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Roderick

Feminism

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I'd much rather this topic just close.

I too get the feeling we ought to let this thread just sink.

Posts like this are not productive. As others have said, just don't read the thread if you don't like the way the discussion is going. The recent flurry of posts in here has been a decent conversation aside from stuff like this. I don't understand why you'd post in a thread just to say that the topic isn't worth discussing. Vote with your, you know, eyeballs or whatever.

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Sure is a nice thread you got here. Would be a shame if it were to... disappear.

FTR I think this thread has been decent in the bits where we don't get into arguments. If we could scale back on the arguments that would be :tup:

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If people don't like this thread, they should just not come in to it and post in it. There's really no reason to lock it, so it's going to stick around as long as people want to post in it.

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Wow. I didn't read the entire thread but I got a couple pages in. You guys are awesome, you fill me with hope.

I find it so disheartening sometimes when I hear people mouthing off about feminism. It's one of the most misused words I can think of. Women who hate men, using it to 'justify' their hatred; men who are sexist and use it as an insult; people on both sides who think it is just another word for misandry.

We have a long way to go in closing the gender gap. I work in a guitar shop and the other day I set up a guitar for a customer to try, and asked if I could get him anything else. His reply was 'you could go make me a sandwich'. I think he maybe thought he was being funny, but the reality is I get that shit all the time (having worked in the games industry and now in a guitar shop while I study, both very male-dominated scenes) and it ceases to be funny very quickly, and just becomes a constant attack on your confidence. Imagine your whole life, people you *don't even know*, making jokes about you being inferior for your gender. It gets old so fast. Christ, if they'd had a black salesman, would they have asked him to go fetch them a bucket of chicken? Wah-hey-hey it's hilarious because I'm not racist but I referenced racism in an ironic way because I'm so comfortable with that! It's just hideously inappropriate, why would you make a joke like that to someone you don't even know. ARGH.

The whole issue in a really interesting one. It's fascinating they way media fills our head with subconscious predilections about gender, and frustrating the way men and women continue to misunderstand and demonise each other based on gender stereotypes. Actually, it's just generally bizarre how most people in the world seem to take any difference - skin colour, hair colour, gender, sexuality etc - as a sign of inferiority.

Anyway Feminism is awesome and so is this little corner of the internet.

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If people don't like this thread, they should just not come in to it and post in it. There's really no reason to lock it, so it's going to stick around as long as people want to post in it.

I'm sorry, but this this attitude (also expressed by Sal) utterly stinks. It shows no respect for other people here, or their opinions. This thread is not an isolated thing. It's part of a community. As all threads here are. The attitude is akin to saying, "I don't give a shit about your opinion, if you don't like it - leave!", and it's completely destructive and unnecessary. In other words: If people are being upset by a thread, then as members of this community, their opinions should be taken into account.

Like it or not we must co-exist, and if some members want this discussion to continue, they need to come up with a better argument than the divisive and aggressive one currently presented. Why? Because topics like this, and corresponding attitudes like that, can destroy a community.

Also, Rodi, he sings "cry out".

Girl I want to make you sweat

Sweat till you can't sweat no more

And if you cry out

I'm gonna push it some, mo-o-ore

Once again, any inference about rape/rape culture came entirely from your own brain.

As for the implication that seduction is part of rape culture, I agree with the following blog:

http://nataliaantono...ad-problematic/

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He sings 'cry out'? Lyrics sites, and my ears, are deceiving me then. Should that be the case, the situation is a little less clear and I resign myself to my earlier statement that I just want this song to disappear because it's annoying and UB40 are also annoying.

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Last night I was thinknig about that "misandry in video games" thing, and back to my quote from bell hooks, and... you know, that "misandry" these peeps are complaining about? It is the fault of the patriarchy. The patriarchy hurts men too! The patriarchy is what's responsible for all that "real boys don't cry," "real men are 150% muscle" tropes!

HELLO PEOPLE WHO CLAIM MISANDRY

PLEASE SIT DOWN

(Edit: WITH US)

Edited by subbes

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Of course it is. Irony aside, there are a lot of men who are being pushed into boxes and feel a huge need to conform and reject their own personalities. Any system that pushes a hardline norm and punishes outliers creates a lot of pain and inequality. It's not on the same level as the inequality geared against women, nor is it an argument against feminism, but that it exists stands beyond question.

(I wouldn't know whether this fits with any idea concerning 'misandry' though, I'm not touching that topic with a ten-foot pole. It's really a spoiled and culturally diseased term, too often used as a weapon.)

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Hrm. I perhaps should make my main point clear. People complaining about this "misandry" in video games* are complaining about the same thing that feminists are complaining about and working against. And yet there's that line of hatred against feminists and feminism (lol "feminazis") despite the common enemy. What the hell happened there?

It's incredible, and I sort of want to know how this wedge got started (at this point it's a self-perpetuating wedge and the two sides will probably never meet). I can't believe that somewhere there is a supervillain** chuckling over how effectively they have used the divide and conquer method to prevent the downfall of the patriarchy, mu ha ha ha.

* Not, as my earlier version implied via sloppy capitalization, Video Games Rodkin

** AntiEquality! Drawn by Rob Liefeld! His thigh-pouches are full of OPRESSION!

Edited by subbes

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Like it or not we must co-exist, and if some members want this discussion to continue, they need to come up with a better argument than the divisive and aggressive one currently presented. Why? Because topics like this, and corresponding attitudes like that, can destroy a community.

Wait, what? What divisive argument are we having right now?

Also how is deleting a thread where people like Yufster and Subbes are posting awesome informative things better than just not participating in a conversation? Is anyone being outright attacked or insulted? Because if someone is feeling that way, I invite them to come forward and see if we can all civilly address it. I think we can probably do it while keeping tempers down.

I don't understand your objection, the topic is not by nature hostile, it just gets that way when people come in it to yell about how feminism is stupid and then refuse to get educated. Which hopefully won't happen anymore. And surely seeing the word "Feminism" pop up in New Content list doesn't offend you?

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Last night I was thinknig about that "misandry in video games" thing, and back to my quote from bell hooks, and... you know, that "misandry" these peeps are complaining about? It is the fault of the patriarchy. The patriarchy hurts men too! The patriarchy is what's responsible for all that "real boys don't cry," "real men are 150% muscle" tropes!

HELLO PEOPLE WHO CLAIM MISANDRY

PLEASE SIT DOWN

(Edit: WITH US)

Yep! I think it's time we tried to restructure the way our patriarchal society works, because I do think it's holding us back. Have you ever watched debates going down in the House of Commons in the UK? It's like watching animals fighting. It's a system not just based on a hideous stereotype of men, but a hideous stereotype from hundreds of years ago. Basically two sides face each other and try to get in as many snide comments and little backhanded comments as possible, while the people sitting behind them yell and roar in either approval or disapproval. Sometimes they don't even try to yell words, they just make random sounds of disgust. It's all such a horrible show of oneupmanship, and each side is like the worst circle-jerk aspects of reddit or something - sometimes it's like they only exist to make roars of approval on the back benches from time to time. When the very top tier of society is acting like a bunch of enraged, narcissistic neanderthals, you know you have a problem, right? I still find it amazing that the country is run and decisions are made in this way. It goes against everything we are otherwise taught about how to behave, how to solve problems together by communicating instead of roaring and smashing our fists.

I think it's both hilarious and heartbreaking that some asshole made that Misandry in Games site. I was watching behind-the-scenes footage of the new Lara Croft game, and they interviewed some of the team who - you might not believe it! - were all men. When I worked in the games industry it was just that - men. I don't understand why someone can't see that the problem of the way men choose to represent themselves in Video games is a slightly different issue, perhaps, than the way men overwhelmingly choose to represent women, who themselves are woefully under-represented in the games industry. Even if raising this as an issue means that some women somewhere in the world are more encouraged to join the games industry to assert their own influence, that's a positive change towards less fucking stupid stereotypes of men and women in games. Uncharted is awesome for that, and it had a female game director/lead designer right? Just having gender balance can make such a difference. Well, maybe. I believe so anyway :( from my experience of working in male-dominated games companies VS more gender-balanced ones.

Anyhoo,

Sadly, I think some people just have a knee-jerk reaction to hearing people raise issues regarding gender equality. It's easy for people who rarely experience the effects of gender inequality - usually either young men, or teenage girls who have yet to experience much of life - to disregard it as something that doesn't exist anymore, as a problem of the past. I'm sorry that my writing is appalling, I work seven days a week these days as I'm on my Uni break and so I'm too tired to proofraed my own self ;( I have failed you all.

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No, great post Yufster. I often wonder why British politics seems so shouty and weird. Dutch politics, though far from free of ad hominem attacks, is much more civil and rigidly delineated. Booing would be heavily frowned upon and you cannot speak directly to each other, it has to go through an arbiter. That might seem arbitrary and stilted, but it works to keep the conversation clean and to the point.

As for women in games, I loved it when Jade Raymond became the figurehead of Assassin's Creed, and was appalled when she was basically harrassed away by the male public.

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Booing would be heavily frowned upon and you cannot speak directly to each other, it has to go through an arbiter. That might seem arbitrary and stilted, but it works to keep the conversation clean and to the point.

That is technically how it works in the UK too. You're always addressing the Speaker and referring to the person you're actually talking to in the third person. It just doesn't seem to make any difference here.

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I sort of miss the, er, spirited manner of the HOC when compared with politics here in the USA, where you can't say the word 'vagina' without getting barred. I would dearly love to see BHO vs John Boehner in The Dozens.

(Er. Is a reference to the dozens cultural appropriation? I know it's a largely AA phenom and I am so fish-belly White that I glow in the dark.)

P.S. I think John Boehner hired some pageant photoshoppers to touch up his official portrait. Those eyes...

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Also how is deleting a thread where people like Yufster and Subbes are posting awesome informative things better than just not participating in a conversation? Is anyone being outright attacked or insulted? Because if someone is feeling that way, I invite them to come forward and see if we can all civilly address it. I think we can probably do it while keeping tempers down.

This is a much better argument than "if you don't like it, go away".

I don't understand your objection, the topic is not by nature hostile, it just gets that way when people come in it to yell about how feminism is stupid and then refuse to get educated. Which hopefully won't happen anymore. And surely seeing the word "Feminism" pop up in New Content list doesn't offend you?

The topic is by nature a very contentious one, and has already lead to many heated discussions. Why? Because it's something a lot of us feel very strongly about. Like religion or politics (it IS politics). Should women have equal rights to men? Of course they should. I don't think anyone here has ever expressed an opinion otherwise, but it still leads to many angry words and insults being thrown around. Saying things like "people come in it to yell about how feminism is stupid and then refuse to get educated" is prime example of a casually thrown around insult likely to get people's backs up.

I'm all for a level-headed discussion, but I'm not naive enough to believe something like this can be discussed without leading to arguments. In fact, that's why we all walked away from this thread last time.

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Saying things like "people come in it to yell about how feminism is stupid and then refuse to get educated" is prime example of a casually thrown around insult likely to get people's backs up.

I'm talking about the topic, not the thread. I worded it awkwardly.

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Haha, not mine unfortunately.

Here's

, which is about calling someone out on racist actions. You can easily substitute the word "racist" for "sexist" and use accordingly. Following his advice on this may help keep this thread squeaky clean and relatively anger-free.

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How I did not remember that word is beyond me, I really need to catch me up on some Adventure Time

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This is a much better argument than "if you don't like it, go away".

The topic is by nature a very contentious one, and has already lead to many heated discussions. Why? Because it's something a lot of us feel very strongly about. Like religion or politics (it IS politics). Should women have equal rights to men? Of course they should. I don't think anyone here has ever expressed an opinion otherwise, but it still leads to many angry words and insults being thrown around. Saying things like "people come in it to yell about how feminism is stupid and then refuse to get educated" is prime example of a casually thrown around insult likely to get people's backs up.

I'm all for a level-headed discussion, but I'm not naive enough to believe something like this can be discussed without leading to arguments. In fact, that's why we all walked away from this thread last time.

Is anyone else calling for this thread to be locked? What is your evidence that it may actually destroy the community? If, as you say, people simply walked away from it before, that seems like a pretty benign end. The rest of the people posting in it now seem fine with it remaining.

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It seems like TP got his wish anyway, as the thread is derailed.

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I like this thread. It is super civil considering this is an overwhelmingly male gaming community on the internet. Maybe I haven't been paying close enough attention, but I don't think there's anything antagonistic enough going on here to merit the closing of the thread.

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Surely we don't need to close the thread, we can have a heated discussion and still be friends, I mean we are grown ups. I'm enjoying reading you clever peeps take on things, nobody spoil it or I'll put you to sleep for a long time.

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