design, gender & equity

[keryx]

I wrote a long and meandering essay on my blog loosely based on a comment I read elsewhere about "feminine" design making people take you less seriously online.

I haven't reproduced it here, but I'd be interested in your comments if you have any.

On a related note, have you experienced gender inequity in your own blogging/LJ/whatever online communities? If so, what was the situation, and how did you respond?

Comments

[belladonnalin.livejournal.com]

This reminded me of something I wrote in Everything 2 YEARS ago. I have had a tendancy toward very gendered usernames (including the name I have for my general journal on LiveJournal). When I started noding at Everything 2, I picked a gender-nuetral user name (for a lot of reasons) to see if I was treated differently.

I most assuredly was. My ideas were taken more seriously and I very firmly believe that was because I had a gender-neutral name (one that was, in fact, a verb) and was often assumed to be male. I didn't get hit on or have people begging for cybersex, I didn't have people talk down to me - I actually felt respected and like a part of a community.

And then I realized that I felt that way only because most of the other users had no idea that I was biologically female or socially gendered as a womyn.

It still boggles my mind that these people very likely would have treated me VERY differently, had I disclosed my gender publically.

[libskrat]

Sexist jerks are legion in the blogsphere, and when one calls them on their sexism, one gets the highly unhelpful response, "It's my blog and I'll blog what I want to!"

Or that's my experience. I gave up on these people long, long ago. They just don't make my blogroll any longer.

[oontzgrrl.livejournal.com]

I don't think I have ever experienced that on my livejournal at all. And I am most obviously a girl. My name has girl in it, my journals are typically pink, and I have done alot of custom layouts that tend towards pretty feminine designs. I geuss I could see a layout that involved say, several unicorns, a cursor that had stars following it, and so much cutesyness that it was difficult to read being an issue. But that more says to me that you have a very bad sense of layout style. And I would take it no less seriously then a guy with tons of skulls and musical webpages with I dunno, dripping blood letters and animated gifs everywhere. Poor design is not limited to either sex. :)

What sort of inequality have you experienced?

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

Hrm. If anything my experience of the blogosphere has been dominated by women. But then I seek out women, and last I heard overall more women blog. But the last time I really thought about that was years ago, closer to when I was using diaryland. Since then my experience is colored by joining 287562384652 feminist communities and making all my new online friends there. :)

I'd wager that most reasonable people are going to read your words and not care if they are font color=FF3399 or font color=0000FF.

Talk to me about online gaming, then I will have something to tell you. We came up with snidegrrl (my ex's roomie, actually) because I was looking for a name for a multiplayer online flight sim and wanted something that would broadcast that I wasn't going to take any shit. And there was plenty fo shit to take.

[miffyness.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking a lot about this since I got outside the diaryland bubble and started reading a) the Wordpress forum and b) 'big name' design blogs. Some of the comments Eris has had are so obnoxious, I think I would have been tempted to delete them without bothering to reply. If you try to argue with some of these men, it's just banging your head against a brick wall. Your head gets more and more done in, while theirs remains rock-solid.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

It's my blog and I'll blog what I want to...

Yeah, that's the all-too-common response on any topic when people disagree with the Great Sacred Posting Space of one's blog. I've found that the most frustrating aspect of trying to have a conversation on the net, so much so that I just avoid people I disagree with.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

The closest I've come to sexism on LJ or Diaryland is that 95% of my friends were female (so, I never heard guys' opinions). But I think LJ is a very different animal than other sites I've hung out on, because it's both huge and insular. People rarely randomly come in contact with LJ'ers with wildly different opinions, and when LJ'ers attack, it's never subtle. ;)

But in other contexts, I've had other bloggers tell me I was irrational and other things based not on my comments but on my gender. I've had site admins hit on me. I've also had guys defer to me for being female, as if I could explain "girl" shit to them, which is also frustrating. It's been awhile, though. Mostly I avoid the cliques and sites where people act like that now. I still deal with a lot of kinda random anti-feminist commentary, but that is less about my gender than my established identity as a feminist.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm talking to you about online gaming. ;) Tell me more. I've never had much to do with that side of the net, so I'm curious.

I think your experience in blogging parallels mine. Like, I totally remember the high incidence of getting hit on and dismissed in places like Paradox (queer chat site, dominated by guys) or even as recently as that WHQuestion site. But I live in this grrrl-friendly blog bubble now. Even the design sites I frequent tend to be those run by women. So, when I get out and see the big name blog communities, I'm surprised.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I forgot to mention Slashdot. And MeFi. I don't even READ MeFi anymore. Ick.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

So, the head-banging, do you think it's because of those specific people and groups? With guys in general? Or is it a problem with the medium of the net?

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

The thing with alot of online gaming, particularly in the more sci-fi/point and shoot/first person shooter category, with which I have the most experience (Diablo, Allegiance, Diablo... heh) is that it is largely populated by adolescent males, or males who think that online anonymity means they can act immature. In the case of Diablo II, it is essentially assumed that no matter what the gender of the character you are playing, you are a guy. It has strict gender roles, if you will, in that the female characters are assassin, sorceress, and amazon (bow&arrow type). If you want to play one of those, you play a female one. If you want to play a Barbarian or Necromancer, you play a male. In a way this removes gender from the equation. Of course, if you are playing and lay claim to an actual gender, then prepare yourself for lots of unwanted attention or misogynistic comments, comments about rape or your attributes or what-not. The real indicator of the mentality of the people who play this game is in the names of the characters; you simply could not log on and play without seeing b1g_t1tt13z or something of that ilk. (Let's not even discuss the character designs, their proportions, or what have you. Just assume.) You just chalk it up to being part of the gaming experience and move on. Allegiance was a little more skill-based; it was a short-lived flight sim. The problem I had there was that since I clearly identified as female, I always got picked last for the teams. Other players simply didn't think a girl could play the game. I didn't get hit on so much probably because I made it clear I was not to be messed with. Also it wasn't as massive a crowd.

Nowadays I have been playing MMORPGs. Specifically, Dark Age of Camelot. A more egalitarian game I cannot imagine. I play on a server that is specifically dedicated to roleplaying and has stricter rules and language filters, thus lening things a little more towards the considerate end of the gaming spectrum.

So um, that's all I can think of for now... I think there have been some posts on fem-rage on the subject.

[miffyness.livejournal.com]

It's not a man thing, because I've had antifeminist trolls from women (or people who claimed to be women, anyway), and the men I know offline are broadly sympathetic to feminism. I honestly think it's a matter of individual intelligence. And imagination. If you've spent more than, say, 25 years as a sentient being and don't think gender inequality is still an issue you're never going to get it. You're too stupid to get it. And I am not going to waste my rhetoric on someone too dim to understand the arguments.

I think the other problem (apart from stupidity) is that many of the men in internet communities are somewhat limited in their experience of women; they studied male-dominated subjects at school and went on to work in male-dominated environments, all their friends are men, all their colleagues are men. It's not that they're anti-women, we're just not on their radar. Same as black, queer, or disabled people aren't. And when we wonder where the women are they turn around and say -- like that Lofthouse jerk on Eris's blog -- 'it's not our fault, stop whining, we don't discriminate, we don't care what you are'. Maybe they should try and register what we are before making the decision whether or not it matters.

[oontzgrrl.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I think that most of my experiences online in a community sense has been on LJ, and on yahoo message boards. On LJ most of the people who read my journal are either my friends, or 16 year olds who found my journal and think I am "sooo kewl!". So not much there in the way of people who would have a problem with my gender?

On yahoo I think I was such a cold literal bitch that people were afraid of me. I love debate, and I hate people who don't debate logically, and I got really good at cutting people down to size there. (um..I was in a much more angry place then. I am much better now!) I think I never gave people a chance to think about my gender. Just um..how to debate me without crying. :)

What kind of girl shit did they want you to explain to them?

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Mostly girl shit of the "why are women always ______" persuasion. Stupid generalizations and stuff.

[oontzgrrl.livejournal.com]

Gotcha.