Feminism

[Bjorn]

I troll through some of these sites on occasion.  It's a bizarre place.  I suspect that some of the writers and site creators are more sociopathic than anything.  They know that there is a market amongst some men for this shit, and so they create it to cash in on a demographic that someone with morals wouldn't touch. 

[sclpls]

Did people go nuts over that?  I haven't really been paying attention to Mighty No. 9 since the kickstarter ended but that seems like a ridiculous thing to flip out about.

 

I saw some links to the comments section from twitter. It is a ridiculous thing to flip out about, and a lot of dudes really are flipping the fuck out over it.

[SecretAsianMan]

I saw some links to the comments section from twitter. It is a ridiculous thing to flip out about, and a lot of dudes really are flipping the fuck out over it.

 

Man, that is really disappointing.  I did a little research on it myself and it seems like some people are upset because she supposedly got the job because her boyfriend works at Comcept and she was never a big MegaMan fan herself.  Those arguements I can understand. 

 

But then there are some who seem to be upset because of (and I'm quoting a backer here) "her incredibly biased views towards social justice in favor of women and transgendered LGBT community members, often times criticizing anything that does not fit in to this category.  I want her fired."  They seem worried she's going to push her own agenda onto the game's development.

 

All this seems incredibly stupid.  Words fail me.

[Bjorn]

I saw some links to the comments section from twitter. It is a ridiculous thing to flip out about, and a lot of dudes really are flipping the fuck out over it.

 

A selection of quotes if anyone is interested. 

 

I had to look up the Depression Quest stuff as well.  This shit depresses me (literally no pun intended).  My daughter is a sophomore in college and working on a computer science degree with hopes of getting into game design.  I know that she's only a few years away (or even less if she decides to share any of her student work) from having to potentially deal with this crap. 

[Bjorn]

Man, that is really disappointing.  I did a little research on it myself and it seems like some people are upset because she supposedly got the job because her boyfriend works at Comcept and she was never a big MegaMan fan herself.  Those arguements I can understand. 

 

I think those arguments are ultimately just a thin veil for being being upset that she's an outspoken feminist and a woman.  Nepotism is baked into our job culture.  Your odds of getting a job skyrocket when you have a good friend or family member at a company.   And the games industry is FULL of people who did not have a ton of experience with a particular character or franchise prior to being hired to work on sequel.  If it had been a 25 year old guy who had never played a Mega-Man game and got hired because his girlfriend already worked at the company, no one would have said a word. 

[Gormongous]

A selection of quotes if anyone is interested.

 

The cognitive dissonance in some of the comments is truly stupefying:

 

nobody cares that she's female... the problem is that she's a feminist..

 

nobody cares what she believes in, nobody wants to know.. this is about the development of a game

 

we want a great game... we just want her annoying beliefs "men are so cruel... buhuhuhuhuh wahhh :(" to stay out of the game..

 

nobody cares and she just needs to be quiet

 

Guys, I just want to pretend that stuff like this doesn't exist anymore. But I can't, that would make me part of the problem.

[clyde]

But then there are some who seem to be upset because of (and I'm quoting a backer here) "her incredibly biased views towards social justice in favor of women and transgendered LGBT community members, often times criticizing anything that does not fit in to this category. I want her fired." They seem worried she's going to push her own agenda onto the game's development.

All this seems incredibly stupid. Words fail me.

It's funny, to me, those seem like good reasons to hire her as a community-manager.

[Stuart]

Man, that is really disappointing.  I did a little research on it myself and it seems like some people are upset because she supposedly got the job because her boyfriend works at Comcept and she was never a big MegaMan fan herself.  Those arguements I can understand. 

 

Does that even matter? Does one have to be a video game player or a certain fan of something to be able to work on a project? That's just fucking stupid, as well as the whole boyfriend angle. Like Bjorn said, if it was a dude who had his girlfriend get into the project, no one would be shitting their sexist pants.

 

I'm a huge proponent of free speech, even defending the rights of people like the KKK, neo-nazis and Sarah Palin to have their say.  But some of the articles on that site are about as dangerous as speech can get.  They verge on encouraging rape by telling men how to identify a slut who wants sex, and then reinforcing the idea that what women really want is for a dominating man to ravish them, no matter what they say. 

 

But they are at the same level of people like MRAs. Racists, genocide supporters, and classicists shouldn't be given soapboxes at all occasions, no exceptions.

[clyde]

But they are at the same level of people like MRAs. Racists, genocide supporters, and classicists shouldn't be given soapboxes at all occasions, no exceptions.

Who decides what qualifies?

[Stuart]

Who decides what qualifies?

 

People decide who to listen to and who to ignore. People have as much right to ignore the words of bigoted people as much as they have the right to speak. And I'm sure people aren't stupid enough to not be able to distinguish between an outspoken racist and homophobic asshole against someone with conservative values. The people decide, the amount of harm that is perpetrated by what the bigoted crowds say is what qualifies. A KKK member speaking to the masses will bring as much disaster in society as an MRA member giving tips on rape on the internet.

[Gormongous]

Like Bjorn said, if it was a dude who had his girlfriend get into the project, no one would be shitting their sexist pants.

 

To be completely fair, instead they might be shitting their pants about the evil girlfriend who used her vagina and her influence to get her pussy-whipped boyfriend hired.

 

Who decides what qualifies?

 

I think that the political philosophy of Karl Popper applies here. A tolerant society must be intolerant of intolerance, otherwise it consents to its own eradication.

[Bjorn]

Who decides what qualifies?

 

And that's the crux of it. 

 

There is precedent for barring speech that incites people to violence.  So if a KKK blog were to begin providing instructions and encouragement on how target a black man, kidnap him and lynch him, you would have a legitimate case to censor that site. 

 

I really think that some of the MRA sites come very close to encouraging sexual assault when you consider the whole of their content (particularly when you factor in the repeated insistence that most rape claims are false, reinforcing the idea that rape isn't something that happens).  But it's a damn fine line to prove.

[Stuart]

To be completely fair, instead they might be shitting their pants about the evil girlfriend who used her vagina and her influence to get her pussy-whipped boyfriend hired.

 

The fact that I totally would expect a response like that depresses me deeply.

 

But yeah, feminism, it's cool. 

 

EDIT: I mean, I expect a response like about the girlfriend doing evil things to get her boyfriend into the project or w/e, not YOUR response. Read that back, and it sounded vague as shit, sorry.

[SecretAsianMan]

I think those arguments are ultimately just a thin veil for being being upset that she's an outspoken feminist and a woman.  Nepotism is baked into our job culture.  Your odds of getting a job skyrocket when you have a good friend or family member at a company.   And the games industry is FULL of people who did not have a ton of experience with a particular character or franchise prior to being hired to work on sequel.  If it had been a 25 year old guy who had never played a Mega-Man game and got hired because his girlfriend already worked at the company, no one would have said a word. 

 

 

Does that even matter? Does one have to be a video game player or a certain fan of something to be able to work on a project? That's just fucking stupid, as well as the whole boyfriend angle. Like Bjorn said, if it was a dude who had his girlfriend get into the project, no one would be shitting their sexist pants.

 

I don't think that all the people who are complaining about her being hired to due nepotism or not being a lifelong fan were doing so because she's also a woman.  I think people still would have complained about it, but I agree it wouldn't have become as big a deal if it were a man.

[clyde]

https://twitter.com/deirdrakiai/status/411576518247071745

[Lu]

I don't know what that tweet means. What's the story there?

[Roderick]

A link on the previous page explains it. The maker from Depression Quest got a huge harrassment campaign launched against her for literally the reason that she was a woman, and now Deirdre says her cute Dominique Pamplemousse game won't follow in her footsteps, because, highly understandably, she doesn't want people to call her up, threaten to kill her and masturbate into the telephone.

 

Excuse me, I will now play a video game and not act like a complete psychopath to women.

[syntheticgerbil]

I don't think that all the people who are complaining about her being hired to due nepotism or not being a lifelong fan were doing so because she's also a woman.  I think people still would have complained about it, but I agree it wouldn't have become as big a deal if it were a man.

 

Nepotism in video games really bothers me, even when it involves people I like. Has nothing to do with gender since it's usually all men getting in on the nepotism anyway. I don't know enough about the Mighty no. 9 project to have a comment, but I do get the feeling that the nepotism deal isn't actually a real issue with the men's rights guys but instead just another thing to get mad at her about, secondary to her views.

[SecretAsianMan]

epotism in video games really bothers me, even when it involves people I like. Has nothing to do with gender since it's usually all men getting in on the nepotism anyway. I don't know enough about the Mighty no. 9 project to have a comment, but I do get the feeling that the nepotism deal isn't actually a real issue with the men's rights guys but instead just another thing to get mad at her about, secondary to her views.

 

You're probably right.  I'm just optimistically hoping that for at least some people, their complaint is just about the nepotism and not her gender.

[tegan]

I'll admit that I'm not really all that surprised that super hardcore fans of Mega Man, which has had a total of two female characters across ten core games, turned out to be kind of super sexist.

 

[Brannigan]

I adore that comic.

[Bjorn]

Nepotism in video games really bothers me, even when it involves people I like. Has nothing to do with gender since it's usually all men getting in on the nepotism anyway. I don't know enough about the Mighty no. 9 project to have a comment, but I do get the feeling that the nepotism deal isn't actually a real issue with the men's rights guys but instead just another thing to get mad at her about, secondary to her views.

 

I know I used it the same way earlier, but technically this isn't nepotism, as no relatives were involved.  What is actually being talked about is more commonly referred to as simply networking if viewed in a positive light, or cronyism if viewed in a negative light. 

 

Cronyism is a hard one.  If you asked me tomorrow to put together a team for a project or new business, I would seed it with at least some people I've worked with before, and I would ask those people that I trust for recommendations for additional candidates.  Not necessarily because they are unquestionably the most talented at the jobs, but because I have an understanding of how they work, an intimate knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses and I trust their judgement.  I would value that knowledge over the uncertainty of working with an unknown person, at least for a portion of my team.  This would all technically be an example of cronyism, as I would certainly bypass other qualified candidates in the process.  Things like this happen all the time in business and academics, it's often viewed favorably and most of the time no one even thinks about it.

[syntheticgerbil]

Nepotism doesn't only mean relatives, many definitions include "close friends." And if you want to make a case about strictness of the definition then nepotism can really only mean nephews given favored positions by bishops.

[Twig]

You mean she isn't a bishop's nephew?

[Ben X]

I've only ever known 'nepotism' to mean family. I suppose if you're someone's girlfriend that's close enough to being their wife for it to fit, but when it gets to "people you know" the term starts to become a bit vague and pointless.

 

I do think Chris Remo getting a Community Manager job at Double Fine was well dodgy, though.