In the wake of public allegations that Riot Games has fostered a sexist workplace culture, two longtime employees exited the company yesterday under hazy circumstances.
Systems designer Daniel Klein and communications associate Mattias Lehman — both outspoken advocates for gender diversity at Riot — are no longer working at the company following a contentious weekend involving a controversial PAX West panel.
Last month, Kotaku published an investigation into the culture of Riot Games, the publisher of blockbuster competitive game League of Legends. Two dozen current and former employees painted the picture of a company where women are systematically disadvantaged and in which they have been regularly hit on, talked over, publicly insulted, and passed up for promotions that were given to men, all as a direct result of Riot’s obsessively curated culture, which fixates on what they call “core gamers.”
In recent weeks, Riot Games has made moves to correct and atone for its culture. In late August, Riot released a roadmap for its plans going forward; last weekend, it hosted a session at Seattle, Washington’s PAX West meant to help women and non-binary participants enter the games industry.
Seven current and former Rioters believe that Klein and Lehman’s exits from the company have to do with their public response to the controversy around that PAX session and, perhaps, prior activism and engagement around issues of diversity at Riot Games. Riot would not specifically state why the two employees are no longer with the company.
Klein confirmed to The Verge that he was “fired for violating our social media policy.”
The PAX session offered résumé feedback as well as presentations on art design, game production, narrative writing and cosplay. In line with its focus on female and non-binary aspiring professionals, men were not welcome at the event, which sparked an outcry from League of Legends’ Reddit community. (/r/League of Legends removed a large thread linking to Kotaku’s investigation days after its publication.)
Several League fans referred to the panel as “sexist” because it excluded men. One post summed up a common reaction: “You don’t fix your shitty corporate culture by being sexist towards men.”
Sources currently employed by Riot say that Riot asked some employees representing Riot not to publicly engage with the controversy, yet both Klein and Lehman — whom current and former employees say advocated for women and women’s issues while at Riot — commented on it publicly. (Lehman and I attended the same college and took one class together.)
Klein did not mince words. On Twitter, he referred to one thread as a “toxic landfill” and described angry League fans as “manbabies.”
After some tweets attempting to explain that “‘sexism against men’ makes no sense,” and spelling out why sexism is defined by discrimination against a marginalized gender, Klein began receiving inflamed messages from League players over his comments. That strain of message fed into its own Reddit thread, which garnered over 3,800 comments, and into threads on KotakuInAction, a subreddit associated with GamerGate. Many commenters called for Riot to take action against Klein, who received a barrage of harassment over the weekend.
On Twitter, Lehman defended Klein. He wrote, “Being an ally means listening to, learning from, and standing up with marginalized people. @danielzklein has done that in the years I’ve known and worked with him. It’s telling when people spend more time tone policing him than calling out those harassing and threatening him.”
Days prior, Lehman published his own call-out of Riot’s culture on Medium, which describes his attempts to grapple with perceived sexism and racism at the company. He wrote of an April meeting in which his workplace activism was brought up: “In a meeting with my manager, I was told that my job performance was great, but my cultural misalignment was concerning … Since then, I have gone to work most days wondering if I would be fired.”
Riot would not comment specifically on why Klein and Lehman are no longer with the company; the two are not the only Riot employees who tweeted about the PAX session or have publicly alleged widespread sexism at Riot. However, in a tweet affirming its support of the PAX session, Riot noted that “Regarding conversations about this, we need to emphasise that no matter how heated a discussion, we expect Rioters to act with respect,” perhaps a reference to Klein’s “manbabies” tweet. Riot states in its manifesto that it is a “players first” company.
Reached for comment, Lehman and Klein independently provided the same statement to Kotaku: “I am parting ways with the company. I’ve got a lot of great friends there, and I’m looking forward to what’s to come.”
To some current employees, it seems incongruous that two employees who have historically been outspoken about issues around gender equality left Riot on the same day while, at the same time, Riot has been making firm promises about the company’s commitment to squash discrimination.
A Riot representative said in a statement, “These departures are independent from our efforts to evolve our culture. Our culture remains our top priority, and we remain committed to taking the steps that we need to become a leader in Diversity & Inclusion. We will always encourage Rioters to share their perspectives, and we fully support efforts by Rioters to further our Diversity & Inclusion initiatives. We are committed to making real, positive change in Riot’s culture and internal advocates are a crucial part of making that happen.”
Current and former Riot employees have drawn another conclusion. Reached over text, one current Riot employee speculated that Klein left because “his tweets in response to an online hate mob’s bad faith arguments against a company event designed to support women and non-binary were deemed insufficiently polite.” The source believes Lehman left because his public tweets supporting inclusion may have been at odds with his role as a communications specialist for Riot.
One current Riot contractor believes “Riot Games fired Mattias and Daniel for, it would seem, speaking up against the exact perpetrators of the culture that makes discrimination so prevalent there.”
This morning, former Riot employees are filling up Lehman and Klein’s Twitter mentions with a GIF from Hunger Games: Katniss Everdeen’s three-finger salute, signalling an honorable departure.
Comments
188 responses to “Two Riot Employees Leave Under Complicated Circumstances After PAX Session Excluding Men”
Claimed two more, the Gender Wars have
Man I hate when people say you can’t decriminate against whites/males/whatever as it’s not a marginalised group.
Treating someone different based on race or gender is descrimination/racism/sexism, full stop.
lol
I hate when people seemingly have no understanding of how concepts like dynamics, directionality, power, equity and effect are integral to any and all discussions of discrimination.
It also bugs me when people think the definition of racism or sexism is solely to treat a person/s differently based on their race, sex or gender, because it really hammers home that that person doesn’t give a shit about the basic concepts required to participate constructively in the conversation.
It always bugs me when people use the revised version of racism i.e. power + prejudice.
Racism, as defined by reputable outlets such as Merriam Websters, is defined as a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. Not that ‘social power’ defines racism. Social power enters the fray later. By the argument of social power, a black man can not be racist towards an asian man by calling him a racist name, if that black man has more cultural capital than the asian man does. However, if through life, the asian man gains more cultural capital, then the asian mans comments towards the black man are no longer racist and the black mans are.
This is why that ideal is faulted.
The basic concepts of racism, have been warped and twisted in recent years to fit peoples narratives. Stop trying to twist them into narratives and get back to basics. Stop feeding the beast.
How come they’re allowed to revise the meaning behind the word ‘racist/sexist’ but we can’t revise the meaning behind slurs into something not offensive?
because with things like this the people being upset sound like screaming toddlers crying at their mum because their sibling got a different colour toy, than they wanted.
If they are offended by an all female panel, FOR ONCE, they might need to put the controller down for a few minutes and look at the world around them and see how many things there are in which woman are still fighting for a seat at the table.
Are you saying that these boys and men who are being excluded should give up their seats at this show to girls and women because of what other men have done to other women in other places and other times, which these men here very likely have no connection to? You’re throwing a very ‘sins of the father’ blanket over the situation.
No because those things HAVE happened, they are history. They should do them because they want a better future than the past we had. The only way to a better future is for someone, anyone, breaking the wheel. I am not responsibility for the sins of hundreds of years worth of men, but I am sure as not going to get upset because of of one female panel, or girl’s night at the movies (like there was bad press for last year). I acknowledge how rubbish men have been over the years, I acknowledge that women have a right to get very upset over it, and why some take it out on me, even if I personally didnt do those things over the years. If I have to sacrifice some rights and some jobs to help woman I know (and those I dont) so be it. Its the least I can do.
Because women suffered in the past, men should suffer now in order bring a balance? As I said below, that’s a ‘two wrongs make a right’ way of looking at the world and history. However, looking at any such conflict in history shows up that that’s not how it actually works, rather, both sides alternate between feeling oppressed and lashing out at the other.
Whining about someone putting on an all female panel, for once, is NOT suffering.
Excluding someone because of their genitalia is discriminatory and, as such, causes those victims to suffer from that discrimination. Excluding against a group of people based on whether they are or identify as male or female is still sexist and causes the victimised group to suffer.
The problem with an all-female panel is two fold. Firstly, imagine if they announced a panel and said “No women or non-binary participants allowed”. There’d be hell to pay. As has been pointed out already discrimination against men is still discrimination and should be treated as such.
Secondly, how do you educate people if you exclude them from your sessions? If I’m a man who is genuinely interested in what they have to say, maybe because I want to improve how I do my job, then blocking me from the session is counter-productive.
And just to be clear, I’m not against kicking unruly assholes (any gender) out of a session if they behave badly. But if someone listens respectfully and asks pertinent questions why shouldn’t they be allowed in?
Oh and I’ll add a thirdly, by excluding a group (in this case men) you make them feel marginalised or disenfranchised which in turn encourages them to commit negative behaviour (at least some of them).
“Oh I can’t go to your secret womens meeting? Well screw you all you can go to hell. I’ll start my own secret mens meeting!”
And that’s even worse since it creates an even more hostile environment.
Exactly. A bit obvious but being divisive only drives the wedge deeply.
if you are feeling marginalised because a company who is in hot water decides to get out of it by having ONE all female panel, then the problem lies with YOU. They just organised a panel, nothing more, your beliefs and your understanding (or lack of it) makes the marginalised feelings happen.
Likewise if you then feel like ONE all female panel makes you act and commit negative actions out of revenge, that is on you. ll they did was hold ONE all female panel. You are the one who let it upset you.
All of starting the HE MAN WOMAN HATERS CLUB v2.0 say aye!
I feel like having a single space where non-men (for lack of a better catch-all term) can air their grievances and give advice… isn’t a bad thing.
Maybe there are issues or topics that the participants wouldn’t feel comfortable discussing in front of men. It sucks that it’s reached that point, but it’s a result of countless generations of discrimination and bias, and quite frankly I don’t think straight white men can really have a chance of fully appreciating what that’s like… and this is coming from a straight white man.
Equality is the goal. I want to live in a world where this kind of shit doesn’t happen because everyone is judged on the basis of merit and not by what they identify as or who they choose to fuck. We aren’t there, and I doubt we will be in my lifetime. But giving these groups (who have been really hard done by so far) a chance to speak is a good start.
@blakeavon: I personally don’t feel marginalized because of it. Primarily since I’m not in a group that would attend. I am however, sure that it will “trigger” some people. Your statement also doesn’t address the very first point I raised – what would happen if you flipped the situation and had a Men only session?
Personally, I believe it’s fine (usually) to have sessions for a specific group. But only when it’s ok across the board. ie: Men only, women only, black only, white only and so on. As soon as you say it’s not ok for one group then it’s not ok for others.
In this case though, I think that blocking men is detrimental since they should be allowing interested parties in to learn.
They should have held it at a womems only gym like fernwood, then men could hold a counter meeting at a men’s onl…. wait we don’t have those. Discrimination or something.
How am I not listening? It has gone like this (tell me if I missed something):
You: Men shouldn’t have been excluded from this, it would be better for everybody if they were also part of the discussion.
Me: Sure, thing is that this was not about discussing, this was about doing.
You: But by being allowed into it, men could have learned important things from it about the whole issue.
Me: Maybe, but the thing is that if the thing becomes about learning about and inevitably discussing the issue, then there’s less time for “doing”. This was a rare event about doing which needed not to be derailed by a discussion that has been going on for years.
You: Still, it could be educational!
Me: Well, too bad, this is not an event to educate males. The whole point it’s that it’s not an event /for males/. It’s for everybody else, for ONCE.
As I said in another response to you, I fully agree with you that education is important and that there should be panels which objective is that. But not every panel needs to be it, especially not the ones in which /action/ resulting precisely from that discussion is being taken.
Also, you said that you’d be ok with the unruly ones being kicked out. Could you imagine the panel, which probably was not longer than a mere hour being constantly interrupted by having to kick an unruly man (and then having to appease all other men that may protest and so on?) How much of this rare, valuable time set aside to actually do things for women would be consumed by this? Moreover, not sure if you’ve been to a PAX panel before, but they happen in the smaller auditories of the venue. They don’t sit that many people. So I ask you: if the panel was made to benefit women, why should men (whether hostile or friendly to the cause) take up some of those precious few spots?
But I ask of you: Why would such a panel need to exist? This panel excited precisely because it’s understood that there’s an existing societal-level issue of exclusionism and discrimination against women and queer folk. You need to keep the context in mind, man: if an only-man panel was made right now, it would be decried because it’s compounding an existing lack of balance, rather than attempting to fix it.
Also, note that this panel was NOT about discussing the issue of discrimination or about educating people. It was literally focused on providing information and support to encourage these people to join the industry and be more competitive. Take a look at this thread and tell me that men wouldn’t have derailed that panel’s purpose by going on and on about whether giving tiny little advantages to women is a good thing.
This in itself is interesting and educational. If you’re a man in a position of power who is hoping to encourage more gender equality in your company then you’d want to have access to that information. People are expecting and demanding men treat women better in business then expecting them to magically know what resources are available? That doesn’t work.
As I said before, I don’t have a problem with ejecting unruly people from an event but denying access to interested and empathetic ones should be a no-no.
(responding to comment below as it has reached maximum indentation)
Yes, if this panel’s purpose was educational, or raising awareness or whatever else to encourage an open yet positive discourse, sure, everybody should be invited to it. But again, that was not the purpose of the panel! It literally was meant to give support to people who usually get little. One hour of discourse, even if civil and polite is still not producing real actionable change to equalise disproportionate opportunity. We can discuss about this as much as we want (and we’re doing it) the rest of the time.
You’ve completely missed the point, just because it isn’t “10 tips for a better workplace” doesn’t mean it’s not educational. Just listening to people talk about the issues or pain they’ve suffered is educational. People have epiphanies because they suddenly realise “oh shit our workplace is doing that”. Sure it may not provide strategies for resolving the problems but it can still be educational just realising there is a problem.
Man, you are not listening. This panel was not a discussion about gender-based discrimination. It was not about sharing experiences. It was not rhetoric or discourse. It was literally about actionable steps. To make a simile, you are asking why some people were not invited to learn about or discuss colour theory when the class was exclusively about /actually/ painting.
And obviously neither are you. No point continuing this conversation.
Sure.. and for once instead of lumping everyone in the same boat for having an opinion instead of attacking them outright as “sexist” or “manbabies” we could try a less antagonistic approach?
The ongoing problem isnt that its just ONE panel… its been an on going counter culture vs counter culture of name calling and overtly divisionary and attack rhetoric for every “one” panel or discussion. I mean ill just point out a conversation further down on how “allies” would understand… and agreed a few years back I would have understood and not really cared and even went sure no problem But the moment my opinions do not follow 100% with the common thinking I am now a “man baby”?
Apologies but to insinuate that my life has been a bed of roses or privilege because of gender grossly over simplifies the hugely different and varying cirumstances each individual has.
Because revising the meaning of the slurs would lessen the perceived power of those word and those on the receiving end of them, who are unable to treat it like water off a duck’s back, would receive less victim points, thus they would not be able to claim that they’re being oppressed anymore.
The point that you seem to be missing is that the group with the most power can’t be victimised. And this world always has been, and remains (despite things slowly getting better) a man’s world (if you disagree with that then we need to have a whole other discussion).
This overreaction to a perfectly normal and nice thing for a game company to do, i.e. support a marginal group with additional and specific attention, highlights the issue.
I agree that men shouldn’t “hurt” to redress the balance, but when power is being taken away (as it has to in order to create a gender balanced society) that feels like you’re being hurt or victimised. But you’re not. You’re coming from a place of privilege and power, and dropping down to a place of equality. That’s not losing out or being discriminated against.
Men can start crying discrimination when women hold all the power and actively hurt the prospects and lives of men. That’s a long way off, if it’ll ever happen.
That is simply not true. Primarily because we’re all individuals and to say one white man is the same as another white man so therefore it’s ok to discriminate against him completely ignores his actual power. Just because a man is white doesn’t mean he’s rich, or powerful or abuses women or any of the other ugly things that it’s popular to assume white guys do.
How do you figure? Does having power mean you don’t feel or can’t be hurt unjustly? Does it mean that any slight against you is automatically justified? Let’s say you’re in your home, on your own land, surrounded by your possessions, all that you bought with the money that you earned from working an honest job and making a honest living. Suddenly, a member of the current marginalised flavour of the month breaks in and starts throwing your possessions into a sack. In this scenario, you have all the power; this is your home, your land, let’s say you’re physically stronger and could stop them in an instant. Are you not being victimised by this event or should you let them have their way because they have less power than you?
Perhaps it was a century ago but that’s hardly the case anymore.
+ During the World Wars and the Vietnam War, men were expected (as a societal norm) or drafted to the front lines to fight and die.
– Women, while still working in factories back home, were not forced into those positions, and were rarely on the front lines because they were seen, in many cases, as needing to be protected from the horrors of war.
– At the time of WW1, men who didn’t go to war were shunned by society as cowards.
– Women are now given just as much opportunity to join and server in the armed forces, but they are not forced to.
+ Women can and have become CEO’s and work in positions or great power in the business world. Susan Wojcicki runs YouTube from the very top, a position giving her power over what is currently arguably the most powerful and far-reaching media platform in the world. Murdock and Turner would sell their souls for half of that level of power and influence.
+ In the Western judicial system, women enjoy handicaps that no man is ever allowed.
– Any domestic or custody case between a man and woman in a relationship is automatically geared toward the woman.
– In a domestic call-out, police pretty have to bring the man in unless there is overwhelming evidence that he was attacked by his spouse.
– If a women is battered, there are shelters and program that she can retreat to. There are no men’s shelters for a man to go to if he is thrown out of his house by his partner; in fact, he is simultaneously looked at by society as being weak for allowing it to happen and as an abuser for presumably instigating the situation in the first place.
– In custody cases, the father very rarely wins and, even then, the mother must be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be completely unfit for the role, which is very difficult to do.
– Furthering custody situations, a man can be pursued for 18 years to pay child support, sometimes, albeit rarely, for a child that he didn’t even father. Additionally, he may also have to pay alimony to the woman to support her lifestyle. This burden is not placed upon women.
+ Women can become the most powerful person in the world now.
– Hillary Clinton almost become the most powerful women on the planet as president in 2016. In fact, she exceed Trump by around 5 million votes. The only reason she lost was due to a voting system that has been in existence for well over 200 years and, thus, cannot be claimed to favour men over women because it was conceived before women were allowed to vote.
– On that note, women are allowed to vote and run for office.
– Inversely, Julia Gillard became the Australian Prime Minister in recent years without a single member of the public voting for her.
+ Anyone who started attending university during the last 20 years can likely attest to the male and female seminars of orientation week.
– Males are given a seminar that basically tells them to watch everything they do around women on campus because someone may misconstrue their words and actions as some sort or sexual misconduct and that many people will be looking at them as potential rapists without even knowing who they are.
– Females are given a seminar that basically tells them to be wary of all men and paints them all as potential rapists, especially the ones that try to get in close by claiming to understand women’s issues.
– If both a man and woman get equally drunk and sleep together without explicitly confirming consent but, rather, are all over each other, touching, groping, etc., in the morning, if the woman realizes that she made a mistake (such as the man looking more attractive when she was drunk), she can cry rape and have him fired, arrested, expelled, and ostracized from society for the rest of his life, even if he is found to be innocent and/or she provides no evidence. Women who make false rape claims are seldom punished harshly even though those claims have ruined their victim’s life.
– If a man sleeps with a minor, he rightfully gets the book thrown at him and goes to prison for a hefty sentence. If a woman does the same thing, she is effectively slapped on the wrist. Ie. see all the cases where a female teacher slept with her male students.
I’m going to stop there. I shouldn’t even need to explain the problems with the metoo movement and how is essentially paints all males as predators. I’m sure other more talented debaters can argue it better. The point is that, this is no longer “a man’s world”; women, at least in the Western world, are given just as much advantages, if not more, as men.
What rights do men enjoy that women do not? I’m betting on someone saying the wage gap, though it has already been debunked with citations below.
So what? Should we revert to the meaning of terms as they were understood centuries ago, when we didn’t even understand that eating with the hand that we used to wipe our butt without washing it was a bad thing? Back when being racist was not owning people of colour or thinking them subhuman, but merely bashing them to death? Society has progressed; too bad that it’s left you and others behind while doing so. Please do catch up.
Change, whilst constant, doesn’t automatically mean progress.
It’s why it’s important that EVERYONE gets to discuss, share and input on the future of our society, even if we’re talking about internal panels for a game company.
Segregation (even for the marginalized) only increases the divide. Humans are inherently tribal and splitting hairs really only cements ideas that this is a men vs women situation when really, we can seriously fix these issues together.
If you want us to look at history then please do! Look at what has happened to every society that has decided to split social issues and discriminate from one group to another based on biological traits.
Progress can still be made in our society, but honestly, we’re doing pretty darn good right now for our species. I feel like the increasing shouting, condescension and exclusionary behaviors aren’t going to move us forward though.
Damn, you’re good.
At a societal level, sure. But what we’re talking about here is essentially giving marginalized groups a chance to talk among themselves. How is that a bad thing?
I agree with you, segregation is bad. But for goodness sake, that’s not what is happening in here! Literally, one little panel not aimed at causing a divide nor setting one group against each other, but merely meant to give a tiny, tiny bit of extra opportunity to folks who usually get less than others. How could you resent that or call it segregation?
Similarly, I agree that this is a matter that we should /all/ discuss, but again, that’s not what that panel was about! It was not to have a one-sided discussion, it was, repeat after me, about giving extra opportunity to marginalised people. Such thing should not even register in the discussion about gender equality, except that /men/ immediately made it so by screaming to the heavens as though it was a blasphemous slight. Why do you think it’s the case? Like it or not, people who are violently sexist exist and they like to make a huge thing out of every little measure benefiting people who are not men in order to have men who do not think themselves as sexist do their job for them.
I’m really glad that you feel that you doing pretty darn good. I am doing well too and we’re certainly doing better than our forefathers, generally speaking. That doesn’t give you the right to dismiss those who tell you that they are not doing very well yet as hysteric reactionaries. Maybe check whichever privileges make you feel so good at the door and listen to these people instead?
Just one little tiny bit of segregation not aimed at causing a divide nor setting one group against another. And yet that is exactly what has happened. Funny how being discriminated against can cause that reaction in people. So if a little bit of discrimination is ok what else is okay in small amounts? A little bit of racism? A little bit of assault?
But to speak of discrimination, you need a demographic to be negatively affected by it in any measure! Men were not affected by this because as a demographic they are already privileged (as the situation at Riot have already been extensively documented). If you give one person more than you should give and another person less, you don’t solve the inequality by giving them both a bonus. (Not that this panel was really about “giving” anything, merely about providing support and encouragement to people who were made to feel intimidated or unwelcome).
The strawman is strong with this argument…
Feel like elaborating? Otherwise, your post is merely a very weak deflection.
No, I’m perfectly fine pointing out it was a weak strawman 🙂
Oh gosh darn it, I can’t resist a challenge why not. Ok, let’s establish the groundwork first. As we know, A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent’s argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent. At no point in time, in my postings have I ever declared we should hold onto meanings from ‘centuries ago’, as I was only talking the direct current definition of the ‘ism known as ‘racism’. You jumped the bandwagon, applied some extreme hyperbole and went right off track offering an argument that didn’t need to exist. So allow me a counterpoint to what you put forward. The commonly held definition of racism is a systemic belief of how one can direct prejudice against another of a different race, based on ones own belief that one is superior to them. That’s racism in a nutshell. The ‘redefined’ version of Racism, which is prejudice plus power, particularly institutional power, which has been floating around since 1970. It’s also a heavily, heavily criticised and flawed definition of racism, as it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. When you actually balance up the losses and gains from people in society in general, it does not account for any form of consistency in prejudicial attitudes at all. Not only that, but here, Prejudice + Power, as it’s commonly called, is generally conflated with existing phenomenon which *already* exist namely “institutional racism” or “race-based oppression”, which carries a far more powerful meaning behind it and allows for the reality that racism can and does occur in society at *all* levels, as racial discrimination becomes established as normal behaviour within a society or organization, for example, treating all black kids as criminals, treating all Latino men like they’re gangbangers, treating all Asian kids as geniuses (they’re not…), treating all white males as if they’re racist bigots…
Bravo.
First, regarding the alleged strawman: Your initial argument was that “reputable sources” (as selected by you) define racism as X, and that the definition of racism + power is a newer definition “warped to fit narratives”. Yes, you mentioned other stuff which perhaps I should have addressed too, but my post was merely calling out the subtle implication that “old = respectable and true; new = wrong and manipulative”. Like for example, I’m now also going to call out the subtle ad populum fallacy that you tried to slip in there by saying that Racism + power is “heavily, heavily criticised” (not that I’m going to contest its veracity; I’m sure that many white people have sternly and robustly condemned it.)
Second, you use the word “systemic” but don’t seem to understand how it articulates the argument of Racism + power. Let us set on the ground for the sake of this argument that I can agree with you that if a POC calls a white person a horrid ethnic-based slur, that’s a racist remark, which I will not condone (even if I can understand where it comes from). But we’re not talking here about individual occurrences (of which, I’m sure, there are many) but about racISM, the systemic, once institutionalised issue.
When we generally use words such as racism or sexism, we’re talking about an issue at the level of society. We’re not talking about discrimination against every possible demographic in the relevant spectrum, but about the attitudes of the dominant demographic towards the non-dominant ones. So when we speak about racism in America, we’re talking about how non-white races have historically and in the present suffered from discrimination, mockery, abuse, reduced opportunities, etc. If we were talking about racism in Japan, we would be talking about how most non-Japanese experience such things as well. The fact that an American living in Japan can himself be very racist against Asians (or whatever other races) is an almost irrelevant factor to dispute Japanese racism.
To conclude: yes, a person from a non-dominant demographic can totally be a bigot against a person or persons of the dominant demographic. That, however, is a fact that does nothing to deny the society-wide bigotry against the non-dominant demographics and trying to present it as a counter whenever people are speaking about the bigger issue is disingenuous deflection.
The good news is that if you help us combat societal bigotry, maybe we’ll eventually reach a point were the retributive angry bigotry that some of its victims (or friends/relatives) diminishes accordingly. In other words, if the concern closest to your heart is protecting these poor, poor white men, whom for the first time in millennia are getting some blowback and being called mean words, your best bet is to help us remove those elements from among them who perpetuate the behaviours that make long-suffering folks angry enough to spout said mean words.
Good to see we both agree then that the newer “redefined” term of racism is rubbish then 🙂
Really? This is the takeaway? I have to say this is disappointing; for some reason, I expected better than you blithely ignoring the whole part of my argument on “individual cases vs systemic bigotry” in order to try to make it seem as though I agree with you.
This is not exactly right, though I’m sure your heart is in the right place.
First, as Klein tried to spell out, discriminatory behaviour such as sexism is directed towards an already marginalised demographic. Does this mean that you cannot possibly be unfairly discriminatory against men (or other privileged demographics)? No, it’s definitely a thing that can happen. However, in our society that’s not a systemic issue, so cases of anti-male discrimination need to be addressed case by case, rather than as a social issue (that’s what gets the little -ism suffix).
Second, sexism is not about “treating differently”. Sexism is about negative behaviour, diminished opportunities and an overall attitude of false superiority over women. This event in particular hurt no men and did not have as a goal to affect attitudes towards them. It was meant to serve as an equaliser: When you find that somebody in a game got cheated of X points, you don’t solve the matter by giving X free points to everybody; you give them specifically to the cheated party and that’s not discriminatory behaviour against those who were not cheated in any fashion.
That’s debatable. It hurt any men who were genuinely interested in attending the event to learn from it.
But that event was never for them! It was specifically created for other people. It was information catered specifically for a demographic. Even if allowed in, men probably wouldn’t have gotten much out of it.
Just flip it around. Men only session. What do you think would have happened?
Besides, Significant others go to their spouse’s con events even though it means nothing to them all the time. There’s no reason to block one group or another for a stupid reason. If a guy wanted to go and be bored, that’s his choice.
But why do we need to speculate such thing? A men-only session is unnecessary! The reason why a women and queer folk session happened comes precisely from understanding that men already enjoy the extra opportunities that the panel was meant to provide.
As for your second argument, sure, a bored husband would pose no inconvenience, but it would also allow in the kind of men that are making this whole hubbub and who would have ended derailing the panel. Too bad for bored husbands but I’m sure they can find 1 and a thousand other things to do at PAX that are more relevant to them.
I essentially replied to this above, but I’ll repeat it here. If you’re a man in charge you don’t automagically know what the issues affecting your female employees are or how to fix them, or what resources are available for their support. Often employees are reluctant to talk to their boss about issues so you may not even be aware they exist.
If there is a panel discussing these issues, how and why they arise, methods to deal with them, and resources to assist then it’s amazingly useful information for a genuinely caring boss to have. Even if there is nothing about resources just getting an insight into the issues and behaviour that cause them is incredibly useful. That way the boss can go back and look at their company for similar things and work towards putting a stop to it.
And I already replied as well, but here goes again: this panel was not meant to educate clueless male employers. It was literally created by an employer already attempting to help a well-documented discrimination issue to balance the scales.
The panel that you describe as what this one should have been? I think it’s a good idea! I think that we should have that panel, several times. But this panel was not it. I’m sorry that it was not what you wanted, but that’s no reason to decry it. It was meant to help people other than the ones you want to help, in different ways. Why cannot we have both types?
Hit reply to fast *doh*
You don’t solve the problem by giving the cheated party X points. You take X points away from the cheater. And if you DID give the cheated person X points it’s ONLY the cheated person, not every other person who is the same gender/race/religion.
Your analogy is giving half the people X points whether they were cheated or not, and at the same time denying half the people points whether they were the cheater or not. So it’s not fair either.
It seems you missed the word “systemic” in my previous post. Sure, this event allowed in women who may not have suffered from any kind of workplace abuse or gendered discrimination yet but the problem at societal level is that their demographic at large does. Trying to fine-comb an opportunity like that to make sure that only demonstrated victims benefit is not only impractical, it would also fail to reach women who can still suffer from it, because the discrimination is still an issue at society’s level.
Also note that your solution–punishing the cheater, rather than equalising the cheated (cheatee?) would fail to restore competitiveness to them. It only serves to ensure the victory of those who didn’t either cheat or were cheated… which interestingly perfectly reflects the problem with systemic discrimination: not most males are sexist, not most whites are racists, etc, but they, as a group, do very little to combat those among them who are because consciously or not, they understand that the existing system benefits them: Bigots keep other folks down, “respectable” people sternly tsk at bigots and they get to feel really good about themselves on the way to Go to collect $200. They are the kind of people who endorse all those #notall[ ] trends.
So we’ll reward the Kim Khardasian’s and Julia Bishop’s and all the wealthy and powerful women because they must be as marginalized and discriminated against as the poor, un-empowered ones? Of course not. That’s the problem with your “systemic” idea. It’s rewarding or punishing an entire group with no regard to whether they require or deserve reward or punishment.
The idea that people don’t punish bad behaviour is wrong. It’s becoming better and better all the time. We wouldn’t even have anti-discrimination legislation or public discussions like this if that wasn’t the case.
Equality of opportunity not equality of outcome.
Yes, I’m afraid that when we are talking about assisting discriminated demographics, some of that help will be wasted on a few outliers among them who already have it good. It’s the nature of the beast and you cannot possibly argue in good conscience that to not help the few that do not need it, aid should be refused to them all.
Also, note that I didn’t say that bad behaviour shouldn’t be punished. I kind of thought that goes without saying? I was merely pointing out that /only/ punishing the guilty does nothing to equalise the opportunity lost by the victims.
Do you… realise that this was precisely the point of this “controversial” panel? Attendees were not given outright a position at Riot, nor some super secret insight that would guarantee a successful application in the future. They were merely given tools, support and encouragement to make a competitive application. Their actual skills and experience, though, will be what determines the success of any applications, in the end. It’s literally equalising an opportunity that as documented extensively, was diminished in the past.
No one (especially me) said no aid should be given to all just to stop a few getting extra benefit. I’d much prefer better targeted programs I said that right up front. And yes I don’t believe we should be doing blanket schemes where every person regardless of whether they’ve suffered is rewarded.
So what do you propose regarding “targeting” for something like this specific case? Women using police reports about the times they were harassed or raped or any other gender-based discrimination as “tickets” to enter the panel? I’m repeating myself but that does nothing to acknowledge the fact that systemic discrimination means that even women that have not been victims yet of sexism at the workplace can still be victims in the future.
Also, if you use a bit of common sense, you’ll realize that these hypothetical Kardashians and Gillards of the gaming industry do not need nor benefit from what the panel offered as they are already well-positioned. The very contents of the panel served to target the right attendees.
The issue with using the stipulative definition of racism, is that it is a) inherently exclusionary and b) comes to the conclusion that all members of a majority group are, by default, racist. Which is incorrect on many levels.
Power had no place with the issues of racism until it was proposed in 1970 (Pat Bidol) and then popularised in ’79 (Judith H. Katz).
It effectively allows certain people to stand behind a protective barrier and be hypocrites.
You should be careful when trying to redefine the meaning of words, harvey weinstein tried to redefine the word consent and society wasn’t having it.
First, the arrival to the conclusion that all members of a majority group are discriminatory is yours alone, probably trying to prove that the thesis is ridiculous. It was never stated or implied by me and certainly not something I believe, as I’m part of some majorities.
Second, yes, sure, we do have a better understanding of racism than the people of the previous centuries, thanks for noticing. Should I assume that you believe that views held in the 1800s or before are somehow more accurate?
If not impossible, but he’s right that in this context it makes no sense.
If group A get something 100% of the time and group B get the same thing 20% of the time, having one specific time where you say “ok, we’re going to only give the thing to group B today” really isn’t a problem.
Having allies means you let them into the bloody room! How can you make progress on a gender issue when you exclude one of the genders?!
It’s not like 99.999% of the time the society is segregated. Being allied means understanding and respecting when your allies get an exclusive thing.
Would everyone have understood and been cool with it if it had been a male-only situation, ie. only the “allies” were allowed in? Hell no. There would have been calls for blood.
No, being allies means submitting to whatever double standards are put in front of and used against you, and then defending those actions against you.
The old ‘everyone would be upset if it was excluding women’ argument is garbage and you know it.
You can’t treat the weight of each action as being equal in context of how women have been and are being treated in the industry, how Riot in particular have been under fire for a workplace especially toxic for women and, you know, the vast majority of history and how women have been treated in it.
So yeah, people would and should be a hell of a lot more angry if it were the inverse, but sure go to the equally tired ‘double standard’ defence. An event arranged for people that aren’t male is not an event arranged in opposition to males and it’s really stupid to claim or argue that is the case.
It’s not a zero sum game and exclusion holds different weights in different contexts.
Yet, again, the inverse would have people crying for blood. Yes, I can use this argument and, no, it’s not garbage; it’s a simple truth that you like to dance around by implying that it’s ok because Riot has a negative reputation with women and because of
I can and will treat the weight of either action as equal because I don’t think the way to achieve equality is to discount one side because the other was slighted in the past, unless your idea of equality is holding a grudge and holding all men accountable for it. For the nth time, that is a juvenile tit-for-tat way of looking at things and an even less mature when use to justify actions.
An equality analogy my wife gave me once that stuck pretty well (albeit about a different topic)
Someone is 5 ft high and another person is 6ft high do you make them an equal height by giving both a 1ft stool?
I stopped complaining about not having a 1ft stool just because someone else did after that.
I don’t know why you would try to make short people taller, the end goal itself seems preposterous. Equal treatment (opportunity) is a more noble goal.
To spell it out in an incredibly condescending manner – Riot have been accused of having a culture that excluded and excludes many women, in response they try to course correct by hosting events specifically for women and other people that don’t identify as male, excluding men from this event.
So I ask you, in which case are you crying sexism? The company attitudes that prompted them to host this event or the event they hosted in response? One directly follows the other.
You can’t ignore context like that. It’s like decrying the violence of counter protesters – sure, maybe that violence is bad in and of itself but it has to be viewed in context of what they are responding to.
Riot had and/or has a culture that pushed and/or pushes out female workers, and there are many spaces that do that to women. I don’t think it’s controversial to say that ‘gaming’ culture as a whole tends to treat women pretty badly. Making an event more accommodating to women or non-binary people may just involve excluding the dominant group that has often contributed to these toxic cultures.
Also, Jesus, calm down with commenting on these gender issues articles endlessly. I briefly looked at your comment history as I was curious as to whether you commented on the article discussing Riot’s toxic corporate culture and gave up looking as again and again I saw the same “I’m actually not right wing” line while spouting distinctly right-wing rhetoric. You’re gonna give yourself a heart attack if you get so worked up about issues without understanding which political camp you belong to.
I’m sorry you feel the need for condescension. You have my pity.
I have not denied that Riot has problems of a sexist nature. In fact, I haven’t seen anyone here arguing that they don’t. The issue is that their attempt to course-correct has oversteered them into the realm of discounting one group to cater solely to the other. As has been said, you don’t destroy sexism against women by taking measures to exclude men, which only serves to make you look bad and turn them against you.
Again, to wrongs don’t make a right, and again, juvenile. The adult think to do would have been to have a including men, women, and non-binaries with the distinct purpose of discussing the attitudes in modern gaming and how the toxicity has affected either side. Yes, it really is that simple; a balanced discussion with views from either side of the argument. How, exactly, is excluding the “dominant” group going to do anything other than create an echo chamber for the other group? Or is that the point?
Wow. You dug that far into my comment history to find dirt. Is that what people do when they run out of arguments? It’s flattering. No, I’m actually left of centre, as I’m sure you saw. Like many here, I’m a classic liberal, a good ole democrat, but with the left having gone so extreme recently, we tend to be closer to centre now. In case you don’t understand, draw a line with a mark on each end and then in the middle; now, put a dot half way between the middle and left marks (that’s me); now, lengthen that left side of the line by two or three times; see how that dot is now much closer to the middle mark than the left end of the line?
Now, while we’re judging people on their comments, may I point this out:
Are you serious? The the scenario that you have laid out, context is irrelevant once anyone resorts to violence. I read and re-read this several times and it really sounds like your saying that it’s ok for counter-protesters to be violent in response to a protest. Why? Because the protestors think differently? No. Violence is never justified in such a situation and should indeed be decried. You may be concerned with my political views but you need to step back and take a strong look at your own after that.
Cute.
I’m not going to change your mind, and you certainly won’t change mine, but when discussions become political it’s important to note a few things.
1. All aspects of politics are rooted in and enforced by violence. Ultimately political views are expressed through laws, enforced by state sanctioned violence. So in my example of a violent counter protester we need to take the context of what they are responding to into account. Violence here means non state sanctioned violence, so if the system is morally wrong in some manner violence is the only way to oppose it. Governments know this and so they always condemn violence without regard to context because any violence that isn’t sanctioned by the state is inherently a threat to the state.
So if a counter protester is, say, punching a nazi protester because the ultimate goal of their political view is indistinguishable from genocide that violence should be weighted differently in our judgement than violence from someone opposing a protest on airport noise pollution for example. Context matters and violence is inseparable from politics.
2. Addressing this line That’s what course correction is. To break from political systems one has to allow others, those outside of dominant groups, to have a say. Yes, it may appear superficially to resemble the very same injustices that inspired the course correction, but the context behind the decision is rooted in the ideas of correcting previous issues. Women and non-binary groups were made uncomfortable and unwelcome for years within Riot, but when 1, yes, 1, event excludes men that’s when you cry sexism. Do you see the issue? I might take your point if you argued it when women are excluded, but I didn’t see you doing that.
I wasn’t trying to ‘dig’ for any ‘dirt’ when I looked at your comment history, I was looking for any evidence that you were equally as angry about Riot’s toxic culture as you are about their course correction. I failed to find any, but I was actually trying to be charitable.
3. What is left and right politically is and always has been relative. To address the following You seem to think that your political ideology remaining the same makes the line you describe wrong, a perversion of what left and right used to mean – I’m still left of centre, but everyone else has moved further to the left so it just looks like I’m further right.
Political beliefs are inherently judged by and in relation to those around you. If left means something different to what it meant when you first identified with the label that doesn’t make everyone else wrong. Your idea of left and right is inherently rooted in the past if you dismiss any of the current left wing movements as extreme. There is a new centre. The old centre doesn’t exist any more, and the centre of today won’t exist tomorrow.
If you want me to look at my own political views, sure.
I’m something of a liberal communist (that’s a bad thing) – some one that has a lot of privilege within the current political system and someone that, although I support socialist and progressive ideals, exhibits a certain amount of complacency in that support. I’m trying to drop the liberal part of that descriptor and have generally been trying to fall somewhere in the socialist camp. I am currently left of the current political centre.
If you were to look at your own politics without ‘extending the line’ after already drawing it based on your outdated views of politics I don’t believe you’d fall on my side of centre, and you’d probably save yourself a lot of headaches if you just owned that. It’s also interesting that you don’t extend the right, because while the left has certainly become more left so has the right, and I think it’s interesting that you don’t note that in your illustration. Unsurprising of course because it would break it, but interesting nonetheless.
Now you know how James Gunn feels!
I’m glad we reached an agreement. I see what you’re saying and I have a feeling that you understand what I have said. Now that that mess is out of the way, I’d shake your hand were there not a screen and keyboard between us. We should get a beer sometime.
Well I hit reply bedrock, so this is a reply to your last comment.
I’ll match that offer, I doubt we’d agree on much, but if I see an ai construct walk into a bar I’ll buy you a beer 🙂
Ah true. They say there are two things you don’t bring up in polite conversation: politics and religion. So a more interesting and productive discussion would be how Master Chief is such a baddass but would be nothing more than a robot without Cortana as his conscience and Halsey as his stern but loving mother figure, even though her necessary but morally-questionable actions essentially made him into a robot in the first place. Or was it all the coin’s fault in after all?
Dude calm down telling someone what they can comment on. Just as it’s my right to comment here and yours, it’s his/her right to comment on whatever he/she likes. You have *zero* right to tell someone what to or not to comment on. Jesus christ.
But it is you who is reducing the situation to a tit-for-tat. Keeping count of offenses and retaliating in kind is indeed ridiculous. It’s not about particular occurrences, it’s about the shape of society and how it needs to be changed. I’ll try to make a simple enough metaphor to see if I can illustrate this:
There’s a group of 10 rats. They all live together and are fed 10 pieces of cheese. However, the strongest and/or fastest half of those rats usually get more than their one piece of cheese, which leaves very little for the other 5. With time, thanks to the abundance of food the strongest rats are now massive and simply unbeatable while the others are frail and had to become used to live on the few scraps left.
Now let’s say that you take a look at the frail rats and feel compassion for them so you take them away for a little time each day in which you feed them some additional food that the others can’t take. Note here that the normal feeding of 10 pieces for everybody hasn’t changed! However, thanks to the extra nutrition, the disadvantaged rats now have a better chance to hold their ground against the others, ensuring that they are all now getting their own piece of cheese. At that point, the extra feeding can cease. And yes, you can be sure that the initially privileged rats will feel that this is all very unfair but that’s because they both created and got used to a system where they were getting two pieces of cheese–at the cost of other rats going malnourished.
I see what you’re saying but we aren’t talking about rats and cheese here. To be more precise, we aren’t talking about giving people something that is going to give them an advantage over others. Having a panel that includes everyone isn’t going to somehow make men more advantaged than women, especially if the panel is still to discuss the women in gaming and the industry. In fact, as I’m sure you well know, women are smart enough to realize that a female-only panel in a field that crosses the gender gap as much as gaming is pretty much pandering, and many would likely find it condescending.
And yet, you don’t see many women saying so, do you? Surprisingly, the actual opinion of women regarding this matter is very different from the opinion you believe they have or should have. So… are they incorrect? Do they need a man tell them the correct way of feeling about it?
Also, I don’t see how you’re disagreeing with my metaphor. Yes, the panel gave a tiny little “advantage” to women, in order to counteract the disadvantage experienced by them. Men already and naturally experience such advantages. So you may be right that they wouldn’t derive any further advantage from being able to participate… but similarly, they are experiencing no disadvantage from not participating; so why do you resent it being exclusive? You may argue that it’s the principle of the matter, and yes, I agree, it’s the principle: sometimes you need to make a bit of a show of compassion and support for people who are disadvantaged.
“Separate but equal”, right? Worked out so well last time.
Well they advocated for equality and they got it by being fired for being dickheads on social media just like Price.
They could of had a closed or private session that was not associated directly with the company, hosted by the same people. On the surface just people hanging out and talking about the game industry.
When a small vocal minority act like absolute pieces of shit everyone gets painted with the same brush, this is discriminatory. You become what you hate and are trying to stop.
You can do better without going to extremes and creating more hostility and alienating the majority of the fan base that aren’t part of the toxic minority.
In this age of entitled outrage? Good luck with that. And (this is just from my own admittedly limited experience) I started getting into League a few years ago and obnoxious, toxic arseclowns were NOT the noisy minority, they were the norm. Packs of childish douchebros egging each other on to be as vile as possible. Jumping from game to game while checking other players’ steam stats to find and I quote” Scrubs, Sluts and Squeakers” unquote, so they could publicly shame and bully them away from “their game” and keep LoL “a pure and prestige game played by elite men of distinction” *holding down vomit*. Were these shit stains challenged or criticized? Nope. Held up like champions of the people, they were. After a few months of trying to get into this game (that I still don’t see the full appeal, tbh) I felt that associating with scum like this or futily searching for non-assholes to play with just wasn’t worth it. If a very specifically located series of earthquakes and sinkholes opened up and swallowed whole the entity that is Riot Games, along with every shithead who intentionally tries give our beloved hobby a bad name I would party like it’s 1999 and convert to a religion by way of thanks to whatever deity pulled the trigger!
Given how abusive their responses were to concerns and criticism from people of both genders regarding the panels, with manbabies being amongst the tamest of the insults slung, I’m really not sure how anyone could be surprised that they were fired except for how long it took to happen. Maybe the extra days of HR were just shaking their collective heads in disbelief that anyone would think being toxic to the public was a good idea? (Much less not breaching the Social Media policy as noted)
I’d like to think that you’re right but I have a feeling that the wait was due to HR hoping that it would all blow over and that the fans and customer and wouldn’t call Riot out so strongly.
On the plus side, the precedent is being set; employees acting uncivilised and unfair toward any fan/customer while hiding being their employer had better expect a call from HR and have handy a box big enough to hold the personal contents of their desk.
Riot is full of shit.
not as much as any male involved with online (and real world) toxicity.
Or any female involved with online (and real world) toxicity, for that matter.
sure there are women involved with toxicity online, but not in fashion I am talking about. Masculine toxicity is a dumpster fire of the highest degree.
there are definitely women just as toxic as the worst of men online blakeavon i will concede there are far less of them however.
i don’t know if you have never encountered them before, if not i think your being kind of sexist assuming women can’t be just as toxic online as men can =)
Huh. Well I’ll be…
lol k
You sound like a self-hating white man.
nope just a white man grounded in reality, unlike those who thinks ‘Equality’ means absolutely equal. Spoiler Alert: that is not what the Equal Rights movement is about. It is about readdressing the balance and striving to equality. Not a strict checklist of every topic.
That’s funny because the people who think they are “fighting for equality” are fighting for equal outcome (affirmative action, diversity quotas, etc), not equal opportunity (which is a thing that already exists and is land has been legally enforced.. because it’s law). if you have equal outcome, by definition you cannot have equal opportunity.
really because in the UK there has been Laws governing equal pay for woman since like 1969. That does mean woman have been getting equal pay since 1969. Hell they still arent getting it. Just because something is a Law, that doesnt mean it is enforced. Just look at how many drivers in NSW have no idea about the new mandatory cycling laws.
and just like employers that pay their workers unfairly, they get into trouble, with the law.
Maybe instead of choosing to go into low paying jobs like childcare or social studies, maybe they should look at choosing to go into fields that offer higher pay, in general. thing is.. many women don’t want to enter those fields because they have no passion for it…
Whoa careful there. You just came very close to implying that many women might go into careers like childcare because of a biological maternal instinct. The same one that compels them the spend several months personally caring for their newborn child, which society and business have rightfully acknowledges and made allowances for. You better not actually point that out, though. Some people might not it.
@geth oh dang! thanks for the heads up!
😉
You also came close to asserting that that same biological maternal instinct may play a role, for some women, in why they might not spend as many late hours in the office but go home to tend to their children. Especially in relationships where there are two parents, the other of which may spend longer hours at work to make provide at best they can for their family, hence earning more.
Careful, you’re treading on thin ice with all those logical assertions.
@geth I am the worst of the worst *shrug*
Debunked dozens of times.
Er whaaat?! Wow did i just go back in time. It most certainly seems like it.
“muh wage gap” lol
hope i get in before someone says the wage gap doesn’t exist because it does but it is reported in a disingenuous manner by the media. The overwhelming majority of the EARNINGS gap is a result of women making different choices, however there is a small portion that consists of things like women being less likely to ask for a raise and not negotiating a salary as well as men on average. I’m sure that somewhere there is a women getting paid less than a man simply due to sexism but its illegal and that makes it the responsibility of that women and that man to report there boss for discrimination.
and the NSW drivers might actually just not know the new laws even exist.
Equal pay does in a lot of areas, especially government jobs. If and when it doesn’t occur it should be looked at on a case by case basis so the cause can be looked at and resolved. The problem with the wage gap is that it’s regularly reported as an across the board figure. It doesn’t seem to recognise that lots of women choose to take time of work to have kids (which impacts their promotions and seniority).
One of the reasons commonly brought up is that the gap most often appears in industries where the wage is negotiated and that women don’t push as strongly for a higher wage. So that negotiation issue needs to be resolved.
Another is that it’s a long term issue that is slowly redressing itself. If 100% of the positions of higher management in a company were occupied by men it’ll take years (decades) for change to trickle through and achieve a (roughly) 50-50 split of men and women. And more importantly for those women to achieve the same (or greater) levels of seniority and pay.
Interesting (short article): https://www.globalyoungvoices.com/fast-news-blog/2017/3/8/the-gender-pay-gap-has-changed-over-time-heres-how
Longer and very interesting article: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/02/how-has-the-gender-pay-gap-evolved-over-time/
you apparently haven’t heard the great news about the socialist utopia where we will achieve both equality of outcome and opportunity. (this would be the real socialism btw not the fake socialism u know the socialism that doesn’t work ever time someone tries.)
PS does comment waiting for moderation mean my comment doesn’t appear until someone approves it?
How can you say that equal opportunity already exists when gender-based discrimination at Riot has already been well documented? Also, how is this panel equalising outcome? The attendees were not being given a position at Riot nor any kinds of guarantees, only support, encouragement and tools that would help clear the already existing opportunity loss. It was literally meant to equalise opportunity. So why are you decrying it?
@pylgrim yeh sorry that response ended up in the wrong place my bad.
i actually think having a female etc only panel is great, y not we have had plenty of male only panels before, i have a problem when men are prohibited from attending that is not only stupid it is deliberately inflammatory as it would be in the reverse. now i think about it im not sure that men were actually excluded from attending but someone did say that so i blame them (fake news). also i don’t think the panel was about sexism and all that, wasn’t it just like a normal games panel about gaming and cosplay etc. as too the so called proof of sexism at riot i think u could argue they had a bit of a problem but i will remind you that all the people making accusations were either anonymous or all ready left riot, secondly not a single “perpetrator” was named and we know there is a serious problem with perceived misogyny on the behalf of the perpetually offended. If this so called toxic misogyny was so trivial that these women feel stupid naming there “attackers” as that might lead to an actual investigation…. basically if you wont name names i call bullshit, this tactic of yelling sexism all the time to garner a spotlight for yourself without ever proving anything happened needs to be stopped before society starts ignoring these claims outright just like the boy who cried wolf.
the stupidity of male toxic culture in one sentence. I find all this poor male rubbish truly cringeworthy beyond belief, they wouldnt know the true cost and repercussions of sexism, no matter how much they wish there were being oppressed.
The history of the world is full of generations and centuries of TRUE destructive and hurtful oppression, if any of these poor little men had to face the real hardships that come from ‘sexism’ they would simply crumble.
It all does get a bit silly when for centuries women have been disadvantaged – but the minute a man has even the slightest bit of disadvantage for a few minutes it’s suddenly “SEXISM! IT’S AN OUTRAGE!”
To get the balance back in the middle does mean men having less rights than before, which to some means sexism when it really isn’t.
So you agree that men can host male only sessions at an event like this and deny entry to women and non-binary people?
Why?
That’s a bit of a juvenile point of view. Like ‘two wrongs make a right’. Very ‘eye for an eye’, which leads to extended Hatfield-vs-McCoy -ish conflicts. Why not give the same amount to both, which we have seen many businesses endeavoring to do during the past twenty years, often to the point of giving them preferred treatment over men, ie. women who apply for a job must be given an interview regardless of qualification indicated on their resume.
In today’s modern society, wouldn’t a more balanced approach be to stop trying to hit back at a group of people because of what other people of that group did in the past, and, instead, reset the balance altogether. Wipe the slate clean rather than holding a grudge, and invite in those whom you want to enlighten rather than exclude them.
That’s not wanting balance or equality, that is wanting to “get one back”
and I keep hearing about rights and such… what rights are afforded to men, that aren’t afforded to women in western societies?
See the problem with you thinking is that you are focused on the wrong side of the issue. EG Yes woman are afforded the right to equal pay, but the reality of it is that still there are many woman every where that still cant get this.
Understand the difference? That is just one example.
Wage gap has been debunked by so many economists (even female ones) and literally anyone that has an ability to understand and read multi-variable analysis.
Want to see a basic reason as to why there’s a “wage gap” go have a look at the top 5 male dominated university courses (and how many women even apply for those courses) and have a look at the top 5 female dominated university courses (and how many women apply for those).
bahahaha I am sorry but that is just laughable. https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2018/apr/05/women-are-paid-less-than-men-heres-how-to-fix-it that is only from April this year.
That is also from The Guardian. That’s like citing Fox News or Alex Jones.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-43129339 unless you think BBC is a mouth piece for the Illuminati or something?! I can link all kinds of different news sources, from roughly the same time, all saying very similar things. Just because the sources you read say it is a myth, that doesnt make them any more correct. In fact if I read anything that says “its a myth, there is nothing to see here, move along” that alone sounds alarm bells.
I wouldn’t place the BBC much higher than the The Guardian either. I prefer the aforementioned economists, as they tend to be more learned in such things because, well, it’s their expert profession. The Illuminati is nothing more than a B-grade film trope, so no I doubt they have nothing to do with it. Besides, the Brethren are the real power behind the scenes, but don’t tell them I let you in on their secret. But seriously, though, flat-earthers, 9/11 truthers, and moon-landing deniers tend to have that same mentality: any evidence that you give them that contradicts their theory, they loudly claim is only more proof of the conspiracy. To quote Freud of all people:
Interesting how the article you linked doesn’t even mention such things as experience, education or even hours worked (You do know men work on average about 4 hours per week more than women right?).
https://www.forbes.com/sites/civicnation/2018/09/04/these-midshipmen-are-catalyzing-a-culture-change-on-college-campuses/#1c8fe458c0f5 (written by a woman no less)
https://www.economist.com/international/2017/10/07/the-gender-pay-gap and this one from an even more reliable, with no left or right leaning bias.
Careful… you’re posting academically credible sources here mate. Can’t have that going on! Where’s your damn tabloid sources!!!
I notice you didn’t highlight this:
It’s not *always* caused by discrimination. There are legitimate reasons too.
Wait. What?
Forgive me but what example? You just agreed that woman are afforded the right to equal pay in Western societies. But then you say the difference is that women everywhere don’t have this opportunity. Sorry but, in those places where women don’t have rights to equal pay, that tends to be the least of their worries. What, exactly, do you propose we, here, do to solve that, because that pretty much entails interfering with another’s culture.
its called the wage gap for a reason, if they called it an earnings gap which it is they would have to admit that its almost entirely due to the things mentioned above and then the phrase would be “women earn 99.5c for every dollar a man makes” not as earth shattering is it.
i still believe there are earnings related inequality i just think women are capable of fixing it all by themselves if at the very least the rest of us dont lie to them.
What like being forced to head off to Europe and die horribly in world wars whether you wanted to go or not?
There have been centuries of oppression of both men and women. The real problems are not so much gender/race/religion as who happens to have the power at the time. It seems like whoever winds up in power either is or becomes an asshole and they take their rise to power as a god given right to do whatever they like to whoever they like.
It’s been said already (even in this thread), you can’t fix sexism by excluding one of the sexes. All you do is create an insular mindset and stifle meaningful discussion between both sides.
Was going to say the same thing, centuries of the rich and powerful shitting on everyone else in the gutter.
They talked crap about their customers and got punished for it. Plain and simple.
Never bite the hand that feeds you.
Well. This comment thread just proved to me what an utter cesspit the Kotaku readership is. If you think men being excluded from a SINGLE panel is sexist, check your privelage. If you don’t think ending sexism and misogyny is the duty of all decent men everywhere, check your privelage. White men have jealously guarded the reins of power for far too long, and it’s time for that to stop.
Be the change. Leave the world a better place than how you found it.
Fly high, breathe deep, seek peace.
Not only is excluding men sexist, it’s stupid. Men, women and non-binaries need to work together to come to the best solution, not the latter two dictacting to the former what they want. I can’t imagine that that panel was anything more than a giant echo chamber.
Holy shit dude, it’s one fucking panel. No one is saying men don’t get to have a say on this topic – they are probably the most important part of the conversation, because they are the ones that need to change.
That being said, they don’t need to be a part of EVERY conversation.
Due to the long history of discrimination, many women and non-binary people don’t feel comfortable discussing these issues in front of men. If they want a space to get honest advice on dealing with their issues, men can’t be involved. It sucks that this is the case, but maybe if men didn’t want this to happen we shouldn’t have collectively beat down an entire gender for the past 40,000 years. So, regardless of good intentions, having men present means they wouldn’t be able to have a candid conversation.
Like I said, men must be part of the overall conversation, but there are certain aspects where we can’t be involved, and if you can’t see that… really, you’re part of the problem.
I would agree to a point…
See the other part of the discussion here that really throws fire to the flame that no one has mentioned is why in the world the folks who DO disagree with this practice are now automatically lablled as “privileged” at best and “toxic sexist” at worst?
Its a common slap dash reaction that is completely missing the point why there is a growing counter culture. Sure its ONE panel. And most of us dont care or even understand at the time… but for the few people who speak up the automatic response is attack not explain. Now lets continue this kind of response for the next event and then the next event and so on.
You dont get people to understand by attemtpting to belittle them. Of course there are people who wil NEVER listen but no matter what response you give will never ever affect that individual to begin with… the person who initially is on the middle or is at least listening? What kind of message are you telling them? Moral highground gained at the cost of belittling anyone always a sham that falls apart eventually
If I came across as belittling, it’s only because the guy literally disregarded everything everyone had said about as explicitly as he possibly could.
Any forum where men aren’t involved is stupid – that seems to be the crux of his argument. Nothing can possibly be achieved without the input of men.
To me, it sounds like he thinks that this session was just women and non-binary people getting together to form a list of demands. It wasn’t – it was designed for them to share advice and encouragement in a safe space, without the presence of the discriminating parties (in this case, men).
Again – holy shit. Back to my first point – without men, it’s just a big anti-man circlejerk. He literally thinks that nothing could be accomplished without the participation of men.
As a great person once said…
So to end sexism and misogyny, we need to exclude about 50% of the population… Got it (y)
This is frankly ridiculous, you’re complaining that a disadvantage demographic was given some extra opportunities as “exclusion”. What’s next? If some relief measure was given to the very poor should millionaires complain that they should be given free money as well and in exactly the same percentage as it was given to the poor? Cannot you realise how that ends doing literally nothing to balance the scales?
We already know the super rich are getting far far more than the poor in tax breaks and other incentives. Look at the bullshit when it comes to govt tax incentives (and outright fucking payments!) to companies to come work in our city/country.
Agreed, it was really silly of me to use the word “if”; it’s definitely the state of our reality. Hopefully, that serves a bit to illustrate what I’m trying to say regarding giving extra opportunities to people who historically have had less without that necessarily being exclusionary to the ones who do not require any extra opportunities?
Only if you’ll promise to check your spelling first!
This article is a vampire, it’s sucking the comments away from all the other articles.
I find the cognitive dissonance entertaining though.
I’m not sure that the case. Even on days without a charged topic like this, most Kotaku articles don’t really get that many comments. Most people don’t seem to have much of an opinion on the other articles.
Yeaaah I know. Sometimes it’s fun to make up things though, like changing the definition of racism to suit your agenda!
Shhh… You’re going to disrupt the narrative. Without changing those definitions, it’ll be just another boring non-fiction story again. Oh wait…
Or pretending to believe in equality, but not seeing the need to provide a forum for oppressed minorities to discuss issues in a safe space where they can talk candidly.
So much fun!
You realise the point of this comment thread is to create an obviously facetious comment as a ppint of satirical comedy correct? Therefore I must profes thatyoure reply has somewhat failed on that purpose
Perhaps you may be more succesful on your next attempt at the next comedic exchange of words! Good luck!
You are correct sir, I failed to read my audience. If I had known that this would be an ill-informed mens rights circlejerk, I probably would have gone with another joke… something involving women in the kitchen and trannies in the ovens, or something like that.
So anywhere there are men is unsafe?
I’m going to assume that this is an honest question, and not you being facetious (although given how this thread has played out, I think I might be a bit disappointed here).
I am not saying anywhere that there is men is unsafe. What I am saying is that there are issues that women and non-binary folk probably don’t feel safe discussing in front of men. Maybe that doesn’t sound right to you, and frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t. It didn’t to me – until I started asking women and non-binary people about the issues, and they told me that we couldn’t have a frank discussion because I was a man and they didn’t feel comfortable discussing it with me.
I mean fuck… if you had a female rape survivors support group, and you wanted to attend it as a guy? Get the fuck outta here – no one would feel comfortable having you there. While I’m not saying that discrimination is anywhere near the same level as rape, the concept is the same – you are part of the social demographic that caused the problem, and while you may not be personally responsible, you are guilty by association. That shouldn’t be the case, but for us to get there, we need the persecuted minorities to feel comfortable discussing these issues with us, and the first step on that road is giving them a forum to discuss the issues where they do feel comfortable – which, for now, doesn’t involve us.
Man, I can already tell this has become the new pre-fabricated quip to handwave any discussions regarding bigotry. “Buuuut they changed the definition!! Let’s go back to the bases, a definition from a reputable (read: written by a straight, wealthy white man) dictionary from the early 1900s or something like that!”
If the dictionaries don’t agree with your definition, your definition is probably wrong. Not really sure how sexuality, race or gender play into how reputable a source is, that comes off as sexist, racist and heterophobic.
The thing is that modern definitions of the issue (you know, those written by contemporary scholars informed by the understanding of society over the last 50 or so years) agree with what I and others here are saying. It’s the people who disagree with those definitions and complain that we should use the super old, obsolete ones as though they were written on stone tablets by God himself the ones I’m calling out.
If you feel the need to “side” with a given definition (rather than understanding that dictionary entries are constantly evolving along with society), you certainly could do better than picking ones established back when we thought that women belonged either in the kitchen or spreaded open on a bed, or that owning other human beings was sometimes alright.
Not sure I get your point here? My main issue is why not invent a term in the first place as opposed to try to overwrite one which already has good explanatory power… It just adds to the confusion. In a sense noone has “changed” the definition, they have just added another one and muddied the water. Language becomes pointless if you don’t know what people are talking about.
The majority of the words you just used were also established by the same society that “thought that women belonged either in the kitchen or spread open on a bed, or that owning other human beings was sometimes alright”. It’s a non-argument where they come from.
That’s a rather silly way of thinking, isn’t it? Why do we need new terms? Language is evolving all the time–along with people, accommodating how we understand things.
And your second paragraph is just too disingenuous: you’ll find out that many of the words I used actually have changed or improved their meaning in the last couple hundred years; because, again, language is constantly evolving. Nevertheless, I’m not saying that words are “wrong” by the mere attribute of being old, rather that newer definitions are more likely to reflect reality as understood by contemporary human beings.
@pylgrim
I think I made it clear why you would need new terms. Clarity. If someone calls someone racist, It’d be nice to know if they meant they are hateful against people of other races, discriminatory against people of other races or powerful and prejudicial towards/against races. Mainly because they are not equally bad.
For example, the government offers greater welfare benefits to people who are aboriginal or Torres Strait islander. That is someone with power being prejudicial based on race. But whether that in itself is a negative thing is still something people are arguing about. Whether intended or not, racism still comes with negative connotations which are far from being removed.
The second paragraph I wrote was to highlight the non-argument that you made in your second paragraph. The majority of the words you have chosen haven’t changed much in the past hundred years.
The solution, and I believe you’d agree with me, would be not using the word “racism” when there’s no racism. And if there’s no racism, why do we need a newfangled term? The issue here is that many people (mostly, you know, racists) think that racism is literally beating a person to death for being X race, or some other similar extreme and not anything that comes a single inch shorter than that. Disparaging comments, jokes, perpetuating economic and cultural inequalities by resisting change, and a long list of other discriminatory, arbitrary and/or generalised beliefs and behaviour are not considered racist by them, thus much complaining about “overusing the word” and demands of “man up, snowflakes!” ensue.
Are you proposing that we have different words for different levels of racism? I don’t think that we do. Racism is racism is racism, no matter the degree of gravity. Even if a given person is not enacting physical or mental violence on specific others, discriminatory beliefs, jokes, etc, are enabling those who do and contributing to perpetuating racism as an institution that a significant amount of people adhere to.
Obviously, there are degrees of gravity, but the punishment warranted for each case is already coded in the law of the land and in the modern social contract: racist behaviour that caused verifiable harm will follow due process in a court of law, while racist behaviour that is harmful to society is called out and condemned by the public at large; it’s not a perfect system but it generally speaking works. If somebody feels annoyed that racist jokes get called out, well, a solution would be to stop making them? It’s not as though making racist jokes is an essential necessity or a core part of one’s identity… unless, you know, it is, and repudiating them into irrelevancy is justified.
What? Who in the world is calling that prejudicial? It’s something called restitution or reparations. That’s a clear case of the word “racism” not belonging. It seriously boggles my mind try to understand how it could be considered discrimination.
But they have changed! Some more than others, grab an etymology dictionary and you may be surprised. Obviously, some meanings are bound to be redefined more profoundly, especially those that are loaded. “Racism” may be the one that changed the most among the ones in that short paragraph but everyday in our lives we use words that mean something entirely different (sometimes, even the opposite!) of what they meant when coined. New is always more /relevant/ than old.
@pylgrim
I would agree with you there, but what racism are you talking about when people shouldn’t use the term “racism” prejudice? Or P+P? And while I agree there are people who think that racism is solely abuse of racial groups, there is the other problem of people thinking all jokes about race are racist, all white people are racist (that has made it into some academic works, in the notion of an antiracist-racist), and that being against illegal immigration is racist.
We do have different words for differing levels of racial intolerance. Discrimination, prejudice, racial, racism, supremacy. They all deal with differing levels of people operating with races differently
It is prejudicial because it is not based on who they are, but what they are. Without knowing anything other than their ethnicity, the government makes the assumption that they are doing worse off than the other people on Centrelink, and require a boost. The government pre-judges the individual based solely on race.
So in a look into this I was trying to find places where the P+P definition was used in collaborative works (as opposed to just one person writing a paper). In the following books/textbooks racism is not defined using P+P, but rather just prejudice:
A Dictionary of Sociology (Scott & Marshal)
Open Education Sociology Dictionary (Online)
Dictionary of Sociology (Penguin)
Dictionary of Sociology and Allied Sciences (Bhatia)
Introduction to Sociology (Openstax College)
Sociology: The Core (Hughes et al)
Introduction to Sociology (Wikibooks)
Society: The Basics (Macionis)
Sociology: The Study of Human Relationships (Holt et al)
Essentials of Sociology: A down to earth approach (Henslin)
Introduction to Sociology:A Collaborative approach (O’Dell et al)
Introduction to Sociology (Ritzer & Guppy)
Essentials of Sociology (Brinkerhoff)
Learn Sociology (Brent, Lewis)
Social Psychology (Myers)
Racial and Ethnic groups (Schaefer)
Thirty Readings in Introductory Sociology (Gould & Lewis)
Social Problems (Kornblum & Julian)
The one source that I did manage to find (and it was only one) which was not a single persons article was in the Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology (Turner):
“Racism refers to the overall relations of domination and subordination between groups that flow from the hierarchial structuring of a given society based on racial distinctions”
Which it then prefaces with:
“In sociology, where the distinction between race and ethnicity is uncertain, it is best to limit “racism” to structures in which race is explicitly used to effect social domination” (bold added for emphasis).
So I’m starting to think this might just all be based off of some bad facts people were dishing out somewhere down the line. I did, of course, find Bidol’s book Developing New Perspectives on Race: An Innovative Multi-media Social Studies Curriculum in Racism Awareness for the Secondary Level, where she coined the definition. Something to note there is the word ‘curriculum’, meaning she wrote a teaching guide where she invented a new definition for a preexisting term.
I think an important distinction that needs to be made in this argument is that although behaviours can be inherently racist, they don’t necessarily mean that the perpetrator is /a racist/. That’s what happens when discriminatory behaviour becomes institutionalised! Even if it eventually becomes de-institutionalised at large, whole swaths of people, across generations, have been raised within an internalised, normalised discriminatory behaviour. So racist jokes, are racist, no matter how genially, innocently, or lightheartedly it was meant to be by the speaker. They are remnants of true, systemic racism and tolerating them helps perpetuate that invisible undercurrent of normalised racism.
Now, here’s the part where I can agree with you: we can and should do better when condemning racist jokes or other similar, potentially subconscious or made in legitimately good, yet ignorant, faith. We (I, particularly) need to become better at patiently, kindly trying to explain the context and impact of such things before crying out “racist!” Indubitably, sometimes we’ll be facing true dyed-in-the-wool racists that will laugh us off, but hopefully, better people will understand. Unfortunately, the knee-jerk hostility we’ve responded with in the past have already created a scenario where even non-racists dismiss any attempts of conversation due to overexposure. This is compounded by the fact that the actual racists are very organised and cunning and they are continuously decrying and/or mocking the efforts of people trying to combat racism, and we only help them in this task when we react with fury or indignation.
Regarding welfare for aboriginals and islanders, I’m going to encourage you to apply the level of impressive research you applied to the definition of racism. The reason why it exists is literally an act of reparations, an acknowledgment that the disfavourable conditions that many of those folks experience in the present are a direct consequence of institutionalised discrimination, disenfranchisement and even violence against their forefathers. It is not about who is doing poorly or not, it’s about making amends to whole communities.
Lastly, I want to touch upon the last quote that you presented: “In sociology, where the distinction between race and ethnicity is uncertain, it is best to limit “racism” to structures in which race is explicitly used to effect social domination”. I’m not sure you realise this is actually an agreement with the P+P definition? It implies that racism is a tool used at the society’s level for domination. The element of power is in there. Without power, a racist commentary is just a despicable insult. With power, it becomes a tool to take power away from others, effectively increasing one’s. I think the important part of the quote is that sets the stage at the social level. I’m sure that you could convince me that a given number of POC are racist (against whites or maybe other races), in the same way that jokes can be racist. But unless they have enough power (and/or numbers) their racism has inconsequential social impact. Their hatred can (and does) affect the people who interact with them at the personal level, but otherwise does very little to diminish the experience of their hated race by large.
That’s why I support the P+P definition. if well understood and applied it can counteract the many fallacious, deflective arguments and false equivalencies that often pop up when you’re trying to talk about racism: “but they are racist too, against us!”, etc.
I find it quite interesting trying to guess which articles will actually draw comments. I wonder whether low comment articles aren’t read as often (maybe because they slip down the page too quickly and are missed) or whether they’re just not interesting enough. Or yeah, maybe articles like this one are a comments black hole, sucking in all the people who would post otherwise.
It’s probably more people have an opinion on the subject. Nintendo releasing some game doesn’t phase me either way as I don’t care so I have no opinion worth voicing.
These types of topics do effect many people, so naturally most people have some opinion on it.
The first step to equality is understanding and accepting everyone is an individial.
I haven’t until now commented on this article but have been accused of atrocities and labelled negative things purely based on my race and gender, but some how I am the bad guy just for existing. We don’t exactly get a choice in our race or gender.
I can see both sides to this debate, well main sides, as there are many different views here, but an awful lot of opinions here seem to be dwelling on the past, not looking forward. Change happens through action not arguing the past, especially when so much of history is misunderstood by those sprouting it.
Will we ever achieve equality? Doubtful. We can’t even agree on what the word means. As I said at the start, everyone is an individual… and you can’t please everyone.
So… What have you said here, exactly? That everyone needs to just get over the past, despite the fact that the problems are clearly still happening?
Because they’re clearly still happening. Because one conference designed to give a leg up to the disadvantaged has now been screened about by the people who have not been disdvantaged simply because they can’t have Literally Everything.
I’ve said many things but I see you have focused on one. The short answer to that is yes. Unless you want to play tit for tat for ever.
The rest of your response I am not sure where that refers to my comment.
Welcome to the club. We have t-shirts. There are those, even in here, who would see the world divided into castes by such traits and claim it’s because of the sins of our fathers.
A factor that also seems to play some part is the lack of knowledge on past wrongs. We are no where near equality yet but we are now seeing generations where there are all sorts of focus groups and programmes for girls in schools. For the boys in the same school that are ignorant to the reasoning behind it. It can look like they are being hard done by.
That’s why we need education and debate that includes everyone and to listen and educate.
People who are quick to react over one meeting may be under privileged white males that grew up with equality programmes that favor women and who have a genuine reason to personally feel hard done by. These people shouldn’t be discredited, called a nazi or what ever the flavour of the month for people who disagree with views is being called, or told they are wrong, they should be educated, included in the conversations.
I didn’t see this second post before I wrote mine. Nevermind. This answered my question.
I didn’t see this post before i responded to your response. Nevermind.
Amd it was a bad response from me as well. I said yes but not in a forget the past way yes but more a don’t think because someones for fathers did something that the following generations should pay for it.
An individual may not be responsible, but we as a group who have decided to live together owe it to each other to make sure that generational disadvantage is addressed. It’s not a matter of punishing someone for what their ancestors did. It’s acknowledging that one person was born into better circumstances as a result of past wings and doing something to boost the people who copped the shitty end of the stick. That means done people will end up getting less, but they’re the people who got more by default.
Past wrongs. Some people.
I’d edit my comment, but apparently editing anything flags it for moderation hell for no reason.
True, but say you have little Jonny and little Jenny.
They are both in year 11, they have both come from the same socioeconomic background and have had the same levels of education and family stability, they are both also gunning for a spot in a scholarship at their school, there are only 3 placements per year.
Year 12 rolls around and an announcement is made that because the scholarship is now only open to girls. Little Jonny has done nothing wrong and worked just as hard but because of other people he now misses out based on his gender. I can see little Jonny being quite upset.
Now yes it is an out there and extreme example, but flip Jonny and Jenny around and go back a few decades, that’s how it was against women, men got it all. Then revert it to the way I put it and it is, playing tit for tat.
Take from one give to the other is not equal.
In striving for equality we should be judging people on their merits regardless of their gender.
But the scholarship for both boys and girls hasn’t been removed. There is a new scholarship only for girls. Besides, taking from one and giving to the other is equal if the one already got more than their fair share.
The fact is we don’t judge people on their merits. we never have. Starting now and pretending that the past never happened isn’t enough because there are entrenched advantages based on past happenings.
If Johnny and Jenny are in a running race and Jenny isn’t allowed to wear shoes, that’s unfair. Stopping the race halfway and letting her put shoes on makes it better, but the fact is, she still can’t be expected to win after the restart because Johnny already got a head start. Forcing both to restart the race on equal footing (ha) isn’t really fair to Johnny. He didn’t do anything wrong by having shoes. But the advantage he got was already unfair. Taking that away from him might upset him, but it’s taking away something he should never have had in the first place. It’s not fair to him and it’s unfortunate that it makes things harder for him, but it’s the least unfair way to proceed. It’s not about tit for tat. It’s not about punishing Johnny.
This is what the whole “check your privilege” thing is about. It’s not trying to shut people down or make them feel bad for being lucky. It’s about trying to push people to realise that they are unfairly advantaged. It’s not their fault, but it’s a fact and if they care about true fairness, they need to acknowledge that.
Why is jonny more privileged then jenny?
Because, as established, education institutions and the workforce have a history of favouring men over women. So even if it’s equal now, Jenny had less opportunity going into all of this, so giving her a boost goes toward putting her on an equal footing overall without disadvantaging Johnny. Because the old scholarship hasn’t disappeared. In fact, it advantages him, too. Because Jenny having more options for scholarships means less competition for the one Johnny is eligible for.
The STEM gap is actually around as large as the overall university entrants gap. With the former having men the dominant group and the latter, women. Given that equality is the goal here, and actions are being taken to address the STEM gap, what is being done to address the overall university entrants gap (Which affects a greater number of people by definition of it including the STEM fields).
It’s really the lack of consistency that people have issues with here. The result is a non-identitarian approach, which is at least a system which treats people fairly, but may result in natural divergence.
Except attaching check your privilege to one deciding factor completely and utterly removes any nuance for every individual
Does privilege exist? Of course it does. But you cannot just blanket statement that because your intentions become horribly skewed and misinterpreted. For every level of privilege there is also an underlying social structure that provides “underprivileged”. To folks bullied in school by both genders how was being “male” privileged because you were branded the outcast? To a person born in a low socio economic area how does skin color become privilege when you are living with plastic bag as your blanket?
I was born in a low ecomomic South East Asian country and saw grew up seeing real poverty because of social standings and factors. I was lucky to be born in a middle class and we moved to australia. I get the general idea behind the “check your privilege” because sadly there is always someone worse off than in your position and you should be grateful for the opportunities youve had and worked for. However the current application of it has turned too much as a catch all excuse to not listen to someone by becoming the equivalent of “you wouldnt understand” due to attaching “privilege” to just one factor. Its not the phrase or intention behind it thats the issue its the application
it doesn’t remove nuance. That’s where things like intersectionality come in. Which is why being an Asian woman is different to being an Asian man. Or being a gay Asian man is different to being a straight Asian woman.
On first glance I’m the poster child for being told to check my privilege. I’m a straight white man from a wealthy country with a good education and a good job. But I grew up poor, which is an experience my friend who comes from the exact same background except that his family wasn’t poor will never understand. Or my old girlfriend who was white, straight, went to one of the USA’s best universities and was disgustingly wealthy, but had a fucked up home life.
There are many ways a person can be advantaged or disadvantaged and just because you know about one of them doesn’t mean you know anything about another. So if you haven’t lived it and someone who has tells you that you don’t understand, it’s because you don’t.
This comment thread makes me happy. I see intelligent discussion being upvoted for once and the usual virtue signalling being downvoted for a change.
Hahah yeah, justify all those downvotes you used across the thread by fallacy-ing real arguments with that quippy, empty catchphrase of cynical people with no real arguments of their own, “virtue-signaling”. The fact that the same bunch of 8 people or so heavily circlejerk-voted each other doesn’t mean that they are right, but of course you know that, same as you know that a downvote is not a legitimate counter-argument but rather, an attempt to silencing opposition by dumping them into automoderation. Keep up the good work.
Back under your bridge troll.
Pylgrim is one of the good ones! They are wrong (IMO), but they are articulate about their reasons. This seems to be a combination of saltiness towards the up/downvote system (which probably shouldn’t lead to automoderation, that’s what flagging is for) and towards the “virtue-signalling” thing, which can be a misnomer in the same way mansplaining or bigot are.
Pretty much, thanks. There are people here with whom I somewhat frequently disagree and knock heads with, but I can respect. Some others using dishonest or lazy arguments or underhanded strategies such as chronic downvoting or piling up… not so much.
Says the person who other than downvoting arguments that he didn’t like, his only contribution to the discussion was to push the fallacy that the arguments being upvoted are right and “intelligent”. The same person who has hypocritically criticised downvotes in other threads, when they were used against arguments he favours. The same person who when being called out on this, can only muster a weak ad hominem.
please can one of you lefty gender warrior male ally (funny how male ally is started to sound like sex pest in my head) fruit cakes tell me where do i go to publicly apologise for being born with a cock and beg forgiveness from all the women i have “somehow” hurt simply by existing.
i hope u can handle the truth as i confess my sins here as i have determined this to be the public forum i have been searching for.
i am personally responsible for 2.5 cents of the wage gap i have contributed to the sexual harassment of 3.78 women in the last 11.8 years one time i saw a little girl playing with a chemistry set and i made that dirty traitor swap it for a barbie. i can’t remember any of the other bullshit feminist talking points right now. D=
Please point where I or anybody else in this thread has said anything about anybody deserving blame just for being a male. That’s fallacious, overreacting thinking trying to make a strawman of the argument being presented. But here’s a helpful primer: If you are a sexist male, we call you out; if you are a non-sexist male we won’t call you out. How does that sound?
i apologise i completely straw-manned your position this is a bad topic for me i am surrounded by 3rd wave super lunatic feminists at work (there are only 2 men where i work and 9 women) they appear to have affected my brain.
I know it may be hard, some people can be too much and some definitely take things too far. I appreciate your apology, thanks for writing.
+ 1-on-1 resume review & feedback
+ Art + Champions/Skins Design
+ How to be a Producer
+ Narrative Writing
+ Production Careers
+ Game Design
+ Advanced Cosplay
+ Meditation / quiet space hour (except Sunday)
+ An AMA with a Rioter
More for the people saying this is to fix some sort of inequality. What advantage is it you think women lack which would mean they would require additional help on the above topics (the itinerary of the meeting), as opposed to men. I can almost understand gender segregation if the itinerary included any gendered topics, but here it just looks like segregation for segregation’s sake.