No Skin Thick Enough: Don't Miss This Eye-Opening Article About Online Harassment in Gaming

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

An interesting piece about gender and harassment in the gaming industry was posted in Polygon's opinion section today. Written by game developer Brianna Wu, the piece cuts right to the quick with a series of case studies from other women in the industry, each one debunking a specific myth about online harassment. If you've ever caught yourself saying "everyone gets harassed online" or "you just need to grow a thicker skin," please carve a few minutes out of your day to read it. 

It's a phenomenal piece, but one quote included from games journalist Carolyn Petit really resonates:

[A certain percentage of young, straight men] feel entitled not only to games, but to the communities that had built up around games. For these men, the presence of women on these sites was acceptable only if they felt that the presence of those women was intended to appeal to them.

It's an agonizingly accurate crystallization of the situation many women find themselves in when they start their career in gaming. In the past (and present) plenty of games press and marketing strategy in general has revolved around appealing to what they've perceived to be their audience (namely straight young men) in the easiest ways possible, whether it's through a sexy character model or a sexy cohost. And it turns out that when you spend a couple decades (or, you know, centuries) presenting one group of people as ornaments to another, the latter are going to develop some absolutely abhorrent expectations of the former.

That's just a tiny sliver of the issue, though. Be sure to read the full piece over on Polygon.

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Iris Ophelia (@bleatingheart, Janine Hawkins IRL) has been featured in the New York Times, and has spoken about SL-based design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and with pop culture/fashion maven Johanna Blakley.

Comments

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

The piece is being "discussed" over on Slashdot, but you probably don't want to read the comments there. Let's just say that Slashdot is one reason I didn't choose a femme name when joining SL.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Likewise. "Arcadia" is deliberately ambiguous, and the associated email is downright macho.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like the frequency and level of bile of these attacks has increased in the past few years, coinciding with the rise of women in the gaming community and particularly with the willingness of women to speak on issues of concern (and worse, to do so with expertise and authority).

It also appears to coincide with a vicious and well-coordinated campaign across a broad front of society to roll back any progress towards diversity, integration, equality and social justice.