Okay so this isn't really a feminist issue, although it is worth saying that social issues are interlinked so this could be related to feminism if you try hard enough. This is about video games and their relation to violent behavior.
Some people say they do and they blame the video games for school shootings and the general increase in violence in our society. Others are offended at the mere implication that video games, or really any form of media, could possibly impact our behavior. They think you'd have to be really stupid to let that stuff influence you at all. Well, this issue isn't exactly black and white.
If a mentally healthy person plays a violent video game, it's probably not going to have much of an effect. Mentally sound people know it's just fantasy and that's not how you behave in real life. If anything it'll provide an outlet for any aggression they do occasionally feel. However, exposure to violent video games while one is developing may skew one's view of reality a tiny bit; they may become desensitized to violence, or some of the gorier stuff may be disturbing to younger gamers. Not good. But if someone with a mental illness plays video games, they may interpret the violence a little differently, and they may see it as an inspiration. It may fuel their illness, or it may encourage their violent behavior, and that's where a problem occurs.
Think of it as an energy drink. Energy drinks may have a minor impact on a healthy person's wellbeing - digestive problems, heart palpitations, insomnia, etc. Nothing serious, but still unpleasant stuff. Only a major overdose is going to have really negative consequences. But we still allow adults to make their own decisions about them. Energy drinks do, however, endanger their less healthy consumers. If you have a heart condition or other such health problems, an energy drink could kill them, or at least put them in the hospital. This is why adults are advised not to consume them if they have health problems, and a big part of why minors are often not allowed to buy them at certain stores. I know CVS doesn't let minors buy the stuff, they even carded me.
Now, I'm not sure I'm totally against restricting the sale of M-rated video games to minors. Maybe not in the form of a law, but I do see the value in letting video game stores require an ID for certain games. It's not censorship, it's putting the decision in the parents' hands. If parents want their preteen kids playing Bioshock, they're free to buy them the game. If parents don't want their kids playing, say, Grand Theft Auto, it's probably not the end of the world for the kids. So you have to wait until you're a little older big whoop. My dad made me wait until I was 12 to play MediEvil, and I was pretty much never allowed to own any GTA games. I thought it was unfair at the time, but I grew up and I got over it. It was inconvenient but they weren't trying to oppress me, they were just doing what they felt was right, an they were probably on to something. Parents have the right and the responsibility to take charge of their kids' psychological development.
On the other hand, restricting the sale of video games may only lead to these games being torrented, and video game companies losing money. Then again, that's a sale they may never make if the kid is forced to wait, and outgrows the game before he or she is allowed to play it.
So again, I'm still sort of on the fence about this, I just can't seem to get myself all riled up either way. I think teenagers flipping out over the possibility of not being able to play whatever game they want whenever they want to be a tad immature, but I think there are some issues with an age restriction as well. And we certainly can't run mental health checks or background checks on kids who want to buy Gears of War, that would be ridiculous. And while I do think Penn Jillette has a point about the need for better, more attentive parenting, I've never been a parent so I don't think I'm in a position to judge most parents or tell them how to raise their kids.
Okay, I've said my piece. Not totally relevant to the blog, but screw it, it's my blog and I'll write about whatever the heck I want.
Friday, January 25, 2013
Friday, January 18, 2013
Why I'm Doing These Panels - a response to some bad critiques
Apparently Facebook has an "other" inbox, where messages from pages, events, and non-friends go to die. Sort of. I didn't know about this inbox until last night when I was looking for a message from a friend in my recent archives, and to be sure this "other" inbox is useful in making it so I don't have to wade through spammy updates and random guys trying to "chat" with me to get to messages I actually give a crap about, but it also kept me from seeing a pretty interesting message about my recent(ish) panel at ConnectiCon.
It was pretty critical, dare I say scathing at points. She did raise constructive comments about how I should moderate the discussion better, keep things moving and change things up because we pretty much talked about the same thing the whole time. But she also raised a concern that I was too "one sided" and "man bashing," and that I made the atmosphere too intimidating for the likes of her. She then went on to say that maybe she has a thick skin, but she doesn't have a problem with video game harassment. Then ended to say that I'm always going to have some opinionated feminist in my midst and I shouldn't let it bother me too much.
Well, maybe I need to make this abundantly clear at all times: I am a feminist. I believe in gender equality, and since I am a woman, most of my opinions are going to side with the concerns of women over the concerns of men. I care about men's rights, I support efforts to question our society's definition of masculinity as well as femininity, but I'm probably going to focus mostly on women's issues from a feminist perspective. So yeah, while I talk about gender as a general topic, and while I may incorporate men's issues and issues of gay men, and acknowledge opposing aruments (in future panels), I don't think it's possible for me to ever be completely unbiased. This is reason #1 why I allow for discussion, so my panels and presentations aren't just my own opinions but other people's input as well. I let people disagree, and I let people talk to each other. I want a forum of various opinions, although I prefer that they be respectful and, ideally, informed.
Reason #2 why I feel discussion is important is that I hope to create a safe space where people can share their experiences. They can talk about incidents of harassment, or anything that's made them feel frustrated, angry, upset, or just plain uncomfortable. And they can do this without someone immediately dismissing them, telling them to get over it, calm down, grow a thicker skin, you're overreacting, it's not a big deal, not all women have this problem so why are you whining? So if that's what my critic wanted to say, a part of me is glad she was too "intimidated" so say it, and I would like to think that she actually listened to what others have to say but I'm unconvinced that was the case.
Don't worry, I don't mean this as a passive-aggressive response to her. I'll get back to her once I get home tonight, I just couldn't deal with it last night because this week has been overwhelming as all get-out at work and I knew if I responded without thinking out a mature, polite way to acknowledge her feedback, I would further ruin my reputation. It's bad enough someone's been going around telling everyone I made a rape joke* and banned men from talking during the discussion**. But as I was formulating a response today, I came across this essay on convention harassment (at Anime Boston of all places), and it reminded me that there are lots of women like me who share my frustration, and my panels are not only there to make people think, but to let people speak where they may otherwise feel silenced. I hope I get to continue these presentations.
My next one will be at NerdNite Boston on the 28th, if anyone's interested. The Facebook event already a ton of confirmed guests which is starting to freak me out. Unfortunately I have to somehow keep my presentation to 20 minutes, which is not easy since my first two were given hour-long time slots.
*I kinda did, maybe. I recounted someone telling me to "relax and enjoy" something I thought was problematic, and I mentioned that that sounded like something a rapist would say. It wasn't meant to be a joke, but it did make people feel uncomfortable and I probably shouldn't have said it. Still, if she's going to tell people she really ought to acknowledge the context, because she's making me out to be a much bigger bitch than I am. My biggest concern is that the CTcon coordinators won't invite me back - they've completely ignored my e-mails since the convention thus far and I can't help but think it's because they heard this stuff.
**I don't recall this at all, but I am sorry if I said something that made men feel like they couldn't talk. If someone wants to tell me what she meant by that I'm all ears. The only thing I can think of was when I told a male friend of mine to shut up, and I'm not even sure that happened. I did participate in the discussion but I mostly let others talk amongst themselves.
It was pretty critical, dare I say scathing at points. She did raise constructive comments about how I should moderate the discussion better, keep things moving and change things up because we pretty much talked about the same thing the whole time. But she also raised a concern that I was too "one sided" and "man bashing," and that I made the atmosphere too intimidating for the likes of her. She then went on to say that maybe she has a thick skin, but she doesn't have a problem with video game harassment. Then ended to say that I'm always going to have some opinionated feminist in my midst and I shouldn't let it bother me too much.
Well, maybe I need to make this abundantly clear at all times: I am a feminist. I believe in gender equality, and since I am a woman, most of my opinions are going to side with the concerns of women over the concerns of men. I care about men's rights, I support efforts to question our society's definition of masculinity as well as femininity, but I'm probably going to focus mostly on women's issues from a feminist perspective. So yeah, while I talk about gender as a general topic, and while I may incorporate men's issues and issues of gay men, and acknowledge opposing aruments (in future panels), I don't think it's possible for me to ever be completely unbiased. This is reason #1 why I allow for discussion, so my panels and presentations aren't just my own opinions but other people's input as well. I let people disagree, and I let people talk to each other. I want a forum of various opinions, although I prefer that they be respectful and, ideally, informed.
Reason #2 why I feel discussion is important is that I hope to create a safe space where people can share their experiences. They can talk about incidents of harassment, or anything that's made them feel frustrated, angry, upset, or just plain uncomfortable. And they can do this without someone immediately dismissing them, telling them to get over it, calm down, grow a thicker skin, you're overreacting, it's not a big deal, not all women have this problem so why are you whining? So if that's what my critic wanted to say, a part of me is glad she was too "intimidated" so say it, and I would like to think that she actually listened to what others have to say but I'm unconvinced that was the case.
Don't worry, I don't mean this as a passive-aggressive response to her. I'll get back to her once I get home tonight, I just couldn't deal with it last night because this week has been overwhelming as all get-out at work and I knew if I responded without thinking out a mature, polite way to acknowledge her feedback, I would further ruin my reputation. It's bad enough someone's been going around telling everyone I made a rape joke* and banned men from talking during the discussion**. But as I was formulating a response today, I came across this essay on convention harassment (at Anime Boston of all places), and it reminded me that there are lots of women like me who share my frustration, and my panels are not only there to make people think, but to let people speak where they may otherwise feel silenced. I hope I get to continue these presentations.
My next one will be at NerdNite Boston on the 28th, if anyone's interested. The Facebook event already a ton of confirmed guests which is starting to freak me out. Unfortunately I have to somehow keep my presentation to 20 minutes, which is not easy since my first two were given hour-long time slots.
*I kinda did, maybe. I recounted someone telling me to "relax and enjoy" something I thought was problematic, and I mentioned that that sounded like something a rapist would say. It wasn't meant to be a joke, but it did make people feel uncomfortable and I probably shouldn't have said it. Still, if she's going to tell people she really ought to acknowledge the context, because she's making me out to be a much bigger bitch than I am. My biggest concern is that the CTcon coordinators won't invite me back - they've completely ignored my e-mails since the convention thus far and I can't help but think it's because they heard this stuff.
**I don't recall this at all, but I am sorry if I said something that made men feel like they couldn't talk. If someone wants to tell me what she meant by that I'm all ears. The only thing I can think of was when I told a male friend of mine to shut up, and I'm not even sure that happened. I did participate in the discussion but I mostly let others talk amongst themselves.
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