I've written my fair share of articles about women in gaming, so I'm guilty I guess.
What's going to be interesting with this piece is the comments. Will people get the article or will it devolve into anger based off of what it's parodying?
I don't think I get it
You guys. This isn't about feminism. It's about optimism. Personally, I read this not as a critique of the people who attack the marginalization of women in video games, but rather a critique of the games "journalists" who fall all over themseves to complain about those issues in a shrill, click-bait-ey way (which is, unfortunately, what so much of the once-great RPS has devolved to). It's all right there in the conclusion: this isn't a black-and-white issue. And RPS (and others) habitually mischaracterize it as one.
Gender marginalization in video games as an empirical issue seems to be pretty black and white. Some games do it, some don't - isn't this part of this piece's premise?
Really going for that whiny r/MensRights demographic now, aren't you?
Yeah, right. I like pandas, so there!
comment of the year.
You've missed the point.
I can only explain my reading of it. But yes, basically. And so many of the "think pieces" about this issue only seem to lament the (don't get me wrong -- very real) gender issues in games and games culture but wilfully ignore the positive things that are happening. It's the sad truth of all hack journalism: doom-and-gloom sells newspapers.
You mean the point where he draws a false equivalency between male power fantasies and the handful of fairly decent representations of women in gaming in order to make some sort of half-assed and poorly written polemic?
Nah, I got it buddy.
Eloquent, insightful and provocative (in the best way), thanks Tom.
Really unfortunate rhetorical approach in this piece. How much of the small, halting progress that's been made on this issue would have been made without someone daring to be perceived as "shrill"?
Disagree.
I took it to be a hugely refreshing bit of perspective and humor in the face of the tedious "you're either 100% with us or you're against us!" labeling that many are engaging in.
I personally believe that it's okay to hold such a nuanced view that I can disagree with RPS "calling out" Blizzard over this:
http://cdn2.gamefront.com/wp-c...
without turning into "the pile of 'we hate Anita Sarkeesian' dross".
But if you're not shrieking with anger over every little thing, then you get labeled as "against the feminist movement in video games". I'd rather read Tom's shrieking as I can see the humor and intelligence behind it.
"...all the sensible rules of rational thought can't possibly be used in a system with irrational and unbalanced realities.
As human beings we miss this all the time. We focus on the fairness of the momentary interaction itself and always miss the fairness of the system behind it. To give a very broad, silly hypothetical example imagine if you were holding tryouts for some talent competition and you said "anyone can apply, it doesn't matter what your name is!" but let's also imagine that outside your stadium there, the competition has this giant monster that also happens to go around roaring and scaring away everyone whose name is william, christopher, or emma. And let's say no one did anything about this monster and just let it roam around. That would severely affect the fairness of which people could enter the competition, right? There would be zero kids in the competition named william, christopher, or emma for one. And yeah, something should probably be done about that monster eating all those kids, but when the competition is confronted on why the they don't have any kids with those names, the would say "nope, look at the rules! They're completely fair! We totally let everyone apply, it doesn't matter what their name is!" it's looking at the interaction, rules, and letter of the law and completely ignoring the system (and spirit) behind it.
This may sound ridiculous, but it is also completely analogous to real life.
So when hulk sees all these people going around worrying about fairness to them in the rape conversation itself, hulk starts to bite hulk's nails. All these people are trying to apply rational thought, but you have to fix the system first so that the rational thought can actually apply. Because it just so happens that one of the great little wrinkles of the universe is that if you fix the inherent unbalance of any system (like getting rid of the monster who scares away the kids), it actually goes a long way towards fixing the problem itself."
Part of a much larger essay by Film Critic Hulk: http://badassdigest.com/2013/1...
Worth anyone's time! I can't possibly do it justice.
I get what he was going for, I just think he fumbled it. Pretty badly, actually.
The table-turning bit in the first half was stunningly tone deaf considering the rather well-documented gender inequality that actually does exist in the actual real world. It's something I'd expect to read at some half-ass men's rights site.
No, being shrill is shrill.
There's plenty of shrill out there, and not just from comment threads. Read the RPS link above this one and come tell us how that struck you as level-headed and nuanced discussion inviting fair-minded dissent.
This is a great point (not surprising, considering the source). I'm just not sure if it's supposed to be refuting Tom or his haters. I think what Tom is saying here is that everyone is really worried about this big, scary monster that's scaring away the Williams, Chris' and Emmas--and rightly so. But now we're seeing some Williams and some Emmas playing--not nearly enough, maybe--but still... maybe the monster isn't quite as monstrous as it once was?
" the gaming community as a whole maintains a hatred for women" Listen to yourself. This is why no one with half a brain and a half an ounce of common sense takes hardcore feminist or social justice warriors serious. Your type just spews out flat bullshit.
I have to admit I had no idea what was going on until I got to the "tears-in-my-eyes" part. I must have skimmed that follow-up.
First off, not all gender inequality is bad. More men than women prefer football, and more women than men prefer Oprah, and I think that's worth celebrating, for example. Second, nothing in this article says anything about there not being gender inequality in the real world. I think you missed the point.