Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Polonius wrote:
To be fair, my wife in no way felt that the boys in the GW shop were sexist. She was mostly laughing at them as guys that clearly don't interact with a ton of women.

So why share the story in a discussion about sexism and harassment in gaming culture? Especially in response to a comment about how another person's wife was treated differently in online gaming? You weren't drawing a connection between the two experiences? Nice that she had a laugh at "dem virgins" though!

 Polonius wrote:
With Anita, what I've seen is a person raise a range of issues, some of them valid, some not, and be met with a torrent of animosity. So, that says to me that gaming isn't quite ready to make some pretty basic changes.

Or it could be that Anita is a known caustic presence based on her history engaging in these topics and the strategies she uses to make her arguments are often ham-fisted and generalize to the point of painting large swathes of a demographic in unflattering ways. Perhaps it isn't that gaming isn't ready to make "some pretty basic changes" but rather the changes needed aren't agreed upon by the community as a whole and that is directly a result of the manner in which the arguments for change are made in the first place?

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

If she is an issue then express your rights and displeasure by not attending her portion of the meeting, and organize others in similar fashion. If this is an important enough issue, organize a boycott.

Organize a boycott? Sure, no problem. I'll just post a message on this forum... nope, got banned for being a misogynist. I'll contact some game journalists to... nope, Sarkeesian is giving a talk, and that's a good thing. I'll just go over to the GamerGate reddit group and... now I've been banned from 47 different subreddits because I posted in a hate group. Okay, I'll post about it on Twitter... my account got locked until I delete that tweet. Geez, what's left? Facebook? Darn, my posts aren't showing up on other people's timelines.

The problem might be closer to you than you think.

 Sim-Life wrote:

It's mainly just Pol, Ketara and Formosa making it that way. We were all happy agreeing that Anita Sarkeesian is baffling and/or awful woman to have at Gencon.

I already did my opinion on that bit earlier.

Video games and tabletop games have crossover. If she has anything relevant to say, there's nothing wrong with inviting her. Don't like her, vote with your feet. Free market, etcetc. Perhaps there are other people more worthy, if you think so, write in and tell Gencon who you'd actually like to see. If enough people name a specific person, they'll probably make an attempt to get them to show up.

She's a minor (and rather poor) internet blogger. As far as I can tell (please correct me otherwise), her fame is entirely derived from the collective whiny outrage of a bunch of nerdy middle class white guys, because she gives them the tiniest taste of what women and people of colour have experienced the world over for the last three hundred years. And they simply can't stand it.* So they take to the internet in their multitudes to whinge and gnash their teeth and chew over and over endlessly the concept that a woman could dare to treat them that way. The fact we're still discussing this now and that people still give half a damn about her are proof enough of that.

Without that attention in the first place, nobody would give a damn. Heck, most people still don't. Except the aforementioned lads who are now raging that Gencon dared to invite her. Don't they know that the woman is toxic???. She'll destroy everything if they let her! etcetc. Meanwhile, the sun comes up and down, and people with real problems get on with addressing with them instead of obsessing over the guest list for a toy soldier convention.


*Note that I'm not saying sexism and discrimination against men are correct in any way shape or form. They're very emphatically not. It does amuse me though, just how uptight and worked up some people can get about the most minor hint of discrimination/sexism against them, but who otherwise pay no attention whatsoever to far more severe problems in that vein when it involves other people instead.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

If she is an issue then express your rights and displeasure by not attending her portion of the meeting, and organize others in similar fashion. If this is an important enough issue, organize a boycott.

Organize a boycott? Sure, no problem. I'll just post a message on this forum... nope, got banned for being a misogynist. I'll contact some game journalists to... nope, Sarkeesian is giving a talk, and that's a good thing. I'll just go over to the GamerGate reddit group and... now I've been banned from 47 different subreddits because I posted in a hate group. Okay, I'll post about it on Twitter... my account got locked until I delete that tweet. Geez, what's left? Facebook? Darn, my posts aren't showing up on other people's timelines.

The problem might be closer to you than you think.

All of those things have happened to people who actually advocated against Anita Sarkeesian, though not to me personally. The only one not directly related is the Facebook one, since the poster was also a Trump supporter and it's just as likely that they were shadowbanned for that.

Things are probably a little better now that her stardom has cooled off, but there was a time when you literally could not criticize Sarkeesian in public without drastic repercussions.

 Formosa wrote:
Statistical analysis from a credibal source, so none of the newspaper/tabloids or their sites, if you could provide these I promise to read them with an open mind.

Cheers pol

Here's a study from the UN on sexual harrssment in the EU, broken down by nation. There are industry breakdowns on page 25, types of harassment on page 29, and a more in depth discussion of the UK starting on page 143. (all pages are pdf page number, not internal page number) It is older (most studies from 1989-1993). http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/pdf/shworkpl.pdf

Here's a more recent paper from the London school of Economics, which to quote from the abstract: "Experiments have offered new findings on gender discrimination, and while they have identified a bias against hiring women in some labor market segments, the discrimination detected in field experiments is less pervasive than that implied by the regression approach." http://personal.lse.ac.uk/petrongo/Azmat_Petrongolo_April2014.pdf

they cite a study from 2006, which noted "Pairs of carefully-matched, written applications were made to advertised job vacancies in England to test for sexual discrimination in hiring. Two standard résumés were constructed for each occupation to control for all relevant supply-side variables, such as qualifications, experience and age. Consequently any differential response recorded can be attributed to demand-side discrimination. Statistically significant discrimination against men was found in the `female occupation' - secretary, and against women in the `male occupation' - engineer. Statistically significant, and unprecedented, discrimination against men was found in two `mixed occupations' - trainee chartered accountant and computer analyst programmer." https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bejeap.2006.5.2/bejeap.2006.5.2.1416/bejeap.2006.5.2.1416.xml So things are at least more interesting in the UK for hiring, I'll say that.

Here's a paper that actually covers both the US and UK in terms of working women: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2367859 Of note, "In the U.S., for example, the poverty rate of women 65 years old and up is nearly double that of their male counterparts. Older women of color are especially disadvantaged. The situation in the U.K. is comparable."

I will note that the survey I submitted earlier was cited by the BBC.

 Ketara wrote:

Video games and tabletop games have crossover. If she has anything relevant to say, there's nothing wrong with inviting her. Don't like her, vote with your feet. Free market, etcetc. Perhaps there are other people more worthy, if you think so, write in and tell Gencon who you'd actually like to see. If enough people name a specific person, they'll probably make an attempt to get them to show up.

I can not impress upon you how much this absolutely does not work. It was tried, things got worse anyway.

She's a minor (and rather poor) internet blogger.

She was probably the most important person in the game industry for several years and her influence was felt everywhere. She spoke in front of the UN, was on the Colbert show, is on Twitter's Trust and Safety council, was covered by national newspapers and media.... Minor, she isn't, though I will give you poor.

Without that attention in the first place, nobody would give a damn.

She played the victim card so much that even events that people weren't caring enough to attend were blown out of proportion and delivered weeks of articles about how gamers threatened her life. Even if people ignored her, they didn't actually need to provably interact with her for her to claim that she felt unsafe and was a victim of harassment. Nobody actually bothered to check if these people were real or not.

 Ketara wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
My wife once stopped into the GW store to pick up an order for me. She didn't feel harassed or anything, but she could feel the mood shift when she walked in. It was clear the employee wasn't used to female customers. (She's not exactly sensitive about that stuff either.)

OTOH, my local GW has a shopgirl running the store the last couple times I've gone to pick up a MTO.

I certainly hope that she wasn't oppressed by my masculine presence, despite my best efforts to be polite during the 90 seconds it took to complete the pickup.

I think that one depends on the store clientele and owner. I've seen both in action. An increased background male interest doesn't equate to any form of sexism either, whether it makes the woman in question uncomfortable or not.

Caveats all included, I've otherwise definitely seen some blokes pull some cringeworthy crap and scare girls out of game stores before. I suspect it happens in any male dominated social scene to an extent, be it playing wargames or snooker.

Let's not generalize this as a male problem. This happens at any event that is generally dominated by one gender/age/race/etc. Try being the only white guy showing up for a basketball club, or when I was the only young man in a group of middle aged women at a local gardening club event.

 Polonius wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Statistical analysis from a credibal source, so none of the newspaper/tabloids or their sites, if you could provide these I promise to read them with an open mind.

Cheers pol

Here's a study from the UN on sexual harrssment in the EU, broken down by nation. There are industry breakdowns on page 25, types of harassment on page 29, and a more in depth discussion of the UK starting on page 143. (all pages are pdf page number, not internal page number) It is older (most studies from 1989-1993). http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/pdf/shworkpl.pdf

Here's a more recent paper from the London school of Economics, which to quote from the abstract: "Experiments have offered new findings on gender discrimination, and while they have identified a bias against hiring women in some labor market segments, the discrimination detected in field experiments is less pervasive than that implied by the regression approach." http://personal.lse.ac.uk/petrongo/Azmat_Petrongolo_April2014.pdf

they cite a study from 2006, which noted "Pairs of carefully-matched, written applications were made to advertised job vacancies in England to test for sexual discrimination in hiring. Two standard résumés were constructed for each occupation to control for all relevant supply-side variables, such as qualifications, experience and age. Consequently any differential response recorded can be attributed to demand-side discrimination. Statistically significant discrimination against men was found in the `female occupation' - secretary, and against women in the `male occupation' - engineer. Statistically significant, and unprecedented, discrimination against men was found in two `mixed occupations' - trainee chartered accountant and computer analyst programmer." https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bejeap.2006.5.2/bejeap.2006.5.2.1416/bejeap.2006.5.2.1416.xml So things are at least more interesting in the UK for hiring, I'll say that.

Here's a paper that actually covers both the US and UK in terms of working women: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2367859 Of note, "In the U.S., for example, the poverty rate of women 65 years old and up is nearly double that of their male counterparts. Older women of color are especially disadvantaged. The situation in the U.K. is comparable."

I will note that the survey I submitted earlier was cited by the BBC.

I’ll get to reading this now mate, give me a bit before I reply

 Ketara wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

It's mainly just Pol, Ketara and Formosa making it that way. We were all happy agreeing that Anita Sarkeesian is baffling and/or awful woman to have at Gencon.

I already did my opinion on that bit earlier.

Video games and tabletop games have crossover. If she has anything relevant to say, there's nothing wrong with inviting her. Don't like her, vote with your feet. Free market, etcetc. Perhaps there are other people more worthy, if you think so, write in and tell Gencon who you'd actually like to see. If enough people name a specific person, they'll probably make an attempt to get them to show up.

She's a minor (and rather poor) internet blogger. As far as I can tell (please correct me otherwise), her fame is entirely derived from the collective whiny outrage of a bunch of nerdy middle class white guys, because she gives them the tiniest taste of what women and people of colour have experienced the world over for the last three hundred years. And they simply can't stand it.* So they take to the internet in their multitudes to whinge and gnash their teeth and chew over and over endlessly the concept that a woman could dare to treat them that way. The fact we're still discussing this now and that people still give half a damn about her are proof enough of that.

Without that attention in the first place, nobody would give a damn. Heck, most people still don't. Except the aforementioned lads who are now raging that Gencon dared to invite her. Don't they know that the woman is toxic???. She'll destroy everything if they let her! etcetc. Meanwhile, the sun comes up and down, and people with real problems get on with addressing with them instead of obsessing over the guest list for a toy soldier convention.


*Note that I'm not saying sexism and discrimination against men are correct in any way shape or form. They're very emphatically not. It does amuse me though, just how uptight and worked up some people can get about the most minor hint of discrimination/sexism against them, but who otherwise pay no attention whatsoever to far more severe problems in that vein when it involves other people instead.

But it doesn't matter if I don't pay attention, other people will. And unlike gaming tabletop games basically require other people.

For example (and I'm aware this is both hypothetical and possibly hyperbolic) if I decide to play a Malifaux pick up game and choose to run Seamus with his zombie showgirls its entirely possible that my opponent may have listened to Anita and decide that my choice of gang is misogynistic and refuse to play because she said so whereas currently no one gives a gak about Seamus and his undead hookers. I didn't really care about her views on video games even as I watched her influence spread throughout the western game devs since I mainly played single player Japanese games and generally shun online gaming in all forms. I don't really have that option for tabletop games.

I shouldn't have to start my games by handing my opponent a list of trigger warnings because I'm playing Daemons or Resurrectionists and have them check that my army is sufficiently racially and sexually diverse.

 Sqorgar wrote:

She's a minor (and rather poor) internet blogger.

She was probably the most important person in the game industry for several years and her influence was felt everywhere. She spoke in front of the UN, was on the Colbert show, is on Twitter's Trust and Safety council, was covered by national newspapers and media.... Minor, she isn't, though I will give you poor.

Far enough on the minor front though; though at the same time, even being a relatively well known internet blogger is still a pretty small time position in terms of fame and influence. I mean, it's not exactly David Bowie, Jeb Bush, or Malala is it? You tend to find even the most famous of internet bloggers have their circle of devout followers and little influence/recognition beyond that. If you asked a high street full of people who Pewdiepie is, you'll get a handful of teenagers going 'isn't he that youtube dude?' for the most part. Likewise, beyond her merry band, I doubt anyone cares about Sarkeesian these days but the aforementioned gnashing of teeth crowd. I certainly haven't heard the name in years.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

If she is an issue then express your rights and displeasure by not attending her portion of the meeting, and organize others in similar fashion. If this is an important enough issue, organize a boycott.

Organize a boycott? Sure, no problem. I'll just post a message on this forum... nope, got banned for being a misogynist. I'll contact some game journalists to... nope, Sarkeesian is giving a talk, and that's a good thing. I'll just go over to the GamerGate reddit group and... now I've been banned from 47 different subreddits because I posted in a hate group. Okay, I'll post about it on Twitter... my account got locked until I delete that tweet. Geez, what's left? Facebook? Darn, my posts aren't showing up on other people's timelines.

The problem might be closer to you than you think.

Thank you, I was wondering if he recognized the common factor with all those problems...

 cuda1179 wrote:

Let's not generalize this as a male problem. This happens at any event that is generally dominated by one gender/age/race/etc. Try being the only white guy showing up for a basketball club, or when I was the only young man in a group of middle aged women at a local gardening club event.

I don't disagree with you. Let me be more explicit. I think the 'cringeworthy crap' specifically is more of a male thing, but that tends to be more down to men trying to impress girls in head-deskingly naff ways. Tends to happen less the other way because society dictates that men do the approaching. I guess you might see more of it if young Leonardo Dicaprio showed up with his shirt off to a volleyball club, but that aspect otherwise tends to be quite onesided.

That being clarified, I agree that anyone will be generally treated a bit differently in the same context in reverse situations, as you've given perfect examples for.

Sim-Life wrote: The problem is that Sarkeesian is somewhat heavy handed in her approach and doesn't fully understand what she's critiquing. She also has a ties to the media and a large and rabid social media fanbase.

Her approach does not bring communities together. It divides them, drives them to take extreme positions and ruins them.

No one person can divide an community, unless fault lines were there before.

The real problem for many people, I think, is that people are actually talking about if there is misogyny in games, when they really, really don't want to.

DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
To be fair, my wife in no way felt that the boys in the GW shop were sexist. She was mostly laughing at them as guys that clearly don't interact with a ton of women.

So why share the story in a discussion about sexism and harassment in gaming culture? Especially in response to a comment about how another person's wife was treated differently in online gaming? You weren't drawing a connection between the two experiences? Nice that she had a laugh at "dem virgins" though!

Sorry, I guess?

Or it could be that Anita is a known caustic presence based on her history engaging in these topics and the strategies she uses to make her arguments are often ham-fisted and generalize to the point of painting large swathes of a demographic in unflattering ways. Perhaps it isn't that gaming isn't ready to make "some pretty basic changes" but rather the changes needed aren't agreed upon by the community as a whole and that is directly a result of the manner in which the arguments for change are made in the first place?

Well, clearly enough people agree with her, at least broadly, that she had any influence at all. If she were a lone voice in the wilderness, nobody would care. the problem is that when she said that there is widespread misogyny in gaming, a lot of people nodded their head and went, "yeah, there is."

And I know that it's cute to say that all male feminists are some sort of beta/cuck/virgin, but it's not just tumbler clowns that think there's some sexism in gaming. So yes, I think some changes are necessary.

Ketara wrote: As far as I can tell (please correct me otherwise), her fame is entirely derived from the collective whiny outrage of a bunch of nerdy middle class white guys, because she gives them the tiniest taste of what women and people of colour have experienced the world over for the last three hundred years. And they simply can't stand it.* So they take to the internet in their multitudes to whinge and gnash their teeth and chew over and over endlessly the concept that a woman could dare to treat them that way. The fact we're still discussing this now and that people still give half a damn about her are proof enough of that.

There is a lot of that. But that's our culture, at least in the US. We live in a time where Christians (a majority of the nation), see themselves are more oppressed than any other religion. Where the only thing that many straight, white men took away from the last few decades is how to couch their complaints in the language of being oppressed.

 cuda1179 wrote:

 Ketara wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
My wife once stopped into the GW store to pick up an order for me. She didn't feel harassed or anything, but she could feel the mood shift when she walked in. It was clear the employee wasn't used to female customers. (She's not exactly sensitive about that stuff either.)

OTOH, my local GW has a shopgirl running the store the last couple times I've gone to pick up a MTO.

I certainly hope that she wasn't oppressed by my masculine presence, despite my best efforts to be polite during the 90 seconds it took to complete the pickup.

I think that one depends on the store clientele and owner. I've seen both in action. An increased background male interest doesn't equate to any form of sexism either, whether it makes the woman in question uncomfortable or not.

Caveats all included, I've otherwise definitely seen some blokes pull some cringeworthy crap and scare girls out of game stores before. I suspect it happens in any male dominated social scene to an extent, be it playing wargames or snooker.

Let's not generalize this as a male problem. This happens at any event that is generally dominated by one gender/age/race/etc. Try being the only white guy showing up for a basketball club, or when I was the only young man in a group of middle aged women at a local gardening club event.

Oddly, I have never had an issue being the only guy in a yoga class.

 Sim-Life wrote:
But it doesn't matter if I don't pay attention, other people will. And unlike gaming tabletop games basically require other people.

For example (and I'm aware this is both hypothetical and possibly hyperbolic) if I decide to play a Malifaux pick up game and choose to run Seamus with his zombie showgirls its entirely possible that my opponent may have listened to Anita and decide that my choice of gang is misogynistic and refuse to play because she said so whereas currently no one gives a gak about Seamus and his undead hookers. I didn't really care about her views on video games even as I watched her influence spread throughout the western game devs since I mainly played single player Japanese games and generally shun online gaming in all forms. I don't really have that option for tabletop games.

I shouldn't have to start my games by handing my opponent a list of trigger warnings because I'm playing Daemons or Resurrectionists and have them check that my army is sufficiently racially and sexually diverse.

I will give you credit, you have made one of the more astute points of the thread. Even if you undermined it slightly with an admittedly self aware brutal takedown of a strawman

The concern about a chilling effect in opponent availability is a legitimate concern, but let's realtalk here: do you think Anita's hardcore followers actually play any of these games? I suppose it's possible, but a wise man once said "if you're talking about it on the internet, you're not doing it."

And trigger warnings are one of those boogie men that crack me up. They make sense in a handful of contexts, particularly in an academic setting when a person has a disability. Life doesn't come with trigger warnings, and anybody that has a moral issue with army selection in a game, I think it's safe to let them walk. There are people I won't play with because I don't have fun with them, sometimes it's political, sometimes, it's personal, but I wouldn't blame a blogger for them being unbearable.

 Sim-Life wrote:

But it doesn't matter if I don't pay attention, other people will. And unlike gaming tabletop games basically require other people.

For example (and I'm aware this is both hypothetical and possibly hyperbolic) if I decide to play a Malifaux pick up game and choose to run Seamus with his zombie showgirls its entirely possible that my opponent may have listened to Anita and decide that my choice of gang is misogynistic and refuse to play because she said so whereas currently no one gives a gak about Seamus and his undead hookers. I didn't really care about her views on video games even as I watched her influence spread throughout the western game devs since I mainly played single player Japanese games and generally shun online gaming in all forms. I don't really have that option for tabletop games.

I shouldn't have to start my games by handing my opponent a list of trigger warnings because I'm playing Daemons or Resurrectionists and have them check that my army is sufficiently racially and sexually diverse.

The way to resolve such problems is to try and either negotiate with such people and come to an agreement over what you find acceptable, or just not play with them. Sucks but it's true, and is down to more widespread perceptions of things than what an internet celebrity thinks.

After all, ultimately we all have lines for what we find acceptable; be it a Slaanesh army full of giant dongs and tentacle monsters raping women, down to a more cringeworthy Prodos Space Crusade Army, down to something that looks more like Diaz Daemonettes and basic boob armour, down to realistic looking women. If people don't want to play Lord Dongus the Magnificent and his Tentacled Trio, someone can't really complain that it's all down to those damn internet feminists brainwashing people, it's their choice, you know?

Ultimately what makes your opponent uncomfortable makes them uncomfortable, and you should always try to respect that and work with them. Otherwise you end up being the equivalent of TFG who wears a black trenchcoat in summer and insists on running his Dark Eldar army full of 'counts as' slave women 'because it's thematic, man!'; before stomping off in a huff because the one girl in the store refuses to play against it as she finds it demeaning. It's not about asking for trigger warnings, it's about common courtesy.

We're all here playing toy soldiers to have fun, after all, and everyone wants to have a good time!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Do you act differently around women?

Then anxiety or not, and benign as it may be, that’s pretty sexist, because you’re adjusting your behaviour based on gender.

And helping you out is part of feminism. It’s not ‘burn all the mens’, but ‘bring about the end of toxic masculinity,

What do I mean by toxic masculinity? The concept that if you don’t do X, look like Y and behave like Z, you’re somehow not a ‘proper’ man.

And I’m speaking as a well built (if slightly tubby) 6’2” Horror with a thick head of hair and no problem growing a beard. I’ve never had to work on this. I simply am. Indeed, I’d go so far as to say that barring a short period of brainless racism when I moved from Scotland to England, I’ve never encountered actual, genuine discrimination. I can walk down the road, any time of day or night, and be left alone. I can happily square up to someone, and have them respect me for it - even though I’m really a tremendous wuss and wimp. Indeed, I’m a tall, fairly handsome, well built, heterosexual white bloke in my native country with a good career going. There’s nobody silently judging or trying to second guess me. I’ve never had to justify myself or fight against a prejudice.

I also have social anxiety, believe it or not. And I’m not about to Misery Measure, because we are who we are. Yours affects you in a different way than mine does me.

But if you feel anxious because you’re not some chiselled, brainless hunk you see on your telly getting all the girls - that’s toxic masculinity. And if that’s the case, you’re a victim, not a perpetrator or propagator.

Look at Male/female suicide rates in the Western World. Here’s a hint, Young Men as disproportionately more likely to kill themselves. That’s a genuine statistical truth. Go google it, you’ll find plenty.

Men are, societally, discouraged from speaking about their feelings, worries, woes and stress. It tends to be seen as non-masculine, a weakness. And it’s a fething outrage.

Now, here’s a confession for you. New Year, 2014, I was raped. By a woman. She kind of attached herself to me in the pub, and like a drunken fool, she came back to my hotel room. Not because I wanted to shag her, but because she had nowhere else to go. She came on to me, I rebuffed her. Sadly, the morning wood fairy paid me a visit, and I awoke to her riding the giggle stick without protection. Now, me? As much as I had the sense to go get myself checked out ASAP (all clear, thankfully), but thanks to Toxic Masculinity, I didn’t feel able to report it to the Police. Not because I was afraid they wouldn’t believe me - but because I feared a counter accusation. As mentioned, I’m 6’2”and fairly well built. She was no more than 5’2”. If there was a counter accusation? I’d risk losing everything.

That’s not right. And that’s something feminism also seeks to address.

On the other hand, NOT changing the way you act is also sometimes seen as sexist. If a man comes up and assaults another man, he can fight back. If a woman assaults a man he's a woman beater if he fights back.

As for feminism and rape, it's not really equal either. Here in the US there was a huge uptick in men being suspended and expelled from college because of kangaroo college courts being forced to do so due to Title 9 enforcement. This was applauded by feminists. However, now that men have started accusing women of rape (like in your story), suddenly these same feminist groups are rallying around the accused women.

 Polonius wrote:

Here's a study from the UN on sexual harrssment in the EU, broken down by nation. There are industry breakdowns on page 25, types of harassment on page 29, and a more in depth discussion of the UK starting on page 143. (all pages are pdf page number, not internal page number) It is older (most studies from 1989-1993). http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/pdf/shworkpl.pdf

Still reading this one and I'll get to the other ones in good time, but this is a really good example of those meta studies I was condeming earlier. Basically, this is a paper which collects data from a few dozen different surveys that all asked different questions and arrived at different answers. On page 14, they point out that several studies had results with a much higher or lower incidence than the mean. They attribute this to several factors:

1) how many questions about sexual harassment were asked. They say that when only one question about sexual harassment was asked, the incidence rate is lower than when there are 10 more specific questions are asked. (This means that the people surveyed didn't consider it sexual harassment when it was called sexual harassment).

2) Most questions did not include a timeframe. Incidence rates were lower when asked in the past 3 years, 2 months, or whatever. (This means that sexual harassment is not necessarily an ongoing, omnipresent problem, but limited to specific situations and people)

3) Incidence rates were also lower when people only responded about incidents they, themselves, experienced, and higher when they were asked about other coworkers (meaning that two people could be referring to the same coworker, which would count as 3 counts because the original + two onlookers - also, asking people to speak for the experiences of others is about the least scientific thing you can do)

4) The incident rates were different between random and nonrandom samples. As they admit, this means that selection bias could be a problem, and people who have experienced sexual harassment were more likely to respond to the surveys than those that did not.

5 ) The country the studies took place in. In most countries, the incident rates fluctuated wildly between different studies in different sectors, while in the UK, the rate is consistently high. This may be because sexual harassment is more prevalent in the UK, but it is also likely that there are cultural aspects at work, where the UK has a more broad definition of what constitutes sexual harassment. It even goes into several examples of how the variance could appear, such as Austria and Germany including sexist behavior as sexual harassment and their studies asking about coworkers. Also mentions that the UK and Norwegian studies were self reporting (biased sample) and low reporting rate (less than 1% reporting for the Nowegian), which could contribute to the considerably higher rate of incidence.

It keeps going, but you get the point. There's no clear definition of sexual harassment. How you ask, when you ask, where you ask, and how many you ask can make the difference between a 15% incidence rate and a 90% incidence rate. However, knowing this and even pointing it out, this study is still going to group all these studies together and draw conclusions from them as if they studied the same things in the same way and arrived at equally valid data.

I'm not sure that you can definitively draw any conclusion from a meta analysis like that, except that we need a better way to identify, quantify, and measure sexual harassment in a more scientific and usable way.








Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Thank you, I was wondering if he recognized the common factor with all those problems...

Yeah, the common factor was people speaking out against Anita Sarkeesian in environments where her followers held power over what messages could be heard. If you guys weren't there, you just don't know what it was like. I hope you never have to.

Really who did these studies? what was the control group? what is considered "sexual harassment" in the study? (seriously if calling "names" someone is considered harassment I have endured my entire life so far been harassed by men and women, who knew) who did the peer review?

Some of these studies are laughable, it is disheartening they got published...

Seriously am I reading someone whose political agenda (was not so difficult to google search her name and find out what her political agenda was, it was quite obvious from the study but wanted to make sure) revolves around proving women are harassed sampled 0,0001% (a bit less but maths) of the total population of Athens at 1988 and found 60% sexual harassment?

Ok sorry but I have to ruffle a few feathers,present day feminists, in my opinion, have nothing in common with the equal right activists of the old who did improve the place of women in the world and in my opinion they do not care or really advocate for the equality or betterment of women in society, what they care for is their belief system (agenda) to be applied, sure they might believe their ways will be for the best, but they never seem to care checking if the group they target for "improvement" agrees.

 Ketara wrote:
Ultimately what makes your opponent uncomfortable makes them uncomfortable, and you should always try to respect that and work with them. Otherwise you end up being the equivalent of TFG who wears a black trenchcoat in summer and insists on running his Dark Eldar army full of 'counts as' slave women 'because it's thematic, man!'; before stomping off in a huff because the one girl in the store refuses to play against it as she finds it demeaning. It's not about asking for trigger warnings, it's about common courtesy.

We're all here playing toy soldiers to have fun, after all, and everyone wants to have a good time!

What if part of my "fun" includes having slave witch in my Empire army, or a naked girl commanding my Giants in my Dogs of War army "because it's thematic, man"?

 Polonius wrote:

DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
To be fair, my wife in no way felt that the boys in the GW shop were sexist. She was mostly laughing at them as guys that clearly don't interact with a ton of women.

So why share the story in a discussion about sexism and harassment in gaming culture? Especially in response to a comment about how another person's wife was treated differently in online gaming? You weren't drawing a connection between the two experiences? Nice that she had a laugh at "dem virgins" though!

Sorry, I guess?

I was trying to figure out your motivation for sharing that story, that is all. I wasn't clear if you were intentionally muddying the waters or not.

 Polonius wrote:

DarkTraveler777 wrote: Or it could be that Anita is a known caustic presence based on her history engaging in these topics and the strategies she uses to make her arguments are often ham-fisted and generalize to the point of painting large swathes of a demographic in unflattering ways. Perhaps it isn't that gaming isn't ready to make "some pretty basic changes" but rather the changes needed aren't agreed upon by the community as a whole and that is directly a result of the manner in which the arguments for change are made in the first place?

Well, clearly enough people agree with her, at least broadly, that she had any influence at all. If she were a lone voice in the wilderness, nobody would care. the problem is that when she said that there is widespread misogyny in gaming, a lot of people nodded their head and went, "yeah, there is."

And I know that it's cute to say that all male feminists are some sort of beta/cuck/virgin, but it's not just tumbler clowns that think there's some sexism in gaming. So yes, I think some changes are necessary.

Not sure the relevancy of the second paragraph. Did I refer to male feminists as beta/cuck/virgins? The only virgin comment I made was in reference to your wife laughing at the GW folks who supposedly don't interact with women. That is some low hanging fruit and is about as fresh a joke as any of the stereotypical nerd tropes about "forever virgins" and that crap. Again, not sure why you brought up that GW anecdote since it adds nothing to discussion.

As for Anita, yes she had some points to make about misogyny in video gaming, and she could no doubt make some absolutely valid observations about table top gaming's misogynistic blind spots. However, she didn't handle her video game critiques very well, as evidenced by the many, many people who exposed her questionable research methodology and conclusions. Based on that isn't it fair to be skeptical that she will treat this form of gaming similarly? Add to that Anita's lack of credentials in this field (table top gaming) and you have a person who will potentially misrepresent table top gaming by focusing on elements that may not really need addressing (the equivalent to claiming Hitman encouraged killing strippers versus just allowing you to do) when legitimate issues may get lost in the noise.

Anita isn't a great representative for her message or cause, even if the message is needed and the cause valid.

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Polonius wrote:

Here's a study from the UN on sexual harrssment in the EU, broken down by nation. There are industry breakdowns on page 25, types of harassment on page 29, and a more in depth discussion of the UK starting on page 143. (all pages are pdf page number, not internal page number) It is older (most studies from 1989-1993). http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/pdf/shworkpl.pdf

Still reading this one and I'll get to the other ones in good time, but this is a really good example of those meta studies I was condeming earlier. Basically, this is a paper which collects data from a few dozen different surveys that all asked different questions and arrived at different answers. On page 14, they point out that several studies had results with a much higher or lower incidence than the mean. They attribute this to several factors:

1) how many questions about sexual harassment were asked. They say that when only one question about sexual harassment was asked, the incidence rate is lower than when there are 10 more specific questions are asked. (This means that the people surveyed didn't consider it sexual harassment when it was called sexual harassment).

2) Most questions did not include a timeframe. Incidence rates were lower when asked in the past 3 years, 2 months, or whatever. (This means that sexual harassment is not necessarily an ongoing, omnipresent problem, but limited to specific situations and people)

3) Incidence rates were also lower when people only responded about incidents they, themselves, experienced, and higher when they were asked about other coworkers (meaning that two people could be referring to the same coworker, which would count as 3 counts because the original + two onlookers - also, asking people to speak for the experiences of others is about the least scientific thing you can do)

4) The incident rates were different between random and nonrandom samples. As they admit, this means that selection bias could be a problem, and people who have experienced sexual harassment were more likely to respond to the surveys than those that did not.

5 ) The country the studies took place in. In most countries, the incident rates fluctuated wildly between different studies in different sectors, while in the UK, the rate is consistently high. This may be because sexual harassment is more prevalent in the UK, but it is also likely that there are cultural aspects at work, where the UK has a more broad definition of what constitutes sexual harassment. It even goes into several examples of how the variance could appear, such as Austria and Germany including sexist behavior as sexual harassment and their studies asking about coworkers. Also mentions that the UK and Norwegian studies were self reporting (biased sample) and low reporting rate (less than 1% reporting for the Nowegian), which could contribute to the considerably higher rate of incidence.

It keeps going, but you get the point. There's no clear definition of sexual harassment. How you ask, when you ask, where you ask, and how many you ask can make the difference between a 15% incidence rate and a 90% incidence rate. However, knowing this and even pointing it out, this study is still going to group all these studies together and draw conclusions from them as if they studied the same things in the same way and arrived at equally valid data.

I'm not sure that you can definitively draw any conclusion from a meta analysis like that, except that we need a better way to identify, quantify, and measure sexual harassment in a more scientific and usable way.








Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Thank you, I was wondering if he recognized the common factor with all those problems...

Yeah, the common factor was people speaking out against Anita Sarkeesian in environments where her followers held power over what messages could be heard. If you guys weren't there, you just don't know what it was like. I hope you never have to.

Damn... beat me to it...


Not really much more I can add that has already been said here, but I thank you pol for brining these to my attention, while it does show a trend sadly the data is not reliable enough for me, I’m going to dig further as I have much more to read so this is just a preliminary “I doubt the veracity of the data that has been collated”

I withhold final judgment until I’m finished.

For some of this stuff, I'm not sure how it's possible to gather data without self report. And keep in mind, self report is considered reliable enough for medication testing. And in many of those, they asked both women and men, and women reported far higher levels of harassment. Which means either women experience more harassment, are more sensitive to similar levels of harassment, or are engaging in some sort of organized disinformation campaign.

And again, a study is still evidence. Unless you can show that the study is flawed enough to have zero probative value, it still carries weight. Like I said earlier, if a study shows that 40% of women have experience harassment, and that's off by an order of magnitude, it's still 4%. Is that an acceptable amount of harassment?

The really interesting studies are the experimental employment studies, which do tend to show gender preference, but not always for male.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
Ultimately what makes your opponent uncomfortable makes them uncomfortable, and you should always try to respect that and work with them. Otherwise you end up being the equivalent of TFG who wears a black trenchcoat in summer and insists on running his Dark Eldar army full of 'counts as' slave women 'because it's thematic, man!'; before stomping off in a huff because the one girl in the store refuses to play against it as she finds it demeaning. It's not about asking for trigger warnings, it's about common courtesy.

We're all here playing toy soldiers to have fun, after all, and everyone wants to have a good time!

What if part of my "fun" includes having slave witch in my Empire army, or a naked girl commanding my Giants in my Dogs of War army "because it's thematic, man"?

If your idea of fun makes your opponent uncomfortable, you either come to an accommodation or find a different opponent. That's more or less the point.

 Ketara wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
Ultimately what makes your opponent uncomfortable makes them uncomfortable, and you should always try to respect that and work with them. Otherwise you end up being the equivalent of TFG who wears a black trenchcoat in summer and insists on running his Dark Eldar army full of 'counts as' slave women 'because it's thematic, man!'; before stomping off in a huff because the one girl in the store refuses to play against it as she finds it demeaning. It's not about asking for trigger warnings, it's about common courtesy.

We're all here playing toy soldiers to have fun, after all, and everyone wants to have a good time!

What if part of my "fun" includes having slave witch in my Empire army, or a naked girl commanding my Giants in my Dogs of War army "because it's thematic, man"?

If your idea of fun makes your opponent uncomfortable, you either come to an accommodation or find a different opponent. That's more or less the point.

But the problem is that no one is making accomodations for Captain Cockula, Multiphallused Dildosmith of Slaansh.

 Ketara wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
Ultimately what makes your opponent uncomfortable makes them uncomfortable, and you should always try to respect that and work with them. Otherwise you end up being the equivalent of TFG who wears a black trenchcoat in summer and insists on running his Dark Eldar army full of 'counts as' slave women 'because it's thematic, man!'; before stomping off in a huff because the one girl in the store refuses to play against it as she finds it demeaning. It's not about asking for trigger warnings, it's about common courtesy.

We're all here playing toy soldiers to have fun, after all, and everyone wants to have a good time!

What if part of my "fun" includes having slave witch in my Empire army, or a naked girl commanding my Giants in my Dogs of War army "because it's thematic, man"?

If your idea of fun makes your opponent uncomfortable, you either come to an accommodation or find a different opponent. That's more or less the point.

I think I'd rather find someone who's not so sensitive as to be triggered by <1" miniatures.

 Polonius wrote:
For some of this stuff, I'm not sure how it's possible to gather data without self report. And keep in mind, self report is considered reliable enough for medication testing. And in many of those, they asked both women and men, and women reported far higher levels of harassment. Which means either women experience more harassment, are more sensitive to similar levels of harassment, or are engaging in some sort of organized disinformation campaign.

And again, a study is still evidence. Unless you can show that the study is flawed enough to have zero probative value, it still carries weight. Like I said earlier, if a study shows that 40% of women have experience harassment, and that's off by an order of magnitude, it's still 4%. Is that an acceptable amount of harassment?

The really interesting studies are the experimental employment studies, which do tend to show gender preference, but not always for male.

As I haven’t given my opinion on it yet, any amount is too much, the sticking point however was ketara claiming the problem is rampant without providing any proof whatsoever and when asked he avoided the subject with cheap diversion tactics.

With any subject of you make an assertion that x is y, then you need to prove that assertion within a reasonable standard, so the assertion here is that sexism is rampant within the UK, as in it’s literally everywhere in every walk of life with zero extenuating circumstances, an assertion that the studies you have provided so far have failed to prove, now, they do however show that it goes on, which was never in doubt.

Caveat: “so far” as some of you dakkaites are needlessly nit picky to the point of stupidity (not aimed at anyone specifically)!

I got to the end of this thread and shortly I will be out.

I will wait until someone writes about what actually happened after the event before I look for an update.

The problem I have with A. Sarkeesian speaking at this event is that I think it is in her financial interests to give her detractors something to rage about. Then her team can rage about them and they can play outrage Tennis together and reap the rewards of the click-bait economy.

I would have the same misgivings if ArchWarhammer was given a spotlight too. The incentive to 'Shock Jock' is just too great.

Some years ago I discovered A. Sarkeesian's videos, I was hoping her videos would be of the same quality as Lindsay Ellis'.... but they were not.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

I think I'd rather find someone who's not so sensitive as to be triggered by <1" miniatures.

I'd rather that people had better things to be triggered about then the guest list of a toy soldier convention; yet here we all are....

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
If people do not think Sarkesian is not going to cause trouble in the community then just look at this thread - and all this is before she has had chance to spew her poison.
NOTHING good can come from letting this spiteful, manipulating, lying and toxic person anywhere near the borders of the hobby, let alone inviting the monster into the heart of it. Better to revoke her invitation and risk the inevitable but far less damaging backlash than to have her and her horde of followers gain a foothold and start to push in.

Whoa there Pedro. Whoa.

She’s done nothing in this thread. Not a comment, not a single exalt.

Who’s causing the waves here? People with a complaint (justified or not, I don’t care) against her, saying stuff she’s not present to defend.

It ain’t her cause the problem. Not right here. Not right now.

Exactly my point: She has done nothing yet bar be mentioned and already the community is going through an epic upheaval, and the entire conversation has devolved into a gakfest of epic proportions.
Now imagine what will happen when she actually speaks? Actually intrudes? If just her threatened presence can damage what was an otherwise relatively stable community (just head to /tg/ if you dont believe me - even there we can have civilised conversations) then imagine what will happen when she actually intrudes? When her drooling throng charge into out lands? It is going to be horrifically ugly.

Do you remember her destruction of the gaming forums? Gamergate? Sarkesian is the HIV of nerd communities, and the last thing that the TTWG/TTRPG community needs is to catch it.