[quote=IRLGoat]
Haha~ You'd be more worried if it were effecting your lifeeee. :/[/quote]

I said "not overly worried about the future" of it because it seems to be on the decline, which is really the most that can be hoped for. It's not the kind of thing that'll stop overnight, so slowly fading away is a good start.

[quote]I said 'players' because it is both to rude-ass ladies and gents who deter more girls from being a part of these great games. I take responsibility when playing online games to be a good teammate and fun to play with. Games are there to have . Sure, it's not set in stone that one must be kind to their fellow player, but neither is being nice to the member of an opposing football team or at a poker table. Typically when you act like an ass towards people in those events, you are removed. Since these games take place online this is pretty much impossible. I think LoL has been taking a turn for the better what with its tribunal and all. Maybe 'responsibility' is too strong a word, since chances are many trolls cannot muster enough balls or braincells to be kind and have fun. I believe girls do deserve a bit of special treatment(unless they're totes cray), since we already receive special treatment in the negative aspect. :/ But , since it's all about equality, despite males basically having the greenest grass, yes... we deserve nothing more than you... let me rephrase...

"It is the responsibility of players to make other players feel comfortable and welcome."

HAH, yeah what was I thinking? Imagine giving girls a break giving them something special. Iiimmmagginnee.
[/quote]

Well there we have a fundamental disagreement about what someone in an online game is responsible for. I'm of the opinion that the only responsibility someone has is to not be a douchebag, not that they must go on the opposite side of the spectrum and be friendly and nice and whatnot. Add nothing negative to the game or community, that's all the responsibility one can reasonably level at people playing any game. Anything more than that is just silly.

Also, yeah, despite your clear sarcasm, women don't deserve anything special just for having a particular set of genitalia. That's the other side of the sexism coin, the more popularly viewed side being that men don't deserve special or preferential treatment just because they have a penis. Going past equality and giving women special treatment would just be sexist in the opposite direction. It may sound reasonable, like you'd be redressing past grievances caused by anti-women sexism, but that sort of thing just perpetuates the problems rather than solving them. Look at racism for an example of that, how affirmative action programs in countries like the United States give some advantages to various minorities and aid in furthering racist sentiments in different ways (by which I mean racist people will get all up in arms about the entitlements and benefits other racial groups get, such as how a lot of colleges will let in a minority student with a certain GPA and SAT score but would deny a white student with those same stats), and how despite all those misguided efforts to fix things racism is still rampant. Giving some kind of preferential treatment to women would just give sexist idiots different reasons to bitch and continue to be sexist, and it would further drive home the negative idea of "people of this gender should be treated better/worse than people of that gender." Seriously, preferential treatment based on any physical trait is a horrible idea, no matter what the intent behind it is.

[quote=thinkertron2000]
Jorrick, is I'm sure, a nice guy who means well, but dude? We're not asking you to treat women better than men, just that you stop treating them worse then men, or at least to stop using gendered words, like "slut", "whore", "bitch" and so on. Using these targets them AS WOMEN, rather than as just someone you don't like, and this is a super important distinction. It sends the message that they're not welcome because they are women, and that they shouldn't be playing these games, or reading those comics, or whatever your flavour of geek is.

Western culture is already extremely unfair to women, we don't need people taking away safe spaces for women.
[/quote]

I think that's the first time someone has ever said I'm a nice guy who means well. :hehe

On a more serious note, yeah, did you read my post? I totally agree on the equal treatment front. My comments about preferential treatment being a bad idea were all in direct response to IRLGoat's thing about other gamers being responsible for making girls feel comfortable and welcome, which would be preferential treatment. I'm totally on board the equality train. In fact, I'd say I'm far more focused on equality than many (maybe most) of those who identify themselves as feminists, particularly the activist types, because large segments of them are really anti-male or truly want superiority for women rather than equality or only want to fix up the things that are bad for women (like income inequality) while keeping the benefits they have (like absurdly preferential treatment in divorce and child custody matters). I'm the kind of person who wants to see income inequality go away [i]and[/i] see men get a fair shake in divorce and child custody proceedings, because that's what equality would look like.

As for the gendered words, that's one of those things I don't go for because it's bullshit that passes the equality line into the realm of preferential treatment. If I'll call a guy some crude word then I will also use the word to insult a woman, because that's what equality is all about. Calling a guy a dick is all well and good, so calling a woman a cunt is fine too; on the same note, guys can be cunts and women can be dicks, so it's all fair play in my opinion, and I call guys cunts far more often than women because they act like cunts far more often than women. If someone is being a bitch I will call them a bitch regardless of their gender, because the word is not inextricably tied to one gender regardless of what the origins may have been (in the exact same way as calling people a dick or a cunt works for either gender). The only context in which I use the word whore is when talking about attention whores, because it's the best term for succinctly describing a certain behavior without resorting to erroneous use of names for various mental illnesses. I don't call people whores (in the promiscuity sense) or sluts unless it's blatant sarcasm because trying to insult someone for their sexual activity is stupid, doesn't matter what gender they are. That's true equality for you, women get the same as men, end of story. If they don't like it or feel like they're being personally targeted because I called them a bitch and they happen to have a vagina, that's unfortunate and all, but I'm not going to alter my speech patterns just to make them happy. That would be preferential treatment, after all, and I've already made my stance on that very clear.

Also, er, did you just imply that sexist stuff in geek areas is taking away safe spaces for women? If so, I find that strange because geek areas are clearly not safe spaces for women, due to the very sexism this thread is talking about. They're already pretty anti-female spaces, and they always have been, so there's no taking away of safe spaces going on there. Not sure if that was something like poor phrasing on your side or I'm just interpreting it incorrectly, but it seemed odd to me so I felt the need to point it out.