Bro, in terms of people harassing women online, you're thinking about the cod community. Second, in the actual games give me just one or two examples of times where "they use females as a punching bag". Be sure that men are not being beaten just as much as women. This is about free will, about censorship, and it should stop starting with these extremists.

Agreed. While not all men harass women in game, I find that a lot do. And it is really really annoying to say the least. It got really annoying in the beta when several... immature young boys were shadowing my every move. I had to leave for two hours to shake them when I was trying to patrol...

So explain how you knew they were following you because of your gender...and why that bothered you since they were helping you kill mobs by doing so? First world problems in a nut shell right here...

At the time, I was going to deliberate areas to level and get some practice - I'm not all that good with FPS, though playing the beta has helped me improve a lot. Other players would pass through and, when not followed, I got some good practice. They were definitely following me. At first I thought we were just headed the same way so I camped, and they stayed with. Then I tried going back to a previous area, and they followed. Did this a few times, resorting to just running over the place and ignoring enemies (hoping to give them the slip and find a cave to hide in). I went to the tower and within moments they were there too. Then I logged out. (No, we were not in a fireteam) As for the woman bit, it is a bit of an assumption. We teamed for the strike and I always use my mic. After hearing me, their attitude seemed to change (after the apparent shock they expressed, a large proportion of gamers being female). Some of the comments were rather inappropriate so I tried to escape them, and they followed me. It might not have been because I am female, but it certainly felt like it. Edited to correct autocorrect annoyances... Swype keyboard isn't always great

These are probably the children of cod. Those of which, like my brother watch youtubers like "KYRspeedy" and just assume its "okay" to make fun of or harass female gamers. They think it's a joke and their stupidity is the problem. In legitimacy, this is a game, you can block communications and its a first world problem.

Like I say, in the end I just logged out and played again later. Generally, my experience of the community in the beta was fantastic. Like I say, not all men harass women. Though, I suppose the better way to put it is as follows: Men do not harass female gamers; only little boys do :D (or the sad, desperate or creepy folks...)

You actually wouldn't even need to log out completely. Just go to orbit and fly back down to the planet. It's doubtful they'd follow you then. =)

I didn't even think of that... If it ever happens again, that'll be the solution :D

Ok, I'll take a moment to refute you. [quote]Feminists and feminism is not a threat to gaming. People just want an online experience that doesn't involve tons of people harassing women to no end (factually happens)... [/quote] I don't "harass" women online - in fact most men don't either. The word harassment is so completely overused and subjective in today's culture that if you literally say one thing to someone that they don't want to hear - they can claim harassment charges against you. This is evidenced by the fact that the definition of sexual harassment has been expanded to encompass ANY unwanted advance whether it was intended to be of a sexual nature or not. It's so bad now, you can't even compliment a woman anymore without her having grounds to sue you for sexual harassment. So no, it doesn't factually happen "to no end." What you're talking about is some young men sending random dumb messages online to anyone who they think MIGHT be a girl - that's not real harassment, just stupid behavior. [quote]...and an offline experience that doesn't constantly degrade women as sex objects, hopeless and constant victims, or as designated punching bags.[/quote] I agree, there are a lot of negative stereotypes for girls in gaming. I complain about these stereotypes all the time. It's not the exclusive domain of feminists to care about negative stereotypes against women, nor does it require feminism to provide a catalyst to change them. [quote]They want to make gaming better. For everyone.[/quote] Incorrect. They want to censor artistic expression. Besides that, video games should be made for the people who buy them. Feminists don't typically do that. It would be illogical to design a game around what 1% of your potential market wants, wouldn't you agree? Everything else you said is just pure fabrication or has nothing to do with what I'm talking about and you know it.

Just because you don't do it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Harassment has NOT been expanded to what you claim it is; people don't claim harassment when someone makes an innocent advance towards them, or simply says something they don't like. Harassment is persistent and/ or aggressive. There are entire sites and blogs dedicated to [b]very real[/b] instances of this sort of (disturbingly common) behavior, including the fairly well known [url=http://fatuglyorslutty.com/]"Fat, Ugly,or Slutty"[/url], and if you know anywhere close to the amount of women gamers that I do, you could actually ask them, and you might find that the people who are constantly focusing their attention at them with VERY unwelcome speech (which includes entire game lobbies at times), you'd understand why they generally stick to party chat (as do a number of men, due to the toxic behavior of people online). [quote]I agree, there are a lot of negative stereotypes for girls in gaming. I complain about these stereotypes all the time. It's not the exclusive domain of feminists to care about negative stereotypes against women, nor does it require feminism to provide a catalyst to change them. [/quote] See, here's the thing. There is no "group" that is called "feminists". There is no membership, no secret handshake. Anyone and everyone, male, female, or otherwise, who cares about how women are treated and presented in society is a feminist. Feminism is not an "event" either. It's a movement, similar to the civil rights movements (which are still ongoing in many ways) were trying to change the way people treated people of color. So if you do care anything about women as they are presented in our society/ culture, even if you don't agree with aspects of the movement, you are in fact a feminist. What you are seeing lately with people like Anita Sarkeesian, are feminists pointing out examples of how women are treated in one of the areas our culture uses to convey ideas of what our norms and values are. In this case, video games. And then, one could always look into any time a woman in the games criticism industry mentions any hint of misogyny in a game, and look at the comments; gamespot reviewer and transgendered woman Carolyn Petit gave GTA5 a 9/10 review, but mentioned discomfort with some very misogynistic portions of the game, which, if you played, you'd readily notice are very real. There were tons of partitions, threats, and some very unkind words hurled her way. [quote]Incorrect. They want to censor artistic expression. Besides that, video games should be made for the people who buy them. Feminists don't typically do that. It would be illogical to design a game around what 1% of your potential market wants, wouldn't you agree?[/quote] Was it artistic expression when people in blackface depicted black people as stereotypes? Or when old tv ads for ovens or dishwashers would push the idea that a woman's place was in the kitchen with a dress? How much of this "artistic expression" must be done over and over again until the ideas presented therein are no longer considered "art"? Is art not supposed to communicate ideas? Why is all of this art communicating the same idea, that a woman is a plot device and not a person or character? You said yourself that you care about how women are depicted in the offline parts of the game world, yet you're saying that it's artistic expression? And then at the end of your post you say it's a fabrication. As for the "1%" of their audience; [url=http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2013.pdf]guess what[/url], as of 2013, [url=http://www.geekwire.com/2013/dudes-38-xbox-users-female-51-kids/]38% of Xbox owners were women.[/url] And as of [url=http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2014.pdf]2014 women are the largest single gaming demographic there is right now (and no, not just because of mobile games).[/url] But that's irrelevant. Even in some world where only 1% of gamers are women, why would that justify treating them like shit, or enforcing cultural norms that relegate them to objects? It's not fabrications. You're just not seeing what's actually happening through the filters of your worldview, and deep down, you probably know it.

By 1% he means the extreme feminist idiots like yourself.

Stop using the past for examples, do you blame all germans for being [url=http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law]-godwinslaw!-[/url]? It's just as bad

I'm going to take a wild guess here and say you're a feminist. Only a feminist would debate this poorly - a straw-man, followed by confirmation bias, followed by multiple fallacies, followed by conflation of terms with a complete lack of brevity - and still you probably think everything you're saying is absolutely 100 percent correct with no critique needed, right? Astounding. And I'll bet you think the reason people don't take you seriously is because you're a girl too, right? =)

For someone who is claiming that I'm bringing up so many fallacies, you sure are having a hard time pointing out examples, whereas I pointed out exactly how you were of three minds on the issue near the end of my post. Especially hilarious as you say I'm calling out strawmen, when the entire premise of your original post was indeed about your dislike for a strawman feminist, and your reply to my response involved a confirmation bias such as "I don't harass women online" being the basis of your argument that it is not an issue online. [quote]And I'll bet you think the reason people don't take you seriously is because you're a girl too, right? =)[/quote] I can't imagine what would make me think that people are treating women with contempt. But while I am a feminist (third wave, and proud of it), I am a man.

[quote]For someone who is claiming that I'm bringing up so many fallacies, you sure are having a hard time pointing out examples, whereas I pointed out exactly how you were of three minds on the issue near the end of my post. Especially hilarious as you say I'm calling out strawmen, when the entire premise of your original post was indeed about your dislike for a strawman feminist, and your reply to my response involved a confirmation bias such as "I don't harass women online" being the basis of your argument that it is not an issue online.[/quote] I'm not having a hard time pointing out your errors. I just refuse to do all the work for you. It's going to sap all my time pointing out everything you said that was wrong...so instead of that I left you clues. See if you're smart enough to figure it out on your own. I wasn't of three minds on the issue. If you can't follow the very simple arguments I put forth, then I guess you really are a feminist. [quote]I can't imagine what would make me think that people are treating women with contempt. But while I am a feminist (third wave, and proud of it), I am a man.[/quote] My mistake. Thank you for clarifying.