AwkwardlyBruta
Originally Posted by luckyto
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"I'm on a boat, this boat floats"
Whoa, Shrappy is a lady. No wonder you never wanted to use a mic. You were afraid you'd hear every sandwich joke in my arsenal (which is admittedly just one, but it's a good one).
I think what's being lost amongst a lot of people in this thread is that almost nobody has said "It's good that people spewed hate at you because you're a woman." Pretty much everyone agrees that this sort of thing is bad. What you're seeing is not people arguing for or against abuse, but people arguing about how they cope with stressful situations and the ugly feelings that can sometimes follow. It's not limited to "one right answer" so much as acknowledging the truth.
If this sort of thing happened to someone that you loved and cared about, you would be upset. If this sort of thing happened before your eyes in a restaurant, you would be upset. Maybe even moved to action. It's easy to dismiss it because it happens on the internet - long known to be a cesspool of anonymity breeding horrible comments - but it's not happening on the internet. It's happening in living rooms and bedrooms and it's crude, horrible stuff. I disagree with anyone who says "It's the internet" because the internet is just a tool for communication. It's the same thing as standing on a street corner with a megaphone shouting "****!" at every woman who passes by. You wouldn't say "Relax, it's just the megaphone!"
That being said, a lot of people deal with uncomfortable and/or stressful situations by walking away. I've done it, myself, and recently. It's important not to make people feel like they're aiding and abetting the problem because they choose to walk away. Sometimes walking away is all that you can do. Sometimes confrontation isn't in you, or it's simply more difficult than taking yourself out of the situation. Not everyone who plays a game to relax wants to take the opportunity to be a culture warrior, and that isn't an unreasonable response. It also doesn't make you part of the problem.
I'd just say again, think about your sister or your girlfriend or your wife playing a game and being spoken to like that. You don't have to take every chance to prove how progressive and upstanding you are. But if you take A chance, you'd be surprised at the difference it can make in someone's life. Not just the person being abused, but the person doing the abusing.
Sorry if it seems I’m over using it as an example AwkwardlyBruta just that it’s the best one to hand for me, considering that sexism is the harassment I face the most.
However, with you pointing it out, I will endeavor to use a wider variety of examples in my future posts on this topic. Though I would like to point out that you did miss my comment in that post you quoted about the gay COD player… Not nit-picking. Just saying.
As for Anita Sarskeesian, I have to admit, she’s a bit of an extremist and I don’t agree with all of her views. Actually I’m in opposition to her thoughts on the visual depiction of women in video games, as I think there have been plenty of strong female lead characters recently who haven’t been scantily dressed just to capture male attention. Take Faith from Mirrors Edge or what we’ve seen of Aveline de Grandpre in the upcoming Assassin’s Creed 3: Liberation for the Vita as two examples of that. But then, that’s all another topic completely isn’t it?
I posted this on the Ubisoft forums AngloKlaxon because Ubisoft are the creators of the Assassin’s Creed Multiplayer and their forums serve as some form of hub to our community. A community that I’ve been in for a year now and sadly have to admit isn’t what it once was. I also wouldn’t say that Ubisoft “don’t listen” to us, it’s more that they’ve got “selective hearing,” the perfect example of this being when they asked the community “would you prefer shorter wait times or more lag” and then took the less advocated “more lag” option. However, I’m detracting from the point, which is, if these forums are seen as a community hub, and because not only is online gaming outside of the ESRB and developers jurisdiction and even then thinly policed by console makers it’s up to the COMMUNITY to bring the bullies back in line. I think PantherophisG put it best actually:
“ONLINE ACTIONS ARE NOT RATED BY THE ESRB. That means that online interactions are not policed or controlled in ANY way. ESRB-not involved, SONY-not involved, MS-not involved (in this case) Ubisoft-not involved. That means that THE PLAYERS AND MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY need to get involved. There is no one else.”
I am not blaming the companies who create the games for the bullying that people can potentially face and you’re right, no one forces me or anyone else to take the abuse, but at the same time, why should anyone have to face it? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I play ACB for the FUN and not so shockingly that fun deteriorates when you’re faced with the little toe-rags whose mothers need to drag them off and wash their mouths out with soap regardless of how old or “mature” they are.
As for you thergbcolor (I still itch to type it colour) it's good to see you back and in stunning form too.
Awesome signature by bertblue X|X The other black cat =^_^=
Absolutely, you're not wrong. I just questioned the medium used as from my perpespective very little gets accomplished around here. I'm all for the 'good fight' and equality for all peoples. But I also choose my battles. The bigger battle for me is companies like Ubisoft ripping off customers/extortionate DLC that shouldn't even be DLC/ little to NO service at all at customer support, and the creation of the U-Play passport to further their greed but provide no server worth paying to play on... All this while receiving $30 million a year in taxpayers money from the Canadian Gov. Gamers as a whole need to stand up to that kind of trash and refuse to be ripped off and ignored... But I digress
Here's the place to get you started
http://www.change.org/start-a-petiti...start_petition
Oh and those toe-rags are usually placed in front of the Tv all day because those mothers don't want to deal with them... but that's another social problem to be continued lol
Last edited by AngloKlaxon; 07-31-2012 at 02:04 PM.
No. When you shout with the megaphone, you are right infront/near of those people. When you do it off half way across the world through a screen, it's different. It's too be expected, when you dive into a online game, you will meet all sorts of people, including those kinds. Also, the reason why nobody cares on the internet is that who acts all tough behind the screen, you know wont dare say a word infront of your face.
Last edited by HaSoOoN-MHD; 08-01-2012 at 02:08 AM.
@ AngloKlaxon
I have my issues with Ubisoft and I’ve voiced them before here, but as I said in my previous post, my battle isn’t with them, it’s with the community.
I don’t have any need for the change link. There’s already something going that’s gaining even more attraction:
http://gamersagainstbigotry.org/
This website has been trolled and hacked and had all manner of other things happen to it. A shame really because it is an amazing website with an amazing cause that I whole heartedly support.
@ HaSoOoN-MHD
Okay, you’ve kinda got the megaphone reference, now just imagine it this way. The person with the megaphone has now come in off the street and is now standing in your living room/bedroom/wherever you play video games is, screaming their abuse at you. You still wouldn’t be saying “Relax, it’s just the megaphone” you’d be taking offense to the fact that you’re being abused in your own home.
Yes it is to be expected that when diving into an online game you’ll be meeting all kinds of people. But at the same time is it not reasonable to expect that you’ll be treated with the same form of respect to which you’d treat someone you’d meet on the street?
Awesome signature by bertblue X|X The other black cat =^_^=
But here is the difference, you see: On the internet, most people are anonymous, most people are far away, so when they say stuff, in the back of their head, they go: ''He/she cant do anything too us, so why should we care?''
It is pretty sad, really. But I guess how you look at it depends on perspective/person, if somebody went on a ramble of swears and threat because I am outplaying him/her, if anything, I would just laugh it off. And the whole boys club thing: It's everywhere, really. Society is still adapting too the idea that women can do the same thing as men, but society changed gaming, not the other way around.
Nothing can be really done, it's a big community, meaning you cant control/contain everybody.
Great idea, bringing in the references to the rest of the world outside of gaming...But here is the difference, you see: On the internet, most people are anonymous, most people are far away, so when they say stuff, in the back of their head, they go: ''He/she cant do anything too us, so why should we care?''
It is pretty sad, really. But I guess how you look at it depends on perspective/person, if somebody went on a ramble of swears and threat because I am outplaying him/her, if anything, I would just laugh it off. And the whole boys club thing: It's everywhere, really. Society is still adapting too the idea that women can do the same thing as men, but society changed gaming, not the other way around.
Nothing can be really done, it's a big community, meaning you cant control/contain everybody.
Because guess how the move towards female empowerment started?
A lot of women got sick of things, and SO DID A FEW GUYS. The men BACKED UP THE WOMEN when they went out to get jobs, vote and whatever other stuff they were normally told "wasn't their place" and people, eventually, started to accept that it IS a woman's place as much as a man's. That process is still ongoing in a lot of areas of society, but in gaming, it's barely even STARTED. And this thread, posted in a forum for a game that the OP enjoys, is an attempt to get this game's community to help work on that.
Laughing it off is all well and good, but not everyone's personality is suited to doing that. And, as was mentioned by the guy who runs GAB, we're not coming home and siitting down in front of our gaming consoles so we can laugh off the same abuse we have to put up with in our daily lives - gaming is meant to be AN ESCAPE FROM THOSE TROUBLES.
I think you skipped the part where I said I guess it depends on the person....
And I dont think it just ''started'' per say, 47% of gamers are girls. It's on going aswell, but as I said, as society changes more and more, gaming changes with it.
And there is a reason online is not rated. There is no way you can control what people say, meaning maybe the escape from those troubles is not in online gaming....
I'm not saying the girl gamers are just starting to show up, I'm saying that ACCEPTANCE of girls in gaming is just starting.
And saying that people shouldn't play online games as an escape is like telling a female soccer player she shouldn't try to enjoy her sport because people are being sexist pigs. The world doesn't work like that any more for sports, and it shouldn't work like that for games either.
If you heard someone abusing a female soccer player in a mixed team, you'd ALSO hear someone telling them to shut up and leave. If they got even 1/4 as abusive as people do in online games, they'd probably be thrown out of the park or stadium it happened in.
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