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How popular are misogynist ideas in "geek" culture?

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Z

Zeuanimals

Member
If I stick with GAF, it'd seem like misogyny, or simply male centric thinking, wasn't too big in geek culture and gamergate will seem like a distant, fringe group you'd typically find on 4chan or a weird subreddit. But go on other sites and any mention of feminism, Anita Sarkeesian, or simply not pandering to male audiences, is met with a ton of hostility by virtually everyone. Posters who seemed rational will be overcome by rage if you mention removing gratuitous usage of boobs from a game's cover. This threw me for a loop since I thought we were getting better. I thought people who called themselves geeks were supposed to be a bit more knowledgeable and open minded. Nope. How bad is it, really, though? Because it almost makes me want to avoid any other sites as any rational discussion about this stuff is impossible.

Edit: Maybe not misogyny, but sexist. I somehow forgot the word.
 
V

Volimar

Member
Like anything, when you're the privileged majority, any attempt at making things fair for others looks like an attack. Some will fight tooth and nail to keep the status quo. For the most part it's less misogyny and more rampant sexism and objectification, but yeah it's pretty sickening.

Also, some guys are just huge dicks.




People really need to get with the times. If a dudebro shooter series like Gears of War can adapt to have fleshed out female characters, then the rest of the industry can too.
 
N

NoblesseOblige

Banned
It's improving (I think) but 'geek culture' is still very much populated by misogynistic ideas. Even here on GAF there are times it will propogate but thankfully we have the moderation thats seems to curtail it.
 
G

Geist-

Member
I want to believe it's just a aggressively vocal minority. A game I actively follow released some concept art of a female character who appeared to have boobplate armor, so I made a post on Reddit about it with some examples of female armor done well. Got a lot of upvotes, but you wouldn't think so from the comments. Accusations flying of SJW, liberal, how women aren't going to play it doesn't matter, or how it's just a game, it's supposed to be unrealistic.

It was fucking surreal.
 
H

Hellwarden

Member
Hard to say exactly how popular misogynistic ideas are in geek culture.

I tend to think the majority of harassment comes from a small vocal minority that is still big enough to be a problem.
 
Z

Zeuanimals

Member
Geist- said:
I want to believe it's just a aggressively vocal minority. A game I actively follow released some concept art of a female character who appeared to have boobplate armor, so I made a post on Reddit about it with some examples of female armor done well. Got a lot of upvotes, but you wouldn't think so from the comments. Accusations flying of SJW, liberal, how women aren't going to play it doesn't matter, or how it's just a game, it's supposed to be unrealistic.

It was fucking surreal.
Click to expand...

Wow. I've seen people say devs market their games to men because that's where the market is. Can't blame a company for wanting to make money. Well why is that the market reality? Because they keep reinforcing it. They want to make money and ignore the fact that half of all people are women.
 
R

RoyaleDuke

Banned
Poisonously popular, moreso than in any other medium I think.

But I think rampant sexism is a huge part of geek culture too, half the designs for women are pretty....yeah.

I think we are getting to a new place, but just like with anything some people are just huge fucking dicks mired in their own shitty social moorings.

A look anywhere on the internet will only take you 10 seconds to realize that misogyny, racism, sexism and all those ugly little -isms, -nys, are still alive and well, taking new life in the form of badly made visual puns, baiting posts, youtube, the seedier places of the internet, and the twittersphere.
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
So there's two different levels to this answer

The first is that misogynist ideas in geek culture aren't less common than in the broader culture as a whole, which goes against two prevailing "geek" self-made myths, that of being a culture of "nice guys" and that of being made of "enlightened people".

The second is that misogynist ideas in geek culture might actually be more prevalent than in the broader culture, or at least more prevalently expressed, insomuch as geek dominated spaces like gaming, the tech industry, comics etc are notoriously toxic towards women in a way that things like...salsa dancing, pottery, or (in my experience) the consumer product industry just aren't

Basically you've got a bunch of awful hypocrits
 
M

Media

Member
I feel like it used to better, in a way. It wasn't the 'bitches need to get the fuck out of geekdom cuck cuck cuck!' shit. It was more the 'omg a girl?! Wow! I'll be super nice.in the hopes you'll pay attention to me!' kind. Annoying, but less scary than this newest stuff.
 
B

Brian_FETO

Banned
I don't think the problems are necessarily the cultures themselves as much as the people they attract

Introverted/awkward people are generally drawn to stuff like gaming and are given a voice with the internet, despite any lack of perspective for others

Nerd cultures have become a lot more acceptable in society as of late, but it's all sort of rooted in the same "outcast" mold from before. The people making things right now grew up with that, so they either embrace it or try to change it

Anonymity and the internet at large has made it worse because it allows people to create an echo chamber for themselves and continue the "we're not the problem, everyone else is" toxicity. In the same way that the internet in recent times has brought attention to these issues, it's giving people the chance to spew some vile shit in retaliation (or just ignorance in general)

The issues exist in society itself but you have these branching pockets of bullshit
 
P

PdotMichael

Banned
Zeuanimals said:
Wow. I've seen people say devs market their games to men because that's where the market is. Can't blame a company for wanting to make money. Well why is that the market reality? Because they keep reinforcing it. They want to make money and ignore the fact that half of all people are women.
Click to expand...

There is nothing wrong with pandering to a specific target group.

It is just dumb to ignore everything else.
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
What's happening is that women (and other marginalized folks) are carving out their own geek spaces. This is what 99% of the backlash to Tumblr actually is (but also yes, 1% of Tumblr can be very stupid)
 
C

cubicle47b

Member
The geek spaces I've been in haven't had (visible) serious problems. Plenty of WoW guilds, board game groups, computer science groups, etc.
 
P

Platy

Member
Media said:
I feel like it used to better, in a way. It wasn't the 'bitches need to get the fuck out of geekdom cuck cuck cuck!' shit. It was more the 'omg a girl?! Wow! I'll be super nice.in the hopes you'll pay attention to me!' kind. Annoying, but less scary than this newest stuff.
Click to expand...

Nobody cares about the water till it reaches bellybutton level ... THERE is where people think "wow I can't swim !"

So basicaly, people only hate when they feel that they will start to loose something ... which unless they play EVERY SINGLE GAME RELEASE will not mean anything different if more games focus on women and if every game discovers how cool it is to not objectify women
 
4

4Tran

Member
Misogyny has a fairly large presence in geek culture, but it's probably smaller than it may appear because they tend to be louder and more obnoxious than most other people who speak up. It's also easy to see moderate forum posters driven out of social consciousness threads because they don't want to fight with that group.

While it's hard to generate anything close to precise numbers, you can see the proportions in actions from events like the Hugo debacle of the last couple of years. In that scenario, the Hugo awards have two components: the publicly driven nomination process, and the actual vote on winners at the SF World Convention. The former generally doesn't attract all that many participants so alt right voters got organized and managed to put a lot of their choices onto the final vote. However, when it actually came to the votes, their choices tended to get crushed (even by No Winner). Here it's pretty clear that even though the alt right groups are a significant presence, they're dwarfed by more socially conscientious fans. Bear in mind though that this is largely about the SF World Convention, and the average age of the participants is going to be a lot older than most portions of geekdom.

The bigger problem is that misogynistic ideas aren't challenged enough when they do show up. Video games are a pointed example - at this point "SJW" as a pejorative is pretty much accepted in most gaming-related public forums.
 
IrishNinja

IrishNinja

Member
MRA type shit is, on some level, trying to apply math and pretty much advice from another sexless dude to one's lack of ability to get pussy

think about that for a second, but mix it with the misogynistic attitude that one's boring ass is entitled to it

crackhead_bob said:
What is SJW?
Click to expand...

a clear sign that anyone using that term non-ironically isn't worth engaging

ThoughtsOfSpeaking said:
It is.

The reframing of the word to help peoples argument against male-centric thinking is not helpful.
Click to expand...

bullshit, anti-women lines of logic masked as male centric are literally being called for what they are, full stop
 
IrishNinja

IrishNinja

Member
Volimar said:
Social Justice Warrior. Basically anyone that says the maybe someone shouldn't be an asshole gets labeled and dismissed as a SJW. See also: White Knight.
Click to expand...

see i always saw a distinction here: i'm 100% SJW, but whatever RiskyChris was doing here a while back, i'm not that
 
C

Condom

Member
crackhead_bob said:
What is SJW?
Click to expand...
This guy
XL1Nwdb.jpg
Click to expand...

Or this guy

ib8E7gd.jpg


But since some time ago internet basement dwellers have declared them to be cucks and too sensitive so I guess being a SJW these days means you're a loser instead of a hero*

*then there actually are people who are genuinely stupid in their perceived notion of social justice and focus only on trivial things but those are in the minority
 
J

J_ToSaveTheDay

Member
Pretty popular by my own anecdote. I don't think I have more than a handful of fellow pro-feminist friends, and the ones that are misogynistic are generally pretty open about their disdain for feminists -- even out of context. Literally nothing needed to prompt them from saying a misogynistic or anti-feminist joke or using it as their rage rant basis. Some are pretty smugly racist -- kind of typical 4chan style behavior. They tend to assume I'm like them... But that's usually because when it starts to happen, I just stay quiet, which is kind of a cowardly way to go about it I admit.

I mean, one of the most prominent people I know that does this is married and has an infant daughter. It always feels a bit ironic. Don't know his wife too well, not sure where she'd fall in all of it, and not sure he behaves that way around her much.
 
M

mdubs

Banned
Brian_FETO said:
I don't think the problems are necessarily the cultures themselves as much as the people they attract

Introverted/awkward people are generally drawn to stuff like gaming and are given a voice with the internet, despite any lack of perspective for others

Nerd cultures have become a lot more acceptable in society as of late, but it's all sort of rooted in the same "outcast" mold from before. The people making things right now grew up with that, so they either embrace it or try to change it

Anonymity and the internet at large has made it worse because it allows people to create an echo chamber for themselves and continue the "we're not the problem, everyone else is" toxicity. In the same way that the internet in recent times has brought attention to these issues, it's giving people the chance to spew some vile shit in retaliation (or just ignorance in general)

The issues exist in society itself but you have these branching pockets of bullshit
Click to expand...
This post nails it
 
G

Greddleok

Member
Without defining what you mean, it's hard to say. The gamer gate style stuff isn't popular at all. It's a few noisy assholes.

Compare that to "fake geek girl" which is incredibly popular.

Then it all depends on your group, when I was in a...geeky/nerdy hobby, we were very welcoming to everyone. Of course there were a few guys would would throw a strop when they lost to a girl at Warhammer 40K, but they just got made fun of for being sore losers.

I think it also depends on the age of the group. My 40K group had an average age of 40, with a few younger players like me and a few of others in our 20s and a couple of teenagers. Most of the players had wives and daughters and so were extremely welcoming to any girls or women who wanted to join and play with us.
 
ZiZ

ZiZ

Member
"Geek culture" has lost its meaning. geeks are now mainstream. and as such it includes all sorts of people.

video games were predominantly a male interest. The games, the marketing... etc were all catering to males. Then suddenly people came and wanted to change the games that they liked so much, often times by the same people who made fun of these hobbies. They didn't view it as other people sharing their hobby and adding to it and making it grow, but as invaders that have come to take away what they love. In this aspect I don't think gamers would be different to any other group. Imagine if people decided to change sports to appeal to more people, for instance if they changed football (american football) to be less violent and more child friendly. Or if romance novels were changed to appeal to the average male. the fans would be rabid.

anti-social people are also drawn to them, more than they are to sports for instance.
 
J

John Kowalski

Banned
Someone please google and link "Postmodern Geekdom as Simulated Ethnicity" for me, way too fucking early to deal with copying and pasting on Android.
 
B

Brinbe

Member
It's sadly overwhelming... GAF is one of the few safe havens from that bullshit. Everywhere else is a compendium of cuck this, SJW that.
 
F

Ferr986

Member
ZiZ said:
"Geek culture" has lost its meaning. geeks are now mainstream. and as such it includes all sorts of people.

video games were predominantly a male interest. .
Click to expand...

As a guy that played with her sister some Master System and Mega Drive games, no, they weren't IMO. In fact I would say there's more blatantly male catering games now than before.

ZiZ said:
They didn't view it as other people sharing their hobby and adding to it and making it grow, but as invaders that have come to take away what they love. In this aspect I don't think gamers would be different to any other group. Imagine if people decided to change sports to appeal to more people, for instance if they changed football (american football) to be less violent and more child friendly. Or if romance novels were changed to appeal to the average male. the fans would be rabid.
Click to expand...

The problem is viewing it like that. It's not. No one is trying to change games, just trying to be more diverse.
If they changed football then it wouldn't be football, but another sport, because every sport have their own set of rules to work. There's no rules on how to make videogames, just a status quo.

About the OT purpose, yeah it's the reason I don't post in any other gaming forum other than GAF, even in one that I've been for a lot of years, I noticed over the year how much sexism did raise during the years. I don't care if it's a vocal minority or not, the problem is that no one calls them out there, so they're free to spread their bullshit. Atleast here they get their deserved ban.
 
ZiZ

ZiZ

Member
Ferr986 said:
As a guy that played with her sister some Master System and Mega Drive games, no, they weren't IMO. In fact I would say there's more blatantly male catering games now than before.
Click to expand...

come on man, they definitely were targeting young males with video games.

look at how they marketed Kirby the cute and adorable cream puff.

Ferr986 said:
The problem is viewing it like that. It's not. No one is trying to change games, just trying to be more diverse.
If they changed football then it wouldn't be football, but another sport, because every sport have their own set of rules to work. There's no rules on how to make videogames, just a status quo.
Click to expand...

I would love it if games were more diverse. But let's not kid ourselves, people are definitely trying to change games, making them more diverse is a type of change. I believe they are being changed for the better, if it weren't for recent trends I highly doubt Ubisoft would've added a female protagonist for Assassin's Creed Syndicate. Sports rules change all the time, there was an outcry when they forced hockey players to wear helmets.
 
Z

Zeuanimals

Member
Angel_DvA said:
I'm ok with feminism as long as it's not extreme, what I hate the most on internet is SJW, please people, get a grip.
Click to expand...

What's wrong with SJWs? I've never heard a good argument against them. The ones who blow up over menial shit? Sure, they have problems. But people just having issues with the fucked up status quo and voicing their opinions about it? That's who's typically called a SJW and their arguments are brushed off because SJW.
 
IrishNinja

IrishNinja

Member
Angel_DvA said:
I'm ok with feminism as long as it's not extreme, what I hate the most on internet is SJW, please people, get a grip.
Click to expand...

"down with these broads, as long as they know their place. what i hate most is people who ride for social justice - please people, see things as poorly as i do"
 
B

Breads

Banned
You're talking about an anonymous group hundreds of millions deep who face little repercussion for the things they say and do. Do you really want us to try to quantify or try to justify negative stereotypes? It happens. A lot.

Let's say it's 1% of the install base of console/ PC/ mobile games. That's still millions of people. It is indeed a problem, and I won't try to minimize it, but I do need help understanding what is to be gained by this line of questioning.

The answer to the title by the way, is very. It's very popular. UN discussions were had on this topic. Any unmoderated platform, be it youtube, reddit, twitter, 4chan, facebook, or whatever becomes a dumb-hole for shitheels. Meanwhile people like Milo are ready to pounce on the victim complex created by others trying to judge all of geek culture by the actions of the trolls.

This is why I prefer gaf. Discussions are actually viable here.

As for why it happens... I really couldn't say. Not any more than I can try to say why any other form of discrimination exists.

Angel_DvA said:
I'm ok with feminism as long as it's not extreme, what I hate the most on internet is SJW, please people, get a grip.
Click to expand...

What is an SJW exactly? Besides being an umbrella term used in an attempt to immediately discredit people who's opinions you don't agree with.
 
Sinfamy

Sinfamy

Member
Zeuanimals said:
What's wrong with SJWs?
Click to expand...
There's nothing inherently wrong with fighting for social justice, however that slur is used to describe people who turn any issue into one of social justice.
People who get offend at everything, and don't understand nuance, like the recent Lyft & Hugh Mungus incidents.
Sort of like crying wolf, when there's no need to.
 
A

Angel_DvA

Member
Zeuanimals said:
What's wrong with SJWs? I've never heard a good argument against them. The ones who blow up over menial shit? Sure, they have problems. But people just having issues with the fucked up status quo and voicing their opinions about it? That's who's typically called a SJW and their arguments are brushed off because SJW.
Click to expand...

Social Justice Warriors are: People with paper thin skin who always find something to be offended about. They generally have no concept of humour. Words they commonly use include: intolerant offensive triggering sexist racist even if most of the time it doesn't make sense...

IrishNinja said:
"down with these broads, as long as they know their place. what i hate most is people who ride for social justice - please people, see things as poorly as i do"
Click to expand...

i'm more than ok with how I see things.
 
V

V_Arnold

Member
Last week, or two weeks ago, there was a conference (NodeJS conf) where Crockford (author of JS: The Good parts, a huge contributor to moving JS forward, etc) was forced out of being a speaker in the conf because he made some attendants uncomfortable.

How good that is is one thing. HOWEVER.
I do browsed reddit/javascript and reddit/programming, because it felt like that there ARE great discussions to be had there. But with this event, all the hate towards "SJW" just bubbled to the top, and people were freely, openly, gleefully kept discussing how horrible it is that this culture is being forced on them, and how women in tech who just demand a good enviroment to work in are basically THE DEVIL.

Insanity. I mean, yeah, religous javascript bashing is tiresome, the n+1th argument about how *your language* is just an unusable bullcrap because of the way it uses/does not use GC or the way you have to declare null variables or the way you have to end loops is JUST INSANE, but even that kind of talk is preferred to me than unfilitered women/equality/feminism-bashing.

And since they get no feedback outside of the echo chamber, it becomes a twisted reality. (Kinda how GAF lives in its own bubble as well, but at least it is a bubble that does not base itself on putting the less privilieged down...)

Angel_DvA said:
Social Justice Warriors are: People with paper thin skin who always find something to be offended about. They generally have no concept of humour. Words they commonly use include: intolerant offensive triggering sexist racist even if most of the time it doesn't make sense...
.
Click to expand...

Yeah, humour. Its funny cause its true!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_m5AlsQqcs

So SJW, am I right? :D
 
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