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A month back, I followed a link to the article Sexual harassment for female players in Starcraft2 thread, which describes an overwhelmingly negative response in a Teamliquid thread about an all-girl clan as mysogynistic. While I'm sure part of the worry about unhealthy gender roles in The Hathor Legacy website is justified (and it seems that Jennifer's attacks against Teamliquid indeed did alter moderating policy a bit, creating awareness of sensitivities), it struck me how this article and its comments showed an uncanny way of putting up an intellectual wall around your feelings, alienating yourself from others in trying to create the world as you see it. Seeing the very protective and irrational way other comments from fellow Teamliquid users had been rejected, I made sure to read every commenting rule carefully, wanting my chance to reach out to some of these poor people and at least try to counter-balance their bleak take on reality.
However, when I made my comment, it was never accepted. A few weeks ago, I wrote Jennifer, the author of the article, and got the response that my comment violated policy. I asked this specified, having read the rules carefully, wanting the chance to explain my comment to Jennifer if she comes up with some silly meta-argument, just like she seems very happy to characterize most of the things she doesn't like as "strawman arguments". Anyway, I never heard back from her, so I thought I would post my comment here and allow for some debate, should people want to do so:
[Response to Sexual harassment for female players in Starcraft2 thread]
I think an important part in gender equality is to understand how it
plays out in society. Which is why I feel my point is important to
post, even some seven months after this was posted.
I felt sad when reading this because it was a good illustration of
how people can read into thing. How you can focus too much on "sexual
harassment" and misogyny and see it everywhere. What I see here is
taking the customs of observed within a particular culture and trying
to understand these in parralell to issues that are generally applied
to everyday society and face-to-face interaction. The thread you link
to is sadly not accessible, so it's hard to comment too specifically.
Maybe I read it back when it was posted; I know I certainly did read
threads like it. However, if we look at the things you point out,
there really is no misogyny. It's all about understanding the
context.
Females participating more actively in the major gaming scenes is
becoming more commonplace. However, within this environment, being a
girl still is still surrounded by a certain amount of myth and stigma.
This can cause various reactions to girl, such as:
- Due to being enticed by the idea of female presence, female gamers
will also bring out insecurities in man male gamers due to the history
of females in games. This includes:
* Males pretending to be females: Meaning that although the male
gamers want to enjoy the presence of a female, they feel guilty about
doing so until the identity has been confirmed, and they will act to
test it.
* Females attention whoring: This is not so much about "undue"
attention, but rather about other implications. It can give the same
reaction as the previous example, replacing "ugly insecure girl" with
"male", meaning that the males will assume that the female is
desirable until they learn otherwise, but will be hesitant to do so.
The history of attention whoring also gives the impression that female
members are not participating on the same level, but with alternate
motives, meaning that their presence represents are disjointed
community, a disruptive force or a parody of the community.
* Female separatism/elitism: The females have generally been known to
separate themselves in the gaming community, giving some males a
feeling of inadequacy. It also gives the idea that the female members,
initially objects of desire (by instinct of some male gamers), seem
unattainable, which might cause reactions such as frustration. This
will cause male gamers to assume that any girl will feel she is too
good to be "part of the gang", and they will seek to test this.
- Girls are automatically given a particular status in gaming
communities for various causes. Lonely male gamers often enjoy the
female presence; just the thought they they have the chance to
communicate with a woman. Simply the fact that there are much fewer
girls means that many guys will value the girls because of whatever
specific female insights or qualities they can provide (be that taking
pictures of themselves with the logo of the forums, providing advice
in a dating-thread or simply being able to give some perspective in a
general discussion based on their gender). Regardless of the reason
for this status, it causes male members to pay more attention or be
more reactive in relation to female members, meaning that they
"actions" will be more likely to trigger a response of some kind, also
more likely an adverse or controversial one (as people care more about
the female posters due to their status, therefore having more feeling
involved when they post).
Given all this, from your depiction of the thread in question, it
would seem that an altogether different mechanic plays a more
important role here. Let me try to explain:
1. Post is made about subject. This subject, due to its history, is
one that has some funny connotations.
2. First few posters make silly posts as they don't really have
anything to contribute, but still felt that they had a chance to be
funny or simply post something ever so slightly meaningful by
expressing their immediate thoughts brought on by the connotations of
the subject.
3. Others find that they don't have anything to contribute either,
but notice that they can make a joke based on what other comments have
said. They do so, and a precedence has now been established; it is
accepted in this context to post meaningless comments simply to try to
be funny. The fun-factor will be enhanced by the context of the other
posts, either because of their interplay, their amount, their
repetitive nature or a specific theme that they serve to bring out.
4. Now, for many posters, the most obvious thing would be to continue
the joking, but if you don't want to joke and don't have anything to
post that directly relates to what is asked in the thread, you might
still want to post because you feel you have something to say about
the topic relating to the thread. In other words, you start a
discussion where there isn't really a basis for any.
5. Because a discussion has been started about a controversial
subject, meta-discussion ensues, which brings insults and harsh words
but also brings out trolls (people who pretend to have a certain
position on a subject to provoke a reaction from others).
Now notice that this can happen to any thread. It is simply likely to
be enhanced in a female-related topic due to factors described above.
Believe me, these people love that there are females on the forums,
and are not any bit misogynist.
The administrator's comment seems perfectly fine, helping to explain
why there might not be a lot of girls signing up for an all-girl team,
given the context of competitiveness or stigma of girls in the gaming
community. An then another woman makes the most sensible comment of
those that you quoted, basically saying that you should be so scared
of people, taken aback by their actions on the internet. You should
try to understand that the behaviour exhibited is normal, simply
humour established in a specific context. You might even come to enjoy
it and find it funny with time. It is not gender specific, but rather
the general tone. Moderators will usually make sure that there are not
too many meaningless posts that derail a thread, but obviously this
thread was considered a lost cause. There are several female gamers
who have no problems enjoying the forums or being part of the
community despite the immature jokes they might attract in a specific
context. Most of these females are rather able to attain a large
portion of respect from the male members of community, which becomes
evident in the responses. At Teamliquid, the user lilsusie would be an
example of this (look her up if you're curious).
 
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Hmmm... this is an interesting post that you obviously took a lot of time to write. If I mistake the meaning of anything you wrote, please correct me. This is specifically in response to the article/thread, but you also make some larger conclusions about the overall treatment of females in the gaming community that I disagree with.
I think at the most basic core of what you are saying is that the general actions being interpreted as misogynistic are actually not, and that the feeling that sexual harassment is common and a huge problem in the scene for females is unfounded. And you go on to explain your ideas about how the remarks come across that way, etc. (Again please correct if I am wrong, that is a rather long post and I did my best to follow everything you were saying.)
First of all, I would say that regardless of whether or not these kinds of comments are truly made out of hate for women, or just jokingly, they are incredibly harmful. Negative messages have a negative impact, event when both parties know it is a joke. These 'jokes' become tug at our insecurities, make us doubt ourselves, make us wonder if there is truth to them. They are harmful. More importantly however, in most of these situations, there is zero way to tell if the comments are made jokingly-- as they are made by people you do not know, and cannot see or hear.
Second of all, I think there is a huge problem with sexual harassment. It is not so much that every member of the community is involved with it, so much as that there are so few women as to be easily targeted. I have had several instances of stalking and harassment. Let me tell you how it began-- it began with kitchen jokes. Just one or two. If I make an issue of it and get mortally offended, of course I will be over-reacting to friendly joking, that is not meant hatefully and I should just learn to understand as normal behavior that I should be ok with. After a while it's-- Hey Red, ___ is off fapping to your Skype picture. Also offensive, but again-- this is normal behavior I should be ok with. Then it's-- Hey send us some pictures. Just joking of course, so if I say I'm uncomfortable with the jokes and the constant bombardment of statements with sexual undertones-- I'm overreacting and stupid for not accepting the norm. And then I begin to get sent disgusting images, to be sent messages with explicit sexual statements about what they would like to do to me. I block one person and someone else messages me to tell me to quit being such a bitch and learn to take a joke. I get stalked around streams I like to watch to the point where I need to make a new account or never talk in order to watch the streams in peace.
All my male friends say-- you deserved it because you didn't make them stop.
That kind of standard isn't fair. When it is ok to make comments 'jokingly' that make someone feel uncomfortable and degraded, it encourages the continuation of those things. In addition, when someone speaks up to say they are uncomfortable and not ok with things, now /they/ are the ones who are wrong. They are ruining the fun by not learning to accept that it is normal and how things are.
It's a basic respect issue. If something is offensive to someone else and you do it anyway, you don't respect them-- regardless of whether it was joking or not. I am sure any African-Americans you may know would not appreciate a joking comment about how they should be working in plantation fields.
The truth is, even if none of those individuals hate women, or if they represent the most fractional amount of the community, allowing that to be a norm creates an atmosphere of misogyny which is just as damaging.
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Zurich15306 Posts
I would prefer not to give them any more publicity. The whole episode has shown that she and/or the site she runs are completely insane. The fabricated setup story was enough already, but the reaction in the comments even topped it.
Over weeks she went back through the comments and edited everything including her own comments to preserve the alternative glass house reality she appears to live in. My personal favorite was when she was arguing that TL and her site are "about the same size", comparing her monthly visitors to our daily. When she was called out on that she removed all data on her site from the very stats tracking site she used as a reference while keeping her comment unaltered.
She has absolutely no interest in discussing anything. It's rather disappointing as these episodes of craziness make it really difficult to appreciate the in my opinion generally worthy cause their site is fighting for.
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For the sake of clarity I'm going to sum up my understanding of your post and go from there:
Female presence elicits an exaggerated response (amongst mostly male gamers, for various stated reasons). This combines with the way internet threads usually gather steam. The result is a chain of increasingly questionable contributions with immediate momentum due to the exaggerated response.
This is perhaps a reasonable explanation of the thread in question, but it in no way excuses it. Just because you can state why something happens doesn't make it okay. That's the most important thing about your comment itself.
On the topic of sexism and why the posts in that thread are not okay:
Apparently the thread has been disappeared so the only thing I have to go on is Jennifer's article. Even so, I don't need to address specific posts to make my point, and the nature of the thread seems clear enough.
Whether or not teamliquid is generally sexist is impossible to argue to an unequivocal result here, and is not my focus. That said, I think most people reading Jennifer's article would agree there was some level sexism in that thread. If you think sexism is wrong even a little bit, then any of the douchebag comments in that thread are inappropriate. I wanted to cover this briefly, but it's beside the point. The label of sexism is not the important thing.
What is important though (and this is an abstract distinction) is that a bunch of people were being douchebags based almost entirely on the identity of the OP. In other words, instead of being douchebags as usual, they were being douchebags targeting a specific group. That happened to be women. You explain in your comment at length about the nature of the community here and how internet threads in general develop based on previous posts. Regardless of how one feels about douchebags trying to be funny on the internet, polluting someone else's thread, you could argue it's a valid facet of the culture, and I'll assume that. In this environment, anyone could expect a certain level of perceived harassment in any thread. However, it's quite different when that harassment/humor at your expense is a direct result of who you are, especially when it is so relentless.
If you don't follow me, or you don't agree, here's a hypothetical example. Someone identifying themselves as black makes a post here asking if other black people want to join up to play together. The first responses are off topic and center on the OP's race. Then a racist with a grudge or a troll says "Niggers are bad at this game why bother?????" and a argument erupts, as they do, completely derailing the thread.
Would you still argue that a comment like that is okay, on the grounds that it's part of the culture?
From a broader standpoint, targeted disrespect is manifest inequality, which is uncivil and indefensible.
There are a million other things I could discuss but I'll add just one because I think it complements my main point. In any thread here, where moderators are purportedly strict, posts that are entirely off-topic are warned, at the least, as per forum rules and common sense. Why is it okay at all for a bunch of men to post useless shit in a thread where a woman is asking for responses from other women?
Moreover, why would they feel the need to do that, and why do they feel it's acceptable? At the very least you could say they get away with it, and you could argue it's essentially encouraged. The answer, broadly, is that it's part of the culture. And the only way to change that is through sustained behavior adjustment.
Note that I leave out particular judgements. It's not worth arguing about, not least because the topic of sexism or discrimination generally is a kaleidoscope of gray areas. The only thing I want to get across is that you can't seriously argue the behavior in that thread was not genuinely disrespectful and that it is tolerable.
[edit] To acknowledge the above posts
@Red -- Well said
@Zatic -- Yeah... I can see how that sort of inter-website fight would just be stupid and annoying. Your last sentence sums it up well.
Since I didn't see any of this at the time, take my post as a discussion of a hypothetical if you want. It remains valid.
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On May 09 2011 19:30 RedJustice wrote:
It's a basic respect issue. If something is offensive to someone else and you do it anyway, you don't respect them-- regardless of whether it was joking or not. I am sure any African-Americans you may know would not appreciate a joking comment about how they should be working in plantation fields.
I actually don't find any joke that demeans another person funny, HOWEVER I totally disagree with the yard stick you are using. You can't and shouldn't use how other people feel about something as a standard for your own behaviour. Christians may find it objectionable that I work on a Sunday, or vegetarians might find it objectionable that I eat meat, but I don't think I should have to moderate what I do to fit in with what they find offensive. Clearly as a society we have social norms which we judge acceptable behaviour by, however it's worth remembering that even these are not set in stone.
With sexual equality issues I find it a simple but effective exercise to see how I would feel about it if the gender roles were reversed. Clearly in this case a clan that refused to accept female members would be unacceptable, and therefore my opinion is based on this. Some people would frame females as the minority and therefore weaker, but I wouldn't characterise females in this way since it's not how I have experienced women in my life.
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She is bat-shit crazy.
I tried commenting on her site as a response to those articles, and when they kept being deleted, I specifically referenced the rules with every statement I made, to show her I was not breaking any of her beloved rules.
When my comments were still moderated, I sent her an email, and, well, lets just say that I got to see a side of her she doesn't post on that forum.
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No need to give more attention and traffic, just ignore that shit.
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there is not any reason in the world to give that moron any more attention that she craves. feminism is certainly important, but the hathor legacy represents femnism much in the same way that muslim extremists represent Islam or the westboro church represents all christians.
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Sorry for not responding earlier. Have been elsewhere doing elsewhat. RedJustice and EatThePath, I think both your summations of my posts are accurate. However, even so, I think your responses miss the most important message; that is, to take things at face value.
RedJustice: After reading your post, I am not sure which general statements about the treatment of females in gaming I have made that you disagree with. My best guess is that you find my post implies that sexual harassment against women does not exist in any significant form in the gaming community. However, I was merely pointing out that the topic in question was not an example of such. To the best of my understanding, people didn't make jokes about females because the thread poster was female, rather because it was the theme of the topic. In other words, if the topic was about something else, it's unlikely that such comments would have appeared at all. If the girl made a topic that brought up another controversial issue, the insults would revolve around that, not her gender.
There is no way that the harassment that you describe is acceptable, and it's ridiculous to say that you are supposed to be able to stop harassment from anonymous people on the internet. Just like personal attacks or demeaning comments are not acceptable on Teamliquid. However, not all girls in the gaming scene have happened to be targeted by a few immature individuals who sent innapropriate pictures. And it's important that when encountering comments such as those in the thread referred to that they do not feel that's it's because the community is hostile or unreceptive to them because of their gender. Rather than see themselves of victims of a phenomenon, reading into things the way the article from The Hathor Legacy does, they have to take things at face value. Hence my explanation of what happened in the topic.
Since gender discrimination is something that has been discussed much, it easily becomes the focal point in a situation where conflict arises. If you understand that it's a bunch of hormone-driven immature boys rather than a bunch of hateful mysogynists, it's often easier to be a bit more thick-skinned. On the internet, anyone can easily be targeted for any reason, and therefore it's important to understand its premise (that it is more free, and therefore you will encounter more extremes, also when it comes to immature behaviour). There is no doubt that some attacks against women can be considered legitimate and acceptable due to a historical frame of reference that has created the discourse that we have today, and thus make it so that women are more easily harassed, but the topic mentioned seems to be a horrible example of that.
EatThePath: I guess my answer to Red's comment also addresses your points. I felt it it more important to answer her comment due to her obvious personal involvement in the issue. Basically, the reason that I tried to explain what went on in the topic was to make it clear where the issue stemmed from. That it was not about sexism, rather just general insults/jokes/criticism targeted at the themes that the topic revolved around. People don't say that females are bad at gaming because the discriminate against it, but because that is their general experience. If people thought black people were generally worse gamers, it would be a valid thing to say. Just like the notion that non-Koreans were generally inferior in terms of RTS gaming had developed due to the dominance of the Korean Starcraft scene in SC:BW.
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@asjo -
I respect that you are trying to find the truth in the situation. But I feel like you are missing the point. My main response to you was that regardless of the explanation, the behavior is inexcusable. You shouldn't say things that make people feel insulted or degraded.
Of course no one expects that we should police the forums for idiots. But if you defend them, it's certainly a negative contribution.
I can't identify what you're arguing for, or why.
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Sweden5554 Posts
I pretty much completely agree with Red and Eat.
Almost all of the post in that thread were off topic. If OP asks for people to join a clan the discussion of the thread shouldn't be if female only clans are OK or other things pertaining to her being female, but if you are a person who's interested in joining or if you know someone who might be.
If you want to have the "if female only clans/tournaments/whatever are OK" discussion, you should at the very least create your own thread, rather than hijack someone else's.
You don't make someone feel welcomed to a community by demanding that because she's a female she will have to post pictures of herself or any other such things, this to me is sexist behaviour (you treat a woman differently than you do a man). I do think that the feminist blogger might have taken one or two comments out of context but that's because we probably have different perspectives, but as to the OPs perspective, we don't know which it's closest to. For example does OP think it's funny to have some unknown person on a forum say "she posted a picture of her pussy, happy now?" or not. I know a lot of women who would find that sort of comment hilarious and I know some who wouldn't and some who'd get rather upset.
To quote EatThePath: This is perhaps a reasonable explanation of the thread in question, but it in no way excuses it.
And I think that extends to "this is perhaps a reasonable explanation of behaviour within the community but it in no way excuses it." We should always try to hold ourselves to higher standards than bigotry. And you can't use your own insecurities as excuses for mistreating other people.
Also even if the feminist blogger is bat shit crazy that doesn't per default make any of her conclusions wrong.
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Women hate beards cuz they can't have them.
User was warned for this post
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On May 09 2011 19:39 zatic wrote:
Over weeks she went back through the comments and edited everything including her own comments to preserve the alternative glass house reality she appears to live in. My personal favorite was when she was arguing that TL and her site are "about the same size", comparing her monthly visitors to our daily. When she was called out on that she removed all data on her site from the very stats tracking site she used as a reference while keeping her comment unaltered.
This is too funny. She tries to give the impression that TL is about twice as popular as her site; alexa has her site at about 750,000th globally whereas TL is around 3000th.
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First, I want to re-iterate the original point of the thread: Jennifer Kesler tries to create an image of the enemy in her article, where the thread comes to represent a clash of genders. She does this by improperly using terms such as "sexual harassment", "gender discrimination" and "misogony", reading into things because she does not understanding them. So, what I wanted was simply to diffuse this image, explaining that it was in fact not so. What happened wasn't because she was a girl, but rather a mixture of her posting an inflamatory topic (one that has sported much heated discussion in the past, but also one that can often lead to other discussions that are even more heated), a badly handled discussion, and the topic happening to be rerailed.
However, I see that I must relate to another part of the discussion. What about the community in general? Surely, if women often experience behaviour that gets them uncomfortable, it must mean they're being descriminated against? I think my view on this is affected by the fact that I live in Denmark, where we, unlike in the States, do not have the "Madonna/Whore" complex regarding women. Gender equality has been a reality for a while, although a few inequalities still exist because they have been "inherited" and change slowly (cliques of males favouring each other in business, fathers passing the businesses onto sons, some trades still considered mostly for males). For a long time, I have thought of women more highly than men, and I've never had any problem respecting women. Hell, when I grew up my father was the one in the traditional role of a woman in our family. I also think it's likely that in a not too distant future, women will have the dominant voice in society (if they don't already, though cultural hegemony) and will possess more leadership positions. So, I very rarely think gender discrimation into things, since it's simply not a concept that's very relevant to me.
I see that a part of the discussion has become parly a normative discussion about general behaviour; how people outght to act. This isn't the intended purpose of my topic, although I'm sure many will like to push an agenda that favour their view on proper forum etiquette. The post "she posted a picture of her pussy, happy now?" is a parody on male gamers of the past, who before getting a little more used girls on the internet, would always want to see pictures of them for various reasons. So, is this post alright? It was relevant to what else had been posted, but wasn't really addressing the topic - so, a bit of off-topic banter, as we know it, that can either end in a big derail or simply make a topic more interesting as related things subjects are explored, without diverting attention alltogether. It was a joke, so as such it didn't contribute much. So, do we allow for off-topic jokes that do not contribute much? Well, it's a balance, as I'm sure Teamliquid moderators are aware. Many will come to this place in part because they enjoy that they can share a particular culture that involves a certain kind of humour, and when reading topics, they will not only be enlightened or have chance to talk about something relevant, but they will also be able to laugh or smile or do so to others. At the same time, if that's gets too much, the quality of conversation drops, making the forums less attractive. And topic detailing? It happens, and when it does, it's often a lot of people doing it. So, moderators more often than not simply close the topic to stop that bad pattern that's evolving rather than warm or ban specific individuals as they are simply "following the stream". Is it more acceptable to rerail a topic because it has to do with girls? I wouldn't say so.
When reading a discussion about the current state of Teamliquid, I read a post that said that it should be a conscious aim to avoid being an insular community. That means that, in general, people who outside fall outside of the demographics of belonging to the age groups of 16-30 and aren't used to forums that mainly consist of male gamers are more likely to be put off to Teamliquid upon encounter. That means that many people who could have joined these forums won't, simply because they are "scared" away. This happens because when joined in a self-sufficient community, you enforce and cultivate a particular culture, and communication and norms within this culture will not translate well to others if it's not closely related to how people would act in general society. People who immerse themselves in this culture, might come to embrace it and later fully appreciate it (for instance, understanding the humour, as I talked about earlier). To get that far, they have to be a bit thick-skinned, wihch I think goes for most of interaction on the internet. You attain that by realizing that whereas all insults are personal face-to-face because of the direct contact that requires constant interpretation from both parties, they are not personal on the internet, but rather abstract ideas being communicated. I'm not saying that we should accept Teamliquid as an insular community, but I would definitely say that the opposite is not realistic. People bring a specific culture, and at Teamliquid, we unite it. It might seem like a culture of little tolerance, but only insofar as you're not a part of it.
So, in conclusion, if my acceptance or understanding of this behaviour should breed a certain environment, it's not one of gender discrimination, rather one of crude jokes and immature behaviour in general. I certainly think Teamliquid moderators know where to draw the line and are doing a good job. The topic in question ended up being rerailed, but only a few individuals crossed the line and were warned or banned. The topic is likely not an instance of some unacceptable jokes/insult or discriminatory behaviour becoming accepted simply because it's ok to direct them at females, as per tradition. The topic Starcraft Cosplay? show that the male popular on here can still be quite uneasy around females, especially when confronted with something that clearly highlights gender differences or sexual elements, but that the Teamliquid moderators are aware of deterring comments that might make a particular individual feel unwelcomed or alienated (derogatory comments about their looks, maybe more clearly demonstrated in Anna Prosser for Miss USA). This girl is able to draw from the positive and abstract from the negative - without becoming a "mysogynist sympathiser", as I'm sure Jenifer would deem her. She does not enter into irrelevant discussion or "feed the trolls". The topic develops a positive and open atmopshere and some relevant discussion ensues. No doubt that the more girls we see, the more quickly the community will adapt to female presence, a get under the initial fascination or doubt regarding this, which attracts special attention and will therefore also attract more negative attention.
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the Dagon Knight4001 Posts
When it comes to these kinds of arguments, I tend to fall back on the Judith Butler-y argument that gender is performative... it casts "girl gamers" in an interesting light.
How does one perform being a girl gamer? Always weird, always interesting.
It's sad that it's such an interesting concept to engage with, but those who discuss it tend to be very... maybe zealous is a nice way of putting it.
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EPT
