great point, by the way, about rapists and the “protection” of women.

Also ladies, let us not forget the most important ISSUE here. Guys have a far greater feeling of togetherness and supporting members of their own sex. They will always protect each other when confronted with the opposite sex.

I have once read an article about it. Females dont ally themselves as strongly with other females, or are lenient towardsinappropriate behaviour, just because it comes from a member of the same sex. But men do!! I dont recall anymore the expanation behind this phenomena unfortunately….. but the basic idea was, that guys hold together, protect their interests as a group and even tolerate and excuse inaproppriate behaviour of their group members = males, when confronted with critisism. In other words, you may crisitise their behaviour all you want, it will only make them stick together more.

What would then be the right response to this ladies? It is simple, let us protect our rights and interests. Lets counteract inappropriate behaviour of males by sanctioning their behaviour in a civilised manner. Let us not get into idiotic arguments with them we cant win, let us keep our dignity and not sink to their level.

And specifically related to the post at hand, the wording of the original announcement was the killer–it could have easily been like “Only Bros Allowed” or something. Rather than the whole “Come, play with us and enjoy whatever offensive humor and slurs you like without fear of reproach.”

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/online_gaming

I only play games that aren’t gender locked and stats aren’t determined by the gender, like Fable or Runes of Magic. For me, when I play a roleplaying game, I want an avatar that i can relate to or can represent me. It helps me get drawn in to the story. The fact that I have a nice pool of quality game titles to choose from that allows that option I think is a major step up. Also that many major video game developers seem to produce mainly these type of games (like Bioware and Bethesda) also makes me think its headed in the right direction.

I hate seeing things like this though, not the male only thing, but the reason behind it. Truely it feels like a step back from the improvements some of the developers are trying to make.

THIS

An event like this is unsafe for white/straigh/cisgendered guys who want to be more than dudebros.

My husband is a wonderful human being. He is aware of and is investigating his privilege, and is genuinely interested in learning from his mistakes and being good to other people. He has his own issues, and he screws up sometimes, but he’s trying.

But when he’s in a group of a bunch of other guys, he feels tremendous pressure to conform. He fights that pressure when he can, but sometimes stays silent when he could speak out. And he hates himself when that happens.

He would feel *more* safe being himself in an environment where women were welcome, and misogyinist behavior was not.

I agree 100% with Lesley’s take-down, but even if you imagine for a sec that the ladies don’t matter, this kind of event isn’t unproblematic for the dudes either.

This may be an effect of playing games face to face rather than anonymously over the internet. I’m primarily a Minis war gamer myself (*waves at Harry*) and while I’ve had some guys act uncomfortable with having me there, it was mostly in an adorable gawky way. Having to look people in the eye may be part of why this group’s mixed event LANs have been “uncomfortable” in the past. How often would any of these guys insult a female in public? Generally, it’s rarer than not, so having to “mind their manners” makes the day at the club house not so fun. Women haven’t been involved in gaming much for so long, it seems most guys feel like a gaming event is a meeting of the He-man Woman Haters Club.

“Why aren’t there more girls [sic] in gaming?” is a question I have debated so many times. Usually, the guys (it’s invariably guys asking this) who take the time to respond are impossible to convince that it’s largely a result of some of their peers’ behavior. Who wants to hang out with people who’re going to curse at you and threaten you with gross physical harm simply for being yourself?

I’m curious to know why you haven’t met any female war gamers. It could be because the games you play aren’t set up for interacting with strangers; or it could be that the women who are playing are not ‘out’ as women on your server. Personally, I know around a dozen people who play wargames, and eight of them are women. Out of those eight, several use male avatars and do not disclose their true gender in the game because they do not like the gender-based harassment which occurs when they do. it’s quite possible that you are in fact playing with women, but aren’t aware of this because for some reason they have not disclosed their gender to you.

As for single-gender events, the reason for the gender segregation is significant. There is a big difference between one group excluding another so that they can denigrate that other group without consequence, and one group excluding another so that they do not have to experience being denigrated by the other group.

also, having been involved in a verbal altercation where someone said something really shitty… having the staff back me up, and tell the other person to leave actually did fix the issue for me. by the staff saying that a) i did not deserve to be called names and threatened with violence and b) that kind of shit did not fly here and c) that they believed me and that the person who said that was no longer welcome they enabled me to go one and have an amazing night of fun.

what hurts, what fails to help, what MAKES this kind of space unsafe is when the staff refuses to get involved unless theirs fire, flood or blood. would i go into a LAN party expecting everyone to sing songs, hold hands and hug it out? no. i like a little trash talk. “hey fat bitch i’m gonna rape you so hard your eyes bleed*” is not trash talk.

*not what was actually said to me, but close enough for illustrative purposes

My wife and I share a lot of interests, but I have little interest in my wife’s sports car activities and she has no interest in mathematics (although many women do) or war gaming (I’ve heard of women with that interest, but I’ve never met one). I’ve been to a few national war game conventions. I never thought female attendance was prohibited, but I never saw a woman at one.

It’s just like when people blame women for going outside, living life, etc., prescribing that they lock themselves in or else they are at fault for men raping them. The onus is on the gender doing the raping, not the people being targeted. If we are going to restrict anyone, it has to be the men.