First off, GJ to Leigh Alexander trying to make a woman's struggles about how to handle someone in a position of potential power over you all about yourself and you getting shitfaced during a podcast...which, mind you, I actually (sort of) enjoyed her liquid confidence. But, still, you got drunk and Internet-ed in a widely listened to and public place. As the gentleman who this thread is about can tell you (assuming he is being honest), that is always a terrible idea. But, eh, lots of people drunk Internet, you just happened to do yours somewhere where a lot of people listened to it as opposed into some random place. It happens; life goes on. But...don't downplay what happened to this dev because you interneted drunk. Seriously, you apologized, most reasonable people accepted it, and life goes on. Crap like that tweet make me wonder if you're just looking for a reason to not take full responsibility for your drunken shenanigans, but I'll assume the best for now about it.
<sigh> Jaffe, Jaffe. If you read the whole feed, it sort of makes sense-ish? (I'm trying to always assume the best, it's a character flaw). I generally ignore twitter conversations - I'll wait till we have non 140 character limited thoughts on the topic. Twitter is pretty much designed for cherry picking arguments, and in a culture that has skewed heavily in the last 14+ years towards self-selection; this seems like a poor way to cast judgment on anyone's true thoughts.
I think what Jaffe is trying to get at it this:
One of the consistent dissonances you will always have between men and women (or at least for a damn long time) is that Men are socialized to respond to unwanted shit with aggression and force (if you don't respond with aggression and force, you will be harassed by other men and called pussies and often rejected by other women), while as women are socialized to respond to unwanted shit with more passive, subtle forms of rejection (otherwise you are called a bitch by other women and some men, or potentially provoke other men -- you'll also have your femininity questioned in either scenario, and often get rejected by men).
Needless to say, this leads to the following two scenarios in many cases:
Woman does stupid shit to Man, Man responds with aggressive rebuttal, Woman gets mad why Man had to be such an asshole about it.
Man does stupid shit to Woman, Woman tries to subtly / nicely / politely rebut it, Man not understand subtlety, Woman responds in some other way, Man not understand subtlety, this continues on for a while, eventually Man get mad why Woman not be aggressive and firm.
Since there are just enough exceptions to the rule for both sides to be confusing (Women know plenty of men and women who either escalate situations badly when directly confronted, or something similarly bad happens, and Men know just enough Women who are upfront and direct and aggressive, or who play hard to get and coy) - everyone generally ends up in a state of confusion unless the people specifically communicating have figured out how each other's specific tendencies.
I am stunned that any of you are surprised Jaffe, a male game developer who has gotten himself to a peak on the food chain in terms of talent and success in an extremely competitive industry, might be an extremely aggressive / direct person who has probably had to be extremely blunt and straightforward most of his working life. Go figure that someone who has had success due to all of this might think it is the best course of action. >_<
Personally: I think in this case, I understand the game dev not wanting to get directly aggressive with the journalist, due to their respective positions within their industry. That said, I understand where Jaffe is coming from; he believes that being direct and aggressive would realize better results. This is not something that is new, nor is it something that is entirely male (you would see a better skew of this by wealth than by gender or race) in its belief.
Hell, in my personal case, it's reversed. I love my mother very much, and while she is passive aggressive 90% of the time, she would (and has) fucking chew someone's head off if they did something she saw as bullshit, position of power be damned. My dad has more than once not invited her to work events that he has been part of, even though they worked in the same place, just because my mom would have told off their mutual senior management for being dipshits. Which, mind you, she was completely correct on at the time. My dad is Mr Subtle / signs dude. I'm still torn on which philosophy I prefer - while my dad definitely got further with his philosophy, my mom's philosophy falls under the "what I would want someone to tell me if I were in that situation".
TL;DR -- Gender Socialization is a bitch, I hope that the developer has received a personal apology and is able to move on in her life and career without detriment due to this event, genuinely hope the dude figures his shit out and at least learns and grows from it, and we all could use a healthy dose of empathy when dealing with people in general.
EDIT: One more TL;DR - Wheaton's Law should be followed; IE, Don't Be A Dick. If you're ever questioning whether something is over the line, ask yourself "Could I reasonably sound like a dick if I say this?" You might still mess up - but it is less likely and usually far more forgivable.
