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Many, many people who share a very privileged gender with me (to wit, male) act as though another gender (in this case female) is engaged in a zero-sum game with them with their very freedoms as the winner-take-all prize in this epic conflict. Despite basically having grabbed up all the social, physical, political and financial power available to them, many of these men fear that even a slight adjustment of this power structure will cause them to be cast down into a Tartarian abyss of powerlessness.
This divide is felt acutely in almost every strata of society. It has once again reared its ugly head in the world of video gaming (what do you call it when something never stops rearing its head? Because that's what happens in the world of video gaming... and EVERYWHERE ELSE). Once again women have dared to ask for the barest sliver of recognition in the video game industry and as always, many male video gamers have responded in a way that seemed perfectly reasonable to them: death and rape threats (http://games.on.net/2014/08/readers-threatened-by-equality-not-welcome/).
I'll give you a second to digest that. Threats of using traditional male power over females (ie, sexual duress and physical violence) were seen as a perfectly reasonable response to a woman asking to be showing a tiny crumb of respect in her chosen hobby.
Yes, that's the internet equivalent of beating the living crap out of someone for speaking up for themselves.
Yes, I'm feeling sick too.
And this is in a field where game companies seem to find any excuse they can to either exclude (http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/11/5799386/no-female-characters-in-assassins-creed-unity-too-much-work, http://www.vg247.com/2014/02/16/deep-down-will-not-include-playable-female-characters-report/) or subject to the male gaze (http://www.digitalamerica.org/the-male-domain-exclusion-of-women-in-video-games-kayleigh-connor/, http://www.salzburg.umd.edu/unesco/objectification-women-video-games) women. This is a field where men do not stand to lose anything by being less misogynistic. In fact, we stand to gain a lot of things if we stop holding so tight to our privilege; most notably, self-respect -- which we clearly lack if we're treating women like so much garbage in a field that we already dominate.
And lest you think that video gaming is the only computer-related field where men are showing that we're completely unequal to the challenge of holding onto our ideals while simultaneously recognizing that gasp there's a whole other gender out there, then good news! Some of the stalwart guardians of our digital freedom have stripped many, many women of theirs without seeing even the slighted contradiction in their behaviour (http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/1/6092769/creeps)!
Now let me leave you with one last thought. If the above didn't depress you enough, just do some research into how all the other genders (https://www.genderspectrum.org/understanding-gender) get treated. I promise you that you'll be ready to slit your wrists in no time.
This divide is felt acutely in almost every strata of society. It has once again reared its ugly head in the world of video gaming (what do you call it when something never stops rearing its head? Because that's what happens in the world of video gaming... and EVERYWHERE ELSE). Once again women have dared to ask for the barest sliver of recognition in the video game industry and as always, many male video gamers have responded in a way that seemed perfectly reasonable to them: death and rape threats (http://games.on.net/2014/08/readers-threatened-by-equality-not-welcome/).
I'll give you a second to digest that. Threats of using traditional male power over females (ie, sexual duress and physical violence) were seen as a perfectly reasonable response to a woman asking to be showing a tiny crumb of respect in her chosen hobby.
Yes, that's the internet equivalent of beating the living crap out of someone for speaking up for themselves.
Yes, I'm feeling sick too.
And this is in a field where game companies seem to find any excuse they can to either exclude (http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/11/5799386/no-female-characters-in-assassins-creed-unity-too-much-work, http://www.vg247.com/2014/02/16/deep-down-will-not-include-playable-female-characters-report/) or subject to the male gaze (http://www.digitalamerica.org/the-male-domain-exclusion-of-women-in-video-games-kayleigh-connor/, http://www.salzburg.umd.edu/unesco/objectification-women-video-games) women. This is a field where men do not stand to lose anything by being less misogynistic. In fact, we stand to gain a lot of things if we stop holding so tight to our privilege; most notably, self-respect -- which we clearly lack if we're treating women like so much garbage in a field that we already dominate.
And lest you think that video gaming is the only computer-related field where men are showing that we're completely unequal to the challenge of holding onto our ideals while simultaneously recognizing that gasp there's a whole other gender out there, then good news! Some of the stalwart guardians of our digital freedom have stripped many, many women of theirs without seeing even the slighted contradiction in their behaviour (http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/1/6092769/creeps)!
Now let me leave you with one last thought. If the above didn't depress you enough, just do some research into how all the other genders (https://www.genderspectrum.org/understanding-gender) get treated. I promise you that you'll be ready to slit your wrists in no time.
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