Posted on 02/21/2015 5:08:02 AM PST by Kaslin
I am woman! Hear me whine!
I am officially considering myself a “#GamerGate wench” - well, you could insert another generally derogatory term if you like, but I won't. It's not because I'm opposed to being referred to by that word, but because that wouldn't be considered appropriate in this forum. No, I'm not one of those gamer girls that has taken to using “#notmyshield” to separate themselves from the whining social justice warriors that have been stirring the pot on the whole “women are hated in the world of gaming” trope. While I do play some video games, and just finished a short battle with a slight addiction to one in particular, I don't self-identify as a gamer.
It has taken me over a week to address this issue for a couple reasons, but the more important one is the fact that I needed that time to calm down enough to write something coherent and not laced with profanity. What got me started was the abysmal treatment of #GamerGate on the small screen by “Law and Order: SVU.” While I could offer my own take on that here, I'll happily defer to the review Erik Kain gave on Forbes. Maybe I could add a little to it, but I'll resist the urge for the most part. The show episode, while it was absolutely wretched, only slightly fueled my ire on this issue. No, what really infuriated me was the self-aggrandizing screed by Brianna Wu that was theoretically in response to the show.
Just the title alone was enough to make my blood pressure rise - “I'm Brianna Wu, And I'm Risking My Life Standing Up To Gamergate.” Unfortunately, I am not making that up. If the title was remotely close to truthful it would read something like “I'm Brianna Wu, And I'm Trying To Make You Feel Sorry For Me Because I Intentionally Made Myself A Target By Trying To Silence My Detractors.” Wu probably is facing a few credible threats against her, and that's wrong. However, she is being disingenuous at best about why she's gotten to where she is.
First, it's necessary to dispel one general misunderstanding about the gaming industry in general. What's gotten lost in all the arguments about how women are treated is that the gaming environment as a whole is not a friendly place to reside for anyone in the business of developing games or consoles. Fans are fierce, both in their loyalty and their viciousness if anyone does anything they don't like. They don't check the genders of their targets when they're angry, and may whatever deity you choose protect you if you dare to just portray a character they love the wrong way. And those gamers prize their freedom to talk out their issues with their favorite games and gaming industry icons – recall that silencing them started all of this in the first place. While not a be-all and end-all source, this is explained in a short book by Paul Tassi called “Fanboy Wars: The Fight For The Future Of Video Games.” I'm suggesting that for folks that aren't gamers, since it's in common language, and it's under 100 pages.
Back to Wu and her whining, the bottom line is that she chose to get into an area of tech that absolutely requires an extremely thick skin to survive. Crying that women need protecting is bluntly ludicrous, and insulting. It is a choice, like if a woman decides to be the first active firefighter at a volunteer fire company in the sticks that is populated by a bunch of mouth-breathing rednecks that like watching porn on their downtime. I did that years ago, put up with the crass language, and sat in the rec-room eating popcorn while the awful movies were on the screen (without blushing, and poking fun at the unrealistic acting from the women.) I left that company, but in the years since more women joined. Today, about 30 percent of the members are women, and from what I'm told, they aren't putting up with the garbage I did back in the day. It took one woman that was willing to put up with the harassment and disgusting behavior of the men to break down that barrier.
I'm not suggesting it's going to be that easy in the gaming industry, especially since it really isn't an easy field for anyone, men included. What I am saying is that Wu and her fellow whiners are not serving the cause of women finding a niche in that business. They aren't breaking down barriers. They are building them. Once upon a time, feminism was about women getting out there and fighting for what they want in life. Now, it's become an endless parade of thin-skinned victims begging for attention and demanding special treatment simply because they are female. Wu needs a reality check. If only she could live a day in the shoes of a Kurdish woman fighting ISIS, or find out first hand what it's like to get those same death threats from people that definitely could carry them out. She said that she's relating to the state of surrender that the awful “Law and Order” episode depicted. Maybe that's exactly what she needs to do, because if she isn't strong enough to stand up to what she's facing, obviously she doesn't want it bad enough. But, on the off chance that Wu does decide that she wants to pick herself up, and really face down the demons she's unleashed on herself, I think I'll drop her a line. Maybe she just needs a note telling her that #GamerGate isn't the real battle she should be facing. It's time to stop fighting with the fanboys, and dig in to do some real work. That is unless Wu has resigned herself to just writing whiny columns, and making videos bemoaning the mistreatment of women in the gaming industry.
?????????????
There is a certain wisdom to grabbing a kid and making them do manual labor sufficient to cause them to fall asleep as soon as their head hits the pillow at night. This should happen to every single combatant in this poisonous situation.
Great title! Should be on a t-shirt.
I find severe micro aggression in the author’s continued use of the word “she” to describe Wu. Wu is XY-enabled (maybe was enabled is better).
Gamers are notoriously vicious to everyone who displease them. Just ask Peter Molyneaux who just vowed “never to speak to the press again”.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/13/peter-molyneux-game-designer-interview-godus
Milking cows at 5am then bailing hay the rest of the day before milking the cows again at 5pm. Kept me out of trouble.
Brianna Wu is a dude, John Flynt; who underwent the self mutilation surgery to in order to look female.
Gamers are the same kind of tough that many are behind a keyboard.
Bunch of real wusses really.
Toe to toe with whom they lash out at over the net they would wet their pants and run home (or upstairs out of the basement) to their mommies.
True. But #gamergate is about the infiltration of gaming media by social justice warriors. The gaming industry is now bigger than Hollywood and is one of the few entertainment industries that is not controlled by the social justice types.
Are you saying he operated on himself?
Yeah, whatever.
Even after reading, I don't get what that article was about, but I do know this. If she didn't like the behavior of men in a rightfully male-dominated profession, maybe she shouldn't have stepped in where she had no business going.
I’m not privy to the exact circumstances but, he was born a man and now physically resembles a female.
I would say “GamerGate” started with female game writers whining there aren’t enough female game developers and those who do make feminist games don’t see big sales, then blaming it on sexist gamer males.
The scandal revealed:
* game reviewers coordinating reviews of games to promote political agendas
* game reviewers paid to give better reviews and ignore competitors
* Gamergate became liberal social justice warriors versus gamers in online forums and media; media is biased toward the left (Even cracked.com wrote a piece less than 48 hours after Gamergate exploded bashing sexist male writers). This showed that the gaming media is coordinated and biased the way NBC/CBS/PBS/CNN are.
* The Social Justice Warriors had online hate campaigns that led to companies like Intel pulling ads from sites that weren’t far liberal, while their online hate campaigns drove several female gaming writers who took gamers’ sides (or simply didn’t say oh, the main woman involved must be innocent because she’s a woman) lost their jobs. In short, it is proof that SJW want to silence all debate and even those who aren’t as radically left as them.
* Zoe Quinn’s literally cozy (sexual) relationship with a game reviewer was revealed, including initially positively biased reviews of her games; that stopped because she cheated on him; in short, a sexual spat turned into a “all male gamers are evil sexists, gamers BAD” meme
The social justice warriors are going after all cultural bastions that aren’t in line with their views. They have NBC/CBS/CNN and most print media. Now they are going after gamers and science fiction fans.
I actually bought this book to read it as the first detailing of the railroading of the Science Fiction Writer’s Association to not grant awards to conservative but top selling writers, learned more on the SJW efforts to shut down the Orson Scott Card movie “Ender’s Game”, the near black-listing of a Chinese-Thai sci-fi writer who criticized black/white racism focus of the American left, the banning of Elizabeth Moon (female Vietnam veteran) from speaking at events because she said a mosque near 9-11 is permissible when there is a church in Saudi Arabia and other cases.
“How to Make a Social Justice Warrior” by William Shetterly - a Review
http://tamarawilhite.hubpages.com/hub/Review-of-the-eBook-How-to-Make-a-Social-Justice-Warrior-by-William-Shetterly
Exactly. She fails to mention that this Wu skank is a “trans” pervert, and an inveterate drama quee(n)(r) whose sniveling has gotten him banned from several gamer communities.
Another buttwad who painted a target on his back, ran through a shooting gallery, and now is whining because he took a bullet.
I looked up the Urban Dictionary definition of “social justice warrior”. Urban Dictionary is by no means a conservative site. The definition with the most thumbs up does not give the SJW’s a kind assessment, somewhat indicating that the antics and histrionics of the SJW’s has, shall we say, gotten old.
Sarah Hoyt, a conservative science fiction writer (”According To Hoyt”) frequently writes about the SJWs in science fictiondom. She also references the GHH (Glittering Hoo-Hahs).
Like ticks, these types have proliferated and if there is one thing they cannot stand, it is free expression. Occasionally, a science fiction novel review on Amazon Kindle will mention that the characters/plot tend to the Kool-Aid side of the political spectrum. But often, there will be the usual hot anger that conservative memes are evident. The usual conclusion is that no one should be allowed to write anything that is critical of socialism or its many masks pretending to be science. Feminism is just a ploy to these critics. So is diversity when they demand characters be gay, trans, minority and these always be cast as heroes. They really do want outright bans on any conservative thought, anywhere, and would be happy to see any conservative burned alive in a cage.
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