by her brother next to their dead child is an example of that. What was the director's explanation? Apparently this is a semi-humorous and absurd scene, you see, because their dead son keeps getting in the way. Oh! We get it now, right? http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/game-thrones-director-controversial-scene-697733 In another interview he also said it was consensual "by the end."
G.R.R. Martin, author of the book, commented in his blog about changes made from his book without telling him http://grrm.livejournal.com/367116.html?thread=19030284
Do I think that it might be unhealthy for rape to be depicted as something that happens to a gorgeous woman with impeccable makeup, and she is raped by her gorgeous brother, and there is a lot of glamour lighting on this, the shocking presence of their dead child, and an element of danger too? Yes, I think the director consciously did everything possible to encourage lust, empathy, shock, and a sense of danger in the viewer. Lots of things firing off in the brain. Pleasure likely being associated by people attracted to the actors. Whether the director has been following research I have no idea, but rape depicted as ok if the victim changes his or her mind is nothing new. Neither are rape scenes lit like romantic scenes.
It isn't really new. Its long been prevalent in political and corporate slogans, from the founding fathers incorporating legitimization of slavery into the very (but proverbial) fabric of the U.S. Constitution through the "three-fifths remedy" whilst chanting "freedom!" to describe rebelling against mother England, to the early supposed cherish of the bald eagle as the national symbol whilst government agencies, in the 19th century, offered and paid out masses of bounties for every slaughtered bald eagle, to the tobacco lobby's refutation of medical research concluding smoking causes cancer and even fabricating 'medical research' to refute the claim, to individual corporate slogans such as Google's "don't be evil" even while Google itself (in collaboration with several other mega-corporations) lobbied to prevent legislation to investigate and prevent the import of overseas slavery-produced goods such as China's secretive laogai ('reform through labor,' forced and unpaid labor from political prisoners, such as survivors of the Tienamen square massacre). Granted, on the third of these -- the Tobacco Research Institute fraud -- technically speaking, I suppose, that doesn't fall under the banner of 'substitution of action with rhetoric,' as they did take 'action' -- I'm sure they spent a pretty penny and invested a bit of creativity in creating 'The Tobacco Research Institute.'
(... skipped portion I do not care to debate at this time to get to points I do wish to provide counterpoint on ...)
Two things to point out about this: First, anonymous user (which is one of the sources of why Internet discussion can get so toxic) and second, while clearly abusive, this has nothing to do with the writer being female. I have gotten tweets to me very similar to this when I've made a casual tweet regarding a game console. Ask Phil Fish about internet abuse.
On the subject of anonymity being a vehicle for making discussions toxic .... be very careful there. Anonymity allows a certain freedom -- but any freedom can be abused. If posting personally identifiable information with every comment or post on the Internet would be mandatory, which seems to be an argument you imply, consider all the consequences of this ... refugees from North Korea, voices of dissent in very intolerant areas such as highly theocratic Islamic nations, or a gay person living in a very homophobic region in the United States. Your argument against anonymity could be abused, if you do not clearly define it, to essentially refute any and all claims to any right to privacy, and would condemn people like the family of Anne Frank whom hid from oppressors rather than standing proudly to intentionally make themselves martyrs.
As you touched on, there is more than one side to consider in any argument. You have the benefit of having the resources to protect yourself from real life violent retribution against anyone who detests your stances, and I don't think you appreciate how harrowing it is for the rest of us nor how prevalant "low-level" domestic terrorism is. Even within the United States, I myself have been shot at by neighbors after I guess they figured out, after a couple of years of living with a same-sex partner, that we weren't just two guys living together ... we did nothing flamboyant, we made no public displays of affection, we didn't out ourselves in public nor even attend any sort of pride rallies or marches, but in their mind -- and that of the community at large -- we were subhuman and not deserving of equal rights. Before that particular incident, I used to fancy myself as willing to take a stand without hiding my identity for who I am and what I believe, even if it meant losing my life as a martyr at the hands of an intolerant bully ... but my emotional reality is I am too much of a coward. I do wish to make points and arguments, but don't feel I deserve to be made a target of bullies for it, and the nearly universal accessibility of the Internet to hundreds of millions of my 'fellow' countrymen, and billions more in the world beyond, is it would take only one in a million particularly violent, disturbed individuals particularly opposed to some aspect of my lifestyle or beliefs to make me regret my decision to take a stand with my real life information attached.
I would agree a lot of people abuse anonymity to act in ill manners they would not if their names would not be attached, but I urge you to think hard before arguing shame or even restriction on anonymous postings.
I would ask you to do the same, and analyze your own arguments to their full extent as well. Challenge the points and assertions you make, check to see if your generalizations, logic and reason stand soundly in all circumstances ... consider at least including, in your argument, some bound on the 'logic engine' you choose. Unfortunately, there's no automatic debugger on posting political arguments (hell, even spell checkers have their limits on preventing homophonic substitutions) to see whether your logic is flawed, and it is on you, then, to make sure the logic you use makes sense in all circumstances.
Apologies in advance if my attempt to split and multi-quote flubs the formatting ... I seem to recall in the past the forum code doesn't play nice with multiple quote/unquote tags ...
I have not read the books, but I know they are popular, as is the show. As I said before, art is not the place to debate or inject ideology. People that can't differentiate between art in print or screen, IMO, have more than a few screws loose. If we wanted to go that route, and say people will learn to act out what is in film or novels, our jails would be filled with people that got a gory revenge on their perpetrators.
Does anyone remember all those cackling woman on some morning show laughing and cheering about a woman that cut off a mans penis and threw in in a disposal? Or Bobbit getting famous and getting on TV shows? Can you show any instance like that when men were sitting around cheering the rape or mutilation of a woman?
So, let's go down that road a bit more. TV and movies constantly show woman assaulting men and with no negative repercussions, lots to applause and laughter. I personally have never hit a woman, even when I was assaulted by them more times than I can count. Is TV responsible? Hell no, the woman are.
As to that entire "Don't Teach me how to dress, teach [all] men not to rape" campaign, which I personally found disgusting, I will let my friend T take over as he has put it very nicely.
sure, it's their fault, but I'm still an idiot...
True. And as before, if my girlfriend is ever going out somewhere where she would feel more at risk, she would likely dress in a less comfortable way simply because "better safe than sorry." I'm just saying that guys seeing a woman dressed a certain way and jumping to conclusions is poor judgement on their part.
...
"to show something is to ennoble it."
In another interview he also said it was consensual "by the end."
rape depicted as ok if the victim changes his or her mind is nothing new.
So that's where that quote came from. I've heard it before, but I wasn't aware of its source. There is a fine line in showing it though. To show it too much could ennoble it, but to not show it at all and just have a media blackout on it would likely be very bad for the victims as they would probably feel more alone and thus less likely to report.
Well, yes, media can certainly change your mood. Back in high school, I actually did a science fair project in which I used emotional states invoked by watching movies to test the impact on mathematical ability. The difference was quite striking. I also know from personal experience that when I'm in more of a sad mood, any chapters I add to my book are going to be darker, and for some reason, I get better at playing the piano.
I watch GoT, my girlfriend reads it and sometimes watches it (and she'll probably have me read it some time in the future). When I saw it, my first impression was that it was a case of "consensual by the end" (though a very bizarre one at that), but I think there is something to be said for that. I simply have a hard time calling something rape, if it ultimately is consensual. Now, don't mistake me. If someone kidnapped a woman and brainwashed her into not minding, then obviously that's still rape, but just because someone initially doesn't have any desire to should not throw it into the rape basket. To say that not initially wanting to classifies an act as rape means that any time that one person tried to go through a "warming up" period with their partner on account of the partner initially having no desire, that could be construed as rape which I find rather absurd. Provided that the act was ultimately consensual and the non-instigator did not have the acquiescence squeezed out of them, I have a very hard time classifying something as rape.
It's quite simple.
What part of "NO" do you not understand?
Other than that, I'm not entirely convinced that Frogboy's OP needed to segue into a debate about what does or doesn't constitute 'rape'.
Pardon my jumping at the tail end of this, but the thing about art is it can be anything, about anything, for any purpose and mean anything. There are really no rules.
Case in point of ideology imbued into art:
This thread has now achieved Godwin's law.
Yep, that's a Godwin. THREAD CLOSED!
Only for those whom redefine "Godwin's Law" to be something other than the 1990 USENET newsgroup post made by Mike Godwin, after whom the 'law' was named, in which he simply observed that, essentially, the longer an Internet discussion progresses, the more likely an analogy to Hitler or the Nazis will occur.
If you believe "Godwin's Law" in any way asserts the one to draw the analogy automatically loses or that the law dictates the thread must then be closed, you have adopted a twisted re-interpretation analogous to Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution twisted into the plutocratic "social Darwinism."
You saw the smiley in Cauldyth's post, right?....
I've always been curious as to how anyone with that 'stach could possibly rise politically...
If only it were so cut and dry...
Happily married couple with deep, solid connections. They know each other inside out, been together for years. Wife has a really bad day at work, stressed out and feels like complete shit. Hubby starts taking care of business, wife says no, she doesn't feel like it. Hubby keeps going, wife doesn't feel like shit when they're done.
By the cut and dry definition, a feeble protest between lovers makes an act of love into rape. The physical properties of getting some have been shown to be extremely good for combating stress. If anything it's a duty to get a frazzled partner worked up to get their mind off a shit day, and onto something nice.
On the other hand, plenty of people get so smashed they can't even remember the last night when they wake up with someone else, and a small but extremely alarming percentage of them cry rape afterwards, as if it's the responsibility of their equally inebriated partner to have stopped because they weren't capable of saying no at the time.
Unwinked, it could be interpretted to be a claim of victory.
It's quite simple.What part of "NO" do you not understand?
I wasn't talking about cases with categorical refusals like that. It's often not as cut-and-dry as Psychoak mentioned above.
Also, the discussion has expanded into the wider case of not just mistreatment of women in the gaming industry but society. In such a discussion, the definition of rape is very relevant. If Frogboy would like to focus it more, I would be more than happy to oblige.
No victory claim here, I'm not even taking part in that particular discussion.
Ugh. Why must feminism debates end in rape discussions?
Exactly.
Read comment #136
Or, because many mainstream feminist regularly portray men as slaves to base desires that spend their every waking moment objectifying women. To hear them tell it, most of us are a hairs breadth away from committing heinous crimes because the violence obsessed culture tells us to...
Yes, I agree...'tis annoying to be generalized into the 'mob' ...
Do it here to a fellow member and I'll have your balls. It's the equivalent of stalking and an invasion of privacy.The word you need to research is 'misogyny' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misogyny Yes, even Wiki's definition will suffice.
Tss that's bullshit. Is the "stalking and invasion of privacy part" YOUR opinion or some actual law?
Actually, no matter which, I still consider it nonsense.
"Misogony" is too vague a term. Hatred and dislike are different levels.
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