I doubt it.  There will always be a-holes.  The way I see it, a person who is racist or sexist to someone else is likely to also be a jerk to me. That's true now, was true 100 years ago and will be true in 100 year's time.  Probably I'd attract more of these jerks if I was a pretty girl or a minority, but you ain't gonna get rid of the jerks.  

Anyway, I don't think that claiming that we're any better than "centuries of inequality" is the route to take - unless you are ignore small facts like that some old white guys decided that Martin Luther King deserved the Nobel Peace Prize back in 1964.  A number of the female characters in Shakespeare don't take no schtick from the men...  Heck some of the Greek plays have storylines where the women get together and decide to kick all the men out because they're making a mess of running the country.  Talking of which, the Romans and Egyptians would be confused as to why your skin colour would mean anything other than which side of the Mediterranean sea you came from :)

I think we'll always hit the a-hole problem in any time period - fundamentally because people are the same.  We just need a lot more great leaders like MLK to keep us going in the right direction.

Honestly never thought I'd be the one to say this as the forum's arguably principal feminist voice, but don't be so cynical about men! This isn't how half the male gaming population is. I mean look around you. This is a gaming community of sorts and everyone who's posted to this thread before me is a guy. How many posts come off as denying or defending these companies or the kind of toxically misogynistic environments we're discussing? I see none. My point is that hostile cultures like the ones at Activision/Blizzard and Ubisoft aren't just inevitable, online or off. I spend about half my internet time in dedicated feminist spaces reading about and discussing issues like sexual harassment and violence against women with other women for whom these problems are often just as personal and it's given me some ideas about these issues can be addressed. I don't know how popular they'll be, but I think they are practical.

The first thing that a company that's serious about ending a toxically misogynistic culture in their business can do is to stop making their workers sign goddamn nondisclosure agreements that conveniently prevent them from going to actual, external authorities that exist independently of the company. The second thing I believe can make a major difference is to create women-only space within the company. I remember one time back in the '90s when Sega decided that one of their games (Magic Knight Rayearth) should be developed entirely by women to help ensure that it would appeal to the intended audience of girls and young women, so they created an all-female development team and assigned the entire development process to them. I'm of the opinion that stuff like that should be done more broadly and more often in the present day because the fact is that all-female environments have a statistically demonstrable positive effect on the self-confidence, and therefore the expectations, of girls and women. Women who participated in the Girl Scouts as kids, for example, exhibit significantly higher self-confidence in general. Same basic principle. Gaming-related work spaces are overwhelmingly male for the most part at present. There's a feeling of greater safety and security and less constant worry about your outward appearance that one experiences in all-female environments and you can get used to it and begin to really want, expect, and ultimately insist on that peace of mind outside those environments too.

There are also wider changes that need to be made in the public policy arena to address these problems more largely and I would single out some new laws in France as exemplary in creating severe fines for street harassment, greatly extending statutes of limitations, stuff like this, and I'm sorry but the ready availability of online pornography today really does need to be curtailed, especially when it comes to access for children because it just demoralizes women and especially girls and reduces self-confidence in most and increases negative sex-stereotyping, besides all of which a lot of sexual harassment that happens, like illicit recording for example, occurs for pornographic purposes, to be posted online. School and street harassment are some of the most common forms and we don't even talk about them here in the U.S. hardly; all the discussion seems to be around workplace harassment here.

Anyway, like I said, don't know how well they'll go over, but those are some of my ideas concerning what can be done vis-a-vis the gaming industry, work place culture in general, and society in general.

Activision, Blizzard and Ubisoft are only a tiny bit of the floating part of the iceberg of sexism in the tech/gaming industry. This probably happens at every large games company. Some just manage to keep their employees silent better than others. It's pretty much a given nearly every year we will see one big company struggle with this. PlayStation, Capcom, Riot, EA and others also have a bad track record.

Or as the CEO of Riot games says it (Katie Chironis)
Chironis acknowledges that sexism and sex crimes in the gaming industry is not unique to Riot, but rather, unique when it isn't found at a gaming company.

As for how to fix it, I think a first step would be new legislation should be adapted so that companies can be punished much harsher if they can not provide to create a safe and healthy workspace.

If society can't figure this out, because this isn't happening at just gaming companies, segregation might one day be a lesser evil.

I was ready to roll my eyes upon learning that a fairly major publication I write for is straight up boycotting writing about all Activision/Blizzard titles (after all isn't us cutting off all coverage for the foreseeable future only harming the hundreds of innocent developers, streamers, and others associated with the games as well)? But upon actually looking into the details, a lot of this stuff is pretty deplorable, and frankly makes me bummed as a major Overwatch fan.

I think a lot of it comes from the sort of predatory nature of this corporate culture of these major companies, with some of these big shots thinking they're untouchable and can do virtually whatever they want. Not to say misogyny/harassment/assault doesn't occur on the lower levels and among average gamers, but I do think that higher corporate studio level is when it becomes a far more widespread, harsher, and more of a systemic problem. And this obviously goes well beyond gaming. Hell look at Harvey Weinstein for instance..

Obviously I don't have the answers, other than all this malignant systemic behavior starts at a personal level. It starts with you. "Be the change you want to see in the world." The individual should be the focus. "Individual" means not associating "blame" or pigeonholing a group, but it also means striving to make a difference and set an example on a personal level. You do what you can and hope for that ripple effect. What you do does matter, even if it seems small. It extends outwards and effects others. View it as a bottom-up approach. The goal for me is total egalitarianism and total respect for others, men and women. We're all just people; people who seek respect, equal treatment, and to go about their business in peace. Treat others the way you'd want to be treated. Oldest cliche in the book but it applies.

And again, I think a lot of it is maintaining a humility. I think a lot of these bigger studios are filled with guys who think they're "owed" something and that they can get away with anything. That needs to change. Always stay considerate and humble.

I agree with the spirit of this post, but not necessarily with the letter of it. I think we share a common goal here, but maybe disagree on how one gets from here to there.

While it's a good idea to live out a positive example, simply being a decent person yourself just is not an adequate response to the scale of this problem. There's a logical mismatch between the cultural nature of this problem at companies like Activision/Blizzard and the individualist solutions you propose. Cultures are defeated by counter-cultures (rival cultures with opposing values), not by lone individuals acting separately.

Concerning boycotts, I'm not generally a fan of those anymore because I find that these days the tactic is most often used to try and suppress the philosophical and/or political speech of artists, which is a goal that just goes against everything I stand for and believe in. This though, what we're talking about here, is not a speech issue, it's a harm issue. If companies like Activision/Blizzard respond to a boycott, or to the state of California's lawsuit, by punishing innocent workers with waves of layoffs and pay reductions and such then I suspect that response will be seen for what it is and that the company will consequently have fewer willing workers in the future, as many will respond by taking their talents elsewhere. I am perfectly okay with that.

We agree though that a general sense of entitlement is going on here that is at least circumstantially related to the scale of some of these companies.

That would generally tend to help as well, as would unionizing the workers in the sector.

That's pretty much true for any sector, not just the gaming industry. Too bad unions have such a bad image in the US and are difficult to establish (as the recent highly mediatized trial of Amazon workers showed all too well)

On a side note, this also made me look up what games I have from Activision Blizzard. And the result is... almost none despite having been a gamer for over 30 years now. Seriously, the most recent game from Activision I own is Marvel's Ultimate Alliance on the Wii from 2006, the newest from Blizzard is from 2003 (WarCraft III). 

This is kinda wrong, roles shouldn't me given out on a whim. It would be like hiring people based on ethnicity, and not on skill and experience. The best person should get the job.

As for sexism and such.. unfortunately this is rife in just about every industry. Blizzard/Activision staff sure act scummy though still make decent enough games. Not much they can do except change in company structure and management. About the gaming community.. there's quite a few female gamers would rather keep their gender unknown due to the amount of unwanted attention from male gamers.

Like not on a whim but don't know, when companies start hiring based on certain criteria for the sake of diversity its kinda messed up. What about the other thousands of other prospective people that are employable that are more skilled or experienced. Not going to say that there shouldn't be more diverse management but there shouldn't be diversity for the sake of it is my point.

Like if you are a CEO of a company you'd expect your employees of whatever position to be fair and non discriminate.

We had the Taft-Hartley Act introduced in 1947 and that was the beginning of the long-term, slow-motion decline in labor organizing in this country because it gave companies all sorts of new legal tools with which to discourage workers from organizing. That's only part of why we need the PRO Act in this country. Badly. Like seriously, I feel like I could benefit personally.

Anyway, yeah ain't that the truth. Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, Activision-Blizzard...I don't exactly view any of these companies as industry leaders in creative thinking in general these days. I think that's part of their problem here.

A woman I know worked in an office only with women. The only man worked in a separate office and was the boss. She told me it was hell. One of her colleagues (a woman) insulted her, made fun of her and blamed her for anything and everything, just out of jealousy. She had depression, attempted suicide, fell into a coma, after her coma she was no longer the same and it destroyed her life and that of her family (she has two children). She told me verbatim that "women are the worst".

I worked in a big company. There was a conflict management service. Over 75% of conflicts were between women. These conflicts were for trivial things such as "she asks me too personal questions so I insulted her", "she is a hypocrite", etc.

In this company, for a while I had several women as a bosses.I received criticism of my work just for insignificant details. Whereas since the management team has changed (they are now women and men), I am told that I am doing a good job and that as long as the job is done it doesn't matter if I wrote in blue or in black.

All the people I spoke to told me the same thing, which is that it is difficult to work with a woman as a boss because they focus too much on unnecessary details.

People think misogynistic remarks are made by men, while research shows the majority of sexist slurs on Twitter come from accounts owned by women. So have more women in companies will not solve misogyny.