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

I was disappointed by the "Letters to Women" video because I kept waiting for a gender-specific slur, and there weren't any! A different "letter" might have been chosen to make the point better.

If you put your anthropologist hat on, being called a "tasteless, stupid-ass, bitch-ass f--ktard" who should "go f--k your slutty-ass bitch mother" is a kind of acceptance. You're on the receiving end of all the same deeply offensive, vaguely emasculating language you'd get if you were "one of the guys" who happens to be a stupid noob, being criticized for your taste in games(!) along with your general cluelessness and total impotence and inadequacy. It's the kind of acknowledgment you get when a fellow rapper pours his heart into explaining that you suck and he rules.

I guess what I'm saying is, this letter is an example of "you-are-a-low-status-male" invective, and it's pretty easy to walk into a stream of it in certain communities. The fact that it was knowingly directed at a woman is what strikes me first, and in that sense it seems less like sexism than some sort of f--ed up equality.

If you disagree with any of the points I've made, I'm all ears.

I did not make that comment in some lame attempt to troll or stir up controversy. I have presented my case against using the harassment of women in gaming as an excuse to target and harass the male demographic, and I'm willing to discuss it further with anyone that's interested.

I'm going to leave this here, don't accept the form of argument from the article quite yet:

>Keeping in mind that actual stalking has never been dealt with in any significant way ever, the desire of a few female writers to curb online anonymity wouldn't be enough to get an @ mention, except that this happens to coincide with what the media wants, and now we have the two vectors summing to form a public health crisis. "Cyberbullying is a huge problem!" Yes, but not because it is hurtful, HA! no one cares about your feelings-- but because criticism makes women want to be more private-- and the privacy of the women is bad. The women have to be online, they do most of the clicking and receive most of the clicks. Anonymous cyberbullying is a barrier to increasing consumption, it's gotta go.

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2014/05/cyberbll.html

I think that in a lot of companies, this would be a terrible approach to take. By not standing up against such things, you could easily destroy the cohesion in a company.

Maybe if you have a very homogenous company then noone will be there to take offence (that doesn't make it right), but the fact is that most companies are becoming more diverse and it is in their interests to support all members of the company to retain cohesion and efficiency - that means protecting them against their own coworkers, who may be racist, sexist, etc.

In addition, a company doesn't want it to get out that it has a very toxic work environment, as that could harm relations with consumers and partners.

You might call it censorship, but the fact is that companies must do what they need to to protect individual employees against a toxic culture.

I haven't downvoted you and don't really understand why anyone would, but I do disagree with you strongly. I think you've failed to account for many vulnerable groups who could (and in fact have in the past) suffer as a result of disclosure. Some examples: minorities prosecuted for their religion, ethnicity, political views or sexual orientation, political activists, journalists, apostates or other people who expressed criticism of established religion or state ideology.