Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / SMNTY Classics: Online Gaming and Sexual Harassment

Transcript

SMNTY Classics: Online Gaming and Sexual Harassment · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stephane.
0:08
Speaker 1: Never told you have a a prediction of I heart radio. Okay,
0:18
Speaker 1: so you know, I in particular love lovelave love talking
0:23
Speaker 1: about games and video games. Actually, I'm about to guest
0:28
Speaker 1: on a podcast on the network called A Firm Role
0:32
Speaker 1: by our friend Alex Williams. If you haven't checked it out,
0:35
Speaker 1: it's awesome about video games. UM and we recently have
0:39
Speaker 1: bridget on to talk about the whole thing that is ongoing. Yeah, Activision, Blizzard,
0:45
Speaker 1: oh my god, they are and then Microsoft stepped in bottom. Yeah,
0:53
Speaker 1: the whole thing, so many things. Yeah, But in that episode,
0:57
Speaker 1: I said that recently there there had been a study
1:01
Speaker 1: that showed that women play more video games than men,
1:04
Speaker 1: including console games, And I wanted to clarify this point
1:08
Speaker 1: because afterwards, through another project Samantha and I are working on,
1:12
Speaker 1: I had to dig into that a bit more and
1:15
Speaker 1: unfortunately that number was from yes, and the numbers have
1:20
Speaker 1: gone back down. But there's a lot of complications in
1:25
Speaker 1: this um. One being a lot of them are very regional,
1:29
Speaker 1: so I'll be like in the US, or in the UK,
1:32
Speaker 1: or or what have you. Another complication is a lot
1:36
Speaker 1: of the researchers when they would ask follow up questions
1:40
Speaker 1: to women women who said they weren't gamers, it turned
1:45
Speaker 1: out that they were compared to like the same amount
1:48
Speaker 1: men would say they were gamers, with the same amount
1:50
Speaker 1: of experience that women would say they aren't. So who
1:54
Speaker 1: gets to have that claim that as a title or
1:58
Speaker 1: a label or an identity? Do you want to that's
2:01
Speaker 1: also another question, So there's that complication. But then also
2:06
Speaker 1: I think we talked about this in in several of
2:09
Speaker 1: our video game episodes. Unfortunately we're going in the wrong direction,
2:14
Speaker 1: like when it comes to people playing representation characters and
2:19
Speaker 1: video games. I think since twenty nineteen and numbers have
2:22
Speaker 1: gotten worse, the disparity has gotten worse. And when we're
2:27
Speaker 1: seeing just these atrocious things happening at these video game
2:32
Speaker 1: companies um and knowing we still have so much work
2:36
Speaker 1: to do, that's very disheartening. Because that article that was
2:40
Speaker 1: circulating that said women were playing more console games than men,
2:46
Speaker 1: that was recent, but it was very specific. It was
2:48
Speaker 1: like older women were playing more than younger boys, and
2:53
Speaker 1: they were it was like a pretty big amount. But overall,
2:57
Speaker 1: like the trend is not going the way that I
3:01
Speaker 1: would say we wanted to go and so this I
3:06
Speaker 1: just wanted to clarify that point because there are a
3:09
Speaker 1: lot of caveats to it, as with a lot of
3:11
Speaker 1: stuff we talked about. But also I wanted to bring
3:14
Speaker 1: back this classic episode that me and bridget did on
3:18
Speaker 1: online gaming and harassment in the Me Too movement. I
3:21
Speaker 1: think there's there are some things in there that are dated,
3:25
Speaker 1: but a lot of it, unfortunately isn't. It's still very relevant.
3:30
Speaker 1: So with that in mind, please enjoy. Hi. This is Annie,
3:40
Speaker 1: and this is Bridgett, and you're listening to stuff mom
3:42
Speaker 1: never told you. Today we are talking about another important
3:57
Speaker 1: aspect of my nerd life, which is gaming, and specifically
4:01
Speaker 1: female gaming and specifically online gaming and what it's like
4:05
Speaker 1: for women. What are your favorite games? Annie, Oh, I
4:08
Speaker 1: am a big RPG role playing game, uh person, So
4:13
Speaker 1: I really loved The Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts BioShock,
4:18
Speaker 1: which I guess is I'm also a first person shooter,
4:20
Speaker 1: which makes me kind of an outlier because women aren't
4:22
Speaker 1: traditionally big into those, But I really love BioShock as
4:26
Speaker 1: an evil and the Last of Us is like my
4:28
Speaker 1: favorite and Kristen and Caroline did two part episode on
4:32
Speaker 1: kind of the whole state of affairs of the video
4:35
Speaker 1: game industry a while back, and we're going to be
4:37
Speaker 1: rerunning those soon, so keep it keep an ear out
4:40
Speaker 1: for that. I wanted to include listener Emma. She suggested
4:45
Speaker 1: this to us. She emailed us a message, and I
4:47
Speaker 1: wanted to read a bit of it at the top here.
4:49
Speaker 1: I wrote this email because the action Picture episode that
4:52
Speaker 1: y'all did, as well as several of your discussions about
4:54
Speaker 1: violence towards women, got me thinking about how I have
4:56
Speaker 1: slowly distanced myself from the video game community over time
5:00
Speaker 1: because of the harassment that I have faced as a
5:02
Speaker 1: female gamer, as well as the industry's lack of caring
5:04
Speaker 1: when it comes to harassment and violence towards women, as
5:07
Speaker 1: well as the continuous glorification of multiple forms of violence
5:11
Speaker 1: against women. Just check out the game Agony and the
5:13
Speaker 1: rape scene that was removed. Many male gamers seem to
5:16
Speaker 1: think that, because they also face harassment yelling slurs at
5:19
Speaker 1: each other, etcetera, that the harassment female gamers face is
5:22
Speaker 1: on the same level. And I want to say a
5:24
Speaker 1: wholeheartedly that being privately messaged to send nude photos are
5:29
Speaker 1: hearing men try to basically have phone sex with you
5:31
Speaker 1: when you're on MIC requires an unfair amount of energy
5:34
Speaker 1: on our parts to tolerate if we want to continue
5:37
Speaker 1: playing the games we love. Agreed, something I really want
5:41
Speaker 1: to pars out from that message. First of all, Emma,
5:43
Speaker 1: thank you for writing in. But it is different. It's
5:46
Speaker 1: different when someone says, hey, face, you did a bad
5:50
Speaker 1: job at this thing in the game. That's different. Then
5:52
Speaker 1: I'm going to send you a private message and ask
5:54
Speaker 1: you to send me pictures of your breasts. That's very different.
5:57
Speaker 1: And so people who would argue that it's similar kind
6:00
Speaker 1: of harassment that both men and women face in these
6:03
Speaker 1: gaming communities, that's just willful ignorance because it's so different, right,
6:08
Speaker 1: And like Emma sort of pointed out the trash talking
6:11
Speaker 1: men get when gaming, that that's like very very different
6:16
Speaker 1: than a solicitation of nudes or rape threats or death
6:19
Speaker 1: threats of you and your children. And a lot of
6:21
Speaker 1: female games have pointed out that, hey, we like trash
6:24
Speaker 1: talking too if it's based on skill, but if you're
6:27
Speaker 1: going to base it on gender, that's different and that's
6:30
Speaker 1: not not fun at all. I gave up online gaming
6:33
Speaker 1: after kind of my attempt at appearing gender neutral didn't
6:36
Speaker 1: work out, and that is a common strategy for women online.
6:40
Speaker 1: Did you have a mail or genderless avatar? Yeah? Yeah,
6:44
Speaker 1: I didn't ever add a picture. My name gave no
6:47
Speaker 1: hint one way or the other, but I don't know.
6:49
Speaker 1: Somehow it always seemed to come out. And this is
6:52
Speaker 1: a plot point and ready player one actually for anyone
6:55
Speaker 1: who's seen or read that. Another strategy is to never
6:58
Speaker 1: use the microphone, which sucks because a microphone is meant
7:00
Speaker 1: to make things easier and kind of enhance your gaming experience.
7:03
Speaker 1: But as a woman, well, if you're if you're trying
7:06
Speaker 1: to avoid being known as a woman, you will not
7:09
Speaker 1: use it. So I never used it. You could do
7:12
Speaker 1: what's the voice modification thing they use in the movie Scream.
7:15
Speaker 1: I'm playing video. I'm playing you know, Last of Us
7:18
Speaker 1: with the guy from Scream. Actually the killer was a woman.
7:21
Speaker 1: Wait spoiler alert for Scream if you haven't seen it,
7:23
Speaker 1: it's been off with tick twenty years. So also there's
7:26
Speaker 1: like a lot of killers. Who knows which one we're talking? Okay,
7:30
Speaker 1: Also good point. I did want to say that, I uh,
7:35
Speaker 1: some places, some online spaces and games do have, from
7:38
Speaker 1: what I've read, very lovely online community. So this is
7:42
Speaker 1: a big brusher painting with and there are spaces that
7:45
Speaker 1: are not this way. I have heard kind of in
7:50
Speaker 1: an interesting benevolent sexism thing where some people are like, well,
7:54
Speaker 1: I like it when people find out I'm a woman
7:56
Speaker 1: because the men go out of their way to be
7:58
Speaker 1: super nice to me in the game, and I'm like game.
8:00
Speaker 1: Uh So, yes, those things exist, and you can love
8:05
Speaker 1: something and critique it. As we've said before on here, Yes,
8:09
Speaker 1: I know someone out there is going to be listening
8:11
Speaker 1: and thinking like, why are you trashing video games? I
8:14
Speaker 1: love video games from trash him. Just because you have
8:16
Speaker 1: a critique about gaming or game culture doesn't mean you're
8:19
Speaker 1: not a gamer, doesn't mean you're not a fan. It's
8:21
Speaker 1: okay to critique art media, whatever, whatever we consume. It's
8:27
Speaker 1: okay to critique it and still like it. Yeah, And
8:30
Speaker 1: I would I would argue that you're trying to make
8:32
Speaker 1: it better, You're trying to make it more than it
8:34
Speaker 1: is right now. Yeah, because if you really love gaming,
8:37
Speaker 1: you want it to be as good as it can be. Yes.
8:39
Speaker 1: I want to be able to use the microphone and
8:41
Speaker 1: not worry about some guy having sex. I can't believe
8:45
Speaker 1: I even have to worry about that, but apparently apparently
8:49
Speaker 1: we do. And Emma and I aren't alone in our
8:53
Speaker 1: abandoning of online games in the face of harassment. We
8:57
Speaker 1: found story after story, message board after message for or
9:00
Speaker 1: of women sharing their experiences with sexual harassment when gaming online.
9:04
Speaker 1: A twenty sixteen study published by Media and Society found
9:07
Speaker 1: that quote both general and sexual harassment predict women's withdrawal
9:11
Speaker 1: from online games. Sexual harassment, but not general harassment, leads
9:15
Speaker 1: to rumination and subsequent withdraw Sexual harassment, perhaps unsurprisingly, seemed
9:20
Speaker 1: to have an effect that ha ha, you suck and
9:22
Speaker 1: are dumb does not. Yes, I would agree that is unsurprising. Well,
9:26
Speaker 1: that's exactly what we were talking about before that. It's
9:29
Speaker 1: this is not just your average, you know, trash talk,
9:33
Speaker 1: which of course is going to happen in gaming. It's
9:35
Speaker 1: happens in sports whatever. That's different than sexual harassment, rape threats,
9:40
Speaker 1: that kind of thing exactly. And I I enjoy a
9:43
Speaker 1: good trash talk session. I'm sure you do, knowing you,
9:47
Speaker 1: I know that you do. I do, but it has
9:51
Speaker 1: to be kind of like good and good spirit um
9:54
Speaker 1: as competitive as I am. I like that, but not Yeah,
9:57
Speaker 1: sexual harassment is completely different. And study was a study
10:00
Speaker 1: of two ninety three women playing games in average of
10:03
Speaker 1: twenty two hours a week, so not the most representative study,
10:06
Speaker 1: but I do think it's worth mentioning, especially because there
10:08
Speaker 1: aren't that many studies on this out there yet and
10:13
Speaker 1: the paper didn't address this, but several others have. Rumination
10:15
Speaker 1: is linked to negative outcomes, including depressive symptoms. So this
10:19
Speaker 1: is it's not good. It's not good. And what pisses
10:22
Speaker 1: me off the most about this, and there's so much
10:24
Speaker 1: to be piste off about, is I know so many
10:27
Speaker 1: people for whom video games is their stress relief. It's
10:31
Speaker 1: their way to build community. They're living someplace so they
10:33
Speaker 1: don't know a lot of people. It's their way to
10:34
Speaker 1: feel like they have, you know, a social outlet. Imagine
10:38
Speaker 1: all the women who are kind of pushed out of
10:41
Speaker 1: this space that could mean so much for them socially, personally,
10:44
Speaker 1: and they're pushed out because of jerks out there who
10:48
Speaker 1: are treating women like this because they happen to be gamers. Yeah,
10:52
Speaker 1: it's really it's not fair. No, No, it's not fair
10:56
Speaker 1: at all. I did find one interesting account that's speculated
11:01
Speaker 1: that maybe because so many of us women are pretending
11:05
Speaker 1: to be male or I have like a gender neutral avatar,
11:08
Speaker 1: that perhaps there are a lot more women playing than
11:12
Speaker 1: we think. And I there was one story that really
11:15
Speaker 1: caught my eye and kind of tickled me where this
11:17
Speaker 1: one woman described her experience of like dominating the team
11:21
Speaker 1: fortress to leaderboard, and everyone just assumed she was male
11:24
Speaker 1: because she was good, so it must be male. Right
11:26
Speaker 1: when she finally revealed she wasn't, several other players were like, yeah,
11:30
Speaker 1: I'm not either. Oh I love it. It's like they
11:33
Speaker 1: all take off their masks and it's like, oh, we're
11:35
Speaker 1: all women what this whole time? That's like something out
11:40
Speaker 1: of a Oh my god, have you ever seen this
11:42
Speaker 1: is so dumb? Have you ever seen the Little Rascals
11:44
Speaker 1: that the remake. We're at the end, they're doing the
11:47
Speaker 1: big race and it's and she takes off her helmet
11:49
Speaker 1: and it's it's Darla, Like you think it's a male
11:51
Speaker 1: driver because he's wearing like a This is so stupid.
11:54
Speaker 1: But it's like that scene where she pulls off her
11:57
Speaker 1: mask and it's a girl the whole time. You're right,
12:03
Speaker 1: it's just like the Little Rascals. Most things in life
12:05
Speaker 1: can be related back to the Little Rascals. Another note
12:09
Speaker 1: before we dive in here. In the UN released a
12:12
Speaker 1: sixty page report called cyber Violence against Women and Girls
12:15
Speaker 1: a Worldwide wake up Call. But it contained several errors
12:18
Speaker 1: in poor citations and was generally quite flawed. So hopefully
12:22
Speaker 1: they will readdress that. Come back to that later. A
12:25
Speaker 1: lot of people we mentioned they did call on to
12:27
Speaker 1: speak at the event. It was the paper itself was
12:29
Speaker 1: kind of had a lot of issues. Okay, so gaming
12:33
Speaker 1: is a big business. As someone who doesn't do a
12:36
Speaker 1: lot of gaming myself, these numbers I found were really
12:40
Speaker 1: kind of shocking to me. In twenty six in the US,
12:42
Speaker 1: consumers spent thirty point four billion on video games. Globally,
12:47
Speaker 1: that number is an annual one and one billion, and
12:49
Speaker 1: it's estimated at the growth rate until will be around
12:52
Speaker 1: six percent. That means that forty million people worldwide play
12:57
Speaker 1: video games. Yeah, and online games, specifically online games. Yeah.
13:02
Speaker 1: And I would guess when you think of a stereotypical gamer,
13:04
Speaker 1: I mean, what do you think of bridget Definitely a dude,
13:07
Speaker 1: probably someone who sits on the couch and you know,
13:12
Speaker 1: dudes it out with this other dude friends. It's very masculine,
13:15
Speaker 1: you know, like the common narrative of a gamer doesn't
13:18
Speaker 1: look like you, doesn't look like Emma, I'm sure yeah.
13:22
Speaker 1: And sixty of the public, when asked, would say something
13:26
Speaker 1: similar it's a dude, probably a white dude, probably a
13:28
Speaker 1: younger white dude. But statistics from the Pew Research Center
13:31
Speaker 1: found that about fifty percent of both men and women
13:34
Speaker 1: say that gaming on a PC, console or handheld device
13:37
Speaker 1: is a pastime they participate in. Men are much likelier
13:40
Speaker 1: to claim the game or label though, as compared to
13:43
Speaker 1: women to six percent. So something that we were talking
13:47
Speaker 1: about off Mike that again kind of made me scratch
13:50
Speaker 1: my head was when you look at those numbers people
13:53
Speaker 1: who pushed back on this idea that gaming is a
13:55
Speaker 1: pretty you know, it's split pretty evenly between men and women.
13:58
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, that's surprised, this is me. And
14:00
Speaker 1: then you said, well, some people will push back on
14:03
Speaker 1: that because they say a lot of women are gaming
14:05
Speaker 1: on their cell phones, and some folks out there might say, oh,
14:10
Speaker 1: that means they're not real gamers. To me, I thought, well,
14:13
Speaker 1: they're fake gamers. They're imagining what does that mean? And
14:16
Speaker 1: I have no idea that there was this connotation. Then
14:19
Speaker 1: if you play games on your phone, you are a
14:22
Speaker 1: fake gamer and should not be included in the quote
14:25
Speaker 1: gamer label. Yes, And I think the more I kind
14:29
Speaker 1: of thought about this, it kind of comes up a
14:32
Speaker 1: lot where men have like they do the real thing
14:34
Speaker 1: and women do kind of like the fake not. I
14:38
Speaker 1: was just thinking about this in terms of politics, and
14:40
Speaker 1: that studies show that women are a lot more likely
14:43
Speaker 1: to get involved in politics, running for office because they
14:46
Speaker 1: want to make change and they don't care about the glitz,
14:48
Speaker 1: the glory, whatever, Whereas the research shows that men are
14:52
Speaker 1: much more likely to do that same kind of thing
14:54
Speaker 1: because they want the label of activists, of politician. They
14:58
Speaker 1: want the thing ing the like stamp on their forehead
15:01
Speaker 1: that this person is making X y Z kind of change,
15:04
Speaker 1: isn't aren't they great? Whereas the data shows that women
15:07
Speaker 1: just want to do the thing, they don't care about
15:09
Speaker 1: the label. And I'm sure there are so many instances
15:12
Speaker 1: where if men do it, they are assumed to be
15:15
Speaker 1: the representative thing, you know, whether it's gaming, whether it's
15:18
Speaker 1: an activist, whether it's you know, well, we talked about
15:21
Speaker 1: a little in our fan fiction episode with writing science fiction,
15:24
Speaker 1: where that was the real thing exactly. And Emily and
15:27
Speaker 1: I had an episode on journaling where when women wrote journals,
15:31
Speaker 1: it was just assumed to be these like little diaries,
15:33
Speaker 1: not important, who cares. It's them writing about their feelings
15:36
Speaker 1: and their crushes whatever. But when men write it, it's
15:38
Speaker 1: it's their papers and it goes in a museum or something.
15:41
Speaker 1: But for women it's just a little you know, women
15:43
Speaker 1: aren't real writers. It's just their little doodles. The doodles.
15:54
Speaker 1: When it comes to video games, there is like core gaming,
15:58
Speaker 1: which is seen as like not phone playing games on
16:02
Speaker 1: your phone, but most people do play games in their phone,
16:05
Speaker 1: like not just women, most people, because we have them
16:07
Speaker 1: all the time. And if you're just like kind of
16:10
Speaker 1: waiting around, might as well play a game. I did
16:14
Speaker 1: wanna mention that female video game developer interviewed about this
16:19
Speaker 1: whole thing said one of her coworkers assumed that only
16:23
Speaker 1: five percent of women were core gamers and the rest
16:26
Speaker 1: are casual gamers. So developers are making the games for men.
16:31
Speaker 1: The core gamers like with that in the back of
16:33
Speaker 1: their head that women don't play video games. So I
16:35
Speaker 1: make I make video games for them. That's so wild
16:37
Speaker 1: to me, because what other industry is like that. If
16:41
Speaker 1: you're someone who sees a movie in a movie theater
16:43
Speaker 1: once a month and you're a casual movie, you know,
16:46
Speaker 1: movie person, that people don't neglect you as an audience.
16:49
Speaker 1: It just it's interesting to me that they're thinking, like, oh,
16:52
Speaker 1: we can only market games towards people who are very
16:56
Speaker 1: involved in this. I mean, it's interesting because this is
16:58
Speaker 1: a whole other side conversation, and but it's interesting to me.
17:01
Speaker 1: Like the identity label that is wrapped up in the
17:04
Speaker 1: work gamer, I think there are so many other things
17:06
Speaker 1: like pastimes that people do not make it part of
17:09
Speaker 1: their core identity. I think gaming lends itself to people
17:13
Speaker 1: taking it on as a kind of label about who
17:16
Speaker 1: they are and their identity in the way that other
17:18
Speaker 1: kinds of pastimes maybe do not. Yes, I completely agree
17:22
Speaker 1: with you, and I do have an interesting quote about
17:26
Speaker 1: that later in the episode. And to go back to
17:28
Speaker 1: what you were saying about like marketing. Marketing research has
17:32
Speaker 1: been pushing the video game industry to change. It's been
17:34
Speaker 1: showing like you could be making a lot more money.
17:38
Speaker 1: We found so many, so many market reports that concluded
17:42
Speaker 1: that if the video game industry and markets behind it,
17:44
Speaker 1: if they did make games for women, they could majorly
17:48
Speaker 1: increase profits. So well, that's like our episode on action figures,
17:54
Speaker 1: where there's money to be made. These people is holding
17:57
Speaker 1: onto these not true, outdated ideas about who plays video
18:00
Speaker 1: games and gender, is holding onto those rigid gender attitudes
18:04
Speaker 1: more important than money. It seems like it is that
18:07
Speaker 1: they could be making money. Do they not like money?
18:09
Speaker 1: It was a deal. Yeah, they're they're entrenched in their ways.
18:13
Speaker 1: And we're not going to touch on this too much
18:15
Speaker 1: in this episode. But and one of the classics that
18:17
Speaker 1: we're gonna be replaying that Kristen Caroline, did they talk
18:20
Speaker 1: about how the industry is like ten to twelve the
18:24
Speaker 1: designers making video games are women. So if it's that
18:28
Speaker 1: small of a percentage, I can see how that would
18:30
Speaker 1: kind of have ripple effects into what games are made.
18:33
Speaker 1: And speaking of big business, let's talk about the sports.
18:38
Speaker 1: E sports is like really growing very quickly. This is
18:41
Speaker 1: organized and competitive play, usually of an online game that
18:45
Speaker 1: has an aspect of performance that might be rewarded. Competitive
18:49
Speaker 1: video gaming. Essentially, the sports have really really taken off.
18:53
Speaker 1: They've doubled in size in the past three years, especially
18:56
Speaker 1: in Asia, the US and Europe. The NBA is involved
19:00
Speaker 1: in it, and in the next couple of years it's
19:02
Speaker 1: expected to be valued at thirty five billion. From what
19:06
Speaker 1: little data we have on this, about thirty percent to
19:09
Speaker 1: professional gamers are female and people get paid for this.
19:13
Speaker 1: If that's not clear, like some people millions. A report
19:17
Speaker 1: in the VBC looked into China's female e sports team
19:20
Speaker 1: and found that compared to men who can and have
19:22
Speaker 1: earned up to two million, you know, pretty much celebrities,
19:26
Speaker 1: women earn far, far less. In general, big companies don't
19:30
Speaker 1: want to back female teams because they think that the
19:33
Speaker 1: male teams people are more likely to watch them. We
19:36
Speaker 1: hear that argument all the time. People want to watch
19:38
Speaker 1: the male teams play, but not the female teams. China
19:41
Speaker 1: has on seventy million esport players and made over half
19:45
Speaker 1: a billion dollars for the country in this industry did
19:49
Speaker 1: which is very impressive considering that from console games were
19:54
Speaker 1: banned and labeled by the Chinese government as digital heroine. Yeah,
20:00
Speaker 1: I think that for anyone listening was thinking, oh, why
20:03
Speaker 1: are they talking about? Video games? Is just some stupid
20:05
Speaker 1: pastime This is a very real part of economies. You know,
20:09
Speaker 1: it's not just people's lives. It seems like a really
20:11
Speaker 1: big part of what can make a country like China
20:14
Speaker 1: function is video games. So it's not just some small thing. Yeah, no,
20:18
Speaker 1: not at all. But I also found really interesting is
20:20
Speaker 1: ex professional gamer Lillian Chen also known as a milk
20:24
Speaker 1: Tea broth this viral blog post about what it's like
20:26
Speaker 1: being a female gamer. So if you're curious, what is
20:29
Speaker 1: it like being a professional female gamer? Who this is
20:32
Speaker 1: not just a pastime, this is how you make your money.
20:34
Speaker 1: She played Super Smash Brothers. Yeah, yeah, and so if
20:37
Speaker 1: you want to know what it's like, it's actually fascinating.
20:39
Speaker 1: So yeah, And one of the reasons video games have
20:43
Speaker 1: for so long been masculinized does relate back to our
20:47
Speaker 1: action figure episode. Um. In the ninety eighties, the video
20:50
Speaker 1: game industry in the US had like way too many
20:54
Speaker 1: video and arcade games, and American video game producers were
20:57
Speaker 1: on the verge of bankruptcy. So there's solution was to
21:00
Speaker 1: create more novel content that was reflective of the audience,
21:03
Speaker 1: which meant they needed to narrow down the audience and
21:06
Speaker 1: also increase visibility to that audience, so they decided to
21:11
Speaker 1: move video games into the toy department, and since toy
21:14
Speaker 1: departments were gendered, they picked boy over a girl. At
21:18
Speaker 1: the time, boys played more games than girls. Video games
21:21
Speaker 1: were then made with boys in mind, and therefore most
21:24
Speaker 1: of the playable characters were male, and therefore women who
21:28
Speaker 1: might have been into video games were turned away because
21:30
Speaker 1: they weren't made for them. And not only that, female
21:34
Speaker 1: characters and video games were seen as totally optional, and
21:37
Speaker 1: when they were included, they were probably a hindrance, probably
21:41
Speaker 1: an annoying one, our sex object, a prize to be one,
21:45
Speaker 1: all of the above. And if that's what you're seeing
21:47
Speaker 1: as a female player, yeah, you're probably gonna check out.
21:51
Speaker 1: Video games are one of the most popular forms of
21:53
Speaker 1: entertainment for children too, so we're teaching these messages at
21:56
Speaker 1: very young ages. And it might go without saying, but
22:01
Speaker 1: women are more attracted to games a female protagonists, which
22:04
Speaker 1: are not supplentiful. For every five male characters, there is
22:07
Speaker 1: one female one and that number gets even worse if
22:10
Speaker 1: you look at door or action characters, and in over
22:14
Speaker 1: games with only one protagonist, that protagonist is male. So
22:19
Speaker 1: this actually reminds me so much of my childhood because
22:22
Speaker 1: when we were growing up, we were obsessed with the
22:23
Speaker 1: Ninja Turtles, and I always had to be April a
22:27
Speaker 1: real meal because she was the girl. And the mall
22:31
Speaker 1: Chesterfield Towns and tremol in my town when I was
22:33
Speaker 1: growing up used to have this big arcade and the
22:35
Speaker 1: best game they had was that stand up Ninja Turtles
22:39
Speaker 1: game that you know where it was like four players
22:40
Speaker 1: could play at once and you were all sort of
22:42
Speaker 1: standing in a semicircle and it would be like my
22:45
Speaker 1: brother and my cousin's all playing. But since I was
22:48
Speaker 1: the girl, there was no there was no kind of
22:51
Speaker 1: role for me. If you know that game, in the beginning,
22:53
Speaker 1: Splinter and April are kidnapped and so that's when the
22:56
Speaker 1: that's why the turtles are fighting in the first place.
22:58
Speaker 1: And so because in my sort of family, when we
23:02
Speaker 1: would do Ninja Turtles games and play Ninja Turtles in
23:04
Speaker 1: the yard, which he did all the time I was April,
23:08
Speaker 1: I had no role in that. In that game, you know,
23:10
Speaker 1: there wasn't even a role for me. And I'll remember
23:12
Speaker 1: this in the Mario franchise, you know how Super Mario
23:16
Speaker 1: Brothers one, you're saving Princess Peach. But then the Super
23:18
Speaker 1: Mario Brothers too, is like really strange and all this
23:22
Speaker 1: strange stuff has happening. It doesn't look anything like the
23:24
Speaker 1: other Super Mario games. Not to trash my brother but
23:27
Speaker 1: when we were kids, we were playing in that game
23:29
Speaker 1: for the first time, and in that game you can
23:31
Speaker 1: actually play as Princess Peach. He was like, what is
23:35
Speaker 1: Princess Peach doing in game play? Like she's supposed to
23:37
Speaker 1: be being saved And I'll never forget that I was
23:39
Speaker 1: a kid, but I was like, why can't she play?
23:42
Speaker 1: She didn't even be saved all the time. Maybe she
23:45
Speaker 1: wants to play. Do you remember that game. It's a
23:48
Speaker 1: very strange game that involves you floating on a cloud
23:51
Speaker 1: and there's a scene where like a chicken eggs being
23:54
Speaker 1: shot at it that now that it goes bowl, it's
23:56
Speaker 1: like a very weird game. I feel like it's an
23:59
Speaker 1: acid trip. Doesn't make sense in the franchise at all,
24:03
Speaker 1: but you can play its Princess Peach, and that was
24:05
Speaker 1: very important to me. Yeah. I had similar conversations with
24:09
Speaker 1: my brothers, and yeah, not to trash talk them either,
24:12
Speaker 1: but they were very It's funny because like compared to
24:16
Speaker 1: the rest of the population. I am like a gamer,
24:18
Speaker 1: but they thought I was a fake gamer, so they
24:21
Speaker 1: would erase my video games because you could only have
24:23
Speaker 1: three SAPs, right, Remember how if you like unplugged, it lost.
24:30
Speaker 1: My friend of mine kept a plugged in small TV
24:34
Speaker 1: in his room where it was like a sign that
24:36
Speaker 1: said do not touch. Just trying to say the high
24:39
Speaker 1: score for so long and I feel like this is
24:42
Speaker 1: going to be buried with This was like ten years ago.
24:44
Speaker 1: This was well into when you could have been playing
24:46
Speaker 1: a console that allowed for turning off the system and
24:50
Speaker 1: not not having not saving a game. So many of
24:52
Speaker 1: us were traumatized by losing games. Yeah, tune into our
24:55
Speaker 1: spinoff podcast, Annie and Bridget talked about the brothers just
25:00
Speaker 1: just talking. If you didn't get that idea from the
25:03
Speaker 1: title if we If we go look at video game covers,
25:07
Speaker 1: male characters are four times is likely to be featured
25:09
Speaker 1: on the front and um. First person shooters, which I
25:13
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, is a traditionally male dominated video game genre,
25:17
Speaker 1: they have a much greater female playership. Studies have shown
25:20
Speaker 1: if a female protagonist is involved, so games where you
25:23
Speaker 1: can customize your character generally pretty popular. Across gen or
25:26
Speaker 1: divides too. It is worth noting that a lot of
25:29
Speaker 1: people do like to play as the opposite sex. It's
25:31
Speaker 1: not like if you see a male avatar, very well
25:34
Speaker 1: could be one, if you see a female avatar, very
25:35
Speaker 1: well could be a man. But it's good to have
25:37
Speaker 1: those options. I know that in general, I always play
25:40
Speaker 1: as a woman if it's an option. Um oh you
25:43
Speaker 1: like this. Bridget In, the creative director of Ubisoft, made
25:48
Speaker 1: headlines when he said Assassin's Creed didn't have a playable
25:50
Speaker 1: female character because quote, it was really a lot of
25:54
Speaker 1: extra production work, which led to the viral hashtag women
25:59
Speaker 1: are too hard. Oh my god, that's that's all I'm starting.
26:05
Speaker 1: It's hilarious. Yeah. I have one of my favorite video games,
26:09
Speaker 1: Fantasy seven, has this scene that even as a kid,
26:11
Speaker 1: I was like, this is weird. And one of the
26:14
Speaker 1: main characters she has really big boobs, really big, and
26:17
Speaker 1: there's a cut scene where she gets knocked over and
26:20
Speaker 1: just the like motion I wish you could see what
26:24
Speaker 1: and he's doing with her hands right now. It's like,
26:26
Speaker 1: do her boots have a ripple of that? If you're
26:28
Speaker 1: basically doing it. It was a site of a hold
26:32
Speaker 1: and it's stuck with me years later. So you know,
26:36
Speaker 1: maybe maybe there are challenges animating boobs. Who knows, I
26:40
Speaker 1: mean not if you live in the world and observe
26:42
Speaker 1: how bob Yeah, I really you could just kind of
26:45
Speaker 1: leave them alone. I don't know. They really don't need
26:48
Speaker 1: to do anything special in the video game. I don't think, no,
26:51
Speaker 1: unless you're using them to shoot a gun or something. Sure,
26:54
Speaker 1: using them for gameplay, yeah, I'm sure those games exist.
26:59
Speaker 1: And this is raging. More female and l g B
27:01
Speaker 1: t Q characters are becoming more common in video games.
27:06
Speaker 1: In fact, Listener Rose, which was recently about the sighting
27:09
Speaker 1: Horizon Zo don overwatched Dragon Age Inquisition and Ellie from
27:14
Speaker 1: Last of Us, which I mentioned at the top, and
27:17
Speaker 1: that gameplay just came out recently for the second one.
27:19
Speaker 1: It looks amazing, so some improvement, but we still have
27:22
Speaker 1: a long way to go, and we're gonna get into
27:26
Speaker 1: that after a quick break forward from our sponsor and
27:38
Speaker 1: we're back, Thank you sponsor. When when real life women
27:43
Speaker 1: started venturing into this male world, a lot of intense
27:47
Speaker 1: gamer dudes were not happy. They try to keep women
27:50
Speaker 1: out with insults, harassment, and even threats like gamer Gate.
27:53
Speaker 1: I'm sure we're all familiar with gamer Gate. Anita Sarkasian
27:57
Speaker 1: was threatened with rape and death, sent pictures of game
28:00
Speaker 1: characters raping her and a game called beat Up. Anita
28:03
Speaker 1: Sarkeesian was made um because she kind of intruded in
28:07
Speaker 1: their world and started talking about feminism and sexist trokes. Again,
28:11
Speaker 1: she likes video games. You can critique things and still
28:15
Speaker 1: like them. She wasn't like, I watched the videos and
28:18
Speaker 1: they're great, but yeah, she was just like, hey, let's
28:21
Speaker 1: look at Sammy's for a minute. Yeah. I once had
28:24
Speaker 1: a really scary and eye opening situation. This was many,
28:27
Speaker 1: many years ago when I had first got into into
28:29
Speaker 1: the mix writing and blogging, and I was doing a
28:32
Speaker 1: review of one of Sarkasian's pieces and it was completely
28:37
Speaker 1: by the book. I certainly did not editorialize it because
28:40
Speaker 1: that was not my job. I was just like, Oh,
28:42
Speaker 1: this is a piece that she has, here's what she says,
28:44
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, very by the book. Publish the amount
28:48
Speaker 1: of vitriolic hate that I personally got just because she
28:53
Speaker 1: happened to tweet this piece out because it was about her,
28:55
Speaker 1: I have never seen anything like it, and I don't
28:57
Speaker 1: think I'll ever see anything like it again. And bear
29:00
Speaker 1: in mind, in no way did she say people who
29:03
Speaker 1: game are sexist and awful like. She didn't say anything
29:06
Speaker 1: like that. It was just a pretty mild breakdown of gaming.
29:11
Speaker 1: You know, the tropes in this game. It was. In
29:14
Speaker 1: no way was it anything that anyone should upset about.
29:16
Speaker 1: It wasn't. It was basically a movie review. If you
29:18
Speaker 1: wouldn't think that a movie review would be something to
29:20
Speaker 1: lose your cool over, it certainly wasn't anything different from that.
29:23
Speaker 1: And I just could not I could not believe the
29:26
Speaker 1: shocking level of response that she got. And then I
29:30
Speaker 1: got this from a mild association with her work. I
29:34
Speaker 1: was like, what the hell is going on? Yep, but well,
29:37
Speaker 1: angry gamers trying to paint gamer gate as a response
29:40
Speaker 1: to like a lack of journalistic integrity. It's about integrity
29:44
Speaker 1: and gaming. It's about ethics and gaming journalism. Any that's
29:49
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, we should rape this woman. I don't know,
29:51
Speaker 1: it's about ethics. I can't believe you missed that. So
29:56
Speaker 1: if we look at that, there's the story of Zoe Quinn,
29:59
Speaker 1: who was an indie gamer developer who had a positively
30:02
Speaker 1: reviewed game called Depression Quest, and an ex lover of
30:06
Speaker 1: hers put transcripts of her life online, and here come
30:10
Speaker 1: the gamer gators, alleging that Quinn's relationship with the journalist
30:13
Speaker 1: was behind her games good reviews, and that was all
30:16
Speaker 1: the excuse angry dude gamers needed to ask her to
30:19
Speaker 1: the point that she went into hiding and hiding. I
30:22
Speaker 1: just wanted to point out that gamers didn't go after
30:24
Speaker 1: the journalist. If you, if you're wondering about that ethics
30:27
Speaker 1: and video game journalism, why do you what? What? What
30:29
Speaker 1: could be the difference? I don't know, I don't know
30:31
Speaker 1: what a good view it did find a really interesting
30:33
Speaker 1: article written by Devon Ferarchi called why I feel bad
30:36
Speaker 1: for and understand the angry gamer Gators. I have a
30:39
Speaker 1: really long quote that I probably shouldn't read the whole thing,
30:42
Speaker 1: but it was. It was interesting to read. It kind
30:44
Speaker 1: of goes back to what you were saying Bridget about
30:46
Speaker 1: how gamer is such an identity for some people. I
30:50
Speaker 1: guess when you feel like people are intruding into this
30:53
Speaker 1: thing that you've producted and cultivated, when you are someone
30:55
Speaker 1: who is an outsider, who is downtrodden, you will fight back.
30:59
Speaker 1: I guess we could post it it is. It was
31:02
Speaker 1: really interesting to read, especially because I know, I don't
31:05
Speaker 1: know if I know someone who is is like a
31:08
Speaker 1: gamer gater, but I know guys that are very very
31:11
Speaker 1: protective of like they're gaming worlds. So full disclosure, Like
31:16
Speaker 1: I casually sometimes play video games, but I would never
31:18
Speaker 1: call myself a gamer. But so so I'm a little
31:21
Speaker 1: out of the loop. Admittedly, are gamers like a downtrodden group,
31:25
Speaker 1: well not anymore. Well, I don't know. I will say
31:29
Speaker 1: we kind of touched on this before, where like nerds
31:33
Speaker 1: haven't inherited the earth, right, so I feel like in
31:37
Speaker 1: the eighties nerds certainly was depicted as very downtrodden and
31:42
Speaker 1: being getting picked on and bullied. I honestly can't speak
31:46
Speaker 1: to right now. I will know, the most gamers I
31:50
Speaker 1: know that are men are not perhaps they were nerdier. Yeah,
31:56
Speaker 1: I again, and this is not this is Bridget's opinion, anecdote.
32:00
Speaker 1: All I've always pushed back against that idea that gamers
32:04
Speaker 1: on a whole are this marginalized group. As you pointed
32:07
Speaker 1: out at the top of the show, a lot of
32:09
Speaker 1: people game and so it's the majority of people are
32:11
Speaker 1: playing video games. They might not have this label of gamer,
32:15
Speaker 1: but it's not a niche hobby. In fact, quite a
32:17
Speaker 1: mainstream hobby, I would argue. And so I hear that
32:20
Speaker 1: people feel that they have lived a life full of
32:24
Speaker 1: hardship because they were nerdier, because they were skinnier, because
32:27
Speaker 1: they were not popular or whatever. I understand that that's
32:30
Speaker 1: how I felt growing up sometimes. But whether or not
32:34
Speaker 1: they are actually like a marginalized group or who actually
32:38
Speaker 1: is downtrotch, I'm always sort of skeptical about that. Yeah. Maybe, yeah, yeah, no, totally. Um,
32:47
Speaker 1: I don't know the word for it. Most most gamer
32:50
Speaker 1: gaiters are young. They're pretty young. So I don't know
32:55
Speaker 1: if the movie should post the article. It's interesting to read.
32:58
Speaker 1: There is one. There's one it I really liked where
33:01
Speaker 1: it says these guys get told lies that I think
33:04
Speaker 1: are really insidious, like it doesn't matter what's on your outside,
33:07
Speaker 1: it matters what's on your inside, which leads to an
33:10
Speaker 1: entire affinity of groups a dress and smell like and
33:14
Speaker 1: don't take care of themselves, And this leads to a
33:16
Speaker 1: horrible cycle where socially awkward weirdos who dressed like garbage
33:19
Speaker 1: get rejected by attractive women, which causes socially awkward weirdos
33:22
Speaker 1: to start blaming women in general for their problems and
33:25
Speaker 1: reinforce their social awkwardness. They do it because they have
33:28
Speaker 1: been raised in a world where women are not humans
33:30
Speaker 1: but prizes, and so they can't see them as individuals.
33:33
Speaker 1: They can understand that they are women out there who
33:35
Speaker 1: also are socially awkward weirdos who might truly be into
33:38
Speaker 1: comic books, video games, thunder and dragons. Yes, Oh my god,
33:42
Speaker 1: I have a lot to say. This reminds me so
33:44
Speaker 1: much of the episode that we did a while back,
33:46
Speaker 1: Emily and I on men going their own way, and
33:49
Speaker 1: if you don't know what that is, basically, it's this
33:51
Speaker 1: attitude that some men have today where they are basically
33:55
Speaker 1: retreating from society. They don't want to have a romantic partner,
33:59
Speaker 1: they don't want to be included in everyday society. The
34:02
Speaker 1: reason why that topic was something that was on my
34:05
Speaker 1: radar at all was this study that had come out
34:07
Speaker 1: that had just come out then about young men and
34:10
Speaker 1: video gaming and how the role it can function in
34:13
Speaker 1: a young man's life in this day and age, and
34:15
Speaker 1: it's a lot of what you talked about where young
34:18
Speaker 1: men especially have been sold this kind of lie. I
34:21
Speaker 1: guess there's no other word for it. That they will
34:24
Speaker 1: grow up, be successful, get a job, to find a wife,
34:27
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, like do the sort of white picket
34:29
Speaker 1: fence American dream thing. But look around you. That's no
34:32
Speaker 1: longer happening, and you know, gone on the days when
34:35
Speaker 1: just by virtue of being born white and male, you
34:37
Speaker 1: can be promised things like a spouse, things like a job,
34:41
Speaker 1: successful life, and video games, it seems, are kind of
34:45
Speaker 1: functioning as a a way to be like, Oh, the
34:49
Speaker 1: life that I was sort of promised is not a
34:51
Speaker 1: reality for me. I'll just retreat into video games and
34:53
Speaker 1: new society. In that episode, we took a lot of
34:55
Speaker 1: heat for almost humanizing young man who feel that way
34:59
Speaker 1: too much. But I do think it's like an interesting
35:02
Speaker 1: position to be in because from that excerpt that you've
35:04
Speaker 1: just read, it just sounds like we are not setting
35:06
Speaker 1: these young men up for successful, healthy lives, and that's
35:10
Speaker 1: what it really comes down to. And so part of
35:12
Speaker 1: me does feel sympathetic, not so sympathetic that they're out
35:14
Speaker 1: there sitting rape threats and like making zo Quinn's life horrible.
35:17
Speaker 1: But part of me can understand if you grew up
35:20
Speaker 1: hearing that it's what's inside that counts, and that just
35:22
Speaker 1: by virtue of being born white and male, you will
35:25
Speaker 1: have X, y Z good things, and then come to
35:27
Speaker 1: find out that actually you do need to have a
35:30
Speaker 1: decent personality, You actually do need to take care of yourself.
35:33
Speaker 1: You actually do need to have basic hygiene and like
35:35
Speaker 1: a basic understanding of how to present in the world.
35:37
Speaker 1: If you want to have good things in your life,
35:38
Speaker 1: you actually do have to work for them. You know,
35:40
Speaker 1: it's not gonna get handed to you. You don't, you
35:42
Speaker 1: don't earn it. It It is by virtue of being you.
35:44
Speaker 1: It's not a prize that you can just get by
35:46
Speaker 1: showing up. Because we are filling these young men's heads
35:50
Speaker 1: with those lives, and because of video games function, a
35:53
Speaker 1: lot of them function in a way where that's the case,
35:55
Speaker 1: you know, like we'll post it in the show notes.
35:57
Speaker 1: This article talks about how so many games the reward
36:01
Speaker 1: system rewards tasks in such a way that it can
36:04
Speaker 1: almost mimic work. And so if you are someone who
36:07
Speaker 1: is underemployed or unemployed. Gaming is designed to stimulate something
36:12
Speaker 1: in your brain that maybe makes you feel like you
36:15
Speaker 1: are working when you're not, you know what I mean.
36:17
Speaker 1: And so you're not gonna feel like you need to
36:18
Speaker 1: go out and join society, join the workforce to get
36:21
Speaker 1: those brain warm fuzzies if gaming provides it in a
36:25
Speaker 1: kind of way. I know, I sound like someone who
36:27
Speaker 1: I mean this people who are gaming or like getting
36:30
Speaker 1: no bridget. But when I found this out, I thought, oh,
36:31
Speaker 1: of course. And the reason why I found this out
36:34
Speaker 1: is because I had someone in my life who was
36:36
Speaker 1: underemployed and was like, yeah, video games are really getting
36:39
Speaker 1: me through. And at first I thought, Jesus, that's satisfying.
36:42
Speaker 1: But then I when I really unpacked it, I thought,
36:44
Speaker 1: oh my god, it makes sense, and this is what's
36:46
Speaker 1: happening to a generation of young men. And it explains
36:49
Speaker 1: so much about how young men see themselves in the world.
36:52
Speaker 1: You know, if they're heterosexual, how they're functioning with women,
36:55
Speaker 1: why they might want to check out of society if
36:57
Speaker 1: they feel like they've been sold a lie. And I
37:00
Speaker 1: mean it's not just video games either, those eighties movies.
37:03
Speaker 1: This has been the story we've been telling for a
37:05
Speaker 1: long time that eventually it's just gonna work out in
37:10
Speaker 1: the end and you're going to get the girl. And
37:13
Speaker 1: I'm glad we're moving away from that and telling different stories.
37:16
Speaker 1: So many women, so many women have spoken up about
37:20
Speaker 1: harassment in gaming. There's Jenny Honiver. She runs Not in
37:24
Speaker 1: the Kitchen Anymore, a website dedicated to her experience as
37:27
Speaker 1: a female gamer, particularly online. She records and transcribes audio
37:31
Speaker 1: files of her interactions and post them and let me
37:34
Speaker 1: tell you, it gets really grim fast. I think she's
37:38
Speaker 1: stepped away from it so it's more of an archive now,
37:41
Speaker 1: but if you're looking for reasons to get angry, it's there.
37:45
Speaker 1: Julia Hardy, who was a gaming journalist, has a similar
37:48
Speaker 1: website called Misogyny Monday, where she post abusive comments she's
37:51
Speaker 1: received and her pretty hilarious comebacks. After someone tweeted it
37:55
Speaker 1: her to go back to the kitchen and make me
37:57
Speaker 1: a sandwich, she responded with, what is it that you
38:00
Speaker 1: most fear about? Women? Are keen? Agility? Are the fact
38:03
Speaker 1: our periods attract bears? Well, anyone knows that's true. I
38:07
Speaker 1: know that's just science. Another website documenting abuse female gamers
38:11
Speaker 1: receive online is fat, ugly, or slutty. It hasn't been
38:14
Speaker 1: updated in a while, but this is another good one
38:16
Speaker 1: if you want to be mad um. I really like
38:19
Speaker 1: the categories on the side because it kind of sorts
38:21
Speaker 1: the comments and the categories are like sand which making
38:24
Speaker 1: one on one are crudely creative. I mean, if you've
38:26
Speaker 1: got to put a silver lining on it, it's pretty good. Yeah. Honestly,
38:31
Speaker 1: what this displays is that a lot of these digs
38:34
Speaker 1: are just not very creative. Yeah. I wonder if I
38:38
Speaker 1: still have any I should go look. A lot of
38:40
Speaker 1: them don't make much sense. Yeah, So it's annoying to
38:42
Speaker 1: get abuse online. I try to stay off social media
38:44
Speaker 1: in these days, but when I do blog back in,
38:46
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, yeah, this is why I left. What
38:48
Speaker 1: I hate the most is when I'm thinking, that's not
38:50
Speaker 1: even a good joke. It's not even a good comeback.
38:52
Speaker 1: If you're gonna insult somebody that doesn't even make sense,
38:56
Speaker 1: at least make it good. The gender based insult that
38:59
Speaker 1: I would hear a lot of this take your tampon out,
39:01
Speaker 1: and I was like, having a tampon it, this will
39:03
Speaker 1: have an effect on your mood, Like, what are you
39:05
Speaker 1: trying to say, if you've got an argument to make
39:07
Speaker 1: about me being on my period, make it succinctly. Just
39:10
Speaker 1: wearing a tampon does not have any impact on how
39:13
Speaker 1: I'm behaving. That doesn't even make sense. At least put
39:16
Speaker 1: some thought into it. It's just insulting to both. It's
39:17
Speaker 1: insulting to It should be insulting with the person who
39:19
Speaker 1: was tweeting that you're better than that, you're gonna insult somebody,
39:23
Speaker 1: put a little full thought into it. That should be
39:25
Speaker 1: your response. Better than you're better than this, you can
39:29
Speaker 1: do better. I used to collect my um any kind
39:33
Speaker 1: of insults I received online, and I want to make
39:35
Speaker 1: a modern art poster of them. But my favorite one
39:39
Speaker 1: I ever got was I know the producer of this,
39:42
Speaker 1: and she's a slut, because it's interesting to call out
39:44
Speaker 1: the producer. The other one was her mouth looks like
39:48
Speaker 1: it's made of crabs wasting the venarial disease or the
39:55
Speaker 1: animal I don't know. I didn't If you're going to
39:59
Speaker 1: insult somebody, those are important questions to ask. Yes, the
40:02
Speaker 1: Tories and Culture editor at I G and Entertainment a
40:05
Speaker 1: lot of tears. She has an interesting way of dealing
40:08
Speaker 1: with perhaps some of these insults quote fairly randomly, I
40:11
Speaker 1: get sent rape threats. Someone sent me a Facebook message
40:14
Speaker 1: saying they would rate me if I ever saw me
40:16
Speaker 1: in person. I checked his Facebook account and it was
40:18
Speaker 1: a young boy. So I managed to find his mom
40:21
Speaker 1: incredibly easily, and she made him hand write me a
40:23
Speaker 1: letter of apology. So I doubt he will ever do
40:25
Speaker 1: it again. Good on that mom. I love that. I
40:29
Speaker 1: mean part of me wants to say, oh, it shouldn't
40:31
Speaker 1: be up to this person's mom to to do this.
40:33
Speaker 1: But if you're an adult, if you're young, good on
40:37
Speaker 1: this mom for taking some initiative and saying no, you're
40:39
Speaker 1: not going to treat somebody like that, You're gonna write
40:41
Speaker 1: an apology letter. Also, making someone out a handwritten apology
40:44
Speaker 1: letter is is she's mom in real horror, She's a
40:47
Speaker 1: mom in heart. Has a duma who has a pretty
40:50
Speaker 1: sizeable YouTube gaming channel advises blocking your muting root comments,
40:53
Speaker 1: So that's one way. Yeah. Something that I have found
40:56
Speaker 1: is that if you're on Twitter, especially mute over block
40:59
Speaker 1: if you can, because blocking is can sometimes be like
41:02
Speaker 1: a badge of honor. Honestly, we should do an episode
41:04
Speaker 1: on how to deal with online harassment in general. But
41:06
Speaker 1: I have found that if I block someone, someone else
41:08
Speaker 1: will tell me. Oh. They then tweeted a picture of
41:11
Speaker 1: the screen of you blocking them, and it sort of reverberates.
41:14
Speaker 1: And so if you mute someone, they don't know that
41:16
Speaker 1: you muted, but you don't get a notification that they're
41:18
Speaker 1: mentioning you. So it's just them farting in the wind. Basically,
41:21
Speaker 1: they can keep on talking. You won't see it, and
41:23
Speaker 1: they don't get that badge of honor that oh, I
41:26
Speaker 1: ruffled her feather so much that she blocked me. Can
41:28
Speaker 1: you believe this? You know? Um? So just a little
41:31
Speaker 1: tip that I've learned Bridget's words of wisdom. Brianna Wu,
41:37
Speaker 1: a game developer, hired an employed to deal with the
41:39
Speaker 1: constant Internet trolling she gets. That's how much she gets.
41:42
Speaker 1: After we posted a meme about gamer gators on Twitter,
41:45
Speaker 1: they went after her company's financial aspects, impersonated her on
41:49
Speaker 1: Twitter and launched a campaign to destroy her career by
41:51
Speaker 1: sending emails to journalists from burner accounts. One of the
41:55
Speaker 1: scariest messages she received was from someone claiming to know
41:57
Speaker 1: where she and her husband lived, and the message described
42:00
Speaker 1: in horrific graphic detail how he was going to kill
42:03
Speaker 1: them that night, who wrote in an article They've taken
42:06
Speaker 1: down women I care about, one by one. Now the
42:09
Speaker 1: vicious mob of game or Gate movement is coming after me.
42:12
Speaker 1: They've threatened to rape me. They threatened to make me
42:14
Speaker 1: choke to death on my husband's severed genitals. They've threatened
42:17
Speaker 1: to murder any children I might have. In interview with NPR,
42:21
Speaker 1: she said that as far as she can tell, the
42:23
Speaker 1: video game industry has not had its me to moment
42:26
Speaker 1: and that it really needs to quote, look at the hiring,
42:29
Speaker 1: look at the culture, look at who makes up the
42:31
Speaker 1: food chain, because we've really created a culture of silence
42:33
Speaker 1: in my field that is very similar to why Harvey
42:36
Speaker 1: Weinstein was able to go for so long unchecked. I
42:40
Speaker 1: can completely believe that that is the case, and I
42:42
Speaker 1: think it probably is one of those things. I mean,
42:44
Speaker 1: it took so long for me to to trickle down
42:47
Speaker 1: to industries like animation, and I think it's because they
42:50
Speaker 1: are heavily male dominated, and because it's like a nerd
42:55
Speaker 1: culture kind of thing. It is seen as if you
42:58
Speaker 1: speak up about abuse, about terrible treatment, about that kind
43:01
Speaker 1: of thing, you're not a cool You're not a cool
43:03
Speaker 1: nerd anymore. You know, we had this free wheel in
43:06
Speaker 1: thing if anything goes and a lot of really toxic
43:09
Speaker 1: stuff confester and cultures like that. Yeah. Absolutely. In Washington
43:14
Speaker 1: Post article, we did give some specific recommendations targeting Gamergate mostly,
43:19
Speaker 1: but so major gaming institutions need to come out against
43:22
Speaker 1: Gammergate and harassment in general. Hiring in the industry needs
43:24
Speaker 1: to be looked at and examined at all levels. And
43:27
Speaker 1: game journalism needs more women too. And as I know,
43:31
Speaker 1: she's running for Congress in Boston are she was as
43:33
Speaker 1: of recording this episode. Another woman who has spoken up
43:38
Speaker 1: about this is Lena van de Venter, who, along with
43:41
Speaker 1: Dan Golding, co authored a book called Game Changers. From
43:45
Speaker 1: Minecraft to Misogyny, The Fight for the Future of Video Games.
43:47
Speaker 1: And here's just one of her encounters with sexual harassment
43:50
Speaker 1: and online gaming. I could hear him masturbating on the
43:53
Speaker 1: voice chat while playing. He would ask breathy, labored questions.
43:56
Speaker 1: Other teammates found it hilarious. I wish I could focus
43:59
Speaker 1: on my objective in the game, but I knew I
44:01
Speaker 1: had to leave this server. My mouth was hovering over
44:03
Speaker 1: the exit button when I heard him Climax moaning my
44:06
Speaker 1: user name into his microphone. I mean, who thinks you
44:10
Speaker 1: can play a game in those like conditions? But that's
44:12
Speaker 1: what you were saying before. It's what pisces me off
44:17
Speaker 1: about this. There's so much wrong with it, but it's
44:21
Speaker 1: this idea that women who game have this unfair extra burden,
44:26
Speaker 1: like male gamers are not dealing with someone moaning their
44:29
Speaker 1: their user name into the god microphone that's are trying
44:32
Speaker 1: to play, and so as bad as that is, these
44:35
Speaker 1: male gamers still think that women somehow are not real gamers. Basically,
44:39
Speaker 1: it's like that old quote, you know, that Ginger Rogers
44:42
Speaker 1: quote that I do everything that Fred Astair does, I
44:45
Speaker 1: do it backward at and heels. I guess what pisses
44:46
Speaker 1: me off the most is that men then still acts
44:50
Speaker 1: like women aren't real gamers, aren't good enough, blah blah blah,
44:52
Speaker 1: when in fact they are having to do the same
44:55
Speaker 1: challenges in these games that men are doing, but doing
44:58
Speaker 1: it while somebody is breathing of God's name into a microphone.
45:01
Speaker 1: Will they masturbate? Could they do that? No? They couldn't.
45:04
Speaker 1: That's distracting and awful. We shouldn't have to put up
45:06
Speaker 1: with it, but we are, And I guess it pisces
45:08
Speaker 1: me off that despite the fact that women are gaming,
45:11
Speaker 1: playing the same games as men and doing so with
45:14
Speaker 1: such an unfair burden, that they're still seeing as not
45:18
Speaker 1: build gamers, when in fact they're putting up with more
45:20
Speaker 1: than the men are. Yeah, and just like I remember
45:23
Speaker 1: back when I still online games, and I would just
45:25
Speaker 1: be filled with trepidation every time I ventured in. It
45:29
Speaker 1: was supposed to be a fun thing, but instead I
45:31
Speaker 1: had like this nervousness about doing it because you didn't
45:33
Speaker 1: know who you're going to encounter in there. And that
45:36
Speaker 1: really sucks. It shouldn't be that way. There is a
45:38
Speaker 1: whole movie about sexual harassment in gaming two called g
45:41
Speaker 1: t f O, which creator Shannon's son Higginson, was inspired
45:45
Speaker 1: to make after she saw a Capcom sponsored game stream
45:48
Speaker 1: where the female gamer was harassed for thirteen minutes and
45:52
Speaker 1: she did not return for the final round and the
45:55
Speaker 1: guy doing their harassing, and that video is quoted saying
45:58
Speaker 1: the sexual harassment is part of the culture, and if
46:01
Speaker 1: you remove that from the fighting game community, it's not
46:03
Speaker 1: the fighting game community. Oh it's awful. I watched it
46:09
Speaker 1: and it's gross. It was weird and gross, and it
46:12
Speaker 1: just kept going on and on. And they were on
46:13
Speaker 1: the same team too, but this is her teammate that
46:17
Speaker 1: that's absurd. Okay, So when people say, how dare you
46:20
Speaker 1: critique video games? I would posit that guys like this
46:24
Speaker 1: who say, oh, if you don't like this, then this
46:26
Speaker 1: is what the community is in a big homewark of
46:27
Speaker 1: the community. I would argue that that guy doesn't like
46:30
Speaker 1: gaming is in a real gamer. I would argue the
46:32
Speaker 1: people who are saying, hey, that's not okay, don't do
46:34
Speaker 1: this be better than this kind of sleazy people who
46:37
Speaker 1: does it to their own teammate. I would say that
46:39
Speaker 1: the people who are calling that out, they are the
46:40
Speaker 1: ones who are true gamers who actually care about the industry.
46:43
Speaker 1: People who are saying this is just how it is.
46:46
Speaker 1: It's sleazy and it's bad, and that's how it is,
46:49
Speaker 1: I would argue that that guy doesn't give it that
46:51
Speaker 1: gaming it is not a real gamer. I mean, if
46:53
Speaker 1: you were in any other industry and you tolerated and
46:57
Speaker 1: accepted that kind of bad behavior you're you wouldn't be like, oh,
47:01
Speaker 1: that's a titan of the industry who really cares about
47:03
Speaker 1: the craft. If you were a surgeon and you just said,
47:05
Speaker 1: I smoke cigars while I do surgery, that's just the
47:08
Speaker 1: way it is. If you don't like it, yeah, if
47:11
Speaker 1: you don't like it, that means you don't you don't
47:12
Speaker 1: really love surgery. You would say that guy doesn't care
47:15
Speaker 1: about surgery, doesn't care about the craft. How did we
47:17
Speaker 1: elevate the people who vocally don't give a about whether
47:21
Speaker 1: or not gaming is a good community. How did we
47:23
Speaker 1: elevate them to be the spokespeople in the community that
47:25
Speaker 1: they're the real gamers? How did we allow that? That
47:28
Speaker 1: is a great question. I also want to mention he
47:32
Speaker 1: this guy, he pointed to his First Amendment rights when
47:36
Speaker 1: people give me a break, of course he did. Journalist
47:39
Speaker 1: Ali Fog had this counterpoint. What you fail to understand
47:43
Speaker 1: is that the use of hate speech threats ambling to
47:46
Speaker 1: terrify and intimidate people into silence, are away from certain
47:48
Speaker 1: topics is a far bigger threat to free speech than
47:51
Speaker 1: any lingal section. Imagine this is not the Internet but
47:54
Speaker 1: a public square. One woman stands on the soapbox and
47:56
Speaker 1: expresses an idea. She is instantly surrounded by an army
47:59
Speaker 1: of five thousand angry people yelling the worst kind of
48:02
Speaker 1: abuse at her in the attempt to shut her up. Yes,
48:04
Speaker 1: there's a free speech issue here, but it's not the
48:06
Speaker 1: one you think. I love that. Yeah, I also think
48:09
Speaker 1: that people misunderstand free speech. If there was one argument,
48:14
Speaker 1: I wish that people would be a bit more thoughtful
48:17
Speaker 1: about when they hurl. Yeah, it would be free speech. Yeah.
48:21
Speaker 1: A study reported on by wire In called Insights into Sexism,
48:25
Speaker 1: Male Status and Performance Moderates Female directed, Hostile and Amicable Behavior.
48:30
Speaker 1: That's quite a title, found that harassment towards women from
48:33
Speaker 1: men goes up when men are losing. And I can
48:36
Speaker 1: a test to that. Sure. I won this tournament once
48:41
Speaker 1: and the experience was so terrible. I have not competed since.
48:45
Speaker 1: I felt like I lost. Man, I felt like I
48:48
Speaker 1: have lost in so many ways. That's that's my point.
48:51
Speaker 1: I mean, this is this is gonna sound dumb, but
48:53
Speaker 1: there's probably a woman out there, a woman or a
48:55
Speaker 1: girl out there, who was gaming who had an experience
48:58
Speaker 1: like the one that you just described, where it was
48:59
Speaker 1: so bad at you thought, never again, that person could
49:02
Speaker 1: have been a professional gamer. You don't know all of
49:05
Speaker 1: the think of all of the talent, the promising talent
49:07
Speaker 1: that we could be losing out on because we are
49:10
Speaker 1: allowing them to be bullied and harassed out of gaming. Yeah.
49:14
Speaker 1: And I mean even this like as dumb as it
49:16
Speaker 1: it was. There was prize money involved. There was like
49:18
Speaker 1: five prize so we needed women should be able to
49:22
Speaker 1: get be for that money too. Oh man, here's another
49:27
Speaker 1: quote from the study. Female initiated disruption of a male
49:30
Speaker 1: hierarchy insights hostile behavior from poor performing males who stand
49:34
Speaker 1: to lose the most status. These results suggest that it
49:38
Speaker 1: is lower skilled, poor performing males that are significantly more
49:41
Speaker 1: hostile towards females, and higher skilled focal players are more supportive.
49:46
Speaker 1: So women threatened the hierarchy and dudes don't like it.
49:50
Speaker 1: And if they don't threaten it, then the men are like, okay,
49:53
Speaker 1: you're allowed to dig in here. Wow, I also love
49:56
Speaker 1: poor performing male just as study race. Yeah. Um, the
50:03
Speaker 1: researchers did not that this dynamic changes based on games,
50:06
Speaker 1: So again, please we're painting with broad rushes, but there
50:10
Speaker 1: are differences. There's certainly pockets that are not like this,
50:14
Speaker 1: And a lot of accounts from female gamers lamented that
50:16
Speaker 1: as a woman you're expected to be twice as good,
50:18
Speaker 1: and if you wont it was seen as due to
50:20
Speaker 1: someone else's failure or success. But if you lost, that
50:24
Speaker 1: was because you're a silly woman and didn't know what
50:26
Speaker 1: you're doing. Of course you are, That's what other reason
50:29
Speaker 1: could it be. Yeah, when I won that tournament, it
50:31
Speaker 1: was definitely like, oh my controller that she cheated. She
50:35
Speaker 1: I don't know something wrong here. This couldn't happen and
50:38
Speaker 1: not be something have Yeah, like some wild explanation. It
50:43
Speaker 1: couldn't just be that you were better than them, you
50:45
Speaker 1: were that good. It has to have been Oh my
50:48
Speaker 1: house got struck by lightning and the server blinked and
50:50
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. You know. Yeah, Well this was an
50:53
Speaker 1: interesting case because we were all playing in the same room,
50:55
Speaker 1: but somebody said he could hear a fire alarm and
50:57
Speaker 1: it was distracting him, and I'm like, we're all here,
51:00
Speaker 1: anyone else, We're all here. It sounds like another piece
51:03
Speaker 1: of reasoning from a poor performing male bird past burn.
51:09
Speaker 1: Wherever you are not listening to this, I hope he's listening.
51:12
Speaker 1: Oh God, maybe maybe he's changed. He was kind of
51:16
Speaker 1: a decent fellow outside of that, so moderately performing now
51:19
Speaker 1: moderately performing male. We can only hope regin. So we
51:23
Speaker 1: have a little bit more to talk about, but we're
51:25
Speaker 1: going to pause for one more quick break for word
51:27
Speaker 1: from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you sponsor. So
51:41
Speaker 1: life Wire has an article called Xbox Live Survival Guide
51:45
Speaker 1: for Female Gamers and it starts out with this tip.
51:49
Speaker 1: First off, guys, when there is a gal in the room,
51:52
Speaker 1: just leave her alone. You don't need to ask her
51:54
Speaker 1: and ask her what she looks like and to send
51:56
Speaker 1: her weird pictures you can, and we will be banned
51:59
Speaker 1: from Xbox Live if you harass people too much, So
52:01
Speaker 1: just knock it off. Just because you can hide behind
52:03
Speaker 1: the veil of anonymity doesn't mean you have the right
52:06
Speaker 1: to ruin the game for other people. But then it continues.
52:10
Speaker 1: Since most guys probably won't bother you to pay attention
52:12
Speaker 1: to that paragraph, you ladies are going to have to
52:14
Speaker 1: take charge of how you are treated online. In The
52:17
Speaker 1: article continues with tips like play with friends, use the
52:19
Speaker 1: player review feature, and not calling attention to yourself things
52:22
Speaker 1: we shouldn't have to do. This reminds me of the
52:24
Speaker 1: running thing again, Like, yeah, it's just something. Ah, it's
52:30
Speaker 1: ridiculous that there's even a playbook for this, like how
52:34
Speaker 1: to play as a woman versus how to play as
52:37
Speaker 1: a man, but there is. Xbox Lives actual code of
52:40
Speaker 1: Conduct does not mention sexism, but players are told not
52:44
Speaker 1: to harass any players as always more accurate gender portrayals
52:49
Speaker 1: I eat not sex objects made for the male gaze,
52:52
Speaker 1: which it is totally cool to have a sexy lady,
52:54
Speaker 1: but she needs to be a character and not an object.
52:57
Speaker 1: And more women in the industry is a good place
52:59
Speaker 1: to start if we want to change this culture, and
53:02
Speaker 1: I think we do. I think we do, think we do.
53:06
Speaker 1: Um calling out harassers in the gaming community, both by
53:09
Speaker 1: creators and players is another step. So basically having a
53:12
Speaker 1: bit of a me to effect in gaming. Yes, I
53:15
Speaker 1: have this theory that there are certain industries that so
53:18
Speaker 1: far me too has been slow or not happen, but
53:21
Speaker 1: once they do, it's going to be a domino where
53:23
Speaker 1: it turns out it's just creeps and turtles the whole
53:25
Speaker 1: way down, Like who knew. I feel like video games,
53:28
Speaker 1: once there's a you know, a real high profile professional
53:33
Speaker 1: in the industry, I think it's going to be a
53:34
Speaker 1: real yeah, situation, I do too. I do think the
53:39
Speaker 1: sex objects saying sex objects do not warrant respect, and
53:43
Speaker 1: if this is a media is shaping the perception of players,
53:45
Speaker 1: is particularly young players, and all they see our representations
53:50
Speaker 1: of women as sex objects. In their eyes, women don't
53:53
Speaker 1: deserve respects. Absolutely. Yeah, I think about the messages that
53:57
Speaker 1: you're passing down a younger generation with when that's the Yeah.
54:00
Speaker 1: Something I found really interesting was this idea that you
54:03
Speaker 1: could propose a tech solution to this issue, and that
54:06
Speaker 1: really revolves around creating a social stigma in these games
54:09
Speaker 1: around harassment. So one solution revolves auto muting. And so
54:12
Speaker 1: if someone is muted ten percent more than average in
54:15
Speaker 1: a game, that person is automatically muted, and so you
54:17
Speaker 1: wanted to you could un mute them, but hopefully that
54:20
Speaker 1: would really drive home the point that hey, nobody wants
54:23
Speaker 1: to hear your harassment, nobody wants your sexism, and really
54:25
Speaker 1: sort of doing what I think is the more kind
54:27
Speaker 1: of difficult, challenging cultural work of creating an environment where
54:32
Speaker 1: there is stigma and shame attached to being a harasser.
54:35
Speaker 1: I think that steps like those are difficult because it's
54:38
Speaker 1: difficult to shape culture. It's difficult to shift culture, but
54:42
Speaker 1: I think that where we can normalize the attitude that
54:47
Speaker 1: this isn't cool and that you're not going to be
54:49
Speaker 1: seen as this like bad boy, edgy rebel, if you
54:51
Speaker 1: do this, you're gonna be seen as a loser and
54:53
Speaker 1: nobody's gonna want to hang out with you on the game.
54:55
Speaker 1: I think that that's really really important. Yeah, and I
54:57
Speaker 1: think video game researcher at University of Melbourne Robbie Fordyce
55:02
Speaker 1: would agree with you. Is when he was talking about
55:05
Speaker 1: online harassment in an interview I was reading, he said
55:07
Speaker 1: that it is indicative of something much bigger quote in
55:11
Speaker 1: terms of solving the problem. I don't know that games
55:13
Speaker 1: can do it. I wish it was possible, but gaming
55:16
Speaker 1: it is simply a hyper and intensified expression of a
55:18
Speaker 1: more general problem with toxic masculinity. So it is a
55:22
Speaker 1: big culture shift in conversation that we're going to have
55:26
Speaker 1: to continue to have and we're going to have to
55:28
Speaker 1: keep pushing for a better, better world in gaming, but
55:32
Speaker 1: in general as well, because it is sort of all
55:35
Speaker 1: tied together. And wanted to leave on this uplifting call
55:39
Speaker 1: to action written over at Bustle, by Suzanne Salmon. Video
55:43
Speaker 1: games are for everyone, There for me, there for you,
55:46
Speaker 1: There for our little sisters and our daughters, to create,
55:48
Speaker 1: to play, and to critique. We cannot allow cruel, statistic
55:51
Speaker 1: people to take our joy away from us. We need
55:53
Speaker 1: to stand up to gamer Gate and keep being ourselves.
55:56
Speaker 1: But it starts with you and me. It starts with
55:58
Speaker 1: us refusing to shut up. There we go, and I
56:01
Speaker 1: want to end on an angry note, which is, hey,
56:04
Speaker 1: poor performing males, stop it just stop. Nobody wants to
56:08
Speaker 1: hear it, Nobody wants to see your dick. Stop it
56:11
Speaker 1: just stop. Everyone love everyone. I love that. I feel
56:16
Speaker 1: like we've given you a new phrase, the catchphrase. I'm
56:19
Speaker 1: already planning how I'm going to use poor performing males
56:22
Speaker 1: in my daily life, Like it looks like another poor
56:25
Speaker 1: performing male. Actually that should be a thing for the show,
56:28
Speaker 1: like hashtag poor performing mail. The author of the study
56:32
Speaker 1: is gonna think what did I create with this? If
56:36
Speaker 1: you see someone ha asking someone on Twitter, you can
56:38
Speaker 1: just say it looks like another hashtag poor performing mail.
56:42
Speaker 1: I really want to start this and I love it.
56:45
Speaker 1: It's of course, it's like very on brand for us
56:48
Speaker 1: that it's inspired by a gutcademic study perfect perfectly lines
56:54
Speaker 1: up with with everything we believe in over here. I'm
56:57
Speaker 1: going to try to find that guy that other poor
57:00
Speaker 1: performing mail. You should send him this episode. That'd be
57:03
Speaker 1: a good diss. Send him an email that just says
57:06
Speaker 1: I thought you'd like this, and then the link to
57:08
Speaker 1: the episode. But no other contacts. Oh man, that's good.
57:13
Speaker 1: That's a that's a nice like I am. I hold grudges.
57:17
Speaker 1: That's a nice like long come. We thought I forgot
57:20
Speaker 1: about this? Why I didn't? I did it? But I
57:22
Speaker 1: thought on national podcast mother, note to self, do not this,
57:26
Speaker 1: purge it off. Stay on our good side everyone. You
57:30
Speaker 1: know you're not wrong. Okay. So that brings us to
57:34
Speaker 1: the end of our our video game episode. Something tells
57:36
Speaker 1: me we will be returning to address other aspects of this,
57:39
Speaker 1: because there's a lot to talk about. But in the meantime,
57:42
Speaker 1: we're gonna read some listener mail. Sarah wrote, I wanted
57:47
Speaker 1: to recommend some books that may or may not count
57:49
Speaker 1: as published fan pick. The first is The Bloody Chamber
57:52
Speaker 1: by Angela Carter. It is a feminist reimagining of classic
57:55
Speaker 1: fairy tales that brings the latent sexual and violent undertones out,
57:59
Speaker 1: but it ever feels gratuitous. The other is my absolute
58:02
Speaker 1: favorite book, The Penelope ad by Margaret Atwood. This is
58:05
Speaker 1: centered around Penelope, Odysseus's wife from the Odyssey, and it's
58:09
Speaker 1: her side of the story. Another really great one is
58:12
Speaker 1: Grendel by John Gardner, and finally last one is Helen
58:14
Speaker 1: of Troy by Margaret George. This is the Trojan War
58:18
Speaker 1: from the point of view from the woman who quote
58:20
Speaker 1: started it, you know, because it had nothing to do
58:23
Speaker 1: with Agamemnon being an aggro asshole or the idea that
58:26
Speaker 1: Menelis was entitled to hell and like, dude, I get it,
58:30
Speaker 1: your wife left you. That sucks. Get the hell over
58:32
Speaker 1: it anyway, apologize for their aunt. I have so many
58:34
Speaker 1: feelings about toxic masculiney and misogyny and greekness. I hope
58:37
Speaker 1: you'll check out these books, and thanks so much for
58:40
Speaker 1: the great show. Well, thank you. I love book recommendations too,
58:43
Speaker 1: so very excited to check those out. Next letter, Sophia wrote, firstly,
58:49
Speaker 1: I want to say thank you for creating my favorite podcast,
58:51
Speaker 1: and I especially want to thank you for defining a
58:53
Speaker 1: concept that has really helped me see myself and other people,
58:56
Speaker 1: and a more forgiving light the problematic Dave. I tend
58:59
Speaker 1: to hold myself in very high regard, and I let
59:01
Speaker 1: my insecurities project onto people, being overly critical of them
59:04
Speaker 1: as a way to make me feel better about myself.
59:06
Speaker 1: That sounds very familiar to me because I do the
59:08
Speaker 1: same thing. The notion of a problematic faith has helped
59:11
Speaker 1: me realize that nobody's perfect, at least of all myself.
59:14
Speaker 1: In a way on my own problematic faith, I've caught
59:17
Speaker 1: myself saying incredibly classist and ablest things with no malicious intent.
59:21
Speaker 1: But I'm glad to have exceptionally woke friends that have
59:23
Speaker 1: called me in on it, and I am constantly trying
59:25
Speaker 1: to be more aware. Thanks to the problematic faith, I
59:27
Speaker 1: also see how the people around me are problematic and imperfect,
59:30
Speaker 1: but knowing this is okay and that they are still
59:32
Speaker 1: a good person has been a great eye opener to
59:35
Speaker 1: a person like me who likes to see the world
59:37
Speaker 1: in black and white. Having a term for the problematic
59:39
Speaker 1: faith really hits the nail on the head in my opinion,
59:42
Speaker 1: and as a daily reminder of all of our imperfection
59:44
Speaker 1: and humanity. Sophia, I love this I can completely relate
59:48
Speaker 1: to it. I have to say we did not coin
59:50
Speaker 1: the phrase problematic faith. I wish I did, but it's
59:54
Speaker 1: something that I really found eye opening, and so I'm
59:56
Speaker 1: glad that you found that eye opening as well. And
59:58
Speaker 1: I always say I'm my own problematic, fave. I am
1:00:01
Speaker 1: your girl is problematic. You know, we all say things
1:00:04
Speaker 1: and do things that we wish we hadn't and it's
1:00:06
Speaker 1: so much easier to look at the problematic behavior of others,
1:00:10
Speaker 1: And at least for myself, I find myself doing that
1:00:13
Speaker 1: as a way to not think about or deal with
1:00:15
Speaker 1: our parts my own problematic and so it is a
1:00:19
Speaker 1: useful concept. I'm glad that you found it useful as well. Yeah,
1:00:22
Speaker 1: I mean pretty much everything we talked about, like this episode,
1:00:26
Speaker 1: video game, it was problematic, fave. You know, it's again
1:00:29
Speaker 1: you can still like something. You can still like something
1:00:32
Speaker 1: and try to work to improve it. I would say
1:00:34
Speaker 1: that means you'll like it even more so. Thanks to
1:00:38
Speaker 1: both of them for emailing us that you two can
1:00:41
Speaker 1: email us at mom stuff and how stuff dot com.
1:00:44
Speaker 1: Where else can they find us on social media? They
1:00:47
Speaker 1: can find us on the social media. We are on
1:00:49
Speaker 1: Instagram at stuff I've ever told you, and on Twitter
1:00:52
Speaker 1: at mom Stuff podcast. But if it's harassment, just save
1:00:55
Speaker 1: it because we're gonna mute you never even know. It'll
1:00:57
Speaker 1: be up fart into the wind. Yes and thinks as
1:01:00
Speaker 1: always to our producer Kathleen Killian, we're waiting to her
1:01:04
Speaker 1: in the studio. Yeah. H