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Saturday, October 25, 2014

Doxxing and girl geeks

Despite what people think, I'm a bit reluctant to be the first one one the block with the latest tech. I'll wait till the bugs are out and the first product recall or patch, if necessary. Case in point- I signed on to Tumblr last night. As I was touching base with things, I came across an essay from Felica Day.
Day is an actress and all around geek who proudly bears the title. For those of you who don't know her, she's famous to the nerd and gamer set. Her tie-in to Texas? She attended UT Austin and double majored in Music and Mathematics. A stunning example of beauty and brains.
The essay involves the sexism and misogyny in the gaming community. The first time I heard of it was a couple of years ago when a person told me my girls can't be 'real' geeks because they were female. (Yeah, I tore that dipshit a new asshole as soon as the words came out of his mouth. I wasn't bullying him, I was forcibly correcting his childish behavior.) My oldest wasn't accepted by the local gaming club in her high school at first, until she beat them at a few games.
Role-playing games, board games, comic books, video games are all incorrectly perceived as male-centric. Female game developers and journalists have received death threats and have been doxxed for speaking out about the unequal treatment or active discrimination in the gaming community.
Doxxing is when your private information, addresses and numbers are publicly revealled, making life a living hell for the people involved.
Former NFL player Chris Kluwe, Wil Wheaton, and Felica Day all spoke critically about Gamergate. Guess which one got harassed?
This is the equivalent of a fat slob behind a keyboard saying, 'Be silent wench!' What is this, American Taliban?
Unfortunately there are no rules or laws regarding this sort of conduct, other than your own personal morals. Oh, there are anti-bullying and harassment laws on the books, but they're tough to enforce. When said fat slob hides behind a computer screen, he's not invisible, just very hard to track down, especially if he knows what he's doing. Welcome to the 21st century where you can be a prejudiced bigot online. This fourth grade mentality exists because it can. If the fat slob were face to face with the female gamer, a different conversation would be going on.
Here is a link to Felica Day's website and her essay describing Gamergate.
This is the twenty-first century people, wake up and grow up.


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