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author=mawk
you participate in this culture whether you acknowledge it or not, and no matter how you try to divorce yourself from the problem your actions all have their impact. a poisonous social paradigm isn't created by one person waking up one morning and deciding to cry terrible things from the rooftops -- it's a slow and insidious process during which people allow themselves little by little to lie to themselves, feeding a slowly-germinating monster that pervades all of culture as a whole.

This is true, but I don't think the proper way to educate the community on how they can be more empathetic toward women and self-conscious of these gender issues is by telling them to think about it. If people have to think about it chances are they don't know what's up to begin with. When you just drop accusations and don't take the time to explain them, people will infer it as a personal attack and you're going to get idiots who react defensively and ignorantly just like those assholes in the link.

So, yeah. The bit in the bold there is what people need to be aware of.

And calling a large group of people that you cannot humanly know on a personal level compliant in the actions of some somehow helps solve the problem?

If you're an angry person, then dealing with the abuse and injustice against women is clearly not for you. These people who perpetuate this kind of behavior do so because of deep rooted issues that are not going to simply change because you yell at them on the internet.

Instead of just being angry in the internet do your part and treat women with respect and equality and show those around you to do it too. There is really little else you can do against someone hiding behind a screen, but you can do a lot more in your personal life to make up for it.

As a female game creator I feel I am justified in having a say in this topic in some small way.

Not once in the past fifteen years of my involvement in the RPG Maker game making community have I felt that I've been seen as less than capable of developing a game or worthy of having my game seen than any other male or female maker. Now, I'm not saying that there haven't been times when I questioned coming out as female in a predominately male social group - but never on this board or most of the others I've been on.

The one real time I actually had an issue with my gender when it came to game creation was that one time I got stalked by some brat - but I dealt with it and moved on. (And it wasn't for my gender he was stalking me, but because he thought I'd banned him from RMN (nevermind that I have never had that power :/ ))

I've never been made to think of my games as less in quality because of my gender, nor had people suggest that because I'm female I can't make games. Not once. In fifteen years of RMing.

Have other women? Perhaps. If so, I hope they went on to prove just how good a game they could make and rubbed in in their abusers' faces.

Sure, the amount of women in game creation started off pretty slowly - I remember when there were only around 5 females spread through-out the forums. That number has been increasing with the access to legal makers through the years and I think it will continue to expand as we go.

Will it catch up to the numbers of men in the community?
Probably not - society tells girls that they should bother with looking pretty and focussing on physical social interaction. Until society stops that shit I doubt there will be as many girls who love fantasy and games as there are boys. There will always be girls who buck what society calls the 'norm', however, and that group will expand over time.

That said, it's sad to see someone dumped on because of their gender. I could understand if she'd made a shitty game, but gender should never come into the debate - only the quality of the experience. Here's hoping she ignores them, makes a bonza game and shoves it in all their faces. No-one should ever have to deal with that shit, no matter gender, race, religion or creed.

Know this however - it is not the fault of all those in the community that this is happening. It is the fault of those who degrade others over idiotic differences just because they can. People standing up and shaming them when they're seen, shutting them down and out, is the best way to deal with them.

Letting them know that they're not wanted, that their opinion doesn't matter at all and that they are just petty, insignificant individuals may be the best way to drive them out.

Since you mention about making noise and not having to be polite, I honestly think you, mawk as little as I know about you as a human being are not a good advocate for this. And your response to TDS I find some of it (towards the end) so hypocritical that I really just have to say it.

To me, you are a part of the problem here at RMN. I see you trolling newcomers and inexperienced "beggers" and just generally not contributing anything to the community besides snide lowercased comments.
You remind me in a very small way how this community was when I joined a couple years back now. So for you to say things about stepping on toes and what is wrong with gamer culture, you're part of it, mawk.

And you don't even discriminate, good for you.

E: I also know this subject matter doesn't apply to me, I'm nothing but respectful and nice online and off, to men and women. I try to support my community rather than tear it down and make it a cesspool. I don't have a guilty conscience.

I agree with what you're saying here, mawk, and I agree with you, but you are making sweeping generalizations about RMN and everyone on it - when you say stuff like "you all enable and implicitly support" - and it's not weird that people perceive that as a misguided attack. I get angry about this too, but you gotta be careful when you start accusing everyone of supporting it, explicitly or implicitly. I know there have been people here who try to ignore or dismiss this sort of hatred, but I've also seen a lot of people here who actively fight against it - you included.

But here's the thing, going off what mawk said and what I think: If you're harassing someone because of their gender, you're being an asshole, obviously. If you see someone getting harassed and you're kinda just sitting back, saying nothing and thinking, "well, that's just how things are (on the internet, in games, etc.)" you're allowing that sort of nonsense to continue, when you could be supporting someone who's being attacked for no good reason.

I totally get it though. It's easy to sit back and do nothing and it's really difficult to expose yourself to harassment (and sometimes violence) just to help someone you don't even know. It's even more difficult when the people who are being cruel are people you normally respect, possibly even close friends. I've been guilty of letting those things slide because I didn't want to get into a fight. However, at the end of the day, you gotta realize that someone may get hurt because you didn't want to step up. If we want these cruel events to stop, we need people to speak up against them.

If anything, we are all responsible for trying to make games better. Everyone who plays games, writes about games, or makes games contributes to the atmosphere surrounding games, and we should definitely be trying to make that atmosphere a good one for everybody, because everybody deserves it. Games have a lot of potential for good, and I hate to see cruel, dumb people hold it back.

I figured as much - it's not a problem with the people here so much as it is with everyone tied to games, RMN included. Generally I've found the people at RMN are close-knit and mostly kind to each other compared to other, similar sites, but I've also seen some idiots here, big and small.

With regards to the idea of approaching the things people create and how they can be harmful, I agree with you and there's a lot I could say about that, but that's an enormous topic all its own. My simple advice would be: Think critically about what you're making and how others with different backgrounds might see it... and it never hurts to get the opinions of someone with a different point of view. If you do that, you're already leagues ahead of most creators.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Never stop learning or trying to learn. Don't be stubborn and think you could never be wrong, and if you disagree with someone, at least consider their point of view and how they may have arrived at it.

author=mawk

author=Liberty
Know this however - it is not the fault of all those in the community that this is happening. It is the fault of those who degrade others over idiotic differences just because they can.

I missed this initially, but the problem I have with this is that if we only allow ourselves to take action when these problems crop up, we're treating symptoms rather than causes. the people in a given community and the people who act like bigots are the exact same kind of person -- there is no divide! there is no one type of person that's somehow predisposed to bigoted behaviour. it comes as a result of an insular and disrespectful social climate where normal, thoughtful people slowly learn that it's okay, even expected of them.

this topic is an accusation because I know for a fact that this place is home to some less-than-ideal social perspectives, and because it's something that people should consider even if they're total saints -- because if you're a 'naturally good' person or whatever you claim and you still only think of yourself and of people like you, you're going to make a horrible mistake sooner or later.

people need to know and accept the consequences that arise from things that seem minor to them at the time, and they need to understand that as long as the main route of attack for people looking to bring down a game developer is that she's not a young white male the problem still exists. I don't know what I expected when I made this, but I'm very disappointed by the number of people who feel justified to ignore it completely since they don't see it right in front of them.

The thing is, until you see someone do something like that, how can you know to change it? If you don't see it existing, how do you find it, weed it out and expunge it? You can't go to every person and say "Don't do that!" when they, personally, aren't doing it in the first place. All you're going to do is get people's backs up and, perhaps, make the fight harder because people are going to be more annoyed at your message and not listen.

Over-saturation causes people to shut off. It's part of the reason newspapers run a story for only a short while before switching to something else - because human psychology is built around taking in only a certain amount of information for a certain time if it's not happening to us before shutting it out.

When it happens, when you see it happen, that's when you speak up, act and do what should be done. A stitch in time may save nine, but if you don't know where to stitch in the first place you're going to make a mess of the garment. It's only when you know where you have to step in that you can.

And if that doesn't make sense, sorry. It's 5am and I've yet to sleep. >.<;

I wouldn't say there's no gender discrimination here... I've seen a few examples over the years. Unfortunately, these days that's gonna be the case with any community large enough - terrible people are bound to show up. We just gotta make sure we're clear how we feel about that sort of thing (and, in the instances I'm thinking of, we did just that).

I don't think that discrimination is something humanity will ever fully be rid of, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying!