09-27-2015, 04:53 PM
I read into the article differently than you, apparently. Although I do agree with your point that it doesn't mention anything about other forms of harassment such as harassment of LGBT members and the likes. That being said, it's also somewhat true.
Anita and Zoe get flak, even death threats, because they dare to be women game players or game makers. I'm not saying that men aren't harassed online, and neither were they contrary to what you seem to be implying. But my online harassment is generally not anywhere the same level as even non-celeb women I've seen undergo.
Sure in Halo 2 I'd get called a faggot, or a pussy, a or a little girl. That was because I sucked. If I was winning (miraculously) I'd get called a cheater, a lucky noob, or a cheap player. You could argue some of those insults are gender based...I'm called a gay man or a woman's genitals because they believe that those gender-related identities are less important or worse to be than what I am: A man.
But when a female player of the same game that I played alongside would be losing as bad as me (okay, so maybe not as bad as me, but also not winning) she would get a totally different kind of insults: "Get back in the kitchen, you don't know how to play games!" "What is your period too strong, you can't concentrate?" "This is why I hate the auto-team generator in the lobby, it always pairs me with little kids and girls, that's why my win-loss rating is so bad!" Or they'd call her a cunt, a bitch, or a dyke.
If she was winning then they'd claim she was having sex with someone on their team that she kept getting the drop on because there was no possible way she could be better than a crappy male player on their team, she had to have flown seven hundred miles to Arizona to give him a blowjob and convince him not to play effectively in the thirteen seconds it took for the map and teams to load.
The different here being that when I had gender-based insults thrown at me it was by comparing me to the opposing gender. Insinuating that I wasn't good at a certain game, so I must therefore either be a gay man or a woman; which they equivocated to the same thing, basically. Or I'd be insulted for my style of game play that it wasn't manly enough or I wasn't skilled enough and therefore didn't deserve to win.
But my female associate who was playing the same game (and significantly better than I) got gender-based insults because she was a woman. The difference in me getting called a bitch compared to her getting called a bitch is the difference that we're both being called women, essentially.
Let's look at another scenario. I come around the corner and get slashed with the sword. The sword-wielder steps over my corpse's head and taps the crouch button repeatedly to tea-bag me. He then says over his mic, "You probably like that, don't you faggot?" Because he feels that calling a straight male player a gay male will eviscerate him emotionally.
Same thing, but with the female player. He gets the drop on her, kills her with the sword, then tea-bags her avatar. Only this time he says, "God I wish I could actually do this to you. I'd hunt you down and jam my nuts down your throat." Because he feels that as a woman, she should be subservient and passive to him. He claims I'd enjoy giving him a blowjob because I surely can't be a real man if I lost to him; but at the same time he claims that she won't enjoy giving him a blowjob, but he'll make her do it anyway because there's nothing she could possibly do to stop a great machismo like himself.
There is a strong anti-woman core of people online, in the real world, and in gaming. Pointing it out doesn't necessarily mean that they believe there is no harassment of other people. And if you actually Zoe, Anita, or many of the others who spoke in that meeting, you'd see that they do voice the fight for LGBT people, non-white races, and even male gamers.
The point is...they are women getting harassed simply for being women. So what do they fight for? To stop the harassment of women.
If you were a U.S. Marine in Fallujah would you cry foul that your unit was called to protect another U.S. Marine unit, "The full-birds just turned combat into a Marine problem! Now this will make it that much harder for Army lieutenants get attacked harassed to call for reinforcements, because they will be looked at as weak for trying!"
I would think not. Pointing out how an issue affects one group of people - especially a group who may statistically get more vitriol than others - does not necessarily mean that you are ignoring the other groups the issue affects.
Anita and Zoe get flak, even death threats, because they dare to be women game players or game makers. I'm not saying that men aren't harassed online, and neither were they contrary to what you seem to be implying. But my online harassment is generally not anywhere the same level as even non-celeb women I've seen undergo.
Sure in Halo 2 I'd get called a faggot, or a pussy, a or a little girl. That was because I sucked. If I was winning (miraculously) I'd get called a cheater, a lucky noob, or a cheap player. You could argue some of those insults are gender based...I'm called a gay man or a woman's genitals because they believe that those gender-related identities are less important or worse to be than what I am: A man.
But when a female player of the same game that I played alongside would be losing as bad as me (okay, so maybe not as bad as me, but also not winning) she would get a totally different kind of insults: "Get back in the kitchen, you don't know how to play games!" "What is your period too strong, you can't concentrate?" "This is why I hate the auto-team generator in the lobby, it always pairs me with little kids and girls, that's why my win-loss rating is so bad!" Or they'd call her a cunt, a bitch, or a dyke.
If she was winning then they'd claim she was having sex with someone on their team that she kept getting the drop on because there was no possible way she could be better than a crappy male player on their team, she had to have flown seven hundred miles to Arizona to give him a blowjob and convince him not to play effectively in the thirteen seconds it took for the map and teams to load.
The different here being that when I had gender-based insults thrown at me it was by comparing me to the opposing gender. Insinuating that I wasn't good at a certain game, so I must therefore either be a gay man or a woman; which they equivocated to the same thing, basically. Or I'd be insulted for my style of game play that it wasn't manly enough or I wasn't skilled enough and therefore didn't deserve to win.
But my female associate who was playing the same game (and significantly better than I) got gender-based insults because she was a woman. The difference in me getting called a bitch compared to her getting called a bitch is the difference that we're both being called women, essentially.
Let's look at another scenario. I come around the corner and get slashed with the sword. The sword-wielder steps over my corpse's head and taps the crouch button repeatedly to tea-bag me. He then says over his mic, "You probably like that, don't you faggot?" Because he feels that calling a straight male player a gay male will eviscerate him emotionally.
Same thing, but with the female player. He gets the drop on her, kills her with the sword, then tea-bags her avatar. Only this time he says, "God I wish I could actually do this to you. I'd hunt you down and jam my nuts down your throat." Because he feels that as a woman, she should be subservient and passive to him. He claims I'd enjoy giving him a blowjob because I surely can't be a real man if I lost to him; but at the same time he claims that she won't enjoy giving him a blowjob, but he'll make her do it anyway because there's nothing she could possibly do to stop a great machismo like himself.
There is a strong anti-woman core of people online, in the real world, and in gaming. Pointing it out doesn't necessarily mean that they believe there is no harassment of other people. And if you actually Zoe, Anita, or many of the others who spoke in that meeting, you'd see that they do voice the fight for LGBT people, non-white races, and even male gamers.
The point is...they are women getting harassed simply for being women. So what do they fight for? To stop the harassment of women.
If you were a U.S. Marine in Fallujah would you cry foul that your unit was called to protect another U.S. Marine unit, "The full-birds just turned combat into a Marine problem! Now this will make it that much harder for Army lieutenants get attacked harassed to call for reinforcements, because they will be looked at as weak for trying!"
I would think not. Pointing out how an issue affects one group of people - especially a group who may statistically get more vitriol than others - does not necessarily mean that you are ignoring the other groups the issue affects.