"I know how to end misogyny. Ban women!" Fucking genius (I can't make a title facepalm)

[jpoon]

My god, why in heaven and earth would you not want women and their luscious boobs there?! Idiocy I say!

 

[NeutralDrow]

I'll go ahead and quote one of the comments on the Kotaku page:

"I'd like to point out that no one, more than likely, would raise a fuss if it was an all girls/women event. There's a lot of hypocrisy and double standard in the world of sexism."

There's a lot of truth to this, and the matter of fact is that it's a private function with a reservation fee. They have the right to do what they want.

And I'll go ahead and quote one of the other comments after it.

First off, there are male only events all the time and no one cares. There are male only schools, male only clubs, male only sports leagues, etc. Heck, the Promise Keepers were huge for a long time back in the 90s and people's problem wasn't that they were male only but that they were kind of silly and hugged each other a lot. I think the problem here isn't that it's a male only event, but that they're claiming it's a male only event in an effort to fight sexism which is, frankly, dumb. It's actually completely caving to the sexists and then claiming you're doing it because they're wrong. Does not compute.

Secondly, what's missing from all the "how come it's only sexist when men do it" stuff is any kind of consideration of power. Men simply have more power in our society (and most societies) than women. It's not a numbers game (my fiancee went to a school that had a 70/30 women men split, but was it was super traditionally religious and run by openly sexist men and she remembers, despite women having the numerical advantage, it being a really hostile environment). If you're a man with a real man-hating woman for a boss, the odds are very much in your favor that she answers to a man higher up than her. If you're a woman with a real misogynistic guy for a boss, odds are that if there's a woman above him, she's it. It's dudes all the way to the top. As such, men often have a much easier time creating all male spaces. They might not be officially all male, hell, they might even be disallowed to say they're all male for some kind of legal reason, but the are de facto all male.

Which leads back to the LAN party. To me, the power issue here is, like I said, that they actually caved to the sexist guys they claim to be against. That's power! When someone says "I disagree with you, so I'll go ahead and capitulate to you?" Man, I wish people hated me like THAT. So, to be honest, I respectfully think your kind of missing the point here a bit. Men form all male-groups all the time, they just don't usually claim they're doing it to fight sexism, which, even if it had good intentions, is a little wonky.

 

[Stall]

I don't respect their right to do this, others may. At best, I tolerate their right to do this.

I think you need to respect their right to do this if you are an American. If you aren't, then you are totally okay in just "tolerating" it, since your country most likely has a very different cultural outlook on this sort of thing. But as an American, I find it important that other Americans respects anyone's right to say or do what they want (within reason), as all these freedoms are truly only tested when we allow and respect someone saying or doing something that we find reprehensible.

Hey, if people didn't respect people's right to freedom of speech, then that big SCOTUS case for video games would have ended very differently. It was only through respect of other people's freedoms and rights that the case turned out in our favor. But this is getting off-topic...

No one is saying these people don?t have the right to ban woman from their event. but it?s the job of the people and the media to point out when people are being racist homophobic or sexist so shit like this won?t happen again .
So yes these people should be told they are idiots

These people are hardly idiots. I disagree with you. Just because they don't have a world view that aligns with your own doesn't mean they are idiots.

Besides, does the media report on sexism against males? Does it report against racial violence against whites? Does it report on discrimination as a whole against non-minorities? Until society views sexism against males equally as disdainful as sexism against females, for example, then I think your assessment of the media is ultimately flawed, and leaves it as nothing more than a machine to push a very, very biased set of ideas.

Ultimately, we need respect what this group of people are doing, and how they choose to justify it. You might disagree with it, but you shouldn't let that disagreement make you think that they shouldn't be allowed to have a exclusive private event, nor that they shouldn't be allowed to justify that exclusion however they want.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

A better solution would have been to split the event into two locations or two times and separate the men and women - providing there were enough women to make a party or whatever. Even if they took a small loss, they'd have made gains for being even-handed rather than drawing fire. Not the smart choice.

That said, it's their event and they can do what they please and the reaction they get will be the one they earn.

 

[kayisking]

Well, it would work... for a little while. Then they would all go back home, get on Xbox Live, and meet up with "xXxgamrgurl12345XxX" and proceed to harass her anyway.

Here's an idea: hire some big ol' bouncers that anyone can report to, and the fucker causing trouble can get his/her ass bounced right out of the event (and be short any money he spent there). But of course that would cost more money.

Sounds about right, though the problem with that is that people don't register their user name at the front door so unless somebody actually sees them screaming in the mic they wouldn't know who to kick out.

 

[LiquidGrape]

Oh, and they had 100% of the right to do this, no one can raise their voice at them etc etc.

Of course we can. Because it's a stupid, sexist solution. Just because they have the legal right doesn't mean they should get away with being outright cowards.

Combatting the alleged rampant misogyny in order to create a more pleasant atmosphere for all participants would be the reasonable course of action.

 

[Slayer_2]

Well, I think this is one of the stupidest ideas ever, I'm willing to bet there are no females interested in playing Battlefield 3, anyhow, at least in that part of Texas. Every female gamer I know is into more "intelligent" games like Starcraft 2 or World of Warcraft. Mindless shooting games with US Marines shooting Insurgents while yelling "oorah!" isn't their favourite kind of genre. If they'd just said nothing about it, 99% chance no girls would have showed up, instead they did this and now there is a huge fuss about it. Pretty stupid.

 

[winter2]

This is clearly a women's problem.

OT though, I have to agree that they certainly have every right to exclude whoever they want to a private gathering. I just have to question the initial logic behind it before they changed it to something more.. shall we say sane.

 

[Genericjim101]

Us pesky women really are the problem, being all harassable and such.

Wait I had something for this.... Maybe they were worried about the beguiling seductiveness of a woman simply being present! D :

 

[Arehexes]

So these guys are worried about their jokes and attitude will offend women. Well in my group we go out of our way to make fun of everyone no matter race or gender. No one is safe...no one.

 

[Genericjim101]

I wonder if they will be caught out being hypocritical about not allowing women by ever hiring a stripper? Ultimate giggles, send them a male stripper. As they don't allow women and misogyny ironically tying in with stereotypical hetero-male behaviour , smart money is on most of them being not of the persuasion and quite shocked X D

 

[IceStar100]

Works for me guys deserve a me only event too.

 

[Kuroneko97]

This calls for something special...

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I combat this facepalm with THIS!

I honestly don't know what to say. I know it's their right, and they can do this if they want, but they're removing the victim of misogyny, but the cause. If there's a leak in the pipe, you don't put a bucket under the leak. You fix it (Well, you might put a bucket for now, but you better fix it soon; I'm using a metaphor). And I agree with some past comments; there's many male-only events. But boys-only schools don't say they're doing it to combat misogyny. The same goes if this were a female-only event; it would be ridiculous to say they're female-only to combat Misandry (In case any of you don't know, that's the hatred of men).

How to fix the problem? They can be an all-male event, but don't say you're combating Misogyny, because that will cause a lot of disagreement of the event. And perhaps it would be better to START OFF as an all-male event, because when you kick out the women, surely there will be hell.

This is the least-opinionated response I have.

 

[Vrex360]

First off, there are male only events all the time and no one cares. There are male only schools, male only clubs, male only sports leagues, etc. Heck, the Promise Keepers were huge for a long time back in the 90s and people's problem wasn't that they were male only but that they were kind of silly and hugged each other a lot. I think the problem here isn't that it's a male only event, but that they're claiming it's a male only event in an effort to fight sexism which is, frankly, dumb. It's actually completely caving to the sexists and then claiming you're doing it because they're wrong. Does not compute.

Secondly, what's missing from all the "how come it's only sexist when men do it" stuff is any kind of consideration of power. Men simply have more power in our society (and most societies) than women. It's not a numbers game (my fiancee went to a school that had a 70/30 women men split, but was it was super traditionally religious and run by openly sexist men and she remembers, despite women having the numerical advantage, it being a really hostile environment). If you're a man with a real man-hating woman for a boss, the odds are very much in your favor that she answers to a man higher up than her. If you're a woman with a real misogynistic guy for a boss, odds are that if there's a woman above him, she's it. It's dudes all the way to the top. As such, men often have a much easier time creating all male spaces. They might not be officially all male, hell, they might even be disallowed to say they're all male for some kind of legal reason, but the are de facto all male.

Which leads back to the LAN party. To me, the power issue here is, like I said, that they actually caved to the sexist guys they claim to be against. That's power! When someone says "I disagree with you, so I'll go ahead and capitulate to you?" Man, I wish people hated me like THAT. So, to be honest, I respectfully think your kind of missing the point here a bit. Men form all male-groups all the time, they just don't usually claim they're doing it to fight sexism, which, even if it had good intentions, is a little wonky.

I don't know who this person is, but they so neatly encapsulate everything I want to say to the 'oh what's the big deal'/'feminist double standards' crowd. Just as well, because I have work tomorrow and am far too tired to get into a debate now.
Not to mention, the reason most people don't complain about female exclusive events is that they usually are the type of events that men don't want anything to do with.
Would you really be heartbroken to be told 'you can't come' to a midnight showing of Twilight?
I know I wouldn't.

The difference here is that woman actually want to be involved here and want to be a part in it. And they are being denied that because the people running the event fully acknowledge the sexism of the guys in question and have decided that the best option is to not allow the women access.

I guess I have to respect their choices when running their own private event. Doesn't mean I can't criticise the idiocy of it, nor does it mean that I can't be outraged that rather then try to encourage people to stop having sexist attitudes, we'd rather just cave in and let them win while punishing the victims in question.

So yes, I facepalm. I facepalm very hard.
They have their freedom to do whatever they want, no matter how stupid. I reserve my right to facepalm, no matter how obnoxious.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

I'll go ahead and quote one of the comments on the Kotaku page:

"I'd like to point out that no one, more than likely, would raise a fuss if it was an all girls/women event. There's a lot of hypocrisy and double standard in the world of sexism."

There's a lot of truth to this, and the matter of fact is that it's a private function with a reservation fee. They have the right to do what they want.

Now personally, I don't see the point in attending an event such as this if the only people I can mingle with are male. But to each their own.

this is a very valid point, if it WAS the opposite, all female, there would be massive support for it, especially if it reached the ears of the "NOW" or other super aggressive organizations of such.

Spoiler: don't look if easily offended by dumb pictures

Spoiler: don't look!

if this was in reverse, a male promotion picture with one woman in the background with an equally as absurd poster, most of the men would just either laugh or not give a care, while i'm sure that man in the background got beat to death once they figured out he was there

edit: OH even after all this I still do agree it is a dumb event is dumb, that it doesn't make sense to give in to the people you are trying to "abolish" from the event, but its their event so do away with whatever.

 

[derelict]

Us pesky women really are the problem, being all harassable and such.

On the third day, probably...God created sarcasm. And it was so, so good. (=

 

[Jakub324]

That's utterly freakin' 100% pants-on-head retarded. Feminists are going to burn his house down with him inside.