No skin thick enough: The daily harassment of women in the game industry

http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/22/5926193/women-gaming-harassment

by smacktoward • 12 years ago

196 323 12 years ago

EarthLaunch3• 12 years ago

What should a game studio to do counter this and make its employees safe from it?

eli10• 12 years ago

I think that's a good question, but what practical things can an employer do here? The harassment isn't really happening "at" work, it's coming in through tumblr and personal blogs. And (I hope!!) the people sending these threats are not other employees.

Iftheshoefits3• 12 years ago

Actually, it happens through various mediums gaming companies control, such as in-game communication, forums, and the like.

Companies can, and should, take vigorous legal action against customers who issue such threats. It would be a good start.

lotsofmangos2• 12 years ago

The employer has more resources than the employee. Lawyers and private investigators would be a start. If I ran a company and found out my customers were sending death threats to my staff, I wouldn't care where it occurred and would throw a good amount of resources at finding out who they were, having them prosecuted, and then publicising the results as a sort of modern version of putting heads on spikes.

edit - though I would go to the person making the threats and give them the opportunity to make amends first before involving any level of publicity or authority.

falcolas3• 12 years ago

Perhaps hire fewer employees right out of college for crap salaries, and foster an environment where senior employees with families can work?

There is simply very little diversity in applicants who apply for videogame jobs, and if your entire employee base is comprised solely of these applicants, it's going to become an echo chamber.

The people who would not stand for this type of behavior are typically not those who would stand for 80+ hours a week of work at $25,000 salaries.

Build a diverse employment environment with your employees spanning the spectrum in terms of both age and gender, and the problems will become more and more self-righting.

As an anecdote, the only environment where that kind of inter-personal discussion was reinforced and accepted was one where the majority of employees were just out of college. Every other company where the majority of employees are over 30 has not tolerated this behavior at the employee level.

EarthLaunch3• 12 years ago

That is off-topic. That cliche about the game industry is irrelevant to this question. These verbal attacks are from outside the work environment, and have no awareness of the composition of the company. And these attacks do happen to mature teams and people, I've seen it.

chillingeffect2• 12 years ago

Protip: Form an all-female software company. Gender-discriminatory hiring practices don't apply to small companies.

See Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. 2000e and following). Title VII applies to employers that fit into the following categories: private employers with at least 15 employees.

14 Women can get together and not hire any men if they want. They can make software for women and get rich and support their families if they want.

They don't need men. They can make this completely public, legally. 14 people not big enough? Form a second 14-woman company and subcontract out to them.

chaostheory5• 12 years ago

Reverse discrimination isn't much of an answer. It's just a temporary hack that doesn't fix the real problem.

Jemaclus7• 12 years ago

I think the best thing to do as far as internal harassment goes is to basically have a no tolerance policy from the higher-ups. Not so much a "you'll get fired" thing but having everyone step up and say "Hey, that's not cool" when someone makes a sexist joke.

At my job, we had a guy for awhile who would post funny pictures in chat. Every once in awhile, he'd post something NSFW (not necessarily nudity) and all the guys would just say "lol" and the women wouldn't respond at all. What should have happened (and I'm guilty of not doing this) is that all of the other men should have stepped in and said "Hey, you know, that's not cool."

A lot of why this kind of stuff happens, I think, is that there's a sort of acceptance implied by the fact that so few men speak out about it. We just let it happen. We frown inside -- or maybe we really think it's funny! -- but we never say "Don't do that."

A strong culture of morality, of speaking up when something is wrong, would go a long way to helping foster a safe, secure atmosphere. Public shaming will stop that behavior in its tracks. Eventually, either the harassment stops or that person leaves.

In the case of my coworker, I don't think he really thought things through. I don't think he meant to be offensive or post sexually harassing things, I think he just honestly thought they were funny and posted them. That doesn't make it okay, but it doesn't mean he needs to be fired, either. He just needed to be told "That's not cool" enough times to make it stick.

As far as external harassment goes, like the ones in the article, I'm not really sure. I think we as a community need to just stand up against this type of behavior, but it's hard when the harassment is all private, like via email or text messages.

TL;DR Say "That's not cool" when bad shit goes on.

gknoy2• 12 years ago

Great point. I know that when I see mildly inappropriate, my first reaction is to laugh, even if it's not always the right reaction.

My kids are at the age where they make poop and fart jokes, and I confess that I find them funny. I fear I will always find them funny. I am unable to be upset when my kids swear -- even if I don't think they should be using those particular words. (Was there ever a more sincere expression of three year old frustration than when you overhear them saying, "Fucking _bummer_"?)

But, at work, it feels like there's a different line. The things I would laugh at if I saw them on my Facebook feed (linked by ladies or men) would make me uncomfortable to encounter at work. The mild "so to speak" banter, or the (non-sexual) mild harassment that men and women friends have had has always been funny, but I feel weird when I hear it at work. My inner dialog is usually, "I'm not offended, but ... is that okay? Are we allowed to joke about ... ?"

I tend to listen a lot more than I speak at work, as you can probably tell. ;)

tomp9• 12 years ago

Personally, I disagree. I have no problem my coworkers saying dick/sex/insulting/racist/etc jokes, whether they are male or female. If I worked at a company that claimed to have a "relaxed" office culture (i.e. most startups, not corporations), I would strongly voice my opinion that such censorship is inappropriate. The recent case of an Attlasian developer making a joke about his girlfriend at a conference comes to mind - I would offer my support for such a coworker and publicly state that I think the company's reaction was inappropriate.

Obviously, if people want to opt out of such email, they should be able to, but some might also do it for other reasons (e.g. prefer less distractions in their inbox).

Torgo3• 12 years ago

In every other situation this place bemoans the cruelty and stupidity of "zero tolerance," which I think is the correct reaction. Other than that I agree with everything you're saying.

7Figures2Commas3• 12 years ago

I think the best thing to do as far as internal harassment goes is to basically have a no tolerance policy from the higher-ups. Not so much a "you'll get fired" thing but having everyone step up and say "Hey, that's not cool" when someone makes a sexist joke.

What you describe is not a zero tolerance policy. A zero tolerance policy requires punishment and "Hey, that's not cool" is not punishment.

If an employee is harassing another employee, he or she should be punished. Depending on the nature of the harassment and the employee's prior violations of company policy, the offending employee should absolutely understand that termination may result.

At my job, we had a guy for awhile who would post funny pictures in chat. Every once in awhile, he'd post something NSFW (not necessarily nudity) and all the guys would just say "lol" and the women wouldn't respond at all. What should have happened (and I'm guilty of not doing this) is that all of the other men should have stepped in and said "Hey, you know, that's not cool."

This is precisely why your approach to the problem doesn't work: the first response of the people you're asking to say "Hey, that's not cool" is to "lol" when presented with a NSFW picture at work. This is simply a reflection of the fact that some percentage of employees are not mature and professional enough to have developed an awareness of the environment they're in.

It's silly to expect self-policing from folks who don't understand that a NSFW photo that might genuinely be amusing when shared outside of work can be incredibly awkward or offensive when shared at work.

georgiapeach30• 12 years ago

Good job equating death threats with what some easily offended pearl-clutcher thinks is a sexist joke.

cheez18• 12 years ago

I lead a development studio that makes games. Sometimes, I write about issues in the games industry that relate to the equality of women. My reward is that I regularly have men threatening to rape and commit acts of violence against me.

My suspicion is that she is not threatened because she leads a development studio, but because she is a writer. She's not asking for it, but she is making herself a public figure and they are usually targets of such behaviour.

I'd hope that the women I work with aren't regularly getting rape threats from my co-workers...

I’ve personally never heard of a man in the games industry getting rape threats for having an opinion.

Because men are not women, and women are not men, it goes a little something like this: rape is an act of power (not sexual satisfaction). The threat of rape is the threat of asserting power over someone else. When these lowlifes are offended by a woman, they respond with the animal instinct of threatening to overpower them and rape is the closely available tool. None of them would actually ever have the guts to rape, I'm sure.

When men have contrarian opinions, rape is not threatened, but a whole chain of events occurs, the purpose of which is to remove as much power as possible from that man.

Consider famous causes that you know of where men who are not independently wealthy and have voiced opinions that are controversial to some. What happened to them? They were fired, demoted, jailed, investigated etc. The PyCon case some time back comes to mind.

Consider famous cases of women who did the same. What happened to them? Threats of rape. The same woman involved in the PyCon case, I'll bet, received rape threats. Additionally, she did get fired because she was a public spokesperson for her company.

These threats are about asserting power over dissenting viewpoints in a bid to make yours dominant. You perhaps won't outright hear of a man getting threatened with rape, except maybe in prison or during a competitive game, but you will definitely hear of men being hurt in different ways for having opinions that make people uncomfortable.

eli10• 12 years ago

I get what you're saying... but I think you're getting downvoted because it's dangerously close to victim-blaming. No matter what they wrote, nobody ever deserves graphic threats of rape and murder.

And, c'mon, by your definition pretty much anyone with an internet presence and an opinion is a public figure, and therefore a "target." I don't think that's a helpful way to approach the problem.

cheez18• 12 years ago

In the area of competitive sports, it is pretty common to receive death threats for athletes who do not perform well.

I'm not saying it's right. It's not. I'm saying that the reader needs to tease apart the two.

sp3325• 12 years ago

She's not threatened because she's a writer, she's threatened because some people in the community are abusive and law enforcement hasn't stepped up and done its job.

cheez18• 12 years ago

She's a target of the threats because she's a public writer. It's not good and obviously it's not her fault, but sometimes it feels like a woman-in-tech's workday must go something like this according to the articles I see:

7am: coffee

8am: get to work

9am: rape threat from coworker #1

10am: standup meeting

11am: death threat from coworker #2

lucretian• 12 years ago

You perhaps won't outright hear of a man getting threatened with rape, except maybe in prison or during a competitive game, but you will definitely hear of men being hurt in different ways for having opinions that make people uncomfortable.

it's rather bizarre that you managed to transform this story into something about men when the article is pretty clearly about the uniquely violent verbal abuse women are subject to in the tech sector.

cheez18• 12 years ago

Really?

Because the article literally says:

I’ve personally never heard of a man in the games industry getting rape threats for having an opinion.

legulere• 12 years ago

Obviously you get more threads if you're a writer or even a journalist. Journalists get pretty extreme hate mail all the time.

But that's not what this article is about. It's about how it is different from what men get and about how it is more than what men get. You won't get the same reaction from writing a blog post as a man as what's described in this article.

georgiapeach30• 12 years ago

It's about how it is different from what men get and about how it is more than what men get.

It's about that, but it doesn't prove that. Not at all. Not one bit.

Four anecdotes aren't proof of anything.

Come back with stats.

orf3• 12 years ago

It's depressing that the first few top level comments here have been deleted due to their ridiculous content, people presumably read the article then decided to post things like "its banter, get over it. Men deal with it all the time".

Just shows how deep the problem goes I guess.

falcolas3• 12 years ago

The first few top level comments were from one or two people; green accounts at that. I don't attribute their malice to this community at large, or even as a representation of any remotely reasonable community.

sp3325• 12 years ago

The article is about case studies, but sometimes it helps to get some numbers too. e.g. "Accounts with feminine usernames incurred an average of 100 sexually explicit or threatening messages a day. Masculine names received 3.7." http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/women-ar...

hnha• 12 years ago

by how many senders?

coldtea4• 12 years ago

"its banter, get over it. Men deal with it all the time". Just shows how deep the problem goes I guess.

Why, isn't it true? I mean, if one's going to argue one is much worse than the other, then some citation is needed.

Empirically, men don't (usually) get rape threats. But they do get death threats. And they don't usually get sexual comments on their looks. But they do get comments that they're "fat", "dorky", "idiots" etc. And the classic "gay" comments.

frio2• 12 years ago

"Women are the niggers of gender," the email said. "If you killed yourself, I wouldn’t even fuck the corpse."

That's the first line of the article. That's banter? That's equivalent to being "fat" or "dorky"?

eli10• 12 years ago

If it makes you feel better, the ones I saw suggested they had not, in fact, read the article.

georgiapeach30• 12 years ago

It goes just as deep for men as it does for women, if not moreso.

Do you see us crying about it?

Grow up already.

orf3• 12 years ago

But it doesn't though.

jarin5• 12 years ago

I would argue that men don't get rape threats because most men don't see rape as a realistic threat to themselves.

Instead, we have our masculinity, loyalty, abilities, work ethic, and/or integrity attacked, because those are the things that cut us to the core.

I'm not saying that women don't care about those things, I'm just saying that when someone is trying to be a dick they're going to go after the lowest hanging fruit.

Of course, I think we all need to keep working to end this kind of harassment. We all know it exists, and most of us guys disapprove of it, but few of us are taking the extra step of saying "that's not ok, dude" when it happens.

In the meantime, I've had some pretty hurtful/maddening stuff directed at me in the past by a group of people online, and I learned that you either take the Phil Fish route and flame out, or you have to find some way to distance yourself emotionally from the bullshit or ignore it. It's fucked up, but you have to protect your sanity until the problem is fixed (which it might never be).

Edit: Unrelated to the topic, but it's interesting how this comment got a large number of upvotes before the downvote brigade started trickling in. I'm not anti-feminist here, folks. Just trying to elaborate on the discussion and hopefully learn some things.

Iftheshoefits3• 12 years ago

There is a nontrivial difference between the modes of attack you note that work better on men and those that work better on women to achieve a psychological impact. The difference is significant--for women, the difference is a matter of (literally) being physically assaulted or even killed. Men face that kind of threat far less from attacks against our masculinity, loyalty, etc.

The article notes this. Women shouldn't be expected to distance themselves from a very real threat of physical violence, which men simply don't face to anything close to the same degree.

coldtea4• 12 years ago

The article notes this. Women shouldn't be expected to distance themselves from a very real threat of physical violence, which men simply don't face to anything close to the same degree.

Mean deal with threats of physical violence all the time. Including actual attacks, which is far more common between men. They just don't deal with rape threats/attacks.

jarin5• 12 years ago

I should make it clear that I'm in no way saying the two are equivalent. I'm only commenting on why men don't get rape threats (or don't take them seriously on the odd occasion when we do). Many of us have gotten empty threats of violence so many times (between high school, bars, random scumbags on the street) that we don't take it seriously unless someone is actually getting up in our face ready to swing.

arrrg3• 12 years ago

I do see women’s femininity (or lack of masculinity, actually!), loyalty, especially abilities, work ethic and/or integrity attacked all the time. I don’t really understand why you are under the impression that doesn’t happen to women. The objectification and threats of (sexual) violence happen in addition to that.

Again, you seem to argue that there is some kind of balance in harassment and both men and women receive the same amount. That is not true at all.

jarin5• 12 years ago

I'm not arguing that one bit. I'm trying to have a conversation about WHY there is an imbalance.

briantakita• 12 years ago

Disclaimer: I'm male & this is my opinion.

All things being equal (content, credentials of speaker, etc), a woman speaking tends to get more attention than a male. People are naturally more attracted to the feminine than the masculine.

Exuding feminine energy draws people in. This expression may or may not be conscious. It's at least partially conscious though. It often works to that person's advantage to look good.

People are going to react to this feminine energy who also has something to say. I understand that it's not fair to emphasize the feminine, however we are driven more by emotions than by rational thought (even "rational" thought tends to be driven by emotion).

Another angle is harassment toward men does happen and is simply not talked about, laughed off, and downplayed. It's not useful to keep score and categorize who harassment happens to. If you are a victim of harassment, does it matter that you fall within a majority or minority of the demographics?

rayiner• 12 years ago

Someone calling you a pencil dick doesn't cut you. Its just words, not grounded in anything the speaker knows about you. What's scary about rape threats is that it points out an uncomfortable truth: the 95th percentile women is about as strong in the upper body as the 5th percentile man. The guy making the rape threat knows that and so does the target. Its backed by reality in a way most comments directed at men aren't.

Gracana4• 12 years ago

It's also backed up by a culture that tells women they're responsible for their own assault/rape/harassment, so defying these threats means you're also defying the people who say it's your own fault, go somewhere else, you're asking for it, etc.

cobrausn3• 12 years ago

I follow a few twitter accounts of a few prominent game devs (both male and female), and I've noticed that the more attention (i.e., followers) they have, the more regularly you can expect to see threats and insults as a reply to practically anything they say. I think the same kind of people that would troll a male dev by calling him a 'fag' would probably be the same kind that would issue a rape threat to a female dev, and probably think there is nothing wrong with either.

On an related note, if I do ever make games, I won't have a public twitter account, facebook account, or personal blog. Something about the nature of that industry just brings out the worst in people.

eli10• 12 years ago

Do male video game employees have people texting them death threats with their home address too?

cobrausn3• 12 years ago

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2012/04/23/game-devel...

"Sometimes, things get worse than just angry emails and tweets – one developer said that the threats that made him lose sleep were the ones that involved his children. Sometimes people start saying that they know a developer’s home address. Bowling says that he started receiving suspicious packages – never a good sign in the modern era."

jarin5• 12 years ago

Yes. Probably not in proportion, but it does happen regularly.

http://www.polygon.com/2013/8/15/4622252/plague-of-game-dev-...

http://iphoenixdown.com/2013/08/16/video-games-and-death-thr...

Zikes15• 12 years ago

This is the sort of journalism I would expect to find on Jezebel, rather than Polygon.

Filled with us vs. them mentality: no man can understand, men all think this, men always tell us that. Men never deal with harassment, death threats, or rape threats. Well, here's a little variation on Hitchens' Razor: what can be proven with anecdotal evidence can be dismissed with anecdotal evidence.

http://www.edge-online.com/features/toxic-games-community-co...

http://i.imgur.com/HBxSZBF.jpg

The worst of it is, one paragraph opens with "Women in the industry are told by men what is valid for us to feel." and only a scant few paragraphs later is an entire article written by a woman telling men how they should act and feel. Part of which is "so great" that it deserved to be made into an "inspirational poster". Everyone thinks what they have to say is inherently valuable, I'm pretty sure that's a major component of the human condition.

arrrg3• 12 years ago

Not all men, eh? Don’t be so sensitive, grow a thicker skin!

Is it really so hard for you to believe that you can’t understand – at least not completely – the situation someone is in? I would never be so arrogant as to believe that I, as someone who is straight, understand how it is to grow up gay, for example.

Zikes15• 12 years ago

It's good to see that sloganeering and thought-terminating cliches will drive what could have been a proper debate on the issue.

I guess there's no room at all for dissenting opinions, especially when they point out hypocrisies or bring counter evidence to the discussion.

lukasb• 12 years ago

Pretend for the moment we're in some crazy mirror world where women are frequently mistreated, in ways that many well-meaning men don't see. In this world, it makes sense for a woman to lecture those well-meaning men about empathy - to ask them not to tell women what to feel - because they're just missing some basic information.

Zikes15• 12 years ago

Pretend for a moment we're in some crazy mirror world where whites are frequently mistreated, in ways that many well-meaning blacks don't see. In this world, it makes sense for a white to lecture those well-meaning blacks about empathy - to ask them not to tell whites how to feel - because they're just missing some basic information.

No, wait, that would be racist.

But your version magically is not sexist?

Edit: To the folks downvoting this without being able to offer a counterpoint: that strong negative emotion you're feeling? That's called cognitive dissonance.

Steko2• 12 years ago

Am I wrong that this would have been the top upvoted comment on HN 5 years ago? If so maybe that counts as a tiny bit of progress/small strides. Or maybe this will be the top voted when I come back later, /sigh...

Zikes15• 12 years ago

If you disagree with any of the points I've made, I'm all ears.

I did not make that comment in some lame attempt to troll or stir up controversy. I have presented my case against using the harassment of women in gaming as an excuse to target and harass the male demographic, and I'm willing to discuss it further with anyone that's interested.

mperd7• 12 years ago

I haven't been reading HN for that long, but I'm rather impressed that this thread didn't get that much similar comments. I think it shows community maturity and also that these subjects are getting through in the IT crowd.

Jemaclus7• 12 years ago

I read articles like this, and I think to myself, "Damn, I'm glad I'm not one of those guys."

Then every time I see a photo of Marissa Mayer, I think, "Damn, she's hot." And then I hate myself for making that my first thought instead of something more equal like, "Damn, she's accomplished and brilliant" like I do when I see a photo of Robert Downey Jr or Idris Elba or Benedict Cumberbatch. But no, if it's a woman, my first thought is about her looks instead of... well, instead of anything else.

I'm really glad I don't have kids (yet), and in a lot of ways, I hope I don't have a daughter. I'd rather raise a son to treat women fairly and with respect than to have a daughter who has to live in a world where articles like this are written. But if I had a daughter... I'd do my best to help her be strong and confident, and to make her way successfully in a world where this kind of shit goes on.

So senseless. :(

hnnewguy• 12 years ago

I think, "Damn, she's hot." And then I hate myself for making that my first thought

It's pretty much my first thought when I see any woman (and some men). I can't help it, it's the product of us being animals. Who cares. I don't feel guilty, and certainly don't hate myself for it.

I hope I don't have a daughter.

Oh brother...

Gracana4• 12 years ago

Yeah, the problem is not that having those feelings, it's acting entitled to force those desires onto other people (in whatever form that may take) that's the issue.

Jemaclus7• 12 years ago

Oh brother...

Ha. I don't mean that I don't want a daughter... It's just that every time I think about having a daughter, I think about these issues, and it scares the shit out of me. Raising a son, I wouldn't have to worry that much about this stuff, and I could focus on helping him help make the world a better place, instead of worrying about whether my daughter is gonna get raped because she wore short shorts today. That make sense?

I really have no preference as far as kids go, it's just that when I read articles like this, the idea of having a daughter seems terrifying.

Al-Khwarizmi• 12 years ago

I also think the same as you when I see a photo of Marissa Mayer. I don't think that's bad, it's just our instinct (and damn, she is hot). If our ancestors didn't have it we wouldn't be here. And by the way, women have this kind of thoughts when they see a hot man, too.

The problem is when people go from thoughts to words or even actions, and act as if we lived in prehistory instead of in a civilized society. Fortunately I think men behaving as disgustingly as in the article are a tiny minority. And unfortunately, that minority can still do a lot of damage. The duty of the rest of us is to not turn a blind eye to this. This kind of trolling cannot be permitted.

sliverstorm• 12 years ago

It cuts both ways though, doesn't it? Do women who see a photo of Robert Downey Jr see his acting career, his recovery from a drug rut, his philanthropy? Or do they see a hot guy?

samirmenon• 12 years ago

I don't know, I'm gay, and when I see a picture of Benedict Cumberbatch or Robert Downey Jr, I certainly don't think "Damn, he's accomplished and brilliant"; I think "Damn, he's hot!"

worldsayshi3• 12 years ago

I don't think that judging attractiveness in itself automatically leads to poor judgement about the person. You find your partner attractive (hopefully) but that doesn't mean that you see ver as incompetent. The problem is when you you can't keep things separated I suppose.

oldmanjay8• 12 years ago

When I see a picture of Benedict Cumberbatch, I think "he looks awfully pinched. He might need more fiber."

I'm straight. Not sure what impact that has.

mikeash• 12 years ago

I'm not gay and that's still my first reaction.

dictum2• 12 years ago

Then every time I see a photo of Marissa Mayer, I think, "Damn, she's hot." And then I hate myself for making that my first thought instead of something more equal like, "Damn, she's accomplished and brilliant" like I do when I see a photo of Robert Downey Jr or Idris Elba or Benedict Cumberbatch. But no, if it's a woman, my first thought is about her looks instead of... well, instead of anything else.

I wouldn't be so apologetic about it. I don't know your sexual orientation, but it's natural to not think of men as hot (or only think it as a second thought) when you're not sexually attracted to men.

You don't magically acknowledge Mayer's accomplishments and abilities better if you force yourself and others to not think of her attractiveness.

Just don't make someone's attractiveness their only accomplishment. It's easier said than done, but to illustrate, it's okay to think "Damn, she's hot" when you see a photo of a woman, but it's not okay to write a profile that focuses on her attractiveness and distracts from her other attributes; it's okay to think a man is hot, but it's not okay to tell your coworkers about it.

Be careful not to confuse systemic sexism with personal sexuality.

_pmf_• 12 years ago

Then every time I see a photo of Marissa Mayer, I think, "Damn, she's hot." And then I hate myself for making that my first thought instead of something more equal like, "Damn, she's accomplished and brilliant" like I do when I see a photo of Robert Downey Jr or Idris Elba or Benedict Cumberbatch.

Are you really under the delusion that women do not react that way to an attractive man?

scotty796• 12 years ago

... "Damn, she's accomplished and brilliant" like I do when I see a photo of Robert Downey Jr or Idris Elba or Benedict Cumberbatch.

That's weird. When I see them I think they are good (or at least interestingly) looking and have pleasant voices. I would never think of them as brilliant or accomplished (even though I know they are) because they do something I have no idea about. Just the same when I saw worlds best CEO, lawyer, window cleaner, bus driver, mercenary or whoever. I have no idea and I don't really care what it means to be brilliant and accomplished at those jobs. It might be horrible. It's just too alien for me.

When I see Marissa Mayer I have a mixed feelings. I notice she's attractive, and I'm happy this didn't get in a way of her reaching her goals. On the other hand I'm sad that most of the attention she get's from the media is just because she's an attractive woman. I'm also sad that I see a geek that transitioned to management which is always a loss of a good brain.

Could people who downvote me explain why and in what way my thoughts are damaged?

logfromblammo2• 12 years ago

You got downvoted because you posted an honest description of your own state of mind in a feminism thread. It happens elsewhere as well, not just on HN. Eventually, you learn to just avoid participating in those conversations. Never mind downvoting for individual disagreement; on certain topics you will be downvoted for disturbing the acoustics of the echo chamber.

Mammalian brains are hard-wired to notice reproductively relevant physical features first. Retraining your brain to notice anything else is fighting against the thousands of generations of sexual selection that occurred before civilization was even invented. The major problem is that there are no outward physical signs of outstanding competence in your niche of economic specialization, so no effective competition to displace "Wow, that body looks like it would be great for assuring the survival and prosperity of my potential offspring."

You cannot wish it away. You can't guilt people into not doing it. It will simply continue as long as our brains are still subjected to the mind-altering chemicals that testicles and ovaries typically produce. You are not a bad person for thinking such things.

But, of course, now that civilization has been invented, and we have developed values beyond simple babymaking, it would be inappropriate to speak or act until well after you have engaged the areas of the brain responsible for either rationality or empathy for at least a few seconds first, and possibly both. The proportion of people who actually think before speaking or doing is still depressingly low, and that is why we see stories like this.

Fomite10• 12 years ago

An attempt at a more useful response than logfromblammo's "because feminism" answer.

There's a couple things that probably rate a down vote in some people's minds:

- "I would never think of them as brilliant or accomplished (even though I know they are) because they do something I have no idea about. Just the same when I saw worlds best CEO, lawyer, window cleaner, bus driver, mercenary or whoever. I have no idea and I don't really care what it means to be brilliant and accomplished at those jobs. It might be horrible. It's just too alien for me."

This honestly is kind of a weird stance to take. You don't think about anyone in any way other than aesthetics (look and voice) if their life experience doesn't completely match your own?

- "I'm also sad that I see a geek that transitioned to management which is always a loss of a good brain."

This is:

a. Pretty insulting to anyone who has gone into management, which is, believe it or not, sometimes something that does involve your brain.

b. Especially problematic as writing off management, HR and other "soft" fields as not as important as engineering is a common way to sideline the women who do make it into tech companies, as they are somewhat more common in those areas.

NotAtWork4• 12 years ago

Then every time I see a photo of Marissa Mayer, I think, "Damn, she's hot." And then I hate myself for making that my first thought instead of something more equal like, "Damn, she's accomplished and brilliant" like I do when I see a photo of Robert Downey Jr or Idris Elba or Benedict Cumberbatch.

My first thought about Robert Downey Jr is usually something about his hair or attire.

We're primed to study the physical appearance of others when we see them. I don't see any reason that it's bad to notice that someone is attractive, has a funny haircut, etc.

The key point is that it's just a thing, and to move on to more important things (such as they're accomplished, intelligent, etc) rather than dwelling on physical ones.

Insisting you not see that she's attractive seems as weird to me as just focusing on her being attractive.

JamesArgo• 12 years ago

This is an example of useless guilt. Strive to blind yourself when there are consequences of your bias, otherwise acknowledge it. Beauty leaks into our perceptions of all other personal qualitative - both men and women are affected by it. Short of brain-modifcation, you will find it impossible to disregard beauty so don't feel guilty about it. And don't think "I'm glad I'm not one of those guys." Women are just as afflicted by "lookism" as Ted Chaing called it. Men and woman are people. People suck.

There are other biases like "force of personality bias", too, where we assume charisma is heavily correlated with correctness, which isn't necessarily true. In terms of solutions, things like blinded hiring and internal prediction markets might help mitigate these. However, if we are going to experience beauty and charm we have to accept the fact that these qualities will affect our opinions of those who possess them. There's no way around this without changing the nature of our perceptions of these phenomena, and thus the phenomena themselves.

alexqgb2• 12 years ago

There's nothing wrong with registering the fact that someone attractive is attractive. Seriously, that's like waking up to blue skies and gentle breeze and saying "wow, what a nice day."

The trouble stars when a specific kind of odious and socially toxic person encounters an attractive person. The first thing they do is ignore the "person" and focus on "attractive" as though they were dealing with an inanimate object which can be owned, controlled, manipulated, and eventually discarded. Their response to the presence of the attractive person reflects their basic lack of regard for the other's humanity. These responses are both abusive in their own right, and - if unchecked - contributory to a culture in which the targets of this treatment are freely abused.

In other words, the problem isn't about your immediate, natural response. The problem depends on whether you're a respectable human or an contemptuous creep, and thus, how you respond. Needless to say, the assholes make themselves known pretty quickly. The problem gets out of hand when they're allowed to dominate a space or situation.

worldsayshi3• 12 years ago

You can't suppress feelings of attraction but you can control how those feelings influence general perception of that person. It's about realizing that that there is by no necessity correlation between features of a person. It is human to eagerly seek correlations that might not be there.

Fomite10• 12 years ago

The issue is not whether or not you think Marissa Mayer is hot. People are attractive - that's alright.

It's whether or not your thoughts about Marissa Mayer stop at "Damn, she's hot" and don't acknowledge her (or any other woman) as anything other than pleasant set dressing for your life.

JonnieCache• 12 years ago

Ironically, "woman is the nigger of the world" is a quote from Yoko Ono and the title of a song she did with John Lennon; it was meant to be a piece of feminist sloganeering.

Somebody got a bit confused.

Gracana4• 12 years ago

It's still kind of a terrible statement in its original context, like, that is the opposite of intersectionality.

georgiapeach30• 12 years ago

Nope, they just reappropriated the quote.

Geekette3• 12 years ago

These are the sorts of issues that make one wish anonymity online was impossible or always traceable. The cowardice that lives in people is astounding. For those muttering the free speech line: freedom of speech ≠ freedom of consequences.

Geekette3• 12 years ago

Not sure why I'm being downvoted for wishing for an environment where people wouldn't be able to send rape/death threats anonymously and responding to the comment (now deleted) that defended such threats as free speech.

jarin5• 12 years ago

It's probably because there are also plenty of excellent reasons to have anonymity as an option online.

scotty796• 12 years ago

Maybe people just don't like to be prosecuted for what they say?

Besides there are trolls that happily ignore their own anonymity.

avz3• 12 years ago

I haven't downvoted you and don't really understand why anyone would, but I do disagree with you strongly. I think you've failed to account for many vulnerable groups who could (and in fact have in the past) suffer as a result of disclosure. Some examples: minorities prosecuted for their religion, ethnicity, political views or sexual orientation, political activists, journalists, apostates or other people who expressed criticism of established religion or state ideology.

georgiapeach30• 12 years ago

Actually, the Founding Fathers did consider anonymity to be an essential component of free speech, which is why they published the Federalist Papers anonymously.

TL;DR You're wrong.

chaostheory5• 12 years ago

Myth: Everyone in the games industry experiences harassment. Women are just too sensitive about it.

This is not a myth. The difference is for whatever reason, the men being harassed (due to race, sexual orientation, etc...) don't have the courage that women have to come forward.

The video game industry is by and large dominated by adults who never grew up in more ways than one, though the larger the company the less this is an issue (though still a problem) due to the existence of HR and legal departments.

scotty796• 12 years ago

I'd say that internet could use a whole lot more killfiles, hellbanning, spam filters trained not only against commercial messages, whitelisting. The only reason that default is to allow for communication is that it's easier to implement. In the old times only kings could afford decent cutlery. Nowadays every peasent can. When I try to communicate with Obama today I won't succeed. Maybe in not so distant future if someone would want to communicate with me he will have to prove that he has something I'm interested in hearing. And another rape threat is rarely interesting.

tux1968• 12 years ago

It's sometimes sad to look at our social maturity or lack thereof. But articles like this are important to force us to look at ourselves. The problems highlighted in the article are a result of the anonymity of the internet and the immaturity and natural aggressiveness of young men. It seems we're fighting our primitive selves, and for that there are no easy answers.

Would just like to say though, that most men are not the perpetrators of such acts, and in fact are quite often victims of men like these in one way or another. Women have many natural allies amongst men.

Anyway, it seems to me that such behavior wont survive being exposed to daylight, and that over time progress will be made.

chiubaka2• 12 years ago

Wow, I'm really glad I read this.

I'm making a video game myself right now, and this such a relevant issue that I never even thought about. It never occurred to me that women in the gaming industry were mistreated, but it kind of makes sense-- video games often cater to young males, and often the easiest way to cater to those young males is by over-sexualizing women.

I'm not going to say that that strategy doesn't work on me (I am, myself, a young male), but I am going to say that I don't think it's right for games and other media to capitalize so heavily on that. I think the over-sexualization of women in games and in other places often makes men think with their penises instead of their brains. They say and do stupid things that they really never should. It's inexcusable, and it's a two-way street: men should know better, and mass media shouldn't be encouraging that kind of thinking. I also don't think it's right that someone who just wants to follow their dreams in the gaming industry (or really any industry) should ever experience what any of the case studies in this article experienced.

I'm not sure what I can do to help here, but if I find a way, I hope I can! Right now I'm working on a gaming startup with a couple of my best friends and, at the very least, we have made a commitment to ourselves to never resort to over-sexualizing women in order to advertise our game (many similar games do, and it frustrates me). I'm also going to make a conscious commitment right now to be aware the way I behave around women in the gaming industry and make sure I'm doing my job to help stop the issue, not propagate it.

Thank you so much for sharing this.

tomp9• 12 years ago

I think the over-sexualization of women in games and in other places often makes men think with their penises instead of their brains.

Why do you think so? Personally, I think it's the other way around - the cause is that people (not just men) respond better to "shallow" things - i.e. pretty things/landscapes/photos/people, which is why marketers/companies create things that are pretty. If your target audience is males, then it makes sense to use what males most powerfully respond to in your ads - pretty women.

calbear81• 12 years ago

I would argue against calling it "shallow" but maybe more base/instinctual/primal perhaps? I would agree with tomp that it's probably because this is what works on the target audience. This creates a terrible cycle where the inherent hostility towards women in the marketing of video games means less women will be interested in playing which means the target audience doesn't change and the cycle repeats.

chiubaka2• 12 years ago

You're right, this absolutely goes two ways. And, honestly, I really do like pretty women. But it bothers me a lot that most of the advertisements I see for games on the web today feature almost nothing but scantily clad women with large bosoms.

I want people to play games because they are amazing, because they have great concepts, and have been wonderfully executed. I don't want people to play games because they have boobs in them.

This may or may not be an unattainable ideal, and certainly it would require change for both the advertisers and the target consumers.

ahris3• 12 years ago

But the target demographic for games doesn't just have to be males. There was a great piece by Tracy Lien detailing the history of video games and how marketing is the direct cause of the stereotype that video games are for males. Video games don't inherently appeal to a specific gender. Indie games, in general, are a great example of how games can have gender inclusive appeal.

Anyways, here is her article. I really enjoyed it and it's a great piece if you want to learn more about video game culture.

http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/12/2/5143856/no-girls-a...

roguecoder2• 12 years ago

Except that it is appropriate to think of landscapes as things and inappropriate and harmful to think of of women as things.

georgiapeach30• 12 years ago

You just spent a few paragraphs breathlessly and remorselessly gender shaming heterosexual men.

How do you feel about that?

roguecoder2• 12 years ago

Only heterosexual men who dehumanize women: that is not an intrinsic part of being a man and I'm rather insulted you believe it is.

randunel• 12 years ago

Gaming is full of rage, everywhere. Sore losers will always attack their opponents. They usually stick to generic attacks, unless they know something about you, when it gets specific. If you play a certain class, some insults will contain class specific terms. If they roughly know your age, they will either call you immature or too old to be alive. If they know where you're from or your religion, they will use racist insults. If they know your gender, they will use that to make their insults hurt you more.

This post reminded me of the there's-nothing-you-can-do-about-them "I want to stick my long-necked giraffe up your fluffy white bunny" http://habitatchronicles.com/2007/03/the-untold-history-of-t... .

socrates1998• 12 years ago

Yeah, this is bad. It really is about the culture in which we are raised.

Boys are raised to deal with these types of insults and threats by standing up for yourself and being assertive (even aggressive) when dealing with hate.

So, boys learn to seek out weakness and exploit it. Boys also learn that from an early age, when you talk shit or are an asshole that you could end up doing it to the wrong person and end up with a whole world of shit.

And by the time they are older, boys have generally learned this lesson. Essentially, boys learn to fear other boys.

However, boys don't learn to fear women in the same way, so they continue this type of asshole behavior to adult women since they don't fear the repercussions.

Basically, women in the gaming industry are not raised in the culture are seen as weak outsiders who can't defend themselves (easy targets for assholes).

It's sad and I don't really see a way around it.

imgabe3• 12 years ago

We live in a society that’s sexist in ways it doesn’t understand. One of the consequences is that men are extremely sensitive to being criticized by women. I think it threatens them in a very primal way, and male privilege makes them feel free to lash out.

I don't mean to "Not all men" this, but I wish we would stop treating behavior like this as a normal part of the male psyche. It's not. It's seriously disturbed. It's an unfortunate consequence of the Internet and any area where you have a large audience that a small active segment is going to produce a large impression.

Yes, maybe your friend and even most men feel differently when a woman criticizes them than when a man does. No it is absolutely NOT a normal, male response to start making rape and death threats because of it.

I think these responses are a combination of seriously disturbed individuals and literal or mental children who haven't yet fully internalized that there are real live human beings on the other end of the keyboard and are trying to be shocking.

I think making a few examples would deter the idiots who think this is amusing. I mean, that one kid in Texas made an offhand, sarcastic comment about shooting up a school and got himself arrested within a couple of days. It would be nice to see police take other threats as seriously.

lotsofmangos2• 12 years ago

That kid in Texas was then turned out in jail. What has happened to him is horrific.

imgabe3• 12 years ago

Yeah, I'm not supporting that case at all. I think given the context it was perfectly clear that he was not making a serious threat.

It's stupid that in these cases where the context is a LOT more ambiguous that absolutely nothing can be done about it. That energy should be redirected to where it could do some good.

cushychicken2• 12 years ago

I hate to "Not all men" this, but I wish we would stop treating behavior like this as a normal part of the male psyche. It's not. It's seriously disturbed.

I think that realization is the very opposite of the "Not all men" mindset. Saying "Not all men are like that" is a red herring - it's a way of distracting yourself from the fact that there are people out there who treat women like dirt by saying you don't do that.

I think where we're failing as a society is the inability to close the loop and turn "not all men" into "yo dude, not cool" - we don't seem to be very good at getting men to call out sexism in other men.

I would love some kind of resource for how to do that effectively.

dfxm12• 12 years ago

I would love some kind of resource for how to do that effectively.

You don't need a resource. Do it yourself. Do it in situations where no one else will. This will encourage other to. This isn't an issue that's going to go away without grassroots support. There's no silver bullet, it's going to take work and unfortunately, time.

shrnky3• 12 years ago

Unfortunately I have no choice but to deal with racist people from time time and am constantly repeating the phrase, "not all (insert race) people are like that."

Is that a "Red Herring?"

georgiapeach30• 12 years ago

Yo, dude, it's not cool to use the fringe behavior of a few individuals as leverage to baselessly and hatefully defame and entire gender.

You need to cut that shit out, and you need to cut it out right fucking now.

asuffield• 12 years ago

I have to agree with most of this. I see these articles from time to time, and I know the facts behind them are real enough, but my immediate reaction is always the same: "I don't know any people who act this way, and I wouldn't stand for it if I ever saw something like this, but I have never seen it happen, so where the hell is this coming from?"

There must be some people with serious issues out there to generate things like this. Those people are not normal and this behaviour is not acceptable.

avz3• 12 years ago

"When a woman criticizes me, it goes to a different part of my brain than when a man on my team does. I get defensive really quickly."

This point isn't stressed enough. Majority of people treat criticism differently depending on the gender of the source. Other types of interaction are also hugely dependent on gender. We even refer to each other with different pronouns depending on the type of sexual organs our bodies are equipped with. This isn't right.

dictum2• 12 years ago

Anecdata: I'm a man and I get more defensive when men criticize me than when women do.

rafaelCosman• 12 years ago

"Footnote: Two of the names of women that agreed to interviews for this article were changed at their request."

It's telling (about the state of the industry) that two of these women felt uncomfortable sharing their names even while interviewing for an article about this very topic.

georgiapeach30• 12 years ago

Anyone should feel uncomfortable making up unsubstantiated bullshit to push a toxic, hateful, misandric agenda.

oldmanjay8• 12 years ago

This is the sort of topic that shouldn't be allowed to have comments. People are far too reactionary to have a productive discussion.

im3w1l3• 12 years ago

So you are saying we must stop people from arguing the wrong positions?

oldmanjay8• 12 years ago

Not exactly. I'm saying the signal-to-noise ratio inevitably drops below a threshold where anything useful can be derived.

I will admit this site is better than most. I've been accused of actually being a rapist in other discussions, amongst other indignities.

NotAtWork4• 12 years ago

I always find it very strange that we don't apply spam filters and recent machine learning techniques to the problem of filtering comments.

If I looked at my email unfiltered, I'd think one in three of the people sending me messages in the past day were unusually concerned about the state of my penis.

From a not-adding-anything-to-the-discussion perspective, dead baby pictures and random threats of rape or acts of violence are even less useful than those adds telling me how to work at home. From a cost-benefit perspective for the people involved, it's very easy for someone relatively unimportant to get an outsized influence on social interactions if they can easily reach people who actually matter with harassing comments, at virtually no cost to themselves.

So why don't we use tools to shape the online discussion and feedback mechanisms, the same way we do with our email inboxes?

Perhaps I'm just too out of the loop to see it being done.

eli10• 12 years ago

Maybe there's some value there, but my experience is that you can rarely solve a "people" problem with a purely technical solution.

Also, as a society, I'd like to think we can do better than "sorry about the rape/murder threats, we'll try to hide most of them from you"

cyorir4• 12 years ago

Agreed. Applying filters hides the symptoms without treating the underlying illness, which is a society that is infested with sexism. We can treat the symptoms by filtering but at the end of the day we need strategies for making society less sexist.

NotAtWork4• 12 years ago

Changing the incentives of a situation, such as raising the effort required to get a harassing message through the filters, isn't a "purely technical solution" any more than most economics strategies are.

I'd argue it's making use of technology to make a people oriented solution: people do less of things that are harder to do, and seeing less garbage even if you still see some makes the place seem more pleasant.

I'd like to think we can do better than "sorry about the rape/murder threats, we'll try to hide most of them from you"

The best we can ever do, without swerving way out in to super repressive regimes, is impact the rate at which it happens, the response of other people, etc and not that it happens at all.

Torgo3• 12 years ago

I would love to see an analysis on a site by site basis of what they consider trolls and what they consider highly-rated comments. I suspect however it would be found it would align more closely around in-group/out-group than content.

tonypace6• 12 years ago

It seems likely, but the whole point of censoring extreme comments is to make those commenters an out group. Comment filtering would have edge cases, just like spam and porn filtering does. Do the dangers outweigh the value of pushing people who speak like this into an out group?

WorldWideWayne• 12 years ago

In my experience, men and boys talk to each other this way too. So, if women want equality - isn't that what they're getting?

hansy• 12 years ago

I'm not shocked by this at all. Spend some time in a Twitch channel hosted by a woman and you'll see what kind of misogynist, overly sexual advances these streamers have to endure every day.

Yes, some women streamers do flaunt their sexuality (wearing low tops while streaming for instance), and while many view this as perpetuating objectification of women, I view this type of decision as a marketing decision. I think these women are intelligent enough to know sex sells, but aren't so shallow as to actually believe their attractiveness defines who they are.

Unfortunately, the average person is a moron, and it doesn't help matters when group-think is rampant in chat rooms.

s1300045• 12 years ago

It is sort of related. It's a rant. I have many friends in the STEM field, or friends I play video games with. And I simply cannot introduce them to any of my females friends, or any friends from different social circles for that matter. They are a special breed of people, brilliant and quick, and they are also egotistic and mean.

They are very quick to make jokes of your mistakes or shortcoming. The way they pry and tease is the manifest of how exceptional they think they are. They believe they are above social norms. Being nice is for the weak and unenlightened mass. They have an opinion, they will have you know.

They deliberately choose to ignore and not understand why making certain remarks and some conversation topics make people uncomfortable. And when they want to insult you, they will insult in the most uncivilized way. When they want to hurt you, they simply do not understand when a line is crossed.

And I am sure they are not the minority. Even if they are, they are the loud and obnoxious minority that gives everyone a bad name. I absolutely understand why people decline to be part of that community, why there aren't as many females in that workspace. Stigmas and stereotypes are for a reason.

alexqgb2• 12 years ago

There's a name for people like that: assholes.

There's also a lot of insecurity going on there, but that's true of most people. The difference is in how we deal with it. Some people do so by trying to become kinder and more decent people, which has an amazing effect on your own level of social comfort. Others try to bring the people who threaten them down to their level (or beneath, if possible). Oddly enough, this strategy does not improve the underlying level of social ease.

Quite the opposite. I mean, these are people (a) who act like assholes specifically to (b) lower those around them so they don't have to (c) do the hard work of making themselves better. It's a triple play of shitty behavior stemming from a toxic combination of fear and laziness on one hand, combined with sickening disregard for others.

The result is clear. You don't introduce them to others. In other words, you specifically and deliberately limit their social horizons, having (correctly) judged them as unfit for decent company.

This could be an addressable problem if the people in question had a baseline of personal integrity. But as you noted, they can also be willfully ignorant when convenient. Aside from being intellectually dishonest (which is maddening in its own right), it's also a major barrier to personal development. Self-reinforcing assholedom, essentially.

So, uh, maybe you need other friends?

cristianpascu• 12 years ago

I'm not sure what should one expect from people dedicating high percentages of their life in front of a computer in an activity that does not enrich your personality in any conceivable way. Killing digital zombies is just that. Do you expect empathy? Self-control? Being ideological about it, as in threat women equally, is a far fetch. Gaming industry is a smaller sister of a bigger one, and there, I assume, no one expects their clients to stay away for sexism. Yes, porn. Teenagers, in age or spirit, have a combination of hobbies.

My point. As a woman that works in an industry that cultivates a-social behaviour, lack of empathy, egotism, and so on, don't expect utopia like social orders. It's just unrealistic. Same goes for porn, movies, fashion, gaming. It's like fighting the symptoms but ignoring the causes. It's like trying to cool down the air around your town to fight global warming.

StereotypeTreat• 12 years ago

All stereotypes and stigmas, or only those that fall disproportionately on the White and male? Are women hysterical, Blacks lazy, and gays promiscuous as well?

eggbrain2• 12 years ago

We need to fix this. Whenever someone feels like they are in a position of power, things like this happen. This power can come from anonymity (eg: the internet), it can come from a position of authority (boss), or sometimes it can come from just being dominated by an in-group with a much smaller out-group.

What's happening here seems like a mix of the power of anonymity on the internet mixed with the fact that women are underrepresented in game development. The former lets people harass, taunt, and threaten with many times very few consequences, whereas the latter leads to favoritism to other members of the in-group, and derogation of the out-group.

So what can we do? Unfortunately, the issues are larger than me to grasp. But since we are on Hacker News, I'll give a few technological solutions I've taken a few minutes to come up with that may help:

1. We have spam filters right now on email -- what if those filters also watched for hate words? If it met a certain threshold, the message would not be shown in the main article. We could mark email/comments as "hateful", and when it reached a certain threshold that comment would be hashed and added to a repository that could be checked against for future comments. People would try to get around it like they do spam filters (I H.A.T.E Y.O.U., etc), but with enough training I feel a good deal could be filtered out.

2. HR departments should be moved to unbiased third party services. I feel many employees are afraid to report discrimination or harassment because many times their HR coordinator knows the people involved. If you move it to an unbiased third party, you can report pseudo-anonymously (they will know who reported, but won't tell the company until after they have confirmed or need to follow up with the company) without the worry that the third party is biased towards a specific party.

There needs to be a lot more thought put into how we can fix this than the few minutes I spent above, but it might be a good first step.

EDIT: modified for brevity's sake. (I'll replace with the original again if people want to read it)

vezzy-fnord2• 12 years ago

what if those filters also watched for hate words?

I'd love to know what a "hate word" entails. Sounds like it would gratuitously bring down all negative opinions, including ones that aren't hurtful. Especially since you give the word "hate" itself as an example, which is ludicrous.

eggbrain2• 12 years ago

Again, I'm not saying it's a perfect solution. Perhaps a naive bayes classifier, with enough examples, could distinguish between negative opinions and hate speech. Maybe it couldn't -- it might be very similar to trying to create a sarcasm detector[1]. I'm hopeful to just get the ball rolling in terms of discussions -- even if I'm wrong, we are at least talking about ways to try to fix the problem.

[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27711109

im3w1l3• 12 years ago

I'd argue it's the opposite. The people send threats because they feel they have no power, no other recourse to take. It is a last ditch effort to change something. Upvoted ya btw, because you don't deserve to be downvoted.

GFK_of_xmaspast4• 12 years ago

To change what, exactly?

georgiapeach30• 12 years ago

How would you feel if a government agency or ISP or some other adversary used such technology to censor all your online communications -- so you couldn't ever contact anyone, through any protocol -- because it considered you to be undesirable/objectionable/dangerous for its own reasons?

caio1982• 12 years ago

Despite the actual point of this article, I'm really happy to see the frequency of posts from many writers at Polygon/The Verge about sexism and related issued in the gaming industry and game development. I'd guess and say they publish at least one or two articles on the topic per week, and all of them are fantastic. To whomever at Polygon/The Verge that decided to go on this editorial route, thousands of kudos.

admyral• 12 years ago

There has been a consistent onslaught of articles by the same cabal of the authors about sexism in the gaming industry. All of them include anecdotal evidence that rampant sexism exists and how terrible it is, but offering little concrete evidence proving the problem is getting worse. From the article "Things aren’t getting better for women on the internet; they’re deteriorating." By what measurement? Could it be because there now more prominent women on the Internet, or because the problem is actually getting worse? Is the expectation that the Internet becomes the one and only bastion of humanity where sexism doesn't exist?

I question whether this problem is so pervasive that the authors and editors feel readers need to be consistently bombarded with it, or whether the position is so salacious and instantly defensible that authors and editors have learned they can benefit from the attention the topic receives.

Perhaps I'm just bitter because I was just banned from Polygon for expressing this very perspective.

_Adam• 12 years ago

One of the consequences is that men are extremely sensitive to being criticized by women

What the fuck? Only the weakest and most cowardly men negatively react to criticism from women (and other men).

If someone is objectively or logically criticizing you, then they're doing you a huge favor. Thank them, regardless of their gender.

dgreensp• 12 years ago

I was disappointed by the "Letters to Women" video because I kept waiting for a gender-specific slur, and there weren't any! A different "letter" might have been chosen to make the point better.

If you put your anthropologist hat on, being called a "tasteless, stupid-ass, bitch-ass f--ktard" who should "go f--k your slutty-ass bitch mother" is a kind of acceptance. You're on the receiving end of all the same deeply offensive, vaguely emasculating language you'd get if you were "one of the guys" who happens to be a stupid noob, being criticized for your taste in games(!) along with your general cluelessness and total impotence and inadequacy. It's the kind of acknowledgment you get when a fellow rapper pours his heart into explaining that you suck and he rules.

I guess what I'm saying is, this letter is an example of "you-are-a-low-status-male" invective, and it's pretty easy to walk into a stream of it in certain communities. The fact that it was knowingly directed at a woman is what strikes me first, and in that sense it seems less like sexism than some sort of f--ed up equality.

joyeuse6701• 12 years ago

I'm going to leave this here, don't accept the form of argument from the article quite yet:

Keeping in mind that actual stalking has never been dealt with in any significant way ever, the desire of a few female writers to curb online anonymity wouldn't be enough to get an @ mention, except that this happens to coincide with what the media wants, and now we have the two vectors summing to form a public health crisis. "Cyberbullying is a huge problem!" Yes, but not because it is hurtful, HA! no one cares about your feelings-- but because criticism makes women want to be more private-- and the privacy of the women is bad. The women have to be online, they do most of the clicking and receive most of the clicks. Anonymous cyberbullying is a barrier to increasing consumption, it's gotta go.

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2014/05/cyberbll.html

83457• 12 years ago

Can someone explain to me if this is just the online gaming culture intruding on the professional game dev industry or actual industry professionals making comments like this? I have been heavy into CSGO this year and rarely does a match go by without very offensive comments from someone. I have grown a thick skin to this sort of thing online but could not imagine it intruding into real life.

iandanforth• 12 years ago

I support and applaud the author. I will offer one negative reaction so that if others wish to avoid this reaction, or preempt it, they will be aware.

Throughout the article I was looking for actionable suggestions, at the end I was told that "Listening" was key. This plays directly into my stereotypes. In other words, I was not surprised. The article had less impact because it failed to offer a memorable and surprising suggestion to conclude.

Finally to avoid hypocrisy, I will offer an actionable suggestion. Create or coopt a new label for such men and allow people who support you to disassociate themselves from that group. For example "Alphas". Men who are pre-release technology. Incomplete specimens. And dually, men who imagine being big and strong and loud and dominant is what matters. I hate Alpha types.

So f*ck Alphas and everything they stand for.

vezzy-fnord2• 12 years ago

The people who do this type of harassment aren't alphas. By definition, alphas are renowned for their prowess. The people described in the article would be omegas, most likely. Your hate is misguided.

At least be alpha enough to spell out the word "fuck".

thinkpad20• 12 years ago

I'm a male in the software industry, and I never really know what to make of these sorts of articles. It's terrible that someone should have to go through this. The anonymity of the internet is a great and terrible thing -- some people really get off on being horrible to people, and unfortunately when that person is a male, and they know they're talking to a woman, the low-hanging fruit is base sexism. But what is supposed to be done about it? More specifically, what am I supposed to do about it? I know that I find that kind of behavior abhorrent. I would never think that stuff, let alone say it. Knowing my coworkers as I do, I'm 99% sure that the same can be said of them. So, I just don't know how to respond to this. Should I feel guilty? For what? I didn't do this stuff. The issue that I have with this is that I feel like I'm supposed to feel like a bad person because of my gender. Quotes like "men tend to inherently [insert stereotype here]" are apparently great enough to be made inspirational posters out of. Is the author oblivious to this sexism? Or is it OK, because it's targeting men?

I think it's deplorable what the author and the women she describes have gone through. I think that we all should re-examine our behavior to ensure that we aren't perpetrating this sort of thing. But I wish that the article, and others like it, weren't couched in terms of demonizing half of humanity.

tonypace6• 12 years ago

How are you (or all of us men) being demonized? She describes a few things she and other people have gone through. She says she doesn't feel safe. She asking people not to tell her to have a thicker skin. That's the article, more or less. Where is the demonization?

dubfan2• 12 years ago

FTA:

We live in a society that’s sexist in ways it doesn’t understand. One of the consequences is that men are extremely sensitive to being criticized by women. I think it threatens them in a very primal way, and male privilege makes them feel free to lash out.

Attributing malice to an actor due to circumstances beyond his control or understanding... I think that qualifies as demonizing. It's reminiscent of racialist and eugenics theory.

vajorie• 12 years ago

This is a good read and the ideas in its background apply to a number of issues, one of which being the perceived helplessness you have mentioned.

http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/WarZoneChaptIIIE.htm...

For convenience's sake,

I want to see you use those legendary bodies and that legendary strength and that legendary courage and the tenderness that you say you have in behalf of women; and that means against the rapists, against the pimps, and against the pornographers. It means something more than a personal renunciation. It means a systematic, political, active, public attack. And there has been very little of that.

But do RTFA :)

seanflyon8• 12 years ago

I'm not sure what "systematic, political, active, public attack" means when the enemy are anonymous internet trolls.

clay_to_n• 12 years ago

I think you need to stop reading things like this as "demonizing half of humanity." You being offended by an article like this is actually part of the problem, it results in silencing articles like this because some men don't like them, or don't feel like it applies to them.

Personally, as a male who isn't nearly as terrible as many of the men in this article, I think these articles are important. It is worth reading to raise your own awareness of the problems women face in our industry, and it is also worth reading to heighten awareness of your own actions, especially subtle things you might do and not be aware of. We should all be learning and try to better ourselves.

jquery• 12 years ago

The article was very sexist. He is not "part of the problem" because he was offended by it. Maybe you don't see how sexist it is because you were predisposed to agree with it.

EDIT: Direct quote from the article: "We live in a society that’s sexist in ways it doesn’t understand. One of the consequences is that men are extremely sensitive to being criticized by women. I think it threatens them in a very primal way, and male privilege makes them feel free to lash out."

Anyone is justified at being offended by that.

georgiapeach30• 12 years ago

I just want you to know that you are part of the problem. You are perpetrating the toxic, disgusting, shameless misandry in the article. You definitely need to know that, and you need to take steps to address it.

buzzcut• 12 years ago

It's about combating injustice and miscreant behavior where we find it. You don't act that way. Super. Neither do I. Criticizing the behavior in others (which, make no mistake, is all motivated by gender) doesn't push you into some sort of solidarity of villainy. The instant recourse to "not all men" and "not my friends" is a kind of solipsism that's not helpful. Yes, a two-year-old can tell you "not all men." Now that we have that observation out of the way, what's next? Are we done? Are you more upset at the tone of the article you don't quite like, or at the rape threats?

Fomite10• 12 years ago

What should you do?

- Think about how you act around the women in your life, the women you interact with as public figures, your female coworkers, etc. Critically self-examine. Do you treat them like fully formed human beings? When someone asks you to name the "top X in your field" do you automatically always think of a man? Things like that. The answers can end up entirely being "Yes, I do treat women like human beings" - no one was ever harmed by a little self-reflection.

- Similarly, think about that behavior in others. Stand up when someone says something sexist - toe-curling awful, or just subtle. Take your female coworkers at their word when they talk about their experiences.

GFK_of_xmaspast4• 12 years ago

What you do is you call shit out when you see it so that other dudes don't think it's normal or acceptable.

Bahamut2• 12 years ago

Why is this getting flagged to hell?

GFK_of_xmaspast4• 12 years ago

Makes the community look bad.

It's like a funhouse mirror that whoops-a-doodle was a regular mirror the whole time.

georgiapeach30• 12 years ago

It's shameless, toxic, misandric bullshit pretending to be tech news. It's not. It's gender shaming/policing black propaganda.

EarthLaunch3• 12 years ago

HN clearly sunk this thread. Why?

byerley4• 12 years ago

Why can't we get any sensible articles about this problem? Do they just not get any attention on aggregation sites?

Call this "victim blaming" if you want, but I'm going to critique the article because it's bad. I'm not commenting on any of the surrounding events because, honestly, claiming you've been harassed in the past doesn't excuse bad journalism -

She starts the article by alienating her intended audience: Leading with a "triggering content" warning and the worst example she had may be eye-catching, but causes both men and women who might be sympathetic but ignorant to immediately write it off as extremist hysteria. I had a lot of trouble pushing myself to read the rest of the article.

Her evidence is severely lacking: Again, case studies are good for sensationalist articles, but they don't hold up to any amount of skeptical scrutiny. She presents 4 brief accounts and two of them are relatively anonymous. You can collect four respectable people who believe just about anything if you try.

She uses sweeping generalizations: All men feel this way, all women feel that way, all women are censored, ect. Even more insulting to an intelligent reader is that she backs up her assertions with hack psychology.

She refutes statistical trends with anecdotes: "The Myth: The game industry is a field men are drawn to more than women." I'm sorry, but the male predisposition towards video games and game development is just a statistical fact. Yes, there are exceptions. Yes, it's less true now than it once was due to advances in technology. Don't lie to your reader and tell them it's a myth, rather, explain why it doesn't excuse the behavior.

I think this is a problem in some places. I want women to feel comfortable in game development and journalism. I want women to feel more comfortable in a lot of industries. This article is the wrong way to spread awareness.

Zikes15• 12 years ago

I'm starting to think it's being done on purpose.

1. Write a rant about how women are harassed.

2. Fill it with offensive, sexist remarks and anecdotal evidence.

3. When people get rightly offended and disagree, use their reaction as further evidence to "prove" your point.

Fomite10• 12 years ago

I was the exact opposite of "alienated" by the trigger warning. It's a useful tool for people who have to wade through this every day to know if this is going to be viscerally upsetting, or just musings on a theme without the clear content.

Also, you want her to show examples, but if she leads with a strong one, she's writing "extremist hysteria"?

byerley4• 12 years ago

I was the exact opposite of "alienated" by the trigger warning.

I don't doubt that it's a useful warning for some people, but that lingo in particular is generally used by people already sensitive to gender issues. It's also commonly used by extremists so outsiders will have trouble telling the difference immediately. A more traditional content warning would presumably have sufficed.

Also, you want her to show examples, but if she leads with a strong one, she's writing "extremist hysteria"?

No, I don't want examples. I want trends and statistics. At the very least the article needs a proper introduction.

gclaramunt3• 12 years ago

Even if they're just outliers, they deserve the right to let their situation be known. You're pretty close to "you didn't communicate according to my standards, so I'm going to ignore you". How do you know your complaints about style aren't an excuse to avoid confronting the problem? Not saying you are, but for my part, even if they do it imperfectly, I will listen, I don't want my kids to grow up in world where this kind of things gets ignored

byerley4• 12 years ago

How do you know your complaints about style aren't an excuse to avoid confronting the problem?

Because I would have the same complaints regardless of the subject. Not all opinions deserve equal consideration and you have a burden of proof when trying to convince your reader of something. If anything, I gave this article more attention than I normally would have because I sincerely want properly condensed information about the topic and I haven't found it.

I don't want my kids to grow up in world where this kind of things gets ignored

I want my children to understand perspective. You can't grieve for every individual injustice in the world, you can only strive to make it better overall.

belorn• 12 years ago

While this is all horrible things human beings are saying to other human beings, the idea that men do not get criticized is false. I wish the article would stop trying to repeat this over and over again, since it distracts from the issue it brings up: The words use when people send insult directed at women.

Insults are different when directed at a women than men, and the cause is not as simple as typing the word sexism. Insults, like swearing, is rooted in social norms. People use terms and concept which is understood by others in their social environment. This is why men will not get rape threat, since in most social groups, people think men can not get raped. It make no sense to threaten others with something that they do not think could happen in the first place.

People who send insults are expecting a predicted reaction (Remember several research papers making this specific statement). If a specific insult directed at a woman would not result in the same reaction as if it was directed at a man, then the insulter will change which words they use when insulting men. Which words they use has actually very small meaning given that they receive the expected reaction.

Rather then talking about how women get harassment and men do not, maybe we should talk about why the culture of insults are so personal and violent against women, and so focused on skill and ability for men. Why do not men get insults like "dam, you look ugly" and women get "don't quit your day job, you suck!". When was the last time you saw someone go up to female speaker and say "you do not understand this!", or loudly being argued with by someone in the audience over a technical detail.

Culture for male and female behavior is not identical when it comes to bad behavior. The article says: "I have yet to talk to a man who has had to call a police officer due to a stalker". The obvious reason is that female stalkers tend to focus on celebrities (small number of people), while male stalkers tend to focus on people they find in the local area. Stalking is bad, be that male or female stalker, and who they target is not same. Pretend that one do not exist because it is different is not going to make sexism less in society.

im3w1l3• 12 years ago

My view of how these things happen: Game studio is developing a game revolving around Battle of Nanking. Two teams compete on how many civilians they can rape and kill in five minutes.

Presumtive buyers are drooling with excitement over this great game.

A woman joins the company and start arguing that the game is bad for our youth. It promotes rape culture. The game should instead revolve around a secret romance between two homosexuals in the army.

The people at the studio start thinking that, you know maybe she is sort of right, and post that on their blog.

Those who have been longing for the game get extremely upset. They feel that an outsider is destroying "their" game.

The craziest few of them threaten the woman.

shrnky3• 12 years ago

How does the Feminist movement square itself with the fact that many women actually like being prized for their beauty and sex appeal?

I'd like to start a campaign called "It's cool." It would require some form of an indicator. A sticker or button perhaps? Women who like having their beauty and/or sex appeal noticed could wear it on their person. Posters with these women could have it on display. Men would know, "It's cool" she likes that I appreciate her looks.

Would this satisfy the Feminists? Doubtful. More than likely these women would be attacked and ridiculed for what makes them happy.

hackuser3• 12 years ago

How does the Feminist movement square itself with the fact that many women actually like being prized for their beauty and sex appeal?

I didn't see any mention of appreciating beauty and sex appeal. I read an article about rape threats, degrading comments about appearance, and objectification of women. I don't know if you mean to equate those things, but they are not equal. Also, 'prizing' women is objectification (though perhaps you didn't mean that literally) -- people aren't trophies or racehorses -- complimenting someone when they are receptive to it is just nice.

Comments about beauty and sex appeal also can be a way to attack women. For example, if you were a woman my comment here could be 'don't worry your pretty little head about it' or simply 'wow you have great tits -- can I sleep with you?'

georgiapeach30• 12 years ago

You played the part of the toxic feminist in OP's comment beautifully, and you didn't even realize that you were doing it!

It's hilarious!

NAFV_P• 12 years ago

"They filled my Tumblr mailbox with the usual anon posts like, ‘Die, you fucking cunt!’ And, ‘You'll know when I rape your mouth hole, bitch!’ When I turned off anonymous messages, they made new Tumblr accounts and continued to spam me. Later, they discovered the link to my personal webpage and sent hate mail through there. I still get an occasional random hate message through my website."

There is an assumption that all these anonymous posts are from men, but there is the possibility that some are from women.

I've read a few articles like this, but I cannot remember one which looks at sexism from a world wide web oriented viewpoint.

FamilyVitamin• 12 years ago

One thing I could understand that why she's being hated is, it is not the first time she post feminism stuff with strong opinion on website, and then refuse anyone to comment it. She just acts like those garbage class politician that trying to brainwash you while preventing ppl from discussing the sensitive opinion. I wouldn't say it's owned, but I know why some ppl will not like her.

scott_s2• 12 years ago

I don't think that was her decision. Comments were open for a long time, and I think the Polygon staff closed them.

Consider: perhaps they were closed for the very reason that she wrote this piece.

paulhauggis2• 12 years ago

"The Reality: If you are a woman in the industry with a critical opinion, you will get a disproportional amount of criticism, hostility, and scrutiny compared to men."

I disagree. The reality is that if anyone has a critical opinion and expresses it online, you will get harassed. As a test, go on Reddit, pretend you are a guy, and post a critical opinion in one of the gaming subreddits.

The problem is that the Internet has given everyone a voice, and a public email address or twitter feed means anyone, with almost no effort, can send you a message, and try to get to you.

"I've personally never heard of a man in the games industry getting rape threats for having an opinion."

I have..and much worse.

"When a woman criticizes me, it goes to a different part of my brain than when a man on my team does. I get defensive really quickly. I’m trying to get better about it." I don’t think his is a unique experience."

Nobody likes criticism..and most peoples reaction is to get defensive..it doesn't matter who is giving it.

"One of the consequences is that men are extremely sensitive to being criticized by women"

Based on what evidence? Your friend saying it? I see no direct evidence in your entire blog post besides hearsay.

"Women in the games industry get special treatment for being women, and your life can be made easier by your looks"

This is a fact in any industry. Women (and men for that matter) that are attractive get treated better (there have been numerous studies on this). To change this would mean changing human nature..which isn't happening any time soon.

"A look at the YouTube comments for her 2010 PAX East panel is stomach-churning. A shocking number of them personally attack the women of Girlfight."

I will give you some advice: ignore Youtube comments. Trolls on the Internet will say anything they can do destroy you and make you break down. It seems to be working.

While we are on the topic, it is getting pretty scary how we are moving toward mob Internet justice. Look at the number of people that were fired, had their careers ruined, or were forced to step down due to mob mentality on the Internet.

The ex-Mozilla CEO is a good example of this.

"I have yet to talk to a man who has had to call a police officer due to a stalker, only to be told nothing can be done until they are physically assaulted. "

Are you kidding? I know plenty of men that had to call the police about a female stalker/ex-girlfriend and were told the EXACT same thing.

"Growing a thicker skin isn't the answer, nor is it a proper response. Listening, and making the industry safer for the existence of visible women is the best, and only, way forward."

Growing a thicker skin is the answer. Have you ever played any Xbox live game online with a headset? What do you hear? Teenage boys calling each other the worst names imaginable. I just turn it off and keep playing.

You are an adult (I presume) trying to change the gaming culture of teenagers and trolls on the Internet (some of which aren't even located in the US). This is futile and will most likely never change unless there are serious restrictions put on the Internet, worldwide.

It sounds like you don't like the gaming culture. I don't like it either, but it has little to do with men being sexist and more to do with trolls and children harassing anyone online because it's easy.

The people that succeed learn to ignore the noise and concentrate on what matters.

holyjaw• 12 years ago

Easily one of the most tone-deaf responses I've ever seen to a legitimate piece on sexism. My god.

No skin thick enough: The daily harassment of women in the game industry

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