Sexism in Gaming

[fruckert]

...ok, I bite...how exactly?
Seriously, explain your argument.

[SaiKar]

With the whole sexism thing, it's not that I'm unsympathetic. It's just that I don't care. I make what I believe is a halfway decent attempt at being fair. If other people can't, or people believe my standards aren't high enough, well, nuts to them.

[Meiscool]

...ok, I bite...how exactly?
Seriously, explain your argument.

Because it is basically an attack against men. If she were just talking about generally bullying, she would've used that term. However, she used sexism, implying that men are the root cause (since women are on the defending side).
I've personally witnessed angry women send ventilation PMs to people, so I know they do it too.

[SaiKar]

I've personally witnessed angry women send ventilation PMs to people, so I know they do it too.

Isn't that basically what this thread is in a nutshell?

[Zerlina]

Because it is basically an attack against men. If she were just talking about generally bullying, she would've used that term. However, she used sexism, implying that men are the root cause (since women are on the defending side).
I've personally witnessed angry women send ventilation PMs to people, so I know they do it too.

The term "sexism" isn't an attack on men, it's a generic term- it can be applied both to men and to women equally. To be honest, I find it somewhat worrisome that you talk about discussing sexism as if it were just a tool to degrade men.

[Archem]

I'm hoping that they weren't serious. Otherwise, there are some problems at play here.

[Meiscool]

Yeah, I know what sexism means. However, the way it was used in this topic was only geared towards males bashing women or homosexuals. I don't remember everything I read, but I'm pretty sure no one brought up women belittling men over video game chat.
It obviously is not as big of an issue when you reverse the genders, and pretty much everyone recognizes it. That is why "sexism in video games" is normally women complaining about the actions of men, and the rare occasion of men complaining about other men being sexist toward their orientation.

[Archem]

I'm getting spats of that, too, Lucas.

Anyway, men don't complain about the considerably less frequent sexism. It seems to be a combination of several factors, including the obvious rarity. Male-on-male sexism isn't quite sexism, it's just insults. Suggestions of sexuality are bigotry of a different variety, and gender isn't the primary focus. Women aren't typically as aggressive, so when a sexist woman comes into play, it becomes easy to ignore, laugh at, or marvel over due to the novelty. There is no novelty in frequent sexual harassment, though, so ignoring, laughing, or marveling at it become rather difficult after some time. Given that traditional gender roles put men in power, it really is hard to do damage to them. Psychology is powerful. Honestly, sexism contra-male is common in media. Men are typecast as stupid and crude frequently. Often, it's presented in a humorous fashion, and isn't very explicit, so it flies under the radar. The subject at hand is angry, vulgar, threatening stuff. I understand the idea of sexism against males, but in practice, it's far from comparable. Anyway, I'm not even sure if sexism is the right word anymore. It's more like sexually-charged, aggressive verbal abuse than a gender-roles thing most of the time.

I feel that I'm starting to make my point a bit confusing, so I'll stop now before it sounds like rambling nonsense.

[Prpl_Mage]

We might as well call it Misogyny while we're at it huh?

This is how I feel. Feed the insulter anything to go with and s/he will use it to insult you. Call yourself kingdomheartsrikku666 and he'll bash kingdom hearts. Games that show the players nationality will get a lot of racial slurs such as "****ing germans ruining the game" or "stupid j€ws go back to destroying the w0rld". And people who are called anything among the lines of "furry" "kitten" "ponie" will get a taste of that.
That's how you do insults, you attack a person personally. And they don't know you, so they will just go with whatever they can get. Being female is one of those things.

Not sure how to deal with constant boyfriend request over Xbox live though. I'm not even sure they can be taken very seriously. But then again I've never been subjected to it. And even if I did I doubt anyone would care. Which is probably the problem here, it's impossible to picture yourself there. Since when the exact same thing happens you just shrug it off and laugh at the guys temper.

[Archem]

The big difference is that without any instigation, most people won't insult other people simply for who they are or what their handle is. Women do face the threat of harassment simply for being women. It happens quite often, and lasts for long durations. "xXFuRFaNXx" likely won't get picked out of a crowd and humiliated for hours (both in game and with private messages) if they're male, non-confrontational, and of average performance levels in a game. The name will inevitably get some harassment, but it's unlikely to last for more than a few minutes. Women will get picked out almost immediately, mostly because of the voice. This leads to the harassment, which can go on for a long time, and as we've seen, can persist after the end of the game.

[Valiere]

To say there's sexisim in games is a sexist comment within itself.

Because it is basically an attack against men. If she were just talking about generally bullying, she would've used that term. However, she used sexism, implying that men are the root cause (since women are on the defending side).
I've personally witnessed angry women send ventilation PMs to people, so I know they do it too.

I'm guessing you two are prominent voices against "reverse racism" too.

Anyway, I have noticed this in a number of forums and gaming communities: When the female population increases, sexist behavior drops in frequency. The guilds that are the most welcoming to women tend to be the ones that already have a decent number of women. This could be because when male gamers have regular contact with female players, their femaleness stops being remarkable.

Is sexism endemic to male gamers, moreso than average men? Maybe. Someone on Reddit speculated on why Redditors tend to be so damn sexist, saying that they are mostly socially challenged, probable virgins, and have trouble getting dates. So went the theory, guys like that tend to assume women have a much easier time getting laid and harbor a lot of resentment toward them for that reason (and I guess, also that they're getting laid with someone who isn't them).

And then there's another theory of mine, similar to my first: The most decent, egalitarian men tend to have platonic female friends. Female friends that they enjoy spending time with and don't care about getting into their pants. Seeing past someone's gender when it comes to hanging out/watching a movie/having a beer is a great big step toward maturity for a lot of people.

[Archem]

I'm indifferent about a person's gender. This sometimes makes me come off as a jerk for not being a perfect gentleman around women, but you can't accuse me of being unfair.

End result: Everyone likes me for being up-front about myself.

[Valiere]

I do!

[Meiscool]

I agree with Archem's last post.
I don't see genders when I look at people.
If I'm playing COD2 and I get pissed and PM someone that that person is a dick, I'm not caring if the person actually has a penis or not.
If they call me a ****, I'm sure they don't care if I actually have a vagina or not.
If they tell me they are going to rape me because I am a pussy girl on my period, then yeah, they are being sexist against women because they are using female only attributes as insults. However, I don't feel they are insulting me as a person, and they could care less if I were actually a female of not. They will use those insults regardless of the gender they are insulting. No direct sexism.

So yeah, ultimately if your argument is that sexism exists in gaming because men are using commonly female oriented terms like "girl, pussy, ****, slut, etc" to insult people (implying that having female qualities is bad), then you have some basis. People complain about these insults.
"Dick, prick, bastard, boi, douchebag, fag, etc" are generally only male oriented insults (implying male qualities are bad), and they are used commonly as well. Never seen anyone cry about them though... cept fag. Women don't seem to care, and neither do men.
So yeah, that is my argument why sexism is pretty much a female thing, and is a little bit sexist in itself. All the time you hear about men defending women, but not really women defending men in sexism. If a woman brings up sexism, it is typically because men are belittling women.
The only time I can think that men would complain about sexism is for homosexual rights; which I support.

[Meiscool]

But women 'get to' complain about being called "****, pussy, girl, etc"?