Call of Duty Community Not Misogynistic, Says Sledgehammer Co-Founder

[CaitSeith]

The people who use those insults are the loud, dickish minority. The rest of us sit quietly, mikes unplugged, and mute the fuckers. That's what it's for, by the way, the mute function - it's so you don't have to hear the sub-humans.

I think that could be kind of a problem. Outside people and newcomers could evaluate the community only by the dickish minority, because the silent majority makes itself invisible.

 

[Gorrath]

The whole discussion of the community being toxic started because this sort of thing was common - like, every-single-online-match common - and nobody was speaking out against it. "Oh it's just trolls" and "just ignore the trash-talk" were the vast majority of the responses to complaints from outsiders. That there? That's deflection. That's avoiding and denying the issue. So the complaints get louder.

Well see there's where we have our inability to agree I think. You say there was an "every single match" sort of dickery going on. As someone who's been online gaming since online gaming was even possible, I can't say that I agree. We can only talk anecdotes here of course, but my experiences with people acting like assholes have not been anything close to "every single online match." I played Halo multiplayer extensively and these sorts of things were relatively rare and even then Halo multiplayer was derided as a cesspool of that shit before CoD took over that mantle. You claim that no one was speaking out against it, but that's just not true. Back in the days where VoIP wasn't even a thing yet we monitored text-only game lobbies for abuse and would kick people for being jackasses. Claiming that nobody was talking about the jackassery of some online players is just not true, it has been part and parcel of online gaming since online gaming has been online gaming.

Someone else might have a different experience where it seems like every match they get into has some asshole screaming racial slurs. From that person's point of view, there is constant, unrelenting toxicity. And of course most people simply said "OH, it's just trolls" and "Just ignore the trash talk." They said that because, in the early days of online multiplayer, there were few if any methods for reporting people that were effective. Trying to shout down people who want to get into a shouting match is totally ineffective, so the best way to deal with jackasses who liked to scream the n-word into the mike over and over was to simply mute them. Now a-days the best way to deal with them is to report them using the, to some degree, much better reporting systems. The assertion that telling people to ignore the trolls was a deflection does not hold water if people didn't have any other tools to deal with the trolls. Even today you can't do much about it beyond mute/report/ignore so the advice "Don't feed the trolls" is still justified.

Until they invent the internet punch, people will use anonymity to be assholes. The best way to take care of them is to report them and ignore them because shouting at them is about the least effective method of dealing with people who want to shout. Claiming that that advice is deflection or denial just makes no sense. Denying there is a problem would be telling people that there are NO trolls/assholes/jackasses. Deflecting would be claiming that the abuse is somehow warranted.

Going back to the Christianity issue, "the community" gets painted with a broad brush because the crazy fringe aren't coming up with anything new... they're just shouting a lot of the same things louder and more rudely. Sure, the average Christian wouldn't shout and picket with signs saying "God Hates Fags", but they'll sure as heck vote for a restrictive constitutional marriage amendment, so where's the line drawn? Likewise, only a few gamers will yell gendered slurs and profanity, but how many will fight against having female characters in games? It starts looking the same when you're the one under attack.

If it starts looking the same, then the person under attack needs to look into what false equivocation is. The victim of abuse is still under the obligation to form logical arguments. Yelling "God Hates Fags" at funerals is not the same as believing that traditional marriage should stay the way it is. Even if I think the former and the latter are bigots, they are NOT the same and it is my responsibility to make that distinction. I don't approve of either of course, but it would be unfair of me to lump them together as if they are the same.

As for the gamers part, it is exactly the same. Screaming racial slurs into a mic and calling women foul gendered names is NOT the same as making an argument that there are either enough female protagonists in games or that the lack of them does not equate to an ethical issue but a creative one. Again, lumping people and their arguments/actions together like that is an absolute, unjustified fallacy whether one thinks they are a victim or not. I don't think the lack of female protagonists in games is a ethical problem. But I do want more female protagonists in games. Neither of those two positions have anything to do with some 14 year old yelling the word "slut" into his mic during a CoD match. Any comparison between the two is completely unfair to me and to proper discussion.

 

[Riotguards]

labelling a community that number in the millions is like saying one race/belief/disability/etc as sexist/racist/evil/terrorist/etc

the people who claim things like "gamers are misogynist", etc are only looking for flame bait so that they can come out of it as some hero who "slayed" the beast and won the argument

just like how i view adds on TV (i don't even notice them any more) this talk about sexism is going to become a point of were its no longer considered an reasonable argument thus real cases of sexism in gaming are going to be ignored

so well done feminist and SJW (plus the victim complex people) your making me and many others ignore real issues and soon enough just like adverts we'll just ignore you and real equality will never come about

 

[Spade Lead]

Nope pretty sure all gamers hate women and that we are all really just angry white neckbeards living in our moms basement.

Yeah, I agree. Thank your mother for last night for me, will you? I hate all women so much that this is the best insult I can come up with to insult them all at once...

 

[JarinArenos]

*snip*personal experience and ignoring trolls*snip*

Alright. My experience tended to be very different playing CoD/Battlefield on any server that wasn't privately moderated, though. It's most of why I haven't played CoD since MW1. I do disagree that ignoring problems is the way to deal with them, even on the internet. Societal shame is a powerful tool against all but the most... call them "problematic" players. Why is it okay to shout "slut" and "c**t" and the like, when you'd almost never hear someone use racist slurs in the same context? We've made it completely socially unacceptable to do so. The internet, for all its functional anonymity, isn't some other dimension. Those are still actual people at those keyboards.

If it starts looking the same, then the person under attack needs to look into what false equivocation is. The victim of abuse is still under the obligation to form logical arguments. Yelling "God Hates Fags" at funerals is not the same as believing that traditional marriage should stay the way it is. Even if I think the former and the latter are bigots, they are NOT the same and it is my responsibility to make that distinction. I don't approve of either of course, but it would be unfair of me to lump them together as if they are the same.

And I'm arguing that they're differences of scale, not type. Are WBC worse? Absolutely. No sane person would argue otherwise. I'm saying that the lesser offenses reinforce and embolden those making the greater. Are perfectly decent people doing this? Sure. But "perfectly decent people" can still thoughtlessly cause harm... and there's far more of them to do so.

As for the gamers part, it is exactly the same. Screaming racial slurs into a mic and calling women foul gendered names is NOT the same as making an argument that there are either enough female protagonists in games or that the lack of them does not equate to an ethical issue but a creative one. Again, lumping people and their arguments/actions together like that is an absolute, unjustified fallacy whether one thinks they are a victim or not. I don't think the lack of female protagonists in games is a ethical problem. But I do want more female protagonists in games. Neither of those two positions have anything to do with some 14 year old yelling the word "slut" into his mic during a CoD match. Any comparison between the two is completely unfair to me and to proper discussion.

Again, I agree that they're different. But it's again the whole picture that matters. Game development doesn't exist in a vaccum (... arguments about Nintendo aside), the culture of both gamers and development studios colors absolutely everything. The issue isn't the mere existence of sexualized women in games, or the existence (or even majority) of male protagonists... it's the overwhelming prevalence of it, and the reasons behind it.

But I'm drifting into #GG territory and I'd like to pull back to the topic at hand. You said that one of the most public oppositions to WBC was some christian bikers drowning them out. Nobody got on the bikers' case about opposing a fringe, I assume? Nobody came after them saying "not all Christians"? I bloody know "not all gamers". I've been gaming since I got my first computer 25 years ago. Nearly every friend I have is a gamer. My first deathmatch was a hacked version of "snake" that allowed 4 players. We played DOOM in the school computer lab nearly every day in high school. I played Tribes competitively in college. I owned the skies in Battlefield: Desert Combat. I played Planetside and still play Planetside 2 - I'm not trying to brag here, there's nothing unique or impressive about any of that, I'm trying to illustrate that I've been part of the FPS and gamer community my whole life, I'm not some outsider saying that it's all terrible. But I want to make a difference in my community. I want to change the tone. If you don't want to? That's fine. You're not the one causing trouble, right? I'm just getting tired of decent people making life harder for people trying to make things better. Does that make sense? Or am I just rambling now?

 

[Gorrath]

Alright. My experience tended to be very different playing CoD/Battlefield on any server that wasn't privately moderated, though. It's most of why I haven't played CoD since MW1. I do disagree that ignoring problems is the way to deal with them, even on the internet. Societal shame is a powerful tool against all but the most... call them "problematic" players. Why is it okay to shout "slut" and "c**t" and the like, when you'd almost never hear someone use racist slurs in the same context? We've made it completely socially unacceptable to do so. The internet, for all its functional anonymity, isn't some other dimension. Those are still actual people at those keyboards.

This might be another case of differences in experience, but I do and did see racial slurs used in exactly the same context. Having that same loud-mouthed teen shouting the N word into the mic didn't happen significantly less than someone calling someone a slut or any other needlessly foul/disgusting name. The whole reason people engage in the kind of behavior online when they wouldn't do it in real life is because there is a much smaller fear of real repercussion. Anonymous people making asses of themselves is done specifically because the internet is vastly different than real life social interaction. It does not excuse the behavior but it does make dealing with the perpetrator much more difficult.

This lack of consequence is well known to the offender, which is exactly why they engage in the behavior in the first place. Societal shame works because a person becomes equated with their actions. When no one knows who you are, that shame has a hell of a lot less, if any, impact. Ignoring the person is only part of what you do in the current state of affairs. You also report them. But getting into some shouting match with them over their bad behavior does not help anyone in the situation. But regardless of which method you think is more effective, claiming that people who say "Don't feed the trolls" either don't care or are trying to deflect instead of dealing with the situation is frankly, a false assumption. Basically you'd be arguing that because they think reporting and ignoring an abusive user is a better alternative to "shaming" that user, they are somehow being disingenuous when they claim to be against the behavior, that they are trying to deny/deflect. That would be unfair of you to make that assertion.

And I'm arguing that they're differences of scale, not type. Are WBC worse? Absolutely. No sane person would argue otherwise. I'm saying that the lesser offenses reinforce and embolden those making the greater. Are perfectly decent people doing this? Sure. But "perfectly decent people" can still thoughtlessly cause harm... and there's far more of them to do so.

It's not a difference of scale, it is a totally different argument. "God hates Fags" and "I think the biblical interpretation of marriage is the one our society should reflect" are not at all, in any way, equivalent statements separated only by degrees. Claiming they are the same argument is totally illogical. I don't agree with either statement, but I would be a damned fool to pretend they are the same argument. This isn't a separation of degrees at all, it is a completely different argument that deals with a completely different issue. I honestly can't see how you think the two are in any way merely the same argument separated by degrees.

Again, I agree that they're different. But it's again the whole picture that matters. Game development doesn't exist in a vaccum (... arguments about Nintendo aside), the culture of both gamers and development studios colors absolutely everything. The issue isn't the mere existence of sexualized women in games, or the existence (or even majority) of male protagonists... it's the overwhelming prevalence of it, and the reasons behind it.

Taking "The whole picture" into consideration does not grant one a license to commit logical fallacies. We could get into the prevalence of certain depictions of male and female characters and talk about why those decisions are made. Nothing in that hypothetical discussion allows one to say that someone arguing that female depictions in games don't equal an ethical problem are in any way related to someone yelling sexist slurs into their mic in a CoD lobby. What's more, trying to lump the two together IS actually a deflection of the arguments. Afterall, you don't need to address the arguments in said hypothetical discussion if you can simply get people to buy into the idea that the slur spouting jackass and the guy with the point to make are somehow only separated by degrees. They aren't separated by degrees, and trying to force them under the same umbrella by appealing to "the big picture" is a total fallacy.

But I'm drifting into #GG territory and I'd like to pull back to the topic at hand. You said that one of the most public oppositions to WBC was some christian bikers drowning them out. Nobody got on the bikers' case about opposing a fringe, I assume? Nobody came after them saying "not all Christians"? I bloody know "not all gamers". I've been gaming since I got my first computer 25 years ago. Nearly every friend I have is a gamer. My first deathmatch was a hacked version of "snake" that allowed 4 players. We played DOOM in the school computer lab nearly every day in high school. I played Tribes competitively in college. I owned the skies in Battlefield: Desert Combat. I played Planetside and still play Planetside 2 - I'm not trying to brag here, there's nothing unique or impressive about any of that, I'm trying to illustrate that I've been part of the FPS and gamer community my whole life, I'm not some outsider saying that it's all terrible. But I want to make a difference in my community. I want to change the tone. If you don't want to? That's fine. You're not the one causing trouble, right? I'm just getting tired of decent people making life harder for people trying to make things better. Does that make sense? Or am I just rambling now?

You make internal sense here yes, and believe it or not I am totally, 100% on your side when it comes to wanting to see change. However, I disagree with a lot of what people on "both sides" (this is in quotes because I know damned well there isn't just two) have to say on the matter. I very much want change in both the community, in games in general, in the way AAA publishers work, in the limited types of games we get, the stories that get told and the way characters are portrayed. I am totally on the progress train here. But, just as I, the atheist, must caution my fellow atheists against using bad arguments when arguing against religious folks, I too must caution my fellow progressive when they do the same. The use of fallacious reasoning does not help the cause, it hinders it.

You talk about your experiences here, which is good, because in a lot of these discussions we only have anecdotes to show why we feel the way we do. My experience is no greater than your own. It's not about being special here, it's about letting one another know where we're coming from; it's useful and I thank you for sharing. And as for the bikers and WBC and such, there were tons of Christians saying "Not all Christians" and no one in the media or in Christianity were giving those people shit for making it clear that they didn't share WBC's beliefs.

For those Christians, the "Not us" wasn't a deflection, it was simply a clarification that their own beliefs were not that of WBC and that they condemned what WBC was doing. Not a soul that I ever saw came down on Christians for doing that because it was a damned fair point for them to make, and it is a damned fair point for gamers to make too, especially when you've got people who like to lump them and their arguments together and pretend like it's all the same. As I argued above, this isn't merely "Not all gamers" this is "Not even most gamers." Everyone reasonable knows the first is true but a fair few too many think the second isn't.

I appreciate your time and this discussion by the way. We may never se eye-to-eye on this, but I do get you and I do get where you're coming from. Your intent is obviously a good one and that alone is worth praise even if we're unable to convince one another of the finer points.

 

[JarinArenos]

*snip*

Hell, if nothing else, it's been refreshing to have a reasonable discussion on the topic for once. Thank you kindly.

 

[Creator002]

Yep. Because I didn't get called a "no life ****** that jerks off over every kill"[footnote]Full quote: "Oh, my God. Shut the fuck up you no life ******. What do you do? Jerk off after every kill or something?[/footnote] last night because I got excited over my highest score so far in Advanced Warfare. (22 kills, 4 deaths).
I mean, what a stranger on another continent says doesn't affect me, but all I said was (to my friend in the same room) "holy shit! That's my fuckin' best yet."

EDIT - Woops. The misogyny-centric theme completely went over my head. I thought it was just general vitriol.

 

[wulf3n]

Yes, I know they're not outnumbered.

I know what you mean about being able to choose servers that are good for you, like when I used to play things like TTT on Garry'sMod, I had a few servers marked as `safe` for voice chat, with good admins. I certainly wouldn't go randomly into any server.

Still, these are the systems they're making us use now, so I feel like they are responsible for dealing with the shit that comes with it. I don't think anybody gains anything by sticking our collective heads in the sand about it.

Sure.

I agree that there's a lot that can still be done to create safer gaming spaces for all, it's just disappointing that not only are the devs not providing new measures to deal with the issue, they've taken the tools we used to have.

 

[BarkBarker]

I do think some people will latch onto the idea that they are female gamers wholeheartedly but I also believe that when you wanna make someone feel bad and insult them, you go off of observations and hit them where it hurts. No I don't think being a virgin is a big deal, but I know it matters to you. You wanna inflict hurt cos you are angry or stressed or an ass you go for the super effective attacks.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

You want into gaming? You want into competitive gaming? Get used to the trashtalk or get out. Simple as that.

In most competitive spaces there are rules and codes of conduct, which is why in my opinion dedicated servers are a better choice than matchmaking because if you want a space where you run around with a tome of the profane on your lap to help articulate your anger then power to you: players who don't want the words '****', '******', '******' etc streamed directly into their ears while trying to use voicechat for it's intended function can go to spaces that are more tightly moderated.

 

[Dragonbums]

Christ this whole thread is an embarrassment. It's fucking surreal how the same in the same environment we parody CoD as toxic shit lords we also all collectively defend said CoD community if it means going against the "SJW's.


This is the same community where a dev almost immediately got threatened and doxxed over changing the firing rate of a virtual gun.

 

[PDugna]

Christ this whole thread is an embarrassment. It's fucking surreal how the same in the same environment we parody CoD as toxic shit lords we also all collectively defend said CoD community if it means going against the "SJW's.


This is the same community where a dev almost immediately got threatened and doxxed over changing the firing rate of a virtual gun.

No in both cases it's pointing out a minority acting like assholes and using them to show that humanity has assholes and you will never remove them. Most people here are not protecting the minority they're protecting the majority.

 

[ryukage_sama]

To say that a room isn't full of assholes is different from claiming that there are zero assholes in the room. I understand that the majority of gamers don't shout slurs and threaten (sexual) violence towards other players. The problem is the the many that make up the minority do so and get away with it. In normal public events, someone who goes from person to person yelling, cursing and threatening each person in the room, that person would get kicked out. Allowing and enabling that asshole to treat other people that way makes such events toxic, regardless whether the rest of the attendees are friendly. If I had no way to avoid being cursed at every day on the metro, I wouldn't be taking it to work every day.

I can't speak to the proportion of matches that have such offenders. Unfortunately, it takes more than simply having a non-asshole majority to make a community a positive place to live. It's a matter of how much of the community feels that they have been a victim of such harassment.

 

[Dragonbums]

Christ this whole thread is an embarrassment. It's fucking surreal how the same in the same environment we parody CoD as toxic shit lords we also all collectively defend said CoD community if it means going against the "SJW's.


This is the same community where a dev almost immediately got threatened and doxxed over changing the firing rate of a virtual gun.

No in both cases it's pointing out a minority acting like assholes and using them to show that humanity has assholes and you will never remove them. Most people here are not protecting the minority they're protecting the majority.

The problem is that it doesn't matter what percentage of the CoD community are assholes. If most of the normal people are on mute and the only ones on chat are predominately fuckbags that would call a black person (or supposed black person) a ****** at first chance, don't be surprised when black people talk about how the only people they tend to deal with online are racists. Because as far as they are concerned a good 30% of their online chat involves those people.

Nobody things about the silent majority or the fact that they are on mute. Because as far they are concerned, it's the jerks that are online in chat.

So you guys can defend the majority till the cows come home, But the reality is that if the only people on chat are mainly assholes, don't get mad when people say that this community is full of assholes.

 

[Grant Stackhouse]

I'm not one for heavy competition, so I've only occasionally played CoD online. Still, I've noticed that while there will be some name-calling, it doesn't typically interfere with the game. I think games are a relatively harmless venue to use hateful language, since a virtual warzone is an area where gender, race and sexual orientation are completely irrelevant. Thus, by overuse of such language where it doesn't matter, we rob the language of some of its significance.

Allow me to go further into detail:
Think of the word "Bastard". Long ago, it held heavy weight in society. It meant that you were born out of wedlock, and if you were a bastard, you were generally condemned to a crappy life. There were laws in place that kept bastards from working certain jobs or holding positions of power. Further, you would have great trouble marrying anyone with dignity, since their families would not approve of their daughter marrying you. To be called a bastard also implied that your mother was a woman of loose morals, essentially a slut or a prostitute, which by family association, relegated you to the lowest rungs of society.
Over time, society began to change. More people were born out of wedlock, and laws were gradually enacted to give bastard citizens equal rights to legitimate citizens. All the while, the word "bastard" began to be thrown around more casually - First as an insult to provoke fights, then later as a friendly barb to throw at friends and genial competition. In its current state "bastard" is hardly even considered a curse word any more, though it is still thrown around quite often.

Now, a lot of what I just explained is practically ancient history, so clearly I did not live through it. Thus, I have made a few suppositions. Primarily, I believe that the increased use of the word "bastard", in a world that no longer considered it important to one's status, actually contributed to people caring less about whether or not someone was actually a bastard.

If I were to project this same supposition onto our current topic of the use of misogynistic, racist, or otherwise bigoted language in online gaming, then I believe that it may eventually be helpful to us as a society. Despite what may seem like an increase in hateful speech, much of that speech is made without context or knowledge of whether or not it is even relevant to the person being spoken to. In other words, the insults may be hateful, but the intent behind them is often indifferent.

For example, I have a fairly excitable friend who is prone to saying the "N" word at people who kill him in online matches - quite angrily. Obviously, he can't be 100 percent certain of their race, and I don't think it matters to him anyhow, since he is quite social with many different races in real life. Further, despite using that word to express his anger at being beaten, he has never once shown true racist hatred in real life. By that, I mean that he has never ranted to me that "these online games are being ruined by too many black people" or anything like that. Thus, I concluded that his choice to use racial slurs in online matches is completely context free. The insult, originally used to demean black people by white people who genuinely hated them and wished them harm, is being thrown around by my friend as just another toothless insult, much like "bastard" is thrown around in modern society.

In summary, I believe that the careless and thoughtless use of hateful language, in a context where it doesn't really hold any bearing, can actually reduce the impact of that language by robbing it of the meaning that made it hurtful in the first place. While I'm not saying that we should encourage such language, I think it's worth considering that even this dark cloud may have a silver lining.

 

[Loonyyy]

There's a serious problem with the community, and it comes down to the community rarely being given the tools to deal with them.

It's obtuse enough reporting the morons who use dicks and swastikas for emblems(Competitor Battlefield does it even worse). But the series has stripped out features like dedicated servers over time (With some half-assessed compromises with regards to private servers and dedicated servers) and worse, Ranked dedicated servers, which don't allow the community to police itself. I used to play with a clan, I met the guys playing on their server, and they recruited me. Their server was lots of fun, and since it had moderation, hackers, and morons who came there to troll, got banned. Additionally, playing pubs with a clan, or playing pugs within a roster, where most of the members have voice chat, and actual rules are enforced, is always more fun that just playing with randoms. When you're on a teamspeak you've collectively set up and funded, on a server that you work on together, there's a greater sense of community, and there's less of the shitlordery. Additionally, the old CoD 4 servers weren't as bad as a random Modern Warfare 2 match, because the host's had rules, and they could ban people. It's the same with Counter Strike Source, or the old Day of Defeat community. These things aren't perfect, by any stretch (WAD was infamous in the Australian DoD scene for being terrible. Their main admin, an odious man named "Oldfart" would spend matches spitting and screaming obscenities into his microphone until someone said "****". Then it was a ban for the "c-bomb"), but they're a damn sight better than nothing, and at least give players some options for avoiding this shit, or dealing with it.

A big chunk of players don't talk at all, or only use text, or don't engage in middle school smack talk. They really shouldn't worry, no-one is complaining about them. What people are complaining about is the assholes who ruin it for everyone, and that goes especially for the people who aren't talking (Which is me in 99% of pubs). They spend their games ranting and raving, whether it's full on tirades at people over the game, or over trivial shit, or starting drama and fights, or just the standard slurs about homosexuals, minorities, women, and your mother (But she's horrible). Even if someone was mistaken and thought you were being a sexist asshole, and they wanted to take your comms away, you're not using them anyway. That's what makes it silent. If people are at least given the tools to deal with this shit, then they can have a fighting chance at dealing with it, but that doesn't happen because people don't think there's a problem. When the only option for dealing with these jerks is to troll them back, that's seriously weak effort on the part of the designer. The only option for most of the silent types who have a problem with this (Which I'd estimate is more than most, and apparently, so would the Escapist, suprisingly), is to make themselves a target as well, and that's rare. People don't go on there to listen to abuse, but they also don't go on there to have the abuse targetted at them specifically, so they don't usually bother.

Some of the improvements MOBAs have made in dealing with their (Often vile, like many competitive FPSes) communities are interesting. Tracking the behaviour of individuals, providing incentives for playing well, and suggestions like blocking microphone by default for players who are regularly muted, or their text, are interesting suggestions. But it won't change until someone important thinks there's a problem worth fixing.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

I really don't get where the reputation for most online games having bad communities comes from

On smaller, team-based games like MOBAs you'll definitely catch some flak from overcompetitive players taking their frustrations out on people they perceive to be losing them the match, but on completely random arena shooters like CoD? Nobody cares because the outcome of the match really isn't that important, it's over in ~10 minutes and your performance isn't going to be hindered by your team.

My personal experience with Cod4 MW, World at War, Cod MW2, and Black Ops 1 is...silence. Most people I encountered didn't even have their mics plugged in as far as I could tell, much less insulting other people.

I have spent probably several hundred hours on COD, Battlefield, Red Orchestra, Team Fortress multiplayer, and have only ever heard 1 instance of mic crap talk in game. I heard a few instances of people hollering in the lobby, but that generally consisted of someone playing music into the mic and everyone else shouting abuse at the music.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

*shrugs* if you're a woman, assholes are going to latch onto that instead of using the "standard" insults they save for the rest of the dudebros, regardless of whether they're genuinely misogynistic or just because it's a better way to provoke a reaction.

Maybe the COD community really does hate women, I don't know, I don't play COD. But from my experience with both real and online life, bullies and jerks will just use labels and slurs that apply to their victim whether or not they actually have an issue with that group, simply because it's more effective than using generic insults.

As has been said by someone else, though, I don't think it really matters whether people actually have a problem with women playing games, or whether they just know specifically saying "go back to the kitchen" is more likely to be hurtful. Either way, it's unacceptable behavior, regardless of whether you actually believe the nonsense you're spouting.