For the past few months, I've been avoiding getting involved in the Gamergate controversy. As someone who doesn't really follow games journalism, the issues being debated didn't really resonate with me, and while I disagreed with all the misogynistic sentiments flying around, I dismissed it as a fringe movement that would burn itself out. Now that months have passed and Gamergate is still being debated across mainstream media sources, it's clear my dismissal was a mistake. This three part series will attempt to address the myriad issues that Gamergate raises.
A popular opinion today is that feminism is outdated, and women have achieved at least equal rights, if not actual privilege. This opinion has been around since the rise of female suffrage, if not sooner, but it's an idea that's perpetuated by people who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Sentiments like this tend to thrive best in areas where male voices dominate, which is unfortunately the case in the technology industry and on Internet forums.
The very fact that women are so vastly underrepresented in STEM fields is itself proof that gender equality is not where it should be. As a member of the tech sector and an all-around geek, I don't like to hear broad criticisms of these groups, but the reality is that they are hostile environments for women today. Females now make up approximately half of all serious gamers, but only 3% of game developers are women. Few enough women even enter STEM, but a huge percent of women who enter engineering and computer science become so disillusioned with the harassment, lower pay, and general anti-woman attitude that they leave the field. It's not easy to hear, but these issues need to be addressed.
Of course, the vast majority of men, working in STEM or otherwise, are good people and treat women with respect; certainly, there isn't a pathological hatred of women inherent to the STEM field. Other than the lack of female input, equality in the STEM field faces a more passive but equally formidable obstacle: right-libertarianism. Libertarians aren't bad people, but they have a certain reluctance to intervene in any focused way against the so-called free market. This is certainly well-intentioned, but it ends up being an excuse to avoid any kind of reflection, and to avoid taking meaningful action when faced with criticism. These are the kind of people that real misogynists want to surround themselves with: the passive, apologetic men and women who will shrug off inappropriate jokes and not speak up when harassment is right in front of them.
These adults who believe that feminism is a relic of the past go home at the end of the day, and a fair amount of them go onto online forums like reddit and 4chan to discuss with like-minded, mostly male commenters, some of whom are young and impressionable. This attitude of anti-feminism gets passed down, along with the myth of the Social Justice Warrior (SJW). "Feminazi" and "SJW" are pejoratives used on the Internet to describe angry, man-hating feminists. Most posters will make the distinguishment between "equality feminists," such as Christina Hoff Sommers, and these so-called "man-haters." The originators of these terms most likely don't see the distinction, but it's easier to make decent men believe they hate feminists by creating an imaginary dichotomy within the movement.
Of course, there are a few feminists who may be unnecessarily commutative, but these cases are usually either teenagers who are easily emotionally swayed, or astroturfed trolls looking to discredit the movement. The thing about feminism is that it's not about hating men and making them feel guilty, it's about showing men what women deal with, and asking them to help stop it. Unfortunately, the real misogynists are good at making real feminists look ridiculous, and ensuring complacency from the reasonable majority while they harass and belittle professional women. Good people look the other way when these misogynists invoke a history of objectification and harassment of women, and it is this history that is at the root of the Gamergate controversy.
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