No title available
No title available
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
Misplaced Lens Cap
h
Keni
if i look back, i am lost
Today's Document
Mike Driver
Kaledo Art
we're not kids anymore.
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
No title available
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
macklin celebrini has autism
Janaina Medeiros
No title available
祝日 / Permanent Vacation
Show & Tell
seen from Belgium
seen from Mexico
seen from United States
seen from France
seen from Israel
seen from TĂĽrkiye
seen from India
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Canada
seen from Germany
seen from Switzerland
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from France
seen from T1
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from Netherlands
@teamvalkyrieftw-blog
shorter robert kirkman (of walking dead)
"I don't mean to sound sexist, but as far as women have come over the last 40 years, you don't really see a lot of women hunters. They're still in the minority in the military, and there's not a lot of female construction workers. I hope that's not taken the wrong way. I think women are as smart, resourceful, and capable in most things as any man could be ... but they are generally physically weaker. That's science."
How often has this happened to you? You're having a conversation about some specific incident as it relates to feminist issues. Some new study revealing the violence inherent in the system. Some specific, particular issue that serves to be a bullet point in the ever-expanding list of incidents. You're having that conversation. You're exploring it, discussing it, discussing how to identify it, adding your own personal experiences.
When suddenly someone jumps in saying "Why are you picking at this specific example? Don't you realize this problem is so much bigger than this tiny thing you’re picking at?!"
How often does that happen on game development teams, ones made up of otherwise intelligent and liberal guys who are then shocked to find out that they inadvertently offended a group that is quickly approaching half of the gaming audience?
Girlfriend Mode: Just Another Straw
If you're a gamer, you've been there: you want to share a game so desperately with someone else, you want to play together, to enjoy it together, but they just suck. Maybe it's just this game, maybe it's most games, but you want to play this awesome title and you want to share this with them, and they just can't keep up. And sometimes maybe you wish there was a way for them to be able to play this game without either of you throwing the controller in rage. If only there was a setting or a mode for that...
Quoth John Hemingway:
I want to make, for the lack of a better term, the girlfriend skill tree. This is, I love Borderlands and I want to share it with someone, but they suck at first-person shooters.
You may be expecting me to rail against Hemingway on this point, to call him out on flagrant sexism, to perhaps throw rocks at the BLT team. But I'm not going to do that, because honestly, that's not the problem, and that's not the point.
Instead I want to focus on a very telling bit of wording in that quote: "for the lack of a better term."
Gaming and geek culture in general has a specific self-identity, that it is largely comprised of white, straight dudes who behave in stereotypical male ways. Challenge instead of acceptance. Confrontation instead of cooperation. Domination instead of community. This is celebrated as what is Good and True about gaming, and others need not apply. This may not be the dominant part of the community -- it's certainly not in the people I hang out with, though I have met these assholes before -- but it's an image which is there, and which has stuck.
What comes along with this a casual misogyny, revealed by the constant derision of things which are more stereotypically feminine, by the assumption that women cannot bring as much to the table as men can when it comes to gaming. It is revealed by phrases like "girlfriend mode." It is revealed by the fact that (a) everybody understands what is meant by that phrase, and (b) the developer can't seem to think of a better way to communicate the idea. There is an implication here that women don't play games, and when they do, they are the girlfriend of a man who does.
Daniel Nye Griffiths described this very succinctly by saying, "'girlfriend mode' is just another note in an unwelcoming chorus." It's another straw being delicately placed across the camel's back, nestled into the ever-growing pile of casual insults which only serve to remind women that while they are welcome, they will never be truly welcome.
Can't think of a better term to describe making a game less difficult? How about "Easy Mode"? Is that a completely new phrase to gaming? Howsabout "Newbie Mode"? Or maybe "Freshman Mode"?
I could do this all day. There are tonnes of ways to indicate a lack of skill that don't imply gender.
The point is, it's so ingrained in gaming culture that women are only present as significant others, and when they are present they are never going to be as good as and certainly never better than the men they are with, that this is the kind of phrase that gets tossed around. Is "girlfriend mode" an explosive phrase all on its own? Not really. But it's just one more way in which men show women what they truly think of us. It's a symptom of a bigger disease.
Yes it's a casual slip, but that fact is important. This is what happens when barriers are down, and language goes unscreened. This shit is so ingrained, so ever-present, that it becomes inescapable.
Original Article
Zero-Tolerance Except if Sowwies, aka That Noise Happening with ReaderCon
ReaderCon -- a convention in Cambridge, Massachusetts centered around readers and authors and how great books are -- has recently found itself in the center of a bit of a storm involving harassment of one of its attendees. The results and their response are... disappointing, to say the least. Which I won't. Say the least, that is. I'm going to say a fair bit.
So let's start with a summary of what happened, in case this is the first you've heard about it.
ReaderCon has a stated Zero Tolerance policy when it comes to harassment:
Harassment
Readercon has always had a zero-tolerance harassment policy.
Harassment of any kind — including physical assault, battery, deliberate intimidation, stalking, or unwelcome physical attentions — will not be tolerated at Readercon and will result in permanent suspension of membership.
As always, Readercon reserves the right to strip membership at its discretion.
Ponder what zero-tolerance means. Keep it at the forefront of your thoughts.
The story first broke on Genevieve Valentine's blog, when she wrote about what happened to her:
My boundaries were violated physically, verbally, and in terms of my right to feel personally secure. In addition, within minutes of meeting him, I was told to stop saying things, because it made him somehow unable to control his thoughts, which is bog-standard thought policing. And I was subjected to not one, not two, but THREE instances of the man in question hovering near me because he wanted to apologize, and he wasn't going to stop until he had had his say.
At ReaderCon, Valentine felt threatened. This man subjected Valentine to not only the initial harassment (telling her to stop making him have "bad thoughts"?! ew), but then continued the harassment because he felt bad and it was important he be forgiven. His feelings about being heard and being forgiven mattered more than her feelings about wanting to be safe.
Hang on to that. That feelings thing. That's a theme here.
In this instance, she was able to go to the ReaderCon board and lodge a formal complaint, with corroborating witnesses. This is a process she is not unfamiliar with. In 2008, Veronica Schanoes found herself in a similar situation, being harassed by another con-goer, and Valentine encouraged her to come forward and acted as a witness.
Schanoes' situation was, from what I have read, well-handled. Investigation happend, witness statements taken, and in the face of undeniable evidence, the ReaderCon board ruled in a way that was in line with their policy. Aaron Agassi was banned from ReaderCon for life.
It's later been mentioned that Agassi has some form of mental illness (I've heard several different illnesses described, and I'm not sure which might be true). He is also not particularly known in the fandom. I say these things because these things are important.
Return to present day. Valentine has lodged her complaint. Several witnesses have come forward. We have arrived at the point where there is incontrovertible proof that Valentine was being harassed by a man named Rene Walling. He is apparently a chair member of WorldCon, and is something of a BNF.
The ReaderCon board has banned Rene Walling. For two years.
How interesting. Aaron Agassi, unknown person and mentally ill, is banned for life. Rene Walling, secret master of fandom, gets a slap on the wrist.
I'm not saying, I'm just saying.
There's a very obvious problem here, and it goes beyond what looks to be, on the surface, favoritism and politics as usual in the SFF fandom. It is that ReaderCon has gone on record claiming a zero-tolerance policy, and then have shown they cannot keep to their word. This means that anybody at the convention who once felt safe is no longer able to feel that way. This also means that if you have enough sway in fandom, you can get away with it.
The verdict drew a lot of ire from the Internet. I mean, a lot. To the point where the ReaderCon board finally felt the need to announce the decision on their own terms, and explain the reasoning behind it.
Hang on to your hats, folks.
During the course of our conversation with Rene it became immediately apparent that he realized what he had done and was sincerely regretful of his actions. It was that recognition and regret that influenced our decision, not his status in the community.
Remember that thing I said earlier? About feelings? About it being a theme?
Feelings matter, you see. Specifically, Walling's feelings matter. Not Valentine's, though. Well, a little, maybe. I mean, Walling is going to miss two years of ReaderCon. So her feelings matter enough for that.
Valentine feels threatened, unsafe. Walling feels sowwies. There is no question whether or not a crime happened: it did. The board has acknowledged it. But they have gone around their own stated policy and ignored the reality of what has happened because Walling feels bad.
Pictured: Walling's Feelings
So, hang on, I guess a couple things are happening here.
One: Walling's feelings matter more than Valentine's. This is a clear, unequivocal message the ReaderCon board is sending. An attacker's feelings matter more than the victim's. This means ReaderCon is no longer a safe space, and apparently never was.
Two: ReaderCon had a posted Zero-Tolerance policy on harassment that was kind of a shiny thing that a lot of people held up as an awesome example of how cons should handle harassment. Then they went and pulled this shit. Once again, no longer a safe space, never was to begin with.
Three: Men with power get away with crimes because reasons. This is a thing that happens, and fandom suffers from it too. Great job, guys.
Four: This is kind of Harasser 101 shit here. Walling was sorry? Of course he was sorry. But was he sorry for what he did, or sorry he was caught? Most harassers/attackers are able to express remorse, sincere or otherwise, and yet they continue to commit the same crimes. And when there is no real punishment, there is no incentive to change their behaviour.
Five: Okay some people out there are claiming that oh what if he's Aspie and doesn't know any better which is such bullshit and I'll let Rose Lemberg tell you why because she nailed it.
This all... I just...
It's kind of disgusting, what happened here. Women were harassed. The harassment was found to be a real and valid thing. And yet, the perpetrator gets away with it, with just a slap on the wrist, circumventing stated zero-tolerance policies. Making that zero-tolerance policy worth less than the paper it was printed on. And I don't know that anybody ever printed it out.
I've never been to ReaderCon, but I'd heard stories of how great it is, and I figured it was a fun and happy place worth going to. Apparently not. Unless something changes, I'm likely to never go to ReaderCon. And many others have stated the same.
Honestly, I don't even know what action the ReaderCon board can take at this point to make it all right. There is currently a letter/petition to the ReaderCon board suggesting corrective action, written by Schanoes and undersigned by many others. But, I don't know, reverting their decision and perma-banning Walling feels like that same tune of bowing to pressure; instead of pressure from a BNF's reputation and his fauxpology, now it's pressure from the Internet. If ReaderCon were to take these corrective steps, would it be true change, or would it simply be second verse, same as the first? Would they understand what they had done, or would they simply be sowwies? I'm not sure.
Regardless, ReaderCon has fucked up pretty badly. Let's see if they can recover. I feel like they will have a hard time with it.
ETA: It appears that Rene Walling's name is being removed from the Kansas City World Con bid comittee.
ETA 2, The Editing
The entire board is stepping down, and the perpetrator has been banned. I must say, I'm incredibly surprised, and impressed with this response. It is an even and unequivocal apology for what has happened. Read the official ReaderCon statement here.
Original Article
Daily Slow Loris
Original Article
Objectification, or You are Really Bad at Root Cause Analysis
Caveat: This post is discussing sexism. It's going to use a lot of gender-binary language. I'm sorry about that, but I have a distinct point I'm trying to prove, and the statistics gathered which support this are all in terms of men-v-women, and well. Also this is focused on the United States, because that's the context that I can speak from, confidently. And while this post is going to focus primarily on sexism, please understand that it can translate just as easily to any other -ism we see. You can replace the statistics, but the core point holds.
Normally I try to keep it geeky here, but this came at a personal request, so sure. It's an important topic, and something a lot of people Don't Get.
Here's an argument I hear a lot: "Sexism doesn't really exist. It's about people being awful to other people. That's the real problem."
I'm going to be up front: if you think the "real problem" is people universally being horrible to one another, and don't understand the underlying problems of sexism/racism/etc-ism, you are really shitty at root-cause analysis.
So I'm an engineer by trade. This is what I am paid to do. I write software all day, erryday. One of the skills I posses is a certain tenacity when it comes to bug-fixing, where I refuse to stop at a band-aid, where I will dig into the architecture until I find the source issue, and fix it in such a way that I resolve the core issue and do not break other things in the process. Related to this is my ability to observe and analyze whole systems, to understand the interactions between them, and to spot potential problems in those interactions, all while keeping a clear idea of the end goal, of making the system useful, of making things clear for the user.
Being an engineer, I look at the world with an engineering mindset. The world we live in is not a collection of discrete, independent components. Everything relies on everything else. And because the world we live in is so incredibly complex, it can be challenging to see how anything impacts anything else, and to understand the real problems we face.
So let's talk about real problems.
1 in 6 women in the United States is a survivor of sexual assault. Contrast this to the statistics for men: 1 in 33. Only 3% of rapists will ever spend a single day in prison. (RAINN)
Women earn less than men, across the board. Whether the stat you get is 77 cents to every dollar or 81 cents to every dollar, it doesn't matter, there is a wage gap based on gender. (wiki) And those stats get worse when you consider race: black women earn 69 cents to the dollar, and Hispanic women earn 59 cents to the dollar. (infoplease)
"But although women make up over half of America's labor force, as of 2009, only 12 Fortune 500 companies and 25 Fortune 1000 companies have women CEOs or presidents." (infoplease)
Women are sexually assaulted at significantly higher rates than men are. Women are paid less (despite currently being the percentage-majority graduating from higher education). Women struggle to reach positions of power in the professional and political world. I could keep going, but I feel like this gives you an idea of real, actual problems.
You may be wondering how this could possibly relate to objectification. These are real-world problems with gender lines, but none of them appear to have anything to do with treating another human being as a sex object, except maybe the rape one, right?
To which I will say: you suck at understanding system interactions.
Imagine we live in a world where the above problems don't exist. There is no significant divide between men and women in terms of sexual assault, of leadership, of wages earned, of media representation, anything. Your CEO is just as likely to be a man as a woman. Women earn the same as men, on average. Women are no more likely to be the victim of sexual assault than men are. Let's pretend this is the world we live in.
If this were the world, then objectification would be the same, both ways. It would be just as dehumanizing to objectify men as it is to objectify women, because men and women are coming at the problem on equal footing. There is no inherent power balance going on here.
However, this is not the world we live in. And everything has context.
There is a pervasive thrum in media of women as an object to behold. Women are used to sell products to other women as well as men. Women are "booth babes," not men. Women are the prize for men at the end of the film. They are to be seen, and not heard, and certainly not followed or respected.
A woman is something to be possessed, to be claimed as a prize at the end of the journey. She is an object, a reward, and little else. Why pay her more? She's just there to look pretty. She can't do the same work as a man, and whatever, she's probably just going to get pregnant and quit anyway. And don't even think about putting her in power, she doesn't belong there, what would she even do with it. And if you want to have sex with her, well damn, go have sex with her, that's your right. If she doesn't want it, well, get her a little drunk, get the bitch to loosen up, amirite? All she's good for.
These aren't conscious thoughts most people have. These are unconscious biases. And this is, in fact, the world we live in. Women being objectified so pervasively translates to unconscious bias, which translates to real-world bias. Sexism's language has become more coded and less obvious, but it's still there. You just need to dig at the root cause.
When a man objectifies a woman, he does it in the context of being more financially secure than her, of being in professional and political power over her, of being statistically more likely to perpetrate sexual violence against her. When a man looks at a woman as an object and not a person, he is coming from a position where this is an actionable perspective. If a woman is not human, she doesn't deserve to be treated as one.
When a woman objectifies a man, she does it in the context of being less financially secure, of having less power, of being more likely to be victimized. It isn't necessarily "all right" for a woman to objectify a man, but there are not real-world ramifications for men as there are for women.
It is not the same. It is not "people being horrible to people." Not when the results are this imbalanced.
To the people who claim that sexism isn't the real problem, it's just people being awful: when you see this, when you see these problems, when you see that women are paid less, treated as less, respected less, that there are fewer women are in power, in leadership roles, when you see this world we live in with its very real problems, this long history of abuse, erasure, imbalance, all this inescapable context... how can you think anything divided on gender lines is going to be equal?
What about this do you not understand?
Original Article
Daily Slow Loris
Original Article
DC Announces Alan Scott Has Been A "Major Character" The Whole Time
Comics publisher DC had said several weeks ago that it was going to reveal one of its major characters as gay. They then announced it was Alan Scott. I'm a fan of Alan Scott, he's my favorite Green Lantern, with that love of a character comes the knowledge that he is not a major character. Even amongst many Green Lantern fans I know, he is a "Who?" when they ask me who my favorite Lantern is. In general, I can't say "Alan Scott is one of my favorite characters" without having to explain who he is. I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like a major character to me. They also say he's iconic, with which I say, Green Lantern is iconic; Alan Scott isn't.
Again, this is coming from a super-fan of the character, there is a difference between a "major character is now gay" and "a character is now gay and we're now making him a major character". I remember the rumors buzzing around with people thinking it would be one of the Robins, Tim Drake being the common idea. Robin and Tim Drake are major characters, even if Tim Drake is now Red Robin, most people who know comics vaguely can admit that he's still a major character. Alan Scott was in no one's running for it, even Alan Scott fans, because we know he isn't a major character.
Alan Scott is on so few people's radars that he's only become a major character to the general audience due to this change. I'm alright with Alan being gay now, what I'm not for is the erasing of his kids, especially of his son, Obsidian. You see, Obsidian is/was gay and now no longer exists due to de-aging Alan Scott. DC has literally replaced one gay character with another. Worse, they totally wiped the slate of Obsidian, it's worse than if they'd killed him, at least there he'd still have had an effect on his father, sister and friends; now he's nothing and we only have this trade off.
This isn't progress, this feels like they are filling a quota and that is not right. You make a character gay, alright cool but why did you have to get rid of another? Is Obsidian ever going to come back and will he still be gay or are there too many gay people for you now? I highly doubt it was your intention to come off this way DC, you can't be that stupid and bigoted, but it can sure as hell be read that way when you hear "DC is making one character gay and got rid of another gay character by doing so". That's what happened, and it sounds vile when you see it put in the most clear cut way.
I was originally just going to write how DC had gotten everyone's hopes up by saying a major character was going to be announced as gay and how they pulled the rug out from under us by making it be a minor, if beloved by what fans he has, character. That was a sneaky thing to do, but then to also state they had to get rid of his children, one being gay himself, is just terrible. It reads more as a publicity stunt than Marvel marrying Northstar. I say this since this comes from a company that thought Spider-Man being married was boring; so what's that going to say about Northstar who isn't a big league character like Spidey?
The big two publishers want to be seen as progressive but not doing any real work at attaining progression. They just want people to look at the surface and hope that's good enough. Except they expect people to stick around and read what's inside so they can get more of their money, but then the audience realizes what they are getting is half-hearted.
Original Article
Flight of Valkryies at SDCC?
So both Dr and I are going to be at SDCC this year, and we were wondering... are any of you out there who read this blog going to be there too?
Should we, perhaps, arrange a luncheon hangout in the park?
This post is to gauge interest. Please to comment if you would like such a thing, and we'll figure out what works best for schedules.
And because it's not a TeamV post without a reaction gif:
Original Article
Daily Slow Loris
June. New month. New cute. I present to you: the slow loris.
Original Article
Sexism Doesn't Exist, Except When It Totally Exists
On Wednesday night I went to the Women in Games event at Zynga. It was pretty awesome, I got to talk to some incredibly smart and talented people in the industry, and hear some really sharp women talk about their experiences. The panel was a joy to listen to, in particular Brenda Garno, who is totally fabulous and knows all my feels about being a lady in a male-dominated environment.
But something cropped up in the panel discussion, and it came up a few times, and it's one of those things that irks me that we do: saying sexism "doesn't exist" in the spaces we occupy, then go on to say "oh wait except for this one example I have."
"I never notice sexism. People treat me the same. Oh except that I get asked a lot if I'm in marketing."
"I'm one of the guys, you know? I'm not like other girls, so they respect me."
"There's less sexism in games than anywhere else, I think. Oh but I get treated like armcandy a lot."
"I don't dress nice because I don't want guys to get certain opinions of me, you know?"
This is pretty common, and it makes me sad. And there are a few problems in statements like these. Saying sexism doesn't exist because it's never happened to you (that you can recall) is like saying Australia doesn't exist because you've never been there.
I think a lot of this comes down to having to refine the definition of sexism. Once upon a time, sexism was smacking your secretary's ass and telling her to get some coffee, sweetheart. Sexism was telling a woman to her face that she was being let go because shouldn't she be at home with the kids anyway? It was telling a woman she couldn't do something because her ovaries would get in the way.
This sort of behaviour is unacceptable now. But you know what's totally acceptable? Assuming every woman at a gaming convention is there to be looked at by men and judged on their fuckability, rather than assuming the nicely-dressed woman standing at the booth might actually be responsible for developing the game she's selling. If a woman is attractive, it's acceptable to dismiss her, to say she only got to where she is based on looks alone. The shit that gets spewed forth in the comments pages on Kotaku is acceptable. How do I know all this is acceptable? Because it keeps happening, and nobody's really putting a stop to this shit.
So that's one point. Sexism is more subtle, harder to spot, and easier to dismiss. But there's another problem here, one that irks me ever so much: why does a woman have to be "one of the guys" to be accepted?
There was a comment made which was such a clear-cut example of internalized misogyny that I had to bite my hand to keep from laughing out loud. "I'm not like other girls. I'm one of the guys."
Here's the thing: being "one of the guys" is totally cool. Being a woman whose personality is dominated by typically masculine traits is totally cool. I'm really glad that it's acceptable for women to behave that way.
What I'm not okay with is deriding women who act typically feminine. And I'm less-okay with the traits that were described as belonging to "most other girls": catty back-biting, passive-aggressive comments, obsession with appearance... basically a MRA laundry list of why women suck. I shouldn't have to state the obvious, but I'm going to: these traits exist among both men and women (seriously, meet the men in my office, oh the catty gossip). Singling out women as being the ones who posses this trait unfairly maligns an entire gender, all because you can't think past the latest romcom you just watched.
But what about other typically feminine traits? Nurturing? Building? Concern with appearance? How are these bad things? Why are we celebrating eschewing these traits in favor of conquering and destruction? How about a little balance?
It's difficult to argue sexism doesn't exist when the panelists themselves are making the sexist comments.
And lest I sound like I'm harping on games, let me be clear: this problem is everywhere. I have had to rescue women from creepy-ass men at professional scifi/fantasy literature conventions (professional conventions), only to have them turn around and say "There's no sexism in SFF." This shit happens errywhere. It's simply easier to deny the problem than face it.
The point was raised that things are so much better now than they were ten or twenty years ago. And I agree. They are. Totally better. Loads better. Alls I'm saying is, let's not rest on our laurels. Let's keep pushing this.
Original Article
Daily Red Panda
It's a new month, and new month means new cute. May is RED PANDAS.
Original Article
WotC to Women, Minorities: "It's Just Business"
So we've been having some good discussions on the Internets about DnDNext and fixing the crap that we see in the art. You know what I'm talking about. The sexist, racist crap, the stuff that caters to the male gaze, male power fantasies, all that noise. The stuff that shows the genre hasn't really grown since its original publication in 1974. People have been talking about that, and how much it sucks, and how we should totally fix it, and why we should fix it, and sunshine and puppies and rainbows.
If you are a reader of the D&D Comics, you should be familiar with one of the Fell's Five, Tisha. She's a strong and capable character with lots of spunk. The majority of the folks that I've talked to love her character, but a few have commented to me about her depiction. They acknowledge that my main audience is older males. They acknowledge that her "role" doesn't require armor. They even acknowledge that her look is in line with the general depictions within 4th edition. Despite all that, they still have some concerns about her depiction. Too much skin, too sexy, too large breasted, and so on.
Got it.
For every email I get along these lines, I get ten from folk who love her. Does that make me right in my decision to "approve" this depiction? I'm sure there will be folks on both sides of that argument. I made a decision based upon the business goals, the sales channel, the audience as it was defined, and what was acceptable in the market at the time. Times change. Audiences change. Business goals change. And fan acceptance changes. When that happens, I change my decision-making process as well. Remember, I mentioned earlier that I am a professional creative. I make decisions that help keep me employed. If the world changes, the way I do business changes.
So. Joe Schindehette. Your blog post. Where do I begin.
Well for one thing, this blog post is just a long-winded, meandering, pseudo-philosophical way of trying to justify your desire to draw tits all day. I mean, let's just sweep that one right off the table there. Be honest with all of us, and more importantly, be honest with yourself.
Mainly, though, you're trying to hide behind this thin veneer of "business, people!" and is a mediocre excuse at best.
"It's just business." It's just business that white folk don't want to share a restaurant with black folk. It's just business that "men work harder than women", and women are "just going to get pregnant and leave your company anyway", so don't pay them as much, don't offer them the same benefits, don't fully cover their medical needs, don't invest in them as employees. It's just business that the gay guy kind of weirds out your customers so you should maybe find a reason to let him go. It's just business.
It's not just business. It's hurtful. It's part of a larger system where women are cast as sex objects, and treated as less valued in the workplace. It's part of a system where black actors can't get a leading role of value in a mainstream film, where Idris Elba can never be Batman (and come on, guys, how amazing would that be?). Where despite that Megan in Bridesmaids was the character who actually had her shit together, she was still the butt of the joke. When 99.999% of the positive rolemodels are also white, thin, able-bodied persons, typically male, and it's impossible to find a character who looks like you and is celebrated, there's a problem. Nothing exists in a vacuum. Everything has context.
It may be business, but there's nothing just about it.
And if you're still unmoved, folks at WotC, then you could stand to read what the fiction editor at Paizo has to say about objectification and the bottom line:
If you haven't already determined that there are some major problems around gender in the SF&F publishing world, a quick Google search should yield a hundred authors better equipped to discuss the problem than I am. But even if you aren’t interested in such issues, you should know they’re out there, and that they're both important and worth discussing.
Got it? Good. Because I'm going to ignore all that and talk economics instead. All too often in these discussions, I see people jump straight to the philosophical side of things and miss a key point:
Cheesecake covers can hurt sales.
Come on, folks. Paizo is calling you out on excessive T&A. And stomping all over your bullshit financial arguments.
"It's just business"? Please.
The worst part about all of this, if you ask me, is that we're just looking for parity. We're just looking for companies and creators to create things for a broader audience. Don't stop making chainmail-bikini clad women. Just add some women in proper armor. Have your hero be black. Draw a female barbarian who looks like a body builder. Draw a fat female cleric. Something for someone on every page.
But no, they won't, because it's easier and safer to make every page cater to one audience. It's lazy, and they're comfortable with being lazy.
Original Article
Many Links for a Friday
COMICS
Static Shock: Blackout (Short Film)
STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math)
Banned from Kickstarter for being a Stalking Victim -- Wow, Kickstarter. Good. Fucking. Game.
Internet Entrepreneurship is Getting Arab Women into the Business World
'Sandwich Makers' Finally Described as 'Female' in Facebook's Leet Speak Option -- "In the interest of hearing all sides of the situation—it's only fair—I fired off an e-mail to our contacts at Facebook PR asking for comment on the "54ndw1ch m4k3r" description. Not long after the e-mail was sent, I checked the settings again and "54ndw1ch m4k3r" had quietly been changed to "Female" under the Leet Speak option. But why did Facebook wait until now to do so?"
Hackerspace for Moms in Berkeley -- Holy cow, this is so cool.
BOOKS
Female Science Fiction Author Reading List
Chimamanda Adichie: The Danger of a Single Story -- I may have linked this before and I'm likely to someday link it again, but every time this comes back on my radar, I just want to share its awesomeness.
Amy Boggs on Diversity in Books and Why She Wants to See More
GAMING
Before you ask, I'm not linking to the stupid Oatmeal bullshit because no.
The Type of Women I Want to See at PAX -- A personal essay on being trans at a gaming convention.
Colonialism and Games -- A game specifically designed to bring up discussion about colonialism.
Ten Year Old Makes Audio-Only Game for his Blind Grandmother -- HANG ON I HAVE SOMETHING IN MY EYE
TV AND FILM
Tosh.O Suggests Dudes Should Grope Women For Laughs -- So can we arrest him yet? I discovered that making mediocre television isn't a crime (unfortunately), but surely this must be?
GENERAL
How to Spot a Male Fauxminist -- Male Fauxminist, better known as The Nice Guy
Why the 'Girl' Matters: Yet Another Post About Geek Girls and Gamer Girls -- While I don't agree with using the word "girl" to self-describe, I respect opinions and think that, of the opinions that disagree with mine, this is well-stated.
Hot Girl + Nerd Culture = Poser
Hey Everyone: Stop Taking This Picture. No, I Mean It -- The tits/ass/glance over the shoulder shot. You know the one.
Original Article
Daily Sloth
Original Article
Fan Artists, Stop All Your Whitewashing. You Are Making The Rest of Us Look Bad
The Legend of Korra premiered Saturday and naturally the fans are all abuzz with fan art and other ways to celebrate the show. A recent Tumblr blog by Where's The Beef? did a great job talking about a problem that is prevalent in the fanbase, and other fandoms that have characters of color: whitewashing.
Whitewashing -- or racebending as it’s referred to in the Avatar fandom -- is taking characters who are non-white, and making them lighter-skinned or just flat-out Caucasian. This was seen in the movie version of Avatar: The Last Airbender with a predominantly white cast playing Asian characters.
When you get your own slang term for whitewashing because of a terrible movie but it sticks around for fan art, you're being a bad fandom. There are people out there who consider themselves huge fans and dedicate their time and energy in artwork, only to think (whether knowingly or not) "This character is just too dark-skinned for my tastes, better lighten them up". This is a problem and it helps explain why we got a casting call looking for white actors for Asian characters.
As WTB brings up the importance of role models and the effect such figures have on everyone, especially children in regards to self-worth. He talks about how there are people out there who already hate the color of their own skin, how they don't feel good enough when compared to white or lighter-skinned people. How it's important that the media positively portrays more characters of color, so children have one less system against them in regards to their skin. Whitewashing a character reinforces this and it should make everyone furious.
WTB mentions how it could very well be that the artists of such whitewashed fan art don't even realize how racist their actions are, but he makes it clear: unintentional racism is still racism. He goes on to explain the reciprocated feelings between society and the media:
And that’s the problem here: unconscious racism IS STILL RACISM. What lesson do you think Hollywood is taking away from this whole debacle? The sad truth of the matter is that the reason so many racial stereotypes exist in Hollywood is that part of appealing to a wide audience means appealing to their prejudices, whether those prejudices are conscious or not. They’ve learned that if they don’t cater to all our preconceived notions, their movies won’t make money.
He's right, and I can't say it any better than he already did, so go read what he said. Pass it around, reblog it, post it where you can. His message is right and it should be widely known.
Original Article