Gaming's Women Raise Sexism Awareness With #1reasonwhy Movement on Twitter

Too busy at work to bother with this.

@jozzy said:

@CaptStickybeard said:

Oh.

She has a point, just a shame it dominated those specific Giant Bomb shows. Also, I am not sure the reaction from the community would've been different if it was a man doing the exact same thing. Interesting though.

Drunken assholes shouting down everyone else on a podcast are never acceptable. This is shameless and pathetic.

@CaptStickybeard said:

Oh.

Sorry, Leigh. Don't make your obnoxious drunkenness into a feminist issue--this sort of behavior is pretty universally reviled, regardless of sex. Case in point, Garnett Lee was often insufferable on 1up Yours whenever he had downed more than a few.

That being said, it's possible that your gender blew the response out of proportion. It's possible.

But I think it's more likely because you refused to let it go, continued to fan the flames by publicly defending your petulant behavior, and have tried to turn it into a feminist issue, which I think, is disrespectful to women. Keep in mind also that your appearance on the E3 Bombcast was most people's first and only exposure to your personality; it's not like you had built up years of goodwill with listeners like Garnett might have before he went on his own drunken tirades. Before the podcast, Jeff and crew knew Leigh Alexander, and this is important. It's not unlike how we're willing to forgive our belligerent pal out at the bars on Friday night because we know that, sans too much to drink, they're generally a good person. We didn't know Leigh Alexander, but after the podcast, we did, because of how you chose to express yourself.

I'm typically very sympathetic towards women's rights issues, but your defense is irresponsible. The lambasting of feminist issues as "whiny," "emotional," or "unsubstantiated" is surely annoying and harmful. However, using feminism as a shield to defend plainly genderless obnoxious behavior is equally bad because it undermines other valid feminist causes.

Angry Internet-dwellers are also obnoxious. However, it would have been in your best interest to simply apologize and leave it at that. But as I explained above, using this as a pedestal for feminism is tenuous at best.

@martyarf said:

@Arx724 said:

[snip]

If you don't care about the marginalisation of half the world's population, then congrats on your sociopathic diagnosis.

Does that half of the world care about me getting annoyed by articles like this one? This is vital information.

@DeathByWaffle said:

Faith is definitely not "one of the most memorable protagonists" in games. I really liked Mirror's Edge, but I can barely remember any detail about her character except that she had a sister.

When I try to think of well realized and well written female characters in games I keep returning to April Ryan in The Longest Journey. Written by (surprise!) a man.

@FoxMulder said:

Faith from Mirror's Edge was the one you picked as a memorable protagonist?? All I remember were the stupidly animated cutscenes and replaying parts over and over just to make it to the end....not the quality of the lead character. I hate to beat a dead horse, but isn't Alyx Vance the de-facto answer when it comes to memorable female protagonists?

I agree, Faith kinda sucked as a character. She was a female protagonist, however, in a game that very easily could have used a male protagonist; due to their alleged physical advantages. That's something, I guess.

Alyx Vance doesn't really count in my eyes, because Gordon was the protagonist, but she was there, and a good character, at least.

I actually kind of liked Carla from Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy, from what I remember of it / her.

@crow13 said:

So when will we get to hear a female voice on the Giantbomb Podcast? :)

it is an industry where the female voice is the minority (not to say they don't have a presence). listened to one of the e3 podcasts where they addressed this briefly and i believe ryan said they had a female exec on for the previous year's e3 podcasts (shame on me for not remembering who it was, i know). maybe it's due to lack of women in the industry, or that they don't cross paths with them enough, or maybe it's for lack of trying. still wouldn't mind it happening more often. get karen on the bombcast maybe? (only really listened since around this time last year so forgive me if she has been on before...)

@martyarf: These quotes make this article sound even more like penis guilt.

As I said earlier, I don't hate the initiative. The problem of such movements is that they have to be somewhat schizophrenic in nature - you have to point out who and what you are to achieve a sense of normality and equality, which may sound annoying and look like "RESPECT ME I'M A GIRL IN VIDYA GAMES", but it's kinda the only way to do it. Sitting quiet achieves absolutely nothing.

@TyCobb

"#1resonwhy Wah! My vagina hurts because I don't know how to take a stand. Wah!"

I have a solution, grow some fucking balls. It seems to have worked for the males in the workplace. Seriously though, learn to take a stand. Ranting on Twitter isn't going to do anything. Perhaps you should actually fight at your workplace for what you believe/want. If your workplace isn't treating you the way you should be treated, sue their ass if it is discrimination. Laws are in place for a reason.

Fucking do something or STFU. Thanks.

@ShadowKirby said:

Yo, to all of you who say "why don't they speak up in their work place instead of twitter", they do, and they get dismissed as just being "bitchy" or "humorless". THAT is the problem.

Where the hell do you work where HR would dismiss sexual harassment?

Good write-up Patrick, although (especially given the subject matter) I would think about the term 'bitching' here.

@Foggen said:

Leigh Alexander has decided to use this opportunity to claim that the antipathy she earned by ruining multiple E3 Bombcasts with her screeching, drunken stupidity was indicative of sexism. Nope.

Annoying is annoying. Very true and many wrote and hated on her like they hate on other people. BUT a lot of people didn't just say that she was annoying or critizised her for being that. A lot of the community brought of words that should not be used and that can't be interpeted in any other way then misogynist or sexist. Did they have to use those words to tell her that she was annoying? Nope. But they did it anyway and THAT is sexist or just really stupid. You should not take those words in your mouth against women. And as I stated earlier. We don't undermine men that we dislike in the same way. Do we show dislike? Yes. But we don't do it in THAT way.

@IcarusFoundYou said:

@ShadowKirby said:

Yo, to all of you who say "why don't they speak up in their work place instead of twitter", they do, and they get dismissed as just being "bitchy" or "humorless". THAT is the problem.

Where the hell do you work where HR would dismiss sexual harassment?

Misogynists International

@martyarf said:

@McGhee said:

Burden huh? Over the years I've had to make the choice when I'm at work to never be in the same room alone with a women unless I know her really well. Why? Because they can fucking say anything and be instantly believed.

Then you're fucked. I've seen it happen.

Congratulations on literally inverting the truth. Pretty bold. PS Go fuck yourself thanks

I've simply relayed my experience. It is not an endorsement of sexual harassment. It is an example that shows some perspective and fairness is required.

@biggiedubs said:

@FoxMulder said:

Faith from Mirror's Edge was the one you picked as a memorable protagonist?? All I remember were the stupidly animated cutscenes and replaying parts over and over just to make it to the end....not the quality of the lead character. I hate to beat a dead horse, but isn't Alyx Vance the de-facto answer when it comes to memorable female protagonists?

I agree, Faith kinda sucked as a character. She was a female protagonist, however, in a game that very easily could have used a male protagonist; due to their alleged physical advantages. That's something, I guess.

Alyx Vance doesn't really count in my eyes, because Gordon was the protagonist, but she was there, and a good character, at least.

I actually kind of liked Carla from Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy, from what I remember of it / her.

Carla wasn't bad, and neither was Victoria McPherson from Still Life.

@ZHabermann: It's a comment about when a man gives away a business card, the person taking it wasn't just doing so to get his phone number to flirt with him. I'm sure it's happened to someone who was a man, but that is not normative behaviour.

To be fair, the complaints about women being perceived as receptionists or inessential to the business is not unique to the games industry, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it.

I see it happen all the time in my own job. My colleague, who is a woman, has people continually talk to *me* instead of her when standing next to each other. Only asking *me* questions. They will ignore what she says even though I will tell them the same thing.

@psychpunk said:

Patrick's tweet is really the bottom line for the male side.

Sides.... That's just great. :(

Anyhow, nice work Patrick! :)

@IcarusFoundYou said:

@ShadowKirby said:

Yo, to all of you who say "why don't they speak up in their work place instead of twitter", they do, and they get dismissed as just being "bitchy" or "humorless". THAT is the problem.

Where the hell do you work where HR would dismiss sexual harassment?

Stardock maybe?

@Amafi said:

@biggiedubs said:

@FoxMulder said:

Faith from Mirror's Edge was the one you picked as a memorable protagonist?? All I remember were the stupidly animated cutscenes and replaying parts over and over just to make it to the end....not the quality of the lead character. I hate to beat a dead horse, but isn't Alyx Vance the de-facto answer when it comes to memorable female protagonists?

I agree, Faith kinda sucked as a character. She was a female protagonist, however, in a game that very easily could have used a male protagonist; due to their alleged physical advantages. That's something, I guess.

Alyx Vance doesn't really count in my eyes, because Gordon was the protagonist, but she was there, and a good character, at least.

I actually kind of liked Carla from Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy, from what I remember of it / her.

Carla wasn't bad, and neither was Victoria McPherson from Still Life.

How about my character from Saints Row the Third? She was bad ass.

As expected after reading the title of the article, the comments are beautiful, like a car crash.

It really is disgusting and sad reading through those tweets and seeing how many females are discriminated because of their sex, but at the same time I'm not really surprised because of how male focused this industry is. I really hope to see that kind of shit go away.

I notice that a lot of the women I talk to about video games tend to be really hush about it because of the unwanted attention they get for being the "gamer girl". All they want to do is talk about video games candidly like us guys do without having to be constantly reminded that they just so happen to be female. I can't imagine how annoying that must be.

I'm really happy this is happening. I think like many dude-bros out there, I'm not 100% awful towards women but there's always a chance because I'm in this somewhat shitty gaming culture, I'll make someone feel uncomfortable or put down someone because of their gender.

#1reasonwhy because when I tell people I'm a designer, I without fail get "Really? You don't look like you play games. Guys must love you."

— Alexis(@VernaVenisa) November 27, 2012

"You don't look like you play games."

Someone who has obviously never played a game said this. That's just so offensive I might go cry about it on the internet.

Why are we being blamed for this?

@Milkman said:

@bloodsoul5 said:

@jozzy said:

@CaptStickybeard said:

Oh.

She has a point, just a shame it dominated those specific Giant Bomb shows. Also, I am not sure the reaction from the community would've been different if it was a man doing the exact same thing. Interesting though.

She doesnt have a point at all. drunk and annoying is terrible regardless of gender.

Just to be clear.

This is great...

but Leigh Alexander is a "bitch", right?

I'm not interested in defending her actions because it's been talked to death. Was she annoying? Sure. Hell, I disagree with Leigh on a lot of stuff. But that doesn't give people the right to have the reaction that she did. I'm not sure if you were on this site after this podcast happened but it was embarrassing and disgusting. I have no problem with people poking fun or making jokes about it because hey, it was funny. But the amount of vitriolic hatred that she got from people here was absolutely disgusting.

I just want to be clear that I really don't think this conversation should be taken back to Leigh at all, but since it already has been, yeah, I'm totally someone who thinks drunk, obnoxious, annoying, and immature (but not silly) isn't what I want to listen to regardless of gender. Whenever the Giant Bomb crew have one of their get-togethers where there's way too many people around and they're all at least a little trashed, I stop listening/avoid it altogether. The only way it would be tolerable is if I was there getting drunk with them and half-gone myself.

I'd crusade for the idea that Giant Bomb site users overreacted en-masse, but this is the internet, and maybe I shouldn't be so cynical, but do you really think I'll change a bunch of faceless people's minds by calling them out? People have to learn the basics of human decency on their own, the hard way. That's pretty much the only way it's going to sink in.

@biggiedubs: alleged physical advantages

Is this a joke?. There are always exceptions to the rule but males are, in general, more physically capable than females. This can be seen in virtually any species on the planet. What everyone involved in this sort of social justice issue needs to understand is that, while men and women are NOT equal in a lot of ways, they always have equal worth.

@bloodsoul5 said:

@jozzy said:

@CaptStickybeard said:

Oh.

She has a point, just a shame it dominated those specific Giant Bomb shows. Also, I am not sure the reaction from the community would've been different if it was a man doing the exact same thing. Interesting though.

She doesnt have a point at all. drunk and annoying is terrible regardless of gender.

What she is implying, is that when man are drunk and obnoxious, you will see it as an incident and don't really change your long term perception of them. With a woman, she is regarded as "that drunk obnoxious bitch". That definitely happened on this site. Like I said, if a man had done the same, we might have felt the same way, but I am no so sure.

@Milkman said:

@Arx724 said:

[snip]

Because they're human beings?

And I (try to) treat everyone equal. If someone else doesn't, return the favor to them. Telling other people (over and over) who happen to share a gender with the idiot isn't the ideal way to go.

@Arx724 said:

Sexism happens both ways and everywhere. Try picking up a relative/friend's kid from kindergarten as a guy.

People need to stop giving a shit.

As someone who hopes to one day father a kid, I'm more creeped out by the fact people aren't bothered when a strange adult of any kind is picking up children. Sexism doesn't always have negative results for the woman (though let's be honest, it does a vast majority of the time), it's the concept itself that's disgusting. Not giving a shit isn't a constructive answer so much as an admission that you're not affected enough to try and do something.

@Amafi said:

@biggiedubs said:

@FoxMulder said:

Faith from Mirror's Edge was the one you picked as a memorable protagonist?? All I remember were the stupidly animated cutscenes and replaying parts over and over just to make it to the end....not the quality of the lead character. I hate to beat a dead horse, but isn't Alyx Vance the de-facto answer when it comes to memorable female protagonists?

I agree, Faith kinda sucked as a character. She was a female protagonist, however, in a game that very easily could have used a male protagonist; due to their alleged physical advantages. That's something, I guess.

Alyx Vance doesn't really count in my eyes, because Gordon was the protagonist, but she was there, and a good character, at least.

I actually kind of liked Carla from Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy, from what I remember of it / her.

Carla wasn't bad, and neither was Victoria McPherson from Still Life.

Shepard.

Oh and I watched this while it was happening, it didn't really feel like a "movement"... I don't think anyone moved from their desk...

I imagine mods going into disaster emergency mode when an article like this gets posted. lol

I will keep reading them, but like 99% of the people posting on this thread, I'm not in the game industry so I wouldn't know what it's like for either gender. It's all hearsay and anecdotal evidence when it's all fed through Twitter.

@nukesniper said:

@l4wd0g said:

Being a male nurse, you can easily have that reversed. It's a societal normality issues.

A nurse is a woman's job.

Construction workers is a man's job.

Then there are the unisex jobs like a lawyer, doctor etc.

It's not they can't do the job, it's just different form what "it should be."

*EDIT my iOS device made that into a narrly looking paragraph. had to fix it.

Good point. As a society we need to get rid of that thought that "it should be" a certain way. Who cares if it is what you want to do?

"The way it should be" is a moving target for society; it's always changing. Look at homosexuality, it's taking forever to become normalized (from a societal normalization point of view). On the other hand women in the military were normalized very quickly, comparability.

It's when we let our gender (race, orientation) define who we are that's the problem.

NONE OF THIS BULLSHIT BETTER POLLUTE THE BOMBCAST! This should be in a blog and not the front page.

@SpicyRichter said:

@jozzy said:

@SpicyRichter said:

It's funny this is such a big deal when women in the middle east aren't even allowed to show their faces outside the home. Maybe some of this energy should be put into fighting for their rights?

There are places where kids have to work 10 hours a day for a few bowls of rice, maybe some energy should be put into fighting for their rights? Oh wait no, there are places where people die because of hunger, all energy should be put into that. Do you see how dumb that argument is?

No, because you're absolutely right. We should be putting a lot more energy into feeding the hungry and fighting against sweatshops. I donate what I can, and avoid companies that have human rights violations. I also treat women as individuals. Do you do these things?

Good job totally missing my point. You can't invalidate someones issues because somewhere else someone has it worse. You want me to comb through your post history and find a post where you complain about something trivial, and reply that you should put that energy into curing hunger in the world? It's just a totally counter-productive argument.

There is always someone somewhere that has it worse than you, and it's good to spend energy on that, but it doesn't mean you can't ask for attention for your own problems.

lotta angry white male teenagers in this thread

lotta angry white male teenagers everywhere

Also these comments are exactly the problem. Man I thought Giant Bomb was better than this.

Gaming's one of the last boy's clubs and yeah, that's a pretty shitty thing for it to be.

@Dark_Lord_Spam said:

@Arx724 said:

Sexism happens both ways and everywhere. Try picking up a relative/friend's kid from kindergarten as a guy.

People need to stop giving a shit.

As someone who hopes to one day father a kid, I'm more creeped out by the fact people aren't bothered when a strange adult of any kind is picking up children. Sexism doesn't always have negative results for the woman (though let's be honest, it does a vast majority of the time), it's the concept itself that's disgusting. Not giving a shit isn't a constructive answer so much as an admission that you're not affected enough to try and do something.

That's the point. I wouldn't go around screaming about sexism if someone doubted my character when picking up a kid. I wouldn't give a shit.

@McGhee said:

I imagine mods going into disaster emergency mode when an article like this gets posted. lol

they don't moderate these comments though, they never do. wouldn't be amiss if they started. (cue cries of CENSORSHIP! :D )

@bloodsoul5 said:

@jozzy said:

@CaptStickybeard said:

Oh.

She has a point, just a shame it dominated those specific Giant Bomb shows. Also, I am not sure the reaction from the community would've been different if it was a man doing the exact same thing. Interesting though.

She doesnt have a point at all. drunk and annoying is terrible regardless of gender.

If this is in reference to the E3 bombcast stuff, I was put off by her not because she was a woman but because of the way she was acting. I feel like when a girl acts annoying, especially when drunk, I tend to give a lot more slack than when a guy starts becoming obnoxious.

It really does suck to be a girl in the gaming culture. A while back, I dated a gamer for and I swear, every single time we played multiplayer games online, she was bombarded with "you're not a girl" or "you're probably fat" type nonsense. Eventually, I learned to do as she did and just ignore them but for the first few months, it was immensely frustrating to hear it even though it wasn't directed at me. I feel like anonymity is the cause of people being total asshats online.

@sissylion said:

lotta angry white male teenagers in this thread

lotta angry white male teenagers everywhere

Angry for being blamed for something I have no part in, maybe.

@I_smell

@The_Laughing_Man said:

Samus. That is all.

This is actually about working conditions in development studios, so no that's not all, or even very relevant.

Yes it is. Ever see a dude pinch Samus's ass? Nope. Just vaporize the sexual harassers.

@Rawrnosaurous said:

@jozzy

@bloodsoul5 said:

@jozzy said:

@CaptStickybeard said:

Oh.

She has a point, just a shame it dominated those specific Giant Bomb shows. Also, I am not sure the reaction from the community would've been different if it was a man doing the exact same thing. Interesting though.

She doesnt have a point at all. drunk and annoying is terrible regardless of gender.

What she is implying, is that when man are drunk and obnoxious, you will see it as an incident and don't really change your long term perception of them. With a woman, she is regarded as "that drunk obnoxious bitch". That definitely happened on this site. Like I said, if a man had done the same, we might have felt the same way, but I am no so sure.

I missed the E3 where she was on and made a fool of herself. I've read a bunch of stuff she has done I think she is a bad example of women in the industry. So much of her writing is centered around the fact that she is a woman in the industry. Also lets not pretend that she was drunk, rude, and obnoxious once. If you remember she was talking shit to Jaffe on twitter, then deleted her tweets and then blamed it on being drunk.

the thing is that you are free to have that opinion if you've read her articles; I disagree but whatevs, it's cool. How many people calling her an annoying bitch after the second podcast actually bothered? she was annoying, she owned up to that, but if I posted an incredibly poignant article by her here, and let's say you agree with it too, do you know how many people are just going to reference that fucking podcast? (7)75%, at least.

she will never live it down (here, at least) and it's fucking dumb.

@Arx724 said:

@Milkman said:

@Arx724 said:

[snip]

Because they're human beings?

And I (try to) treat everyone equal. If someone else doesn't, return the favor to them. Telling other people (over and over) who happen to share a gender with the idiot isn't the ideal way to go.

That's great that you try to treat everyone equal. You're a real hero. But the problem is that not everyone does and that's why the hashtag exists. And that's why you keep hearing about. Because it's a real problem that effects real people. That's why you should care.

@Foggen said:

@Amafi said:

@biggiedubs said:

@FoxMulder said:

Faith from Mirror's Edge was the one you picked as a memorable protagonist?? All I remember were the stupidly animated cutscenes and replaying parts over and over just to make it to the end....not the quality of the lead character. I hate to beat a dead horse, but isn't Alyx Vance the de-facto answer when it comes to memorable female protagonists?

I agree, Faith kinda sucked as a character. She was a female protagonist, however, in a game that very easily could have used a male protagonist; due to their alleged physical advantages. That's something, I guess.

Alyx Vance doesn't really count in my eyes, because Gordon was the protagonist, but she was there, and a good character, at least.

I actually kind of liked Carla from Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy, from what I remember of it / her.

Carla wasn't bad, and neither was Victoria McPherson from Still Life.

Shepard.

paragon or renegade?

@sissylion: Why is someone automatically white, male and underage because they don't agree 100% with something you do?

Oh, and please, stop using the tired "You can never understand this because you're a MAN/WHITE/CHRISTIAN/STRAIGHT" line. Being a bigot is not just a white male thing. It's a human thing. If I, as a man, tried to get a job in child care, you bet I'd run into the same kind of discrimination that women in games do. There are whole areas in Japan where it's not only legal, but common, for stores to refuse service to anyone who isn't Japanese. Of course I can understand discrimination. Just because I don't run into it right now, in America, doesn't mean I never had, or I can't.