more gaming discussion
May. 23rd, 2010 05:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sevJust like the last post, something I wrote on the WotC boards that I want saved here for posterity. The topic, this time, was "where are the women in the podcasts?"
Over and over again, in this forum and elsewhere, I see the same mistake made: when talking about diversity & underrepresentation in the social arena, people tend to mash together the public sphere and the private one. This is a mistake!
Lack of diversity in the public face of gaming is a problem because it creates the impression that RPGs are for white, straight, cisgendered men. This impression fosters an environment that's hostile to people who don't fit the public face. Private gaming groups treat women like interlopers or mythical creatures, instead of just like other gamers. Women at conferences have to fight twice as hard to be heard because half the room assumes they're just there to follow their boyfriend around. Non-gamers think women who are into gaming are especially freakish, because "everybody knows" only men do that sort of thing. And so on.
This continues without regard to the actual representation of women in the private sphere of gaming.
"Tokenism" is the messy middle ground of diversity . It's the process of finding one representative of an under-represented group and setting that person up as the solution to underrepresentation. As such, the token serves instead as a barrier to real diversity, and creates a mindset that ends up getting rid off the first token before welcoming a new one. Tokenism-as-a-process is a trap. Going through a state of having only one representative of a particular group is a phase on the way to being actually welcome to that group. Telling the difference between the two is extremely difficult.
the bits I didn't post, because I didn't want to actually engage the anti-feminist troll on specific points:
"Some groups are all guys" is a red herring when speaking of diversity in the public sphere. Responding to public-sphere criticism with a private-sphere example is a common tactic used by people who are purposely trying to derail real discussions about diversity -- so even if you're not doing it on purpose, by doing so you resemble a group of people who are not operating in good faith, just by using one of their favorite tactics.
There is no such thing as a "self-made" celebrity. Celebrity is something created by the environment. The public face of gaming is currently men. The only way to change that? Put some non-male gamers in the public eye.
Over and over again, in this forum and elsewhere, I see the same mistake made: when talking about diversity & underrepresentation in the social arena, people tend to mash together the public sphere and the private one. This is a mistake!
Lack of diversity in the public face of gaming is a problem because it creates the impression that RPGs are for white, straight, cisgendered men. This impression fosters an environment that's hostile to people who don't fit the public face. Private gaming groups treat women like interlopers or mythical creatures, instead of just like other gamers. Women at conferences have to fight twice as hard to be heard because half the room assumes they're just there to follow their boyfriend around. Non-gamers think women who are into gaming are especially freakish, because "everybody knows" only men do that sort of thing. And so on.
This continues without regard to the actual representation of women in the private sphere of gaming.
"Tokenism" is the messy middle ground of diversity . It's the process of finding one representative of an under-represented group and setting that person up as the solution to underrepresentation. As such, the token serves instead as a barrier to real diversity, and creates a mindset that ends up getting rid off the first token before welcoming a new one. Tokenism-as-a-process is a trap. Going through a state of having only one representative of a particular group is a phase on the way to being actually welcome to that group. Telling the difference between the two is extremely difficult.
the bits I didn't post, because I didn't want to actually engage the anti-feminist troll on specific points:
"Some groups are all guys" is a red herring when speaking of diversity in the public sphere. Responding to public-sphere criticism with a private-sphere example is a common tactic used by people who are purposely trying to derail real discussions about diversity -- so even if you're not doing it on purpose, by doing so you resemble a group of people who are not operating in good faith, just by using one of their favorite tactics.
There is no such thing as a "self-made" celebrity. Celebrity is something created by the environment. The public face of gaming is currently men. The only way to change that? Put some non-male gamers in the public eye.