Most of us are sane, rational people and can see it doesn't exist except where a 'victim' wants to see it nowadays.
Misogynoir!
- Thread starter Tefal
- Start date
Well, you're one step ahead of most of those posting in the thread, in that you recognise that there is an undercurrent of racist misogyny in gaming. Whether it's organised or not, doesn't really matter. It's cultural, I guess.
It may not affect you, but it does affect others. Maybe you are not within the female or black demographic, so generic sexist and racist remarks thrown out during gaming don't strike a chord. Maybe insults thrown at a group you belong to are water off a ducks back. But maybe it's different when those insults are an extension within gaming of your real-life lived experience as a minority or otherwise less-privileged group.
Women absolutely face more hassle online in general, and certainly also within gaming - just see twitter exchanges or, a novel idea, listen to women's experiences of being hassled during and after multiplayer games. Black people also, with racial insults thrown around regularly, even the world's most popular youtube streamer firing out the N-word, and customised KKK characters making appearances (google 'Xavier Woods KKK'). And a hostility towards female and black representation in games - Battlefield backlash around females in the war and similar talk about black people in The Witcher, or the lack of female protagonists in games (improving - but not many black females AFAIK). It's all ingredients in an unwelcoming world for people like those in the OP.
And then, when they make efforts to create a more welcoming environment for themselves, you get butthurt [presumably] white boys taking it as a personal insult, not-all-men-ing it and ridiculing them for taking control of their experience.
Are you really not sure?
You can't imagine how you can experience online racism without people knowing your race?
Does this really need explaining to you?
Or are you being deliberately ignorant?
I appreciate they were not directed at me but there are lots of passive aggressive comments there. I'd expect in some quarters they would be called 'micro agressions'?
Again I know that's not aimed at me. But I see this is the usual accusation that if someone disagrees with a point being made then they must be wrong because they are not the 'right' colour or sex to see it. Isn't that a little discriminatory?
That's quite a bigoted comment. Flip it around and see if it sounds right; "black boys taking it as a personal insult". Does that now sound so acceptable a comment to make? Being a white male why is it acceptable for you to make such comments at people of my demographic?
That wasn't passive-aggressive or micro-aggressive, it was simply aggressive. I was directly calling him out on being deliberately ignorant.
No it's not. It's not saying he's wrong not to be insulted by online 'bants'. It's pointing out, if you quote the whole thing, the machinery behind how racist, misogynistic language (that the poster I was responding to had acknowledged exists) might affect you differently if it's an extension of what you experience in your everyday life, rather than an exception.
I mean, we have people (those in the OP) literally saying that it affects them. So why are others applying their own experience and saying "yeah I know racist and misogynistic stuff happens, but it doesn't affect ME" ?
It's in no way bigoted. It's pointing out that the people criticising these black girls are "presumably" (a bit you cut out of your quote) white boys - i.e. they are commenting on why those black girls are wrong about something, and doing it from their completely opposite world experience.
Why not just reply with your point/explanation instead? You're clearly not seeing eye to eye so instead of asking why he can't see some POV you have why not just explain it.
It seems like you're probably arguing different things - on one hand people can perhaps see racist language or racist views in some chat session which is perhaps what you're referring to. On the other hand people can't treat you differently because of your race/gender if they don't know your race/gender which is what FoxEye is referring to.
lol, fair enough
My non-white son and my non-white non-male daughter have never mentioned any issues to me and they are avid gamers. When you say 'those in the OP' do you mean in this thread or in the story posted in the opening post?
I stand by my views based on what you wrote. I feel you are being quite bigoted in that statement. I didn't expect us to agree on it of course and we have both made our position clear
i don't see that there is. it's people insulting other over their gameplay, end of. if you don't know who you're playing against, how can you have active racism/misogyny? it's just people throwing out words that they think are the most offensive. if they're using those words because they're racists or misogynists, it doesn't really directly correlate to an organised racist/misogynist gaming culture, because they're not directing those comments only at those demographics, they use them at whoever's playing.
Thanks for your contribution as always Dowie
Fine. I believe that a culture of racist and misogynistic language in online gaming creates a racist and misogynistic environment. You..... don't. Oddly.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.
(as an aside - do you believe that a city or building designed with lots of aesthetic curbs and steps is inherently anti-disabled? Or that, as it's just like that to look nice, it's only anti-disabled if you interpret it that way?)
really bad analogy...maybe a city or building with lots of posters with hate message towards disabled people (in amongst all the other insulting posters) - i.e. they don't physically restrict them
I'm still not sure about this supposed horrible undercurrent. I think there are undoubtedly a number of angry teenagers and manchildren that like shouting abuse for shock value at anyone they encounter, but in all the years I played multiplayer games, I can't say I ever felt like misogyny and racism was the prevailing culture.
I played City of Heroes from Beta until closure - that was a great inclusive community with a lot of female players. While I'm sure they'd get the odd PM which they could block, I don't remember any of the girls in our supergroup complaining about persistent misogyny. Can't say I see a stream of racist/misogynist abuse on the Warframe chat channel, either.
How about some actual girl gamers on here (I'm sure there are some) chime in with their experiences. That would be far more helpful than speculating.
This thread does make me think of this vid, though
I played City of Heroes from Beta until closure - that was a great inclusive community with a lot of female players. While I'm sure they'd get the odd PM which they could block, I don't remember any of the girls in our supergroup complaining about persistent misogyny. Can't say I see a stream of racist/misogynist abuse on the Warframe chat channel, either.
How about some actual girl gamers on here (I'm sure there are some) chime in with their experiences. That would be far more helpful than speculating.
This thread does make me think of this vid, though
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you really do take out any interest in debating w/ you by coming up w/ some of the stupidest irrelevant comparisons possible. you might want to look into that, because it just makes you look like your scrabbling for an argument.
It was deliberate to go with a physical impediment in the analogy. Because, ultimately, the point is that the underlying infrastructure discourages a particular group.
Quite a few people have said they don't recognise this alleged culture of omnipresent racism and misogynist in gaming.
You, as always, respond with "No, U". And fail completely to back up any claim you make.
We're just supposed to accept your word that gaming is inherently racism. Because? Yeah I don't know either.
I'm not in the slightest bit surprised that you chose to lie about me. It's what people like you do.
In case anyone is wondering, here's what I actually said:
That's what I don't care about - the excuses people use for irrational prejudice and discrimination. Because, unlike you, I am in favour of equality.
Thank you for summing up my feelings about everything. Treat everyone as an equal and don't be a ****.
I can honestly say that in every guild or group I've been in, where female members have been involved, they have been treated with the respect that they deserve as an equal. The sooner society reaches an egalitarian posture and stops pointing out how different people are and how they need special treatment, the better.
As an addendum, I run an (arty/creative) activity group that started life on the internet. It's pretty much 50/50 men and women. We have gays, asians, blacks and all sorts in our regular group (looks lke we will tick a box with trans next time too). Obviously the white people in the group constantly apologise for their privilege and show remorse for past oppression of our friends' ancestors.
Oh, hang on, that doesn't happen because we are all decent human beings and are, you know, intelligent people, friends and not social justice dickheads. Somehow we still get along. I don't know how that works.
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And that's the hope for a better future. Given free rein, equality appeals to most people because it's fair. It's only when people with enough power prevent equality happening that significant inequality occurs. People have to be conditioned into irrational prejudices. That's what really gets on my **** with group identity politics - we were moving towards equality until the group identity politicians destroyed it with their vile corruption of it. Scum. I have less contempt for the raving lunatics who oppose equality honestly and if I found one of those dying in a ditch I'd just walk on by. (EDIT: Thinking about it, I probably wouldn't. But maybe I would. I'd have regrets either way)
As an addendum from my own life, all bar one of the people I work with are "white". A statistical oddity, like the period of time in which most of the staff were homosexual or bisexual. A while back, we did a charity thing in which staff brought in photos of themselves as babies and customers tried to match the baby photos with the staff. When [name redacted] said that it would be obvious which photo was theirs, nobody realised why until they mentioned their skin colour. We look at [name redacted] and see [name redacted], not "black man". I don't really understand why anyone would do anything else, let alone make an ideology out of doing so and strive to force everyone to do the same.
There's definitely a deck of cards for "social justice top trumps" in all this. It'll probably take a few decades before point assignments for each card are agreed given the arguments it would cause.
I should say that I don't deny there are still issues in our society, I'm just fed up with the way division is being addressed with more division as pointed out by others.
Anyways enough moaning from me, enjoy the weekend, peeps.
