Note Worthy Blog Posts- The Girls Etiquette For Gaming: Ogling Edition

This post will hopefully start a regular feature on my blog, wherein I feature an excerpt from another author's blog. Doing this serves multiple purposes: the first being introspection, the second continuing a good dialogue, and lastly creating awareness with new readers.

Today's note worthy blog post comes from a miniature wargaming website called Bell of Lost Souls. The author goes by the name "The girl," The post is titled, "The Girls Etiquette For Gaming: Ogling Edition."

Here's an excerpt:


"I've been quiet about this since Adepticon... I just can't do it anymore. Fellas, some of you need to learn how to look at a woman when she's walking through a tournament hall or an FLGS.

First, some baselines:

• I am not saying that everyone exhibits this behavior. I have, by far, been treated like a human being by the men I interact with in the gaming community - and I greatly appreciate and respect those men. I'm talking to the ones that don't follow that pattern. I'm talking to the ones that prefer to stare at female gamers like they're a piece of meat." 




I appreciate this article because it is a good reminder of the need to be cognizant of established behaviors.      

In addition to reading the post I also took the opportunity to review some of the comments left by fellow readers. I did not care for all of the responses, but there were some keys ones that I think really expanded the conversation. If you are planning on reading the comments I would recommend starting with Wulfy's first post and ending with PillowSoft's last one. Many of the other comments were off topic to put it mildly.

One thing I would have like to include with the dialogue is the importance of having an increased  awareness of gender distinctions. It is important because we do live in a planet of an incredible amount shared media and commercialization. (at least with the culture I live in)  My view here is that commercialization generally reaffirms stereotypes more than anything else. Very much like Pavlov's Dog we are being attuned to certain types of ideas without understanding why.