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General News A study about Gaming and sexism.

Discussion in 'Current Events, World News, & LGBT News' started by Simple Thoughts, Jul 28, 2015.

  1. Simple Thoughts

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    Let's start with media hype

    Gamers Who Troll Women Are Literally Losers | WIRED

    Men who harass women online are quite literally losers, new study finds - The Washington Post


    Now let's look at someone who actually read the study and analyized it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK8NwZPLqBw

    and of course the study itself.

    PLOS ONE: Insights into Sexism: Male Status and Performance Moderates Female-Directed Hostile and Amicable Behaviour



    Conclusion:

    This study is bullcrap and some people shouldn't be allowed to call themselves journalists because they don't know what research is, and other people shouldn't be allowed to conduct studies because they don't know what "confirmation bias" is.
     
  2. Wallace N

    Wallace N Guest

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    Not at all surprised to learn that study was a bunch of bullshit. It doesn't take a nuclear scientist to prove SJWs wrong. When they ever produced a "study" on this topic that wasn't completely off-base and unreliable?
     
  3. Simple Thoughts

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    I dunno they really don't understand how science works it feels like. All these studies looking for sexism fail to meet any real scientific standard....like who creates a control group and then dismisses all the data it collects? That's now what a control group is for. The control group is supposed to create a baseline so you can accurately measure your data.
     
  4. HuskyPup

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    Nonetheless, I do find the video-game world to be a pretty sexist place.

    I recall seeing some huge convention where they had a panel about women in the gaming industry: with no women on the panel.

    Didn't read the study, but I think the gaming world can be a very ugly, mean, sexist place for females. (And minorities in general) Could definitely stand some improvement.
     
    #4 HuskyPup, Jul 29, 2015
    Last edited: Jul 29, 2015
  5. Simple Thoughts

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    Falsified studies and innacurrate data does little to help with that.

    I don't really see gaming as sexist. I see it as highly competitive and in some communities gamers are downright insulting to everyone. People only hear the insults in the gaming world that conveniently fit their idea of what it is. You get a broad range of trash talk from gamers in the right (more accurately wrong) spaces, but people will only ever hear certain ones and forget the others.

    Is a straight male going to play a FPS game competitively and not get called one single name? Probably not...he'll get called every dirty word under the sun and it won't be any better/worse than what anyone else gets.

    I haven't done any formal studies, but if I had my guess the intent of insults in gaming is to "Get under the opponents skin" in other words to throw their game off and drop their performance to increase chance of winning.
     
  6. RainDreamer

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    The study goes something like this: 2 researchers play Halo3, record the interaction between male and female players and check their skill levels and try to find some correlation. But you should read it. Result seems to find that those that are hostile toward female players also have lower skill score.

    Now, I don't think it is too bad by itself (as in, why raging over this?), but seriously, they are claiming their finding as an "evolutionary argument"? Evolution science when used in sociological context tend to be falling to biological determinism.

    Overall, sounds like something I would write as an undergrad that just need something to hand in that damn paper, and get to play Halo 3 with the excuse "it is for research!".
     
  7. Fallingdown7

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    I've seen more sexism through M-rated games + online multiplayer, but a lot of those people are also young boys thinking that playing adult games makes them cool, so It's obviously a problem with their own immaturity.

    However, I feel like gender equality in the game community has improved. Nobody cares that I play video games, and all the men I've talked to about it thought it was cool and just asked me questions about games I liked. I've never really been talked down to, so maybe it just depends on the area.
     
  8. Simple Thoughts

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    This was a government funded study and is being touted around by journalists as if it were valid when it's flawed on almost every level and all of it's numbers have been manipulated to be much higher than they really are.

    When you played over 100 4 v 4 matches and only 11 times in all that gaming was a comment capable of being considered 'sexist' happens how do you come to a number like 13% That's 8 players in over 100 matches so you're talking at least 800 players and only 11 times ( if you read the study ) was a comment made that was classified as sexist. So 800 players and at most 11 of them were sexist...that is clearly a strong 13% and not 1% like math would have you believe.

    It's not some pet project of an undergrad.

    ---------- Post added 29th Jul 2015 at 05:45 PM ----------

    Does anyone really count the 13 year olds who play? They are the ones who do most of the trash talking really.

    That's how my experiences have been too. I was in a gaming group for a little while where there were quite a few women, a couple black people, and some asians along with us white folk and everyone got along great and we just talked about games. Plus quite a few of us were LGBT and no one seemed to care or mind at all. The general consensus between us all was "We don't care who you are, we care about whether or not you're any good at the game"
     
  9. Pret Allez

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    I haven't read this study or what the media has been saying about the study. I'm open to the idea the study came to an invalid conclusion based on poor methodology.

    However, I have still experienced and continue to experience sexism and homophobia in online gaming spaces. I have been called sexist and homophobic things on League of Legends and Counter Strike communities, and not a single time has any other gamer risen to my defense.

    It is not valid to say that these are general insults that are directed at everyone, and therefore have no sexist or homophobic content. First, this idea rests on the supposition that everyone experiences these insults in the same way. Straight gamer who is called a faggot on a Counter Strike server is not going to be made to feel unwelcome; the gay or bisexual gamer might. Second, the notion that general insults, insofar as they are likely to demoralize and actually decrease other people's performance and give you an edge to win is unsporting and unethical. Professional sports are not done that way, and that's part of the appeal: as professionals, they behave professionally.

    As a gamer, I've found myself in two distinct arenas. One is the online arena, and the other is the face-to-face area. I've played Quake, Diablo II, Diablo III, Counter Strike: Source, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Halo, Halo II, and League of Legends in the online communities. With the exception of Quake and the Diablo series, all of those games' communities have been characterized in my experienced by sustained poor sportsmanship, unprofessionalism, and an unwelcoming attitude towards newer players, and wanton sexist and homophobic insults.

    Face-to-face, I've played tournament Magic: the Gathering and various tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, and Mage: the Ascension. I have never been insulted at all in any of these situations, for the simple reason that these are all moderated communities. If you behave the way people in FPS and League of Legends communities regularly behave towards me, you are disqualified from the tournament and asked to leave the game store. If it's a tabletop gaming group, you're not invited back, and you're probably not going to get into any other groups either, because word gets around.

    I'm not making any generalizations about your gaming communities. I'm just saying what my experience has been. I don't feel welcome in gaming communities online. I feel like if people had the opportunity to do violence to me offline, they would.

    ~ Adrienne
     
  10. GeeLee

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    *looks through the videos on that guy's channel*

    Yeah...tl;dr not so much a pinch of salt required as a warehouse full of it.
     
  11. Simple Thoughts

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    I'm sorry you've had such bad experiences honestly and personally I'd like a more accurate and developed study to be done into this type of study because I feel like you broke it down there would be certain gaming genres that are really bad about negative behavior, and others that are really inviting and welcoming. I'd love to see something bigger scale and more well developed with accurate figures/numbers so we had a more clear sense of what to expect online and where the problem behavior is.

    In FPS games I'm pretty sure any professional event is heavily moderated. You wouldn't go to a professional gaming match and expect that type of behavior really, but there are millions of players in the regular version of the game and most of them are very young kids who are well just that young and stupid. It's nearly impossible to regulate and moderate that many people so it makes it a difficult position.

    You shouldn't worry about them doing anything to you offline...trust me those gamers are all bark and no bite. Most of them wouldn't even have the courage to speak to you let alone do something drastic.

    ---------- Post added 29th Jul 2015 at 09:26 PM ----------

    Agree or disagree with him he takes his time, goes through the numbers and makes fair and rational arguments.
     
  12. Kaiser

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    First-person shooters are, in my opinion, the worst when it comes to homophobia and transphobia. It isn't 24/7, and it has various degrees of it, but it does exist. Even if somebody doesn't go out of their way to be hateful, many of them will sit back and do nothing about it, because it isn't their problem. But that could be reflective of a large problem and not just this.

    The biggest offense I'd say is, are using "gay" as an insult against gamers, for a variety of reasons. Also attacking a male's masculinity and implying they are weak and feminine, is another go-to tactic.

    Now, when it comes to women. It tends to go the exact opposite. Instead of being hostile, they bend over backwards to compensate and appease them. One could argue this is terrible in it's own right as it implies a woman is incapable of doing anything on her own. The number of times I've seen and heard somebody say, "Hey, let me do this for you!" or "Do you need help?", is astounding. Though there may just be the desire to show off how awesome you are, and impress the lady.

    It's still annoying though. Even if some women have figured out, you can make grinding on a game much easier... if you take advantage of such a thing.

    Lol.
     
  13. Pret Allez

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    Not in the gaming communities I'm a part of. I've found it's an almost universally negative experience for women. I haven't found this compensating, appeasing behavior.
     
  14. GeeLee

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    It tends to be casual racism and homophobia that I've come across in my neck of the woods (CS:GO & DOTA). Mostly teenagers and college types who think they get the last word on what the f word means and think the only country in the world with Spanish speakers is Peru. I was also in a MW2 (I was young! and stupid...) lobby where two people were talking in German and some American shouted "SPEAK ENGLISH TERRORIST!" at them.

    When the subject of female players does come up, there's the usual sexist nonsense ("women can't last hit" etc) and then it just devolves into vile territory which is defended by people saying "but male players get it too!" In their blind flailing attempt to prove that gaming doesn't have a woman problem, gaming's right wing, "realz before feelz" element have demonstrated that gaming does have a problem with women.
     
  15. KayJay

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    I've experienced the opposite. Just recently I was playing Borderlands and people have dropped whole loads of weapons just cause I'm a girl, even offered to farm rare weapons for me. The funny thing is though I bet if they knew I was trans they'd treat me like shit.
     
  16. DreamerBoy17

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    I don't play any games like FPS, but I used to go on Clash of Clans a lot, and holy crap please never go on Global Chat. It's like where the worst of humanity gather. There's always super obscene flame wars, and if you're a woman? Good luck. Sometimes guys will simply hit on you, but it usually goes farther than that. As in, very descriptive dialogue about what they want to do to you. It's all horrible.
     
  17. kageshiro

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    Honestly all you have to do if you want to avoid sexism in the gaming community is play offline.
     
  18. Pret Allez

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    That's part of my point: trans gamers are treated like shit online too. So, I think your experience is more positive because it's an RPG, which I think fosters a more cooperative community, whereas with MOBA and FPS games, experiences for women and minorities tend to be more negative.

    The only reason I didn't mention the transphobia of certain online communities the first time around has to do with my policy of discussing sexism in general: I prefer not to say sexism and cissexism because I think it's important to discuss the exclusion of and hostility towards trans folks under the banner of sexism itself. I want people to be very clear on the fact that issues faced by trans and genderqueer people are intrinsically linked to how I think about sexism in general.

    ~ Adrienne

    So, I have to let the forces of sexism win and get out of the online gaming community like they want me to? Why should I have to experience that or leave?
     
  19. lesbian0pixie

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    As someone who is part of the World of Warcraft rated PvP community, sexism is alive and doing great. I get called all kinds of nasty names (whore, bitch, etc.) just for politely asking to be referred to with she/her pronouns. (I'm a cisfemale! Though not to say trans girls shouldn't be able to use there preferred pronouns to.) Not to mention what happens if I win the match or even in other parts of the game. Women are a joke to gamers. (I've been told 'Girls don't play WoW.' What am I, an extremely intelligent squirrel?) :/
     
  20. kageshiro

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    I think it's less about fighting or letting anybody win and more about avoiding needless negativity. The reality of online gaming is it's full of assholes and they will never go away and there's nothing we can do to stop them. Your best bet is either a more obscure game which you can only hope will have a decently respectful community or a private lobby for friends only. Trudge your way through the toxic sewage if your skin is thick enough but I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy, especially when I can just as easily have a delightful and relaxing singleplayer experience at the same time =D