| An Open Letter to the Gameplay Community |
Recently on #the_south_pacific IRC channel, I was accused by Cormac, Tim, Frattastan, Severisen, Raven, and Xoriet of, among other things, being an “enabler of cyber-abuse”, a “meninist”, and defending sexual predation. My crime? I suggested that the best way to ensure that players who have allegedly committed acts of sexual harassment, cyber-abuse, cyber-stalking, etc., are punished accordingly is to present the proof and name-and-shame them. Apparently, believing allegations must be backed up with evidence in order to have merit is an anti-feminist stance and means that I hate women, believe men are superior, and support sexual harassment and sexual predators.
This is unacceptable behavior. What happened to me on #the_south_pacific that night is nothing short of the kind of harassment and abuse by Channel Ops themselves who claim to be fighting against it with their recent high-profile bans of several TSPers. I take serious and personal offense to what was said about me without any cause. Not that I need to defend my own beliefs to anybody, but I am an openly gay man who lived the majority of his childhood in an intolerant Mormon community. I know first hand the kind of systemic and patriarchal oppression that feminism seeks to upend. To accuse me of being a “meninist” and to slander me by saying I defend and enable sexual harassment and cyber-abuse is absolutely disgusting, and a personal attack that has no place whatsoever in this game. The reality is that feminism is not a shield that allows you to make allegations of sexual harassment and then refuse to provide evidence that give merit to those allegations. It is not feminist to make such allegations in highly public manners, and then say that evidence cannot be provided (but trust us that it exists) because it would be too traumatizing for the victims. Acknowledging that coming forward with accusations of sexual harassment can be traumatizing to the victims, which is absolutely true, does not make it okay to go on a public trial against someone. If you are willing to casually discuss the intimate details of others' instances of sexual harassment on IRC and on the Gameplay forum, you have no standing to say that you want to protect the victims by not offering up substantiating evidence. That is actually a harm to feminism, as it perpetuates the myth of false accusations being a rampant part of a feminist attack on men. We saw just how damaging this type of behavior can be to the feminist movement, and the cause of protecting victims of sexual violence and seeking justice, with the recent Rolling Stone University of Virginia article “A Rape on Campus.” Because the journalist writing the article did not wish to traumatize a victim, she took it on faith that what the victim said was true. The allegations were actually false, and now the whole case is being used as evidence that false accusations are commonplace. Anybody who comes forward and says they have been sexually harassed should not be written off automatically. They should be treated as a victim, while an investigation is conducted to substantiate the claims. However, at the end of day, evidence must be presented, especially if we are to make these claims a public issue. It is perfectly reasonable for a victim to go to an IRC Op, share evidence privately, and for the Op to then take action. Done and done. What is not reasonable is for that Op to then go on and share the details to others, bringing what was private into the public sphere through IRC and forums. We cannot have it both ways. Doing so only undermines the efforts to fight against sexual harassment in online games, as it erodes the legitimacy of those claims. After all, a person who is uncomfortable providing logs of sexual harassment ought to also be uncomfortable having the details of those logs discussed so freely and publicly by others. Those are two things at odds with one another. Given the highly political and personal nature of this game, it begins to look like a political hit-job, especially when tribalism takes over and people align into enemies and allies. Sexual harassment in online gaming is a serious and pervasive problem. Just look to Anita Sarkeesian and the GamerGate controversy. I have no fantasies that NationStates is an exceptional online gaming community, even if we have a different demographic. I think that, in general, a white male is more likely than not to hold misogynist attitudes towards women, and that adding “gamer” to the mix simply means those attitudes are expressed through an online medium. Guilty until proven innocent? No. But when I hear allegations of sexual harassment, I think our culture creates a good prima facie case before any evidence is ever presented. However, evidence must still be presented. I'd like to end with an excerpt from an article in The American Prospect written by Nancy Gertner, a notable feminist and former federal judge: Quote:“Feminists should be concerned about fair process, even in private institutions where the law does not require it, because we should be concerned about reliable findings of responsibility. We put our decades-long efforts to stop sexual violence at risk when men come forward and credibly claim they were wrongly accused. We put our work at risk when the media can dredge up the shibboleths about false accusations of rape, a collective “We told you so” tapping into old attitudes. The recent feeding frenzy around Rolling Stone’s account of a gang rape at the University of Virginia campus shows just how much damage can be done by the claim that a rape report was flawed—damage to the women making the accusations, to the men who are accused, and to the cause of combating sexual violence. … [We] should not substitute a regime in which women are treated without dignity for one in which those they are accusing are similarly demeaned. Indeed, feminists should be concerned about fair process, not just because it makes fact-findings more reliable and more credible, but for its own sake.”
Well said, Glen. Well said.
Deputy Regional Minister of the Planning and Development Agency(March 8-May 19, 2014)
Local Council Member(April 24-August 11) Court Justice of TSP(August 15-December 7)
I saw all that nonsense yesterday night. Things were blown to astronomical proportions with no regards to the effects such comments have on others. Words are powerful in their own right and people should think before they make such baseless accusations.
No one seems to use "masculinist". It's perfectly logical, given "Feminine" and "Masculine".
I believe what they might be trying to argue, Glen-Rhodes, is that 'lack of evidence' is normally the actual MRA approach to defending Govindia - I've seen it before, where men rights activists will decry the existence of fairly extensive history against Govindia because there 'isn't enough evidence' - without really any grounds for making those remarks, except to say that a lot of evidence does get washed away because victims avoid coming forth or leave the game entirely.
However, I wasn't around in the IRC Channel when it was being argued and I didn't like what those folks were arguing earlier when they were trying to argue that sexual harassers shouldn't be named and shamed. It's the only way to take concrete action against sexual harassment. The alternative approach (i.e., treating sexual harassment as an abstract problem, and everyone praises jesus-esque rants about how it's wrong) doesn't seem to be working, nor has it ever really accomplished anything for improving social relations in NS -- largely because NS has its fair share of sycophants who will approach just about anything they think they should for the sake of appearing socially acceptable.
Thank you Glen-Rhodes for sharing and for also sharing logs with me.
It's kind of strange because I think that victim shaming is what came to my mind when I saw them. Throwing out the words “sexual abuser” or “pedophile” or “rapist” lessens the impact of the words and the heinous actions that correlate with them. It is disrespectful just as any rape joke is not a joke and is actually disgusting. I do strongly believe that using a victim and their issues as a political tool is a bad thing. Either you are protecting the rights of a victim completely and therefore not bringing it up or you are, with their consent, publicly taking a stand with absolute proof. Yes, there is a need for proof whether it is logs or transcripts. We live in a society where the term "rape culture" exists and people try to defend rapists by turning on the victim. Requiring evidence prevents many of the issues that surround this culture. If there is absolute proof of sexual harassment then I for one would totally cut off all contact with that individual. Not only that but I would do my best to create awareness about the threats that person serves. However, without proof and when people use the victim for other purposes, it lessens the importance of protecting or defending the victim and allows for people to demean them or their experience or cast doubt upon the veracity. Sexual harassment is a RL issue that should not be politicized. Calling people who you politically disagree with “sexual predators” or other horrific terms is irresponsible and shows that you do not actually understand the gravity of the accusation or the stigma around being accused of it or being a victim of it. No victim wants to be a victim because the degree of shame and self-hatred that can come with it. I'm sick of all sides who ignore the victims: 1. those who claim that the internet is a place where harassment and sexual predators should be expected and therefore condoned (anyone who says "It's the internet, what else do you expect from males," needs to go here to figure out what real men should know -> http://itsonus.org/) and 2. People who use the information shared by victims to further their own political goals and use the labels to attack people. and quite rarely but unfortunately 3. The males and\or females who use flirting etc. as a political tool to get something from someone and then if they don't get what they want will turn around and accuse the person of sexual harassment (or even attempt to blackmail them). If someone sexually harasses you, you stop talking to them and cut of all contact. You don't continue to engage with them when you need a vote or information or some political favor. That kind of self-serving and manipulative behavior prevents real victims from being taken seriously. Everyone should be able to go here: http://itsonus.org/ And understand why this is a collective issue and everyone is responsible for what we condone or choose not to condone. Escade ~ Positions Held in TSP ~ Delegate | Vice Delegate Minister of Regional Affairs, | Minister of Foreign Affairs | Minister of Military Affairs ~ The Sparkly One ~ My Pinterest
If you are accurately describing what happened, you are 100% in the right.
The 16th Delegate of The South Pacific
Also I've never seen anyone defend Gov, dude is probably the most creepy person I've ever encountered online.
The 16th Delegate of The South Pacific
I think we're all sick of the actions on IRC.
Darkstrait :ninja:
Former Justice, Former Local Councilor, Roleplayer, Former SPSF Deputy for Recruitment, Politically Active Citizen, Ex-Spammer Supreme, and Resident Geek "Hats is very fashion this year." |
![[+]](/images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
Quotes
| Users browsing this thread: |
| 1 Guest(s) |