Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Siquo]

Strange, the bigger LAN parties I went to (when I was young, oh, those were the days) let girls in for free, and men had to pay.
Cue feminist indignant comments in 3... 2... 1...


or not?

[Il Palazzo]

They even used the word misogynists, for Christ's sake. Did you not even read the article? Third paragraph, what the text from the site originally was:

Are there other restrictions? Yes. Nothing ruins a good LAN party like uncomfortable guests or lots of tension, both of which can result from mixing immature, misogynistic male-gamers with female counterparts. Though we’ve done our best to avoid these situations in years past, we’ve certainly had our share of problems. As a result, we no longer allow women to attend this event.

We were unable to make women and misogynists get along, so we barred women from entry. Instead of trying to make the gaming culture less misogynistic, we decided that women should stop being a part of it instead, so nobody will get offended by the misogynist insults.

Exactly, you've got "uncomfortable guests and a lot of tension". The whole mysoginistic part looks like an ill-concieved try at explaining the source of the tension, which they corrected.
Of course, there could've been pretty much anything going on there, including gender-specific slurs being thrown around. The point is, we don't know that, and we shouldn't automatically assume the worst. There's plenty of clear-cut incidents of gender inequality in our society, there's no need to paint the grey areas black.

[MonkeyHead]

Back in my undergrad days, there was a Society group that referred to themselves as "The Gentleman's Club". These so called gentlemen used the club and the funding granted to it by the Students Union to engage in "manly" persuits like pipe smoking, ale drinking and watching degrading pornography, and staging events that acted as polar opposites to typical liberal student occasions. The members of this club were known to be dickheads (rude, arrogant, racist and homophobic - very british middle class) from across the spectrum of academic subjects (with a slight slant to the sciences) and most (if not all if my hazy memory is serving me well) were unhygenic, unhealthy and overweight, and often awkward in social circles which took them away from people similar to themselves. The beauty of the whole arrangement was that by Univerisity rules there had to be no barriers to membership. As a right old giggle, the LGBT societiy all joined and showed up to thier events. Witnessing an awkward spotty 19 year old creep sweat under the attentions of my good freind "gay gav" (self named by the way) was a sight to behold. Needless to say the Gentlemans club disbanded shortly afterwards. Freedom of expression at its best .

[scriver]

Ronja Robberdaughter too, plx. Also, do you remove the last i for real? It's Pippi D: Jungledyret Hugo ftw too, no idea what they've called that in english.

Oops, that really was a typo, fixed. I never saw Ronja, I'll look for it.

Ronja meets the Butt Elves.

Yes, that is their name.

Also, great music. Well, some of it

Exactly, you've got "uncomfortable guests and a lot of tension". The whole mysoginistic part looks like an ill-concieved try at explaining the source of the tension, which they corrected.
Of course, there could've been pretty much anything going on there, including gender-specific slurs being thrown around. The point is, we don't know that, and we shouldn't automatically assume the worst. There's plenty of clear-cut incidents of gender inequality in our society, there's no need to paint the grey areas black.

We have "immature misogynists created a lot of tension and made people uncomfortable". Otherwise they would not have singled out misogyny, and there would have been no need to exclude women this year (as they had been allowed previously).

There's no need to pretend this is a "grey area" when it clearly isn't.

And I'm not even "assuming the worst", here. All I'm thinking is that when faced with the misogyny of their attendees, they did the easy thing and forbid women to attend instead of continuing to try to root out the bad parts of the gaming culture. I think they failed to think the issue through and did a great mistake.

[Siquo]

((Perhaps nitpickery, but that last quote, although intelligent, isn't mine))

[scriver]

No nitpick. I got the tags mixed up while editing. It's fixed now.

[Il Palazzo]

Look, if we are going to contest the exact meaning of that statement we could go on forever since there is no other, wider context to judge it by. For example: "mysoginistic male gamers and their female counterparts" does imply that part of the problem were androgynisticmisoandric female gamers etc.
I find the whole issue anything but clear-cut.

edit:wow what a fail with my Greek there

[Lysabild]

Spoiler: Regarding Ronja (click to show/hide)

Well, some of it

ALL of it.

Awesome story Monkeyhead, also on the subject of the gamers, I've been called misogynistic for calling myself a bitch and the article doesn't say anything more than that, so I'm really not following you Scriver, compared to Il Palazzo.

[Levi]

Back in my undergrad days, there was a Society group that referred to themselves as "The Gentleman's Club". These so called gentlemen used the club and the funding granted to it by the Students Union to engage in "manly" persuits like pipe smoking, ale drinking and watching degrading pornography, and staging events that acted as polar opposites to typical liberal student occasions. The members of this club were known to be dickheads (rude, arrogant, racist and homophobic - very british middle class) from across the spectrum of academic subjects (with a slight slant to the sciences) and most (if not all if my hazy memory is serving me well) were unhygenic, unhealthy and overweight, and often awkward in social circles which took them away from people similar to themselves. The beauty of the whole arrangement was that by Univerisity rules there had to be no barriers to membership. As a right old giggle, the LGBT societiy all joined and showed up to thier events. Witnessing an awkward spotty 19 year old creep sweat under the attentions of my good freind "gay gav" (self named by the way) was a sight to behold. Needless to say the Gentlemans club disbanded shortly afterwards. Freedom of expression at its best .

Lol, great story. 

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

"manly" persuits like ale drinking

I wish women (young women in particular) weren't so opposed to the idea of drinking real ale and going in proper pubs. Actually, it's almost always women under 35. To be honest, that's more the negative stigma about lovers of the real stuff than anything else - apparently we all have beards, wear jumpers and socks and sandals and go train-spotting, and that simply isn't true and there shouldn't be any barrier to everyone (who is old enough obviously) from enjoying a decent pint.

Damn why are all my favourite things sausage-fests of the highest order ffs.

[Vector]

Strange, the bigger LAN parties I went to (when I was young, oh, those were the days) let girls in for free, and men had to pay.
Cue feminist indignant comments in 3... 2... 1...


or not?

Depends on if the women in question are expected to make some "other" sort of payment once they're there.

Like, you know, how women can often get free drinks in bars.  If they've taken their shirts off.

And yes, if women are going in and no one is ogling them (i.e. they got in free because they're effectively working as pinup girls) or treating them like trash and they're actually allowed to participate as equal members, then that is wrong.


As far as the women being banned from gaming thing, if they were insulting the men in a way they couldn't handle (what would they say?  Accuse the men of being too violent?  That's the most prevalent male stereotype over here, and I have no idea how that would possibly come off as a negative in context), there is absolutely no reason why the founders couldn't have put a restriction on hate speech.

Because theoretically, it's an equal problem, affecting both genders equally.  And, if that is the case, in those situations we should see women and men banned in 50-50 proportions.

Of course, that isn't what happens.


Perhaps I'm somewhat biased from my experiences of playing video games with guys, in which I have found overwhelmingly that either

a. they gave me crappier equipment than anyone else and always stuck me in the last slot; if I decided on something they wanted, they were going to get it

b. they didn't want to play with me because they thought I couldn't handle the trash-talking.

[Lysabild]

And yes, if women are going in and no one is ogling them (i.e. they got in free because they're effectively working as pinup girls) or treating them like trash and they're actually allowed to participate as equal members, then that is wrong.

This made me think, women here atleast often try to use themselves to their advantage themselves, My uncle have had women try to show cleavage while trying to convince him of things, sadly for them he is gay.

Then theres women who dress up really revealing and get mad when people look/flirt, and even worse, my mother sees woman act like that while taking care of old people. I don't know the english words for describing the place she works, but she takes care of the old as a job.

And as mentioned, women get free drinks and entrance to most clubs here, while men are expected to pay double and still pay the girls their drinks.

I really don't see the gender equality tipped in any direction, it's equally borked both ways.

[Andir]

Perhaps I'm somewhat biased from my experiences of playing video games with guys, in which I have found overwhelmingly that either

a. they gave me crappier equipment than anyone else and always stuck me in the last slot; if I decided on something they wanted, they were going to get it

b. they didn't want to play with me because they thought I couldn't handle the trash-talking.

I assume your female?  (Yeah, sue me for not remembering who is who around here.  I have better things to do with my life than try to remember who people are.)

I've noticed the opposite.  In most MMOs I've played, female characters almost always get preferential treatment for wares.  People literally just hand them stuff because they are female (or appear to be).  Heck, I've done it myself... but mainly because she was the healer and we needed to get her up to spec.  I don't know if it's the old standard "feeling sorry" angle that affects race relations here in the US (ie: treating someone better because you feel as though you need to make up for past ills) or if it's just pure sexism.  Even in the old days of EQ, I made a female dark elf shadow knight to play around with some twink gear I picked up on my main.  Even though I was all decked out in expensive gear and soloing some pretty tough mobs, people would still give me stuff (even though I didn't need it...)  I never had that "problem" with my male warrior.

Generally when I play I try to get the whole team on equal gear though (video games and pen/paper).  My one friend and I would always kid each other by saying, "I'll take that.  If I'm better equipped, you'll benefit from my power!" and other such non-sense, but it usually comes down to a fair roll on the dice if there's a dispute.

Also, D&D2.5 was the best rule set... 3 and 4 are such abominations that it's not funny.  I want to make custom/dual classes and not be restricted on what skills and spells I can choose!  Also, the 2nd Edition rules on random dungeons are much better IMHO (to the point that they are almost non-existent in the new editions.)  Sometimes you just want to co-op your way around random places instead of one person being stuck as the DM.

[Vector]

Bah, I have no doubt that women get preferential treatment of a sort (by the people who aren't telling them Tits or GTFO) online.

But to me, the issue is that we still sort of aren't getting treated like... well... equal humans.  We're either someone to extract tit pictures from or someone to ply with gifts in order to up nice guy cred and hope for tit pictures.


On the other hand, I should establish that I'm talking about playing games with dudes together in meatspace, not gaming on the net.  I don't really know much about the MMO scene.


And yeah, I'm a woman.

[Lysabild]

But to me, the issue is that we still sort of aren't getting treated like... well... equal humans.  We're either someone to extract tit pictures from or someone to ply with gifts in order to up nice guy cred and hope for tit pictures.

How is a man equal human when he is expected to pay gifts, pay for the drinks, hold the door and so on and so on. What is equal human in this issue? Would you rather it was opposite? I'd quite like the role many women play in society here, compared to having to play big strong man and save my family and earn tons of money for the sake of trying to hit some masculine ideal.

Goes back to the earlier arguement, yeah maybe Strong, Rich men have more rights and get away with a ton of bullshit, but ordinary guys are being opressed just the same often by regular women. Do you know that wifes beating their men is really common too, but less known because the man is too ashamed to admit it?

I really don't see the gender equality tipped in any direction, it's equally borked both ways.

Seriously.