Trolls thought I was a man. That saved me.

July 31, 2018 1:19 AM

The time A. E. Osworth was almost targeted by Kotaku In Action. "The cause isn’t in the content, or the severity of the imagined offense. It’s in the gender presentation of the author. Those that the heteronormative world deems masculine people can talk; those they deem feminine people better watch their backs."
posted by storytam (12 comments total)

it is not the heteronormative world that is the threat - it is, primarily, those identifying as male/masculine heteronormative who are the perpetrators. the writer builds a careful argument, but then, just slightly, misses the mark on the claim. otherwise, this article speaks truth. in fact, this environment and behavior is not limited to gaming, nor tech. it is present in all walks of life. but the whole kotaku in action shit? is just the worst.
posted by lapolla at 4:24 AM on July 31, 2018 [3 favorites]

“Trolls thought I was a man. That saved me.”

Indeed. I see this every day. My co-worker and best friend who sits across from me is a perfect example. I work in technical support and we follow up each interaction with an email that has our name and a small avatar. You're not required to have a photo/image in your little circular avatar.

My friend Tommy is a she. But she recognizes that by having a male name, she's taken more seriously in how she interacts with customers (at least through email). When she's on a phone call, she still deals with a number of people who seem to think that because she's a woman, she doesn't know how to help with something technical.

Her having a male name has helped her in the workplace quite a bit. On job applications/resumes as well.
posted by Fizz at 4:36 AM on July 31, 2018 [25 favorites]

I just saw an article from CDPR where several of the narrative leads said that their upcoming game Cyberpunk 2077 was inherently political. That's the kind of statement that, if any woman said it, would result in death threats from an angry hate mob and probably her firing. But it was men saying it this time, so obviously the peanut gallery was instead patting themselves on the back for being interested in such a mature, artful game.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:29 AM on July 31, 2018 [10 favorites]

And the things about the way I present online one might perceive as feminine (allying myself with women, the over-proving of my right to speak on a subject) were but small scratches in an armor built of clipper cuts and computer-speak.

I'm glad the author brought this up, because his writing has a few markers I'd consider feminine, like introducing new topics by putting a question mark after them, kind of the textual equivalent of upspeak. (Example: Sorry, something weird and bad is happening right now? I think so? My first novel? The GamerGaters, though?)

Apparently, though, the Kotaku on Action guys just assumed he was a dude and not a woman (or trans) from his picture next to the byline on his articles.
posted by subdee at 7:13 AM on July 31, 2018 [2 favorites]

tobascodagama, I saw a thread on that announcement on reddit yesterday and that's a really good point. I was actually confused when I saw the comments there, I was expecting more fussing and outrage. Obviously all art, or really every possible human endeavor, is in some way political, but even so gamers usually do not acknowledge or accept that. Part of it is that we don't have the game to examine it's politics, another part is gamers as a mob tend to adopt bastardized south park politics where everyone has a stupid point and nobody is right, something something middle. I'd be curious to see the reaction to that news if women were leading that charge.
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:08 AM on July 31, 2018 [3 favorites]

Is there a point where people are going to start filing class action law suits against Twitter and Reddit for the way people use their platforms to launch harassment campaigns?
posted by RakDaddy at 10:12 AM on July 31, 2018 [3 favorites]

I appreciated the author's insight, but I feel like it kind of..missed the point. Being masculine and being male are not the same things, and "masculine" women are still targeted. Often times because of their masculinity. This is like the opposite of "women and femmes" that was proven to be very problematic. But also not exactly opposite? In both instances, it is butch or masculine women that are getting thrown under the bus. (and that's just plain old misogyny, y'all). Masc privilege doesn't exist. This person wasn't safe because of masculinity, they were safe because they're perceived as male. If they had not be perceived as male, they wouldn't not be safe.
posted by FirstMateKate at 10:23 AM on July 31, 2018 [8 favorites]

Masc privilege does not exist, but this whole thing is about an episode of passing privilege, which definitely does. It reads like the author exhaling a breath they were holding in while the danger passed rather than a heavy analysis of what it is to pass, but understandably - the author was safe because a bunch of horrible people don't figure out the complexities of their identity. I might not have a lot to say about that for a while either beyond "holy crap, that happened and it was messed up and I was terrified."
posted by bile and syntax at 10:49 AM on July 31, 2018 [14 favorites]

Note, Osworth (the author of this article) uses they/them pronouns.
posted by mbrubeck at 12:38 PM on July 31, 2018 [3 favorites]

Masc privilege absolutely exists - and I know, for lo I am definitely read as masc-but-not-a-man - but it exists primarily within queer spaces and occasionally in certain kinds of mixed spaces, not in generic cishet spaces.

I have experienced masc privilege when other queer people take me more seriously than they do feminine people in political meetings and discussion groups, and when certain liberal straight men accept me as sort of an honorary bro. Like, it's real.

And yet I've also had many, many more negative or scary experiences in cishet spaces because of my gender presentation.

I think it's often helpful to specify where privilege occurs rather than just name it as a generic, since the hierarchies that exist in minority spaces often don't align with those of majority spaces.

I was almost attacked on a train platform once except that the guy's girlfriend pulled him back while yelling, "That's a dude! A dude!" It was winter and slightly dark out, I had a big coat and my shoulders are wide. In the summer, that guy would have queerbashed me.
posted by Frowner at 1:17 PM on July 31, 2018 [14 favorites]

Is there a point where people are going to start filing class action law suits against Twitter and Reddit

Wouldn't work, otherwise it would have already happened. See Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. It would need to be repealed/amended first, and personally I don't trust Congress one whit to not completely fuck that up. They'd probably make it legal to harass people and punishable by death to take Trump's name in vain or something. Best not to open that door.
posted by Kadin2048 at 2:20 PM on July 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

Section 230 says, "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." This means Twitter and Reddit can't be sued for publishing hatespeech etc. However, they could be sued for inciting people to hatespeech by providing a platform that welcomes it, or for violating federal anti-stalking/harassment laws. (A platform can be treated as a publisher when the subject matter runs into federal criminal law or intellectual property rights.)

But it's quite a stretch, and would take (sigh) a sympathetic judiciary to even allow such a case to get started.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 3:48 PM on July 31, 2018 [1 favorite]