One thing we do have to move beyond is this provincial idea that sexism and harassment are just a consequence of a few jerks within a new movement: it’s not. It’s widespread. I think atheist culture is actually better than the norm, but the outside world acts as a giant reservoir and buffer for the creeps to flourish…and it allows them to be legitimately surprised when anyone stands up to them. They get away with it everywhere else, so gosh, atheists must all be prudes and wilting lilies.
So once again, we get another tale of violated boundaries, this time from the gamers. I’ve put it below the fold in case it’s triggering, but one thing I found notable about it is how the woman involved is wracked with guilt and shame afterwards, and actually experiences a lot of doubt about her part in the incident. She is totally blameless. (That does not stop a few of the commenters for blaming her anyway, of course.)
This went on for a while, but maybe I was too drunk or maybe I still try to hard to be "one of the guys" to realize it was quickly going into creeper (haha, get it? get it? Minecraft party?) territory.
So when he started talking about boobs I didn’t really care. When he started showing me pictures of boobs of girls at the party that he had taken I thought "okay that’s weird whatever maybe he asked beforehand." At some point he raised a concern about being Asian and women not wanting him cause of some stereotypical view of penis size, and I was like "most women will agree size doesn’t matter" and went back to my phone.
Then he grabbed my free wrist and put it on his crotch and asked "Is this big enough?"
That would have been bad enough, but he had also pulled his dick out through the zipper of his pants. I had no idea what to do but say "You can’t do that!" and NOPE’D the fuck on out of there to find my friends. There’s a tweet from right around when this happened that says "I NEED AN ADULT AGAIN."
I mentioned it to my group right after it happened, but it didn’t really sink in to them, or me, for a while. I tried to dance and drink it off during the last 30 minutes of the party, but eventually just sat down as the situation began to replay in my head and as soon as the party ended I bolted for the door to find a cab, trying to hold tears back. Thoughts of "Is this how people who don’t know me in the industry see me? Did he not even HEAR the amount of times I mentioned my boyfriend? Did he think I was just some whore?" and of course all the guilty thoughts of "Is this my fault for not leaving the conversation sooner/dressing like this/etc." Being drunk also wasn’t helping me be any less upset. My friends tried to find him, and tried to tell security (and got a "Okay? What do you expect me to do?" response). I freaked out for a bit, but thank god I have amazing friends who were there to smother me in hugs and "I’ll break his dick off" threats. And I’m thankful that if something that shitty had to have happened, that it happened that close to the end of the party.
There is no excuse for what that guy did. That the woman tuned out his escalating perviness is a consequence of the incessant sexist noise — and we already know what happens to a woman who turns to the guy at the onset of his intrusion and says “don’t do that.” She can’t win.
I’d like to see some evidence for this oft-repeated claim.
I’m tired of atheists and gamers and other assorted nerds simply assuming that they’re better than everyone else by virtue of having been shoved into lockers in high school or whatever it is that makes people in this community see themselves as beacons of right thinking and right action.
The day after Jen, gamer, nerd, atheist, decides to go on indefinite hiatus because of the people in the gamer, nerd, atheist community, I think we owe it to each other to stop fucking bullshitting ourselves.
The theists are right. The jocks are right. We’re shit. Face some fucking facts.
The evidence would seem to support that claim.
Now for that, I see no evidence at all.
I think the leadership of atheist organizations are all clearly on the right side of things, which you can’t always say for outsiders. We’ve gotten consistent messages from CFI, AA, AAA, AHA, etc. (OK, not from JREF, but they’ll also tell you they’re not an atheist organization). What we have is a minority of vocal assholes.
I do not condemn the atheist movement. I condemn those atheist assholes.
Also, look here: Pharyngula is part of the atheist community, and I definitely think we’re better (not perfect, but better) at ripping into the jerks.
Also let me emphasize: You, Brownian and Rorschach, are also atheist culture. Fight back. We all have to fight back, and our willingness to do so is what gives me more hope for atheism.
Yeah, but that’s sample bias if there ever was one. Let’s go onto a field trip to the next atheist or skeptic convention instead.
An idiot my ex found on a dating site did the same thing during a supposedly safe meetup at a grocery store. She still can’t drive through that lot without cringing 6 years later. It didn’t take an hour to find the asshole’s address, phone number, and employer using google but it took the cops 3 weeks to finally talk to the guy. No charges were ever filed, all he got was a lecture, if that. Sexual assault is acceptable in this culture and I have 2 daughters. I know I’m gonna end up in jail for severely beating some random jackass because of that, the odds are stacked against me on this.
I can’t say I was expecting something that bad.
How does someone make it to adulthood without realising this kind of behaviour is beyond inappropriate?
Nope, I’m done. Tired of this. Exhausted. Sick to death. And I’m not even prominent in any of these sub-cultures. I’m not set up to be a target of the worst of it.
There are all these little subcultures, part of our larger one – not separate at all, and it’s laughable to even entertain the idea. And I’ve encountered sexism and harassment in every single one to which I belong. The ones to which I used to belong. Likely in the ones to which I would like to belong. There aren’t varying levels of sexism present in the subcultures as a whole. Don’t kid yourself. There are communities within the subcultures that are slightly better, sometimes a lot better, than the norm.
These things are isolated incidents, they say. There are only a few bad people ruining it for the rest of us, they say. I’m not a sexist or a misogynist, so the words I use don’t really count that way, they say. Anti-harassment policies just make the poor socially awkward guys feel terrible about themselves, and do nothing to stop the assholes that actually harass people, they say. My right to say “cunt” and “bitch” and “twat” is more important than any harm it does, they say. When I say “All women are like this” I don’t mean you, they say. I would be flattered if that happened to me, they say. It wouldn’t bother me if someone said that to me, they say. You’re taking things too personally, they say. You’re over-reacting, they say. You’re too emotional, they say. Don’t talk about rape or women’s health issues because they’re too political, they say. Don’t bring up sexism or sexual violence present in the favorite toys of the sub-culture because you ruin it for everyone, they say. Men have it just as bad, they say. Both sides are just as bad, they say. It’s just words on the internet. Or at work. Or at school. Or at home. Or in public. They say.
THIS IS FUCKING EVERYWHERE. Don’t you get it? There are no safe spaces. There isn’t any place that is ever completely free of this shit – not even in the “slightly better than the norm” communities. It’s completely inescapable – and if you make the mistake of speaking publicly about it, it will invade all the other areas of your life as well.
And if you try to make a safe space, the same people who say all of the above things will do their best to try to take it away from you.
So would I. Because I don’t believe it anymore. Atheism has too many people who believe because they don’t think God or Bigfoot exist they are superior to others, intellectually and otherwise and therefore are always right because their “common sense” works better.
Which, of course, it doesn’t.
I never got as much push back against “When you do x it makes me feel y so please don’t do it” outside of those self-identifying peeps like atheists and gamers and whatnot. Probably has something to do with out-group/in-group dynamics.
The peeps don’t want to acknowledge their wonderful group is less than perfect and kinda sucks at times for certain people.
I also get the impressions this is why A+ gets so much strange push back. While still in its infancy,
A+ kinda started with “We’re not perfect, what can we do to become better (and include more people who we usually exclude for bad reasons)?”
It breaks bubbles of “Aren’t we awesome, so much more awesome than those religious nutters.” No, we aren’t.
We have one less unbased belief than them, doesn’t mean we don’t have others.
#5: I do. I just got back from one. The Atheist Alliance conference in Denver was soaking in a social justice sensibility: me and Greta and Anthony Pinn and Richard Haynes were all about that all Sunday morning, and the audience was enthusiastic and receptive.
Maybe it’s all a lie and they were all sweet and friendly on the outside and seething with rage at any empathic outreach (an audience of Paula Kirbys?), but it has been my experience that the orgs and cons are generally on our side. The ugliness is bitter but it’s a minority.
And please, everyone, DON’T GIVE UP. You already know the assholes won’t suddenly have sympathy and change — the only way we will achieve change is by fighting back, by starting with securing sensible enclaves and making them grow.
And don’t forget to look at yourselves as part of this movement. Sometimes we get so caught up in the noisy attention the jerks bring on themselves that we forget that we’re not about them, we’re about us.
If a vocal one.
I would like to think that you are right, and we probably need to try to keep a sense of perspective with this. It’s really easy to be vocal on the internet, Bill Donahue or the Australian Christian Lobby manage that very well, without actually representing any large number of people.
For some people, the universe consists of them and everyone else. It’s almost solipsism. Everyone and everything is purely to service them. The only reason everyone doesn’t realize the purpose of the universe is to please this one narcissistic person is that everyone else is too stupid to know this.
Fortunately there aren’t a lot of these supremely arrogant egotists but they do exist, as shown in the story in the OP.
Why is there so much sexism and sexual mistreatment in mainstream culture?
The unpleasantness of these fucks I can handle. Their malice? I can’t handle that. It enrages me. And since I’ve been enraged by malice once already today…
Louis
–
I believe that. But it’s usually a minority in RL as well.
–
The really bad ones themselves are not the big problem (don’t get me wrong, they are a big problem, but another one):
–
The ones who tell me to stop complaining are. The ones who tell me I’m overreacting, hysterical, imagining things and those who, while usually well educated in history, in this very instant totally forget the centuries of misogynist, racist, antisemitic, ableist, homophobic etc. rule of religious and other institutions.
–
Those who make excuses for the bad ones.
–
This mind set or whatever it is, this is systemic. I have even found it within myself because it’s a learned behavior.
–
I don’t even fight much (online or in meatspace) and I bet I read less about all this than others (and way much more than the usual critic), but fuck it’s so exhausting.
–
I never before Elevatorgate doubted that if something happened to me I would be believed. Yes, there were subtle signs in my father and brother and mother, and others at other times, but I thought and think they would react differently when necessary and were just victims of the Just World Fallacy to keep some sense of agency in a world where we usually are much more victim to circumstances than we want to be.
–
But now?
–
In the forum where I made a case for Rebecca Watson and every woman who ever said “Don’t do that to me” I also debated someone, in the same thread, who I now think was a (at least potential) rapist (MRA, PUA, misogynist, said it wasn’t rape if she couldn’t or wouldn’t say no because of drugs or fear), but who would those other peeps rather debate? Me. Of course my position was more debate-worthy than his. Because feminazis.
I took the red pill and fuck it’s scary. And exhausting. I now notice stuff I wouldn’t even have recognized before. And it hurts. Because peeps I once considered on “my side” wouldn’t believe me and rather believe the rapists, harassers, creepers.
The roots go way back, but the short answer is: because we allow it.
Society is designed to trivialize women as much as possible. From the surfeit of female-specific derogatory terms, to the objectification of women in our commercials, videos, magazines, movies, and TV shows, women tend to be treated like objects rather than strong, intelligent leaders.
And we allow it. We don’t speak out about it (as a society).
It’s getting better — Bic recently released a line of pens “for her,” and the pushback was heart-warming (and very funny). But it wasn’t that long ago that a talking Barbie said things like, “Math is hard!” and, “I want to date the captain of the football team!”
We have a long way to go. The roots of this beast go back a very long time. It won’t change overnight. But I think it will change, if we speak out against misogynist behavior.
But then, I’m told I’m an incurable optimist.
Keith:
Because we live in a patriarchy.
In the patriarchy, women are the sex class – women exist to provide sex to men, who deserve it, and to also provide babies to their owner-men. Women fall into three categories: the owned-exclusively-by-one-man (touch her and face the wrath of her owner-man; see: rape being defined as a violation of the woman’s husband/father’s property); the public property (free for the use of anyone); and the unfuckable (young girls, old women, disabled women, ugly women, fat women; see: ugly/fat/less-than-physically-perfect women should be “grateful” when they’re sexually harassed/assaulted, because that means that they’re being acknowledged as women). The unfuckable are, essentially, not women and ergo valueless. Because if women are for sex and babymaking, a woman who is unfuckable is not a woman, and she’s not a man, so she must be nothing.
This is why a woman who dares to venture away from the most restrictive forms of control is “fair game,” why an unmarried woman who is not a virgin cannot be raped (because she consented once, therefore she’s existing in a state of constant consent), and why a woman who asserts that she has any right of control over her sexuality at all is a horrible person, because her sexuality belongs to the man who owns her, or to all men everywhere. If she is not owned, then she belongs to every man, because there is no middle ground.
Brownian:
Damn right.
See also this post, to which I’ve linked before. It’s about geeks and fans in general, not about atheists or skeptics, but much of it applies to this situation.
PZ, I agree that those of us with the energy to continue fighting should continue fighting, and that we too are the atheist community. That said, I also agree with Rorschach that you’re experiencing some sample bias.
BTW, while most of the comments on that Exploded Soda thread are positive, and the handful that aren’t are mostly not worth reading, there’s some egregious fail from a security guard who actually says that security could not have done anything about that incident, because there were no witnesses and, I quote, Also, she fled to protect herself… oops, I meant to write, Silly females, getting so emotional when they’re sexually assaulted.
What an attitude.
@ 17.nigelTheBold, Venomous Demonic Hater :
Really? I thought that was just a satirical Simpsons episode take on doll sexism with the Lisa and her feminist smart doll creation episode. But if true I wouldn’t be at all surprised though wearily saddened.
For what it’s worth I won’t give up. I can’t. I have a little girl and a wife and a mum and female friends and they all mean the world to me. To think they’d be subjected to this kind of vicious, entitled, dehumanizing BULLSHIT makes me want to vomit.
And you know, some people can change. I certainly did. I’ve been lurking for quite some time. It wasn’t that long ago I apathetically held beliefs about sexism and misogyny that were total bullshit, and typical of the mainstream. I educated myself and was educated by folks like PZ and Josh and Stephanie and Greta and when I think back to how I was thinking not much more than a few years ago I cringe. And I am SO sorry to every woman, every LGTBQ, every Other, that I helped harm because I didn’t take this problem seriously enough, or give it enough thought. And it’s extra bullshitty because I was an Other once, and I know damned well how that felt, and how it fucked me up. So I should’ve known better. I. Should’ve. Known. Better.
Anyway. I’m in this for the duration. I know I still have a lot to learn. I won’t give up because to me it would be tantamount to giving up on the people I love.
This reminds me. I’ve announced support for A+, and I’ve been blogging about social justice a bit more, but I list gaming as one of the topics I muse about on my blog: I’m going to make a vow to speak out when I encounter slime online. I’m not as big on the social parts of gaming, but I’ll do what I can.
I’d say that the only thing she did wrong was not getting out of there sooner. But I suppose we ought not blame people for trying to be forgiving about their so-called friends. Although to me, he doesn’t sound like someone who’s really her friend.
I’m not going to sit here and say maybe he just doesn’t know better, maybe he’s been neglected in his upbringing or whatever (which is possible) because I’m tired of that being used as an excuse.
“He didn’t know better” Well, he SHOULD know! He should know better.
Good for her for having the presence of mind to get away from him!
PZ:
That’s easy for you to say.
I’m really fucking tired of this shit. I read the OP and I know exactly how that woman feels– the details of sexual harassment are different for all of us, but I’d bet you’d be hard pressed to find a woman here who hasn’t had a similar (or worse) experience. I’m just so fucking frustrated by pushing back against male entitlement that I’m sitting here at work, trying not to cry.
It feels like every step we take forward, the opposition shows up and shoves us two steps back. And this isn’t some small philosphical or moral argument, these people don’t view me as fully human. I’m either a fuck toy for their enjoyment or I’m disgusting and invisible. I should want to fight back against that, but I simply can’t right now. I’ve been demoralized for far too long.
I realized that I’ve largely given up on changing “our” culture way back during the heady days of The Event Which Shall Not Be Named™. I’ve been commenting less and less about douchebag atheists/freethinkers/skeptics/whatever and instead focused my time on the fight for reproductive freedom. What does it say that I feel like I’ve got a better chance of changing right wing political discourse than making members of my own community view me as an equal partner?
This is absolutely disgusting.
I hope that the next time the perv tries doing that, the woman maces his crotch.
You know that “pulls out penis and puts hand on it” thing? I had that happen to me too. Totally out of the blue, didn’t invite it, was at my computer at the time.
A guy I once had sex with did that (he was from out of town, an acquaintance, I let him sleep here overnight).
Even though I didn’t indicate any further interest and was even politely telling him not to bother me while I was busy.
Because dude (in this case) feelings are more important than mine. That is fucking scary.
@1. Brownian (?!!!?) :
No.
The theists are factually wrong. The bullies are factually wrong. Those are facts.
Some of us are shit. Depending on how you define “shit” and “us.”
Sometimes we can be shits to each other and others outside our circles.
But not all of us are shits and not all the time by a fuck of a long way.
We have our good days and our bad, we’re human and fucked up and living in a screwed up, fucked up, sexist, homophobic, transphobic shithouse rape culture.
But we’re trying to be aware and trying to be better, some of us, much of the time.
We’re all individuals .. (I’m not)
& responsible for ourselves.
To quote Terminator II : “No fate but that which we make for ourselves!”
No culture but that we make for ourselves either.
To quote John Donne, poet of the Elizabethan age, “No man (person) is an island.”
We’re all part of a sea. What part we play and where we go.
We *do* have some say on that. Maybe not much, not enough but some.
There’s always some shit inside our intestines but we’re much, *much* more than just that part of us alone.
If you really want to get depressed try this: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100216235454AAnlvc3
The MRA’s are out in force – as PZ covered previously: https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2012/03/10/the-southern-poverty-law-center-notices-the-mens-rights-movement/
I find it odd that we assume that Atheists as a whole are more rational than everybody else.
It’s been clear for a long time that social pressures are the main reason people are religious, have certain political affiliations, sexist beliefs, and so on. There has been a recent surge of Atheism in the US but not a corresponding surge in critical thinking skills, quality of education in our schools and colleges, or rationality in our political discourse. If anything they have declined.
Additionally, there are now numerous high-profile atheists in pop culture such as Daniel Radcliffe, Keira Knightley, Lance Armstrong, Richard Dawkins, Bill Gates, etc.
This leads me to believe that we have more Atheists simply because of role-models and other reduced anti-Atheist social pressures. While those at the top may have (or may not have) arrived at Atheism rationally, their followers may not have. In fact, it’s quite probable they didn’t if they were merely influenced by role-models.
So while we have more Atheists, we have no more rationality. We have Atheists that are Atheists for the “wrong” reasons.
If you didn’t get there via skepticism, it’s unlikely that facts or logic or reality will affect your other views. Hence the rabid defense of sexism, lots of Atheist assholes, etc.
Why the hell would she not call the police? Now that creep is going to go around putting his cock on more women.
The bouncers refused to do anything? Are you kidding me? And because the bouncers are idiots she doesn’t call the cops? What kind of logic is that?
What that guy did was way illegal. He’d get jail time and be forever listed as a sex offender. And she just lets him get away.
Normally any bouncer anywhere would be fired for letting that level of sexual assault slide. Especially once the police get involved. And why is she withholding the name of the event? I’m sure the event organizers would like to know what a worthless security staff they have.
I fucking hate you and I hope PZ bans your ass jarjar.
@22. silomowbray :
Me too.
My views have evolved and changed a lot over time on many things from arguing online. I’m not so egotistical and stupid and stubborn that I can’t admit I’ve sometimes got things badly wrong. And sure, I’ve said my share of stupid drunken overtired things that I’ve regretted later. Will try not to do so again.
Yep. (Raised beer salute.)
We can’t give up because the consequences of doing so are so bad. Sad but true. The world is a shit place but worth fighting for – to make it less shit. However slightly. It all counts.
Humanity has come a long way and for all the bullies and theocrats and sexists and homophobes and other fuckwits that want to drag us back. We’re ploughing on forward through the stinking muck of nastier pasts that holds us back..
We aren’t living in as bad as time as we could be. As we once were.
We could and should do better but, more of the world recognises reality and accepts the Other than at any time in history before. I’m pretty sure that’s true.
I’m pretty sure we’re slowly, painfully, ripping forwards and breaking though. The backlash is fierce and brutal and unfair but, we are getting somewhere better.
I really think we are.
You’re wrong, though we all wish that fantasy world were true. Often not only does security not care, management doesn’t care, the organization doesn’t care, and the cops don’t care. Sometimes they even join in.
https://proxy.freethought.online/ashleymiller/2012/06/06/arent-you-making-it-up-why-women-dont-report-harassment/
https://proxy.freethought.online/almostdiamonds/2012/06/20/why-ididnotreport/
Fuck you, jarjar.
Here is what would have happened had she gone to the cops:
Option 1: Cop repeats what the bouncer says more-or-less verbatim.
Option 2: Cop reluctantly explains that while what this guy did is nasty, uncool, totally unacceptable, and (yes) illegal, her odds of getting a conviction and this guy facing consequences for what he did are essentially nil.
@30:
As if skepticism was a guarantee of anything.
I’ve had it with “skeptics” who think they’re the pinnacle of critical thinking because they believe in a little less bullshit than your average American.
@33. me : D’oh! Bold fail.
Emphasis was supposed to stop on the “We’re ploughing on forward part. Sigh.
Fuck off, jarjar.
StevoR, #21:
I mis-remembered the “dating the captain of the football team.” I think it was a quote my friends and I made up while making fun of it. However, the “Math is tough!” phrase is real enough (I made the common misquote of “hard” rather than “tough”), along with some other amazingly sexist sayings.
From Wikipedia:
The Simpsons episode was a reaction to a very real collection of Barbie quotes.
Are you implying she didn’t go to the police because she made the whole thing up ?
.
Or are you just too optimistic about what the police would actually do ?
@36
Skepticism is a tainted word, yes — but don’t misunderstand me. If you are atheist just because all the cool people are you are not likely to continue down the rabbit hole and recognize all the other problems. And many who claim to use reason do not. I’ll not fall into the “No True Scotsman” trap and say that they aren’t true “Skeptics” because equivocation is guaranteed. What they mean by skeptic and what I mean by skeptic is not the same.
I don’t exclude social justice atheists. Recognizing injustice as unfair and unreasonable is a form of rationality (whether or not they consciously recognize it). Those who see it for what is it are doing so in spite of social pressures and not because of them. They should be praised and not condemned.
Wow. Jar jar, you are an asshole. The comment you left on blaghag is disgusting. You are a piece of shit.
Atheists better? Not so much.
Bloggers even here on FtB don’t always acknowledge doing/saying sexist things and vow to refrain from doing them when they’re called out. This is happening as we speak. There are many bloggers, here and on Patheos too (presumably 2 of the top progressive atheist networks) who allow sexist crap to flourish in their comments. (looking at you Hemant Mehta).
Sure, Surly Amy’s series shows that all the leaders of official organizations can talk the talk, but what’s going on on the ground? It’s not pretty.
Brownian @ 1;
Sadly, I have to agree. Being an atheist/sceptic/gamer/nerd doesn’t automatically make you a misogynist. I think that this is pretty uncontrovercial, but the important point is that it also doesn’t mean that you are automatically incapable of being a mosogynist.
Simply being a member of a marginalised group doesn’t mean that a person cannot reinforce the toxic memes of the patriarchy in other areas. If it did, we wouldn’t have members of ethnic minorities who are also rabid homophobes, or gay guys who are bitter misogynists, and the like – the greatest trick of the patriarchy has always been to turn those who should be natural allies against one another. To erode the common empathy that should allow a victim of discrimination to consider how it might feel to be someone who is the victim of a form of discrimination that operates along another axis, rather than scrabbling to eagerly cling to whatever scraps of privilege society tosses to them, and thereby reinforce the discriminatory meme in the process.
In that sense, atheism does share one thing in common with religion – in the same way that the mere fact of membership of any given religion does not in and of itself make you a moral or ethical person, neither does being an atheist. Atheism is only the first step on a far longer journey toward social awareness, and if all you take is that first step, then you really haven’t acheived very much.
I find myself doing something unusual for me here; I am going to disagree with you.
The theists and the jocks are still wrong, because they don’t despise atheists/skeptics/gamers/nerds because the community has a problem with vocal misogynist bigots.
Theists despise us because we don’t massage their egos and accept their delusional religious claptrap. We aren’t part of the god club, therefore we are automatically the enemy. The only reason why the smell of burning apostate isn’t wafting down every street is because that kind of thing has gone out of vogue… for now at least.
‘Jocks’ despise geeks because we don’t perform masculinity (or femininity, depending upon the geek in question) in a fashion that they are comfortable with. And, of course, they bully geeks because they enjoy the type of privilege that means that they can. Because being able to push about the sciency kid with the glasses marks you out as part of the in group, it demonstrates that you belong, not unlike any other rite of passage.
Ultimately, both groups hate us for all the wrong reasons. They are at least as much a part of the problem as we are, and I somehow doubt that there are many jock or theist versions of Brownian making that point to them from within their own in group.
PZ is right – you, Rorschach, Caine, Nerd – all the decent, principled people here (I flatter myself that I may even be counted among your ranks, on a good day) are also part of the atheist/skeptic/gamer/nerd community. If we want that community to become something greater than a nest for bigots, then we have to be prepared to keep on fighting.
The fact that places like Freethought Blogs and ideas like atheism+ come under such sustained fire from bigots tells me something – that they are not really the dominant voices in atheism/skepticism. If their position was truly unassailable, they wouldn’t care about us. They wouldn’t bother addressinmg us at all, because we would be no more than impotent voices in the wilderness. But they do bother addressing us – they spend vast amounts of time ceaselessly hoggling about us because they are afraid of us and what we represent. They are worried that the days of their non-stop privilege party are numbered. Deep down, even though they would never admit it even to themselves, they know that we have the better ideas and the superior vision for an atheism that stands for more than endless smug self congratulation for noticing the obvious.
Whenever I hear them spew their hatred, whenever I encounter another wave of their crass misogynistic bigotry, I smell something, even over the sewage-stink of their hateful rhetoric – the acrid tang of growing desperation.
Atheism/skepticism/geekery/gaming is inexorably leaving them behind, and they know it. The days when they could shout their bigotry an no one would say anything are long gone. We have already changed the discourse; the Overton Window has shifted. There will always be those who embrace bigotry, but they can be confined to the irrelevant margins where they belong, but only if people of conscience don’t give up the fight prematurely.
Apologies for the lengthy post.
I’ll contest it on details. While I am seeing a streak of feminist geekydom there I think it’s undeniable that the nerd/geek thing was in by gone years a boys only club. This has tainted the perception of the sub culture and does indeed make them inclined towards casual sexism, and because of the nice guy syndrome pointing out that sexism can trigger full blow active sexism outbursts and push back.
That said, my quick glance assessment is that gamer/geek is actually doing better than Atheism in addressing sexism. There is a strong push back but it doesn’t seem to be as openly blatant.
It is actually a bit mixed, Ing.
Some gamer/geek groups are better than society at large, because they recognize sexism for what it is and are against it.
Others, however, are wallowing in it – society denied them what they deserved (women/sex) because they were gamers/geeks and THAT’S WRONG! So they rage and flail at those horrible women who deny them what they deserve.
And now, because I am such a geek, I will… borrow from a fictional rousing speech to rally the troops…
*ahem*
“Children of science! Of Reason! My brothers and sisters. I see in your eyes the same weariness that would take the heart of me.
A day may come when the will to fight of progresives fails, when we forsake our struggle for a better atheism and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day.
An hour of woes and shattered blogs when the Age of Reason comes crashing down, but it is not this day!
This day we fight!
By every progressive principle you hold dear, on these good intertoobs, I bid you stand, Rationalists of teh Internets!”
Apologies to J R R Tolkien.
My experience, having been a journalist in the porn industry for 30 years, is that EVERYONE (conservative, liberal, freethinker, religious) IS INSANE ABOUT SEX in one way or another — but that doesn’t mean one has to be an asshole about it. But sadly, pretty much everyone thinks their sexual insanity is “normal”… even the jackasses who take out their dicks at parties when nobody asked them to.
@Ing #45
This. Bow howdy. And I’ve heard attempts to justify it in so many ways. “We were here first.” “We were bullied.” “We’re socially awkward.” “We don’t get a lot of female attention.”
Fuck that. I want to have have a good time getting my nerd on. I don’t want to have to accommodate projection and frustration and unresolved issues just for the privilege of membership in the geek subculture. I say again, fuck that! I don’t care that you never went on a date in high school. Same here. I don’t care that people made fun of you because of your interests/intelligence/glasses. Same here. I don’t care that your mom threw out some or all of your collection. Same here.
You know what the fucking difference is? I have to take shit from both inside and outside the subculture. So please: shove your persecution complex where the sun don’t shine and take some fucking responsibility for your behavior. Goddammit.
@markkernes #49
You’re right. I’m completely insane about sex. For example: I think that all sex and sexual activity should be completely consensual. Crazy, right? I’m off the deep end, here. The madness – not letting people get away with forcing their sexual wants on an unwilling person!
STOP THE INSANITY!
(Apologies for the use of mental illness descriptors – I was running with what was already in use.)
@Ing
I deny it. It never was a boys-only-club, they only imagined it to be. I was and am a geek, gamer, nerd, and I was never the only female one.
Those idiots only thought they were boys-only because us wimminz were either no model material, so we weren’t fuckable (because dudes deserve models), so we didn’t count, or we were model material so we were fuckable and thus just into it for the attention, so we didn’t count.
Btw, in defense of the guys and gals I was nerd with: They didn’t have a problem with it. They did have other interests outside of their special obsession, though. Wonder if that had anything to do with anything.
We were a very eclectic group.
So by my own experience I know it isn’t all of them.
I HATE that my immediate reaction to reading this is to be glad that I’ve learned to freak the fuck out loudly and violently in public when things like this happen to me. Because it has come up so many times in my life that the first thing I do now is immediately and literally kick and scream and not stop until someone notices. What the fuck is wrong with men like this? Just what the fuck?
And what the fuck is wrong with every other person sitting around this woman that did not call out that fucked up behavior on his part before it lead up to physical sexual violation? Shame on this shitbag and shame on the people around him too for letting this shit fly.
Urgh, tripple post. Sorry.
No problem I mean “being a girl”.
They were happy there was one more nerd, being girl was both a plus and no biggie. (A plus because they were shy teenagers who barely spoke with girls at all, no biggie because it made no difference. We once went together and bought a Voyager style uniform and all thought how nice shopping like this was because there was one style for all genders)
PZ:
If I haven’t given up in the last 40 years, I won’t give up now. That said, this current gleeful campaign of stalkery hatred is extremely difficult to deal with. It’s bad enough, breathing while female and having to put up with the usual sexism and toxic douchebaggery which abounds in every day life. Now we get the joy of being pursued all over the damn ‘net, too, and vilified at every turn.
It’s fucking exhausting. It’s also difficult to keep that fighting spirit going when I find myself thinking “it wasn’t this bad in the ’70s.” Disheartening, to say the least.
markkernes:
FFS. You’re an idiot.
@Momo
If it helps I’m looking way back at like 50s for the roots. For long while it was a default that there were nerds and girls were not really nerds, coming from both inside and out. Part of it is I think the intersection of geeky interests with STEM which is “man’s business”. In the 90s we started to see more female interest, and also back lash against female interest. The alpha nerds would bash the ‘faggy’ anime which had a much higher interest for women and that sort of thing. The idea was that women were gaying up the club that acted as a shadow masculinity. It was never ALWAYS an only boys club but for a long time men were the only visible ones, the only writers and developers. They were both the presumed demographic and the producers of material.
Comics and gaming especially have a two faced method where pioneers are praised for helping the media grow up, yet criticism of ways in which it remains unacceptably juvenile is heavily resisted. People defend what is objectively really shitty art decisions for this reason.
bleh, block quote fail
To continue my point: and I think the gaming/nerd/geek subcultures are in some ways worse or vile because they originally were seen as a recluse for people who were not sufficiently manly men of masculine manliness. The communities were built largely by people who were harmed by toxic masculinity and looking for a way to gain a sense of self worth as men, by in term spewing the same bullshit on everyone else.
MichaelE:
She did not do anything wrong. This ^ sentence is a prime indicator of toxic sexism and the crap we get to put up with every single day. Yeah, don’t start out with the penis popper, start out with what she did wrong. Christ.
Ing, thanks for the explanation. Yeah, I grew up during the 90s, and it shows, I guess. I forgot about the STEM connection.
What really makes me angry sometimes is that not too few of those who are now crying “wimminz are ruining gaming by being kill-joys objecting to sexism” are also gamers who were born after I got my SNES. Or my first gameboy. Or my first gaming PC (ah, 486).
Good times…
@22. silomowbray :
Me too. I read and read and read this forum and others like, and I am learning to be a blessing to all women in my communities.
Silently, things are improving. Don’t ever give up.
OT…I never imagined that porn journalism existed.
o,O
Momo:
Which is exactly why I refuse to participate in any MMO game*. It’s bad enough that I’m a woman, I also don’t want to deal with little shits who were born the year I graduated high school.
*sigh* Why must everything I like be tainted so?
*Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard the argument that in a couple of years I’ll pretty much be frozen out of any new game, but if you all want to waste your time with WoW clones, all the more power to you.
I suppose it’s a bit notrusscotsman but surely ‘adulthood’ is suppose to encompass a bit more than merely surviving to a certain age? Like, y’know, being able to discriminate between self and other and what that means with regard to acceptable behaviour?
It isn’t simply sexism nor simply racism, it’s bully-ism. There is a whole panoply of crappy behaviour that humans seem to revel in, justify by dubious self-delusion and generally elevate to ‘normal behaviour’. Bullying people because of some innate characteristic – gender, skin colour, sexual preference, physical limitations like deafness etc, is stupid enough but there is plenty more to go around in the areas of chosen attributes – you’re too fat/thin, long haired weirdo, speccy nerd, {add your list here}. *If* I understand even partially, the word to look up is kyriarchy. Even if I’ve misunderstood it completely I still think the word the look up is kyriarchy. Seems to have a lot of intersections with the general A+ ethos.
Ah, yes, Mark Kernes, last seen here defending his lying douchebag buddy Marty Klein.
If I am reading between your lines correctly, your career in porn journalism has assured you that women who don’t wish to be objectified, harassed, assaulted, or raped are just as as fundie xtians are.
And I’m sure that, having spent so much time on the sites of movies designed to cater to certain straight cis male fantasies, you’re also the ultimate arbiter of what is for men and women, regardless of orientation or identity.
Momo, it’s nice that your subgroup didn’t have problems with sexism. It was an anomaly.
Ing, Momo:
I grew up in the 70s/80s. I have geek friends who grew up in the 60s.
There were plenty of nerd women. There was also plenty of sexism in geekdom, and the women put up with it because Patriarchy: You’re Soaking In It.
I suspect that nerd women in those days were more likely to carve out their own spaces that largely didn’t include men (fanfic is a pretty clear example; it dates back at least to The Man from UNCLE and was primarily by and for women).
Women participated under pseudonyms. (Hello, James Tiptree, Jr.)
Women were socially trained to do more than just wallow in their geekdom; whereas men had the freedom to find careers in geek realms (hello, NASA) and make their geekdom their way of life.
It’s a bullshit myth that nerd/geekdom ever was anything close to exclusively male. It was male-dominated in exactly the same way the world is male dominated: by ignoring, eliding, and minimizing the presence of women, even when they are 50% of the population.
Please do not continue to perpetuate this myth. Thanks.
Consensunazi! Sexuofascist!
In my experience sexism is so prevalent that I simply tune out the less egregious forms, like freeway noise or supermarket music. But I am still surprised at how often comments, jokes, and actions go through that filter. I think for a lot of women “fighting back” or simply pointing it out every time it happens would be an exhausting full time endeavor.
Once I get the coffee cleaned out of my nasal passages, I will salute you for this one.
That’s the point of his name.
Most obvious troll I’ve seen in weeks.
So much agreement with both Brownian up top there, and Ms. Daisy Cutter @ #68. Fuck off, creepy lying porn journo.
It’s hard. I don’t fucking want to keep fighting. I don’t want to have to claw my way into a social group for the privilege of being terrified while there. Fuck that. Fuck nerd culture. Fuck toxic fucking atheists, whose assholery was so bad it kept me out of atheism itself for years. Yes, they are just as bad. A small group of rapidly burning out people is not the great tidal swell people hope.
I really, really want to give up.
As a mathematician who hit the wall somewhere around Abstract Algebra and had to rebound into Applied Mathematics in order to survive, I’m gonna have to say that Barbie was right: Math is hard (yes, I know…paraphrase.)
[I am not making any political statement here…I like to think that Teen Talk Barbie was a prodigy who was actually working on Analytic and Algebraic Topology of Locally Euclidean Metrization of Infinitely Differentiable Reimannian Manifold. After all, she’s a doctor, a lawyer, *and* an astronaut. You think she’s talking about Algebra 1 class?]
Ms. Daisy Cutter
Yeah, sadly it was. I guess that’s why it was easy for me all those years to essentially be one of the chill-girls. I didn’t get what all the fuss was about. But I have to admit, what I knew should have been enough. I saw the signs, I just didn’t understand the dynamics behind them.
@Caine,
I meant no assertion that she did anything wrong, I would have thought that was obvious. But I suppose it really is true that nuance/sarcasm/whatever travels “not so much” through text.
Of course she did nothing wrong!
please do “forgive” my sorry attempt at sarcasm, or don’t. I really don’t care.
I would just like to say that my post back @ 44 was not meant to try to make anyone feel guilty for wanting to just walk away. Given the sheer amount of stalkery, misogynist jack-assery that progressive atheists, and in particular progressive atheist women, have to put up with, experiencing burn-out is no kind of failure at all. No specific individual is obligated to continue the fight, especially when that fight sometimes seems to be going nowhere, and the situation can seem to have actively deterioriated over the last few decades, as Caine pointed out @ 56.
That said, I like to think that ‘atheism’, as an idea and a community, is not beyond ‘redemption’ (though perhaps that isn’t the best choice of word) even though I have been horrified by how many misogynists have come out of the movement’s woodwork in the last couple of years.
You sure cared enough to get super deffensive about it, MichaelE.
And that wasn’t sarcasm you used. Perhaps you should look the word up. U R using it wrong.
You made it quite clear that you felt she should have left sooner and then made a nice snide remark about her choice in friends. Classic victim blaming followed by a non-apology. How nice.
For anyone wondering what the host of the party thinks of all of this: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/119439-Notch-Tweets-Rage-Over-Minecraft-Party-Sexual-Assault
A public acknowledgment that 1- harassment happened, 2- that it was absolutely not okay, 3- that the security guard didn’t do his job and 4- that the host himself is (at least ostensibly) trying to deal with it.
Compare that with DJ Grothe’s behavior. Then tell me the skeptic community is better.
@SpaceQueso
And on the first page a commenter saying the was probably making it all up and anyway she was responsible for it because…something.
“She let herself be in that situation”. That situation being female and outside the house without her male owner, apparently.
Gosh, reminds me why I hate the escapist forums.
That’s because Notch seems to be a pretty cool guy.
frog @ 69
It started even earlier than that. See Andre Norton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_Norton
rrhain @ 75
According to a math whiz friend, this is a perfectly reasonable topic for research (or plagiarization). Of course Tom Leherer was a mathematician.
@ Momo
Alright, you win, everyone pretty much sucks the same XD My point is, we’re no better than the gaming community.
Although, hell, this is all really fucking speculative and biased. I kind of wish someone were interested in surveying this stuff so we could have some really comprehensive data about harassment in various subcultures.
It’s not just MMOs. My wife changed her gamertag because of abuse in RDR. Funny how all the griefing (in so called “friendly free roam” too) went down after her tag was apparently male instead of apparently female.
@SpaceQueso #84
I think it’s fair to assume that the baseline level of harassment in society at large is a good place to start for understanding the levels of harassment in various subcultures, and there has been a lot of data compiled about that (can’t link – at work).
There’s no real reason to believe that it would change significantly based on subculture groupings, and the assertion without evidence that some subcultures tend to be better than others is (especially at this point in time) something that I would like to see proven, rather than continually asserted.
I’m an officer in a raiding guild in WoW, and for a while I had a lot of fun spamming some variant of the following in guild chat whenever the inevitable “Girls can’t play” or faggot insults came out.
” of isn’t recruiting right now, but we would like to announce that we’ve been 8/8hms for weeks* even with (ZOMG!) 8 female members, 2 openly gay members. 6 of us don’t believe in your gods, too! Got a problem with that? We didn’t want you anyway”.
My guild isn’t organized explicitly around tolerance or such, but we do have some pretty awesome people and it’s grown over the years. It helps that our median age is 27, at last check. One of our officers is a female 51 year old project manager from Wisconsin! We still have our issues, but mostly we put up NSFW forums for people and ask them to keep the objectionable stuff there, since there’s no place for it in our main forums/raiding channels.
Sounds oddly like A+, now that I think about it… do you what you like, just don’t do it where we’re getting shit done.
Anyway, thus ends my rambling.
* Indicating we’ve downed all available content when it was still HARD for non-Wow-nerds. I’d call it epeening, but … yeah.
Ack, should have been “[Guild Name] of [Server] isn’t recruiting…” Fail preview.
rrhain @ #75
Боже мой!
@Audley Play WoW, join a good guild, and never play with non-guildies again. It’s the only way for any sane person to go with MMO’s, not just women. I’ve been in my guild for 6 years, been an officer in the guild for 5 and half. Nobody’s allowed to act like that in my guild, I’ll kick their sorry ass in a heartbeat.
Also, yes, Notch is a cool guy.
@69 frog May I steal that comment and repost it every time I read some dumbass say that women don’t exist on the internet/in gaming?
Slightly more on topic, I’m with a lot of people here. I’m fucking tired. I don’t see this shit getting any better, we’re freaking Sisyphus. The only thing I feel like I can do is carve out a little space for me and a few likeminded others, build up the walls high, and then sit behind the battlements and yell at the world that their mother was a hamster and their father smelt of elderberries.
Sorry, Tenebras, still no interest in MMOs. Funnily enough, I don’t want to play the same game (with minor changes) for 6 years. Talk about boring.
Tenebras,
Amen. We are Sisyphus. Just like the science teacher who every year gets a fresh crop of creationists.
I think there is value in rolling the boulder up day after day. Sometimes a few pebbles stay up at the top of the mountain. Just a few. Maybe that makes all the difference? I have personally become resigned to my Sisyphean task; it is my lot in life. And in my resignation, I find solace. (heh–maybe I borrow too much from Albert Camus on this one.)
Tenebras@90: steal away. It’s not as if I’m the first person to observe this problem.
The geek women who are currently 60+ deserve be acknowledged by the next generation(s) of geek women.
I can’t tell you how many women I know who play MMOs under exactly the conditions described above: with gender-neutral (or outright male) names, allied with guilds that don’t tolerate bigoted discourse.
[revealing age and ignorance of popular culture]
When did video games become a “nerd” thing? I grew up in the 70s and 80s. The cool kids were out at the arcade while I was assembling terraria, tending my flower garden, memorizing Peterson’s field guides, and working on my next science fair project. What the hell do cool kids do for fun now since video games are off the menu? Is it just sex and drugs for them anymore? Or have they begun growing ochra?
I think for my age group, I can hoist the nerd banner as high as anyone. Video games were never part of the enterprise.
Yup. The sexist noise really is incessant, even in progressive circles. My experience has been that it is worse in Christian circles, but it’s expressed differently. It tends to manifest as simply part of the cultural narrative and so it often goes unsaid. In contrast, with my friends it’ll manifest as an off-colour joke and, to their credit, it’ll frequently be followed with a “shit, sorry” when they realise who they’re talking to.
Video games. No, not real video games. The other ones, like Madden NFL.
I’m sure it’s all of the above at the same time, just as God intended.
@Audley It’s not so much the game that’s fun as the people you play it with. That said, WoW is not at all the same thing it was 6 years ago, for better or for worse. (Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King were great expansions, very fun, good raids, good non-raid content too. Cataclysm on the other hand… ugh. I just hope Mists will live up to it’s hype, so far it’s looking good though. Just hope my old Macbook Pro can handle the new graphics, I can’t afford a new computer right now.)
@frog You can add another to your list. My main is a male Tauren feral druid. I only have one female character, and she is a not-terribly-pretty Orc hunter. Partially because I don’t want to deal with the sexist idiots, partially because I have always been a tomboy and I don’t want my online representation to be overly feminine (because I’m not), and partially because I am pretty much asexual and I don’t like representing myself online with an overtly sexualized character (as most female characters are in games.) I’m contemplating making a female Panderan in the next expac… They’re a little cutesy for my taste, but at least they have curves.
AE:
Yeah, I started HS in ’71 and video games weren’t considered to be particularly geeky or nerdy. Back then, you were considered to be a geek/nerd if you were a brainiac…ya know, one of those there bookworm types. :D
Speaking of, while I’m not 60+, I’ll be 55 in November and I’ve been a geek from the start.
*nods*
Maybe there has always been a gaming axis of coolness. While the cool kids were into Defender and Centipede, I do seem to remember spending a lot of time creating elaborate Dungeons&Dragons* modules and thinking about contingency tables. Now the cools are busy with this…how you say…Madden? Whilst the nerds are rocking the WoW.
*AD&D, then ED&D. That’s how I rolled back in the day.
After reading a similar thread here, I created a female persona for an online gaming forum, to see if I’d be treated any differently. Despite my name and avatar, it seems nobody’s noticed I’m supposedly female.
My computer’s not up to playing any online games like WoW or DDO, so I haven’t tried running a female character there to see if I’m treated differently.
It isn’t _just_ the atheist community that suffers from this.
http://unwinona.tumblr.com/post/30861660109/i-debated-whether-or-not-to-share-this-story
This isn’t my story, but is one that is being passed around by some of my friends.
Well, I started High School in 1973 (Like U.S. junior high?? – first of 6 years) and there were no video games for us nerds. Well, there was pong, I suppose, from 1975. And then space invaders! ZOMG!!! At school I played D&D, and went to Maths club (run by the uni not the school). The nerds among us used to hang out in the library. Mahjong was kind of the in thing, and card games like 500.
At uni, I played D&D, and some Space invaders, Frogger, Asteroids and Galaga, but those coin-op machines were usually above my budget. On computers (for the few of us with any access) there was Adventure (pre-Zork), Moon Lander, and we programmed stuff like hunt the Wumpus and binary tree 20 question games.
Sexism – well, you’re soaking in it! I barely paid attention to the small stuff because the big stuff was still so big.
FFS frog and others you missed my point if you’re saying “of course there’s been geek women!”. Yes there was. It was still a boys club. Those producing media target males almost exclusivly…its better today but for a long while geek things were not girly. Case in point toy stores put action figures and that in the boys section because girls are not seen as being interested.
“action figures”
You mean dolls?
Ing: They even put Lego in the “Boys’ Toys” sections of my local stores. Although most of the “themed” Lego seems to be geared towards boys (the Harry Potter Lego has lots of Harrys, Rons, and Snapes, but very few Hermiones; the Ninjago has lots of male ninja and only one girl (who isn’t a ninja, she’s just a ninja’s sister…my daughter burst into tears when she read that), the “city” Lego has lots of cops, crooks, and firemen, but only a few women, and the “pink ghetto” “Friends” Lego has minifigs that aren’t compatible with the rest of them).
@chigua
Yes…though there’s some archaic trade lawsx that lead to a funny story about xmen toys…
I’ve been playing WoW for 6 years. I started out in a guild run by my son and his wife, so I was fairly protected. After they left for the UK and disbanded the guild, I was on my own. I have seen some pretty nasty sexism, but it was rarely aimed at me, though I never attempted to pretend to be male. I once found myself typing a complaint to a guild leader about something someone said when up pops “Get your sexist ass out of our guild, you creep! / gkick”. Note that there was only one other female in the guild at that time and she was a newbie, not related to the guild leader in any way (and wasn’t even online at the time).
I do not doubt for one second that many women have been harassed to the point of rage and quitting. I have been lucky, I guess. I’ve seen more casual anti-gay talk than openly misogynist stuff. I never let it pass. Since dungeons have been so badly nerfed it is possible to have long conversations while killing bosses.
It was never like that in the old days. /oldfart
When I was a kid, LEGO didn’t have gendered bricks.
…Nor did it have guns or knights; tho I started collecting the pirates when they came out when I was in middle-school and could buy them on my own.
When comparing the reactions of the atheist/skeptic community and nerd/geek community to instances of sexual harassment, it’s hard not to immediately compare the actions of JREF over TAM and the actions of the Readercon committee when one of their speakers lodged a harassment complaint and the harasser, once admitting his culpability, walked away with a slap on the wrist rather than being hammered with the lifetime ban *as per Readercon policy.* The former blamed women for speaking up about the reality we all experience in one form or another and really took little to no action to demonstrate how seriously they took the matter. The latter immediately took action as soon as the Readercon board’s decision was made, which resulted in the entire board “resigning,” the offender getting the lifetime ban, and the committee stating unequivocally that the women who spoke up about being harassed were not to blame for the negative publicity that Readercon received.
Which isn’t to say that one is better than the other – geek spaces sure as hell have serious issues with misogyny and sexism. I just wish the actions of the Readercon committee were the basic standard rather than the venerable exception.
Organizations that tolerate people like the adolescent male described in the narrative have to have extra security on hand to prevent adults like me from taking a horse whip to said male-child. I know horse whips are not readily available but I would find a suitable substitute.
There is no excuse for this behavior. There is nothing he or his friends can say to excuse this.
As a southern gentleman, I know there is a low life element that believes this is OK. I also know that this man-child needs a lesson in how real men and women interact socially. If I had acted this way and my mother or nanny had found out about, they would both had told me to fetch a switch (regardless of the other having whipped my ass).
And as gay man, I wonder if he would be cool with my putting his hand on my cock?
OT:
@ Tenebras:
Here’s to hoping MoP really is as awesome as the hype. The Challenge difficulties at least should make for some entertaining encounters. I kind of wish they’d have a sliding scale of “just how epic are you feeling”.
@Tenebras/Frog…. For a variety of reasons, my main ended up as a female human priest. I’m always startled by how many people in random dungeons/LFR/what have you (a) assume that I’m actually female* (I’m not), and then (b) see my gear/ilvl and congratulate me for being so good at Playing While Female. Apparently sincerely, over the entirety of a run. Of course, I also run into the “your guild must have carried you” crap, as well.
In either case, I have a good set of humorous photos to refer them to when they want pics.
* On a side note, this number went up after I faction changed from Horde (Undead) to Alliance (Human). I guess people just didn’t find me hot enough when I was missing certain parts.
Damn I wish dueling was legal!
If you had been a Blood Elf on Horde side you might have gotten more harassment. It’s not so much that they expect women to play females in WoW, it’s that they expect them to play -attractive- females in WoW (because, ya know, all that matters to us “omg rl grrls” is how sexy we are for teh menz.) Female Night Elves and Draenai have it the worst.
However, there is the (not entirely undeserved) trope that younger and/or less mature people tend to roll Alliance also. :P
@Tenebras: Oh, I had a female Blood Elf paladin while I was horde (I swear, I only rolled it for the articles), so I know what you’re talking about.
And stop trash talking the Alliance, you Horde scum.
Jnoriss shut the fuck up with your tough guy barbarism idiocy
Jnoriss:
Indeed, what ing said. Also, ageism is Not Cool. I’m not harassing anyone.
And your being a tough guy won’t change fuck all.
and they still hurt like a motherfucker when you stepped on them
@Rev
Having stepped on one, I sympathize with you.
Pretty sure I picked up my first curse words from listening to my dad when he stepped on an errant Lego that somehow never made it back into the bin.
rrhain #75
I have to wonder what were you thinking of Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky when you used “Analytic and Algebraic Topology of Locally Euclidean Metrization of Infinitely Differentiable Reimannian Manifold” as an example. I get the feeling he deserves both the credit and the blame.
qft.
When I was younger I thought were on something like a road to a better future.
These days it appears that we are just on a road. Not that I myself have given up either, nor am I going to give up, but I harbor no illusions about any given fight being over in my lifetime.
I think we can safely blame the internet for that. It’s heaven for all those stalkers and basement warriors.
Rorschach:
Yes, the internet has some to do with it, but not as much as one might think. I saw attitudes going more toxic throughout the 80s, a backlash to [some] women finally being more able to attain equality in the workplace, more women being placed in positions of authority, etc. This was well before most people had computers.
The late 80s saw the rise of religious right, which kept increasing throughout the 90s right through to the outright war on women that we’re now seeing here in the U.S.*, which contributes to a culture which does not see women as full human beings and provides a rich medium for toxicity to bloom.
The internet certainly allows for ease of harassment and stalking, no argument there. The problem is deeper than the ‘net though and has long and tangled roots in pre-internet time. To a large extent, what we’re seeing happen on the ‘net is part of the long boiling resentment of women attaining positions of authority or leadership or simply a position where they are free to speak out. It’s about putting us ‘back in our place’, a position which does not grant full human status. If we aren’t willing to be chill, we aren’t deserving of human status, but are simply ugly, stupid things which need to be derided, demeaned and stomped back into silence and fear.
*The current war on women has fairly long roots, politically speaking, as well. This shit has been going on for a couple of decades now and is reaching a fever pitch.
Eriktrips:
That’s a good way to describe it. It’s how I feel too, still trudging down the road, beyond weary.
Then again in more positive news…
Mark Millar goes troll stomping
A cousin of mine had a boyfriend best described as a drunken idiot. Once when we were out at a bar he took my hand and placed it on his groin. When I pulled it rapidly away he turned to my uncle and said that I was “touching his willy”. I just said my uncle not to ask and not to encourage him. Now I’ve been told the best thing in these cases is to announce to all present what the offender has done but my cousin was there, might have seen it and this guy was a constant source of embarrassment for her so confronting him publicly would have humiliated her more than him. Instead I beckoned him over and whispered in his ear (using his full name, rather than the usual short from) that if he did it again his willy would experience a great deal of pain. He was noticably more polite to me for the rest of the evening. (Thankfully my cousin split with him not long after that).
Unfortunately, that’s a rare instance of knowing how to handle it because I was familiar with this guy’s idiocy. Most occasions it’s only later that I think what I should have said or done. Once a man stopped me in the street to ask stupid questions about a local pizza place and then tried to hug me. When I pushed him firmly away and said I didn’t want a hug he got nasty and said, “I’m not trying to chat you up, you’re lucky I don’t cut your throat.” I just ignored it. He was walking away as he said it so I didn’t feel threatened. I was surprised later that my husband was very angry when I told him about it and my colleagues were shocked. I realised how accustomed I have become to shrugging off such incidents. As a teenager some of my friends were terrified of harrassment from men, they wouldn’t walk down a certain street near me because of men in cars beeping and shouting. I was always determined that I would not live in fear of them.
Now I think more is needed. This needs challenging. Not always possible in the event but it needs to be talked about more. It can’t just be laughed off or kept quiet. The reactions of other and victims’ ability to speak up are key to this.
Seconding thunk on the age-ism. This particular jerk may have been a young adult, but young harassers and creeps grow into *adult* harassers and creeps (and then OLD harassers and creeps). Don’t excuse hateful behavior as the follies of youth, which is just offensive shorthand for diminished responsibility, like blaming alcohol or anger. (Or blaming ‘mental illness’ as in PZ’s ‘Some days’ thread…)
For instance from the article Ing quotes above, where Mark Millar and the comics community are going after a blatant misogynist on Twitter:
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/09/04/comics-professionals-tackle-online-twitter-troll/
Details of the vile crap he spewed over Twitter here:
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/09/01/comics-vs-mistere2009/
I suggest reading those hateful things carefully while keeping in mind this is a 51-year-old married man. That should help dispel the bias that harassers like this one must be young people.
—
re Lego:
*raaaage*
…now I kinda hope some disgruntled parent out there names their daughter Ninja. <_<
There are assholes everywhere. There may be some fewer in the Atheist movement, but nonetheless, there they are.
Being a nerd/geek/IT Guy/Gamer/Comicbookfan WTF-Ever doesn’t (or shouldn’t) be a free pass. It’s like when you were kids, and Johnny and Bobby got out of hand with the paste, and so teacher made everybody listen to the lecture on not to play with paste, even though only those two were out of line. And, if you are Johnny or Bobby, you should have learned by now that there’s things you’re not allowed to do in polite company. Just look at it this way : “is this behavior I would do in front of my father and mother ?” if the answer is “uh, probably not” then why are you subjecting someone you hope to make time with to that kind of stupid, insulting and demeaning behavior ?
TLDR : WTF ? Act Like Civilized People.
This story reminds me of the time, many years ago, I was attending a party at a friend’s house. In the main room of the house there was an aquarium. I was leaning down looking into it when a noticeably hot, petite, young lady approached and leaned down to peer into the aquarium and began making small talk about the fish.
Just then a guy well known as a drunken asshole, approached, pulled his dick out and pushed it up against the tank not 12″ from her face, and asked the young lady if “she had ever seen a blow fish.”
Before I could even react the young lady stood up and in the same graceful motion, landed what I can only describe as a haymaker right on the guy’s nose, sending him backwards onto his ass, dick still out, blood running out his nose.
The whole party stopped. She leaned back down and peered back into the tank and continued the conversation as if nothing had happened.
Asshole was lead outside and asked to leave and I never saw that woman again. But it has made a great story over the years. One that my now grown daughters are probably tired of hearing.
Yes, our culture does indeed suck as a whole.
Most of our culture does not have enormous fucking hissyfits over harrassment policies existing at cons. On this point, you delude yourself.
We’re also normal culture, dude.
Pteryxx: In later books, the Lego people add that she’s a better blacksmith than her brother, and has her own unique fighting style…and even later they made her a samurai, but she’s still introduced as “not a ninja”.
And I can still hear her saying, “It’s just because she’s a girl…it’s not FAIR!”
She’s not all that interested in Lego, but I’ll still buy her any set that comes with a heroine. She’s getting this one:
http://monsterfighters.lego.com/en-us/products/default.aspx#9462
in her Christmas stocking.
And of course, the Monster Fighters line has five heroes…four men and one woman. I guess I should be grateful that it’s better than the Ninjago line, with six male ninja and one sister (and that’s ignoring all the skeletons and serpent-creatures, which I’m charitably assuming are genderless….despite the masculine voices on the cartoon).
Arrrgh… I hate sexism in voice acting. It ends up mirroring tokenism in live screen casting: there are roles for the smart or strong or troublemaker or leader male voices with all their different characteristics, and ‘a chick’. So women can’t even get a fair shake as voice actors.
Yet another reason to love MLP. *clings*
@Nitric
Wait she can’t be a ninja, an order of assasians that IIRC did have women (because infiltration and duh) but can be a samurai, a member of a patriarical fuedal class????
Its like saying she can’t be a knight but can be a pope (yes I know there was a lady Pope)
There were tons of samurai women, at least after it became formalized as a caste, so there’s that. They just weren’t (typically) warriors. It’s… kinda like female nobility in (most of) Europe that way. Not sure about prior to that period.
Also fwiw hearing about the little girl wanting to be a ninja was kind of heart breaking.
Re samurai and samurai women:
Depends on the period you’re talking about. Samurai started as a warrior class and only after Tokugawa they became bureaucrats.
I have never heard about samurai women though, and I studied Japanese history. Are you sure about that?
Vaguely. (Not sarcasm)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onna_bugeisha
It’s really too bad more societies weren’t more or less gender equal like pre-christian vikings.
Ing: It’s a kid’s cartoon where four ninja (using their magic powers of fire, cold, lightning and earth, along with their pet dragons) try to defeat evil skeletons from a different dimension, or evil serpent people released from magical tombs. An accurate portrayal of historical ninja is not high on their list of priorities.
@ruteekatreya
Interesting. Thanks.
Fuck, reading this article and others is making me realize how martial a role samurai women had in RL. IT’s kind of pissing me off at, among others, Legend of the Five Rings fans who insist that women in the setting have to be helpless and objects BECAUSE HISTORY. As stupid as that argument is on its own merits when dealing with fiction, it’s even stupider when they’re more misogynistic than history was.
Yet, RPG nerds are *still* less terrible than video game nerds (and I count myself more amongst the latter htan the former). And learning about gender and history usually does this =.=
ThePint, Rene Walling of Readercon infamy has not exactly been shunned in fandom since he was exposed. More details here.
@ Ms. Daisy – yeah, I kinda figured it wouldn’t hurt him *that* much, but I have to take some solace from the fact that at least Readercon’s committee saw through the bullshit of the Board’s decision, overturned it and that they’re at least trying to keep Readercon a safe space. That has to count for something, right??
Wait – that asshole was at CHICON7??? Mother!@#$!@#$!@.
Ok, now I’m not so upset I couldn’t afford the $175 ticket to the con this year (and it was in Chicago this year, I could have gone and know a couple of local author friends who were there).
Pint, yeah…. Readercon did right, and I guess we have to keep that in mind.
Jnorris:
Yeah, some asshole who buys into pernicious patriarchal notions of is just what this situation needs. And that’s on top of the bullshit about how men who abuse women aren’t