I Can Be Just As Capable. Let Me.

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/06/513794/

by shashashasha • 14 years ago

212 161 14 years ago

kotaku.com.au

sosuke• 14 years ago

I didn't even realize it was a female author until the quote about the PR person saying girls not usually being into this stuff. A PR person that is saying stuff like "I think I better play it for you" shouldn't be in that business, no matter who was at the keyboard. She said it happened many times, after a while I'd be compelled to say something to shut them up so I could play the darn game.

calibraxis2• 14 years ago

One female developer I know absolutely hates when male coworkers rip away the keyboard from her. I would too, though other males don't do that to me.

vishaldpatel• 14 years ago

Male developers tend to rip keyboards away from other males too though... it takes patience on the part of a human-being to not be in the driver's seat yet still be in control.

r00fus• 14 years ago

Not sure if this is sexism, more like horrible manners. I always request control of someone's keyboard when I need it (and given all the germs - I try to avoid it if I can!)

Of course, I am not female - I wonder if other female devs I know have this issue.

carbocation• 14 years ago

Hell, even if you were a virtually incapable, absolute neophyte, so what? The PR guy should still not be ripping the controls from your hands. These all sound like miserable demos, or perhaps very poorly trained staff.

imgabe5• 14 years ago

Maybe this is a consequence of the same problem in that women are not taught to be as assertive, but why wouldn't you just say "Hey, no thanks, I want to play the game for myself. If you expect me to write an accurate review of your game I need to actually play it."

Mystitat2• 14 years ago

The response is irrelevant. The point is that the PR reps made her feel like an outsider in her industry.

imgabe5• 14 years ago

And I wholeheartedly agree that those are lousy PR reps. But what's the takeaway here? The people who are actually reading this article likely overwhelmingly agree with her.

If you address your complaint about someone's action, not to the person doing that action, but to a large anonymous audience, how do you expect it to be rectified?

AskHugo• 14 years ago

The way many women in tech are treated is not acceptable, and I think that the situation is gradually getting better. That said, there is no reason why we shouldn't suggest that those who get pushed around should stand up for themselves in the time being, who knows, maybe it will speed up the process.

grannyg00se• 14 years ago

One could also say that she allowed the PR reps to make her feel that way by not speaking up. "I better play it for you" wasn't the first thing the guy said when he saw her. Clearly he had made some assumptions based on her gender, and possibly some previous experiences. But there was a lead up to that statement, where apparently she sat there silently ignoring his questions, looking puzzled. This confirmed his expectations that she had no idea what she was doing.

People are going to make judgements based on what they think they know. They do it all the time and sometimes it is a completely subconscious process. Sometimes it is deliberate. Sometimes it is a result of a lifetime of conditioning. It happens with gender, height, skin colour, attire, and pretty much anything else that you can quickly identify by looking at a person. If someone is judging you incorrectly, help them out and say so. It might be nothing more than an honest mistake.

rbehrends• 14 years ago

The problem is that there's a double standard at play here, and men and women get different reactions to being assertive [1]. Men are often considered to be stronger for it; women may risk being labeled as "bitchy".

[1] http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/12/ask-more

imgabe5• 14 years ago

This is a real problem. The situation isn't exactly analogous to a salary negotiation though. The balance of power between reporter/PR guy is much more equal than between employer/employee. Yes, if she encounters that guy again he might think that she's "that bitchy reporter", but he's still going to want her to write positively about whatever game he's promoting.

If he has even the slightest idea of how to do his job, he might appreciate the insight into how to make the demo the best possible experience for her. There's a good chance he walked away thinking "I sure did a good job showing that lady reporter how to play our game".

anigbrowl2• 14 years ago

I don't buy that. I go out of my way to be polite because I'm a bit old-fashioned that way, and sometimes I think I should be more assertive. But there's a difference between asserting your will and simply communicating information, such as 'oh it's OK, I play a lot of shooters actually.' Frankly, it sounds like the writer was spaced out and didn't give the guy any conversational material to work with, beyond the single syllable of 'yes...'

Pewpewarrows• 14 years ago

Besides the blatant sexism that's ripe throughout this woman's interaction with various staff members at E3: there's another underlying problem.

You shouldn't have to hold someone's hand through a game demo. And you certainly shouldn't need a PR person there to sell the game to your members of the press. The game should be as inviting and enticing to veterans who have been resting their fingers on WASD since they learned to walk as it is to someone who is just picking up a controller for the very first time.

Draw me in, let me lose myself in your entertainment, and don't make me think. A shining example of this is when first-person shooters stopped hiding the "inverse look" option in the deep recesses of a menu, and instead just asked you to "look up" when you first start a new game. Whatever direction you choose (up for up, or down for up (inverse)), the game then immediately flips the option for you behind the scenes. That's the level of UX and approachability that should be applied to every control and game mechanic in your title. A fact sheet shouldn't even be available. Make me fall in love in the first 5 minutes, like a well-crafted movie or book.

Games get away with so much because they can become addictive and time-consuming. And they'll still sell by the millions.

Negitivefrags• 14 years ago

This doesn't take into account the realities of an E3 demo.

For one, the clever tricks that ease you in to the controls generally occur at the start of the game. It's not just the UI of the game that allow a first time player to be able to understand, it's the design of a level to teach you. This is often not the part of the game that an E3 demo wants to show.

The second point is that a lot of the more subtle stuff that hints to new players how to play may not even be in the game yet. These E3 demos are with an incomplete product, but the developers have slaved to create a section of the game that seems polished. However, they know their target audience for the demo are experienced gamers, not members of the general public, so it changes their development priorities accordingly.

agscala• 14 years ago

I've played games that asked me this, but I never realized the connection was being made between toggling inverted y axis for the player. Cool!

gideons• 14 years ago

Please, the people who matter are:

1. buyers from retail who might "play" a game only at E3

2. Marketing people who are getting a sense for how your game is being received and might never play a game

3. Corporate tools who are checking how things are going and definitely never play games

4. journalists who may or may not play games or understand them.

The goal is not to let someone get lost in the entertainment but to get them to order a million copies in to retail, write a piece that gets everyone to buy the game, get marketing excited, keep your job or get a free trip to LA so you can drink your face off every night on the corporate dime. Plus it's E3, everything is cranked to a million decibels with a continuous strobe of nonsense.

My only bit of advice for the woman writing the article and others: Use Your Words. Tell the dude to go back to picking his wedgie and do your business.

nosse2• 14 years ago

This rant seems somehow familiar.

This kind of "girls not accepted in tech" was something "that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" at first. Now it's just repeating the same stuff, and I don't think it's gratifying anyones curiosity.

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

shashashasha• 14 years ago

It's not about curiosity here, and it's posted specifically because it's familiar, not because it is weird or uncommon.

nosse2• 14 years ago

That's completely true. HN is about curiosity however and that's why nothing should be educated to HNers by simple repetition.

Mz11• 14 years ago

I only got about halfway through this, far enough to wonder why she didn't tell him that she had to personally play the game in order to review it and, if that had not gotten him to move the fuck out of her way, then just walk off. No need to be "polite" and "respectful" to a dick.

SoftwareMaven• 14 years ago

That was my thought, too (followed immediately by "but I imagine there is a large gender difference in doing that"; I wonder how much of an outlier you are). It may have also been a subconscious thought in the people treating her so poorly, "If she is a real gamer, she wouldn't let me take the controls."

But, male or female, somebody shouldn't have to say "back off" to get some respect.

Mz11• 14 years ago

I both agree and disagree. I sometimes wish there were two words for "respect", one that expresses the idea that you shouldn't piss on someone else, that you should be decent to them just because they happen to be human. The other to express the kind of respect that one earns.

I have toyed with the idea of writing a post about that concept. I was thinking along the lines of quoting Riddick -- "There is one speed: My speed. Keep up or get left behind." My experience has been that competent men do not necessarily treat me worse than other men. They sometimes are talking "down" to me because they talk that way to everyone. When you are far more competent than average, it becomes difficult to assume or behave as if others are your equal. I am at times guilty of the same faux pas. In my experience, if you can keep up, some of the most competent men will genuinely respect you. What is tricky is pulling it off in a social situation where other people will interfere or where a man will become uncomfortable with a woman challenging the status quo. Her description sounds like it was fairly one on one, which is part of why I think I would have been inclined to quietly call him on it.

I can fairly confidently admit to being a significant statistical outlier for a woman. Even one of the female big wigs at my former job remarked on me sitting up front (edit: at the time she made the remark, I was sitting closer to the front than she was and she was the highest ranking woman in the department -- however, she was sitting next to a very high ranking male) which other people routinely interpret as Type A behavior, somewhat to my bafflement. I do that for reasons like I have terrible eyesight. But I am aware that other women also have issues like terrible eyesight and still do not sit up front. I have speculated that if I come across like an alpha female it is due in part to having a yawning disinterest in pecking order, not because I am trying to be at the top of the heap.

Anyway, have an upvote. And have a great day.

kalleboo• 14 years ago

> But, male or female, somebody shouldn't have to say "back off" to get some respect.

Is this really true? I've had it pounded into my head my whole childhood that you have to stand up for yourself to get any respect in this world. It's the theme of basically any coming-of-age movie. If that's what has to change for equality to work, then I think we're doomed.

ctdonath• 14 years ago

I finished it, and wondered why she consented to such treatment over and over, reinforcing the stereotype instead of objecting and demonstrating competence and tearing down the misconception.

Mz11• 14 years ago

In fairness to her, women tend to be socialized to do stupid stuff like that. Given a lifetime of such socialization, it can be very hard to come up with a better response on short notice.

I make remarks like the one above in part to help other women realize they do have other options. My experience has been that providing an example of more effective behavior tends to go a very long way towards empowering other people.

liedra13• 14 years ago

It can be really hard in a situation like that to stand up for yourself, especially if you don't want to cause a public fuss. I'm female, and at PAX East I was approached a couple of times (at social events, by attendees) and rather inappropriate things were said to me; it's hard to do anything other than just want to get out of that sort of a situation. Something inside you says "I can't believe he really means this", or "Did he really just say what I think he said?" - it is very much l'esprit d'escalier when it comes to standing up for yourself.

ceol3• 14 years ago

Most people put in those situations would freeze up exactly like she did. I'm surprised you would think a game journalist who had no prior expectation of this happening would, when confronted with such a situation, automatically think to "demonstrate confidence and tear down the misconception."

The 20/20 hindsight in this thread is ridiculous.

SkyMarshal2• 14 years ago

That was my reaction too. I'm more than sympathetic when women are made powerless and put down, taken advantage of, harrassed, assaulted, etc.

But this girl was far from powerless in this situation. That doesn't excuse the guy for being an unthinking sexist dick, but her blog post is a little too much of a pitty party.

Mz11• 14 years ago

Or perhaps her blog post is her attempt to begin thinking things through.

I am 47, a good bit older than most people posting on HN or writing tech blogs. I did a lot of journalling pre-internet, thus only read by me and sometimes my therapist. I now routinely examine my belly button in public, but a lot of what I write is stuff I have thought about deeply for many years. I assure you I threw myself plenty of pity parties when I was younger. In fact, I eventually stopped doing therapy because I reached a point where I felt that whining and crying to a therapist was helping me to keep alive a victim mentality and victim self image and I wanted to genuinely move on. But first I had to go through all that.

Both sexes are struggling to leave behind old paradigms. We all have a growth process to go through.

But certainly have an upvote for furthering the discussion.

taskstrike2• 14 years ago

I could be totally wrong. Perhaps what the author assumes is an assumption of incompetence based on sexism is actually additional attention due to attraction.

If I was a PR guy hanging out all day with guys playing games in a booth near me, and a girl showed up, the thought of "offering advice" to her would seem appealing.

Just applying simple human logic here.

jeremyarussell• 14 years ago

Human society dictates that in a professional atmosphere, people should be trying their best to maintain their professionalism, not win brownie points with the cute girls.

mindstab• 14 years ago

"offering advice" is different than removing her from play and taking over. If someone bumped you off a game and took over treating you like an invalid how happy would you be. Poor tactic even for flirting. And it's a business conference showing off wares, poor and inappropriate time for flirting too.

just no

taskstrike2• 14 years ago

I'm not sure PR guys at a gaming conference are Don Juans. He might be going for this: http://www.masterfile.com/stock-photography/image/400-047792...

Yes, theoretically they should all act professionally and give reporters equal attention regardless of gender. But I find that in reality human nature dictates behavior more than guidelines.

king_jester3• 14 years ago

So the PR guy isn't sexist for assuming a woman is incompetent and can't understand video games, but is sexist because women at a gaming conference are conquests and not professionals. That totally makes it OK.

goldensaucer5• 14 years ago

I'm finding a lot of the responses to this article disheartening. There's a common trend of "she should've said something," and while many here disapprove of the PR guys' treatment of the writer, they're still quick to defend his innocence or obliviousness. Focusing on how the author could've done better to defend herself against sexism is pretty problematic and indicative of this brand of derailing the conversation: http://www.derailingfordummies.com/education.html

saraid2167• 14 years ago

It's victim-blaming.

The interesting thing about victim-blaming is that it's paradoxical. It both presumes that the victim is vulnerable and that they're superhuman: that they can both be hurt and power through that hurt like a storybook hero without more cost than a few extra words.

This is one of the nastier side effects of the self-empowerment movement. By accepting personal responsibility and demanding others do the same, we isolate each other and make it harder to override the Bystander Effect.

ta121212• 14 years ago

Not everything is always black and white.

Of course the PR people should not be sexist.

But if a person doesn't take even the slightest, tiniest effort to defend themselves against something that is wrong, they're "going to have a bad time" whether that thing which is wrong is something politically charged like sexism, or simply individual malice.

Also, prejudice like this is most likely due to ignorance, and the best antidote to ignorance is education.

anewguy• 14 years ago

It's not victim blaming per se. When a male has a problem, he is trained to keep it to himself. If he shares it with anyone, he is most likely told to suck it up and fix it. To live a male existence is to live without sympathy. It is little wonder that we have little sympathy for anybody else. When someone comes to us with a problem, we respond with the only advice we have ever been given - fix it.

When you are a male, every shortcoming, every bad situation is chalked up to your own personal inadequacy. There are no social forces to blame anything on.

Maybe it makes us stronger. Maybe it makes us dicks. Maybe a bit of both.

chc• 14 years ago

The problem is that she raises two separate issues, one of which was his fault and one of which was partly his and partly hers. People are following her lead and conflating the two.

1. The guy was a sexist prick.

This was his fault, and she obviously doesn't deserve any of the blame for his broken worldview.

2. She didn't get to play the game.

This was partly her doing. He still deserves some of the blame because it's his job to represent his company well to her and he didn't do that. But she didn't so much as indicate a desire to play it, which I don't think is too much to expect from an adult acting in a professional capacity. Non-videogame journalists have to deal with much fiercer opposition to their reporting than some sexist twit making unwarranted assumptions, but somehow political stories still get written (by women, no less).

pvarangot• 14 years ago

Have you though that maybe she is a video-game journalist and not a non-video-game journalist partly because she doesn't want to deal with what you describe?

Its ridiculous to demand the same amount of experience in dealing with adverse situations to people who choose to review commercial products for a living and to political or war journalists. Specially when you are demanding expertise in approaching a hostile subject in order to get your facts prior to forming your opinion.

nuaccnt• 14 years ago

There's women are more-stupid/less–competent than men sexism and there's women are less likely to have spent time attaining a useless (and kinda dorky) skill at first person shooters non-sexism.

snowwrestler• 14 years ago

I certainly won't defend the jerky guys, but I will say that to be an effective journalist you have to be willing to be a jerk to people sometimes, or at least manipulative--regardless of gender.

In this case the sexism is obvious in the stories, but in general most PR reps believe it is their job to "manage" (manipulate) journalists. Journalists need to be ready to fight this--with anything from friendly persuasion to persistent confrontation.

The PR rep's job is to deliver a carefully crafted story to the public; the journalist's job is to tell the truth. The roles are inherently confrontational.

calibraxis2• 14 years ago

I wish that could be the case, but the journalist's goal is to help the magazine profit, like any other employee. (For more info, Robert McChesney is a good historian of journalism.) The two roles are often symbiotic: the PR rep feeds the journalist. The journalist's company generally sells eyeballs to advertisers, which have interests in common with the companies that the PR reps work for. The reviewed company may even be a major advertiser.

(Of course, there may be some differences of interest, since they're not employed in the same corporation.)

caycep• 14 years ago

As a reporter, you deal with unsavory people all the time. The writer should use the experience as a way to devise her own methods of creating contacts/breaking the ice at this sort of thing. Or if the game/PR was indeed that bad, write a scathing review.

Contacts don't make themselves - cub reporters have to wear out shoe leather walking the beat, talking to the right cops and the right people on the street. Clueless PR people should be the least of their worries.

gavanwoolery3• 14 years ago

#FirstWorldProblems. If you want to fight for something, fight for the rights of women who are really suffering throughout the world, through sex slavery or misogynistic cultures/religions. It really bothers me that there is still a "struggle" for women's "rights" in the US - equal liberties were won long ago. Are there inequalities and assumptions made about each sex? Certainly...but nothing worth fighting for. Use your voice where it matters...i.e. not here, not concerning gaming.

Miky• 14 years ago

Really? You're really saying that people should not care about rampant sexism in the gaming industry just because some people have it worse? I suppose we should stop working to help poor families in the first world because people starving in third world countries have it much worse.

gavanwoolery3• 14 years ago

Actually, that is correct. You should help people in 3rd world countries first. Most of the homeless in America are "voluntarily" homeless, or have drug/mental problems. Even still, as homeless in America, they have it better off than most people in 3rd world countries. The average person in a 3rd world country lives off a few American dollars (equivalent) a day - and that is your average person. Here, a homeless person can probably get that much begging in a day. And calling it "rampant" sexism is ridiculous. We sexualize women, obviously, because that is what sells. There is no shame in sexual attraction (or depictions of it), no more so than the average square jawed, six-pack male protagonists we create. Sexuality is an advantage in this world, not a crutch. Let's stop pretending like its such a bad thing.

hansbo• 14 years ago

There's a huge difference between problems "here", and problems "there". If a problem exists in our own culture, close to home, we have much more power to change it. Not everyone can be an activist, but everyone can behave appropriately.

xiaoma• 14 years ago

>“Well, OK.” I sensed a disbelief in the guy’s voice. “But do you play shooters?”

I remember the silence that filled this space beyond this question. I was horrified that anyone could even ask such a thing. Here I was, sitting with my fingers spread across WASD, admiring a game world — and somehow, for some obtuse reason, being assumed to be someone who didn’t know anything about the world or how to interact with it.

“I think I better play it for you,” he said finally, prying my hands away and turning the keyboard towards himself.

If it had been me, I'd have said "Yeah" as I continued playing instead of refraining from both talk and play until the silence was uncomfortable and then going home and writing an article about how oppressed I was. The poor guy was very possibly just trying to do his job and be helpful.

On the other hand, the article she did write made the front page here and it's unlikely that any article about the game itself, however good, would have gotten this kind of circulation. I guess that's why she's a successful journalist and I'm just a gamer.

Torgo• 14 years ago

People keep calling this a professional setting. But it's a press expo. "Booth babes" as popularized by seemingly every video game or entertainment expo evolved out of companies hiring attractive women for their expo booth, to flirt with potential customers. This particular convention one year had a company set up a display of a live "schoolgirl slumber party" that devolved into a lesbian makeout session. Flirting is expected. Sex is shoved in your face.

whether that is a good thing or not is beside the point that standards of professional conduct at E3 aren't the same as a staid business professional gathering.

seivan• 14 years ago

Just wanted to clarify (and not to trivialize the issue here)

More often than not it's not developers who decide to add the achievements for looking up skirts. It's the business monkeys and other people who have "studied" game design but forgot to do hello world some where along the way.

Usually developers who decide the course of a game work their own indie studio. And are smarter then that.

johngalt• 14 years ago

Some women are put in game journalism roles because they are appealing to their audience for reasons other than their gaming knowledge. PR person misunderstood her silence and made a bad assumption. This misunderstanding could have been easily corrected. Saying, "No thanks I'll drive. What type of damage model do you use?" is plenty to show you mean business.

People shouldn't judge books by covers, but they do. Best you can do is give them one good shot at understanding. This will separate the actual jerks from those who just guessed wrong. Most people don't want to offend you, so don't spend your time walking around with silent resentment over something that's done by mistake.

ekianjo• 14 years ago

> for reasons other than their gaming knowledge.

Well said. It's fairly obvious when you see some of the women reviewing games online for famous publications/websites : they play by the looks. That Kotaku writer may be an exception. People reason with rules of thumbs, and the rule of thumbs is that women involved in gaming professionally are not all hired because of their skills and knowledge as gamers.

ceol3• 14 years ago

It's easy to tell someone to give everyone a shot at understanding when you're not on the receiving end of it all the time. She had this happen multiple times, so she rightly assumed what anyone would: These PR reps assumed she couldn't play their games because she was a woman.

EGreg4• 14 years ago

What about these PR reps, what if all the other girls they say that day weren't really experienced players of shoot-em-up games, how were they supposed to know she was different right away? Doesn't your comment apply equally to say she assumed things?

gutnor• 14 years ago

Yes and they are right most of the time. Not because women cannot play those games, just because the majority of the women that are sent there do not.

As a foreign developer, I'm on the receiving end of that type of attitude all the time when there is talk about business, marketing, local trivia ... or most generally about a project they never thought I had heard before.

People make assumption, you can set things straight in the first seconds of the discussion. So I say in this case, grow up: they don't know you, swallow your pride and just tell them you mean business.

What would be more worrying is if their attitude do not change immediately after that. That is still a day-to-day problem for women in anything IT related, but I would except big show like the E3 to be quite smooth about that.

schme• 14 years ago

People do and should judge books by covers. They just should be more willing and quicker to correct their misjudgements.

jasonwocky2• 14 years ago

Other people are not books, and they deserve better than to be treated like books.

jdbernard4• 14 years ago

“I think I better play it for you,” is what she claimed the PR representative said. That is incredibly condescending, bad assumption notwithstanding. If I was a female gamer I would find that insulting, even if I was clueless. The assumption is not really the problem, the problem is the condescending and insulting attitude that the author ran into again and again. I would expect a PR rep for a gaming company to be more professional and be a better communicator. That is his job.

"Would you like me to give you a tour of the game?"

"Do you want me to drive, or just point things out as you go?"

"Do you have much experience with first person shooters?"

"It looks like you know what you are doing. Is there anything you would like to know about the game?"

All those are better ways he could have started the conversation. They do not assume anything, they make it easy for her to let him know her level of experience, and they are not insulting or condescending.

Produce5• 14 years ago

This site's design is annoying. Does it really need to fade in that most commented/most viewed sidebar every time I scroll? Why the hell do I even care about that when I'm trying to read the article? Goddamn marketing monkeys, when will they get a real job?

scotty794• 14 years ago

Dress like idiot, be ready to be seen as idiot.

Pink skirt? Face paint? Guy in a suit with comb-over would be treated with similar condescending stance unless he could prove he actually plays.

I know it sucks and I hate it but people profile you by your look.

ericabiz• 14 years ago

As a woman in tech, I am dumbfounded by comments like this one. It is equivalent to saying, "Well, yeah, she was raped, but look at what she was wearing. Maybe if she hadn't been wearing that..." Disgusting.

I can assure you the sexism doesn't change when you stop wearing skirts and start wearing pants. I speak from years of experience. And honestly, as a man, you don't have to even think about whether what you choose to wear would suddenly get you treated as if you were a vapid teenager, or a toddler. You do not have to make a choice about what you wear in order to avoid getting a keyboard snatched away from you by a member of the opposite sex who assumes you are stupid because of how you look.

If anyone ever wonders why there aren't more women in tech, you don't have to look much further than these comments to understand. I am a proud, strong fighter and I have been a successful tech CEO for years. But even I grow weary of battling these types of comments so often.

scotty794• 14 years ago

I'd never say such a thing. Same way I'd never say "Well, yeah, he got his ass kicked, but look what he was wearing. He looked like homeless. Maybe if he wore something normal." I agree that justifying doing harm by what the victim wore is disgusting.

But if I wear homeless guys clothes to interview at the bank I might not get hired. I don't like it because I know that the things I wear have no impact on my skills as long as they are comfortable, but I won't be surprised by it. People judge people by their clothes.

I think that women if anything have easier time with that. Some of their clothes are really ridicules and still they are tolerated. Man wearing skirts or stockings would have trouble even asking what time it is.

You want to be perceived as gamer. Look like gamer. Or be ready to override your looks by strong character and/or language. Man value women gamers much more then men gamers but they have to believe that they actually met one.

> I am a proud, strong fighter and I have been a successful tech CEO for years.

I am honored with your response and sorry that I've upset you.

liedra13• 14 years ago

Thanks, you've captured my thoughts absolutely. Some of the comments in this post make me really frustrated - it's almost a one step forward, two steps back type thing. Having to jump into the fray every time someone starts talking about the gender gap (and claiming it doesn't exist, or that all women have to do is just get more assertive/stop wearing sexy outfits/stop overreacting) does get very wearying - and it's really quite pathetic that we still have to do it.

sp3325• 14 years ago

Gamers don't see themselves as most people. You have to positively identify with a subculture, otherwise you're part of the "majority" non-gamers.

Rape would be a lack of human decency. Treating someone as a non-gamer is treating them like a "normal" person.

lotharbot3• 14 years ago

I agree with a lot of what you have to say here, but:

> " as a man, you don't have to even think about whether what you choose to wear would suddenly get you treated as if you were a vapid teenager"

I'm a stay-at-home dad. On the rare occasions I'm able to leave my toddler home, I have to be careful about how I dress in order to avoid being treated as a vapid teenager or, worse, a creepy stalker.

More generally, men do have to worry about dressing in a way that identifies them as competent or fitting in to whatever subculture they're trying to fit in to.

nnythm2• 14 years ago

I was skimming this article and thought that the premise was that first person shooters were switching to using the up, left, right, and down arrows instead of wasd. I felt the lede + nut graf (was there even a nut graf here?) was misleading--it was completely about the buttons, not about the identity of the gamer, the game industry, nor society in general.

I am interested in articles about female gamers and how they deal with the unpleasantness surrounding the gaming industry, but I wish that blog posts were held to a slightly higher standard--I am a fairly fast reader, and had to double back to reread large parts of the article to recalibrate as the article started talking about being directed to games with fuzzy animals and facebook games instead of shooters, when I expected the author to be complaining about the wasd keys opening different menus rather than moving around the character.

This seems to be a pretty good argument for paying for better quality journalism. I bought a copy of GQ, not exactly the highest brow magazine in the business, admittedly, and the articles weren't riveting, but it was efficient to read them, because they were written carefully and in the traditional journalistic style, with a lede, nut graf, and transitions. Furthermore, it's a magazine FOR MEN so most of the words were Anglo-Saxon and avoid the errors that Orwell rails against in "Politics and the English Language." I never felt like I was being jerked from one idea to another, and I understood the point of the article if not from the titled or the images associated with it, then at least from the first few paragraphs.

TL;DR: May there be truth in advertising, if bloggers can't write a proper lede, we will have to pay for news.

andrewdupont• 14 years ago

You do realize that opinion pieces don't necessarily follow the traditional lede-plus-nut-graf formula, right? And that some pieces aren't meant to be skimmed?

> Furthermore, it's a magazine FOR MEN so most of the words were Anglo-Saxon and avoid the errors that Orwell rails against in "Politics and the English Language."

I don't even know what you're trying to say here. I mean, I can guess, but it makes me queasy.

nnythm2• 14 years ago

Yes, for example Foucault or Derrida is not meant to be skimmed, and part of the point of reading Hegel is to struggle with it. It doesn't make sense to make the reader struggle with an opinion piece, since you are generally trying to persuade someone of your opinion. Although opinion pieces don't necessarily follow the traditional lede + nut graf format, this one appeared to do so, until the actual content was different from the first few paragraphs.

GQ prefers short Anglo-Saxon words because they think it's a style that men prefer to read, and what I am trying to say is that using too many words that were imported from French is generally used to make people sound smart because it was once the language of bureaucracy, but generally makes things harder to read.

Consider, "I don't even know what you're trying to say here. I mean, I can guess, but it makes me queasy." This is an extremely clear sentence, and would be pretty similar if translated into Middle English. This is generally the argument that Orwell makes in Politics and the English Language.

http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/patee.html

rickmode• 14 years ago

I wonder if this is a at least partially due to the difference between gamers / geeks and the type of people that do PR. Perhaps the PR "normals" may not know the geek culture that deeply.

Not that there isn't sexism in geek culture either. I'm just genuinely curious if the PR types in the game industry are this colorblind.

yason• 14 years ago

I'm not sure I even got the point, it was a long text and the author seemed to ponder aloud more than underline the root problem. But what I got was that she was overrun by the representatives because she didn't set boundaries and didn't refuse to accept their help. A simple "No thanks" would've gone a long way.

There's no point in blaming the representatives: they probably try any angle they can find to approach you unless you decline. Suppose you go to a bookstore and the clerk comes over, asking "Can I help you?" and then you answer "No, thanks. I'm just browsing." They don't know you if you're a good gamer or a newbie, so you just need to tell them yourself.

saraid2167• 14 years ago

The difference here is that bookstore clerks are generally well-trained to not ask questions like, "Are you sure you don't want the romance section?"

nsxwolf• 14 years ago

I don't get these game developer reps. I've been to E3 five times in my lifetime, going back to Atlanta 1998. There were always plenty of women playing shooters.

compay• 14 years ago

"Let me?" Don't ask for permission. And it's not that you "can be" just as capable. You are just as capable. Nobody needs to "let you" do anything, just do it.

I Can Be Just As Capable. Let Me.

Related Stories