Misogyny, Bigotry, and the Gaming Community

[Dante9]

The internet is one thing. As long as people get to be anonymous, they will feel free to dump all kinds of shit on other people on the web. This is not a gendered issue, but rather a very inclusive one. Everyone who posts anything will get some conflicting opinions, abuse, hate, or whatnot. However, tampering with peoples' ability and freedom to be anonymous and express varying ideas and opinions with relative freedom would be a bad idea and would inevitably lead to something awful. China is already on that path in many ways. No thanks, the price is too high. So, there will always be assholes because humans are humans. Just brace yourself, think about whether putting yourself out there on the web is something you are prepared to handle, and maybe stay on platforms where registration is required or something. Naturally, it would be nice if everyone conducted themselves in a dignified manner in there, but don't hold your breath.
Then there's the workplace harassment. This is just inexcusable in all forms and shapes. I'm sure it happens in every industry, it's hard to say whether the gaming industry is an extreme case or not. In my homeland people talk about "workplace bullying" as a phenomenon that covers all kinds of behavior and the victims can be anybody really. I guess in male dominated workplaces women tend to get the worst of it, I don't doubt that. Then again, I hear that in female dominated places women tend to pick on each other, but the things they do are of course very different in nature. Again, it's everyone's personal responsibility to behave respectfully towards their coworkers, but given that there will be people who won't, we have to think about solutions. Workplaces are challenges in this regard, because depending on where you are, it can be extremely difficult to fire people if it's difficult to show proper grounds, which of course in isolation is a good thing for workers. Then there's the fact that businesses naturally want to hold on to their top performers and are reluctant to fire them even with their poor treatment of others. A lot of things will be overlooked and tolerated because of this. And so on and so forth.
There's so much more to say but I gotta go.