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[Column] General: A Belated Introduction
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Though this is the second Fair Game column, it came to us that, perhaps, our readers might like to know a bit more about the mind behind the words. Find out who Lisa Jonte is and then head off to the meet & greet in the comments.
I’ve been a gamer since the age of eleven, with the purchase of a shiny, entrancing “home” game called, Pong. Since then it’s been a lifetime of hunting for games, playing games and watching gaming as a whole evolve and grow. Consoles, text-based games, hand-held, PC, game parlor (those quarters really added up) tabletop, action, RPG, FPS, side-scroller, puzzle, you name it, I’ve loved them all.
Read more of Lisa Jonte's Fair Game: A Belated Introduction.
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Comments
A little sexist of you to think or imply that 1. Rape only is performed by men, and 2. Men are immune from it.
GL with the column.
Excellent choice for an icon--call it cycnicsm, but I suspect you'll get far less grief from random player hate than Pokket gets.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
What I still wonder though is the following.
Lets say women would stop playing games. What would happen to those man that are now sexist? Would they be happy and content or would they go for the next minority group or we "educate" those man so they understand sexism actually does hurt people. Would they go act "funny" to other groups?
I still think a general campaign again bullying would be more effective to combat sexsim in gaming the to just make people aware that sexism is not funny (and a awarenes campaign that is big and includes big publisher and game developers). I really believe that the majority of people who act like that just try to be funny, ignorant to the actual harm and grief they cause the person and you have people who just like to troll. They are boyond a campaign and are most likely aware enough to understand what they do. As that is what "feeds" them. But do not be angered by those though, but pitty them in silence.
I do not believe she is implying that at all. It just not something most man have to worry about. I dont think many women constantly worry about it though, but it more realistic.
Comparing against Pokket isn't fair. The styles and topics have almost nothing in common. (which is good, imo)
While I didn't have much of an opinion on the first column, it was more because I hadn't heard of most of the referenced events. As to my opinion on this column, well... it's an intro. It reads comfortably and appears to have been put through a basic spelling/grammar check (which does make it stand out). I'll reserve my opinion for on-topic columns and we'll see what's what.
Pokket seams to be missing in action now since her article of march on games violence article, What pokket had was lack of credibility. A lot of folks called her on some of what she claimed to have played. Pokket did however almost every week have some guy hitting on her due to her looks, there were always comments on how folks wanted to date her and so forth.
Now back to this article, at least it a lot less inflamitory than the first one. However please don't tell me that every week your going to have something tied into your article bashing men. I actually saw that again with that little snippep of men dont get it.
As long as Soccer Mom's dont interrupt my free time, I wont interrupt theirs.
And when I say Soccer Mom's I dont mean Women in General, but anyone who tries to make my choice to spend my free time enjoying games into something more than it really is, and trying to control that by creating a "Nanny State" where mature content is decided by the government and not by the consumers choice.
Sure there is Sexism in Gaming Cultutre, but that's no different to rest of the internet, or even today's society.
I definitely dont think its Socially Acceptable, but stop TELLING us there is a Problem and instead think of ways to change peoples attitude towards it, and ways of solving the problem.
Perhaps we need second Woman's movement, but this time in the Cyber Realm?
Just stay the hell away from my Jiggly Pixels.
"The problem with quotes from the Internet is that it's almost impossible to validate their authenticity." - Abraham Lincoln
Actually words are the only way to make lasting changes. That "Sorcery incident" you mention. Only words can persuide and educate poeple and try to make them believe sorcery is not real, how else? Beat them till they understand? You could even imprison them, but just locking somoene up is not going to change there minds. They need to be educated and that can only be done with words.
If one person would read such a column and change there mind or gain some understanding then the words are not lost. True though it might be a catalyst a lot of poeple might start reading the column (or not even that) just so they can make a funny comment.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
That was probably the worst article I have seen on this site.
I guess knowing your audience is not something you are too fond of.
If it wouldn't be an old rule that there are no women on the internet, i would swear this article was written by one. While men usually put their point on display, women usually put themselves on display. You did VERY well confiming this and you will be in good company with that other female on this webpage, as she goes by the same agenda.
I'm not shure if this is the right place to take latent anger over the male population and this "moms emancipating in video games" drift to, but i wish you good luck and welcome you.
But i have this feeling that this may very likely end up way uglier than Richard Aihoshi's crusade for F2P was at times. I smell bans.
I suspect that one of the reasons for Pokket being MIA is that her position on gun control (better known as victim disarmament) is totally non PC. Its hardly surprising in this day and age.
As far as "credibility" goes, I'm more interested in the information presented, than the person presenting it. WAY too many so called "authority" figures, have used their positions to advance their personal agenda/ideology. One has only to look around us, to see the sorry results of that.
As for the column itself, the writer appears to be what I've called over the decades a "Crusader Activist". Likely second generation (or perhaps early third). As I mentioned, I supported (then and now) those in the first generation who sought equality. But the second and third generations are much more interested in political/social power to advance their agenda/ideology.
It will be interesting to see what the focus of future columns is.
This is a very interesting observation and i agree.
While the early idea of emancipation was more aimed at equality of women in general, the later (and current) shoots so far through the roof that it's goal is rather the oppression of men.
I get where you are coming from but there is nothing wrong with picking the video game culture to voice her concerns about sexism. Do you really expect her to fly over to Papua New Guinea and spank the peasants there for burning a woman alive for witchcraft? That river is too wide and deep for her (or anyone's most likely) pebble to make much of a splash.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
As someone who has personally been bullied and abused on Everquest I know all about men being mean for no reason, it really makes no sense...
I suppose in some rare cases they might pick on another man, but it sure is hurtful when you're an emotional young woman and men are being mean to you during your game play for no apparent reason...
They even go on eq2flames for 3 entire months to insult you without any comment from you, just to continue their pathetic crusade against you, when you never did anything wrong to them..
What are you doing in the fight world wide against men treating women like trash.
One of the reasons why women's issues goes the wayside is not because the majority of women are being treated poorly, but quite the opposite, the majority of women are being treated well. Most women seem to think they're treated poorly since the definition of abuse seemingly expands to almost anything that can happen against a woman.
To thicken this point women represent roughly 55% of the population in my country of Canada. Yet when election time comes around women only represent 40% of the total vote, of which only 40% of the population of the country vote. To put that into perspective it means that only 5.4M out of the 16.5M women are actually voting.
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Website: http://www.thegameguru.me / YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/users/thetroublmaker
I found the original article rather interesting, and almost commented on it until I got to the end of it and it turned into yet another bashing of pixel supermodels and jiggle physics - at which point I pretty much labeled Lisa as yet another feminist crusader.
This article seems more balanced however, so I'll just state my original comment now: I honestly have never seen the behavior mentioned.
I've seen plenty of stalkers, but never outright hostility and discrimination when they found out someone was female. The worst I've seen is probably "Get in the kitchen and fetch me a beer/sandwhich, woman!" jokes.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
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I'm personally for the betterment of all humanity. And I feel that cannot be done by segregating one group and using them as a cause to foment hate against another. That behavior only breeds new monsters for us to have to fight. And from what I've seen, this world already has far more than its fair share of those.
So thank you for the belated introduction, and explinations Ms Jonte, but I'm afraid your first column made a rather large and lasting bad impression with me, and this subsequent post did little if anything to alleviate it. And while I'm all for you to have to right to voice your opinions, So far I've personally found little value in listening. So I offer my apologies as I refuse to read anything more you see fit to publish, so long as you continue to do so in such an antagonistic manner.
If you dont do stupid things while youre young, youll have nothing to smile about when youre old.