ComicSpace - Read Bulletin

Home / ComicBookBin / Bulletins / Read Bulletin

Befriend ComicBookBin

« Back

Posted by:

ComicBookBin

Date:

May 5th, 2007 3:56 PM

Header:

Response to a blog about women gamers attacking The Comic Book Bin

Bulletin:

I'm posting this here for clarity sake as my comments elsewhere. The attacks are fast and baseless, but, and as much as I hate flame wars and Web attacks, here is my reply.

The matter is about an article written on Making Video Games Desirable for Women, published at The Comic Book Bin, as part of our Women's Month event.

The flames started there - at a Feminist Gamers' blog

Here is the whole of my last response to the feminist gamers starting with the host's reply.

------------------------

Re:The “I bet you don’t have the courage to post my comment” always goes over well.

No, Hervé if you read the post, we’re attacking your totally sexist stereotypes of women are a bunch of gossipy, mall-shopping dingalings who simply aren’t compatible with gaming beyond playing Bejeweled on their phone. The Desperate Housewives Game tanked, btw.

Talking about how we like to “play mind games, but that’s another topic” is completely insulting; and is the sort of “humor” directed at women that is typically employed as part of a larger social press to keep us “in our place” by reinforcing a notion of our unreliabilty and pettiness.

We’ve often talked about the difference between hardcore and non-hardcore gamers on this site. There are such things as non-hardcore male gamers too, but people don’t seem to make too much of that; and yet whenever anyone writes an article on a woman gamer, she’s either the topic of casual game consumption, or, if they focus on hardcore female gamers, they’re more interested in doing a pinup spread.

I posted the link to your site — I don’t discourage anyone from going to the boards of any thread I post because my commenters are very well-behaved. Can you say the same about yours?

-----------------------------------

Goodness, again you're insinuating that I said things I didn't. The whole banter about daring to post my comment comes from you and you alone. I did not dare you to post my comment on your site. I don't play "mind games." It's your site, you post what you want, or not.

To clarify with the pics, they showed what passes for women's games currently. That's why there's a pic of a Barbie game. After criticizing the fact that games for women are always segmented and marketed in pink and fuchsia, do you really think I would advocate that women play only with Barbie and Desperate Housewives games? Again, you have insinuated things about the article and my position on the matter that are false.

Did you even notice that the article, was part of a still continuing two month long theme month devoted to women at The Comic Book Bin? No, because you were just too eager to flame this sexist pig, instead of looking at the big picture. It's so much more easier to blame than understand.

That you did not like my article on women and gaming is fair. The whole point of Women's at The Comic Book Bin is to create a bridge and dialogue for people coming for with different opinions. As the publisher of the site, I welcomed a variety of opinions on women and entertainment. Mine did not go well with your readers and you, so be it. But stop assuming and writing things that I just did not write. That's cheap and morally wrong.

As for comments from people visiting The Comic Book Bin, and their behaviour, it's a general site with lots of women, parents and kids visiting. Trying to paint us in the geeky male camp is ridiculous, especially when we don't even host a forum or a blog on the site where people would have the opportunity to bash your site and it's visitors. Again, you make judgments and attacks that are baseless.

This will be my last word on the matter on your site, as I understand very well that no matter what I write, I will just be the villain and a sexist pig here. But to make matters, clear, I have posted this last response at our Comic Space page at http://www.comicspace.com/comicbookbin/

« Back

Befriend ComicBookBin