Profanity: Oh hey, I accidentally hit the feminism button.
Anyway, this just circles back to the unspecificness of the article. There's so much conjecture in this thread, including mine which I somehow tried to base on logic. All the questions could be easily answered if they just say how many play what games and on what devices, it's that simple, then we'd know for sure what's really up. Now you write all these numbers again, as many other people, and I'm supposed to believe these ones?
1) Obviously the women in your example know what's up. Everyone knows that there are women who are just as much as gamers as men. Both this answer and question mean nothing. I can create an opposite example, that would mean nothing either.
2) Verbal online abuse is expected because loads of gamers are immature as fuck. You're not gonna speed up their maturity, so the only thing women can do on this point is realize that just as not all women are casuals - not all gamer dudes are dicks or white knights. Especially now that gaming is a cool thing to do. And the current most popular "feminism" (yeah, the non quotation mark feminism is long gone from the mainstream society) like to concern itself with games, it wants and sometimes does censor creative process. People can not like stuff, they can say why they're against it, but when they start fucking with how the game is being made with the threat of a PR tsunami of bandwagoning shitholes - then I have problem. I have nothing against real feminism where women are actually being opressed (middle east would be an example), I have something against the ones that think equality means dominance on their part.
3) Of course you'd do something about it, but what's the point of this question? Are you trying to pull some sort of weird move where if they think this is bad they should suddenly agree with you on other points or they're bad people? All kinds of people get nasty remarks, not only women.
EDIT: my gremmer is brkn
There's one major difference. I'm not trying to sell products, or marketing. I've been in, and watching, gaming since it started. I've watched the trends, and been personally involved. I was there listening to women in the pc lab, complaining about how they has to come up with fake names online because as soon as guys found out that they were NOT guys - it was like a feeding frenzy. I saw the complaints on women-run chat boards in the 90s. I listened to the ranting of friends who just wanted to be THEMSELVES. I still hear complaints frequently on WoW. This is a topic I have been interested in, and have followed, for many, many years. I suppose if you don't want to believe it though *shrugs* ok.
For the first question, it was only a question to ask people to define in their own minds "what is a gamer"? "What is the difference between hardcore and casual?"
For the second question - I'm not sure you understood my point. Nobody expects everyone to be "a white knight" or an "immature fuck", regardless of gender. And I disagree wholeheartedly with your assessment of "feminism". Perhaps Lithuania is further along than most counties, I don't know. But perhaps you think feminism is no longer needed anywhere outside the middle east? That's another point I would disagree with. Oppression comes in many forms. No, women in the states won't be stoned to death by relatives for an accusation of dishonoring the family...but if you think that's all there is to it, you don't understand feminism or why its still needed. And, the problem that *some* people have with *some* games is that the way women are overwhelmingly portrayed is that they are stupid weaklings who need to be rescued. Honestly, aren't people TIRED of this crap yet? We have kick ass technology, and yet we have to make our female characters as boring as possible? WHY??? You'd think, as gamers, that we would WANT deeper characters, a meaningful story...I'm not saying games need a novel of backstory, but come on!
My point to #3 being that its BECAUSE of feminism that this scenario is no longer as common as it once was. Social standards and constructs CHANGE. You think that change came easily? Yes, people get nasty remarks - but when was the last time people implied that *you* were going to be raped for what you are just for walking down a street? Or that you should be ashamed to be seen in public for your gender? People here damn feminism, but its due to feminism your mother/sister/gf doesn't have to hide in a house all damn day.
Feminism was great until it wasn't and the way things are now is definitely not thanks to the current feminism. I don't know what kind of feminism you're talking about, because it must be some underground movement over there in the united states, but the big one, the "feminism" which leaks out from your country for others to be seen is nothing more than a fight for dominance (for fuck's sake, just take a look at the
) and excellent play of the pure victim, forgetting how much special treatment they get themselves. And very conveniently forgetting that men aren't living the dream either or actually believing that women have it way worse.
And sure, I wouldn't mind if there were more women protagonists or women portrayed in different light, but I see a couple of problems with it at the moment. First, there are more male developers and I bet they don't think they are confident that they can portray a woman well, because well - they're not women. That's the same thing that was discussed in this thread about black people, specifically about white people not being able to portray them well without succumbing to stereotypes. The second problem includes "feminism" which brings up a bit of a tight spot by doing
.
