Well this is dumb. A large gaming club holding a LAN party in Texas, scheduled to celebrate the launch of EA's Battlefield 3, have decided the best way to stop female gamers from being verbally abused is to not allow them in.
“Nothing ruins a good LAN party like uncomfortable guests or lots of tension, both of which can result from mixing immature, misogynistic male-gamers with female counterparts,” the organisers originally wrote in an event FAQ. “Though we’ve done our best to avoid these situations in years past, we’ve certainly had our share of problems. As a result, we no longer allow women to attend this event."
Um, hello? So this group has elected to privilege the "immature, misogynistic" morons over, for instance, policiing that behavior? Needless to say, this kicked up a shitstorm, forcing the organizers to replace the post with something even sillier:
“This event is a ‘gentlemen’s retreat’; as such we do not allow women to attend.”
Gentlemen! I assume they're referring to the same sort of couth male who attends "gentlemen's clubs."
Then, that was replaced again, by:
“We actively discourage gamers from being the kind of mysogynistic jackwagons seen in the Reddit post, and such behaviour should not be tolerated. Frankly, we don’t like that kind of player either. So far as this event goes, it is an special event designed specifically for male gamers. Further, it is meant as a getaway designed to help said male contingent become better men both for themselves and for those who love us.”
Now there are a hundred things wrong with that. One, there original post shows that the organizers do not care to "actively discourage gamers from [...] misogynistic jackwagons." In fact, they are creating a safe space for them to behave that way without consequences. I'm not making that up, it's there in the original FAQ. "We don't like sexist jerks, so we're making this a special event, just for them." Secondly, I don't think I have to go far out on a limb as to say that both "themselves and the ones who love us" will all be present at that party.
The organizers are well within their legal rights to exclude anyone from their private event, but this sort of behavior leads to one unfortunate, likely erroneous, conclusion: the type of people who'd enjoy this game are immature, misogynist jerks, and this game brings out the worst of that behavior. This is probably not true, but these assholes certainly make it seem that way. If I were EA, I would formally distance myself from this group.
