This this thisthisthisthis THIS.

The Legendary Adventures of a Fearless Girl Gamer by Latoya Patterson.

"But even though I'm not so off from the average gamer, who is 35 years old and nearly as likely to be female (44 percent) as male, according to the Entertainment Software Association, no one looks at me these days and thinks "gamer." Nobody."

Fixing Gaming

The Huffington Post just published this article: How To Fix Gaming For Women and Minorities, According to One Major Critic

It's about off-shoot of Boing Boing, Offworld, "an unequivocal home for women and minorities" in the gaming and tech spheres. On one hand, seems like a cool idea to have a safe space. But rather than segregating ourselves I'd rather diversify the current spaces... by force, if necessary. I'm kidding! (Am I???)

But it's early days yet, and maybe this will grow into an awesome forum for discussion of these issues. For now, go for the article on the #GamesSoWhite hashtag, stay for the weird, weird, WEIRD game recommendations (awesome).

*blows dust off blog*

Welp, here I am again!

The last thing I posted about on this blog was Awesome Con 2014, so maybe it's fitting that I come back strong with Awesome Con 2015 (and beyond). As you may recall (or see below in my previous posts), I was unimpressed with the "women in gaming" panel last year. So this year I organized and moderated my OWN panel called "Your Move: Creating Inclusive Gaming Spaces." At first I was like, "WHAAAT why do I think I can even?" But it all came together fabulously thanks to my wonderful, wonderful panelists.

We talked about some of the problems that plague various gaming spaces (online communities, game design and marketing, friendly local game shops) and suggested solutions (what to do if you're being harassed online, how to send a message back to game developers,  how to make in-person gaming more friendly). A video of the talk will (eventually) be put together with the power point (of course there was a power point) by my good friend Mac. We'll either post on YouTube or send a copy out to interested parties. Further updates as events warrant!

After our talk finished on Friday night, I got to relax and enjoy the rest of the Con. There were plenty of Diversity Panels (in comics, in pop-culture, etc) but just like last year they seemed to focus on problems and not a lot on solutions. It also seemed that a lot more of the panels I attended were fan-driven, rather than creator-driven. And Nexus Gaming Alliance was out in full force... *eye roll*

To end on a high note, I leave you with two heartening (official) signs from Awesome Con 2015. The times, they are a-changin'!

"Yes, There Are Girl Gamers. No, They Are Not Hosting This Panel."

First post of my Awesome Con recap starts on a low note: the panelists from Nexus Gaming Alliance "resident Gaming Ladies" all canceled, leaving two people I believe to be "the Nexus chiefs" to run the show. Two of the first things out of the (biologically) female moderator's mouth were "I am not a gamer" and "my brain is male*." Her only claim to fame was that she was "friends with" some professional gamers. Okay... if you are not a female gamer and claim no credible expertise about gaming in general, what are you doing hosting this panel?

She did provide some interesting statistics, like 68% of households play video games and 40% of the gamer population is female. But it quickly became clear that these were derived from a web search. While some of them might have been credible, it would have served her better to cite peer-reviewed articles. Like, I dunno, articles from any of these journals.

Awesome Con Diversity Track

The second  annual Awesome Con, DC's pop culture and comics convention, is this weekend! The first year was kind of a mixed bag for me. As some of you know, I yelled at a panel moderator for being blatantly sexist (while I myself was cosplaying as Lt. Uhura from Star Trek TOS). Mimosas may have been involved. 

ANYWAY. That's all the in past. This year's programming has a healthy dose of panels discussing representations of women and people of color. Here they are complied in one handy place - I call this the "diversity track," since they're basically all filed under different tracks on the Awesome Con website. 

Saturday

11AM - Saturday Morning Gets Funky: "this panel take audiences back to the 70's when black characters became popular in main stream cartoons."

1PM - Yes, There Are Girl Gamers: "discussing the silly behavior of men online." [Promising title, but the summary is a bit flippant for my taste. Let's see how this plays out... pun intended because my puns are always intended.]

2:30 - Representation Is Important: "Come and learn what comics creators are doing to help the diversity of the world change comics and hopefully help those comics change the world." 

Sunday

11:30 - Sexism, Violence, and Geekdom: "discuss depictions of masculinity, femininity, and gender-based violence in the geek community." 

12:45 - Women In Comics: "discuss women in cartoon-land: characters and creators, the changing world of comics, and how they make their livings with pen, paper, and a mouse or two." 

Hope to see you there! 

When sexism goes a-rye

(via Dorkly)

Haters gonna hate

The Great Geek Sexism Debate

My friend Stephanie sent me this really interesting article from io9: The Great Geek Sexism Debate. It summarizes three incidents at recent conventions that have lead to "very public discussions about sexism and sexual harassment" in the nerd/geek community. If you haven't already, click through and read the article. I found it to be quite informative and remarkably unbiased. And in trolling the interwebs I found this article with ALL THE LINKS to information on other incidents of sexism/harassment in gaming, nerd/geek culture as a whole, and comic books: Sexism in Geek Culture, with a look at Comics. Careful, this last one isn't safe for work productivity - I've already spent a good portion of my day following various stories down their respective rabbit holes.

In general, my sense of nerd/geek sexism is this: a few bad actors are extremely vocal/aggressive, while most of us just want to get back to our games, books, movies, whatever. Many would be satisfied with at "Don't Feed the Trolls" policy of ignoring inappropriate people and hoping they'll go away. But by not sending a message of zero tolerance for sexism/harassment, we allow for these things to happen again and again. If we as a community are really committed to inclusion and openness - as we should be - we've got to get past this. IMHO, the best way of going about that is not national campaigns or public statements. For gamers it starts at the table, with being able to look someone in the eyes and say, "What you just said? Not cool."

Quote of the Week: "It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to your enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to your friends." - Albus Dumbledore

RPG Lady Armor

Just stumbled across this comic by Anna-Maria Jung and Andrew Bridgman (link). You can also check out Ms. Jung's comics, illustrations, and merchandise at her website (link). You know... just in case you're gift shopping for a certain hard-working DM/blogger. *innocent whistle*

Sexist Gamer of the Week

I sincerely hope that experience will put lie to the title of this post. C'mon, my fellow gamers, man/woman/gender-queer up!

So, I was at a happy hour with my friend Kim the other day, and we were talking (bragging) about how many women we have at our session of D&D Encounters. And by "many" I mean at least one per table of six, including the sole female DM. One of her friends starts complaining loudly about girls in D&D - apparently, we bring up the level of conversation too much for his tastes. Kim assured me he was joking when he said, "I mean, when's the last time someone at your table raped a wench?"

What dudes like this don't understand is that I'm not offended by their "blue humor." I'm offended by the fact that they consider it humor. It's easy to throw out a curse word, an innuendo, or a poop joke - I do it all the time. But it still has to be funny. And the idea that female gamers make the game less fun for "everyone else" (e.g. egocentric male gamers like this one) is unfunny, and out-dated, and Just. Plain. Wrong.

The other happy hour attendees were not subjected to this rant, however. I think my exact response was: "You clearly have never played with my all-girl group. They are the filthiest people I know."

"Ill Doctrine" video re: sexist gamer dudes

Thanks to my friend Sarah F. for sharing this on Facebook. "If you need to show off your debating skills and try to make fetch happen, there's plenty of other times for that." Love it!

My personal experience with the "sandwich joke" - I enjoy cooking and baking, and I often find it useful to feed my players. They have less time to complain when their faces are full of cupcakes. Once, I was hosting and a male "friend" of mine was the only one who hadn't had dinner. Being the kind soul that I am, I offered to make him something. While I thew together some peanut butter and jelly, he stood besides me chuckling. When I asked him what was so funny, he said, "You're in the kitchen. Making me a sandwich." I didn't get it at first, but when I figured out that he found this funny because I was a WOMAN... well, it hurt. But I didn't say anything. What I should've said was, "Oh- so you wanted spit in this?"