I have an issue that I have been trying to mentally resolve for a long time now, it relates to women in gaming and recent events but is also much broader. First off let me say that I fully believe in men and women being treated equally well inside and outside the video game industry and that the internet harassment is horrible. Giant Bomb and the gaming media speaking out about it is absolutely the right thing to do and should have happened long ago. I hope that my post is relevant to the spirit of the thread, if not I apologize for going off topic.
The problem I am having and have been having for a long time now is that I find it extremely hard to support many of the voices in the women's movement who are calling for change. I generally agree with the messages they are presenting, but the tone and attitude that many convey is very hard for me to accept. Basically I am a straight white man and many of the voices I see calling out for fair treatment in the video games industry and feminist voices in general come off as extremely antagonistic and vengeful. The message that I am receiving from people like Zoe Quinn, Leigh Alexander, Anita Sarkeesian and feminist articles on sites like Jezebel and where ever else my Facebook friends post from is that straight white men are the cause of all these problems women are having and that straight white men are responsible for everything bad that happens to women.
I have a problem with that because these messages all appear to be attacking me personally, saying "You are causing these bad things by existing and you should feel bad for causing them." I try to be a decent person online and offline, I don't harass people over twitter or message boards, I don't say terrible slurs about women I meet in real life and I try to speak out about things like internet harassment and vote for equality every change I get. Beyond that I don't know what to do but there are all these feminist voices telling me I am a bad person and need to change my ways and stop oppressing women. I am unable to directly support these people because their underlying message is horribly insulting and I am not about to begin self flagellation to gain their approval.
So my question in all this is how do I approach women's issues when most of the voices I hear championing these issues seem to be intensely angry at me simply for being alive? If the messaging was more inclusive I would probably be actively supporting these people, but as things are I often tune them out because the message is so consistently negative. Are there voices for change that do not hold men at fault for the problems women face? If not, how am I supposed to support good treatment of women when those I see calling for it are treating men badly?
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