EPTGender equality: a little user's handbook - Page 6
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OMin
United States545 Posts
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Malyce
Switzerland112 Posts
On July 16 2011 07:06 Finrod1 wrote: Nice effort op but this is far off in the tl community. I have studied gender studies and i never start arguing about sexism in our society on the internet because people won't understand it. They simply can not. Like i can not understand a very difficult math problem without month or years of research and maybe then i won't get it. Most people even don't really get the difference between gender and sex. And the most recent discussions are about how "clear" the biological part really is. We live in a sexist and patrichial society and its freeking annoying but dealing on a sc2 forum with it? Way way too useless in my opinion. Thank you for understanding my strife. Sure it's useless if you look at the big picture but at least it gets a little debate going, it didn't take me too long to write the OP, and for every selfless soul that was convinced that there maybe a thing or two to change attitude-wise, it's a small victory for women in ESports  . And the distinction between gender and sex has become very blurry in English since the UN began using gender as an equivalent to sex. It's very different in other languages, in French for example "genre" and "sexe" have consivered their initial meaning. OMin that is I think the feedback I've been getting the most. "But they're different!" And then when you ask them how men and women are different, it usually becomes speculation (the kind that leads to crisis). It's been the same throughout history. Every time a group is discriminated, its due to "natural differences". This was the case during colonisation. It has caused fascism. Thing is, in most cases "natural differences" are used to justify oppression. So what natural differences are there? Physical aptitude, testosterone. Fine. Personnality? Perhaps to a certain extent, but it is enhanced by the fact that men and women treated differently. Intelligence? There's no solid evidence of it. Gaming skills? I'm quite sure that this has very little to do with "natural differences". It's very important not to erect existing differences into natural differences. It is correct to say female progamers aren't as numerous as male progamers. It is incorrect to say that this difference is "natural". You would be amazed (I know I was) by the strength of social construct. I'm always quite amazed by the demographics involved on this topic. Most people opposing the OP are mostly men, mostly from the USA (sorry guys <3), and mostly have never studied gender relations (or immediately thought it was stupid). If you look at those approving it, you will see a few women, and some people who actually have academic knowledge on the issue. The reason this is interesting is that this is a topic on which the "common sense" opinion runs short, because of the sociological constraints of dealing with a solid ideological framework. It takes considerable effort to leave said framework, process which is facilitated through study. In perhaps more accessible terms, common sense can help debate on a lot of things, but not so much for discrimination. Discriminatory practices are in most cases (especially today with the most obvious forms of discrimination being openly condemned) assimilated into culture and belief. If your culture is discriminatory, such discrimination is suttle and widely tolerated, then the common sense which also stems from said culture will necessarily be biased. Basically the debate ends up as one between "common sense" (although some posts are just plain stupid) and "academic knowledge" (not always a guarantee of being right but usually not bad when compared to common sense). Common sense says things are fine, because I know I'm not discriminatory, and so my society isn't, and so any difference in treatment must be due to natural differences. As for academic knowledge, well, check the OP | ||
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BottleAbuser
Korea (South)1888 Posts
Regardless of actual potential and ability, girls haven't performed as well as guys. A high-profile team picks up a girl, and that's exciting, because it might be a one time thing, or it might be part of the trickle that will eventually become a torrent of female professional gamers. Yeah, my expectation is that it's a one time thing. (Is that sexist?) Either way, being excited about it doesn't inherently make you sexist. I feel that you might be referring to my arguments with your bash on the "natural differences" and "common sense" viewpoints. I admit that sometimes I'll attribute things to natural differences when they aren't really, and I know that there are serious sexism problems. I'm not waving them away, I'm trying to discriminate between... well, what I perceive as natural differences and willful sexism. Is there some academic tool you can use to draw the line between logical and appropriate social responses to natural differences, and unfair discrimination? I'd love to know. | ||
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Malyce
Switzerland112 Posts
Dear BottleAbuser, I wasn't actually targetting anybody's post in particular, and certainly yours were far from the worst misconceptions I've seen on this blog post. It's very nice that rather than saying "you're full of BS" that you take interest in my arguments, so big hearts to you <3 <3 In our everyday lives, especially if you're a white male living in a privileged country, we've all been bashed in the brain with "don't be racist!", "don't be sexist!", "don't be communist!" and a lot of other "ist"s that should be avoided. So we've all been (or at least the more reasonable of us) through the process of trying our best not to be any of the above. And so we become very profoundly convinced that we're not racist/sexist. If someone calls me a racist (and it happens, I'm Swiss for X's sake), I feel genuinely offended. And so it's hard to break this shell we've created around ourselves. Particularly when it comes to sexism. But it is possible! Or at least to a certain extent. There are a few "tools" used by sociologists and anthropologists (at least that's how we call them in Europe, donno about other regions of the world, I hear that in the US some anthropologists study the behaviour of monkies, which seems bizarre to me) to draw the line between what is discrimination and what is not. Mainly what is used is a very potent mix of historical analysis (to study discrimination in the past, it's causes and consequences, and draw parrallels with the present), sociological study (through interviews, surveys, mainly qualitiative research), anthropological methodology (participative observation and inter-cultural compairisons) and tools that are proper to gender studies. I unfortunately cannot go into more detail on this, as every research paper has its own methodolgy. I'd suggest, if this really interests you, that you try to look through some research papers by reknown gender specialists. They can be sociologists or anthropologists, current or long gone. Soon enough, you'll pick up a "gender train of thought" that you can apply to any social sphere. Here I tried to apply it to SC2 and the internet. And all hell broke loose  | ||
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SilentCrono
United States1420 Posts
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