The state of Feminism, the good the bad

[Blarghagh]

LadyCrimson and Maria Caliban haven't been around for a while either. There were a couple of girls in the PoE forums but I doubt they'd show up here.

 

I've actually asked a couple of friends if they'd like to join and weigh in but they didn't want to act or be treated like a mouthpiece representing all women. Another (more judgemental) one responded with "I'm not touching any message board with a ten foot pole".

 

Amentep, I don't think a woman's opinion on the matter carries more value but as the the topic concerns the experience of women, their actual experiences (women, not a single one) would be informative. At the same time, I'd like to reiterate that I see this all over - for some reason women do not like to weigh in on the issue at all. As I've said before in this thread, I've heard my friends complain about sexism among gamers they meet online, but I haven't heard them complain about sexism as members of the games industry.

 

I still firmly believe that as more women become game developers, the problem will solve itself. The same is true for most industries. By and large, women haven't been going outside of gender roles and logically it makes sense that there are fewer of them in industries that have been traditionally male up until this point.

[Malcador]

Good one, but you know that's not what I meant

I suspect otherwise.

 

As for women not wanting to talk about it, well that just means they've been brainwashed by the patriarchy.

[BruceVC]

LadyCrimson and Maria Caliban haven't been around for a while either. There were a couple of girls in the PoE forums but I doubt they'd show up here.

 

I've actually asked a couple of friends if they'd like to join and weigh in but they didn't want to act or be treated like a mouthpiece representing all women. Another (more judgemental) one responded with "I'm not touching any message board with a ten foot pole".

 

Amentep, I don't think a woman's opinion on the matter carries more value but as the the topic concerns the experience of women, their actual experiences (women, not a single one) would be informative. At the same time, I'd like to reiterate that I see this all over - for some reason women do not like to weigh in on the issue at all. As I've said before in this thread, I've heard my friends complain about sexism among gamers they meet online, but I haven't heard them complain about sexism as members of the games industry.

 

I still firmly believe that as more women become game developers, the problem will solve itself. The same is true for most industries. By and large, women haven't been going outside of gender roles and logically it makes sense that there are fewer of them in industries that have been traditionally male up until this point.

 

Please ask your lady friends to join the forums. They won't be treated like a mouthpiece I promise

 

But you post raises an interesting point, they don't like forums in general. They must have had bad experiences?

[Amentep]

Are you saying that in a topic about feminism that getting a women's perspective would not be pertinent?

 

Do you think we would get the same  input and personal views around this topic if it was just men discussing it as opposed to men and women giving there opinions?

 

My point is that just because a person is female doesn't mean they're inherently unbiased anymore than a person being male would be inherently biased (or at least unaware of their bias).

 

Rather than argue the power of a message because it comes from a preferred gender, wouldn't it be more informative to discuss - in the context of feminism - the idea of latent bias created by a patriarchy? Or to just dispense with and allow people to voice their opinions and argue politely but intelligently against their points with your own?

 

 

Amentep, I don't think a woman's opinion on the matter carries more value but as the the topic concerns the experience of women, their actual experiences (women, not a single one) would be informative. At the same time, I'd like to reiterate that I see this all over - for some reason women do not like to weigh in on the issue at all. As I've said before in this thread, I've heard my friends complain about sexism among gamers they meet online, but I haven't heard them complain about sexism as members of the games industry.

We would agree, however, that the experiences would be anecdotal though? Interesting as they may be you'd need a large pool of women's experience to try and make a generalization about the population as a whole that would stand statistically.

 

I certainly welcome women posting here, but I also think that we have to acknowledge that most of our arguments in serious topics are heavily influenced by our individual experiences (mine included).

 

I still firmly believe that as more women become game developers, the problem will solve itself. The same is true for most industries. By and large, women haven't been going outside of gender roles and logically it makes sense that there are fewer of them in industries that have been traditionally male up until this point.

I agree, as more women become game developers, there will be more diversity of input into game design. I think part of getting more women interested in game development has to be through interesting them in being gamers themselves, though, and expand that ability to see them translate their interest in a game into envisioning themselves making that game.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Amentep

[BruceVC]

 

Good one, but you know that's not what I meant

I suspect otherwise.

 

No I'm sorry  , normally I would just ignore this comment but I want to point out how flawed your logic is. Lets say you right, and in fact I don't want you guys to comment on my posts...I'm  a bad person...that would  leave me being able to debate with ....with ...with.... oh that's right I have already commented that there are no female members. People like you and Amentep are the people I debate with because you are active on the forums and I enjoy our debates, Why would I try to cut you out my posts. Its illogical. It would be  like a one legged man in an ass kicking competition. I would be denying myself a great time.

 

So trust me when I say just because we often don';t agree it doesn't mean I don't enjoy our discussions  and value your contributions to topics

[Malcador]

No I'm sorry  , normally I would just ignore this comment but I want to point out how flawed your logic is. Lets say you right, and in fact I don't want you guys to comment on my posts...I'm  a bad person...that would  leave me being able to debate with ....with ...with.... oh that's right I have already commented that there are no female members. People like you and Amentep are the people I debate with because you are active on the forums and I enjoy our debates, Why would I try to cut you out my posts. Its illogical. It would be  like a one legged man in an ass kicking competition. I would be denying myself a great time.

 

So trust me when I say just because we often don';t agree it doesn't mean I don't enjoy our discussions  and value your contributions to topics

Actually I didn't write that you didn't want us to post. Comment was on how important and relevant any of our posts would be as we aren't the Right Type for this issue. Related to the other thread where a poster seemed to be serious about fitness being a requirement to talk about relative fitness. And

 

As for women in game design changing things, who knows. If those girls played COD, GTA, ME, etc, they'll probably grow up into women that will be interested in those kinds of games, but I suppose we may end up with innovative games (hopefully actually innovative, I'm still not sold on the glory Dear Esther possesses). I suppose a female Carmack would do wonders, someone that is brilliant at the technical aspects.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

a poster seemed to be serious about fitness being a requirement to talk about relative fitness. 

 

I can't believe how you people can be unable to grasp how utterly ridiculous it is to an outside observer when you're running around yelling "women are weaker than men!" while being yourself weaker than a significant percentage of women.

 

Seriously, am I the only one who finds that attitude hilarious?

Edited September 2, 2014 by aluminiumtrioxid

[HoonDing]

[Malcador]

I can't believe how you people can be unable to grasp how utterly ridiculous it is to an outside observer when you're running around yelling "women are weaker than men!" while being yourself weaker than a significant percentage of women.

 

Seriously, am I the only one who finds that attitude hilarious?

Maybe, but it serves no relevance to the point the person's making, you seem to have trouble with seeing that.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

I can't believe how you people can be unable to grasp how utterly ridiculous it is to an outside observer when you're running around yelling "women are weaker than men!" while being yourself weaker than a significant percentage of women.

 

Seriously, am I the only one who finds that attitude hilarious?

Maybe, but it serves no relevance to the point the person's making, you seem to have trouble with seeing that.

 

 

...There was a point they were making? Must have missed that.

[Malcador]

Really ? Comparing strength of an average man and woman in your post and also was in the thread. I forget what you people call that argument though, is a catchy word for it. Fine to point out some differences exist between the two, I think the woman would have superior endurance.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

Really ? Comparing strength of an average man and woman in your post and also was in the thread. I forget what you people call that argument though, is a catchy word for it. Fine to point out some differences exist between the two, I think the woman would have superior endurance.

 

I'm not denying the conversation took place, I'm denying he had a point.

 

Oh wait, I remember, it was something along the lines of "hurr durr women are genetically weak and denying* it is typical politically correct speech"

 

*read: pointing out how training is a bigger factor in physical strength than gender.

[Malcador]

I'm not denying the conversation took place, I'm denying he had a point.

 

Oh wait, I remember, it was something along the lines of "hurr durr women are genetically weak and denying* it is typical politically correct speech"

 

*read: pointing out how training is a bigger factor in physical strength than gender.

Fighter's point was about averages though, you'd have to be...heh, well, ok.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

Dude, do you even know any of us? How do you know we are weaker than "significant" (whatever this means) number of women?

 

Do you even know what average means? It means that we as a group of men ARE stronger than an average group of females. 

 

 

I know that you're spending an inordinate amount on arguing over the internet which you're definitely not spending on strength training, so that's a clue 

 

Also, had you bothered to actually read what I wrote, you would see why a/ I don't think "average" is especially relevant to the discussion, b/ the word "average" only appeared in Fighter's post who was vehemently arguing against a point our archeologist friend didn't make.

 

Edit:

 

Fighter's point was about averages though, you'd have to be...heh, well, ok.

 

Which he made in response to TMZuk's post about very specific subpopulations, therefore surely winning some kind of award in Comically Missing The Point.

Edited September 2, 2014 by aluminiumtrioxid

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Women are generally weaker than men.

 

If you compare groups of men and women who do roughly the same amount and same type of exercise, the males will generally be stronger.

 

I don't see how this is controversial.

[Blarghagh]

What do the statistics and maths say? I don't know, I've never seen them. At the same time, I don't think current statistics really matter for much at all. What I said about gender roles applies here too - women have only recently begun breaking out of gender roles. The amount of women doing strength based activities is smaller than the amount of men doing them, making an average is pointless as they are going to be skewed by that. Even figuring out standard deviation of the top tiers, should you have enough data, would be skewed as a large group is more likely to have more people jumping further from the average than a small group. Mathematically, currently, objectively, men are stronger than women on average? That means very little.

 

I've always subscribed to the Dr. Cox rule of "what do statistics matter to the individual" anyway.

 

As for women in game design changing things, who knows. If those girls played COD, GTA, ME, etc, they'll probably grow up into women that will be interested in those kinds of games, but I suppose we may end up with innovative games (hopefully actually innovative, I'm still not sold on the glory Dear Esther possesses). I suppose a female Carmack would do wonders, someone that is brilliant at the technical aspects.

 

Hrm, why Dear Esther as an example? Dan Pinchbeck designed that game. I agree it wasn't innovative (or at least, not as innovative as people make it out to be) but it wasn't made by a woman. Or is it just to say "truly innovative, not like this other game that people said was innovative" outside of being related to women in gaming? The context made it a bit hard for me to see what you meant by that specific example ending this statement with a question mark to show my confusion?

 

Please ask your lady friends to join the forums. They won't be treated like a mouthpiece I promise

 

But you post raises an interesting point, they don't like forums in general. They must have had bad experiences?

 

"They"? Bruce, no offense, but can't you see that this is the problem? It might be true that women don't like message boards, but that's not what I said nor can we assume "they" being women don't like forums in general based on a comment by a single one. The BSN, for example, has plenty of women. The others I mentioned frequent or have frequented other message boards in the past. I wouldn't presume this one had bad experiences, I added the "judgemental" qualifier to her for a reason. What Amentep said about it being anectdotal very much applies, and you taking that comment as otherwise is exactly what being treated as a mouthpiece is.

 

I can't say women don't like message boards, at most I can say this specific message board has a much lower female to men ratio than a lot of other message boards I have been a part of. What I said is that women, crossplatform, in my experience, don't tend to respond to this subject. I'm not sure if there was a different male to female ratio here it would actually change much about this thread. I've seen threads like these on other boards and the women would either ignore this discussion or do a driveby "this is ridiculous" and move on. I wish I could find the source again for that tweet I posted, as it was posted by a woman. I think the woman tweeted it at @josswhedon but I can't recall. Perhaps, perish the thought, women don't actually care so much about it? This entire thread is making feminism out to be a big deal (positively and negatively), but is it, really?

[Malcador]

 

Fighter's point was about averages though, you'd have to be...heh, well, ok.

 

Which he made in response to TMZuk's post about very specific subpopulations, therefore surely winning some kind of award in Comically Missing The Point.

 

Well he disagreed with the post, the bit he quoted seemed to be attacking the opinion on absolute, not a subset. Certainly wouldn't help the overall theme of the poster arguing about equality to focus on N. EU., anyway, so is an interesting piece of evidence for the point.

 

Seems to have gone on from there, somehow ended up comparing a female athlete to untrained males, which is a rather brainless comparison.

[Malcador]

Hrm, why Dear Esther as an example? Dan Pinchbeck designed that game. I agree it wasn't innovative (or at least, not as innovative as people make it out to be) but it wasn't made by a woman. Or is it just to say "truly innovative, not like this other game that people said was innovative" outside of being related to women in gaming? The context made it a bit hard for me to see what you meant by that specific example ending this statement with a question mark to show my confusion?

Is a game some of the people railing on about white males and their misogyny and racism ruining gaming have brought up as a new ideal, innovative and not about violence, etc. So games must move away from GTA or COD or whatever these wannabe elites cast their noses up at. So chose DE as a reason.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Malcador

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

training is a bigger factor in physical strength than gender.

 

No it's not. If that was the case then there would be no gender segregation at the Olympics. Women need to have a significant training to be at the level of strength of average male who IS NOT training.

 

Wow, I think this might be among the dumbest things I've ever read.

 

You're saying a woman who does specific strength training will need to invest significant resources in getting to the same level as a man who does no physical training at all.    That's not how human bodies work.

 

Women are generally weaker than men.

 

If you compare groups of men and women who do roughly the same amount and same type of exercise, the males will generally be stronger.

 

I don't see how this is controversial.

 

In that order: true but misleading, right, me neither.

 

What I said about gender roles applies here too - women have only recently begun breaking out of gender roles. The amount of women doing strength based activities is smaller than the amount of men doing them, making an average is pointless as they are going to be skewed by that. Even figuring out standard deviation of the top tiers, should you have enough data, would be skewed as a large group is more likely to have more people jumping further from the average than a small group. Mathematically, currently, objectively, men are stronger than women on average? That means very little.

 

Yeah, that's exactly the point I've made a few posts earlier, but it was studiously ignored by everyone involved.

 

(Another important bit to consider is that professional sport, especially at Olympic levels, involves copious amounts of [mostly hormone-based] chemical enhancements. There is a limited amount of male hormone-derived illicit substances one can inject into a woman and still have them retain a recognizably female form.)

Edited September 2, 2014 by aluminiumtrioxid

[aluminiumtrioxid]

Well he disagreed with the post, the bit he quoted seemed to be attacking the opinion on absolute, not a subset.

 

Except he took the quote completely out of context. The original went like this (paraphrasing): "There were warrior women in this time period (...) But aren't women significantly weaker than men? Nope! Not in Northern Europe, at that age, at least, judging by their remains."

[Malcador]

Yep, I mentioned that in the second sentence that you cut out. Weird to extrapolate based on that set, but what can you do.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

Yep, I mentioned that in the second sentence that you cut out. Weird to extrapolate based on that set, but what can you do.

 

I don't find it weird at all. Way I see it, it just proves that in a cultural environment where it's normal for a woman to train for the specific purpose of killing people, there will be women who are at least as good at killing people as their male counterparts. Not very surprising, considering the law of large numbers, really.

[Malcador]

Well, naturally you wouldn't. Still allows for them not being equal though, I guess the poster meant the differences were not largely impactful. Ah well.

[Blarghagh]

 

Hrm, why Dear Esther as an example? Dan Pinchbeck designed that game. I agree it wasn't innovative (or at least, not as innovative as people make it out to be) but it wasn't made by a woman. Or is it just to say "truly innovative, not like this other game that people said was innovative" outside of being related to women in gaming? The context made it a bit hard for me to see what you meant by that specific example ending this statement with a question mark to show my confusion?

Is a game some of the people railing on about white males and their misogyny and racism ruining game have brought up as a new ideal, innovative and not about violence, etc. So games must move away from GTA or COD or whatever these wannabe elites cast their noses up at. So chose DE as a reason.

 

 

Haha, thanks for explaining. I haven't seen anyone do that myself but I will have a hearty laugh at anyone who does. Regardless of whether it is innovative, or even a game at all, claiming Dear Esther is any kind of ideal is nonsensical on a whole new level. Dear Esther's central plot device is that "woman dying to motivate male character's journey" conceit. The game plays the women in refrigerators trope entirely and purposefully straight. I've read a thousand articles calling comic book writers and Christopher Nolan misogynist for using it, yet now a game devoted to it in its entirety is being championed as an example of how to make a game without sexism?

 

edited for grammar and redudancies

Edited September 2, 2014 by TrueNeutral

[Malcador]

Was planning to waste my time looking it up tonight, at first glance I assumed it was Myst or at least similar. Probably a bad example, either that or should have gone with Journey - people seemed to like that one for it's emotional connection with them or some silliness like that.

 

Heh, that shrew Alexander mentioned on how games in the future, sans gamers, will be "tragicomedy, vignette, musicals, dream worlds, family tales, ethnographies, abstract art". Yeah.