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So in the community of Forgish people who talk about rpgs, the most recent kerfluffle is that someone called someone on using sexist language, with predictable results: "You're oversensitive. Shut up."
However, there are some bright points. Matt Wilson posted a good overview of the problem of sexism, and Thomas![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lordsmerf was interested enough to ask, what is all this about? and discuss it with me. (Since I started writing this, Matt added a second post about the solutions he suggests, and John Kim added a post to the discussion, too.)
While I was following this, I found in the work lunchroom a recent issue of Nature, the cover of which linked (heh. first verb that occurred to me) to a story inside about a study of gender inequality in British physics departments. Carried the magazine away, read the miniscule story, hunted down the website of the organization mentioned (the Institue of Physics), hunted down the unlinked study on the website, downloaded the pdf (!!), and was pleased to find that after all that there was, in fact, a good amount of useful bits to the study.
Basically, the Institute of Physics (which seems to be the UK equivalent of the American Physical Society) set on a scheme to offer the heads of university physics departments throughout the UK the chance to have a panel of women and men visit their institution to provide an outsider’s view on the gender friendliness of their department. "About 40% of the heads in the UK and none of those in Ireland requested a visit." The visits took place between 2003-2005, and then the IOP wrote up a detailed survey of what they'd seen and the solutions they'd offered the heads.
Here are some of the suggestions they offer to make physics more welcoming to women. How does this relate? Physics, like gaming, has nothing to do with gender, but is presently male-dominated. I'm going to discuss how some of the specific suggestions the IOP offers could be implemented by forum leaders, concomm members, and other big fish in the gaming world. A lot of the discussion will refer to Story Games, since that forum ultimately spawned this post. A lot of both the IOP study and this discussion won't be particularly about females, but rather about creating a better environment for everyone. That's what feminism is: attempting to make the best things available to everyone, no matter what gender the things have traditionally been tied to.
( Excerts from the IOP study, and discussion of how they apply to the world of gaming )
( The conclusion: bare list of best practices )
However, there are some bright points. Matt Wilson posted a good overview of the problem of sexism, and Thomas
lordsmerf was interested enough to ask, what is all this about? and discuss it with me. (Since I started writing this, Matt added a second post about the solutions he suggests, and John Kim added a post to the discussion, too.)While I was following this, I found in the work lunchroom a recent issue of Nature, the cover of which linked (heh. first verb that occurred to me) to a story inside about a study of gender inequality in British physics departments. Carried the magazine away, read the miniscule story, hunted down the website of the organization mentioned (the Institue of Physics), hunted down the unlinked study on the website, downloaded the pdf (!!), and was pleased to find that after all that there was, in fact, a good amount of useful bits to the study.
Basically, the Institute of Physics (which seems to be the UK equivalent of the American Physical Society) set on a scheme to offer the heads of university physics departments throughout the UK the chance to have a panel of women and men visit their institution to provide an outsider’s view on the gender friendliness of their department. "About 40% of the heads in the UK and none of those in Ireland requested a visit." The visits took place between 2003-2005, and then the IOP wrote up a detailed survey of what they'd seen and the solutions they'd offered the heads.
Here are some of the suggestions they offer to make physics more welcoming to women. How does this relate? Physics, like gaming, has nothing to do with gender, but is presently male-dominated. I'm going to discuss how some of the specific suggestions the IOP offers could be implemented by forum leaders, concomm members, and other big fish in the gaming world. A lot of the discussion will refer to Story Games, since that forum ultimately spawned this post. A lot of both the IOP study and this discussion won't be particularly about females, but rather about creating a better environment for everyone. That's what feminism is: attempting to make the best things available to everyone, no matter what gender the things have traditionally been tied to.
( Excerts from the IOP study, and discussion of how they apply to the world of gaming )
( The conclusion: bare list of best practices )