@mietze said:
It's nice that some people can't even fucking imagine anyone saying "if she bleeds she can breed" grossness to a 13 year old. I'm going to guess though that /you don't have one/. Well, I can't not fucking imagine it, because I've seen many things like it. Directed at mine, and her friends, and at other slightly older but still very young kids in "gamer geek territory" and outside it. And fuck yes the mama bear comes right the fuck out. (And I research any new place like whoa before we do). I /envy/ you if you can't imagine it.
That's why it's important to have conversations like this. Personally I can't imagine not reacting strongly if a child - anyone's - is addressed that way, but that's where communication breaks down some. For example my first explanation here was that maybe my choice of gaming venues excludes places where that would come up, which doesn't make sense since you explicitly state you research such places ahead of time. And while I've met objectionable people during my gaming I truly can't fathom anyone who'd act that way - but again my inability to even consider it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
So how does it? I mean who does it - are they, for lack of a better term, weirdos? Do they seem to come from a particularly skewed demographic? Do they act differently (more appropriately perhaps) when other men are around?
Give us some insights and we can keep an eye out. Maybe not for your daughter but someone else's.
@Arkandel said:
@mietze said:
It's nice that some people can't even fucking imagine anyone saying "if she bleeds she can breed" grossness to a 13 year old. I'm going to guess though that /you don't have one/. Well, I can't not fucking imagine it, because I've seen many things like it. Directed at mine, and her friends, and at other slightly older but still very young kids in "gamer geek territory" and outside it. And fuck yes the mama bear comes right the fuck out. (And I research any new place like whoa before we do). I /envy/ you if you can't imagine it.
That's why it's important to have conversations like this. Personally I can't imagine not reacting strongly if a child - anyone's - is addressed that way, but that's where communication breaks down some. For example my first explanation here was that maybe my choice of gaming venues excludes places where that would come up, which doesn't make sense since you explicitly state you research such places ahead of time. And while I've met objectionable people during my gaming I truly can't fathom anyone who'd act that way - but again my inability to even consider it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
So how does it? I mean who does it - are they, for lack of a better term, weirdos? Do they seem to come from a particularly skewed demographic? Do they act differently (more appropriately perhaps) when other men are around?
Give us some insights and we can keep an eye out. Maybe not for your daughter but someone else's.
One of the biggest mistakes I see guys make is think that the kind of guys who harass women are all losers and weirdos. They're not. Sexual harassment and sexual assault is too commonplace. If you want to be serious in being a man on the side of women in this, get used to the idea that someone who's your friend is probably guilty of something. Someone you probably wouldn't expect. Tons of harassers have friends who would never think in a million years they'd be such an asshole. These friends are usually (but not always) other men. For every woman who's been scared off of a geek group/tabletop group/circle of friends by one bad egg, there's usually more who went quietly into the night before her.
One of the biggest things I can say is to just pay more attention if you have women in a group with you. A lot of stuff starts with comments you might find innocuous because you're not used to thinking about them. Call us SJW whiners if you want, but dumb sexist jokes pave the way for gross sexist jokes which pave the way for worse and worse. Harassment proliferates where others remain silent. Some harassers do keep their worst comments quiet until they're in private, but I think more than you're expecting happens in front of other people.
These issues don't happen because other men are absent to deter them. They happen because other men don't notice or say anything. They happen because men read a long account of a woman's history of being harassed in geek cultures, and they say things like "I'm calling bullshit" or "Well I didn't really like how it's written" or "That's probably exaggerated" or "I'm not saying she's lying, but..." or "Wow I really can't imagine that happening" or "Well stop hanging out in [this hobby that the man would probably never consider leaving themselves if they were harassed, because they'd consider it their right to not be harassed]." Commenting on personal accounts of women's harassment like that is a luxury. And it's easy. And it's just the first step in building these atmospheres in harassment.
Believe women. Believe it when all the women commenting just here are saying, "Yup, I can believe it." Believe it when the vast majority of women can say, "Yeah, I've been sexually harassed recently." Because the things that guys can't believe about what we say we experience is the fucking background noise our entire lives.
I literally just had the urge to say something like, "Sorry for going on a rant there," because women are constantly taught to apologize for the space they take up, but I'm not really sorry. This shit is important. The fact that I feel strongly about it is a reasonable, proportional reaction to the situation.
Please believe that there are truths in the world that you can't imagine but that are nevertheless true.
They look like everyone else. They sound like everyone else.
There's no way to give you a type of person to look out for. I assure you, you know some. But here is one big red flag:
If someone justifies shitty comments or their behavior with "Learn to take a joke" or "I was just joking, don't be so sensitive"? That's the guy.
I'm not surprised that guys object "But I don't see it in MY social group", but it is disappointing. Are you looking for it? Really? Are you paying attention to the offhanded comments your peers make to/about females? Be honest with yourself. I know when I'm playing a game or engaging in a hobby, I'm usually pretty focused on what I'm doing (or about to do, you best believe Armageddon is coming out because screw your board state).
I'm reminded of a conversation I had not long ago with some VERY ethical, wonderful men. Men who would never condone this kind of behavior, and would absolutely speak out if they saw it. They were boggled. "Do men really randomly tell you to smile?" One asked.
They had no idea it was a real thing, when it is absolutely a real thing that I'd say close to 100% of women experience. Is it harassment? Not always, it's a mild example. But it goes to show how things you don't think about/experience can fly completely under your radar.
Yeah, sadly, I didn't find that part of that story all that shocking, because I've been the teenage girl in the creepy-ass gaming store, and I suspect a lot of us have. Nothing terrible happened to me, but men who behave in radically different ways around women who are by themselves (particularly very young women) than they ever would in mixed company aren't people you can ID until they're doing something awful. Granted, this isn't a gaming culture thing as I see it, but more a thing that happens in small business settings where the owner and his employees aren't really accountable to anyone but themselves.
@Roz said:
One of the biggest things I can say is to just pay more attention if you have women in a group with you. A lot of stuff starts with comments you might find innocuous because you're not used to thinking about them. Call us SJW whiners if you want, but dumb sexist jokes pave the way for gross sexist jokes which pave the way for worse and worse. Harassment proliferates where others remain silent. Some harassers do keep their worst comments quiet until they're in private, but I think more than you're expecting happens in front of other people.
So this is a thing: Men give men a hard time. It's not to say girls can't be mean - to each other or otherwise - but the level of crudeness in an all-male conversation, which may but isn't necessarily about sexist stuff might surprise. For me to notice a guy is actually being a dick to someone he'd need to take it above that level, right? Because it's what puzzles me, since in my experience (I know, it's only my experience but what else do I have?) men are more restrained in the presence of chicks, not less so. That is, it takes most of my geekfriends far longer to think it's okay to say, swear around girls let alone joke around at anywhere near the same extent - and it's always more civil.
That's why I asked if you spot things when they are in isolation and not in mixed settings. I am not disputing that it happens, I am saying that if it's either not perceived at all ("it was just Bob being Bob!") or Bob waits until he manages to be relatively alone with a girl. But you say it's the former, not the latter:
These issues don't happen because other men are absent to deter them. They happen because other men don't notice or say anything. They happen because men read a long account of a woman's history of being harassed in geek cultures, and they say things like "I'm calling bullshit" or "Well I didn't really like how it's written" or "That's probably exaggerated" or "I'm not saying she's lying, but..." or "Wow I really can't imagine that happening" or "Well stop hanging out in [this hobby that the man would probably never consider leaving themselves if they were harassed, because they'd consider it their right to not be harassed]." Commenting on personal accounts of women's harassment like that is a luxury. And it's easy. And it's just the first step in building these atmospheres in harassment.
I don't care what I read about or who I think is exaggerating, and in this I'm hardly the exception here - if a store owner in a place I was at made a breeding comment at a thirteen year old girl it wouldn't end well. I mean what we were discussing here wasn't a borderline case between flirting and going too far, it was physical molestation (grabbing someone's ass out of the blue), crude comments made to minors, etc. There is no way in hell those would go unnoticed or not called out. I mean they wouldn't, there's just no damn way. So what gives?
Believe women. Believe it when all the women commenting just here are saying, "Yup, I can believe it." Believe it when the vast majority of women can say, "Yeah, I've been sexually harassed recently." Because the things that guys can't believe about what we say we experience is the fucking background noise our entire lives.
I believe it. I just don't know how to help. What kinds of things should I be looking for? What am I missing? When does this happen? How? What forms does it take?
I literally just had the urge to say something like, "Sorry for going on a rant there," because women are constantly taught to apologize for the space they take up, but I'm not really sorry. This shit is important. The fact that I feel strongly about it is a reasonable, proportional reaction to the situation.
There's no need for an apology from you any more than I would apologize because I also happen to have a penis.
Women don't always necessarily notice it until it's pointed out. I used to say that I'd never been harassed really, but reading other women's accounts I realized that I'd actually just been minimizing shit that happened to me for years, like when I was 17 and working front desk at a budget hotel and started using my LOTR ring of power as a fake wedding ring so that truckers would stop leering at me, or when I was traveling for a job interview and had people shout random shit at me in the parking lot of a different hotel in the middle of the night, or when I was 19, stopped by the side of the road with engine trouble, and had random dudes drive by in their truck and yell dumb shit at me and a friend -- the male friend I was with at the time was more disturbed than I was because he was like what the fuck was that about and I was basically just like ???? ... or stuff you don't even notice like "Hey, smile! Why aren't you smiling?" or ... you know, I could go on. I've got some weirdass stories as a female public defender, let me tell you.
But the fact is, a lot of the time this stuff is so pervasive, low-level, background noise, that it's EASY not to notice. Even when it is happening to me. As a nerd I'm not always super aware of my surroundings even when they are relevant to me personally. I'm sure the same is true for many male nerds. I'm not passing a moral judgment on this. But just because you don't notice a thing doesn't mean it isn't there.
@Arkandel said:
I just don't know how to help. What kinds of things should I be looking for? What am I missing? When does this happen? How? What forms does it take?
How to help:
To figure out whether a behavior is right or wrong, don't ask yourself whether or not you would react similarly if subjected to the same. Instead, ask yourself: would I feel uncomfortable if someone that I found very unattractive would did the same to me?
It's a good start. Nothing is perfect. There will always be some amount of harassment. The best thing to do is to stop it, if you notice it.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
@Ganymede said:
would I feel uncomfortable if someone that I found very unattractive would did the same to me?
I agree on the rest but not on this point.
Why should it matter who you find unattractive? Molestation is not more acceptable because the other person has supermodel looks. I mean I get it but it sets the bar at a pretty bad place, you know? The guy is a creep if he's unattractive but charming and quirky if he's not?
@Arkandel said:
@Ganymede said:
would I feel uncomfortable if someone that I found very unattractive would did the same to me?
I agree on the rest but not on this point.
Why should it matter who you find unattractive? Molestation is not more acceptable because the other person has supermodel looks. I mean I get it but it sets the bar at a pretty bad place, you know? The guy is a creep if he's unattractive but charming and quirky if he's not?
That's not the point Ganymede is making. The point is that women are used to hearing that things aren't that bad, are just compliments, are just jokes, etc. The idea is trying to offer you a way to mentally replicate the experience we're going through in some way. Try to think of comments as coming repeatedly from someone you 100% -- 200% -- are not interested in. That you really, really don't want to hear the comments from.
It's actually a common argument I've heard that women only care when the guy commenting isn't hot -- exactly as you were kind of misunderstanding -- which is actually not at all true. Unwanted behavior is unwanted behavior and plenty of women have plenty of experiences receiving it from guys they would have found physically attractive otherwise.
It's just that guys often can't really wrap their heads around receiving this sort of treatment from someone they fervently aren't interested in, so I think Ganymede was trying to offer a sort of mental shortcut to help you better understand the feeling.
@Roz - Fair enough. I don't think we need shortcuts here - it's not reading comprehension that's the problem but rather actionable observations - but I understand where you're coming from.
I blame some part of this on pop culture, also. Obviously not all of it (women are treated truly horribly in places where movies aren't even played) but how many films have we watched where the guy just never gave up on the girl even though she wasn't interested? And he was the romantic hero for doing so. She just didn't see the real him until he opened her eyes to the truth.
Would you really stand up for the 13 year old especially? How would you spot her? As was said to me in "defense" when I ripped a man a new one who was making my daughter uncomfortable "how was I to know she's 12, mom? She's tall and has tits".
Because what do you expect, dressing up at a con. Grow a thicker skin if you make that comment, boys will be boys, rape threats from Internet strangers aren't real threats, don't be such a pussy. What do you expect, wearing that women's cut mine craft shirt to the game store with all these guys around? You sure you want to make a fuss, why don't you just try to enjoy yourself at the rest of con. Maybe your kid shouldn't dress up as her favorite anime character until she's legal. So and so is such a great guy, you must have totally misinterpreted what he said--he probably meant it as a complement.
It is really really hard sometimes to raise happy, confident, street smart geeky kids. I wasn't prepared for the amount of fear and rage I would experience as a geek mom, with kids following in my footsteps. I don't want to infect any of my children with fear. I'm trying to give them the experience and guided freedom to be able to pick out men and women in any crowd who could help them if they felt unsafe and I wasn't there. I want me kid to find you and your friends @Arkandel, when she or he is in an uncomfortable situation and needs safe people near. But my god it is hard trying to explain how difficult it is to try give pointers on how to spot this going on if you can't see it. I don't know.
@Arkandel said:
I blame some part of this on pop culture, also. Obviously not all of it (women are treated truly horribly in places where movies aren't even played) but how many films have we watched where the guy just never gave up on the girl even though she wasn't interested? And he was the romantic hero for doing so. She just didn't see the real him until he opened her eyes to the truth.
Oh, absolutely. This woman's post actually linked a great article on just that. I could remember reading it two years ago when it came out.
And yes, absolutely I speak to my sons about this too--not necessarily about women per se as much, but my expectations of how they treat other people while gaming, ect. They know that there will be hell to pay if I ever find them ganging up and harassing or bullying anyone whether it's in Xbox live or the Magic mini tournament. Trash talk is okay, but there is a line and we talk about that a lot. How to spot when you've crossed that for someone else. Places I don't care if that's where everyone goes I expect that you do not (rape threats, calling someone by racist or homophobic slurs, threatening to harm anyone or their loved ones).
People think that this should be innate understanding, I'm not sure it is. But that's why we talk about it, why I'm not afraid to speak up if I hear any of my kids totally trashing someone no matter what gender they are, and I will step in if I hear one of their friends calling people "faggot" or "nigger" over the Xbox. (They don't have headsets).
So I am trying to do my part too in the next generation. But god it is so hard to see what is out there still happening with /adults/ who really have no excuse at all.
@Roz said:
Unwanted behavior is unwanted behavior and plenty of women have plenty of experiences receiving it from guys they would have found physically attractive otherwise.
This is what I would have said if I wasn't deliberately trying to bait you.
... I think Ganymede was trying to offer a sort of mental shortcut to help you better understand the feeling.
I used the word attractive to goad you into thinking that it was about appearance. I'm a jerk like that.
A woman can find someone attractive no matter what they look like, so the word attractive should not be limited to physical appearance alone. And if a woman is, in fact, attracted to someone, they may find the witless insinuations charming or cute. But the way to figure out if your witless insinuations will have the desired effect is to treat them like a normal human being, and get to know a little more about them by engaging in casual, respectful banter.
Coincidentally, the same may increase the likelihood that your witless insinuations will be seen as just that, and not a warning that they may end up tied up and gagged in a basement.
@mietze said:
Would you really stand up for the 13 year old especially? How would you spot her? As was said to me in "defense" when I ripped a man a new one who was making my daughter uncomfortable "how was I to know she's 12, mom? She's tall and has tits".
Perhaps we should not just stand up for 13 year olds especially, or young girls, or women. We should also stand up for the openly-gay cosplayer, and the bi-racial couple. Fuck, we should stand up for anyone regardless of size, age, sex, or whatever against people who think it's okay to all someone a fag, queer, nigger, spic, nip, or some other derogatory term.
"Boys will be boys" is a comment to motive, not a plea for leniency.
I was raised by a rather progressive mother. She may not be very feminist on the surface (she has issues separating radical misandry from the word "feminism", I don't know why) but the core values are there and she instilled them early in me and my brother, which is why even when my brother and I are fighting like rabid raccoons, when we find ourselves in certain situations, we are in complete synchronicity.
Anyway, I have a story relevant to this topic that I think you guys will appreciate. It happened about seven or eight years ago during a party my brother hosted at our place while my mother and her boyfriend were on vacation.
I live in South America, and while I know that the stereotype is "brown skinned", in case some of you don't know, there are people who would qualify, on sight, as essentially "white"--especially in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Nicaragua, and others.
In my country, racially charged and racist language is a lot more prevalent and a lot harder to combat (we don't have the history the U.S. does) so we're used to hearing certain things. And while the word "nigger" isn't used at all (aside from perhaps people commenting on its use in the U.S.) there are other colorful phrases that mean essentially the same thing when referring to darker-skinned people.
I'm hanging out with my friend at this party--we're substantially older than the majority of the people there since they're all friends of my 10-years-younger brother, but we're having a good time, drinking, etc. And then someone says the equivalent of "niggers". He wasn't actually calling anyone present that, he was talking about "a certain type of people". (i.e. people with brown-skin, which as you may suspect quite correctly, form the majority of the lower class, like, you know, in most places.) (Yes, you get people of dark skin using the same terminology, and not in the way African-Americans have appropriated "niggah", but rather in actual insult, it's mind-bloggling.)
I told him not to say that. I even said "please". His argument as to why he should be allowed to say it is was tantamount to "I was talking about their way of thought, not their skin color" (another variant: "I was talking about them being 'niggers of the soul' not, you know, their skin color"). Suffice to say this didn't endear me to him any, and I told him I didn't care--just stop. I'm a teacher--I like to educate if at all possible--but I was also relaxing and frankly I didn't have the desire to argue about it with an idiot--but then other people started: some defended him (usually citing cultural norms and a lack of cultural understanding, which is a shit argument) and some took my side.
Eventually, he got sick of getting schooled and when my brother--who was clueless as to this--walked by, the guy called him over and told him I was giving him a hard time. (My brother was holding a dude by the arm like he was going to use him to swing at a baseball, and the dude was holding his own head with one hand, so keep that in mind for the next part of the story). He didn't know I was his brother. He didn't know he was in my home. He explained what happened in the most favorable light (for himself) that he could and my brother grabbed him by the arm with his free hand, asked me to help with the other guy too, and together we escorted them right the fuck out.
Turns out the other guy (remember I told you to keep him in mind?) had pinned the door to the bathroom with a girl inside and was telling her he'd let her out if she let him take a picture of her bent over with her skirt pulled up. My brother had to pee and when he came around and heard the dude insisting, he knocked the guy's head into the doorframe and dragged him off.
We lived across the street from a police station. Racist Douchebag didn't get more than a boot from our house, but the other guy got charges, once we got one of the cops to cross the street and take the girl's statement.
Moral of the story is: surround yourself with people who will back you up when you are defending people, because even when you think you know the people you invite into your home, that's not a given. And raise your kids right--I have a ton of faults, but allowing that sort of shit in my vicinity, much less in my home, isn't one of them.
I hope @mietze's kids (and any that any of you have) never have that happen at a party they go to or that they host--but I hope if it does, they have the support of others so that they are able to excise these sorts of people summarily and without remorse.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
@Coin Your brother sounds like a cool dude.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
I'm just gonna leave this here.
Wish I could say I was surprised.
@Ganymede said:
would I feel uncomfortable if someone that I found very unattractive would did the same to me?
I agree on the rest but not on this point.
Why should it matter who you find unattractive? Molestation is not more acceptable because the other person has supermodel looks. I mean I get it but it sets the bar at a pretty bad place, you know? The guy is a creep if he's unattractive but charming and quirky if he's not?
