thread: 2006-04-10 : A problem for feminists/pro-feminists
On 2006-04-10, Ben Lehman wrote:
I think it depends rather strongly on whether it is more important that your gaming discussion be feminist or that your gaming discussion push the envelope.
If you're committed to carrying out feminist ideals in every-day life then yes, you should treat the woman differently. You're in a patriarchal society, so a woman's concerns matter more *no matter what context they're offered in*.
If you're committed to pushing the envelope of gaming then anything that stops you from doing that ought to be ignored.
I say this with a totally straight face, and faith that neither of these is the right solution, but they're the only solutions offered in an imperfect world.
yrs—
—Ben
This makes TB go "Woah!"
I'm afraid I disagree. But this may be because I'm not clued up on "feminist ideals". If a guy comes up, and finds his opinions and ideas discounted because he's a guy, that sucks.
Equally, if I turned up somewhere and my opinion was given special weight because I was bullied when I was small, or because I'm white, or anything like that, I'd find it pretty damn stupid.
Perhaps that's just me, but I doubt it.
This makes BL go "In the ideal void..."
Outside of any social context, you're right. But the fact of the matter is that we live in a society where women are routinely dismissed because they are women, and men are not routinely dismissed because they are men outside of isolated circles.
This makes ethan go "My point, better stated"
Right on.
This makes ethan go "Er, talking about Ben's point there."
This makes RGD go "Bah"
Balance is not achieved by racing to the opposite side of the current imbalance. That merely creates a swinging pendulum.
This makes BL go "We could debate feminism"
And I'd be happy to. But, frankly, my response was useful to Vincent and that's enough for this thread and this context. If you want to open a general discussion or criticism of feminism, please let me know and I'll participate.
This makes RGD go "You miss the point"
I'm critizing it in this context as well, because I don't think it was good advice. I'll start a seperate discussion of feminism/etc. on my LJ sometime.
This makes Sben go "Is pushing the envelope necessarily exclusionary?"
If "pushing the envelope of gaming" is itself exclusionary, sure. If not, seems to me that it should be possible -- maybe with a bit of extra effort -- to make the discussion also non-exclusionary.
This makes TB go "People are specific entities"
not generic groups. I can see how "Jack has a history of being badly bullied, and has low confidence, so moderate your normal sarcasm" is useful, but "Jack is a white guy from the US, so talk to him about football" isn't cool.
I think. But I also think, from a fairly small set of evidence, that Ben IS cool. Damn.
This makes MSW go "Tony..."
some, like me, would argue that you do get better treatment, as a rule, because you're white.
This makes CJE go "Better treatment from who? The world I experience every day is far too multi-racial for being white to be advantageous i"
This makes CJE go "Okay, trying that again.."
Better treatment from who? The world I experience every day is far too multi-racial for being white to be advantageous in that regard. Much of the time it tends towards the opposite. Being white skinned just isn't cool.
This makes MB go "Bull."
Being white might not be 'cool', but are you seriously trying to say you live in a place w/o white privledge?
This makes BL go "CJE..."
We really, really, really ought to be talking about this in a different medium. Let me make something clear: you're wrong. But this is not the medium to talk about it regardless.
This makes VB go "This one's done."
No one post any more marginalia to this comment. Thanks!
