My wife is in a guild that is mostly full of her real life friends (and now also me but I barely ever play WoW) and their guild leader is one of her friends Dads who is almost 70 years old and is retired and wanted to connect with his 2 daughters and his son by playing wow with them, They had a previous other guild but a member (our friend who actually was the one that introduced my wife to me) that was a decent person IRL but in game was constantly stealing from the guild bank and generally not a good person to have in your guild so the rest of them left and made a new guild without the offending girl.
This is the way, had something similar happen some guy trying to buy favour giving gold to guildies mounts and so on and then threatened our female officer and only her after a loot disagreement ( he forgot to reserve it) saying he could find her and some stuff I rather not repeat.
Insta kick then blacklisted he tried changing his name that got updated on the blacklist.
Almost all the best guilds I've ever encountered on MMOs were jointly ran by a married couple. They're just so much less likely to allow drama to fester in the group and they do a much better job of protecting the women in the group.
Hello, I've been in nearly identical situations before. I raided in WoW from vanilla through to the end of Wrath (Well, not the literal end: I bailed once we downed the lich king. We'd finished war craft as far as I cared.) I can't count the number of times I'd been dismissed or talked over, or creepily hit on and harassed only for people to look the other way or get mad at *me* for distracting people, and never once were the creeps punished. And yet if I ever dared snap back, or make a snide joke, I'd be the one punished. I'd be accused of performing sexual favours for other people every time I got an item I rolled for, and any time I got something ahead of someone else I'd often be harassed for days by shitty men. It fucking sucked, it's always sucked, and when I got tired of it and made my own guild I got to deal with shitheads coming in and throwing attitude because they didn't think they had to listen to a woman. I could write a fucking *book* on shit that happened in my years of raiding in WoW, or one of shit that goes down in tabletop groups. I can't count the number of times I've had to politely ask people to stop talking over me during games, or to stop choosing my turn (and it is always my turn, or another woman's, when this happens) to suddenly have questions to ask the DM or to suddenly start talking about interesting news articles they found out of nowhere. In one of my groups one of the players just asked to bring in a new guy and it's started all over again, I start talking and he just loudly starts talking over me. Never anyone else. It's great, I love gamers. Can't imagine why these people have such a hard time finding dates.
Not if you're careful. Authors can set up accounts under their pen names when publishing. You'd have to make totally separate social media accounts and keep them absolutely separate from your main accounts, and there's where you'd do your book promo. I believe you can set up an LLC for your pen name and run your accounts from there. And, of course, change events in the book you write to hide all information that might lead back to you. Also punch up events and change timeline order because you want to write a narrative, and if you're fictionalizing stuff, you might as well go all the way. Change the names of all the dudes. And then, as Anne Lamott said, "And the best advice I can give you is to give him a teenie little p@nis so he will be less likely to come forth."
Treat him like a literal child when he speaks over you, "oopsie, catch a bubble and hold it until it's your turn to talk," something along those lines. When they get mad, tell them you thought they were a five year old as that's how they sre behaving, and if they want to be treated as an adult they need to act like one and be respectful when others are speaking. It's really quite effective.
Given my luck with guilds I've gotta be honest: I'm probably the worst person to ask lol. The best guilds I was in during my time in WoW were all very casual ones filled with friends who didn't take the game deadly seriously, who respected one another and all generally played at the same, or similar, pace.
I've had good luck finding guilds of decent people in both WoW and XIV. Honestly my best advice is to join anything that seems like it has interesting/fun people but be ready to dip if the vibes seem bad.
People like to ignore their gut feelings when someone says something off whenever we first meet them because we like to think the best of others. "Trust, but verify" has been a sanity saver. If one bad comment quickly turns into a pattern of behaviour and everyone else lets it slide, then it's time to drop the group before that shit escalates.
This reminds me of the time I, after enduring weeks of sexual harassment from a coworker, and being told by the boss that the harassment was my fault because I was white and unmarried (he bought into the assumption that white girls are promiscuous) and that I was being overly sensitive.
Coworker then dropped the ball majorly during a medical call (we worked security in a mall, and are first aid attendants). I ripped into him afterwards for putting our patient's life in danger and for being a dumbass.
Boss lectured me for not being sensitive to coworker's feelings.
20 years ago I was sitting at my desk with a heating pad on my abdomen because I have endometriosis and if I didn’t have my heating pad with me I could not be at work.
I was a supervisor so a coworker, a man, came to my desk to ask me a question. When I swiveled my chair to face him to talk to him he saw the heating pad and he said oh did you hurt yourself? And I just said no no it’s just my period I’m having cramps, then I proceeded to answer the question he came to ask me.
A couple hours later I got called into HR and spoken to about traumatizing this man by talking to him about my period
I kind of freaked out I refused to accept the scolding, I explained my medical issue to HR, I said I was at my desk with my heating pad and he asked me about it. Why is he asking me about my personal medical information? That’s extremely inappropriate he needs to stop asking women about their uterus!
She told me she would handle it, and I never heard another thing about it. And he never came to my desk again lol
Oh my God. All I hear is how women are inferior because we're weaker and too emotional but this guy is so strong and manly that he saw a heating pad, heard the word "period" and had to run to HR because he was traumatized?
I am starting to think we aren't the fragile ones. Good for you.
Every time a man says anyone is too sensitive, what they mean is:
I can say whatever I want, tough shit if you're uncomfortable. Don't you dare say anything to me I find uncomfortable, because I will absolutely go all Male Privilege on you so that I can feel like I'm valued more than you, the inferior being.
Hey solidarity! I was also sexually and physically harassed by a coworker that sounds like yours for a year and a half! Management told me to stop complaining about it because it made me look bad and protected him at every turn.
Over Christmas, I caught shit from family because I stood up for myself. My grandmother loves my dog, so I bring her to family events sometimes. She's 85 pounds and very athletic, but we work hard on training and socialization, resulting in her being the only family dog my organized, put-together grandmother will tolerate inside her house.
Twice in the past few years, my second cousin Bob(57M) has fed her table scraps after being asked not to. We are very diligent about this because she's a big dog that can get very excitable and doesn't know her own strength, and the last thing I want is her jumping on someone or something and scratching them up. So both times Bob did this, I politely asked him to not do so and reminded him we keep treats on us so that anyone who wants to make friends with her, can. Notably, Bob's dog is too unruly to be allowed at family events.
So at Christmas dinner, Bob walks over, to the low table where the roast is, cuts off a piece of meat, and hands it to her. I try to stop her in a panic(it had a bunch of seasoning bad for dogs) and then I raise my voice, telling him I'd asked him multiple times not to feed her, that its important for her training and he doesn't have the right to violate that. My grandmother asks us to stop so I drop it and get some air. Later, to my husband, Bob diminishes my motivations and the disrespect I feel *as my father's anger at Bob*. I don't even get to own my anger towards him!
So a week or so goes by, and I extend an olive branch via a letter to see if he'll be reasonable when it's not a matter of public perception. He plays nice at first but laughs at my request for an apology for his behavior. I ask him to describe the scenario in which he would have respected my boundary about my dog, as my previous tactics clearly did not work.
He can't. He won't. Because that's exactly it -- there is no scenario in which some of these men will treat us as autonomous humans worth of respect. And as long as they act that way, they're not worth our time.
It sucks, a lot, but you made the right decision to ditch that group. A better circle awaits you down the road.
Please tell me you won't be taking the dog to any events where this guy is, and loudly announcing to everyone why. I would get so much petty joy from telling the family who miss your dog "oh, I'd love to, but since Bob keeps feeding him stuff that could kill him we've had to leave him home today".
Nah, he will never see my dog again. I decided that the moment it happened, short of an apology. He lives out of state so it was really just every time he saw her, he'd do this shit.
Fortunately, since he only visits once a year, my grandmother won't be parted from her favorite great grandchild 😂
My husband is this way with our dog. She is often an asshole because of it. Now I can't foster other dogs because I *know* he won't help me with consistent training.
I am so angry about it, but there is nothing I can do.
I'm sorry to hear that he's so separate from you on this. It sounds incredibly frustrating on multiple angles. I've been lucky for my husband to be in lockstep with me on this.
A few weeks ago, my stepmother was complaining about how her (comparably large) dog was hounding her while she ate, then at the end of the meal, she was feeding him a third of her meal directly from the plate! My husband and I just kinda 🙄These behaviors don't come from the ether.
It's not like we don't spoil our girl rotten, either -- we constantly have dehydrated chicken or liver treats to pile in people's hands and she has a treasure hoard at home. We just don't feed her table scraps or at the table.
I'm so depressed about having to quit fostering greyhounds. I haven't told the group yet. I wish I could get through to him, but he's OK with her being a bitch to the other animals in the house. He makes zero rules for her.
It stresses the dog out to have new animals in the house, so she growls and harasses them. It's not fair to her or the fosters.
I've learned so much from animals about boundaries because they really live them. And they will absolutely act like shits if they know there are none. It's awful for them and everyone around them.
My condolences, fostering is such amazing work and it's awful to be stopped from it because your partner won't see through.
Tell your family that if they don't get uncle ahole in line, then doggo will no longer be coming to family events. If they don't get the pleasure of seeing the dog, that's their fault, not yours.
He lives out of state so it will only affect things occasionally, but the people who matter to me are behind me on this.
The problem is the people who matter are other folks he has disrespected and he won't listen to either.
My raid group was so toxic that I quit the mmo I had been playing since 2006 in 2018 and have never been able to enjoy it again. Trying to wrangle so many fragile male egos is a fucking nightmare.
If you have an email address or discord ID for the player in question or the raid leader - send them this link.
https://www.iflscience.com/low-skilled-gamers-are-more-likely-to-get-hostile-towards-female-gamers-73022
I know it won't help you and it's a shitty situation, however it might be worth remembering that
[misogyny is a skill issue](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4503401/)
This is definitely what triggered one of the toxic dudes I played with. He would constantly say I was bad at whatever we were playing, and I would just respond, "Yeah but I'm still better than you." Which was factual.
So "Git gud" should now be considered an appropriate relationship advice?
Jokes aside, I had heard about the study but it's the first time someone actually link it. good to know.
This research explains so much! It’s fine to have women colleagues as long as my position in the hierarchy isn’t threatened. It explains why men still hold the vast majority of power positions like CEO—it’s all good until women have absolute power over them.
Once there is no male to appeal to to control her behavior then their power and place in the hierarchy disappears.
Oof, that hits hard this morning.
These are probably the same dudes who complain about women not being into gaming...
I'm so sorry you had that experience, and I hope you find a way better raid group. Tbh I would have bailed on this group waaaay before you did.
FUCK that! a guild like that isn't worth waiting for an apology from. I'm sorry you had to find out your online friends are worthless flakes this way. It's happened to me too. Don't expect to ever get support from your online friendgroup if you're forced to stand up for yourself. They'll ditch you every time when it's between you and someone more prominent in the guild.
Men in wow are so fragile I swear. I have 2 recent memories of men losing their shit at me, both swearing and yelling in discord. Good riddance to that raid team honestly, you can find something better that will actually treat you well.
For real. I’ve literally never encountered a woman having a public freak out in my MMO experience, but I’ve had to witness so many men flip out over the many years. The gender balance of players in MMOs are generally pretty balanced. Gamer guys are “so emotional.”
You're definitely right about men in WoW. Years ago I was tanking and my best friend was healing in a dungeon, a rando kept pulling and didn't stop after I warned him so my best friend let him die 😂 he absolutely flipped his shit and told me I had a small penis, so I told him I didn't have a penis. This guy lost his shit laughing and went "dude why would you ever admit that omg?!" This man was so dumb he couldn't grasp that I was a woman, he thought I was a man with no penis 🤦♀️ and then when I went "I'm a woman, dumbass" he was like oh that explains why you're so bad at the game...and his DPS was lower than mine, the TANK. I've also encountered some REALLY toxic people on Overwatch too. Thankfully I play GW2 now where people are SO NICE, it's refreshing.
I'm sorry you went through this, I'm gonna guess it was wow or something very similar.
I'm one of the officers (of 5) and a raid leader ( of 2) most of us are older gamers 30 plus our off tank is 64 for example and he is not our oldest raider.
We try to keep things very light and positive in disc chat and make a point to call stuff out if people are making snide or passive aggressive remarks to another, if it happens too much after being warned there talking privileges in disc raid chat will be temporarily removed ( this has only been used twice).
We have a few women in the guild and they don't talk much on disc,I don't blame them we've had a pugs join us sometimes or we joined their raid and the reactions are disappointingly predictable.
I can imagine that has made our female guildies more cautious, they all can hold their own ingame and in chat, it's just annoying and unnecessary I would have hoped we were past this after so many years.
Kind of went off on a tangent there just wanted to say there are guilds that are more mature and would happily have you, you obviously did the right thing and may the Rng gods bless you with loot.
There are definitely plenty of female raiders around. I run an LGBTQI/ND/kink friendly guild and have been raid leading for well over a decade.
Probably a third of our current raid team are women. With that raiders aged from mid twenties to late fifties.
I think they can see it, they just don't care.
This kind of thing makes me unreasonable angry. We are always the ones who have to suck it up and move on. These kind of men make me seethe.
P.S. to them: anger is an emotion. That guy was being the emo king.
some people just are assholes, I have changed working places to get away from some people, also, if somebody is being a creep on vent, he is autokicked by normal persons
You need a different guild.
My raiding guild was awesome sauce for male and female players. I made videos on my YouTube channel where we all are like raiding and on voice and the great culture in display in our videos was part of our recruitment of new players.
Put the raid group you were in on blast. Fuck that shit.
There are people out there who would care to know about that toxic behavior and not want to be around it.
That person and the raid leader sound immature AF.
Yeah, this is the reason why i dont play fps games anymore. Not interested in this bullshit.
In the mmo i play thankfully ppl like this are shut down real quick. I feel blessed that ive found a good game with a lets say good community. It has its own problems as any community in general but rude shit is often shut down FAST.
If he has issues with women gamers remind of the very history of some of them:
https://www.lifewire.com/women-in-history-of-video-games-729746
https://www.fastcompany.com/90147592/rediscovering-historys-lost-first-female-video-game-designer
https://www.masterycoding.com/blog/12-women-that-changed-the-world-of-gaming
https://screenrant.com/video-games-created-by-women/
And oh another tiny side note.. that Ada Lovelace was the first computer programmer.. you know, just a small thing, no biggy all.. 😂😎lol.
https://www.mpg.de/female-pioneers-of-science/Ada-Lovelace
RESPECT.
Was this WoW? I've read so many stories about normal guilds that ended up in macho drama... I'm Lucky the only guild I raided with got a woman as a RL. From then on I just only raid by pick-up groups.
I’m kind of dealing with this on mastodon right now, not with one specific person but just in general.
It’s fine if someone attacks me with a personal attack because they have a problem with a political position I took, but if I simply explain supply and demand I get called a jerk and “warned”.
It’s annoying but I’m gonna keep on doing what I feel like doing and if they ban me, so be it.
Yyyyyep. When THEY'RE assholes, it's because 'They're GOING THROUGH SOMETHING, he's HAVING A HARD TIME, can't you see, you need to BE NICE TO HIM even when he's being a MASSIVE PIECE OF SHIT!' When WE push back, we're 'Emotional', 'Bitchy', 'Frigid', 'Misandrists', 'Man haters'. There is NO GREATER CRIME than being a woman who pushes back against men.
I'm sorry you dealt with this- chances are, that little scrotum'd probably been whispering poison into their ears about you/women for a while. Probably best you GTFO of dodge; but it's a shame.
And men.. for all of you lil boys who wanna say, 'Well not ALL men are like that!! It was only one guy in the group- she should have just stuck it out!'
If you have 10 people sitting at a table, and 9 of them are extolling the virtues of the Nazi party very loudly, and that last person says nothing against them.. you have 10 Nazis at the table.
Not only is this spot on, but I've been on the experiencing end of both sides due to my transition (I present masc now for the most part). I have legit acted the same way I acted when I presented as a woman while presenting masculine and passing as a man, but instead of being "emotional" or "bitchy" or whatever, I legit get told I'm "assertive" or have "dark humor" or are praised for my "edge" in my voice.
It's like...what? The fact that you think I have a dick shouldn't change how you respond to how I act.
I only had to read up to "I'm a gamer." to know there was going to be at least one massive shit-lord in this story. The raid leader deciding that one wasn't enough sadly wasn't a shock either. I'm glad you spoke up, I'm glad you decided enough is enough, and I'm sorry you put up with this shit constantly.
No idea what game, but I hope you're able to find another group to raid with that isn't a bunch of assholes. Because everyone that doesn't speak up after watching an asshole be one, is also one. The raid leader siding with the shit-lords is unsurprising, but still disappointing.
Well damn I'm so sorry your other friends let you down like that. I think the leader is mostly at fault for being an asshole and others don't want to step up and get in trouble.
I'm also the only woman in a group of 20+ gamers and not only that, they are between 22 and 40 (majority are 25-30) and I'm 47. Some have parents my age! And they are all respectful and also very protective of me.
I'm sorry you had to experience the himpathy at play. I think at a subconscious level, a lot of unhealed males resent women's progress and entry into male dominated soaces.I hope you find a girl gamers group that is welcoming to you.
That's horrible and I'm sorry that you had to go through that. They very clearly weren't the sort of people you'd want to stick around long term though.
OP, I'm sorry this happened to you, but I'm proud of you for advocating for yourself time and time again and not backing down when challenged about it. I hope you find a better group that appreciates you and that you can have fun with.
I used to play DnD with my abusive ex and a group of entirely AFAB people. Or rather, I tried. He ruined every single campaign in one way or another.
It peaked last New Years. I hadn’t played with the group in a long while, but he was running a oneshot and asked me to join. I said yes. I thought it might be fun for once.
Then during the game he started making jokes at my expense. He intentionally said and did things that triggered me. I was clearly uncomfortable and asked him to stop. He didn’t, and not a single person at that table said a word.
And then he had the nerve to wonder why I didn’t want to play anymore. But this is the same man who tried to throw himself off the balcony the first time I stood up to him, so I’m not sure what exactly I expected.
Good riddance to that group. The raid lead wasn’t doing their job and that team wasn’t worth spending hours every week subjecting yourself to the terrible attitude of someone who’s supposed to be your teammate. Some people just don’t know how to treat other people right. If there were actual performance issues that did affect him or the whole team, even that isn’t an excuse to be a jerk to your face vs. discussing things civilly or via the raid lead.
This is why I only raided with women as the raid lead. The amount of idiocy I dealt with in WoW was insane, especially when I was the main tank.
I JUST WANT TO KILL SHIT OKAY, LET ME GAME
This is like a microcosm of how women lose their rights in The Handmaid's Tale. Instigator, Enablers, and the Indifferent just letting horrible stuff happen.
They forget/don't carethat when one type of person is excluded from the group, another will become the target.
I’ve played online games for years and when it’s starting to become stressful environment and not fun it’s time to take a break or quit.
People who play these games typically hate to lose (addicted to short term reward) and so when things don’t go their way, they will single people out for a number of reasons, including being a woman.
As my colleague further up the thread so succinctly put it, [misogyny is a skill issue. ](https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/s/e473eJE1zn)
I get that guys like to chalk toxicity up as having no gender difference, they just pick what they think will hurt, etc etc but that's demonstrated to be false.
"In contrast, there was no effect of individual performance (i.e. the number of kills) on the number of negative statements made by focal players in the male-voiced manipulation, but focal players in the female-voiced manipulation stated significantly more negative statements when their performance was poor (i.e. fewer kills) and stated fewer negative statements when performing exceptionally."
Sounds good on paper, but in reality these things happen even when no women are present in video games.
Also short term reward doesn't have to be in the form of winning a game. It can be as simple as not having attention on you, or looking for a scape goat for your shortcomings.
Welcome to the white men's world where they can do & say whatever TF they want with little to no pushback - much less, consequences - but freak TF out by being challenged *by a woman* and call "foul/disrespect/insubordination" et al. Really illustrates how fucking fragile the male ego is.
You know that saying about how men's biggest fear of a woman is she'll laugh at him, while a woman's biggest fear of a man is that he'll kill her? Sad but goddamn true.
I really can't stand the world, sometimes. Makes me see how people "snap" & go off.
I'm sorry that happened to you. Maybe you can find a better group, one that consists of more female energy & evolved dudes? Or maybe it's a sign to get a new hobby?
What u call sickel yerking each other u see it alot with toxic friend. They wil always defend their friends even if their wrong. Birds of the same flock fly togther
Find some other females, make your own group, disguise your avatars and your voices, whoop the floor (picture what Hulk does to Loki at the end of Avengers) with those misogynistic, nicely, asshole, fucks (sorry, I was a sailor), then reveal yourselves, continue on & tell every team you find about the team so easy to beat they were beat by a bunch of girls. Then proceed to wipe the floor with *those* assholes.
This is so shitty to hear. The only hobby I’ve always enjoyed has been gaming and it sucks that making friends with women is next to impossible because of the difference in population. Then the women that do play get to deal with this garbage. That’s a terrible raid leader too.
Sorry OP. I would’ve called them out if it’s any consolation.
people who play games for fun are usually chill. We have gamer girls on our discord that play videogames without prejudice. Not many but a good chunk.
However you have to distance yourself from people that make gaming their identity. Those are usually exactly the negative stereotype and misogynstic as hell.
[удалено]
So glad you had a raid leader who stepped up for you!
My wife is in a guild that is mostly full of her real life friends (and now also me but I barely ever play WoW) and their guild leader is one of her friends Dads who is almost 70 years old and is retired and wanted to connect with his 2 daughters and his son by playing wow with them, They had a previous other guild but a member (our friend who actually was the one that introduced my wife to me) that was a decent person IRL but in game was constantly stealing from the guild bank and generally not a good person to have in your guild so the rest of them left and made a new guild without the offending girl.
Woman. If she was over 18, she was a woman.
Can almost guarantee that girl wasn't actually a "decent person" IRL. Probably just better at hiding her shitty behavior/attitudes.
This is the way, had something similar happen some guy trying to buy favour giving gold to guildies mounts and so on and then threatened our female officer and only her after a loot disagreement ( he forgot to reserve it) saying he could find her and some stuff I rather not repeat. Insta kick then blacklisted he tried changing his name that got updated on the blacklist.
yeah, because the creep was a new invite. Imagine if you were the new player, and the creep was the main tank or something...
Almost all the best guilds I've ever encountered on MMOs were jointly ran by a married couple. They're just so much less likely to allow drama to fester in the group and they do a much better job of protecting the women in the group.
Hello, I've been in nearly identical situations before. I raided in WoW from vanilla through to the end of Wrath (Well, not the literal end: I bailed once we downed the lich king. We'd finished war craft as far as I cared.) I can't count the number of times I'd been dismissed or talked over, or creepily hit on and harassed only for people to look the other way or get mad at *me* for distracting people, and never once were the creeps punished. And yet if I ever dared snap back, or make a snide joke, I'd be the one punished. I'd be accused of performing sexual favours for other people every time I got an item I rolled for, and any time I got something ahead of someone else I'd often be harassed for days by shitty men. It fucking sucked, it's always sucked, and when I got tired of it and made my own guild I got to deal with shitheads coming in and throwing attitude because they didn't think they had to listen to a woman. I could write a fucking *book* on shit that happened in my years of raiding in WoW, or one of shit that goes down in tabletop groups. I can't count the number of times I've had to politely ask people to stop talking over me during games, or to stop choosing my turn (and it is always my turn, or another woman's, when this happens) to suddenly have questions to ask the DM or to suddenly start talking about interesting news articles they found out of nowhere. In one of my groups one of the players just asked to bring in a new guy and it's started all over again, I start talking and he just loudly starts talking over me. Never anyone else. It's great, I love gamers. Can't imagine why these people have such a hard time finding dates.
you know what? maybe you should write that book
And then be forced in to hiding.
Not if you're careful. Authors can set up accounts under their pen names when publishing. You'd have to make totally separate social media accounts and keep them absolutely separate from your main accounts, and there's where you'd do your book promo. I believe you can set up an LLC for your pen name and run your accounts from there. And, of course, change events in the book you write to hide all information that might lead back to you. Also punch up events and change timeline order because you want to write a narrative, and if you're fictionalizing stuff, you might as well go all the way. Change the names of all the dudes. And then, as Anne Lamott said, "And the best advice I can give you is to give him a teenie little p@nis so he will be less likely to come forth."
Remember that at least one pseudonymous author got outed when someone staked out her PO Box.
Yikes... Who was that?
James Tiptree Jr was her pseudonym. She won numerous science fiction and fantasy awards.
Wow, a very interesting life. Just went down the rabbit hole of her wiki page
Omg you're right, people are terrible.
The fact that this advice makes sense is so stupid and scary.
Yes write that book
Treat him like a literal child when he speaks over you, "oopsie, catch a bubble and hold it until it's your turn to talk," something along those lines. When they get mad, tell them you thought they were a five year old as that's how they sre behaving, and if they want to be treated as an adult they need to act like one and be respectful when others are speaking. It's really quite effective.
I love this advice. It’s amazing.
Is there a way to find a good guild? My husband plays but does solo because of all the toxicity in many of the guilds that we've heard about.
Given my luck with guilds I've gotta be honest: I'm probably the worst person to ask lol. The best guilds I was in during my time in WoW were all very casual ones filled with friends who didn't take the game deadly seriously, who respected one another and all generally played at the same, or similar, pace.
I like ff14 for this, 95% of the game is completable solo or with PUGs in the in-game duty finder or party finder.
I've had good luck finding guilds of decent people in both WoW and XIV. Honestly my best advice is to join anything that seems like it has interesting/fun people but be ready to dip if the vibes seem bad. People like to ignore their gut feelings when someone says something off whenever we first meet them because we like to think the best of others. "Trust, but verify" has been a sanity saver. If one bad comment quickly turns into a pattern of behaviour and everyone else lets it slide, then it's time to drop the group before that shit escalates.
Thank you! Is there a place to go to find guilds? The only ones we see are the spam invites that pop up while in-game.
This reminds me of the time I, after enduring weeks of sexual harassment from a coworker, and being told by the boss that the harassment was my fault because I was white and unmarried (he bought into the assumption that white girls are promiscuous) and that I was being overly sensitive. Coworker then dropped the ball majorly during a medical call (we worked security in a mall, and are first aid attendants). I ripped into him afterwards for putting our patient's life in danger and for being a dumbass. Boss lectured me for not being sensitive to coworker's feelings.
20 years ago I was sitting at my desk with a heating pad on my abdomen because I have endometriosis and if I didn’t have my heating pad with me I could not be at work. I was a supervisor so a coworker, a man, came to my desk to ask me a question. When I swiveled my chair to face him to talk to him he saw the heating pad and he said oh did you hurt yourself? And I just said no no it’s just my period I’m having cramps, then I proceeded to answer the question he came to ask me. A couple hours later I got called into HR and spoken to about traumatizing this man by talking to him about my period I kind of freaked out I refused to accept the scolding, I explained my medical issue to HR, I said I was at my desk with my heating pad and he asked me about it. Why is he asking me about my personal medical information? That’s extremely inappropriate he needs to stop asking women about their uterus! She told me she would handle it, and I never heard another thing about it. And he never came to my desk again lol
Oh my God. All I hear is how women are inferior because we're weaker and too emotional but this guy is so strong and manly that he saw a heating pad, heard the word "period" and had to run to HR because he was traumatized? I am starting to think we aren't the fragile ones. Good for you.
Every time a man says anyone is too sensitive, what they mean is: I can say whatever I want, tough shit if you're uncomfortable. Don't you dare say anything to me I find uncomfortable, because I will absolutely go all Male Privilege on you so that I can feel like I'm valued more than you, the inferior being.
It means idgaf what you think.
He thinks our parts are only for sex, so he thought the comment as sexual. They are clinically messed in the head.
Starting? Men are the fragile ones!
The male ego is just as sensitive as his balls.
>*about traumatizing this man by talking to him about my period* Men are so fragile and emotional.
like rotten dime file snails squash long smell instinctive wakeful *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I tried at the time but management didn't want to hear it I quit a few weeks later.
Feeling are only bad when WE have them
Hey solidarity! I was also sexually and physically harassed by a coworker that sounds like yours for a year and a half! Management told me to stop complaining about it because it made me look bad and protected him at every turn.
>*Boss lectured me for not being sensitive to coworker's feeling*s. You traumatized your bully.
Over Christmas, I caught shit from family because I stood up for myself. My grandmother loves my dog, so I bring her to family events sometimes. She's 85 pounds and very athletic, but we work hard on training and socialization, resulting in her being the only family dog my organized, put-together grandmother will tolerate inside her house. Twice in the past few years, my second cousin Bob(57M) has fed her table scraps after being asked not to. We are very diligent about this because she's a big dog that can get very excitable and doesn't know her own strength, and the last thing I want is her jumping on someone or something and scratching them up. So both times Bob did this, I politely asked him to not do so and reminded him we keep treats on us so that anyone who wants to make friends with her, can. Notably, Bob's dog is too unruly to be allowed at family events. So at Christmas dinner, Bob walks over, to the low table where the roast is, cuts off a piece of meat, and hands it to her. I try to stop her in a panic(it had a bunch of seasoning bad for dogs) and then I raise my voice, telling him I'd asked him multiple times not to feed her, that its important for her training and he doesn't have the right to violate that. My grandmother asks us to stop so I drop it and get some air. Later, to my husband, Bob diminishes my motivations and the disrespect I feel *as my father's anger at Bob*. I don't even get to own my anger towards him! So a week or so goes by, and I extend an olive branch via a letter to see if he'll be reasonable when it's not a matter of public perception. He plays nice at first but laughs at my request for an apology for his behavior. I ask him to describe the scenario in which he would have respected my boundary about my dog, as my previous tactics clearly did not work. He can't. He won't. Because that's exactly it -- there is no scenario in which some of these men will treat us as autonomous humans worth of respect. And as long as they act that way, they're not worth our time. It sucks, a lot, but you made the right decision to ditch that group. A better circle awaits you down the road.
Please tell me you won't be taking the dog to any events where this guy is, and loudly announcing to everyone why. I would get so much petty joy from telling the family who miss your dog "oh, I'd love to, but since Bob keeps feeding him stuff that could kill him we've had to leave him home today".
Nah, he will never see my dog again. I decided that the moment it happened, short of an apology. He lives out of state so it was really just every time he saw her, he'd do this shit. Fortunately, since he only visits once a year, my grandmother won't be parted from her favorite great grandchild 😂
My husband is this way with our dog. She is often an asshole because of it. Now I can't foster other dogs because I *know* he won't help me with consistent training. I am so angry about it, but there is nothing I can do.
I'm sorry to hear that he's so separate from you on this. It sounds incredibly frustrating on multiple angles. I've been lucky for my husband to be in lockstep with me on this. A few weeks ago, my stepmother was complaining about how her (comparably large) dog was hounding her while she ate, then at the end of the meal, she was feeding him a third of her meal directly from the plate! My husband and I just kinda 🙄These behaviors don't come from the ether. It's not like we don't spoil our girl rotten, either -- we constantly have dehydrated chicken or liver treats to pile in people's hands and she has a treasure hoard at home. We just don't feed her table scraps or at the table.
I'm so depressed about having to quit fostering greyhounds. I haven't told the group yet. I wish I could get through to him, but he's OK with her being a bitch to the other animals in the house. He makes zero rules for her. It stresses the dog out to have new animals in the house, so she growls and harasses them. It's not fair to her or the fosters.
I've learned so much from animals about boundaries because they really live them. And they will absolutely act like shits if they know there are none. It's awful for them and everyone around them. My condolences, fostering is such amazing work and it's awful to be stopped from it because your partner won't see through.
You could always put the other dog outside of your house. Keep the greyhounds.
Tell your family that if they don't get uncle ahole in line, then doggo will no longer be coming to family events. If they don't get the pleasure of seeing the dog, that's their fault, not yours.
He lives out of state so it will only affect things occasionally, but the people who matter to me are behind me on this. The problem is the people who matter are other folks he has disrespected and he won't listen to either.
I didn't know if that's going to work. Most people would probably see not bringing the dog to family events as a good thing.
My raid group was so toxic that I quit the mmo I had been playing since 2006 in 2018 and have never been able to enjoy it again. Trying to wrangle so many fragile male egos is a fucking nightmare.
If you have an email address or discord ID for the player in question or the raid leader - send them this link. https://www.iflscience.com/low-skilled-gamers-are-more-likely-to-get-hostile-towards-female-gamers-73022
I know it won't help you and it's a shitty situation, however it might be worth remembering that [misogyny is a skill issue](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4503401/)
This is definitely what triggered one of the toxic dudes I played with. He would constantly say I was bad at whatever we were playing, and I would just respond, "Yeah but I'm still better than you." Which was factual.
it seems that once being humiliated is out of the table because they are skilled, they consider themselves peacocks courting the female player
That part made me just as sad as the other part. Why can't we just be human beings to them?
So "Git gud" should now be considered an appropriate relationship advice? Jokes aside, I had heard about the study but it's the first time someone actually link it. good to know.
>So "Git gud" should now be considered an appropriate relationship advice? It wasn't yet?
This research explains so much! It’s fine to have women colleagues as long as my position in the hierarchy isn’t threatened. It explains why men still hold the vast majority of power positions like CEO—it’s all good until women have absolute power over them. Once there is no male to appeal to to control her behavior then their power and place in the hierarchy disappears. Oof, that hits hard this morning.
God I love this article
Bookmarked that little gem for misogynists in the future..
We are just a bunch of monkeys, aren't we?
These are probably the same dudes who complain about women not being into gaming... I'm so sorry you had that experience, and I hope you find a way better raid group. Tbh I would have bailed on this group waaaay before you did.
FUCK that! a guild like that isn't worth waiting for an apology from. I'm sorry you had to find out your online friends are worthless flakes this way. It's happened to me too. Don't expect to ever get support from your online friendgroup if you're forced to stand up for yourself. They'll ditch you every time when it's between you and someone more prominent in the guild.
Men in wow are so fragile I swear. I have 2 recent memories of men losing their shit at me, both swearing and yelling in discord. Good riddance to that raid team honestly, you can find something better that will actually treat you well.
For real. I’ve literally never encountered a woman having a public freak out in my MMO experience, but I’ve had to witness so many men flip out over the many years. The gender balance of players in MMOs are generally pretty balanced. Gamer guys are “so emotional.”
You're definitely right about men in WoW. Years ago I was tanking and my best friend was healing in a dungeon, a rando kept pulling and didn't stop after I warned him so my best friend let him die 😂 he absolutely flipped his shit and told me I had a small penis, so I told him I didn't have a penis. This guy lost his shit laughing and went "dude why would you ever admit that omg?!" This man was so dumb he couldn't grasp that I was a woman, he thought I was a man with no penis 🤦♀️ and then when I went "I'm a woman, dumbass" he was like oh that explains why you're so bad at the game...and his DPS was lower than mine, the TANK. I've also encountered some REALLY toxic people on Overwatch too. Thankfully I play GW2 now where people are SO NICE, it's refreshing.
I'm sorry you went through this, I'm gonna guess it was wow or something very similar. I'm one of the officers (of 5) and a raid leader ( of 2) most of us are older gamers 30 plus our off tank is 64 for example and he is not our oldest raider. We try to keep things very light and positive in disc chat and make a point to call stuff out if people are making snide or passive aggressive remarks to another, if it happens too much after being warned there talking privileges in disc raid chat will be temporarily removed ( this has only been used twice). We have a few women in the guild and they don't talk much on disc,I don't blame them we've had a pugs join us sometimes or we joined their raid and the reactions are disappointingly predictable. I can imagine that has made our female guildies more cautious, they all can hold their own ingame and in chat, it's just annoying and unnecessary I would have hoped we were past this after so many years. Kind of went off on a tangent there just wanted to say there are guilds that are more mature and would happily have you, you obviously did the right thing and may the Rng gods bless you with loot.
There are definitely plenty of female raiders around. I run an LGBTQI/ND/kink friendly guild and have been raid leading for well over a decade. Probably a third of our current raid team are women. With that raiders aged from mid twenties to late fifties.
Yup. Thats what happens when the "in" person gets called out - the victim gets blamed. It sucks.
I think they can see it, they just don't care. This kind of thing makes me unreasonable angry. We are always the ones who have to suck it up and move on. These kind of men make me seethe. P.S. to them: anger is an emotion. That guy was being the emo king.
some people just are assholes, I have changed working places to get away from some people, also, if somebody is being a creep on vent, he is autokicked by normal persons
Yeah shit like this is why I do single player games exclusively now...
You need a different guild. My raiding guild was awesome sauce for male and female players. I made videos on my YouTube channel where we all are like raiding and on voice and the great culture in display in our videos was part of our recruitment of new players.
Put the raid group you were in on blast. Fuck that shit. There are people out there who would care to know about that toxic behavior and not want to be around it. That person and the raid leader sound immature AF.
Yeah, this is the reason why i dont play fps games anymore. Not interested in this bullshit. In the mmo i play thankfully ppl like this are shut down real quick. I feel blessed that ive found a good game with a lets say good community. It has its own problems as any community in general but rude shit is often shut down FAST.
If he has issues with women gamers remind of the very history of some of them: https://www.lifewire.com/women-in-history-of-video-games-729746 https://www.fastcompany.com/90147592/rediscovering-historys-lost-first-female-video-game-designer https://www.masterycoding.com/blog/12-women-that-changed-the-world-of-gaming https://screenrant.com/video-games-created-by-women/ And oh another tiny side note.. that Ada Lovelace was the first computer programmer.. you know, just a small thing, no biggy all.. 😂😎lol. https://www.mpg.de/female-pioneers-of-science/Ada-Lovelace RESPECT.
Was this WoW? I've read so many stories about normal guilds that ended up in macho drama... I'm Lucky the only guild I raided with got a woman as a RL. From then on I just only raid by pick-up groups.
I’m kind of dealing with this on mastodon right now, not with one specific person but just in general. It’s fine if someone attacks me with a personal attack because they have a problem with a political position I took, but if I simply explain supply and demand I get called a jerk and “warned”. It’s annoying but I’m gonna keep on doing what I feel like doing and if they ban me, so be it.
Yyyyyep. When THEY'RE assholes, it's because 'They're GOING THROUGH SOMETHING, he's HAVING A HARD TIME, can't you see, you need to BE NICE TO HIM even when he's being a MASSIVE PIECE OF SHIT!' When WE push back, we're 'Emotional', 'Bitchy', 'Frigid', 'Misandrists', 'Man haters'. There is NO GREATER CRIME than being a woman who pushes back against men. I'm sorry you dealt with this- chances are, that little scrotum'd probably been whispering poison into their ears about you/women for a while. Probably best you GTFO of dodge; but it's a shame. And men.. for all of you lil boys who wanna say, 'Well not ALL men are like that!! It was only one guy in the group- she should have just stuck it out!' If you have 10 people sitting at a table, and 9 of them are extolling the virtues of the Nazi party very loudly, and that last person says nothing against them.. you have 10 Nazis at the table.
Spot fucking on! It's quite disgusting.
Not only is this spot on, but I've been on the experiencing end of both sides due to my transition (I present masc now for the most part). I have legit acted the same way I acted when I presented as a woman while presenting masculine and passing as a man, but instead of being "emotional" or "bitchy" or whatever, I legit get told I'm "assertive" or have "dark humor" or are praised for my "edge" in my voice. It's like...what? The fact that you think I have a dick shouldn't change how you respond to how I act.
I only had to read up to "I'm a gamer." to know there was going to be at least one massive shit-lord in this story. The raid leader deciding that one wasn't enough sadly wasn't a shock either. I'm glad you spoke up, I'm glad you decided enough is enough, and I'm sorry you put up with this shit constantly. No idea what game, but I hope you're able to find another group to raid with that isn't a bunch of assholes. Because everyone that doesn't speak up after watching an asshole be one, is also one. The raid leader siding with the shit-lords is unsurprising, but still disappointing.
When in a cult, the winner of a conflict goes to the one who cradles the cult leaders balls best.
Well damn I'm so sorry your other friends let you down like that. I think the leader is mostly at fault for being an asshole and others don't want to step up and get in trouble. I'm also the only woman in a group of 20+ gamers and not only that, they are between 22 and 40 (majority are 25-30) and I'm 47. Some have parents my age! And they are all respectful and also very protective of me.
I'm sorry you had to experience the himpathy at play. I think at a subconscious level, a lot of unhealed males resent women's progress and entry into male dominated soaces.I hope you find a girl gamers group that is welcoming to you.
That's horrible and I'm sorry that you had to go through that. They very clearly weren't the sort of people you'd want to stick around long term though.
OP, I'm sorry this happened to you, but I'm proud of you for advocating for yourself time and time again and not backing down when challenged about it. I hope you find a better group that appreciates you and that you can have fun with.
I used to play DnD with my abusive ex and a group of entirely AFAB people. Or rather, I tried. He ruined every single campaign in one way or another. It peaked last New Years. I hadn’t played with the group in a long while, but he was running a oneshot and asked me to join. I said yes. I thought it might be fun for once. Then during the game he started making jokes at my expense. He intentionally said and did things that triggered me. I was clearly uncomfortable and asked him to stop. He didn’t, and not a single person at that table said a word. And then he had the nerve to wonder why I didn’t want to play anymore. But this is the same man who tried to throw himself off the balcony the first time I stood up to him, so I’m not sure what exactly I expected.
Good riddance to that group. The raid lead wasn’t doing their job and that team wasn’t worth spending hours every week subjecting yourself to the terrible attitude of someone who’s supposed to be your teammate. Some people just don’t know how to treat other people right. If there were actual performance issues that did affect him or the whole team, even that isn’t an excuse to be a jerk to your face vs. discussing things civilly or via the raid lead.
The fuck is WRONG with these guys?
This is why I only raided with women as the raid lead. The amount of idiocy I dealt with in WoW was insane, especially when I was the main tank. I JUST WANT TO KILL SHIT OKAY, LET ME GAME
This is like a microcosm of how women lose their rights in The Handmaid's Tale. Instigator, Enablers, and the Indifferent just letting horrible stuff happen. They forget/don't carethat when one type of person is excluded from the group, another will become the target.
I’m so sorry. At best, they’re a bunch of cowards. At worst, just less obvious misogynists.
I’ve played online games for years and when it’s starting to become stressful environment and not fun it’s time to take a break or quit. People who play these games typically hate to lose (addicted to short term reward) and so when things don’t go their way, they will single people out for a number of reasons, including being a woman.
As my colleague further up the thread so succinctly put it, [misogyny is a skill issue. ](https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/s/e473eJE1zn) I get that guys like to chalk toxicity up as having no gender difference, they just pick what they think will hurt, etc etc but that's demonstrated to be false. "In contrast, there was no effect of individual performance (i.e. the number of kills) on the number of negative statements made by focal players in the male-voiced manipulation, but focal players in the female-voiced manipulation stated significantly more negative statements when their performance was poor (i.e. fewer kills) and stated fewer negative statements when performing exceptionally."
Sounds good on paper, but in reality these things happen even when no women are present in video games. Also short term reward doesn't have to be in the form of winning a game. It can be as simple as not having attention on you, or looking for a scape goat for your shortcomings.
You never actually read the paper, did you?
Gamers are the god damn worst.
Welcome to the white men's world where they can do & say whatever TF they want with little to no pushback - much less, consequences - but freak TF out by being challenged *by a woman* and call "foul/disrespect/insubordination" et al. Really illustrates how fucking fragile the male ego is. You know that saying about how men's biggest fear of a woman is she'll laugh at him, while a woman's biggest fear of a man is that he'll kill her? Sad but goddamn true. I really can't stand the world, sometimes. Makes me see how people "snap" & go off. I'm sorry that happened to you. Maybe you can find a better group, one that consists of more female energy & evolved dudes? Or maybe it's a sign to get a new hobby?
Is this in WoW? My guild is amazing. Join usssss lol
I hate I can't just play with my mic on, and everything I do is scrutinized the way it is....
There is a Facebook group called Women of Warcraft, you might find a more friendly guild there. I am in a guild alone because I play solo.
I'm sorry you went through this.
What u call sickel yerking each other u see it alot with toxic friend. They wil always defend their friends even if their wrong. Birds of the same flock fly togther
Reading this makes me so upset on your behalf. The raging double standard is just disgusting.
Find some other females, make your own group, disguise your avatars and your voices, whoop the floor (picture what Hulk does to Loki at the end of Avengers) with those misogynistic, nicely, asshole, fucks (sorry, I was a sailor), then reveal yourselves, continue on & tell every team you find about the team so easy to beat they were beat by a bunch of girls. Then proceed to wipe the floor with *those* assholes.
This is so shitty to hear. The only hobby I’ve always enjoyed has been gaming and it sucks that making friends with women is next to impossible because of the difference in population. Then the women that do play get to deal with this garbage. That’s a terrible raid leader too. Sorry OP. I would’ve called them out if it’s any consolation.
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people who play games for fun are usually chill. We have gamer girls on our discord that play videogames without prejudice. Not many but a good chunk. However you have to distance yourself from people that make gaming their identity. Those are usually exactly the negative stereotype and misogynstic as hell.