#GAMERGATE: The Threadening [Read the OP] -- #StopGamerGate2014

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There is nothing inherent about STEM fields that makes women unlikely to go in to them. Women are unlikely to go in to them because they face harassment, uneven salaries, and are frequently passed over for promotions because of their gender.

If you were a woman looking to go in to game development, after the last few weeks, would you?

If I were a female, no, because I will likely be more interested in doing something else that aren't related to STEM fields.
Maybe a doctor or marketing consultant.

Women should also get paid the same as their male coworkers who put in the same work and talent. Some should get paid more if they're offering diverse talent that the males can't ect.

What does this have to do with limited resources from the get go? Female from a young age isn't entering these fields during college.
It is already hard to pick a female candidate for CEO position due to limited candidates to pick from.
 
If I were a female, no, because I will likely be more interested in doing something else that aren't related to STEM fields.
Maybe a doctor or marketing consultant.

Why do you think you'd be more interested in that? Do you think it's a hardwired part of the female brain? If it was influenced by biology, how would you separate that from social and cultural pressures?
 
What does this have to do with limited resources from the get go? Female from a young age isn't entering these fields during college.
It is already hard to pick a female candidate for CEO position due to limited candidates to pick from.
Because maybe it isn't just limited resources? Its not just about entering a field either, its also about sticking around.
 
FEEEEEEMAAAALES follow their biological inclinations, you see. They are driven by nature. A man decides, etc.

People are so quick to jump to that conclusion and it's such garbo. Not to say that biology can't influence something like career choice, but you are justified in trying to isolate it to that one variable when there are so many other factors in play.
 
if anyone wants a laugh: comic tweeted by people associated with Gamergate:

BypPmYdIUAMlvbc.jpg:large


at least it accurately represents the gamer as an immature white guy aggressively interrupting women by telling them to shut the fuck up.

They couldn't even spell "prevalent" right.

And I love how these sad bastards keep pointing out Zoe Quinn's sex life.

"She has sex! She's a witch!"


About game reviews my ass. Yea, she slept with 5 guys so they would give her FREE game good reviews.

Smdh.gif
 
Why do you think you'd be more interested in that? Do you think it's a hardwired part of the female brain? If it was influenced by biology, how would you separate that from social and cultural pressures?

Social and cultural norms.
It isn't hardwired since there are females going into these fields for their education and later into their career.
But you can't judge an industry because of their lack of female employees.
Like I already posted, you can't tell an industry to hire someone when that someone is never interested in that position in the first place.
We can't magically add in 100000 new resources when a few of them want to be considered part of that resources as they are growing up.

FEEEEEEMAAAALES follow their biological inclinations, you see. They are driven by nature. A man decides, etc.

People are so quick to jump to that conclusion and it's such garbo. Not to say that biology can't influence something like career choice, but you are justified in trying to isolate it to that one variable when there are so many other factors in play.

Why would a man decide your life choice for you? I don't understand your sarcastic comment since it is so off base.
 
If I were a female, no, because I will likely be more interested in doing something else that aren't related to STEM fields.
Maybe a doctor or marketing consultant.

What?! Are you aware this is pretty sexist...? Women are not some alien creatures from another planet...

And both the gaming industry and nursing examples are proof of gender inequality, I don't get how both existing is supposed to be proof that there's no injustice, when it's the opposite...
 
feeeeeeeeeeemales don't like STEM fields!!! What's the big deal???? BUT WHEN MEN TRY TO BE NURSES THEY ARE HARASSED.

where's the outrage there huh?!?? I'll tell you where!

BENGHAZI
 
Am I the only person who gets put off when people use the noun form of "female" in these discussions? Why is it always "a female" or "females"? It makes it sound like some kind of animal on a nature documentary.
 
There is nothing inherent about STEM fields that makes women unlikely to go in to them. Women are unlikely to go in to them because they face harassment, uneven salaries, and are frequently passed over for promotions because of their gender.

If you were a woman looking to go in to game development, after the last few weeks, would you?

this right here, folks


feeeeeeeeeeemales don't like STEM fields!!! What's the big deal???? BUT WHEN MEN TRY TO BE NURSES THEY ARE HARASSED.

where's the outrage there huh?!?? I'll tell you where!

BENGHAZI



tumblr_mwos77qaIO1ra11u8o8_400.gif
 
Social and cultural norms.
It isn't hardwired since there are females going into these fields for their education and later into their career.
But you can't judge an industry because of their lack of female employees.
Like I already posted, you can't tell an industry to hire someone when that someone is never interested in that position in the first place.
We can't magically add in 100000 new resources when a few of them want to be considered part of that resources as they are growing up.

Lot of women are interested in the gaming industry, but the climate surrounding it is not very inviting (see, for example... gamergate!), and once inside discrimination is still there at various levels, so a lot of them either eventually leave, stay at low-level positions, etc.
 
Because maybe it isn't just limited resources? Its not just about entering a field either, its also about sticking around.

There's the common argument that it's the patriarchy forcing men to be the bread winners, and women to be the stay-at-home partner. Lots of stay-at-home fathers face social discrimination because of it. Hence women tend to leave because of societal pressures.

The thing is, men don't birth children, women do. In a field with extreme pressure on meeting deadlines, the risk of someone being out of commission (or reduced productivity) for 3-5 months, depending on pregnancy, is a huge risk for companies. It's a risk to take on women because it's illegal to fire them for pregnancy, so you might be stuck with a team that can potentially work at a significantly reduced capacity because of a pregnancy.

There are a lot of potentials at work here, but when millions are on the line I don't think companies like to take chances.You can't just grow a real human bean inside you and expect to operate at max capacity. Hell, even after the birth you need to recover/have your body literally sewn back together. Lots of expenses for companies that look at bottom lines.

Lot of women are interested in the gaming industry, but the climate surrounding it is not very inviting (see, for example... gamergate!), and once inside discrimination is still there at various levels, so a lot of them either eventually leave, stay at low-level positions, etc.

I remember reading a polygon article about a woman's experiences at Atari when it was just a small company. Her first sexist experience came from management, not programmers. Her entire experience with programmers was summed up as "You're a good coder, thus we like you."

I think that STEM fields tend to attract the socially maligned, but STEM itself is not inherently sexist.
 
Why would a man decide your life choice for you? I don't understand your sarcastic comment since it is so off base.

Sorry, I was mostly reacting to something I often see when this topic comes up, and I incorrectly inferred it from your posts: A lot of people use "Why aren't there more women in this field? Why are we trying to get more of them into it?" as loaded questions when they're about to imply that it's "just biology" and we should leave leave the status quo as it is.
 
I'm pretty sure there's been studies show that girls and boys both have equal interest in politics or science at the young age, and then this interest drops off in girls but not in boys as they get older. I'm going to be really skeptical of any claims that this is due to biology and not due to society.
 
There's the common argument that it's the patriarchy forcing men to be the bread winners, and women to be the stay-at-home partner. Lots of stay-at-home fathers face social discrimination because of it. Hence women tend to leave because of societal pressures.

The thing is, men don't birth children, women do. In a field with extreme pressure on meeting deadlines, the risk of someone being out of commission (or reduced productivity) for 3-5 months, depending on pregnancy, is a huge risk for companies. It's a risk to take on women because it's illegal to fire them for pregnancy, so you might be stuck with a team that can potentially work at a significantly reduced capacity because of a pregnancy.

There are a lot of potentials at work here, but when millions are on the line I don't think companies like to take chances.You can't just grow a real human bean inside you and expect to operate at max capacity. Hell, even after the birth you need to recover/have your body literally sewn back together. Lots of expenses for companies that look at bottom lines.
So a human being's choice of life/career is determined by the .0000000000000000000000000000000000000001 % profit a company would lose by an employee being gone 3-5 months.

Gotcha.

Sorry, I was mostly reacting to something I often see when this topic comes up, and I incorrectly inferred it from your posts: A lot of people use "Why aren't there more women in this field? Why are we trying to get more of them into it?" as loaded questions when they're about to imply that it's "just biology" and we should leave leave the status quo as it is.

Yep you know them womenfolk get all crazy when they have to deal with them numbers and stuff.

People tend to forget, oh I don't know:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper


She is credited with popularizing the term "debugging" for fixing computer glitches (inspired by an actual moth removed from the computer). Owing to the breadth of her accomplishments and her naval rank, she is sometimes referred to as "Amazing Grace".[7][8] The U.S. Navy destroyer USS Hopper (DDG-70) is named for her, as was the Cray XE6 "Hopper" supercomputer at NERSC.
 
For the longest time I've seen the #gamergate forum on Gaf and thought it was another topic regarding console resolution and stayed away from it. yesterday i was browsing huffpost and saw an article written about this subject and my mind wondered back to gaf which made me click on the thread. HOLY FUCK!

Been doing catch up on the subject ever since.
 
So a human being's choice of life/career is determined by the .0000000000000000000000000000000000000001 % profit a company would lose by an employee being gone 3-5 months.

Gotcha.

Still, I once heard a game producer use this exact reasoning to explain why he was against hiring women.
 
I tend to agree actually but I know a lot wouldn't. The easiest way to attract attention to something is shout back at it. The amount of crazy psychos who would send death threats will only increase with increased exposure to any controversy.

Shhhhiiiii...

How exactly do we see this ending?

Am I the only person who gets put off when people use the noun form of "female" in these discussions? Why is it always "a female" or "females"? It makes it sound like some kind of animal on a nature documentary.

I've always felt the word woman sounded insulting or pompous.
 
So a human being's choice of life/career is determined by the .0000000000000000000000000000000000000001 % profit a company would lose by an employee being gone 3-5 months.

Gotcha.

Calm down, and don't be so snarky. I didn't say I agreed with it, I'm giving you an example here.

It's not .0000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of profit. If a company's team is building an application suite for a bank, their contract states that it has to be done by x time, or the company breaks the contract and doesn't get paid/loses a significant amount of money on the contract.

If a significant amount of your team can't work at max efficiency for the duration of the contract, you're boned. That's really it. It could be ebola, pregnancy, flu, etc. A company's main interest is having its teams operate at maximum capacity, and if your lifestyle choice/a shitty thing happening is affecting your work, you're liable to get fired.

That's real life. I apologize if it offends you, but these are things that go into hiring decisions.
 
It looks like we're not alone here, I'm on my phone so it took a while to pose the question.
I went back and edited my posts, sorry :(

Calm down, and don't be so snarky. I didn't say I agreed with it, I'm giving you an example here.

It's not .0000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of profit. If a company's team is building an application suite for a bank, their contract states that it has to be done by x time, or the company breaks the contract and doesn't get paid/loses a significant amount of money on the contract.

If a significant amount of your team can't work at max efficiency for the duration of the contract, you're boned. That's really it. It could be ebola, pregnancy, flu, etc. A company's main interest is having its teams operate at maximum capacity, and if your lifestyle choice/a shitty thing happening is affecting your work, you're liable to get fired.

That's real life. I apologize if it offends you, but these are things that go into hiring decisions.
I'm sure this is absolutely true, especially in small companies but it is 100% against the EEOC - http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/pregnancy.cfm
 
Calm down, and don't be so snarky. I didn't say I agreed with it, I'm giving you an example here.

It's not .0000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of profit. If a company's team is building an application suite for a bank, their contract states that it has to be done by x time, or the company breaks the contract and doesn't get paid/loses a significant amount of money on the contract.

If a significant amount of your team can work at max efficiency for the duration of the contract, you're boned. That's really it. It could be ebola, pregnancy, flu, etc. A company's main interest is having its teams operate at maximum capacity, and if your lifestyle choice is affecting your work, you're liable to get fired.

That's real life. I apologize if it offends you, but these are things that go into hiring decisions.


being a woman isn't a lifestyle choice

Your "real life" isn't real
 
Calm down, and don't be so snarky. I didn't say I agreed with it, I'm giving you an example here.

It's not .0000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of profit. If a company's team is building an application suite for a bank, their contract states that it has to be done by x time, or the company breaks the contract and doesn't get paid/loses a significant amount of money on the contract.

If a significant amount of your team can't work at max efficiency for the duration of the contract, you're boned. That's really it. It could be ebola, pregnancy, flu, etc. A company's main interest is having its teams operate at maximum capacity, and if your lifestyle choice/a shitty thing happening is affecting your work, you're liable to get fired.

That's real life. I apologize if it offends you, but these are things that go into hiring decisions.
Pull your head out of your ass. The fact that women are the ones who have to get pregnant to create more of the species is not a "lifestyle choice", and the kind of discrimination you describe is both illegal and indefensible.

Sorry, I didn't explain properly.

When she said this at work, it's no longer private and she should be reprimanded. Although firing her if she's been a good all-around employee is going way too far.

But to all the people saying "good, she should be fired/racists shouldn't be allowed to work," that's kinda nuts. Lots of people have shitty beliefs and attitudes, and we can't mandate everyone to have the same beliefs in public. As a result, we have them shut themselves from saying those kind of reprehensible things in public. If we fired everyone who had dumb racist thoughts, a lot of businesses would fail.
If you get the flu or have a disability or get pregnant, fuck you we got money to make. But we gotta protect racists because you cant just fire people will-nilly.
 
Calm down, and don't be so snarky. I didn't say I agreed with it, I'm giving you an example here.

It's not .0000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of profit. If a company's team is building an application suite for a bank, their contract states that it has to be done by x time, or the company breaks the contract and doesn't get paid/loses a significant amount of money on the contract.

If a significant amount of your team can't work at max efficiency for the duration of the contract, you're boned. That's really it. It could be ebola, pregnancy, flu, etc. A company's main interest is having its teams operate at maximum capacity, and if your lifestyle choice/a shitty thing happening is affecting your work, you're liable to get fired.

That's real life. I apologize if it offends you, but these are things that go into hiring decisions.

It's illegal to fire a pregnant woman dude.

Next time you want to talk like an expert, you might want to do your due diligence.
 
Calm down, and don't be so snarky. I didn't say I agreed with it, I'm giving you an example here.

It's not .0000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of profit. If a company's team is building an application suite for a bank, their contract states that it has to be done by x time, or the company breaks the contract and doesn't get paid/loses a significant amount of money on the contract.

If a significant amount of your team can't work at max efficiency for the duration of the contract, you're boned. That's really it. It could be ebola, pregnancy, flu, etc. A company's main interest is having its teams operate at maximum capacity, and if your lifestyle choice/a shitty thing happening is affecting your work, you're liable to get fired.

That's real life. I apologize if it offends you, but these are things that go into hiring decisions.

I have no idea what I am reading right now.
 
I'm pretty sure there's been studies show that girls and boys both have equal interest in politics or science at the young age, and then this interest drops off in girls but not in boys as they get older. I'm going to be really skeptical of any claims that this is due to biology and not due to society.

It's very difficult to separate society and biology. Society inherently reflects biology. The question becomes on how to separate the influence of biology from our modern society.

Our main evolutionary trait is intelligence, and with it comes flexibility. Our awareness of the limitations and conditions of biology should let us supersede its influence on our social make up.

There is nothing saying that women and men aren't mental equals in every field. The problem comes from men being judged as individuals in the STEM fields, while women are judged as a group in STEM. I'm reminded of that XKCD comic that shows a guy getting a math problem wrong and some other guy saying "You suck at math", and in the next panel a girl does the same thing and the guy says "Girls suck at math." That's what we should be fighting to eradicate.
 
I've always felt the word woman sounded insulting or pompous.

That's really surprising to me, I've always defaulted to "men" and "women" over "males" and "females". I think it's because it's a singular collective noun versus a plural which feels better to me somehow.

Actually, that does sound a bit pompous.


My favourite yet. It's made better by the fact that I keep hearing his voice saying it in my head whenever I see one.

I went back and edited my posts, sorry :(

That was more in reply to the guy who is now banned :)
 
Calm down, and don't be so snarky. I didn't say I agreed with it, I'm giving you an example here.

It's not .0000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of profit. If a company's team is building an application suite for a bank, their contract states that it has to be done by x time, or the company breaks the contract and doesn't get paid/loses a significant amount of money on the contract.

If a significant amount of your team can't work at max efficiency for the duration of the contract, you're boned. That's really it. It could be ebola, pregnancy, flu, etc. A company's main interest is having its teams operate at maximum capacity, and if your lifestyle choice/a shitty thing happening is affecting your work, you're liable to get fired.

That's real life. I apologize if it offends you, but these are things that go into hiring decisions.

So now were equating Ebola and pregnancy? ... Hoooly shit lol
 
That's really surprising to me, I've always defaulted to "men" and "women" over "males" and "females". I think it's because it's a singular collective noun versus a plural which feels better to me somehow.

Actually, that does sound a bit pompous.

There's likely no consensus on this, just have to get a feel for the situation and/or whatever the person you're talking to prefers. I know some people that just hate being called "girls," they feel it's demeaning when you wouldn't call a man "boy." Some don't care. Some women are against being grouped in mixed-genders as "guys" like "Hey, guys, wanna go eat?"

I don't think it's possible to never make a mistake when addressing genders, just be contrite if someone has preferences.
 
There's likely no consensus on this, just have to get a feel for the situation and/or whatever the person you're talking to prefers. I know some people that just hate being called "girls," they feel it's demeaning when you wouldn't call a man "boy." Some don't care. Some women are against being grouped in mixed-genders as "guys" like "Hey, guys, wanna go eat?"

I don't think it's possible to never make a mistake when addressing genders, just be contrite if someone has preferences.

Makes more sense if people keep their pairs together what ever they are. When it's men and females it's just what.
 
Am I the only person who gets put off when people use the noun form of "female" in these discussions? Why is it always "a female" or "females"? It makes it sound like some kind of animal on a nature documentary.

I say "women" and "men" unless I'm modifying something else, like "male or female developers". But no, there's no reason to just drop "female" or "females" by itself. Just sounds odd.
 
I know the guy is banned, but I'd just like to point out that there are many programs created for the purpose of encouraging more men to enter nursing and elementary education.

(Add me to the group not liking "female")
 
Pull your head out of your ass. The fact that women are the ones who have to get pregnant to create more of the species is not a "lifestyle choice", and the kind of discrimination you describe is both illegal and indefensible.

I meant life-style choice as drug usage. Ebola isn't a life-style choice either.

If you get the flu or have a disability or get pregnant, fuck you we got money to make. But we gotta protect racists because you cant just fire people will-nilly.

My personal opinion isn't company policy. I'm not going to fire pregnant or sick people, but others will find ways to remove them.

http://www.hrhero.com/pregnancy/q-a.shtml#

Pregnancies take 9 months. Depending on the company, only a few 'bad' reviews are needed to remove you. This happens all the time. Here are 2 examples:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/24/workplace-wednesdays-i-was-fired_n_2010132.html

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/09/25/3572050/walmart-pregnant-worker-eeoc/

It's illegal to fire a pregnant woman dude.

Next time you want to talk like an expert, you might want to do your due diligence.

I know that. I'm talking about hiring pregnant women. You're also not going to have a very difficult time if you're pregnant, or looking to get pregnant.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/22/AR2008102201867.html

These laws exist for a reason, but I would not assume that any employer that does not want to hire you is basing their decision on the fact that you are pregnant. Nevertheless, it would be naïve to think that their decision is completely bias-free. A prospective employer evaluating a set of qualified candidates will try to envision how each person would perform in the available job. How would he or she meet the current challenges of the position? What strengths would he or she bring to ongoing projects? Despite an employer's most earnest efforts to leave pregnancy out of it, it would be hard for the obvious need for maternity leave not to enter into its analysis, if only a little.

That does not mean that needing maternity leave should or will take you out of the running for jobs. In my experience, employers do their best to leave extraneous factors like pregnancy out of hiring decisions not just for legal and moral reasons, but chiefly because it makes good business sense. They struggle to find competent, loyal employees, and they understand that you must be accommodating, sometimes to an extreme, to secure the best talent. If you really are the best qualified for a particular job, you will probably get hired regardless of being pregnant. But the world is not yet rid of hiring managers who, when it comes down to you and another candidate, will think twice about giving you the job because they want to avoid having to give you maternity leave and theoretical scheduling concessions.

If it comes down to two equal candidates, with equal qualifications and potential, why would a hiring manager hire the person who might be out of the game for several months?

It's illegal, but incredibly difficult to prove.

So now were equating Ebola and pregnancy? ... Hoooly shit lol

You're specifically being hyperbolic and dismissive.

Here's what I'm saying, to clear out any misunderstandings: Programming jobs, such as those involved in gaming, require an intense amount of dedication and work by the programmers within the development studios. This development work often has people working for months on end on a single part of the project.

When the projects enter 'crunch time', every employee is needed to pull 12-16 hour days to code non-stop, fix bugs, etc. This means that employees often have 'blackout dates' for booking time off, holidays, vacation time etc.

Hiring managers are going to look for employees who can work long hours, and not have any foreseeable problems in their future with their availability. One of these issues is pregnancy, which can cause a lot of problems for the woman depending on how it develops. This part of the reason many women do not gain entry into entry-level programming jobs.

Is this illegal? Yes. Does it still happen? Yes. Do I agree with this? No.

I'm saying that the nature of the tech field itself presents a barrier of entry for women because of misconceptions, lack of flexibility, and a high focus on 'crunch time'
 
I know that. I'm talking about hiring pregnant women. You're also not going to have a very difficult time if you're pregnant, or looking to get pregnant.l[/url]

Yeah and the way that culture changes is more women in the industries. It takes time but women are very much taking over leadership positions in plenty of fields and dominating, especially work with "crunch time."

The tech industry is not different from many other high pressure situations plenty of women are already in and kicking ass at, the issue is not pregnancy or "life-style" choices it's just old fashioned systemic sexism that only goes away with time, pressure and integration.
 
Yeah and the way that culture changes is more women in the industries. It takes time but women are very much taking over leadership positions in plenty of fields and dominating, especially work with "crunch time."

The tech industry is not different from many other high pressure situations plenty of women are already in and kicking ass at, the issue is not pregnancy or "life-style" choices it's just old fashioned systemic sexism that only goes away with time, pressure and integration.

I agree that having more women in the field will change things for the better. Implementing policies, and changing the work place culture. I never said the tech industry is unique in its high pressure approach, but I still believe that it represents a barrier of entry for women in its effect on hiring practices.

Systemic sexism is an interesting phrase. I would label it institutional sexism, since the institutions within the tech industry shaped the work habits in smaller companies. That said, the institutions are shifting (Microsoft announced a gender parity goal recently), and with it hopefully they can set an example for tech companies on accommodating women. If they're not gonna give us the start menu back, at least give us that.

That said, companies will still fire you for life-style choices even if it's illegal. All you need is to drum up a few reports of incompetence and the employee is out the door...legally.

Ideally: I'd like to see a national daycare scheme implemented to combat the cost and pressure of having a child and a career.
 
Am I the only person who gets put off when people use the noun form of "female" in these discussions? Why is it always "a female" or "females"? It makes it sound like some kind of animal on a nature documentary.

Whenever I hear it I always picture a Ferengi from Star Trek saying it. It is annoying.
 
Am I the only person who gets put off when people use the noun form of "female" in these discussions? Why is it always "a female" or "females"? It makes it sound like some kind of animal on a nature documentary.

Same. But on the other hand, it's easy way to detect if the guy who wrote it has a problem with women. Like a dog whistle term.
 
Ideally: I'd like to see a national daycare scheme implemented to combat the cost and pressure of having a child and a career.

The best companies basically have in-house daycare but there should be subsidized alternatives obviously. And real parental leave, not the joke crap they have now.
 
Man, looking at the tags right now if you just need irrefutable proof how manipulative (or boneheaded some GGers) are, just look at all of the "Isis bot tweets about StopGamergate so therefore, SGG either bought the same bots or ISIS supports it!"conversations.

Discussed this earlier, but if you don't know how Twitter bots work, they just take the popular hashtags at the moment and spam them, hoping their store (or demented message in the case of ISIS) will reach more people. I can see the average, not internet saavy GGers not knowing this but even people like CameraLady and Sargon are pimping it, who have to know they're clearly misrepresenting what it means.
 
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