| sundin13 said: I think that gaming is more inclusive than you are implying, however, there really isn't much to debate there. It would really just be my experiences and my view of games as an "outcast club" vs. your experiences and your view of gaming as a "boys club" (while there is some degree of truth to the fact that gaming is dominated by males, I don't think that is due to elitism and exclusivity). How do you think an academic study would help this in any way though? I think that the gears of change are already in motion in a lot of places and I believe that we will see more women in games as our society continues to push away dated gender roles. However, I do not think that anybody saying "there are a lot of sexist gamers" will help anything. Additionally, I think that in an academic scenario, that would be difficult to judge. I think a lot of the sexism seen is "general harassment" as opposed to sexism, meaning that people throw words around just to be a troll. In a situation outside of the safety of the internet, I think we would see a lot more normalization of opinions, as opposed to the hyperbole that is common on the internet. |
I don't think an academic study would help. When I said the study was asking the wrong question, I just meant that the results are misleading. I'm not suggesting that some university or non-profit create a survey to determine why sexism -- or any other -ism, for that matter -- exists in the video game industry; I'm just encouraging people to admit there's a problem and not use these survey results as specious evidence that the medium and its fans are free of sexist thoughts and actions.
Frankly, I think it's good just to talk about it. Far too many video game fans don't want to acknowledge that many of their peers throw around some truly disgusting and threatening language, or they think, to quote an article on the subject, it's just "guys being stupid guys."
Obviously, I don't think the majority of video game fans are sexist monsters. My participation in this forum is proof that I love video games and love talking about them with my peers. But I do believe there is a serious problem with sexism in the industry, and I believe it's a worthy topic of conversation. If we really love video games and want to be inclusive, we need to lead by example, call out those who are intolerant and hateful, and start a meaningful dialogue on the causes and effects of sexism in the gaming community.
