Comments on: “Women are treated better than men online”, says NerdBoobLoot-man

By: Why women aren’t actually ruling the world « Girly Thoughts

Why women aren’t actually ruling the world « Girly Thoughts — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:48:01 +0000

[...] Lauredhel at Hoyden About Town and Shakesville does a great job of explaining something I’ve never been able to express intelligently before. You know when guys (thinking of a girl they like who makes them feel helpless) complain that women have all this power and it’s not fair and why would we need feminism when women are running the world anyway? They’re mistaken. Let’s use me as an example. I get hit on a few times a week here [edit: towards the end it was at least once a day]. Like three guys in my dorm have professed their “love” for me. I must have so much power! I must like, run France by now! Except I don’t, because instead of having sex with them in exchange for stuff, I tell them I have a boyfriend – then they give me a quizzical look, keep trying to get in my pants, and I finally just say no and walk away and make yet another mental note that having a boyfriend isn’t enough in this country – and then they walk out of my life forever. Unless they decide to try to get into my pants again a couple weeks later, in which case the above is repeated. [I got way more cool stuff from my female friends there, who are definitely into dudes.] [...]

By: End of semester stop-gap link thing I’m writing while I wait for the washing to finish « Crimitism

Tue, 27 May 2008 14:47:06 +0000

[...] Study finds women treated better than men in online games. Reality finds otherwise. This “classic” forum post (their words, not mine) finds that online harassment would vanish if “whores” didn’t play games, because then men think it’s OK to treat women badly. Except when they aren’t being treated badly, because then being female is a “free ticket to being worshipped”. I’d suggest a more constructive approach would be to call men out on their behaviour toward women in gaming, but I tried that last year and look where it got me. [...]

By: Lauredhel

Lauredhel — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:25:26 +0000

I don’t think users can edit comments, but I can. You’re always welcome to buzz me if you need something fixed.

By: Purrdence

Purrdence — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:09:42 +0000

That was on Second Life, btw. Is it possible to edit comments?

By: Purrdence

Purrdence — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:08:17 +0000

I once got called a whore by a male avatar because I wouldn’t cyber with him. I think he needed a dictionary, amongst other things.

By: Meg Thornton

Meg Thornton — Tue, 27 May 2008 09:17:48 +0000

I played Dark Age of Camelot for a while. My characters were largely female (although I did have the occasional male) and quite often they were of the “warrior” type – I’m much more of a “get in there and hit things” type than I am a “stand back and rain catastrophic death on them from a distance” type. In about a year’s worth of playing, I didn’t get much contact from other players at all, and what I did get largely wasn’t sexualised either. This may have been because I was an Australian playing a less-than-overwhelmingly-popular game on a set of servers based in the US – my online time didn’t overlap with the online time of the main contingent (I was about 12 hours out of synch).

It may also have been because I’m very much a solo player, and most of my playing was on the co-operative server. Either way, I didn’t run up against much of it.

By way of contrast: I’ve been “out” as a female poster and blogger for years on the internet (about eleven of them, now). I’ve found I prefer to avoid the main IRC channels, and I’ll keep my IM clients switched off for the majority of the time – purely because I get annoyed by the regular queries of “A/S/L” from male-identified personas, and also by the way they vanish when I point out that no, I’m not interested in cybersex with them (by saying I’m in a steady relationship). I’ve also been stalked and harassed online, mostly because I’m female (although this was in the context of a size acceptance newsgroup – the stalker was also haranguing me because I said I was fat).

I have to admit, though, sometimes I wonder whether my comparative *lack* of bad experiences online (and IRL, for that matter) has more to do with pure, unadulterated good luck than anything else. If this is the case, it’s a good thing I don’t waste it all on lottery tickets.

Meg Thorntons last blog post..I just got my nose rubbed in my privilege.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Mon, 26 May 2008 21:32:40 +0000

That’s because we play Horde side, Cozzy. Everyone knows the sexist jerks are all Alliance!

By: coz

coz — Mon, 26 May 2008 18:04:21 +0000

Interesting.
I’ve been playing WOW for 3 years and all my characters are female. I’ve never been harassed or given loot…Whats wrong with me!!!1!
I just asked Rob who has a female character as well as males if he has noticed a difference.
‘Nope’ but has read the stories about men pretending to be female to get loot and stuff.
There was a story in Something Awful couple years ago when the blogger did this….it was kinda funny i have to admit.
If I’m in a group with unknown people they generally assume I’m male and sometimes seem surprised when I correct them. But their behaviour doesn’t change.

I’ve been really been harassed in real life either.

By: Jen

Jen — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:50:50 +0000

I’ve written on the same in the past…I’ve made a lot of great male friends in World of Warcraft, I have also seen some men (or rather, probably boys) who seem to think that any “real girl” who rolls a female character, particularly of certain races (*cough* Elves) is there entirely for the purpose of cybersex. It’s not all guys, it’s not even a majority of guys, but I’ve come across it regularly enough for it to be annoying.

By: blue milk

blue milk — Mon, 26 May 2008 12:34:02 +0000

Boggled, completely boggled. This is a great post! My partner is a gaming addict and he agreed with every word of your conclusion.