
Game designer Brenda Romero quits IGDA following party with hired female dancers - credo
http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/28/game-designer-brenda-romero-quits-igda-following-party-with-hired-female-dancers/
======
jpxxx
You're invited to a conference that's relevant to your position and your
industry.

When you arrive, a number of hired twentysomething men are milling about
wearing tight tee-shirts, padded crotches, and skintight jeans. They're
dancing, drinking, flirting with you and your coworkers, and subtly drawing
attention towards their ample bulges. Some people in the crowd are really
getting into this, having their pictures taken with them. The room starts
getting sweaty, the music amps up, and the paid gogo boys start thrusting
their cocks in rhythm with the music.

Comment freely!

~~~
mich41
I don't think I would resign from a job because somebody from the company
invited Techno Viking to dance at some party.

Feminists really should man up and stop crying over everything. One can't take
them seriously.

~~~
jpxxx
Troll. But just in case you're not permanently damaged yet:

Imagine you're invited to a party where you are the oldest, fattest, least
appealing person there, and you're not particularly made to feel welcome.

Now imagine you're expected to attend dozens of these parties in the course of
your employment.

Now imagine that these parties are intentionally arranged this way, and that
the pretty people are paid to be there for the express purpose of making you
look and feel old, fat, shabby, and unwelcome.

Does this compute? Does it seem fun?

------
sergiotapia
I'm tired of this shit. I'm tired of these people getting more attention than
they deserve over inane PC-BULLSHIT.

So she quit because at an after-party, where the vast majority of attendees
were men, there were exotic dancers? Apparently I should be in a hissy-fit
where I work because every other Friday my company has a ladies-night and the
VP (who is a woman) and the other ladies that work here go out to have fun as
a group.

Next story, please. I'm tired of this crap, I'm tired of reading about it, and
I'm tired of people fawning over it.

Edit: This will probably be the last time I comment on these type of posts.
I'm just going to flag them moving forward as they are against HN TOS with no
political posts being allowed.

~~~
joe_the_user
_So she quit because at an after-party, where the vast majority of attendees
were men, there were exotic dancers?_

Wow, So is your idea that when there are mostly men at an event, exotic
dancers will just naturally follow? Is your idea that events with mostly men
are natural too, rather than being a result of, say, the lack of women in the
industry?

"All group X" parties don't seem terribly threatening if group X happens to be
under-represented and under-empowered in an organization. Similar parties are
very threatening in the opposite situation. Consider a "white people's night
out" in a company with lower minority representation - that would be a very
bad thing (legal, morally and for company morale). Yeah, events for over-
represented-group to get together and do things that might make under-
represented-group annoyed are problematic. They send a message to a person in
the under-represented group _even if_ that person doesn't have problem with
the activity per se.

Edit: Double wow, your wasn't top-voted when I started my reply.

~~~
sergiotapia
Oh yeah, this looks really inappropriate and sexist! Pffff.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolpinchefsky/2013/03/27/reall...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolpinchefsky/2013/03/27/really-
igda-party-at-gdc-brings-on-the-female-dancers/)

~~~
joe_the_user
Can read you your link: _"To explain the problem with female dancers at an
industry party is that these women are on display. Even if they were dancing
in a PG-13 manner, they’re still detracting from the purpose of the event: a
professional gathering."_

Which is what I say in the post you're replying to.

------
derefr
Gender politics is still politics.

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
> evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or
> disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's
> probably off-topic.

Is this an evidence of some _interesting new_ phenomenon?

~~~
joe_the_user
Surely, "politics" means things like elections, politics in-generals. I would
assume hn would be interested in the politics of programming, the politics of
game design, the politics of intellectual property.

I mean, patent trolls are at it this year like last year and it's news for us.

~~~
derefr
Things like IP law are our "inside baseball" politics: things that only make
sense/matter to hackers. I can see a place for that here.

Gender politics which _happens to affect a game designer_ isn't, though; it's
immediately understandable to anyone in the general population, and will
likely pop up on many other more "general-interest" sites like Reddit. (And,
like the guideline says, could be covered on the TV news.)

I take the "spirit of the law" of the HN guidelines as being not that there
are _certain topics_ that are bad to talk about on HN (in est, a blacklist);
but rather that HN is mainly for discussing things that go "over the heads" of
the general population (a whitelist.) HN brings together people who crave
other knowledgeable folks willing to discuss subjects usually lost on the
people around them.

HN is a _respite_ from the inanity of general news/trivia/discourse, and to
ensure it stays that way, we have to be willing to forgo the usual logic of
"this instance of [general topic] affects _one of our own_! Surely [general
topic] itself is now on-topic for any manner of discussion or debate." It
seems to invade, and eventually dilute, every community that doesn't
specifically have a rule about "these are the subjects we talk about here."

An instructive parallel: in my experience, every knitting community has an
entire sub-board to talk about pregnancy. What expertise do knitters have to
contribute on the subject of pregnancy? Wouldn't these people be better off
going to a pregnancy forum, where actual expert knowledge can be aggregated?
They're having the same conversations happening in every other pregnancy
subforum of every other tangentially-related community, instead of getting
together to have _one_ conversation.

What special expertise does HN have on gender politics?

------
mich41
In case somebody wonders what constitutes "women dancers in revealing
clothing".

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolpinchefsky/2013/03/27/reall...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolpinchefsky/2013/03/27/really-
igda-party-at-gdc-brings-on-the-female-dancers/)

------
sp332
IGDA's official response, which I don't see on their own website:
[http://gamasutra.com/view/news/189548/IGDAs_official_respons...](http://gamasutra.com/view/news/189548/IGDAs_official_response_to_its_controversial_GDC_party.php)

~~~
iamtherockstar
IGDA asks for opinions, and that's great, but it's demonstrative of how hard
social change can be when it's a democracy: You wait for the majority of
voting members to speak up about it before you really see it as a problem to
address. Social change should probably be proactive, but that's a hard problem
to solve.

------
iamtherockstar
If you're not familiar with her, Brenda wrote a book called "Sex in Games."
She worked on a game about the Playboy Mansion. She's no prude, and she's very
anti-censorship.

Combine that with the actions in the article, and I think there's a very
compelling discussion that can take place about the difference between sex and
sexism.

------
drivebyacct2
I don't know why jpxxx's comment is hidden:

\---

You're invited to a conference that's relevant to your position and your
industry.

When you arrive, a number of hired twentysomething men are milling about
wearing tight tee-shirts, padded crotches, and skintight jeans. They're
dancing, drinking, flirting with you and your coworkers, and subtly drawing
attention towards their ample bulges. Some people in the crowd are really
getting into this, having their pictures taken with them. The room starts
getting sweaty, the music amps up, and the paid gogo boys start thrusting
their cocks in rhythm with the music.

Comment freely!

\---

For my own commentary, I agree with jpxxx, or at least the point I think he or
she is trying to make. It's the same hypocrisy seen with homosexuality in a
lot of males: "gays are gross, lesbians are hot" -> "Half naked dancers are
okay, as long as they're female! Duh!"

And that is precisely the problem. It's not acceptable either way. It's not
about being PC, it's about being appropriate. It was a conference, not a strip
club.

~~~
sp332
It was alive earlier, which means it got flagged into oblivion pretty quickly.
My response:

This isn't the point. Even if everyone thought the dancers were sexy, or they
had men as well as women dancing, it was still inappropriate for an industry
event. This isn't even an organization trying to sell something, it's a group
for employees in the games industry. Completely pointless.

~~~
drivebyacct2
Well hmm, maybe we interpreted his comment differently. I took it as satire
and as pointing out the same thing you are. I agree, it's not appropriate and
it wouldn't be any more so if it were just men, just women, or a mix. (The
vivid imagery of a man dancing around like that is meant to point out that
"but they were hot" or whatever is not a valid response to the issue at hand).

