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No skin thick enough: The daily harassment of women in the game industry

polygon.com

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Re: No skin thick enough: The daily harassment of women in the game industry

#61

Post by icebraining »

coldtea wrote: post #36
Iftheshoefits wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a nontrivial difference between the modes of attack you note that work better on men and those that work better on women to achieve a psychological impact. The difference is significant--for women, the difference is a matter of (literally) being physically assaulted or even killed. Men face that kind of threat far less from attacks against our masculinity, loyalty, etc. The article notes this. Women shouldn'…

> The article notes this. Women shouldn't be expected to distance themselves from a very real threat of physical violence, which men simply don't face to anything close to the same degree. Mean deal with threats of physical violence all the time. Including actual attacks, which is far more common between men. They just don't deal with rape threats/attacks.

I don't. Where in the software development industry do men deal with threats of physical violence "all the time"?

On average, men may deal with more attacks, but that's comparing people in prison with game developers, which is fallacious, to say the least.

Re: No skin thick enough: The daily harassment of women in the game industry

#62

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

Jemaclus wrote: post #31

I read articles like this, and I think to myself, "Damn, I'm glad I'm not one of those guys." Then every time I see a photo of Marissa Mayer, I think, "Damn, she's hot." And then I hate myself for making that my first thought instead of something more equal like, "Damn, she's accomplished and brilliant" like I do when I see a photo of Robert Downey Jr or Idris Elba or Benedict Cumberbatch. But no, if it's a woman, my…

I also think the same as you when I see a photo of Marissa Mayer. I don't think that's bad, it's just our instinct (and damn, she is hot). If our ancestors didn't have it we wouldn't be here. And by the way, women have this kind of thoughts when they see a hot man, too.

The problem is when people go from thoughts to words or even actions, and act as if we lived in prehistory instead of in a civilized society. Fortunately I think men behaving as disgustingly as in the article are a tiny minority. And unfortunately, that minority can still do a lot of damage. The duty of the rest of us is to not turn a blind eye to this. This kind of trolling cannot be permitted.

Re: No skin thick enough: The daily harassment of women in the game industry

#63

Post by arrrg »

Zikes wrote: post #51
arrrg wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all men, eh? Don’t be so sensitive, grow a thicker skin! Is it really so hard for you to believe that you can’t understand – at least not completely – the situation someone is in? I would never be so arrogant as to believe that I, as someone who is straight, understand how it is to grow up gay, for example.

It's good to see that sloganeering and thought-terminating cliches will drive what could have been a proper debate on the issue. I guess there's no room at all for dissenting opinions, especially when they point out hypocrisies or bring counter evidence to the discussion.

What hypocrisies? There are none. You are imagining those.

When there is something you cannot understand it’s proper to address that with “Men just don’t …” That’s ok. It’s no claim that all men act disgustingly, it’s only a claim that men don’t understand.

That’s also completely unrelated to the “What can you – as a man – do to help?” part. I mean, where is the connection there.

You are saying very confusing things.

Re: No skin thick enough: The daily harassment of women in the game industry

#64

Post by sliverstorm »

Jemaclus wrote: post #31

I read articles like this, and I think to myself, "Damn, I'm glad I'm not one of those guys." Then every time I see a photo of Marissa Mayer, I think, "Damn, she's hot." And then I hate myself for making that my first thought instead of something more equal like, "Damn, she's accomplished and brilliant" like I do when I see a photo of Robert Downey Jr or Idris Elba or Benedict Cumberbatch. But no, if it's a woman, my…

It cuts both ways though, doesn't it? Do women who see a photo of Robert Downey Jr see his acting career, his recovery from a drug rut, his philanthropy? Or do they see a hot guy?

Re: No skin thick enough: The daily harassment of women in the game industry

#65

Post by samirmenon »

Jemaclus wrote: post #31

I read articles like this, and I think to myself, "Damn, I'm glad I'm not one of those guys." Then every time I see a photo of Marissa Mayer, I think, "Damn, she's hot." And then I hate myself for making that my first thought instead of something more equal like, "Damn, she's accomplished and brilliant" like I do when I see a photo of Robert Downey Jr or Idris Elba or Benedict Cumberbatch. But no, if it's a woman, my…

I don't know, I'm gay, and when I see a picture of Benedict Cumberbatch or Robert Downey Jr, I certainly don't think "Damn, he's accomplished and brilliant"; I think "Damn, he's hot!"

Re: No skin thick enough: The daily harassment of women in the game industry

#66

Post by [deleted] »

jarin wrote: post #60
eli wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do male video game employees have people texting them death threats with their home address too?

Yes. Probably not in proportion, but it does happen regularly. http://www.polygon.com/2013/8/15/4622252/plague-of-game-dev-... http://iphoenixdown.com/2013/08/16/video-games-and-death-thr...

[deleted]

Re: No skin thick enough: The daily harassment of women in the game industry

#67

Post by Zikes »

lukasb wrote: post #46
Zikes wrote: post #26

This is the sort of journalism I would expect to find on Jezebel, rather than Polygon. Filled with us vs. them mentality: no man can understand, men all think this, men always tell us that. Men never deal with harassment, death threats, or rape threats. Well, here's a little variation on Hitchens' Razor: what can be proven with anecdotal evidence can be dismissed with anecdotal evidence. http://www.edge-online.com/fe…

Pretend for the moment we're in some crazy mirror world where women are frequently mistreated, in ways that many well-meaning men don't see. In this world, it makes sense for a woman to lecture those well-meaning men about empathy - to ask them not to tell women what to feel - because they're just missing some basic information.

Pretend for a moment we're in some crazy mirror world where whites are frequently mistreated, in ways that many well-meaning blacks don't see. In this world, it makes sense for a white to lecture those well-meaning blacks about empathy - to ask them not to tell whites how to feel - because they're just missing some basic information.

No, wait, that would be racist.

But your version magically is not sexist?

Edit: To the folks downvoting this without being able to offer a counterpoint: that strong negative emotion you're feeling? That's called cognitive dissonance.

Re: No skin thick enough: The daily harassment of women in the game industry

#68

Post by Jemaclus »

EarthLaunch wrote: post #6

What should a game studio to do counter this and make its employees safe from it?

I think the best thing to do as far as internal harassment goes is to basically have a no tolerance policy from the higher-ups. Not so much a "you'll get fired" thing but having everyone step up and say "Hey, that's not cool" when someone makes a sexist joke.

At my job, we had a guy for awhile who would post funny pictures in chat. Every once in awhile, he'd post something NSFW (not necessarily nudity) and all the guys would just say "lol" and the women wouldn't respond at all. What should have happened (and I'm guilty of not doing this) is that all of the other men should have stepped in and said "Hey, you know, that's not cool."

A lot of why this kind of stuff happens, I think, is that there's a sort of acceptance implied by the fact that so few men speak out about it. We just let it happen. We frown inside -- or maybe we really think it's funny! -- but we never say "Don't do that."

A strong culture of morality, of speaking up when something is wrong, would go a long way to helping foster a safe, secure atmosphere. Public shaming will stop that behavior in its tracks. Eventually, either the harassment stops or that person leaves.

In the case of my coworker, I don't think he really thought things through. I don't think he meant to be offensive or post sexually harassing things, I think he just honestly thought they were funny and posted them. That doesn't make it okay, but it doesn't mean he needs to be fired, either. He just needed to be told "That's not cool" enough times to make it stick.

As far as external harassment goes, like the ones in the article, I'm not really sure. I think we as a community need to just stand up against this type of behavior, but it's hard when the harassment is all private, like via email or text messages.

TL;DR Say "That's not cool" when bad shit goes on.

Re: No skin thick enough: The daily harassment of women in the game industry

#69

Post by cheez »

sp332 wrote: post #28
cheez wrote: post #17

> I lead a development studio that makes games. Sometimes, I write about issues in the games industry that relate to the equality of women. My reward is that I regularly have men threatening to rape and commit acts of violence against me. My suspicion is that she is not threatened because she leads a development studio, but because she is a writer. She's not asking for it, but she is making herself a public figure an…

She's not threatened because she's a writer, she's threatened because some people in the community are abusive and law enforcement hasn't stepped up and done its job.

She's a target of the threats because she's a public writer. It's not good and obviously it's not her fault, but sometimes it feels like a woman-in-tech's workday must go something like this according to the articles I see:

7am: coffee

8am: get to work

9am: rape threat from coworker #1

10am: standup meeting

11am: death threat from coworker #2

Re: No skin thick enough: The daily harassment of women in the game industry

#70

Post by hnha »

sp332 wrote: post #25
orf wrote: post #18

It's depressing that the first few top level comments here have been deleted due to their ridiculous content, people presumably read the article then decided to post things like "its banter, get over it. Men deal with it all the time". Just shows how deep the problem goes I guess.

The article is about case studies, but sometimes it helps to get some numbers too. e.g. "Accounts with feminine usernames incurred an average of 100 sexually explicit or threatening messages a day. Masculine names received 3.7." http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/women-ar...

by how many senders?
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