On Dongles

[theultimateend]

So is this about that woman who got those guys fired over a dongle joke?

Its a reference to that but also to the various after parties at recent conferences (including by Mojang) where there were rather underdressed dancers, who quite obviously weren't conference attendees. Mojang's excuse was that they were hired by the venue, not them.

People need excuses for strippers now?

 

[Yuuki]

To every privileged straight male defending the strippers:

....imagine you're a videogame developer at a videogame convention. Suddenly, a bunch of male strippers wearing only a tanga hop on the table and put their asses in front of your face, just like the girl is doing in this comic.

Now you can understand why there was a righteous outrage at this.

Imagine how silly you will feel once you find out what actually happened at the afterparty, what the "strippers" actually were, and how this comic is massively exaggerating/fabricating the scenario for giggles.

Just imagine.

 

[kailus13]

To every privileged straight male defending the strippers:

....imagine you're a videogame developer at a videogame convention. Suddenly, a bunch of male strippers wearing only a tanga hop on the table and put their asses in front of your face, just like the girl is doing in this comic.

Now you can understand why there was a righteous outrage at this.

What strippers? I see no strippers involved. I see dancers are mentioned, but unless they are taking there clothes off for money, then no strippers were involved. An if this is the case, this would appear to be another case of knee jerk, hyperbolic gender-begging... The classic "oh who will think of the women" situation.

If you have to make stuff up to be angry about, its a pretty good sign that you don't really have anything to be angry about.

I think a better analogy would be Chippendale dancers wearing nothing but a thong for no reason. Many people would be put off by that. No strippers involved in any case.

 

[Olas]

To every privileged straight male defending the strippers:

....imagine you're a videogame developer at a videogame convention. Suddenly, a bunch of male strippers wearing only a tanga hop on the table and put their asses in front of your face, just like the girl is doing in this comic.

Now you can understand why there was a righteous outrage at this.

What strippers? I see no strippers involved. I see dancers are mentioned, but unless they are taking there clothes off for money, then no strippers were involved. An if this is the case, this would appear to be another case of knee jerk, hyperbolic gender-begging... The classic "oh who will think of the women" situation.

If you have to make stuff up to be angry about, its a pretty good sign that you don't really have anything to be angry about.

So his point is invalid because he referred to them as strippers instead of dancers? As if that makes even the tiniest difference at all and isn't a way to completely sidestep his argument.

And how dare he actually try and consider a woman's point of view on something, AMIRITE?

 

[Requia]

So his point is invalid because he referred to them as strippers instead of dancers?

Yes, by definition. If i run around screaming "aliens are invading" & you point out that those are clouds & not aliens, is my point that aliens are invading now not valid on the basis of a lack of invading aliens? OF COURSE IT IS!

Because a nonsensical hyperbolic statement is wrong no matter who says it, be they male or female.

Its more that 'The aliens aren't invading in flying saucers, they're invading in tripods' isn't really relevant, the aliens are still invading. Whether or not the entertainers were strippers isn't terribly relevant, unless you also want to contend that there were no pole dancers or barely clothed women.

 

[scienceguy8]

Does that change the fact that there are different standards for male and female behavior, especially in the workplace?

Does that "fact" have any bearing on the Issue of hiring female strippers to a Video Game event?

What's the problem here? People are there to talk about games and enjoy themselves and considering around 90-95% of the crowd are men [http://www.flickr.com/photos/officialgdc/collections/72157633058882769/], it fits perfectly.

Because it's a video game developers conference, what does party music and strippers have to do with that?

If the audience wanted to go to a strip club/night club, fine, go to a club, but keep the video game developers conference as a conference of video game developers conferring about video game development.

edit: And now you've raised a chicken or the egg style dilemma. Is it ok to have strippers because there aren't many female developers, or are the few female developers because of this type of attitude.

I wasn't there so if they were genuinely STRIPPERS stripping their clothes off down to thongs/breasts then we have a problem because would be completely inappropriate.

However if they were nothing more than dancing girls in sexy clothing then that is more than fine, they're just there to dance and put on a show. The word "stripper" seems to be getting tossed around rather lazily in this thread, it makes me think people know what an actual stripper is and what an actual stripper does :S

edit: Yup, digging up more info on this incident, here we go: http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolpinchefsky/2013/03/27/really-igda-party-at-gdc-brings-on-the-female-dancers/
Strippers my ass, just TWO dancers. However it seems that enough people complained about that so the IGDA won't be doing it again. I can see that it was inappropriate, this wasn't just some typical gaming convention/party. Fair enough.

The fact that it made the female co-chair of IGDA's Women In Games Group step down [http://au.businessinsider.com/igdas-after-party-with-women-dancers-2013-3] is HILARIOUS though, so that's all it takes to make a feminist run away? Talk about over-emotional

Let's take a look at another industry with similar gender makeup. Most engineering disciplines are heavily male dominated, just like the video game industry. Last time I went to an Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) sectional, not once did I see any female performers, entertainers, strippers, or hired eye-candy. If you are having a professional get-together, why do you need female performers? It doesn't matter if all their clothes stay on. The simple fact you hired women for an event just because they are women is crass.

 

[MrFinnishDude]

This is comedy gold for me.
It just is.

 

[SidheKnight]

I'll post my opinion on the Donglegate and the Pole Dancer conference incidents:

Donglegate:

The woman is 100% at fault here (can't remember her name). A guy tells his friend a programming joke privately during a programming convention (The joke involves "dongles" and "forking", both programming terms in this case). A woman overhears them and feels "offended"[footnote]Seriously, people get offended for the most ridiculous sh!t these days[/footnote] by what is essentially a "dick joke". What does she do? Tell the speakers or the organizers of the conference about this, according to her, inapropiate behaviour? Hell no! She takes a picture of them a posts it on twitter humiliating them, causing one of them to get fired.[footnote]Fortunately the case got to 4chan and they did justice by posting screenshots and links of her own dick jokes from her twitter account, which got her fired. Too bad it didn't give back the other guy his job.[/footnote]

Pole Dancers:

It was inapropiate, for the following reasons:

1) It was a supposedly professional conference, and this kind of things makes them seem less serious.
2) There were both men and women present, therefore catering to only one gender's preferences[footnote]I'm not counting gays and lesbians to keep it simple, because my point stands anyway[/footnote] is discrimination.
3) So they had to either have both male and female dancers, or have none. Otherwise, it's sexism.

 

[Souplex]

Is it me or did the stripper kind of look like Erin's boss?

 

[SacremPyrobolum]

You know, as an American I might get called a prude for this, but there's a time and a place for stuff like this. This wasn't one of them.

Having dated a German, they really like to talk it up about how sexually expressive and free Europe and the like is. I'd say it is true, but not nearly to the extent they seem to have in their heads. I'd like someone to tell me how "Turn me on, Dammit! (origina: Få meg på, for faen)" is so much more free in its sex than something like American Pie. Arguably American Pie treats it's sexuality with "humor" (not that I found it that funny), but at least it was a better movie in my opinion.

In fact, visiting Germany I was expecting whores to be pouring out of brothels and naked men and women to be banging on giant posters in the streets, but none of this was the case. In fact, I'd say most people were dressed more conservatively than the average high school student at amall here. Which is good, as they seemed to actually have a sense of style

You have to visit Munich. Here we have old men riding naked on a three seater bicycle in the park.

OT: This is either about the inudstry meeting with the "strippers" or is about the chauvinism in the industry as a whole. I doubt it was abotu the "Dongle" incident but I can see why they chose it.

As for that little incident I think that women was way out of line with reporting it. She got a guy fired because he was telling a in no way misogynist but sexually charge joke to his friend and coworker beside him.

 

[Olas]

So his point is invalid because he referred to them as strippers instead of dancers?

Yes, by definition. If i run around screaming "aliens are invading" & you point out that those are clouds & not aliens, is my point that aliens are invading now not valid on the basis of a lack of invading aliens? OF COURSE IT IS!

You know full well that when he said strippers he meant exotic dancers, don't play dumb, the difference is a few pieces of string anyway. You're hiding behind a minor word technicality that has no bearing whatsoever on his actual argument, but if it's really so important to you.

To every straight male defending the strippers:

Imagine you're a developer at a videogame convention. Suddenly, a bunch of exotic male dancers wearing only a tanga hop on your table and put their asses in front of your face, just like the girl is doing in this comic.

Now you can understand why there was a righteous outrage at this.

Why should a company not hire dancers to dance at a party? Should musical directors no longer hire dancers? What about theatre troops, should they not have dancers either... After all dancer is apparently a synonym for stripper... Hence a ballerina is now the same thing as a stripper.

Well according to you the difference between dancers and strippers is as big as the difference between alien spacecrafts and clouds, so I'd call this argument dead on arrival. But just so you're aware: there's more than one type of dancer in the entire world.

 

[Woodsey]

I would be incensed by the presence of strippers of any gender "hired" to perform at a Video Game event.

... Are you suggesting these ladies were kidnapped and then told to dance on stage?

 

[Gasbandit]

And only two weeks out of being topical. Cheers.