I've been ostracized and shunned many times for my supposedly misogynistic views on certain things by complete strangers, meanwhile those who know me know I'm anything but, as I tend to be much harsher in judgment on my own sex overall... but surface viewers may take the concepts and opinions I express here to mean that I supposedly believe that women should be kept in kitchens or in chains only serving to do her master's bidding... to those people I say simply:
Shut up and go away. You are not intelligent enough to be entitled to an opinion, let alone one you feel the need to express. (Now get back into the kitchen and make me a god d*mned sandwhich!)
(Take a joke people... seriously.)
Now, moving on...
I believe that there has been a sweeping trend in women to seek to attain emotional equality with men as of the last decade or so; with that movement growing exponentially in the most recent years. Now stop yourselves for a second and take a moment to reflect on the meaning of equality. I am not in any way shape or form saying that men are 'superior' to women; equality can be defined that way in many cases, but in this case I turn to a dictionary definition of equality that states that the term equal means: "Uniform in operation or effect." See, when I hear equality that is the idea that my mind points to; uniform in function, in process. My piano and my guitar both create music, but that does not make them equal. One is not superior to the other (shut up pianists) but they can create equivalent product with completely different form and operation. In that way I consider them... "balanced."
It's in this caveat that we sometimes fall, the confusing equality with balance. I find that men and women have gone away from striving to achieve "balance" in the effort to attain "equality." I am sure that I will get destroyed for saying this, but when it comes to function, to operation; Men and Women are not equal, nor should they be. However, in recent years, the feminist struggle for equality in rights and opportunity has violently spilled over into a subsequent push for equality in emotional operation.
I always laugh every time I see a bumper sticker that reads "Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History," because you could easily replace "Women" with "people" and it would mean the same thing. The beautiful irony in this is that in order to make their point, they are inadvertently showing that they do not want to be equal at all, and that they have to be un-ordinarily crass or objectionable in order to have any sort of impact on society. This again has translated into the way some modern women view and enact their behaviors. The traditional idea of the "alpha male" has been around for a very long time, so in order to attain equality women are trying to overtake men in that dominant, alpha-type role. Anyone with a quarter of a brain should be able to see the irony of that previous sentence.
I think we as a global society need to learn to accept that equality in the sense of equal emotional operation and dominance can never be achieved, and strive for a sense of balance instead. The gender of the role does not matter so much as the existence of the role itself. If you look to generations past, the idea of supporter/provider (regardless of gender) has been a successful one, and the happiest and most successful of couples are those who have found roles with one another that are in no way equal, but complimentary... balanced. Acceptance and the embracing of differences that help fuel good day-to-day social and emotional interaction are what glues people together, not the consistent struggle to prove one's equality/superiority to the other; that can only breed unproductive conflict.
I'm not saying in the least that all women should be "Miss Susie Homemaker Mommy" and all men should "Bring Home the Bacon", but if that's the way it works for people, that does not mean it is evil, like some would have you believe. The important thing is that we know what role we can fit into as a person, not as a gender; and then to find someone that can balance us out. We are not equal, but if we cannot learn to accept that, we will forever push ourselves into a world where no two people can ever learn to truly coexist for the rest of their lives.
And there, I just made a social statement on girls in gaming without even talking about gaming. Point: Ryan.
I can tell you I get ridiculed for having a pink PSP far more than you ever would.
Seriously though... girls in gaming are not striving for balance, they are trying to prove superiority. Why go for the "most girls at a LAN party" record and try for the "Most people in attendance at a LAN party" record. As a man, and a mediocre gamer, would I even be allowed to join an "all female clan"? It's ironic to me that women don't want to hear the "I don't care if you're a girl stop highlighting your gender" argument when they complain about how their gender is highlighted in the gaming world. I think a lot of us are TRYING to ignore it and we're not being allowed to. Girls aren't 'ridiculed' for being girls in games no more than anyone is being ridiculed on any point that makes them unique. Have you played on Xbox live? Any single definable point that makes someone slightly different than Joe Average is mocked to the fullest possible extent, and sometimes it's even the fact that a person is 'average' and has nothing to be made fun of. This chip seriously needs to come off your shoulder very quickly; women have lost most of their credibility in the argument overall and now are just highlighting that fact. In fact, I'd say even by bringing it up in any way, you're setting yourselves back a few notches each time; but maybe that's what you want? Maybe in realizing that people don't care as much that you're female gamers, your badge you wore so defiantly has lost some of its luster?
If you want to stand out as females that's fine, but don't stand out by telling people how much you don't want to stand out...
Seriously... our little man-brains can't take that kind of double-reverse psychology.
