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I know I haven’t been around much; my life is busy and I don’t have the time to blog that I used to. Unfortunately, this probably isn’t going to change anytime soon.
Anyway, I’d just like to highlight a post I read today, The Importance of Leadership on Gaming Websites.
Excerpt:
The point of all of this is that, despite claims by games bloggers that they have no control over what random people say on the internet, they actually do have a lot of control over the community on their sites, without even getting into moderation: it’s all about tone.
Tone is why Destructoid and Kotaku are sexist cesspools. When you post sexist headlines like “Jade Smells Pretty at London Games Fest“, when you post pictures of booth babes that are completely irrelevant to your post, when you think the height of humor is using the word “pussy” as many times as possible, you are not only engaging in sexist behavior, you are inviting sexist people to your site and making them feel at home, while simultaneously turning away most women and non-sexist men. It is truly the editors that build their site’s communities.
Joystiq generally does not do the above things, so things are marginally more civil there. However, any time a relevant picture of a woman accompanies a post, there are always a slew of sexist comments that go unchecked. I saw this happen to two posts that went up within hours of each other; the first was about a new executive at EA, who is an older woman, and many of the comments were extremely violent and objectifying (one charming example: “I’d hit it… with a crowbar”). The other was about the Lara Croft model, and since she’s young and beautiful the comments were instead about how much they would like to fuck her. It’s true that the posts did not encourage this sort of behavior the way they might at Kotaku, but at the same time, allowing these comments to remain up does–silence is the same as agreement.
For those of you interested in issues such as video games, online communities, and/or moderation, I would highly recommend giving it a read.
Synecdochic wrote a how-to post on privilege: Don’t Be That Guy.
Excerpt:
This word gets thrown around a lot, and I think everyone uses it a little differently, which is one of the reasons why I have so much difficulty putting it into words. Let me try with: If you approach me with the presumption, stated or implied, that I owe you anything — my time, my attention, my energy, my conversation, my acquiescence to your desires — that’s entitlement. If you make me think that you think you can express a wish and I will fulfill that wish, that’s entitlement.
Women don’t owe you anything: not their bodies, not their time, not their emotion. Hell, not even their attention. (Nobody owes anybody anything except basic courtesy, respect, and trying not to be an asshole.) A lot of guys walk into a situation and give the impression that they have the right to take these things, through outright force or through a more subtle coercion. Giving someone that impression makes you That Guy.
If you’ve been wondering about my silence for the past couple of weeks, I have a deep, dark secret to confess: Along with Revena I’ve been building and launching The IRIS Network, a new gaming site focused on helping to give women in the community a bigger voice. Two weeks from zero to launch is a pain in the butt, I tell you, and the layouts for everything but the forum are slapped together from default templates. But it’s done, it’s launched, and the next person who bleats about there not being enough women in gaming who are “out” there will get hit over the head with this site repeatedly.
From the site news:
After yet another bout of the “where are all the women gamers?†on the internet gaming communities, The IRIS Network (TIN) was finally born. Though there are many individual women gamers who write about their experiences, and many sites for women who game to connect and play with each other, none of these sites are there for the express purpose of highlighting gamers (both in the industry and outside of it) and bringing women’s perspectives into the mainstream. Though it may be a lofty goal, that’s exactly what we here at The IRIS Network aim to do.
So, if you are a gamer, or just like games, and want to be part of it, go sign up for the forums. If you are a woman gamer who wants more exposure for her blog, go to the directory and check if your site is listed (if so, please flesh it out, if not please list it). If you’re a writer (female or male) and are interested in submitting works for our gaming magazine, please visit Cerise and check out our submission guidelines.
A community is only as good as its members, and so I look forward to forging a strong voice for gender-inclusive game design with you all.
Q: What’s this all about?
A: Back in December, Rosie did a racist impression of the “Chinese” language. The following are some links from reappropriate which detail quite nicely this debacle. If you want more thorough coverage on the issue, I suggest you plug in rosie to reappropriate’s search engine, as Jenn has some good link roundups.
Some helpful links:
Rosie O’Donnell’s “ching chong†moment
Rosie O’Donnell’s Publicist Tells Asians to Get A Sense of Humour
Racism Abounds Following Rosie
Rosie O’Donnell Apologizes
Via Bonasi’s Realm….
From A couple of radical statements about sex, from the end of my rope.:
“But wait!” you may be thinking to yourself. “You’re on the record as having issues with objectification! Aren’t these sexy sex-having female characters exactly what you’re complaining about?”
And if you are thinking that to yourself, you missed the exit to the point about a hundred miles back.
Being a feminist, wanting to see better female representation in comics, and being uncomfortable with objectification is not the same as wanting to desexualize everything.
I like sex, I like sexy things. I’m human, with quirks and desires and all that other crap that comes with the territory. Not everything I like is going to be nice, or fluffy, or close your eyes and think of England. Sometimes, my mind’s downright filthy, and that’s just okie-dokie.
Via ariella drake
For those who may be interested in academic journals and and don’t already have access for other reasons, Sage Publications is currently offering some Free Trial Online Access, which includes free access during February to all online journal archives, and free access to selected other journals for longer periods (including their ‘Gender Studies’ collection). With journals like Men and Masculinities, Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Race and Class, and Games and Culture among a long list, I could be here for days. I’m so glad I cleaned out my hard drive recently.
Full List of Journals can be found here. Details of the Free Trial Access can be found here.
I have long held that no one — even those defined as “persons” by science and the law — has the right to use my body without my consent. Therefore, even if I did believe that personhood begins at conception (which science doesn’t support and neither do I) it still wouldn’t change my pro-choice stance. I do not believe it’s anyone’s decision but my own whether or not to put my health at risk for another being or potential being.
And I’m not alone. The Pro-Consent Coalition is a pro-choice organization that takes exactly this frame to the abortion debate. From their site:
Consent is very powerful. It is fundamental in deciding whether the rights to liberty and bodily integrity have been violated, and therefore need government protection. Even life-saving, beneficial surgeries cannot be performed without consent. By adding Consent to Choice, there would be public funding for termination of non-consensual pregnancies. Choice, based on the privacy promise in the Constitution, can never achieve that support.
Via feminist LJ.
Ragnell has created a new group blog: First Woman.
In her own words:
Saturday morning, Hillary Rodham Clinton officially announced her candidacy for President.
[...]
So, I’m finally starting a political blog, so I can follow the media coverage and the public reaction to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and examine the sexist attitudes that surface during the Democratic primaries (and beyond, should she get the nomination). I’ll also probably blog about how people regard other women in American Politics.
If no sexist attitudes surface, this should be the last post of the blog.
More likely, though, there will be way too much sexism for one person or one blog to analyze.
If you want to help out with the blog, she’s requested that you get in touch with her. More details here.
I’ve just been alerted to a post on Tricia Wang’s eponymous blog called Search Algorithms as Revealing of Social Stereotypes.
From the post:
I performed the original google image search just on “Asian women,” “American women,” and “Asian American women” for a presentation on stereotypes and identities of Asian American Youth. I want to demonstrate the pervasive stereotypes of Asian women – just how hyper-hyper sexualized they are. And it’s interesting to show that when you Google image search – there is no hierarchies of approval that the images have to go through like for traditional media (newspapers, TV shows and etc, where images usually become racialized in the approval process. SO for Google searches – it’s just based on algorithms on what users are clicking through and page ranking based on how many sites point to the webpage – which all determines the relevancy of the answers to the search query.
Via She’s Such a Geek!.
Hope everyone is having a nice holiday! I am, except for the whole issue of my new laptop refusing to turn on so now I can’t play FFXI until it’s fixed. My only solace is that my old laptop works, so it’s coming back to Japan with me so I don’t have to be sans-computer.
Anyway, I came across a post called How to Stop Being an Ignorant/Indifferent White Feminist… from a blog that’s new to me, Leftist Looney Lunchbox. I’ve added it to the links, but I thought it deserved a highlight as well.
Here’s just one of her many great points:
4) Don’t use us as tokens. This rarely happens in blogistan, but it does happen more often than not in the ‘real world’. Many of you feminist bloggers are quick to point out that ‘your blogs are not educational resources for men’, instead men should take it upon themselves to educate themselves about their own privilege. Likewise, you as white women need to do the same. We are not your token pieces. We are not ‘obligated’ to ‘educate’ you about race relations or anything else for that matter.
She also talks about being more analytical regarding news stories involving people of colour, not just reading white feminists but all kinds of feminists, stopping defending one’s white privilege, and, well, not saying racist things.
Via feminist LJ.
Still on blog break, but since the others are busy I may as well do some more link blogging. Here’s a post I came across today that deals with misogyny in geeky fandoms.
Here are some exerpts:
And that ironic, self-aware misogyny is still misogyny. You have to make a point of actually criticising it before “it’s ironic” is a servicable defence.
But this “geek space” we’re in… It isn’t taken seriously by the mainstream, which gives us a certain amount of free agency to do whatever, because standard reaction is “Oh, those crazy undersexed geeks and their weird fantasy women!”. In response, we have created a psychological space in which it’s not just OK to treat women like shit, it’s awesome. We have then endlessly justified it using every lame excuse in The Big Lame Book Of Big Lame Excuses. Handily, this means we don’t even need make apologies, because blah blah ironic blah blah parody blah blah she shoots the guy after he rapes her so she’s the real winner! You just can’t take a joke!
All “irony” and “parody” are doing, in this context, is creating a safe space for misogyny. They aren’t real irony or parody, because they never challenge the stuff they’re supposedly mocking.
Just a quick post to highlight a new-ish blog, Anti-Racist Parent. From their introductory post:
Thank you for visiting us here at Anti-Racist Parent! This is a blog for parents who are committed to raising children with an anti-racist outlook. If you’re a parent who is tired of having your child learn about race and identity through the mixing of neapolitan ice cream  , playing dress-up with national costumes, and absorbing the same handful of sanitized historical facts every single Black/Latino/Native American/Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month, this blog is for you.
Via other blog.
The Silence of Our Friends seems to have come about because of the recent Clinton blogger lunch debacle. Personally, I’d call this blog the silver lining to a dark, dark cloud.
An excerpt from Donna’s most recent post:
One example is when discussing racially divisive issues a white person will pipe up that we should leave behind identity politics and concentrate our efforts on the greater good. But the greater good generally means that white people determine what issues are important and in our collective best interests, and this may be of very little service to POC. We think that the collective good should be working towards ALL of our interests, not just yours. You can not find out what we believe is in our interest if you aren’t even willing to listen to us, and instead dismiss us. This does not mean that we expect to only work on our issues, we expect to discuss and compromise; it is the white person who expects to only work on what they choose as important while we are expected to be quiet and go along to get along.
One other thing, when white people do recognize institutional racism many times they do not speak out. They think it’s not their problem and look the other way. This is why there was so much anger expressed over the Clinton blogger lunch by POC. Our allies abandon us when we need them. The bloggers there did not make it a priority to find out why diverse voices weren’t included and explain to their readers. And the blogosphere in general either did not see a problem, or were afraid of the reaction of their peers if they sided with POC, for instance by delinking or banning them.
First off, sorry for the lack of posting recently. School has just stepped up a notch and I’m struggling to readjust. Next week my part-time job starts, too, but I’m hoping to get some quality posting time in this weekend. Anyway, onto the main event.
Claire of SeeLight has posted this excellent reading list for people interested in learning more about racial/ethnic issues. In the introduction, she says this:
All of these are sources of my knowledge and understanding, sources of my vocabulary. But, of course, I’ve done some study and reading as well, and I should be able to share some print sources with you. And because it’s amazing how difficult it is for a google search to occur to the ignorant (I’m complaining about myself as well; I’ll go halfway around the world to ask a friend a question before I’ll sit down and do a google search about something I’m ignorant of) here’s a non-threatening reading list of things that might help you share the current common understandings that shape the activist Asian American and Hapa spaces in the US today. Basically, I’m providing this (as my last post for IBAR) so as to give no one who reads this an excuse for not knowing. These are my reading recommendations. You can start here and let the reading itself guide you on.
She actually has a lot of great things to say in her introduction, so don’t just skip it and check out the books. Read the whole thing. I guarantee you’ll be glad you did.
So, my Nice Guy post is making the rounds, just like I always wanted it to. Downside is that I have to actually think about commenters who disagree and look into improving the list.
But, hey, I’m all about spreading the love, so here are discussions on the Nice Guy List (in no particular order):
Hot Links
From They’re just words
Personalised expansion from something stolen from terajjin
From Sunbeam’s Scrawls
granny’s link fest.
From random blatherings and collected snark
Newsflash: Enlightened Modern Men Can Still Be Dicks. [July 15, 2006]
In response to the “nice guy” controversy that Hugo has sparked in the feminist blogsphere, Mickle has made an excellent post titled Masquerade. She talks about politeness, sincerity, and what it means to be an ally.
These paragraphs really resonated with me:
I can’t help but think of this when people argue for politeness for politeness sake and I wonder about the people he was polite to – in public. Did they suspect? Would they rather have known the truth? Could they sense it anyway? Did they resent the fact that the mask of politeness my grandfather hid behind made it that much harder to fight his bigotry? Were they sometimes grateful that his mask made theirs that much easier to wear? Did they apprecraite the irony that it was their honest anger that forced him to adopt the masquerade they had always been forced to be a part of?
I understand that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar, I just think people need to remember that allies gained under false pretenses tend to make shitty allies. Individuals for whom the deciding factor in their political and ideological beliefs is the number of times they may get laid do not make good feminists. Being bluntly honest may be a bit “off-putting” but it’s still more likely to result in a useful ally. After all, non-violence may have been a hallmark of the civil rights movement, but “polite” discourse was not. “Polite” conversation doesn’t include discussions about race to begin with – and “polite” sure as hell doesn’t describe the act of holding a lunch counter hostage. I rather think a hell of a lot of people considerd it downright rude at the very least.
Over at her blog, Mary has a rant about being a heterosexual feminist in a world where men just don’t get it:
So yeah, it sucks and it’s hard blah blah blah fishcakes. And I’ll never be the girl who does anything for a man, and I’ll never be that girl who thinks her man can Do No Wrong, for He Is Man. That’ll suck some of the (twisted, unhealthy, movie-style) “romance” out of your life. And maybe I’m worse off for not being able to feel that way, for not being able to “love” in that sense. Except I’m not. I expect more from my partner, and he will give it to me, or I will walk away. I expect respect and consideration, and he will give it to me, or I will walk away. I expect thoughtfulness, and he will give it to me, or I will walk away. I expect a man to have as much anger at the patriarchy as I do, and he will show it to me, or I will walk away. He will prove to me that he IS the exception, or–you guessed it–I will walk away.
Since I’m mostly confined to looking at men as potential parnters at the moment, I am really feeling her pain. I’ve never been the “normal” kind of girl. Even when I believed in the concept of “true love”, I was never into that romantic bullshit. I always thought it was off, and when I was with my first boyfriend I finally understood why: because it’s about abuse and control, not love and partnership. Even when I find a guy who genuinely likes women — a rarity among heterosexual men, unfortunately — that doesn’t mean he likes a girl like me.
It’s annoying, but at least I have a great life going for me. A partner would be an addition, not the thing that makes or breaks my happiness. Yay feminism.
Today has been a day for posts that really resonate with me. Since I don’t feel well (hence me being home right now instead of at class) and therefore don’t want to work on a real post, I’ll share the words of wisdom from the other bloggers.
First off, a post (inspired by my Gaming While Female post, how special am I!) over at Guilded Lilies about the genderdization of gaming labels, entitled Hardcore Vs. Casual: It’s A Woman’s Prerogative:
The term “hardcore” when applied to gaming brings up the immediate image of a young male player, most likely with a game controller tightly gripped in his hands. For many, this idea of the “hardcore” gamer defines gaming – it is the standard by which all other gamers are measured. Any approach to gaming that falls outside of this parameter is not given the same status as being serious enough to be considered a real gamer. Using this standard alone “casual” gamers fall short, and since female players are the ones being identified with the “casual” gamer classification, women are often seen as not being real gamers.
Next up we have a post from Killer B of Modern Feminist, a geeky feminist new to me, where she “vlogs” (video blogs) about facing sexism in the vlogsphere. I don’t have a quote for Follow up thoughts on the vlogosphere because, well, it’s a video (only audio for me, ’cause my quicktime had problems), but it’s well worth the 6+ minutes it will take to listen to it.
And, finally, over at The Bipolar View, Spotted Elephant calls the popular picture blog Cute Overload out on its objectification of women in her post, Face the Facts:
Treating women as the cats ‘n’ racks photos do causes real damage. They show that’s it’s ok to view women as sex objects. They perpetuate the belief that women exist for the pleasure of men. All of these beliefs protect the status quo: men are human but women serve as decoration and sexual outlets.
Where do you suppose violence against women comes from? Why are women battered, raped, and murdered by their male partners? [...] When a man gets angry at work, does he punch his boss? No, he needs his job, so he controls himself. Why do some men control themselves with their bosses, but beat their wives into a bloody pulp?
Because they can.
Attitudes and beliefs inform behavior. You don’t batter, rape, and kill someone you view as your equal. But when you view women as being less than men, all kinds of terrible behaviors become acceptable. The ubiquitous message that women are worth less than men matters. When violence and hate are everywhere, there’s no such thing as acceptable objectification.
I’m glad that she reminded me that it was past time to take Cute Overload off of my blogroll. It’s not like they need whatever paltry traffic I may give them, anyway, and their response to criticism about their “Cats ‘n Racks” section was… unacceptable, is the most charitable word I can think of. Misogynist, dismissing, the same old bullshit of men justifying their bad behaviour are probably more accurate.
Issue number 13 of The Carnival of Feminists is out now!
Hosted by Terry of I See Invisible People, this issue offers up a diverse collection of writings from feminist blogs.
Well done Terry. Do stop by and leave a comment if you think she’s produced a good issue – comments are like manna from heaven for those hard-working Carnival Hosts.
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