farcicle - n, \'fär-si-kəl\
A delicious frozen farce.

i say we Farcicle him

So, I've tried to stay out of this thread as much as I can because I think a lot of you guys are just talking over each other.

I've been married for more than 8 years and dated her 3 years before that, so I've some experience. I agree with Jeff Kuta that many of you guys, late teens through mid twenties, use the word misogynist too quickly and too easily when you haven't had that much experience.

Women are neither too weak to defend themselves, nor should they be expected to develop thick skin, nor should we expect the site to have a "balance" of men and women and LGBQT distribution of the world's population. Many women I know, my wife, included just don't care about this game or Risk or most warfare games, so I don't expect there to be a huge population of women on the site. Nor am I saying that having many more women on the site will mean that we are "there." There are many reasons why women are not here, some in our control and some not.
However, for the women who are here, we should be respectful and considerate with our language use. That's why we should stay away from using derogatory words like cunt and pussy to call anyone out because they are clearly derogatory to women. If it is within our community control to be more welcoming and accepting to women, let's do that. The mods will do their part in preventing or stopping women from being harassed as much as they can (and they do this for others as well, not just any one group).
We should do this because it is the right thing to do, not because we think it will make the site bigger.

Zultar, appreciate the post.

But no one here is arguing that there should be a huge population of women on this site. No is arguing either that there should be a balance of men and women. Not in the least - People who are trying to posit that it is not unnatural for a greater number of men to be on the site are not getting the point - we don't necessarily disagree. We don't disagree that a significant number of women may not care for the game. That is their choice.

Leave aside the tangential discussions on nature vs nurture etc. My only point is that - the number of women on the site is *too* low to be natural. If it was 20%, fine. Understandable maybe - for some of the reasons discussed and more. 10% or below is probably not normal. And the actual number (whatever it is) - I assume sub 2% - is clearly indicative of something not working right. And our point furthermore is that the culture of the site and online gaming sites in general (refer link produced by Oscar himself) is partly to blame for that.
And jmo's testimony is clearly suggestive of this too.
Therefore, if as a community, we can work towards eliminating the biases and barriers that women face on the site - steps such as those which you suggested (and more - such as the ones I suggested) - it would be prudent.
And absolutely I advocate doing this because it is the right thing to do - refer my comments about justice being the inherent motivation - the site getting bigger and more competitive is just one of the very good secondary consequences.

As for 'immature' usage of the word misogyny - I can guarantee that quite a few people, including me, aren't college kids.
I can also guarantee that some of the people using the word misogyny are using it after having actually studied/researched feminism, gender studies, and misogyny (like I have) and are therefore using the term from a more informed position than the rest.

Misogyny and patriarchy are so pervasive in our society that it is difficult to recognise it for what it is. As men, our default position thanks to society is probably misogynistic in some sense. When I was younger (when I was a 'young teen in college'), I have no hesitation in admitting that my worldview (despite believing in gender equality) was probably misogynistic in some ways - and I was completely unaware of it - and thank god for people calling me out on it and increasing my awareness.
People don't like being called out on misogyny - but hey if you think women are 'inherently uncompetitive' and women are inherently so bad at technology that they can't use a website to play diplomacy and you refuse to acknowledge the pervasive problem of sexual harassment of women online and on this site despite a moderator slapping your face with direct evidence - then yes, you are misogynistic. Accept it. Recognise your male privilege. And change yourself.

1 more thing which I have said before but needs to be repeated - standing up for gender equality doesn't mean we think 'women are weak' like the idiot oscar implied - it means we think that the men who are the cause of their harassment and the perpetuation of it are assholes and we believe in justice enough to stand up to them despite not knowing the women at all - forget about trying to 'save her'

Yesterday I went to my local library, I saw an old friend of mine; a lady in her 70s who is very active in the community. She was in a large community room which adjoins the library and when she saw me she almost ran over and asked, no word of a lie 'Could I tempt you to join the fucking Knit and Natter club?' The Knit and Natter club is, as the name suggest, a club set up for people to go along and knit and natter (chat). I was stunned, I've known this woman 15 years and had never heard he swear. She picked up on my surprise. 'Sorry about the expletive, Richard, we're trying to recruit more male members and we've taken a group decision that in order to attract more members we should all swear more often, so that men can relax around us.' I was speechless but she continued. 'We're also going to talk less about our fucking grandchildren, and women's health issues and more about football, sex and getting pissed.' I looked around to see if this was on candid camera or something. 'Oh and don't worry she said, you can fart all you want and nobody will disapprove and we might even joke about it. I'm now convinced this is a wind up. I decide to play along so say I'd love to join where do I sign up. 'Follow me she said.' I went into the Knot and Natter room and was greeted by the whole room, who seemed delighted that I was there. 'We're knitting a blow up doll' one of them enthused. 'Look at the fucking tits on it' another said. The tits were indeed impressive.

'You haven't fucking noticed have you?' Another old friend asked. 'Notice what?', I asked. 'We're not wearing any fucking make-up!' It was true, not one of the members had any make-up on. 'We also trying to grow our cunting armpit fucking hair,' my friend continued, but it may take a bastard while. (I don't think swearing was coming naturally to some of them.)

Not sure if I'm going back next week, but so glad they're all making an effort.

... What...

Maniac - I have to +1 that.

I have tried on numerous times to get my wife involved in Diplomacy, but to no avail. She absolutely smashes me (and goes out of her way to make sure I come last) in Settlers of Catan so I know she has a vindictive streak in her, and she manages to manipulate the board perfectly in History of the World, so I just know that she would be awesome at Diplomacy if she put her mind to it. In fact just about any board game we have she is a decent player. Actually the only games that she absolutely refuses to play now are Go, Hex, RoboRally and Diplomacy.

@Shad@w:
"...but hey if you think women are 'inherently uncompetitive' and women are inherently so bad at technology that they can't use a website to play diplomacy and you refuse to acknowledge the pervasive problem of sexual harassment of women online and on this site despite a moderator slapping your face with direct evidence - then yes, you are misogynistic."

Where did oscar say any of these things?

"...standing up for gender equality doesn't mean we think 'women are weak' like the idiot oscar implied..."

Where did oscar imply this?

Sure, his 'overweight women' thread is walking a thin line, but it's not inherently sexist.

csb:
About 20 years ago, I was at my first Halloween party in the SF Bay Area and met a lot of my ex's friends. The usual gamut of people was there. My ex's best friend's husband told an off-color joke about life in jail and the punch line was "Don't drop the soap." Ha ha ha. My ex's other great friend piped up, "As a gay rights activist, I need to express that I am offended by that joke" The joke-teller responded, "The joke is *prison humor* not anti-gay humor." After a bit of nervous chit-chat, everyone went about their merry ways and had a great time. The guy telling the joke is *not* homophobic. /csb

csb2: Just some random dude at work once said to me, "I'm not going to get worked up to be offended too much by something that doesn't directly offend who *I* am, because really, who am I to judge?" For instance, I've heard orders of magnitude more jokes about Asian culture from Asian-Americans than I have from Caucasians. /csb2

So, yeah. Check your SJW privilege.

Jeff Kuta - Thanks for setting yourself up as the joke moderator and telling us what kind of jokes aren't anti-gay. 'Don't drop the soap' jokes can feed into the myth that gay men regularly rape straight men in prison. This can lead to people being frightened of gay men; which is the very definition of homophobia.

"The guy telling the joke is *not* homophobic."

why exactly? because he said so? how do you come to this conclusion after this meaningless anecdote?

How the hell could "don't drop the soap" be considered homophobic? It's a prison rape joke, not a gay joke.

@Maniac

Rape in prisons has likely way more to do with subjugation, humiliation and power than it has with gayness. As such it is not unreasonable to say that prison rape jokes are not anti-gay. In fact, one could argue that considering such jokes to be anti-gay implies that gay people are rapists. Such an implication is itself anti-gay.

I have known the guy for 20 years. He's not a homophobe, despite your desires to make him out to be one.

Gay men in prison are more likely *to be raped* than to be the rapist. Twinks just don't fare well behind bars.

A rabbi, a priest, and a woman walk into a bar...

OMG! Anti-semitic, anti-Catholic and misogynist in the same joke!!

"And the actual number (whatever it is) - I assume sub 2% - is clearly indicative of something not working right" ... Well, why? Why does it go from being acceptable at 20%, or 10%, to unacceptable somewhere in the neighborhood of 4%?

@jeff - I never said your friend was homophobic and neither did the gay activist as far as I am aware. I'm not judging your friend, but forgive me if I don't take your word for whether or not he is homophobic, you use the word Twinks which some gay people fine offensive, so perhaps you're not best placed to objectively categorize him either.

@Chaqa and Oscar - a joke can be about prison life and be homophobic at the same time. Oscar you are probably right that rape in general is more about subjugation, control and humiliation but it is also about the actual act of anal sex. i know that some men who engage in same-sex sex don't identify themselves as gay, but generally speaking (and for the purpose of 'don't drop the soap' jokes) men who insert their penises or other items into other men's bottoms are considered gay.

I'm not argueing that homophobic jokes or rascist jokes or rape jokes shouldn't be told. All I'm saying is that if people are offended by them (as someone was in this case) we don't dismiss their concerns on the basis that the guy telling the joke isn't a homophobe and therefore the activist shouldn't have been offended.

If Dan Savage says "twinks" in many of his advice columns, I figure it's safe to use. You know, the guy who tried to reclaim some words for homosexuals by starting off his columns with "HEY FAGGOT!" for many years...

@JeffKuta - Point 1 was implied by a combination of Oscar+Chaqa over many posts
And Point 2 was implied by Oscar on at least 2 different occasions.
I suggest you read through the thread and comments and brush up on the history of the conversation before asking these questions.

I did. I disagree. Feel free not to cite anything to back up your assertions.

If you have read through the messages and not found explicit invocations of the above, that means you are either lying or you did an inefficient job of going through it or you are obtuse.
Neither of the 3 scenarios gives me incentive to dig through tons of ridiculous posts by oscar-chaqa just to find you the quotes.

That's right Jeff. Take note of it. You are either a good person or a bad person. The former is only the case if you agree with everything that Sh@dow says.

For the record though, since I'm a bad person anyway, you were correct in noting that I have not said any of the things Sh@dow attributed to me.

@Sh@dow: The 4th option which you seem to be incapable of recognizing is that you were wrong. A 5th option is that you were trolled by oscar and that has you enraged and blinded you to reading words for what they say and not what you think they imply.

I am rarely wrong when it comes to my power of recall - in this case I have no doubts.
Ofcourse, Oscar is a troll who is trolling me. But I am not enraged nor blinded. Only disgusted with Oscar and happy to see the many people who actually think Oscar is disgusting too.
Im done here.
Also - the 4th option is that it is you are trolling me :) So thanks for reminding me of that. I am placing my bets on Option 4.
Good night.

How to prove yourself wrong: Attempt to condescend away an opponents argument

The opponents argument was nothing but condescension itself. I was condescending towards a condescending argument, yes. In any case, condescension has nothing to do with truth values of a statement however.
Btw I'd love to hear how I could 'condescend away' something - sounds fascinating.
We are differing over direct quotes now - so anyone can scroll up and look for themselves to come to simple conclusions on their own.
Good night :)

“But it is the same with man as with the tree. The more he seeks to rise into the height and light, the more vigorously do his roots struggle earthword, downword, into the dark, the deep - into evil.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

You can't condescend away something, Sh@dow. That's exactly the point. You keep trying to do that, instead of even going so far as to cite the quotes you're attributing to oscar.

Haha. Yes, thanks for choosing a nihilist :) Apt.

That's not what was I going for YHN.
I implied, perhaps far too subtly for you, that the phrase 'condescend away' makes absolutely no sense in the English language.
Also - I have repeatedly said I am going to leave the conversation. Read through all the 200+ comments again and you will find the quotes. So will anyone else interested I am certainly not going to waste that much time and effort just for troll questions.
Good night all :)