NKD wrote on Jul 24, 2014, 06:53:
The flavor of feminism that is prevalent on the Internet today straight up isn't working. The Internet is more toxic for women than it has ever been, and like I said, people are becoming polarized instead of working together to find solutions.
This is in regards to the recent new hire at Giant Bomb but I think
TotalBiscuit hit the nail on the head. There are important issues in games like representation that should be discussed but the discussion has become so dominated by bull-headed people on both sides who only think in binary absolutes and treat even mild disagreement as a call to war that a lot of reasonable participants are just throwing up their hands and saying "I don't agree with either of you so I'm out." That's quickly what I'm becoming.
I agree with the core causes of lack of representation of women and minorities in games and the games industry. I'd love to see more of both, seriously. But the absolute entrenchment of people on both sides of this debate who basically say "You either agree with me in full or you're as bad as the trolls." is only harming discourse. You can agree with a cause without fully supporting the position of its more extreme supporters (on either side) and having a different point of view on how to solve a problem.
The Polygon article in question here is not really what I'd call an extreme example but there have been far greater ones on that site and far more so elsewhere. A regular Polygon contributor is the person TB is referring to at the start of his commentary. Treating an important social discussion as a war instead of a discussion eventually leaves none but the most extreme participants present and that does no good for anyone.
Parallax Abstraction
Podcast |
YouTube |
Twitch