Game designer Brenda Romero quits IGDA following party with hired female dancers

http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/28/game-designer-brenda-romero-quits-igda-following-party-with-hired-female-dancers/

by credo • 13 years ago

27 25 13 years ago

jpxxx2• 13 years ago

You're invited to a conference that's relevant to your position and your industry.

When you arrive, a number of hired twentysomething men are milling about wearing tight tee-shirts, padded crotches, and skintight jeans. They're dancing, drinking, flirting with you and your coworkers, and subtly drawing attention towards their ample bulges. Some people in the crowd are really getting into this, having their pictures taken with them. The room starts getting sweaty, the music amps up, and the paid gogo boys start thrusting their cocks in rhythm with the music.

Comment freely!

mich413• 13 years ago

I don't think I would resign from a job because somebody from the company invited Techno Viking to dance at some party.

Feminists really should man up and stop crying over everything. One can't take them seriously.

jpxxx2• 13 years ago

Troll. But just in case you're not permanently damaged yet:

Imagine you're invited to a party where you are the oldest, fattest, least appealing person there, and you're not particularly made to feel welcome.

Now imagine you're expected to attend dozens of these parties in the course of your employment.

Now imagine that these parties are intentionally arranged this way, and that the pretty people are paid to be there for the express purpose of making you look and feel old, fat, shabby, and unwelcome.

Does this compute? Does it seem fun?

sp3324• 13 years ago

IGDA's official response, which I don't see on their own website: http://gamasutra.com/view/news/189548/IGDAs_official_respons...

iamtherockstar2• 13 years ago

IGDA asks for opinions, and that's great, but it's demonstrative of how hard social change can be when it's a democracy: You wait for the majority of voting members to speak up about it before you really see it as a problem to address. Social change should probably be proactive, but that's a hard problem to solve.

derefr2• 13 years ago

Gender politics is still politics.

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

Is this an evidence of some interesting new phenomenon?

sp3324• 13 years ago

Well, not so many people had lost their jobs and/or resigned over it before.

joe_the_user3• 13 years ago

Surely, "politics" means things like elections, politics in-generals. I would assume hn would be interested in the politics of programming, the politics of game design, the politics of intellectual property.

I mean, patent trolls are at it this year like last year and it's news for us.

derefr2• 13 years ago

Things like IP law are our "inside baseball" politics: things that only make sense/matter to hackers. I can see a place for that here.

Gender politics which happens to affect a game designer isn't, though; it's immediately understandable to anyone in the general population, and will likely pop up on many other more "general-interest" sites like Reddit. (And, like the guideline says, could be covered on the TV news.)

I take the "spirit of the law" of the HN guidelines as being not that there are certain topics that are bad to talk about on HN (in est, a blacklist); but rather that HN is mainly for discussing things that go "over the heads" of the general population (a whitelist.) HN brings together people who crave other knowledgeable folks willing to discuss subjects usually lost on the people around them.

HN is a respite from the inanity of general news/trivia/discourse, and to ensure it stays that way, we have to be willing to forgo the usual logic of "this instance of [general topic] affects one of our own! Surely [general topic] itself is now on-topic for any manner of discussion or debate." It seems to invade, and eventually dilute, every community that doesn't specifically have a rule about "these are the subjects we talk about here."

An instructive parallel: in my experience, every knitting community has an entire sub-board to talk about pregnancy. What expertise do knitters have to contribute on the subject of pregnancy? Wouldn't these people be better off going to a pregnancy forum, where actual expert knowledge can be aggregated? They're having the same conversations happening in every other pregnancy subforum of every other tangentially-related community, instead of getting together to have one conversation.

What special expertise does HN have on gender politics?

iamtherockstar2• 13 years ago

If you're not familiar with her, Brenda wrote a book called "Sex in Games." She worked on a game about the Playboy Mansion. She's no prude, and she's very anti-censorship.

Combine that with the actions in the article, and I think there's a very compelling discussion that can take place about the difference between sex and sexism.

sergiotapia4• 13 years ago

I'm tired of this shit. I'm tired of these people getting more attention than they deserve over inane PC-BULLSHIT.

So she quit because at an after-party, where the vast majority of attendees were men, there were exotic dancers? Apparently I should be in a hissy-fit where I work because every other Friday my company has a ladies-night and the VP (who is a woman) and the other ladies that work here go out to have fun as a group.

Next story, please. I'm tired of this crap, I'm tired of reading about it, and I'm tired of people fawning over it.

Edit: This will probably be the last time I comment on these type of posts. I'm just going to flag them moving forward as they are against HN TOS with no political posts being allowed.

sp3324• 13 years ago

IGDA agrees with her and apologized. A real apology, not "we're sorry you feel that way". Also it wasn't an after party, it was an actual industry event sponsored by YetiZen.

Edit: oh and she just got the lifetime achievement award for promoting women in gaming! https://twitter.com/br/status/317385016286003200 She's not just whining and throwing a fit; she has more perspective on this than you do.

joe_the_user3• 13 years ago

So she quit because at an after-party, where the vast majority of attendees were men, there were exotic dancers?

Wow, So is your idea that when there are mostly men at an event, exotic dancers will just naturally follow? Is your idea that events with mostly men are natural too, rather than being a result of, say, the lack of women in the industry?

"All group X" parties don't seem terribly threatening if group X happens to be under-represented and under-empowered in an organization. Similar parties are very threatening in the opposite situation. Consider a "white people's night out" in a company with lower minority representation - that would be a very bad thing (legal, morally and for company morale). Yeah, events for over-represented-group to get together and do things that might make under-represented-group annoyed are problematic. They send a message to a person in the under-represented group even if that person doesn't have problem with the activity per se.

Edit: Double wow, your wasn't top-voted when I started my reply.

sergiotapia4• 13 years ago

Oh yeah, this looks really inappropriate and sexist! Pffff.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolpinchefsky/2013/03/27/reall...

gruseom2• 13 years ago

[Edited to remove reference to original parent.]

Toxic comments are a bigger problem than inappropriate posts. The latter can always be killed or flagged, whereas toxic comments poison the bloodstream of the site. They're the opposite of the civility that HN's guidelines call for.

Too many of us treat HN as a dumping ground for personal anger. (I say "us" because I've not been immune to this myself.) One should try not to, and if that's hard, one should try harder.

sergiotapia4• 13 years ago

Fair enough, I've removed the first line; I agree it was a toxic comment. I just felt the need to vent.

mdisraeli• 13 years ago

I'm tired of THIS shit.

I'm tired of unprofessional activities like this being ok, because FOR THE MENZ. Because we have "a very special culture". Because the 'intent' was pure (because intent is MAGIC).

I'm tired of having to fight to have my technical skills recognised on an equal footing as men. I'm tired of my baseline pay offerings before negotiation being less, even after accounting for the difference in perceived skill level. [1]

I'm tired of women being perceived as dominating discussions when they are only providing a third of the input [2]

I'm tired of the issue of women being less able to speak is swept under the carpet by the very group of people that repeatedly (like right here) re-enforce this, and then go and blame the victim! [3]

Which, if you haven't noticed, is exactly what is happening here.

Inappropriate entertainment for a professional space is laid on. Women present and directly affected by this sort of thing [4] complain publicly - and rightly so. If you are supposed to be representing the women within an organisation that has done this, your damage control actions are pretty much limited to quit and disavow all involvement. There is no other safe way to recover from the destruction of trust just caused. This is the same throughout business, unless you are so well entrenched that trust is a moot issue, or you really are the only person who could possibly see it right again.

I'm not going to go into all the other reasons why this entertainment was completely messed up, and I shouldn't even have to.

This stuff belongs on hacker news, because we don't live in a world of just finances and code. Because hackers should question their own assumptions and prejudices. Because a company that pisses off 50% of clients and employees needlessly is stupid [5], and understanding how people interact is utterly fascinating and extremely useful.

[1] http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/201...

[2] http://people.ucalgary.ca/~qinli/publication/ajet_cmc_harass...

[3] http://jezebel.com/5944642/women-speak-75-less-when-theyre-s...

[4] http://blog.katylevinson.com/booth-babes-street-clothes-and-...

[5] Actually, the figure is much, much higher than that. Most men I know care about this, or at least care about their families.

mich413• 13 years ago

In case somebody wonders what constitutes "women dancers in revealing clothing".

http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolpinchefsky/2013/03/27/reall...

drivebyacct22• 13 years ago

I don't know why jpxxx's comment is hidden:

---

You're invited to a conference that's relevant to your position and your industry.

Comment freely!

---

For my own commentary, I agree with jpxxx, or at least the point I think he or she is trying to make. It's the same hypocrisy seen with homosexuality in a lot of males: "gays are gross, lesbians are hot" -> "Half naked dancers are okay, as long as they're female! Duh!"

And that is precisely the problem. It's not acceptable either way. It's not about being PC, it's about being appropriate. It was a conference, not a strip club.

sp3324• 13 years ago

It was alive earlier, which means it got flagged into oblivion pretty quickly. My response:

This isn't the point. Even if everyone thought the dancers were sexy, or they had men as well as women dancing, it was still inappropriate for an industry event. This isn't even an organization trying to sell something, it's a group for employees in the games industry. Completely pointless.

drivebyacct22• 13 years ago

Well hmm, maybe we interpreted his comment differently. I took it as satire and as pointing out the same thing you are. I agree, it's not appropriate and it wouldn't be any more so if it were just men, just women, or a mix. (The vivid imagery of a man dancing around like that is meant to point out that "but they were hot" or whatever is not a valid response to the issue at hand).

mich413• 13 years ago

You're invited to a conference that's relevant to your position and your industry.

To a party relevant to your industry.

I'm pretty sure the dancers were not even allowed to drink and they didn't flirt with female participants, if they flirted with anybody at all.

Some people in the crowd are really getting into this, having their pictures taken with them. The room starts getting sweaty, the music amps up, and the paid gogo boys start thrusting their cocks in rhythm with the music.

And I guess at this point I'm supposed to imagine getting drunk, gang raped by gays and whatnot.

This "analogy" was a severe exaggeration of what really happened.

Game designer Brenda Romero quits IGDA following party with hired female dancers

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