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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

#201

Post by dubfan »

tonypace wrote: post #169
thinkpad20 wrote: post #163

I'm a male in the software industry, and I never really know what to make of these sorts of articles. It's terrible that someone should have to go through this. The anonymity of the internet is a great and terrible thing -- some people really get off on being horrible to people, and unfortunately when that person is a male, and they know they're talking to a woman, the low-hanging fruit is base sexism. But what is su…

How are you (or all of us men) being demonized? She describes a few things she and other people have gone through. She says she doesn't feel safe. She asking people not to tell her to have a thicker skin. That's the article, more or less. Where is the demonization?

FTA:

> We live in a society that’s sexist in ways it doesn’t understand. One of the consequences is that men are extremely sensitive to being criticized by women. I think it threatens them in a very primal way, and male privilege makes them feel free to lash out.

Attributing malice to an actor due to circumstances beyond his control or understanding... I think that qualifies as demonizing. It's reminiscent of racialist and eugenics theory.

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

#202

Post by glibgil »

hnnewguy wrote: post #96
glibgil wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should stop posting here because you have a small dick. Am I doing it right?

> Am I doing it right? Maybe. But I couldn't care less what some anonymous dude on the internet thinks about my penis. Won't even skip a beat. Am I doing it wrong?

You're not OP. I was talking to OP. Do you agree when he wrote, "Get over it. If you can't get over it, don't play with people you don't know."?

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

#203

Post by logfromblammo »

scotty79 wrote: post #87
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…

> ... "Damn, she's accomplished and brilliant" like I do when I see a photo of Robert Downey Jr or Idris Elba or Benedict Cumberbatch. That's weird. When I see them I think they are good (or at least interestingly) looking and have pleasant voices. I would never think of them as brilliant or accomplished (even though I know they are) because they do something I have no idea about. Just the same when I saw worlds best…

You got downvoted because you posted an honest description of your own state of mind in a feminism thread. It happens elsewhere as well, not just on HN. Eventually, you learn to just avoid participating in those conversations. Never mind downvoting for individual disagreement; on certain topics you will be downvoted for disturbing the acoustics of the echo chamber.

Mammalian brains are hard-wired to notice reproductively relevant physical features first. Retraining your brain to notice anything else is fighting against the thousands of generations of sexual selection that occurred before civilization was even invented. The major problem is that there are no outward physical signs of outstanding competence in your niche of economic specialization, so no effective competition to displace "Wow, that body looks like it would be great for assuring the survival and prosperity of my potential offspring."

You cannot wish it away. You can't guilt people into not doing it. It will simply continue as long as our brains are still subjected to the mind-altering chemicals that testicles and ovaries typically produce. You are not a bad person for thinking such things.

But, of course, now that civilization has been invented, and we have developed values beyond simple babymaking, it would be inappropriate to speak or act until well after you have engaged the areas of the brain responsible for either rationality or empathy for at least a few seconds first, and possibly both. The proportion of people who actually think before speaking or doing is still depressingly low, and that is why we see stories like this.

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

#204

Post by Jemaclus »

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #158
Jemaclus wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 gu…

> 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. What you describe is not a zero tolerance policy. A zero tolerance policy requires punishment and "Hey, that's not cool" is not punishment. If an employee is…

Well, I think my point is that I wasn't one of the "lol" people, and I should have been one of the people to say "Hey, that's not cool," and this post is me promising myself that in the future, I will speak up.

I don't disagree with you, though. An official policy is great, but I think sometimes people just say things without thinking, and I don't necessarily think punishment (beyond public shaming of some kind) is really necessary in 100% of cases, which is kind of what I was getting at. If it was something blatant and clearly intentional, then absolutely get HR involved, but sometimes people just say things unintentionally.

I dunno. It's a very, very tricky, complicated topic, but in the end, I think we both agree that those with the power (socially or professionally) should absolutely step in and stop inappropriate behavior.

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

#205

Post by Zikes »

byerley wrote: post #197

Why can't we get any sensible articles about this problem? Do they just not get any attention on aggregation sites? Call this "victim blaming" if you want, but I'm going to critique the article because it's bad. I'm not commenting on any of the surrounding events because, honestly, claiming you've been harassed in the past doesn't excuse bad journalism - She starts the article by alienating her intended audience: Lea…

I'm starting to think it's being done on purpose.

1. Write a rant about how women are harassed.

2. Fill it with offensive, sexist remarks and anecdotal evidence.

3. When people get rightly offended and disagree, use their reaction as further evidence to "prove" your point.

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

#206

Post by Jemaclus »

dubfan wrote: post #162
Jemaclus wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh brother... Ha. I don't mean that I don't want a daughter... It's just that every time I think about having a daughter, I think about these issues, and it scares the shit out of me. Raising a son, I wouldn't have to worry that much about this stuff, and I could focus on helping him help make the world a better place, instead of worrying about whether my daughter is gonna get raped because she wore short shorts to…

> I really have no preference as far as kids go, it's just that when I read articles like this, the idea of having a daughter seems terrifying. This is like the tech equivalent of suburbanites who never go to the city because of all the news reports of murders they see on the nightly news. These outlets take a serious but infrequent problem and exaggerate it into an epidemic for the eyeballs (and hence, ad revenue).

You are not wrong, but I would like to talk to a father who's NOT concerned about that stuff. Just because reality differs from my mental model does not mean that my brain will automatically say "Oh, the odds are overwhelmingly against this, I'll just ignore it." ;)

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

#207

Post by eli »

cheez wrote: post #152
eli wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I agree with your premise, but even if I did... what's the point you're trying to make? That women would be safer if they never voice an opinion?

Nope. I'm saying no one is free from this sort of behaviour when they put themselves in the public eye. Look at sports-related tweets after a big loss.

Simply having a Tumblr account you post thoughts to is being "in the public eye"? If so, then that category must include nearly everyone who works in tech.

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

#208

Post by Zikes »

[deleted] wrote: post #57
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…

[deleted]

It's making sweeping, disparaging generalizations about the male gender.

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

#209

Post by cheez »

eli wrote: post #207
cheez wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. I'm saying no one is free from this sort of behaviour when they put themselves in the public eye. Look at sports-related tweets after a big loss.

Simply having a Tumblr account you post thoughts to is being "in the public eye"? If so, then that category must include nearly everyone who works in tech.

Where did Tumblr come from?

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

#210

Post by frio »

coldtea wrote: post #195
frio wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Women are the niggers of gender," the email said. "If you killed yourself, I wouldn’t even fuck the corpse." That's the first line of the article. That's banter? That's equivalent to being "fat" or "dorky"?

> That's banter? That's equivalent to being "fat" or "dorky"? First, I find this "words in my mouth" thing infuriating. Have I written anywhere that this specifically is "equivalent to being fat or dorky?" Why not respond to what I DID say? As for banter, yes it is. 99.99999% of such talk is BS bravado from kids that would never do anything to act on that, and in fact would go to bed crying if someone told their pare…

What you did say, and are saying, is that it's banter. You then go on to give qualified examples of banter that apply to the other gender ("don't (usually) get rape threats"; "do get death threats"; "do get comments that they're 'fat', 'dorky'"). Whether you intended to draw the equivalency or not, that's what your phrasing achieved.

Secondly, I agree. I don't believe it's constrained to women, but at the same time I don't think the volume or impact is the same when it's thrown at men. A few per month is, apparently a very low volume ("Feminine usernames incurred an average of 100 sexually explicit or threatening messages a day. Masculine names received 3.7"[1] -- although I need to find the actual study).

This isn't a topic I particularly enjoy discussing. I'm not in a position to speak for those who are threatened, and there are myriad reasons and subtleties why I'll never truly understand their plight. I'm sorry you feel like you were misunderstood.

[1]: http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/women-ar...

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