Feminism/Sexism and Gaming/Geek/Popular culture Catch All

kazooka wrote:

No, I get the reference, it's just a really weird one to be using in that context.

Not really. I'm sure someone at FOX News thought it was a hilarious play on words even though it just highlighted the coded racism of their discussion. Why the Daily Show writers didn't get a joke in about that is puzzling, though.

OG_slinger wrote:
kazooka wrote:

No, I get the reference, it's just a really weird one to be using in that context.

Not really. I'm sure someone at FOX News thought it was a hilarious play on words even though it just highlighted the coded racism of their discussion. Why the Daily Show writers didn't get a joke in about that is puzzling, though.

Given what I've seen of the behind-the-scenes people at all news agencies, I suspect someone at FOX News thought it was a hilarious play on words BECAUSE it highlighted the coded racism of their discussion.

bnpederson wrote:

Given what I've seen of the behind-the-scenes people at all news agencies, I suspect someone at FOX News thought it was a hilarious play on words BECAUSE it highlighted the coded racism of their discussion.

It's like an onion, man. Layers and layers!

Bravo, Nature, bravo.

Nature’s sexism

I wholeheartedly approve of the method they plan to use to try to combat unconscious sexism: simply make a conscious effort to bring possible female contributors to mind before going out to solicit submissions. After they've done that for a while, they can take stock and see how things are going, and make a new plan if it doesn't seem to be effective enough.

Hypatian wrote:

Bravo, Nature, bravo.

Nature’s sexism

I wholeheartedly approve of the method they plan to use to try to combat unconscious sexism: simply make a conscious effort to bring possible female contributors to mind before going out to solicit submissions. After they've done that for a while, they can take stock and see how things are going, and make a new plan if it doesn't seem to be effective enough.

That is impressive that they are doing that. I also salute them. However they bring up an interesting point. For reasons wholely outside their control, in the hard sciences, women are far outnumbered by men. Thus, by a matter of simple statistics, all other things being equal, it is more likely that men than women scientists will respond to articles in the magazine. Also,, for that same reason, there will be fewer articles submitted by women as opposed to men.

Nature (and other journals that take a hard look at things like this) need to also keep in mind that they need to be careful to not appear to be sacrifice the quality of their journal aiming for the goal of a better gender ratio of contributors. If the contributions by females are at least of equal quality as those of the males (and I have no doubt that they are, given the nature (no pun intended) of magazines like Nature and Science), then by all means select to give a better gender ratio. But they will need to make sure that they are not picking articles and/or submissions that are below the minimum acceptable standards of the magazine in order to achieve a better gender ratio.

Let me emphasize: I have no doubt that submissions by female contributors to Nature are just as good as those by male authors. If you plotted them according to quality, I am certain that the exact same plot would result.

Yeah, that can be a difficult tightrope to walk. I think as far as affirmative action policies go it's the smartest way to do it.

As you say, implementation is key. I'm sure they will do it right.

Yes. I think they addressed all of your points quite well.

Hypatian wrote:

Nature doing good things.

Sounds like a great idea. Anything that can raise the visibility of women in the sciences can only help get more young women interested in the sciences.

Meanwhile in the bizarro universe that is Saudi Arabia, men are receiving text messages any time their wives leave the country.

I don't mention this to make any comparisons, it just blows my mind. It sounds like it's not opt-in for the men either. Good to see some local backlash on Twitter (from men, too), for whatever good it will do.

Not sure this fits here exactly but it is too good not to post.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012...

NathanialG wrote:

Not sure this fits here exactly but it is too good not to post.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012...

Wow, thanks for sharing.

And interesting website. Iron Ribbon.

Hopefully this sort of attitude will take off; like many social issues, awareness seems to be key.

Thank you for that, Edwin. I've got a lot to say about it, but my Daily Planet job is kicking my arse right now.

It's both comforting and depressing to know that I'm not the only one who's had terrible experiences. But the scale is unbelievable to me. Every time I refresh the tag, it's a new story.

A new tag, #1reasontobe , highlights why these women stay in the industry.

IMAGE(http://i.minus.com/itTnyp1Q8rCtM.gif)

That is awesome.

Ugh.

I'm having a very annoying day at work today. In our weekly newsletter we feature an MVB "most valuable blogger". Of 700 there are 3 female, and we featured one of them today. I just did the analysis for the clicks in the newsletter and her pic got nearly 700 clicks in one day whereas the guys usually get about a dozen in a week. My coworkers think this is hilarious and now want to get more hot chicks to become MVBs.

*sigh*

Thought this might be worthy. It's Klepek of Giant Bomb's response to the #1reason tags, and apparently the response to them on the site. I quite like the GB guys, and I'm always pretty relieved when they come across as decent and intelligent.

A bon mot that stood out in the comments I masochistically skimmed was "Spoken like someone with no understanding of the Men's Rights Movement." Ah, yes, the rich history of the Men's Rights Movements. I remember those halcyon days, when I and my fellows didn't burn our undergarments in symbolic outrage, because we've been in control of everything, everywhere, since the very dawn of time.

I try to tell myself these posters are just young, and they'll grow up, because I remember being alienated, yet unoppressed because I'm a SWM, and feeling, well, the best word is envious, tacky and tasteless though that sounds, because everyone who isn't SWM gets to fight for a cause tied to their very existence, and when you're an angry 15 year old into punk rock, that'd be super cool. Then again, I didn't make up oppression or associate with a hilariously pointless concocted quasi-existent social movement, I just decided "Well, I guess I should do what I can for the rest of these people, because no one's doing sh*t to me." I worry they won't grow out of it.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

Thought this might be worthy. It's Klepek of Giant Bomb's response to the #1reason tags, and apparently the response to them on the site. I quite like the GB guys, and I'm always pretty relieved when they come across as decent and intelligent.

A bon mot that stood out in the comments I masochistically skimmed was "Spoken like someone with no understanding of the Men's Rights Movement." Ah, yes, the rich history of the Men's Rights Movements. I remember those halcyon days, when I and my fellows didn't burn our undergarments in symbolic outrage, because we've been in control of everything, everywhere, since the very dawn of time.

I try to tell myself these posters are just young, and they'll grow up, because I remember being alienated, yet unoppressed because I'm a SWM, and feeling, well, the best word is envious, tacky and tasteless though that sounds, because everyone who isn't SWM gets to fight for a cause tied to their very existence, and when you're an angry 15 year old into punk rock, that'd be super cool. Then again, I didn't make up oppression or associate with a hilariously pointless concocted quasi-existent social movement, I just decided "Well, I guess I should do what I can for the rest of these people, because no one's doing sh*t to me." I worry they won't grow out of it.

I've never been under the impression that the Men's Rights movement was a "young" thing. A lot of the most vociferous supporters seem to have gone through ugly divorces. Also, the reactionary politics and attitudes towards rape suggest an age range more appropriate for a Republican senatorial candidate rather than a college kid. Then again, I've never even met one of these people, so I guess I don't know who they are.

I pay a fair amount of attention to... y'know, stuff. And speaking as a black man, while there are several societal problems that disproportionately affect us, I've never quite been able to boil them down to "because Feminism" or because women get better treatment.

kazooka wrote:

I've never been under the impression that the Men's Rights movement was a "young" thing. A lot of the most vociferous supporters seem to have gone through ugly divorces. Also, the reactionary politics and attitudes towards rape suggest an age range more appropriate for a Republican senatorial candidate rather than a college kid. Then again, I've never even met one of these people, so I guess I don't know who they are.

Exactly, it being the internet. It being a website for games, I just assume they're younger than me. Given how stupid many seem, I assume much, much younger.

kazooka wrote:

I've never been under the impression that the Men's Rights movement was a "young" thing. A lot of the most vociferous supporters seem to have gone through ugly divorces. Also, the reactionary politics and attitudes towards rape suggest an age range more appropriate for a Republican senatorial candidate rather than a college kid. Then again, I've never even met one of these people, so I guess I don't know who they are.

Well in my area, also Texas, men have a recent history of really getting boned when it comes to child custody, alimony, child support, parental rights, and adoptions. The norm was 60 percent of a man's salary, mother got full custody, father got alternating weekend visits, even with abuse or neglect it was a terribly expensive uphill battle for fathers to get primary custody away from ex wives. The law still is in most states that a father must raise a paternity dispute within 18 months of birth or will have to pay support on the child regardless of his lack of paternity.

These are the major areas I have seen father and men's rights advocates focusing on in my area, and in the nation at large. With over half of marriages ending in divorce, with over 80% of divorces filed by women, this is a substantial issue in the country.

Many states have especially gender biased rape and statutory rape laws, but also enforcement. The largest issue is the disparity among consenting minors and consenting minors with sex photos or tapes. The male is highly likely to be registered as an offender, tried as an adult. In states like New Jersey, among the strictest rape laws in the US affirmative and verbal consent is needed to engage in sex. A girl can throw herself at a male and he may still be guilty of rape. There is proprietorial bias when it comes to mutual intoxication and a presumption of aggression among males in most US states. IE two drunk or high people hook up at a party, neither one could consent, but rape is presumed on the part of the male.

KingGorilla: The fact that men do get treated unfairly in custody battles and sometimes other divorce matters is indeed a real problem. Unfortunately the Men's Rights movement as it exists on the internet seems to be less focusing on actual problems and more focusing on outright hating women, which is what people have been talking about when they talk about MRA.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has declared some MRA groups to be hate groups. Here's some examples: http://www.splcenter.org/get-informe...

More importantly, for some reasons many MRA's blame those "Unfair men's issues" on feminism. By some twisted logic they look at a society where the laws have been dictated by men with almost no exception, and conclude that the result is somehow caused by feminism.

I've yet to meet an MRA who actually accepts the idea behind Patriarchy, and understands that almost every issue they complain about with regards to "men's rights" are a result of the gender roles that feminism is fighting against.

Exactly. The laws favoring women in custody battles were almost certainly passed by majority-male legislatures (I don't know of any place in the USA where there is a majority-female legislator) and are being enforced by judges, the majority of which are still male. The reason why is the perception that women should raise the children and men are less essential to the process, which is one of the very things that feminists are trying to fight.

Demyx wrote:

The Southern Poverty Law Center has declared some MRA groups to be hate groups. Here's some examples: http://www.splcenter.org/get-informe...

...Wow, so this is something far, far uglier and more worrying than I thought. The More You Know.

Membership of the club seems to be in the mouth of the speaker, I find. As I said upthread, you need to pay an annual fee and you get a membership card to be a member of the NRA. If women can say that Ann Sinclair is not a feminist, even when she calls herself one (Wife of Mr Strauss-Khan). I get to say that those groups are not really concerned with areas of sex and gender inequality affecting men's lives.

Bill O'Reilly calls himself an environmentalist. Is he really?

Uh, I said MRA, not NRA. There are people who are members of both but that's not really the issue :p

I get that there are legitimate Men's and Father's Rights people who have nothing to do with those hate sites, but unfortunately those hate sites have kind of co-opted the term Men's Rights and that's what people are often talking about when they complain about MRAs.

That is the issue with self reporting groups, the variance is great.

I often wonder what Susan B. Anthony would say when a porn star or some teen pop go go dancer calls herself feminist. Or her reaction to the Republican counter-feminist movement by women (that is how Hitler got elected after all).

But I think most of us here know that those sites have as much to do with male gender equality and prejudicial issues, as most of what has been said about Birth Control or Gay Rights from the Catholic Church has to do with religious freedoms.

But on a crazy note, I tend to inform myself a bit. I lack the delusion to think that Gloria Steinman will somehow slap an apron on me and take off my shoes, give my degree to my wife, and impregnate me with some bizarre male butt baby. I do however think that the fact that vasectomy was not part of the ACA family planning mandate stinks of gender bias.