It's great to be aware of social issues, but I find myself disagreeing with the foundation of this article. While online gaming is a very easy way to expose yourself to the harsh realities of prejudice in the world, I don't believe there is a relevant relationship between sexism and games as a medium. Considering the differences between Call of Duty players and Animal Crossing players, I think the studious will quickly recognize that the same differences are identifiable between firing range patrons and a members of a gardening club. Proof-reading that last sentence gives me one thought "well, that's just a no-brainer!" as it should. The gaming community comprises hundreds of niches that have their own personalities and behavior, just as the "television-watching community" does. To draw conclusions about the whole based on behavior of the relative few is offensive to me as a gamer.
I agree with you that there are problems with racism and sexism in gaming. In fact, as a gamer I have unfortunately seen this myself. Gamers can be really, really awful.
I also know that the bullying and bad behavior is not isolated to victims that are women or minorities.
And another point: is it possible boys just like playing computer games more than girls?
If you wanted to draw a completely different conclusion, sure, but this is talking about how the male-dominated gaming community treats women. It's not talking about how a female-dominated gaming community would treat men.
Anecdotally, the gaming communities that I've been a part of that have had more representation of women have been much more pleasant.
Part of it, to me, has always seemed to be due to the institutional/personal divide. I enjoy watching people playing video games professionally, and yet as a feminist, I can say that it is ridiculously sexist scene. I can condemn the institution without condemning its members, and my saying it is a sexist institution is not my apportion blame; I simply would like to see the system improved.
> While the percentage of female gamers has increased, that has been primarily due to the rise of mobile games, which often do not have characters.
Combining "mobile" gamers with PC/Console gamers is like combining chess players with professional wrestlers.
Just because a lot of women play Candy Crush, doesn't mean that you need all PC and console games to have female protagonists 50% of the time.
I think the real problem here is that there are a few female gamers that go online and just get offended by the same thing male gamers say to each other all the time. Maybe online games should have a 'politically correct' section where easily offended people could go and play.
Some gaming communities are hostile to noobs. Some are hostile to women. Some are both. I'm surprised anyone is willing to make the claim that there is no hostility towards women in videogame communities!
I don't believe in the idea that the video game itself is the source of the negative influence rather than the community surrounding it.
Video games from the pre-internet era was just as marketed towards the males as the it is right now, but the toxicity level is higher than ever in today's "community" focused gaming.
Overwatch is a good example of this. I applaud the developers for making such a diverse and stereotype-defying world and rosters. It is a game that includes lesbian characters, an autistic character, a beautiful Iraqi city thats not war-torn, and a futuristic African city thats not a slum. But even all that doesn't stop the player base from being toxic and harass other players for whatever reason.
a) Where did I say that women aren't experiencing harassment on some gaming communities? In fact, I explicitly acknowledged it. Your post is kind of pointless virtue signaling or something.
b) I just pointed out that it's just generally not about your gender. It doesn't matter if you're a man or woman: every newcomer gets harassed in really rough ways using the most biting insults available. A fat guy will get the obvious insults. An ugly guy will get obvious insults. A young kid who has a high pitched voice because he hasn't hit puberty yet will get obvious insults. A gay man will get obvious insults. So will a black guy or an arab. Or a christian. They'll use any facts they know about you. And guess what, women are treated equally here as well and will get insulted. Not saying it's right, but it's what actually happens to everybody. Gamers are treating women equally, I thought that's what women wanted?
c) The only difference is that when a woman gets harassed, most of civil society is sympathetic about it by default and she'll get a horde of white knights expressing sympathy. When a man gets his feelings hurt, he's portrayed as weak for showing emotion. Maybe this is part of the reason that some men are seeking an escape from society?
d) It's really hard to know whether your community is hostile to men unless you're a man. A lot of women just don't understand how much harassment a typical man experiences, and when they hear it criticized basically fall back on "well I don't see it" and conclude it must not be happening rather than trying to collect more information. (2 of us can play this game)
e) While this is a fascinating discussion that I'd love to have, this point about sex and male/female relationships is 100 times more important than debating about harassment to women gamers for the hundredth time. Things like family and relationships are important motivating factors to men, and when social reforms (some people call that progress, some don't) remove or lower that factor for ~80% of men, civilization will also decline.
It does suck that mainstream games nowadays are very macho-male oriented. But if you can look at the whole of gaming, there really are plenty of female protagonists, respectful and strong ones too. It's an annoyance of mine that games like Gears of War and Halo drive what most people think videogames are.
Online gaming is very male dominated. And yes places like Xbox Live are not exactly the best place for girls, unfortunately. But if you instead jump on Steam and play a game of Team Fortress 2 for example, it's a completely different story. Sexist, racist mouthy gamers are not always the norm. Different communities attract different types of players.
My fiancee loves the Tomb Raider movies. When I showed her that they are based on a video game series, she had no desire to play the games at all. I was careful to show her Tomb Raiders were Lara's boobs aren't ridiculous too. She has the opportunity to interactively play through the movies she loves, but that just doesn't interest her. Anecdotal, yes, but in my experience a lot of girls feel this way.
I think the crux of it is despite being a gamer, the author wants to distance himself while criticizing said "gamers" from his high horse. Also, the author admits to avoiding multiplayer so it's mostly his opinion on secondhand information from female gamers (selected from a pool of the most offensive stuff).
Not saying that etiquette isn't an issue but this article doesn't really advance the cause. However, the way you call out the behavior and setting an example is really the only viable solution.
I don't think any serious person is arguing that sexist games are making people sexist who wouldn't be otherwise. Certainly nobody is arguing that sexism is mostly caused by video games.
Sexist games are a problem because they are a space in our culture where women are inferior, or are only sex objects, etc.
In a similar way, there was a time in America when a white person could safely make derogatory jokes about black people to his white friends with little risk of social blowback. Thankfully, anti-racism eventually took that cultural space away. It's not that those conversations were directly doing black people harm, but rather they were part and parcel of a culture in which it was okay to do black people harm in general, a culture that is hopefully being further eroded.
Similarly, I would expect to see the amount of sexist games reduced over time because I hope we are eroding the culture in which it is acceptable to see and treat women the way they are portrayed in these games. That's why speaking out against sexism in games is important--because it is part of the project to make sexist attitudes in general unacceptable in our society, something I hope we all agree is desirable and necessary.
Bullies will find a way to harass people, regardless of gender, is your point? I agree with that. The article is trying to point out that the gaming community is hostile towards women. I don't think your point is all that relevant to the discussion.
I agree that the "gamers" as defined by the author are a rowdy bunch (for lack of a better term) but I have a hard time understanding the author's motive. Is the article trying to bring a feminist perspective to gaming?
While it would be nice if we could all be respectful of race and gender while shooting at the pixel versions of each other, what problem does it solve? Do we want more female gamers? Is this behavior of immature people anonymously venting or raging harmful to society or to the individual's development?
Games are really one of the few outlets for aggressive behavior in the modern world with zero risk of physical harm. It satisfies competitive urges and requires a variety of mental and physical coordination skills (that may or may not be domain specific). Even if you cleaned up the language used there's always going to be trash talk and new "leet speak" or euphemisms to get around censorship.
It just reads like a half-baked article that lobs a blanket insult at male gamers without any real substance.
I fear that this comment spurred the wrong discussion. Sexism and racism addressed in video games is not the problem -- 12 Years a Slave, She's the Man, and 10 Things I Hate About You are not the problem.
The problem is that games like Red Dead Redemption, Hitman, and Grand Theft Auto systematically reward sexist and racist behavior (tying a woman to train tracks, brutalizing prostitutes, etc.). Many refute the idea that video games can affect a player's long-term behavior, and as far as I know both sides of that argument are difficult to study and prove.
I do hypothesize, however, that these video games reinforce or at least mimic the very real disregard and dehumanization of females in society. It's not so much video games that are the collective problem, it's people.
EDIT: I am realizing this comment is being interpreted as if I were suggesting a ban on certain qualities of video games. I am not. I am only postulating some sort of parallel between video games and real life.
Your comments in this thread are about dismissing the message of the article, by reversing the roles (you talk about men being "harassed" by this article), by using rhetoric analysis (which looks to me like an excuse to share two links that have nothing to do with the article).
Sure, anyone can pick flaws in an article, especially in a piece of opinion like this one. One could go on and on about how this is biased, how that is a fallacy, how this is a red herring. That's usually the vast majority of comments you'd get on articles about women condition in our society/our communities. Thing is, this is not a mathematical demonstration or a scientific call for review.
What I didn't like about your comment is that you don't show the faintest sign of empathy towards what women in the video game industry might endure, and that you actually put a fair amount of energy dismissing what I see as a call for reflection, or help.
What I like about the other comments in this thread is the "shit, I never knew that was broken, thanks for the article, what could we do to fix it?" mentality that I generally see in HN threads about technology, hacking, health, etc.
* Disappointing that the false meme about some gaming communities being hostile to women because they're women was promoted in this article. Some gaming communities are very hostile to newcomers: but it's not because you're a woman, it's because you're a noob or just suck. Welcome to one of the last remaining meritocracies.
* The article makes a correct observation insofar as more men (not just an occasional sad social reject) are using games as an escape, often due to poor economic realities. But it's disappointing that the huge role that male/female relations and sex plays in this trend is ignored.
* Google terms like "the sexodus". There are many politically incorrect truths here about what is going on with male/female relations and why more men are seeking an escape and why everybody is unhappy that I think are more at the root of this issue.
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