Some women are put in game journalism roles because they are appealing to their audience for reasons other than their gaming knowledge. PR person misunderstood her silence and made a bad assumption. This misunderstanding could have been easily corrected. Saying, "No thanks I'll drive. What type of damage model do you use?" is plenty to show you mean business.
People shouldn't judge books by covers, but they do. Best you can do is give them one good shot at understanding. This will separate the actual jerks from those who just guessed wrong. Most people don't want to offend you, so don't spend your time walking around with silent resentment over something that's done by mistake.
It's easy to tell someone to give everyone a shot at understanding when you're not on the receiving end of it all the time. She had this happen multiple times, so she rightly assumed what anyone would: These PR reps assumed she couldn't play their games because she was a woman.
Yes and they are right most of the time. Not because women cannot play those games, just because the majority of the women that are sent there do not.
As a foreign developer, I'm on the receiving end of that type of attitude all the time when there is talk about business, marketing, local trivia ... or most generally about a project they never thought I had heard before.
People make assumption, you can set things straight in the first seconds of the discussion. So I say in this case, grow up: they don't know you, swallow your pride and just tell them you mean business.
What would be more worrying is if their attitude do not change immediately after that. That is still a day-to-day problem for women in anything IT related, but I would except big show like the E3 to be quite smooth about that.
What about these PR reps, what if all the other girls they say that day weren't really experienced players of shoot-em-up games, how were they supposed to know she was different right away? Doesn't your comment apply equally to say she assumed things?
What do you mean by calling shenanigans? Blaming the PR people?
The thing is, the guys didn't get the same treatment... but my point was simply that the PR people were exposed to a certain pattern (someone is a girl => they aren't that experienced playing shoot em up video games) and it was repeatedly reinforced through subtle social feedback, that expecting them to just be good at the game was not producing great results for them or for your brand. And since the PR person wants to do their job and give a good impression of the game, they would just assume this girl was like the others, and offer to show her the best parts about the demo, so that she can write about them.
They aren't poor, I am asking why she is surprised given that they were very likely to do that, and indeed most of them in her story did do that.
What is the alternative? I am not calling them poor, but you are calling them deluded. And I am deluded. Basically we all believe a myth.
What is more likely is that there is an underlying reason for the PR people and others to believe it. It is the reason that should be analyzed and addressed, not the people who are the product of it.
> What is more likely is that there is an underlying reason for the PR people and others to believe it.
You're making the same mistake that the PR guy made (Obviously women don't play games, therefore it's an understandable mistake). Stop doing that, would be a really good start.
I don't think this is right. If most of the women who come by tell the PR guys that they don't play, then the PR guys are right most of the time when they assume that women don't play.
Most of the time when the IT guy makes sexual jokes, the girl laughs, so how was he supposed to know that this one time the girl was going to be offended?
Here's another simple "rule of thumb": Would she have gotten the same treatment after applying OP's suggestions (saying "No, thanks, I'll drive!") ? If not, then I feel that finally calling shenaningans is the right response.
And, again, quid bono ? She certainly did, a bunch of people who would never ever read her column now just gave her a bunch of pageviews.
She probably would, at the next booth. And the next, and the next[1]. At what point are you going to stop blaming her for other people's idiocy?
btw, it's "Cui bono" - the literal translation being "who benefits"?
[1] - Actually, it did, if you read the article:
It happened during one of my first appointments of the
show, a half hour I’d booked to check out the sequel to a
well-known military shooter franchise.
..later..
It continued to happen through the next few days of E3.
Upon checking into a booth, I would often be asked by the
PR rep whether I wanted someone to play my “hands-on” demo
for me. During booth tours, I would more often than not be
guided towards the Facebook games.
“I think I better play it for you,” is what she claimed the PR representative said. That is incredibly condescending, bad assumption notwithstanding. If I was a female gamer I would find that insulting, even if I was clueless. The assumption is not really the problem, the problem is the condescending and insulting attitude that the author ran into again and again. I would expect a PR rep for a gaming company to be more professional and be a better communicator. That is his job.
"Would you like me to give you a tour of the game?"
"Do you want me to drive, or just point things out as you go?"
"Do you have much experience with first person shooters?"
"It looks like you know what you are doing. Is there anything you would like to know about the game?"
All those are better ways he could have started the conversation. They do not assume anything, they make it easy for her to let him know her level of experience, and they are not insulting or condescending.
Well said. It's fairly obvious when you see some of the women reviewing games online for famous publications/websites : they play by the looks. That Kotaku writer may be an exception. People reason with rules of thumbs, and the rule of thumbs is that women involved in gaming professionally are not all hired because of their skills and knowledge as gamers.
I didn't even realize it was a female author until the quote about the PR person saying girls not usually being into this stuff. A PR person that is saying stuff like "I think I better play it for you" shouldn't be in that business, no matter who was at the keyboard. She said it happened many times, after a while I'd be compelled to say something to shut them up so I could play the darn game.
Male developers tend to rip keyboards away from other males too though... it takes patience on the part of a human-being to not be in the driver's seat yet still be in control.
Agreed (except for the agony part...I've been pairing for a long time and I enjoy it). In my experience, the people that "rip" keyboards from other folks' hands do so rather indiscriminately.
Not sure if this is sexism, more like horrible manners. I always request control of someone's keyboard when I need it (and given all the germs - I try to avoid it if I can!)
Of course, I am not female - I wonder if other female devs I know have this issue.
Besides the blatant sexism that's ripe throughout this woman's interaction with various staff members at E3: there's another underlying problem.
You shouldn't have to hold someone's hand through a game demo. And you certainly shouldn't need a PR person there to sell the game to your members of the press. The game should be as inviting and enticing to veterans who have been resting their fingers on WASD since they learned to walk as it is to someone who is just picking up a controller for the very first time.
Draw me in, let me lose myself in your entertainment, and don't make me think. A shining example of this is when first-person shooters stopped hiding the "inverse look" option in the deep recesses of a menu, and instead just asked you to "look up" when you first start a new game. Whatever direction you choose (up for up, or down for up (inverse)), the game then immediately flips the option for you behind the scenes. That's the level of UX and approachability that should be applied to every control and game mechanic in your title. A fact sheet shouldn't even be available. Make me fall in love in the first 5 minutes, like a well-crafted movie or book.
Games get away with so much because they can become addictive and time-consuming. And they'll still sell by the millions.
This doesn't take into account the realities of an E3 demo.
For one, the clever tricks that ease you in to the controls generally occur at the start of the game. It's not just the UI of the game that allow a first time player to be able to understand, it's the design of a level to teach you. This is often not the part of the game that an E3 demo wants to show.
The second point is that a lot of the more subtle stuff that hints to new players how to play may not even be in the game yet. These E3 demos are with an incomplete product, but the developers have slaved to create a section of the game that seems polished. However, they know their target audience for the demo are experienced gamers, not members of the general public, so it changes their development priorities accordingly.
1. buyers from retail who might "play" a game only at E3
2. Marketing people who are getting a sense for how your game is being received and might never play a game
3. Corporate tools who are checking how things are going and definitely never play games
4. journalists who may or may not play games or understand them.
The goal is not to let someone get lost in the entertainment but to get them to order a million copies in to retail, write a piece that gets everyone to buy the game, get marketing excited, keep your job or get a free trip to LA so you can drink your face off every night on the corporate dime. Plus it's E3, everything is cranked to a million decibels with a continuous strobe of nonsense.
My only bit of advice for the woman writing the article and others: Use Your Words. Tell the dude to go back to picking his wedgie and do your business.
I only got about halfway through this, far enough to wonder why she didn't tell him that she had to personally play the game in order to review it and, if that had not gotten him to move the fuck out of her way, then just walk off. No need to be "polite" and "respectful" to a dick.
I finished it, and wondered why she consented to such treatment over and over, reinforcing the stereotype instead of objecting and demonstrating competence and tearing down the misconception.
It can be really hard in a situation like that to stand up for yourself, especially if you don't want to cause a public fuss. I'm female, and at PAX East I was approached a couple of times (at social events, by attendees) and rather inappropriate things were said to me; it's hard to do anything other than just want to get out of that sort of a situation. Something inside you says "I can't believe he really means this", or "Did he really just say what I think he said?" - it is very much l'esprit d'escalier when it comes to standing up for yourself.
I always find it easier to speak up for other people than myself. One of the tricks I use when negotiating is to imagine I'm negotiating a salary for someone else so it stops being about me.
I'm also terrible at doing this, too. I think you're right though - it is easier to do it for someone else! But when you're in a confrontational situation that you haven't sought (unlike a salary negotiation, which you have probably sought), it's more about the "seat of your pants" type stuff, in which I tend to try to avoid escalation and/or the confrontation itself. Of course it's always easy to come up with "well I should have said x" or "I should have kicked him in the y" after it's over.
Seat of your pants type stuff is hard. It can help to go over all the "shoulda saids" afterwards so that you are a little quicker on the draw the next time. It also helps me personally to remember that just as I was socialized to behave a certain way, so were men. Many of them are happy to be given a different option for how to interact with women, assuming I give them the benefit of the doubt, treat it like a bad habit rather than a personal sin, and give them some option better than letting me abuse them instead of letting them abuse me.
Intended to be helpful, not critical. Have a great day and thank you for participating.
Yeah, to be fair, I am getting a bit better than I was 10 years ago about this stuff. I'm now far more likely to call someone out on bs than I was back then. But it's taken a long time and a lot of skin-thickening to get that courage up.
Though I have never been to PAX East I would still say: I'm sorry.
It's incredibly perverse, the way I was socialized in the US. I was taught essentially that love was always "at stake" in every discussion with the opposite sex, and that if I didn't have love, whether by commitment or conquest, then I was worthless. I ultimately had to resolve the problem that I wasn't treating ladies as genuine human beings by jumping off the deep end, and accidentally inventing a personal religion. Basically I committed to the worthlessness and resolved to make it my own, because it was better to treat others as real human beings. In doing so I suddenly discovered that love isn't static, isn't a substance, and that along that earlier path, real love was in fact impossible. So by embracing worthlessness I accidentally discovered worth.
I can't apologize to those I have wronged before, and those that have wronged you can't apologize to you now, but though it is empty, I would apologize to you on their behalf. I'm sorry; I've learned.
(Some) guys are told that their value as a man is tied to how good they are at "getting" women. So every conversation with a woman is framed in terms of an existential threat: if you're not getting enough women, you're not a real man.
We seriously need a social protocol for situations where A says something which makes B feel very sorry, but the proper recipients of B's apology are no longer available to hear it. It felt way too cheesy to just apologize to myself, so I apologized to you, but that doesn't make me feel any better about my womanizing and discriminatory past. Live and learn, I guess.
But it's still the right thing to do, and pointing this out is not victim blaming. And posting a blog to an audience that already agrees with you is not going to effect change. Confronting the perpetrators will.
These comments are asking why she didn't do this or that, or saying she shouldn't be upset because that's just how it is, which is textbook victim blaming.
And judging by the comments in this thread alone, I hardly think it was posted to an audience that already agrees.
Sure, it's the right thing to do, that doesn't make it easy. And saying "well, you should have done this" when it's quite difficult to do is moving the responsibility for how the situation progressed to the victim.
The fact that these situations occur frequently in tech circles is indicative that things still need to be done about embedding the issues into the general consciousness of people in tech circles. If it were a one-off situation, and everyone were horrified by it, it would be easier to say "well, it was just that one guy". But the fact that it still happens frequently, and reading the comments here and elsewhere that shift the blame of the outcome to the victim... makes me think that we haven't quite got to that stage yet. Sadly.
I really wish I could find an article I read a while ago, in response to efforts in an open source community to create a "Code of Conduct" for their tech conferences. It was from a woman who had worked in blue-collar industry before and had moved into tech. She said all the things that I, as a man, cannot say, without being labeled a 'victim blamer'. It's not: it's putting the blame on the actual individual who caused the problem, rather than blaming it on the circumstances.
She made a bunch of observations. Firstly, that sexism in tech, while it happens, is nothing compared to the sexism you'd find in the average tattoo parlour or mechanical workshop. At least in tech there is the option of sitting down and writing blog posts about things and getting validation even weeks after the fact. In other sectors, you either confront the sexist in their face immediately, or you will lose face and not be taken seriously.
But she also rightly pointed out that establishing a "code of conduct" and expecting people to abide by it will not change the behavior of those who act sexist or inappropriate today. Either they do it out of ignorance, or they don't care. But they're not going to change until specific instances are pointed out.
Additionally, I've noticed on multiple occasions that putting sexism on a special pedestal and making it a mission to eradicate it just has the opposite effect. People start seeing it as a right to never be offended, based on their own narrow personal and/or cultural view. For example, there was an entire shitstorm in this community about a 'sexist' tweet, which literally did not contain any gender reference. It merely implied that there was a gallery where you could view all the conference attendees that had uploaded a picture and, tongue-in-cheek, suggested you go look for that attractive developer you saw last time. Which isn't that strange, it's hard to remember faces and names in large groups.
You'd think the tweet said "Come perv over hot geek chicks here." It would invite harrassment, sexualizes things unnecessarily, etc., and all this in a completely one-sided debate about validating the hurt feelings of a few women, completely ignoring all the men and women who didn't see any offense, who 'obviously' didn't 'get it'.
And actually, that offended me. Because it implies that a) the only people who picture-stalk are straight men b) if given the opportunity to do so, men can't help themselves.
It takes the discussion away from the individual who did something wrong, and instead paints a giant target on a nebulous generalization of a very diverse group of people.
Echoing liedra's point -- "it's worse elsewhere" is a poor excuse for inaction when we, in fact, are here (not working in tattoo parlors, for example).
Also worth noting that the fact that a woman wrote the article has little to do with how "true" it is; maybe this goes without saying, but "woman" don't have selected representatives who can reasonably speak for all of their experiences. Unless the article author is citing some actual data, she's just guessing as much as you are.
Codes of conduct really can help, if they achieve widespread acceptance. People are social animals; they care if everyone around them thinks less of them because of their actions. They find out what the people around them think sometimes because of direct confrontations, sometimes because of other things... imagine "John Doe" at a popular conference, sitting through a presentation on some retarded code of conduct, dumb modern political correctness cranked up to 11! -- and John leans over to crack a joke about it to the normal-looking guy next to him, but then he realizes the guy is nodding along with the presenter, and was now standing up to give a frickin standing ovation -- what, really? -- and, oh come on, just about everyone was standing up now? Cheering all that rubbish? He'd feel a bit lost, I think -- recognizing the disconnect -- and that probably wouldn't change his habits of thinking all that much... but it could certainly give him pause before telling that same joke about blondes and whiteout on computer screens in front of so many of these same people.
This isn't data; this is my hopeful imagining... but it's worth putting some energy into trying to fix this problem, in many ways at once (why not?) vs. putting energy into stopping others from trying to fix it.
At the very least, if you agree there's a problem, say so (instead of finding ways to dismiss it) when the topic comes up; people are listening.
Just a point about this discussion point - just because a situation is worse elsewhere doesn't make it acceptable in tech.
I agree that sometimes it goes a little overboard. But there are also genuine moments when sexist bullshit should be called out for what it is. I don't know anything about the "gallery" tweet, but you need to consider a wide contextual impact of things you say and do, especially when it comes to minority groups. Having a gallery of people involved in the conference is fine, but why bring attractiveness into it? Why not just say "interesting" or "talented" instead? It strikes me as just being a bit thoughtless of the promoters, really.
At which point does "considering the wider impact of what you do" cross into "pandering to people with an inflated sense of self-importance" though? I've seen endless discussions online where the latter isn't even acknowledged as an actual possibility. In particular, it seems North Americans are far more eager to side with an offendee than e.g. Europeans.
Jesus fucking christ, get some assertiveness training if you're having that much trouble with something so basic. Life is tough, if you don't learn to elbow your way in you'll always stand on the side-lines and will forever be relegated to being a spectator.
You're very privileged to have grown up in a social setting that rewards you for your assertiveness. Not everyone, and especially women, has had the same environment and socio-cultural expectation of them. It'd be lovely to foster a culture in which these issues weren't issues - but for now we have to address the fundamental differences in how we treat women and girls, as far as assertiveness is concerned, from how we treat men and boys.
Actually, I was bullied by a caretaker and certain peers when I was a kid and had anxiety related issues as a result. After abusing drugs and neglecting myself for a long time, I faced my problems and learned to stand up for myself. Way to hold a prejudice against me based on my gender, genius.
There's no need to be rude. Everyone has different experiences. Not everyone is assertive or has the opportunity to learn to be assertive. Especially when social expectation is against them.
You're missing the point of what assertiveness is. It's about creating opportunity, not sitting on your ass and waiting for the world to cater to your needs. Life is what you make it and one has nobody to blame but themselves for where they go. True, we don't choose the starting point, but we do choose the destination.
The core of assertiveness is disregard for cultural expectations. Girls are rewarded for meeting unhealthy expectations, while we boys are punished for failing to meet unrealistic ones, and seeing that and the widespread lack of sympathy is more effective at eventually enabling many of us to start saying "fuck that".
This is an incredibly male view of things. Why is assertiveness the better choice? Why should life be about elbowing your way through everything? Why do you have to be such a tough guy?
> you'll always stand on the side-lines and will forever be relegated to being a spectator.
I don't make the rules, it's just the way nature is.
I think that a distinction must be drawn between being assertive and being abusive. Assertiveness is, in my opinion, nudging your way forward and reacting to people's objections by talking to them then taking their opinions into account and, if they lack assertiveness, representing their opinions. If someone else is also fighting for that spot, team up with them and work together.
In contrast, abusiveness is nudging your way forward at the expense of peoples' well-being and not respecting others' right to assert themselves.
In other words, it's the difference between fighting for yourself and fighting for everyone including yourself.
In fairness to her, women tend to be socialized to do stupid stuff like that. Given a lifetime of such socialization, it can be very hard to come up with a better response on short notice.
I make remarks like the one above in part to help other women realize they do have other options. My experience has been that providing an example of more effective behavior tends to go a very long way towards empowering other people.
Many years ago, probably in my teens, I read a wonderful anecdotal story that I have retold many times on the internet:
In the eighties, a young woman was taking assertiveness training. The instructor was some Nazi-like drill seargent type of a woman. The course was teaching these women to yell at people and be extremely aggressive and pushy. At some point, it was the author's turn to yell and practice asserting herself. She told the instructor she didn't want to do that, she liked being nice to people. She was berated about how it is a tough world and she needed to learn to stand up for herself or people were going to walk all over her. She politely declined. Eventually the instructor moved on. She decided to quietly gather her things and leave. She didn't want to do this anymore. As she left, she overheard someone in the back row say to someone else "God, what a bitch."
So, yes, she should woman up, grow some bigger tits if necessary and wear her brass bustier to mixed gender events if that is what it takes.
Most people put in those situations would freeze up exactly like she did. I'm surprised you would think a game journalist who had no prior expectation of this happening would, when confronted with such a situation, automatically think to "demonstrate confidence and tear down the misconception."
Most people? Who are you referring? Any professional in her situation, male or female, would have spoken up if they had a problem. Period.
Those people may well have stereotyped her, but when she fails to speak up about it and sits there silently giving no indication that something is wrong, what would you expect. This isn't kindergarten. These people don't get paid to read minds. What it sounds like, is at least part of the time these people genuinely thought they were helping her, and she gave no indication yo the contrary.
She is not a professional, pure and simple. If you aren't a professional, then what are you doing at E3? What are you doing in any situation where assertiveness is expected in order to get your job done?
Are you serious? There are many reasons why one mightn't speak out at the time. I'm going to jump to the major conclusion that you're male and have never encountered a situation like this before. If you were female, with all the different social expectations that have been embedded in you since childhood, you might have a different perspective.
I do not think she is arguing in favor of her "limitations". You are completely missing her perspective. The way you seem to value assertiveness is a typically male perspective. The female perspective often devalues assertiveness and instead values community and acceptance. Why should she have to assert herself? Maybe the burden should be on the other party to create an accepting environment.
This is a very culturally biased view of what "professional" means. You would probably get a different response if you were to go outside America. (this is more an argument against the "no exceptions" part of your point above)
I'd like to know how you could have a full female perspective without being female. Let me know when that's possible! I'd love to be able to have a full male perspective about things!
That was my thought, too (followed immediately by "but I imagine there is a large gender difference in doing that"; I wonder how much of an outlier you are). It may have also been a subconscious thought in the people treating her so poorly, "If she is a real gamer, she wouldn't let me take the controls."
But, male or female, somebody shouldn't have to say "back off" to get some respect.
I both agree and disagree. I sometimes wish there were two words for "respect", one that expresses the idea that you shouldn't piss on someone else, that you should be decent to them just because they happen to be human. The other to express the kind of respect that one earns.
I have toyed with the idea of writing a post about that concept. I was thinking along the lines of quoting Riddick -- "There is one speed: My speed. Keep up or get left behind." My experience has been that competent men do not necessarily treat me worse than other men. They sometimes are talking "down" to me because they talk that way to everyone. When you are far more competent than average, it becomes difficult to assume or behave as if others are your equal. I am at times guilty of the same faux pas. In my experience, if you can keep up, some of the most competent men will genuinely respect you. What is tricky is pulling it off in a social situation where other people will interfere or where a man will become uncomfortable with a woman challenging the status quo. Her description sounds like it was fairly one on one, which is part of why I think I would have been inclined to quietly call him on it.
I can fairly confidently admit to being a significant statistical outlier for a woman. Even one of the female big wigs at my former job remarked on me sitting up front (edit: at the time she made the remark, I was sitting closer to the front than she was and she was the highest ranking woman in the department -- however, she was sitting next to a very high ranking male) which other people routinely interpret as Type A behavior, somewhat to my bafflement. I do that for reasons like I have terrible eyesight. But I am aware that other women also have issues like terrible eyesight and still do not sit up front. I have speculated that if I come across like an alpha female it is due in part to having a yawning disinterest in pecking order, not because I am trying to be at the top of the heap.
> "I sometimes wish there were two words for "respect", one that expresses the idea that you ... should be decent to them just because they happen to be human. The other to express the kind of respect that one earns."
Thank you for putting this into words. This summarizes part of what bothered me about this article.
My wife and I are both gamers. Neither of us have ever been treated without human-respect at LAN parties. Competence-respect is usually given to me due to prior reputation (I'm active in the community whose LANs I attend.) She is often assumed to be just tagging along, until she starts destroying people. Competence-respect comes pretty quickly if you demonstrate competence.
There were times in this article when it seemed the author wasn't given human-respect, and that's a circumstance where someone needs to be either told off or walked away from. But at other times, the issue may have been competence-respect, and that's a circumstance where the first attempt at respect-earning should be to say "I can take it from here", pick up the controller, and play.
Personal sympathetic anecdote: I played role playing games in my teens. After I began dating one of my gamer guy friends, I was, unfortunately, prone to being treated like I was just tagging along, in spite of it being a regular group who all knew me to be a gamer. I would have been more offended except I could understand why certain things I did promoted such responses: I used gaming as a means to avoid an unhappy family situation, so I sometimes did sleep on the couch while others played rather than go home.
I didn't have a driver's license or car, so was dependent on others for a ride. If the group chose to play a game that didn't interest me, I went to sleep on the couch until we all left together. So it somewhat annoyed me that my actions got interpretted that way when there were other explanations but I also could kind of understand why.
I've always preferred "courtesy" as describing the way I treat people who haven't yet earned substantive respect. Doesn't seem to be common usage, though.
I think of it in terms of respecting someone's boundaries vs. respecting their character or ability. I wonder what other words might help express this concept.
> But, male or female, somebody shouldn't have to say "back off" to get some respect.
Is this really true? I've had it pounded into my head my whole childhood that you have to stand up for yourself to get any respect in this world. It's the theme of basically any coming-of-age movie. If that's what has to change for equality to work, then I think we're doomed.
That was my reaction too. I'm more than sympathetic when women are made powerless and put down, taken advantage of, harrassed, assaulted, etc.
But this girl was far from powerless in this situation. That doesn't excuse the guy for being an unthinking sexist dick, but her blog post is a little too much of a pitty party.
Or perhaps her blog post is her attempt to begin thinking things through.
I am 47, a good bit older than most people posting on HN or writing tech blogs. I did a lot of journalling pre-internet, thus only read by me and sometimes my therapist. I now routinely examine my belly button in public, but a lot of what I write is stuff I have thought about deeply for many years. I assure you I threw myself plenty of pity parties when I was younger. In fact, I eventually stopped doing therapy because I reached a point where I felt that whining and crying to a therapist was helping me to keep alive a victim mentality and victim self image and I wanted to genuinely move on. But first I had to go through all that.
Both sexes are struggling to leave behind old paradigms. We all have a growth process to go through.
But certainly have an upvote for furthering the discussion.
True that. I suspect she was probably also caught off guard, and that this may have been the first time she was ever treated badly because of her sex, and responded passively because she was somewhat in shock. But hopefully she'll shake it off and if/when it happens again, will take the bull by the horns and channel Angelina Jolie or challenge the guy to a gamer duel or something.
I'm finding a lot of the responses to this article disheartening. There's a common trend of "she should've said something," and while many here disapprove of the PR guys' treatment of the writer, they're still quick to defend his innocence or obliviousness. Focusing on how the author could've done better to defend herself against sexism is pretty problematic and indicative of this brand of derailing the conversation: http://www.derailingfordummies.com/education.html
The problem is that she raises two separate issues, one of which was his fault and one of which was partly his and partly hers. People are following her lead and conflating the two.
1. The guy was a sexist prick.
This was his fault, and she obviously doesn't deserve any of the blame for his broken worldview.
2. She didn't get to play the game.
This was partly her doing. He still deserves some of the blame because it's his job to represent his company well to her and he didn't do that. But she didn't so much as indicate a desire to play it, which I don't think is too much to expect from an adult acting in a professional capacity. Non-videogame journalists have to deal with much fiercer opposition to their reporting than some sexist twit making unwarranted assumptions, but somehow political stories still get written (by women, no less).
Have you though that maybe she is a video-game journalist and not a non-video-game journalist partly because she doesn't want to deal with what you describe?
Its ridiculous to demand the same amount of experience in dealing with adverse situations to people who choose to review commercial products for a living and to political or war journalists. Specially when you are demanding expertise in approaching a hostile subject in order to get your facts prior to forming your opinion.
There's women are more-stupid/less–competent than men sexism and there's women are less likely to have spent time attaining a useless (and kinda dorky) skill at first person shooters non-sexism.
I think there's a pretty substantial difference between being offered a play-through of a game and having your house robbed. That analogy just doesn't apply here. He wasn't violating her civil rights, he was just treating her like she was something that she wasn't (which, yes, was 100% his fault).
And once again, I did not say she deserves "some of the blame" for his dickish behavior. You're still conflating the two issues I tried to separate out there. I said she deserves some of the blame for not getting to play the game. If I had a reporter, male or female, who told me they couldn't get a story because the first person they talked to was uncooperative, I would ream them. And this guy wasn't exactly uncooperative (after all, she hadn't given him any direction to cooperate with), he was just dumb and in possession of a backwards worldview.
If you have trouble buying the second point, ask yourself: Was there any way, without a truly exceptional degree of effort, that she could have played the game? I think the answer is yes — she could have asked. If you agree with this assessment, then you agree with my second point.
To be clear: This doesn't make his behavior more appropriate, and it also doesn't mean that women don't have legitimate gripes both in the tech world and in video games specifically. Sadly, those are both very much the case.
> If I had a reporter, male or female, who told me they couldn't get a story because the first person they talked to was uncooperative, I would ream them.
That's fair, but she's not a reporter. She's reviewing games. A game reviewer's job is much different from a journalist's: their stories come to them, pre-packaged with ample spin that inevitably carries over into their write-ups. They aren't really supposed to be asking hard questions and digging up obscure but glaring facts to shine the light of the public eye upon.
> I think the answer is yes — she could have asked.
A friend of mine was recently charged an unexpected 400 by his dentist who asked him a question while he was under the influence of chemicals. He ended up successfully disputing it and extracting an apology from the man. This isn't exactly analogous–I don't keep many anecdotes handy, unfortunately–but the point is that you're not always at your best 100% of the time.
This wasn't a one-time deal. As noted in my other comment on this thread, it kept happening and she did, in fact, push back several of those times. She probably even got to play and properly review some of those games. But not this one; I chalk it up to sheer shock and context-shifting, personally. Sometimes you're just more prepared to stand up for yourself. Sometimes you just came out of a screaming fight with your S.O. and dealing with a misogynist on top of that hurt just makes you want to crawl into a hole and die.
I think my overarching point might have gotten lost here. I'm not trying to excoriate Katie Williams. I'm saying that there are two separate issues here, and saying that she shares fault in one of them doesn't mean she shares fault in both of them.
She didn't really do much to make sure she played that game. Maybe she had a good excuse (fight with the SO or whatever), maybe she didn't — I don't really care. I think it's fair to say that she did less than she reasonably could have in that particular instance. If she did it differently in other cases, that would seem to support this hypothesis.
But that is a totally separate issue from the guy's behavior. Whatever fault you feel she may have had in not playing the game, that doesn't make his behavior any less his fault or any more OK. It's a separate issue.
Conflating the two leads people to this odd view of the situation where it's her fault the guy was a sexist. That just makes no sense at all. So we should not conflate the two. That was where I was trying to go with my comment.
"Sometimes you just came out of a screaming fight with your S.O. and dealing with a misogynist on top of that hurt just makes you want to crawl into a hole and die."
That's kinda overwrought. Personally I'm very happy people never assume I play video games (I'm a guy, and they're right, I don't).
The interesting thing about victim-blaming is that it's paradoxical. It both presumes that the victim is vulnerable and that they're superhuman: that they can both be hurt and power through that hurt like a storybook hero without more cost than a few extra words.
This is one of the nastier side effects of the self-empowerment movement. By accepting personal responsibility and demanding others do the same, we isolate each other and make it harder to override the Bystander Effect.
But if a person doesn't take even the slightest, tiniest effort to defend themselves against something that is wrong, they're "going to have a bad time" whether that thing which is wrong is something politically charged like sexism, or simply individual malice.
Also, prejudice like this is most likely due to ignorance, and the best antidote to ignorance is education.
I like how you say "not everything is black and white" and then proceed to give black-and-white prescriptions.
From an armchair, it's terribly easy for you to say, "Well, instead of backing down, you should have told him off." Not everyone is, or should be, the strong and assertive, constantly vigilant culture warrior shrugging off the whips and scorns of ignorant simpletons. Most especially, as the Derailing for Dummies link explains, most people have finite energy and even if they are strong and assertive some of the time, they cannot be that way all of the time.
A direct quote out of the article:
Every time I protested [over "the next few days of E3"], the offender would say —
as if it were a proven fact — “Well, girls aren’t usually into this stuff, you know.”
Somehow, you and everyone else saying that she should have ripped him a new one missed this sentence. It's a very important sentence, and I'm disappointed she didn't highlight it more clearly.
By the time she starts educating, she is no longer doing her job as a member of the press reviewing games. She is doing an entirely different job, which she did not arrive prepared to do, and for which she receives no compensation except the desperate hope that one person might possibly listen.
How would you feel, if you were constantly distracted from your job in order to fill in for something for which you have no training, no interest, and no pay?
Saying that sexism is wrong and saying that a victim of sexism should stand up for herself are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and just because the former is true the latter isn't necessarily "blaming the victim".
Suppose a student leaves his laptop on a table in the school library while on a bathroom break and it is stolen. Is it "blaming the victim" to tell him not to leave his valuables unattended, just because it is clearly the thief who did something morally wrong?
Your analogy doesn't work. The student locking their computer is a preventative measure, not a reactive. Williams couldn't have prevented others' attitudes towards her. She did nothing to invite the behavior. This is more akin to telling the student they should've had a better lock when they had already locked their computer, but had it stolen anyway.
The first is that you're insisting on excerpting from the "How to React to Every Situation" book. Your claim is that "if you are oppressed, you should always stand your ground". No exceptions. No compromises. Every deviation from the right and true way is a failure.
This is wrong.
The second is that the entire condescending piece of advice is being offered as if she hadn't already done it. You seem to feel that, because her first and immediate reaction was not confrontational, this makes her a failure. It doesn't matter that, the second time, she did stand up for herself and did speak up. You only care about the first time.
Why?
Victim-blaming is reinforcing a victim's status as victim by giving unwanted and unneeded advice. It's saying, "You poor wretch. If only you worked harder, you'd be as awesome as me. Work harder." That is what you are doing.
It's not victim blaming per se. When a male has a problem, he is trained to keep it to himself. If he shares it with anyone, he is most likely told to suck it up and fix it. To live a male existence is to live without sympathy. It is little wonder that we have little sympathy for anybody else. When someone comes to us with a problem, we respond with the only advice we have ever been given - fix it.
When you are a male, every shortcoming, every bad situation is chalked up to your own personal inadequacy. There are no social forces to blame anything on.
Maybe it makes us stronger. Maybe it makes us dicks. Maybe a bit of both.
This is completely and totally untrue. You get tons of support living as a male when you encounter life problems. People readily sympathize with men when they describe issues in their life and a lot of discussion and depiction about bad situations revolves around male perspective.
How else could a tread about a woman's experience in gaming journalism turn into a discussion about how oppressed you are as a man? This very thread is an example of how male perspective dominates discussions, even about people who don't identify as male.
I certainly won't defend the jerky guys, but I will say that to be an effective journalist you have to be willing to be a jerk to people sometimes, or at least manipulative--regardless of gender.
In this case the sexism is obvious in the stories, but in general most PR reps believe it is their job to "manage" (manipulate) journalists. Journalists need to be ready to fight this--with anything from friendly persuasion to persistent confrontation.
The PR rep's job is to deliver a carefully crafted story to the public; the journalist's job is to tell the truth. The roles are inherently confrontational.
I wish that could be the case, but the journalist's goal is to help the magazine profit, like any other employee. (For more info, Robert McChesney is a good historian of journalism.) The two roles are often symbiotic: the PR rep feeds the journalist. The journalist's company generally sells eyeballs to advertisers, which have interests in common with the companies that the PR reps work for. The reviewed company may even be a major advertiser.
(Of course, there may be some differences of interest, since they're not employed in the same corporation.)
Maybe this is a consequence of the same problem in that women are not taught to be as assertive, but why wouldn't you just say "Hey, no thanks, I want to play the game for myself. If you expect me to write an accurate review of your game I need to actually play it."
The problem is that there's a double standard at play here, and men and women get different reactions to being assertive [1]. Men are often considered to be stronger for it; women may risk being labeled as "bitchy".
This is a real problem. The situation isn't exactly analogous to a salary negotiation though. The balance of power between reporter/PR guy is much more equal than between employer/employee. Yes, if she encounters that guy again he might think that she's "that bitchy reporter", but he's still going to want her to write positively about whatever game he's promoting.
If he has even the slightest idea of how to do his job, he might appreciate the insight into how to make the demo the best possible experience for her. There's a good chance he walked away thinking "I sure did a good job showing that lady reporter how to play our game".
I don't buy that. I go out of my way to be polite because I'm a bit old-fashioned that way, and sometimes I think I should be more assertive. But there's a difference between asserting your will and simply communicating information, such as 'oh it's OK, I play a lot of shooters actually.' Frankly, it sounds like the writer was spaced out and didn't give the guy any conversational material to work with, beyond the single syllable of 'yes...'
And I wholeheartedly agree that those are lousy PR reps. But what's the takeaway here? The people who are actually reading this article likely overwhelmingly agree with her.
If you address your complaint about someone's action, not to the person doing that action, but to a large anonymous audience, how do you expect it to be rectified?
I take issue with the specific wording in your comment, "...but why wouldn't you just say..." It makes it sound like discrimination is not a big deal, because if you were just "taught to be assertive," you could handle it.
There is nothing she could have done to prevent the discrimination other than being a man. The entire article is set up to emphasize the way that anyone should be able to tell she's a gamer from the way she holds her hands on the keyboard, and yet they still treated her like someone who does not belong in the industry.
The point of the article is to increase awareness of discrimination among the "large anonymous audience." It is offensive to suggest that victims of discrimination should just act differently to prevent it.
So, if we're all aware of discrimination it will go away? Maybe, the PR guy she talked to will see her article and make the connection that it was him she was talking about. Maybe.
If she had spoken directly to him about it, we could be certain that he knew his behavior was not appreciated. If he's not hopelessly clueless, he might even modify his behavior in the future. The number of people acting in a discriminatory fashion would then be decreased by one. That is something that could be considered progress.
I'm on your side here. I would also like to live in a world where there's no discrimination. I don't think we get there by "raising awareness" among people who are largely already aware of the problem.
I honestly don't see how it's offensive to suggest something a person could do to bring about the change that they want to see. Yes, you shouldn't have to. Yes, in a perfect world, nobody would ever encounter a jerk. But we don't live in that world. You have little to no control over how other people act. The only control you have is in how you act. Simply acknowledging that discrimination exists is not going to change anything if you don't confront the people who are doing the discriminating.
It's offensive because, even if you're on her side, you're displacing responsibility from the offender. It's not her job to individually confront and educate every condescending PR rep. That's a grind, and also only effective on a micro-level. By writing another piece on sexism at E3, she contributes to the ever-growing pool of them; the more the community is aware of such behavior, the better equipped they are to recognize it when it happens.
But isn't that just practicality? Stepping completely away from this specific case, I have found that people that are the most effective in changing things are the ones that say 'I think it's your fault, but I'm going to fix it anyway'.
Naming it like this article is obviously important and I also don't think anyone thinks she is in any way responsible or in the wrong (quite the contrary) but the most effective way to make an offender change his (or her) ways is to simply communicate with him (or her).
Yes, but there are a lot of factors that play into that communication. We make assumptions that the other party is amenable to change, or that the offended is an effective communicator in these one-on-one scenarios. I think it's unfair to think that these ideal conditions are in place for all of her interactions.
The article shares an experience of being marginalized, and we're focusing on what she could've done to feel more welcome where she felt unwelcome. By continually suggesting that she stand up for herself, we're creating an atmosphere that basically says, "It's on you," which further marginalizes her. Despite best intentions, it's treating her like a problem and distracts from the greater problem of condescension towards women in games.
I don't mean to suggest that it's somehow her fault that that's how the PR guy thinks. Obviously, that's preposterous. I'm also not saying that she needs to give a 15 minute presentation on sexism in the video game industry to every PR rep at E3. A simple "Dude! Give me back the keyboard!" would probably suffice to solve the immediate problem of not getting to play the games she needs to play.
Yes, the article is an important part of effecting a macro-level change to the industry culture, but it's of minimal help in solving the micro-level problem at hand. That's all I'm saying.
She didn't write this article to complain about not getting to play games. The point is that there is a common problem amongst male game employees, and people should know about it. I'm saying that it's legit to want to take on the macro over the micro, and that she has no obligation to address the latter. I believe in picking your battles.
> So, if we're all aware of discrimination it will go away?
Yes. Discrimination doesn't happen magically: is is perpetrated by people. If people are aware that they may be subtly discriminating they can stop themselves. If people around them are aware of the dynamics at work, they can speak up or intervene. This is the way to change things: not to focus on each individual person, but to raise the general consciousness.
On the other hand, demanding that victims confront discrimination in the way you expect them to isn't fair, and it sounds like you're saying she shouldn't be complaining. I think you failed to understand that this is a systematic problem, and it sounds like you just don't want to have to listen to her.
If even two PR people read that article it will have had a broader reach than if she had stood up to the guy in the moment, and it additionally brings attention to the culture so that other people confronting these issues know that they aren't the only ones.
She would have been entirely within her right to stand up to the dude right then and there, but she is not required to. Saying that she must is like saying if you don't punch the guy with the knife you deserve to have your wallet stolen and shouldn't complain: it makes no sense.
The entire article is set up to emphasize the way that anyone should be able to tell she's a gamer from the way she holds her hands on the keyboard
That's kind of egotistical. I have played computer games since I was a kid and WASD is natural for me too, but I don't think of myself as 'a gamer' because I probably devote less than 1 hour/week to games.
A bit unrelated to the article: first thing I do on any game is change WASD to arrow keys (and swap the mouse to the left). Without much thinking I would assume people who don't do that are at most casual gamers. :) I definitely wouldn't see somebody going for WASD and think "this must be a serious gamer".
One could also say that she allowed the PR reps to make her feel that way by not speaking up. "I better play it for you" wasn't the first thing the guy said when he saw her. Clearly he had made some assumptions based on her gender, and possibly some previous experiences. But there was a lead up to that statement, where apparently she sat there silently ignoring his questions, looking puzzled. This confirmed his expectations that she had no idea what she was doing.
People are going to make judgements based on what they think they know. They do it all the time and sometimes it is a completely subconscious process. Sometimes it is deliberate. Sometimes it is a result of a lifetime of conditioning. It happens with gender, height, skin colour, attire, and pretty much anything else that you can quickly identify by looking at a person. If someone is judging you incorrectly, help them out and say so. It might be nothing more than an honest mistake.
The way many women in tech are treated is not acceptable, and I think that the situation is gradually getting better. That said, there is no reason why we shouldn't suggest that those who get pushed around should stand up for themselves in the time being, who knows, maybe it will speed up the process.
>“Well, OK.” I sensed a disbelief in the guy’s voice. “But do you play shooters?”
I remember the silence that filled this space beyond this question. I was horrified that anyone could even ask such a thing. Here I was, sitting with my fingers spread across WASD, admiring a game world — and somehow, for some obtuse reason, being assumed to be someone who didn’t know anything about the world or how to interact with it.
“I think I better play it for you,” he said finally, prying my hands away and turning the keyboard towards himself.
If it had been me, I'd have said "Yeah" as I continued playing instead of refraining from both talk and play until the silence was uncomfortable and then going home and writing an article about how oppressed I was. The poor guy was very possibly just trying to do his job and be helpful.
On the other hand, the article she did write made the front page here and it's unlikely that any article about the game itself, however good, would have gotten this kind of circulation. I guess that's why she's a successful journalist and I'm just a gamer.
As a reporter, you deal with unsavory people all the time. The writer should use the experience as a way to devise her own methods of creating contacts/breaking the ice at this sort of thing. Or if the game/PR was indeed that bad, write a scathing review.
Contacts don't make themselves - cub reporters have to wear out shoe leather walking the beat, talking to the right cops and the right people on the street. Clueless PR people should be the least of their worries.
People keep calling this a professional setting. But it's a press expo. "Booth babes" as popularized by seemingly every video game or entertainment expo evolved out of companies hiring attractive women for their expo booth, to flirt with potential customers. This particular convention one year had a company set up a display of a live "schoolgirl slumber party" that devolved into a lesbian makeout session. Flirting is expected. Sex is shoved in your face.
whether that is a good thing or not is beside the point that standards of professional conduct at E3 aren't the same as a staid business professional gathering.
Hell, even if you were a virtually incapable, absolute neophyte, so what? The PR guy should still not be ripping the controls from your hands. These all sound like miserable demos, or perhaps very poorly trained staff.
I was skimming this article and thought that the premise was that first person shooters were switching to using the up, left, right, and down arrows instead of wasd. I felt the lede + nut graf (was there even a nut graf here?) was misleading--it was completely about the buttons, not about the identity of the gamer, the game industry, nor society in general.
I am interested in articles about female gamers and how they deal with the unpleasantness surrounding the gaming industry, but I wish that blog posts were held to a slightly higher standard--I am a fairly fast reader, and had to double back to reread large parts of the article to recalibrate as the article started talking about being directed to games with fuzzy animals and facebook games instead of shooters, when I expected the author to be complaining about the wasd keys opening different menus rather than moving around the character.
This seems to be a pretty good argument for paying for better quality journalism. I bought a copy of GQ, not exactly the highest brow magazine in the business, admittedly, and the articles weren't riveting, but it was efficient to read them, because they were written carefully and in the traditional journalistic style, with a lede, nut graf, and transitions. Furthermore, it's a magazine FOR MEN so most of the words were Anglo-Saxon and avoid the errors that Orwell rails against in "Politics and the English Language." I never felt like I was being jerked from one idea to another, and I understood the point of the article if not from the titled or the images associated with it, then at least from the first few paragraphs.
TL;DR: May there be truth in advertising, if bloggers can't write a proper lede, we will have to pay for news.
You do realize that opinion pieces don't necessarily follow the traditional lede-plus-nut-graf formula, right? And that some pieces aren't meant to be skimmed?
> Furthermore, it's a magazine FOR MEN so most of the words were Anglo-Saxon and avoid the errors that Orwell rails against in "Politics and the English Language."
I don't even know what you're trying to say here. I mean, I can guess, but it makes me queasy.
Yes, for example Foucault or Derrida is not meant to be skimmed, and part of the point of reading Hegel is to struggle with it. It doesn't make sense to make the reader struggle with an opinion piece, since you are generally trying to persuade someone of your opinion. Although opinion pieces don't necessarily follow the traditional lede + nut graf format, this one appeared to do so, until the actual content was different from the first few paragraphs.
GQ prefers short Anglo-Saxon words because they think it's a style that men prefer to read, and what I am trying to say is that using too many words that were imported from French is generally used to make people sound smart because it was once the language of bureaucracy, but generally makes things harder to read.
Consider, "I don't even know what you're trying to say here. I mean, I can guess, but it makes me queasy." This is an extremely clear sentence, and would be pretty similar if translated into Middle English. This is generally the argument that Orwell makes in Politics and the English Language.
This kind of "girls not accepted in tech" was something "that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" at first. Now it's just repeating the same stuff, and I don't think it's gratifying anyones curiosity.
"Let me?" Don't ask for permission. And it's not that you "can be" just as capable. You are just as capable. Nobody needs to "let you" do anything, just do it.
I wonder if this is a at least partially due to the difference between gamers / geeks and the type of people that do PR. Perhaps the PR "normals" may not know the geek culture that deeply.
Not that there isn't sexism in geek culture either. I'm just genuinely curious if the PR types in the game industry are this colorblind.
This site's design is annoying. Does it really need to fade in that most commented/most viewed sidebar every time I scroll? Why the hell do I even care about that when I'm trying to read the article? Goddamn marketing monkeys, when will they get a real job?
As a woman in tech, I am dumbfounded by comments like this one. It is equivalent to saying, "Well, yeah, she was raped, but look at what she was wearing. Maybe if she hadn't been wearing that..." Disgusting.
I can assure you the sexism doesn't change when you stop wearing skirts and start wearing pants. I speak from years of experience. And honestly, as a man, you don't have to even think about whether what you choose to wear would suddenly get you treated as if you were a vapid teenager, or a toddler. You do not have to make a choice about what you wear in order to avoid getting a keyboard snatched away from you by a member of the opposite sex who assumes you are stupid because of how you look.
If anyone ever wonders why there aren't more women in tech, you don't have to look much further than these comments to understand. I am a proud, strong fighter and I have been a successful tech CEO for years. But even I grow weary of battling these types of comments so often.
I'd never say such a thing. Same way I'd never say "Well, yeah, he got his ass kicked, but look what he was wearing. He looked like homeless. Maybe if he wore something normal." I agree that justifying doing harm by what the victim wore is disgusting.
But if I wear homeless guys clothes to interview at the bank I might not get hired. I don't like it because I know that the things I wear have no impact on my skills as long as they are comfortable, but I won't be surprised by it.
People judge people by their clothes.
I think that women if anything have easier time with that. Some of their clothes are really ridicules and still they are tolerated. Man wearing skirts or stockings would have trouble even asking what time it is.
You want to be perceived as gamer. Look like gamer. Or be ready to override your looks by strong character and/or language.
Man value women gamers much more then men gamers but they have to believe that they actually met one.
> I am a proud, strong fighter and I have been a successful tech CEO for years.
I am honored with your response and sorry that I've upset you.
> Treating someone as a non-gamer is treating them like a "normal" person.
How is assuming someone is incompetent because of their gender treating someone as "normal"? It's normal in the sense that such attitudes are prevalent, but it is a terrible way to treat anyone.
If you have an in-group or "clique", you just assume that most people aren't in it. You learn to identify fellow members of a subculture at a distance: clothes, hair, etc. The male-dominated environment of the expo caused the PR reps to mistakenly exclude women from their "gamer radar". Surely professional PR guys don't think pissing off a game reviewer is good for sales. In other words, the PR reps are also victims of the crappy environment.
Thanks, you've captured my thoughts absolutely. Some of the comments in this post make me really frustrated - it's almost a one step forward, two steps back type thing. Having to jump into the fray every time someone starts talking about the gender gap (and claiming it doesn't exist, or that all women have to do is just get more assertive/stop wearing sexy outfits/stop overreacting) does get very wearying - and it's really quite pathetic that we still have to do it.
Or a gal gamer could show up dressed in pink and proceed to clean everyone's clock.
(Former gal gamer who sometimes wasn't taken seriously because I was "too pretty" or "just a mom", which was always a good opportunity to take advantage of some fool while his guard was down. The second game was always more challenging because they didn't make that mistake again.)
You remind me of a time my youngest son was coaching me on Master of Magic. He told me to go into the town with a particular unit "...and wreck his shit".
That's a gamer attitude: Wreck his shit. If you aren't comfortable with it, then you are likely to have trouble with a gamer social environment.
I agree with a lot of what you have to say here, but:
> " as a man, you don't have to even think about whether what you choose to wear would suddenly get you treated as if you were a vapid teenager"
I'm a stay-at-home dad. On the rare occasions I'm able to leave my toddler home, I have to be careful about how I dress in order to avoid being treated as a vapid teenager or, worse, a creepy stalker.
More generally, men do have to worry about dressing in a way that identifies them as competent or fitting in to whatever subculture they're trying to fit in to.
I'm not sure I even got the point, it was a long text and the author seemed to ponder aloud more than underline the root problem. But what I got was that she was overrun by the representatives because she didn't set boundaries and didn't refuse to accept their help. A simple "No thanks" would've gone a long way.
There's no point in blaming the representatives: they probably try any angle they can find to approach you unless you decline. Suppose you go to a bookstore and the clerk comes over, asking "Can I help you?" and then you answer "No, thanks. I'm just browsing." They don't know you if you're a good gamer or a newbie, so you just need to tell them yourself.
I don't get these game developer reps. I've been to E3 five times in my lifetime, going back to Atlanta 1998. There were always plenty of women playing shooters.
Just wanted to clarify (and not to trivialize the issue here)
More often than not it's not developers who decide to add the achievements for looking up skirts. It's the business monkeys and other people who have "studied" game design but forgot to do hello world some where along the way.
Usually developers who decide the course of a game work their own indie studio. And are smarter then that.
I could be totally wrong. Perhaps what the author assumes is an assumption of incompetence based on sexism is actually additional attention due to attraction.
If I was a PR guy hanging out all day with guys playing games in a booth near me, and a girl showed up, the thought of "offering advice" to her would seem appealing.
"offering advice" is different than removing her from play and taking over. If someone bumped you off a game and took over treating you like an invalid how happy would you be. Poor tactic even for flirting. And it's a business conference showing off wares, poor and inappropriate time for flirting too.
Yes, theoretically they should all act professionally and give reporters equal attention regardless of gender. But I find that in reality human nature dictates behavior more than guidelines.
Which is why we need to be aware of human nature and override it with basic decency.
If a woman is there to play a game and I take the opportunity to hit on her, I'm failing to do my job (which is definitely not to hit on chicks) and I'm treating her like a sex object instead of a fellow professional. Professional spaces demand professional behavior: it is part of being an employed adult.
Human society dictates that in a professional atmosphere, people should be trying their best to maintain their professionalism, not win brownie points with the cute girls.
So the PR guy isn't sexist for assuming a woman is incompetent and can't understand video games, but is sexist because women at a gaming conference are conquests and not professionals. That totally makes it OK.
#FirstWorldProblems. If you want to fight for something, fight for the rights of women who are really suffering throughout the world, through sex slavery or misogynistic cultures/religions. It really bothers me that there is still a "struggle" for women's "rights" in the US - equal liberties were won long ago. Are there inequalities and assumptions made about each sex? Certainly...but nothing worth fighting for. Use your voice where it matters...i.e. not here, not concerning gaming.
Really? You're really saying that people should not care about rampant sexism in the gaming industry just because some people have it worse? I suppose we should stop working to help poor families in the first world because people starving in third world countries have it much worse.
Actually, that is correct. You should help people in 3rd world countries first. Most of the homeless in America are "voluntarily" homeless, or have drug/mental problems. Even still, as homeless in America, they have it better off than most people in 3rd world countries. The average person in a 3rd world country lives off a few American dollars (equivalent) a day - and that is your average person. Here, a homeless person can probably get that much begging in a day. And calling it "rampant" sexism is ridiculous. We sexualize women, obviously, because that is what sells. There is no shame in sexual attraction (or depictions of it), no more so than the average square jawed, six-pack male protagonists we create. Sexuality is an advantage in this world, not a crutch. Let's stop pretending like its such a bad thing.
Yes, obviously. It is a question of magnitude. Here, the worst sexism is maybe job discrimination, but usually not even that because most employers do not want to risk lawsuits, and in fact actively try to diversify. Even still, this is a relatively trivial problem. Do we stone women to death here for cheating? Or not allow them to do (virtually) anything without their husband's permission? Like I said, there are bigger wars to fight. Let's not waste breath because someone thinks you can't play a video game, and you assume its because they are sexist.
I don't disagree your points, (whether someone wants to expend effort to solve particular problems is up to them), its just I see you are dismissing other's problems as "not important". i.e the "#FirstWorldProblems" tag in your original post. The experience obviously was unpleasant enough for the the original author to write a blog post about it, yet you dismiss it so readily.
"Actually, that is correct. You should help people in 3rd world countries first. Most of the homeless in America are "voluntarily" homeless, or have drug/mental problems. Even still, as homeless in America, they have it better off than most people in 3rd world countries. The average person in a 3rd world country lives off a few American dollars (equivalent) a day - and that is your average person"
Let's say your next door neighbour gets into an accident and becoming disabled in the process, cannot afford hospital bills and becomes homeless, you're not going to care, because you're donating to your favourite charity for third word countries already? Personally I don't see anything wrong with people helping people closer to them. - The helpers can help with more effectiveness than people 5000km away because being closer they will have better perspective. I also see nothing wrong with helping with your siblings mortgages just because they're closer to you, starving children in the 3rd world or not.
If you don't want to "waste" your breath, then don't. I just don't see how you telling people how to allocate their resources will ever work out. How do you know your preferred allocation is the best? How do you know the relative effectiveness of a person voicing their opinion about this issue rather than some other? Maybe they are much better at articulating issues relating to computer games than, food, for example. There's no way you can know that for sure.
There's a huge difference between problems "here", and problems "there". If a problem exists in our own culture, close to home, we have much more power to change it. Not everyone can be an activist, but everyone can behave appropriately.
People shouldn't judge books by covers, but they do. Best you can do is give them one good shot at understanding. This will separate the actual jerks from those who just guessed wrong. Most people don't want to offend you, so don't spend your time walking around with silent resentment over something that's done by mistake.