Gender and the LÖVE community (A Community-Culture Problem)

[DaedalusYoung]

The problem in this particular case is some people thing the love community's culture of sexual innuendo, specifically, is driving women away. I think that is nonsense and request data to support that theory.

That data does not exist, and you cannot get it. How do you find people who may have been interested but decided not to? You don't know who these people are, you can't find that out.
But I'd like to reverse the question: do you have any data that proves the theory is in fact nonsense? You don't take people's assumption "women probably don't like it" seriously, so why should I take your assumption "I think that is nonsense" seriously?
Even without data, with a bit of effort, you can try to see how you would like it to enter a female-dominated group where women make comments about men's private parts, that can be quite disturbing. Think about how you would like that. Note I'm not talking about a few male-oriented library names, I'm talking about a point of view about the other sex in general.

[Karai17]

You don't ask the status quo to prove itself. That's not how things work. You ask those who want change to provide a reason to change.

You can ask women in game development to check out love and see what their initial reaction is, and find out why some/many/all dislike it.

I have no issue with women talking about dongs. I actively discuss sexual things with both male and female friends. It's a non-issue to most people.

[DaedalusYoung]

It's not just about LÖVE, it's about the entire industry. Asking women already working in game development will give you invalid data, because they've possibly already adapted to the male culture or are not bothered by it anyway.

It's not just talking about dongs, it's how they talk about men amongst themselves. They don't talk that way to you, because you're not a woman, so I assume. Just like men talk differently about women when they're with male friends than when they're with female friends. I personally can clearly see a shift in tone when I'm at a party with about 50/50 male/female, and after a while most men have gone home. I'll probably get flamed again for speaking out my personal experiences, which apparently is not valid.

Anyway, I'm getting sick of this discussion, as the people who say "well, there might be some truth in this" are being mowed down by some people saying "you're delusional, there's no problem". That's no way to have a professional discussion, so I'm not interested in being part of that anymore.


[edit]
There's your data:

[quote=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and ... _attitudes]
A 2012 Twitter discussion among women working in games, collated under the hashtag #1reasonwhy, indicated that sexist practices such as the oversexualization of female characters, disinterest in topics that matter to women as well as workplace harassment and unequal pay for men and women were common in the games industry.
[/quote]

http://kotaku.com/5963528/heres-a-devas ... th-in-2012
"#1reasonwhy because my male colleagues are allowed to occasionally be obnoxious, silly, immature, annoying, drunk. i'm not."

"None of my women developer friends will read comments on interviews they do, because the comments are so brutally nasty. #1reasonwhy"

"Because conventions, where designers are celebrated, are unsafe places for me. Really. I've been groped. #1reasonwhy"

"Because I'm sexually harassed as a games journalist, and getting it as a games designer compounds the misery. #1reasonwhy"

[Karai17]

Asking those women what their initial reactions were, and how the learned to adapt is absolutely valid. Also noting that they are probably not bothered by that sort of culture goes a long way to show that it might not be a problem per se, and that the women who aren't okay with sexual innuendo just stay away from male dominated industries, just like men stay away from situations they feel uncomfortable with.

The problem with your point about the party is that I don't actually see anyone on the forums or in IRC talking objectively about women. If the forums were filled with a "tits or gtfo" mentality, I'd 100% absolutely agree with this entire discussion and demand change, but it's not. It's laced (not filled) with gender-neutral sexual innuendo which both men and women could feel (or not feel) offended by. Your personal experiences are valid, but not exactly relevant to this particular discussion.

Finally, I'm not mowing down anyone who wants to see change, nor am I denying there is a problem. There IS a problem, but I don't think love's community is any more problematic than any other community. The problem is industry-wide and the fix needs to come from the ground up. However, if I AM wrong and the love community specifically is more of a problem than the industry standard, then I am more than willing to admit that, and work for change. Just prove to me that we actually NEED change in how we do things! That's all I'm asking! If you can't prove we need to change our little community, then why are we talking about changing it?

[Azhukar]

But I'd like to reverse the question: do you have any data that proves the theory is in fact nonsense?

Burden of proof lies with the claimant. Which in this case is the people claiming there is a problem.

[debbit]

This insistence on the primacy of 'data' is a little hilarious. On the one hand opinions and subjective anecdotes are dismissed as 'irrelevant' while on the other hand we are supposed to go out and compile survey data consisting of exactly the same sort of opinion and subjective anecdote. Is there some critical mass of this evidence that will make library authors grudgingly acknowledge the problem? Somehow I doubt the present culture of this 'little community' was the result of analytic decisions derived from spreadsheet data, and that's not about to change.

[Azhukar]

Is there some critical mass of this evidence that will make library authors grudgingly acknowledge the problem?

I'm sure once someone provides any evidence at all it will become clearer.

[Karai17]

Us, as men, suggesting women don't like our community is WAY different than asking women WHY they don't like our community.

[debbit]

Is there some critical mass of this evidence that will make library authors grudgingly acknowledge the problem?

I'm sure once someone provides any evidence at all it will become clearer.

Okay, here's some evidence: sometimes I like to code in public or semi-public locations at a coffee shop, library, or the local university, situations where a woman might, in all innocence, look over my shoulder and ask what I'm working on. In such a case, it would make me very uncomfortable to have words like 'cock', 'hardon', or 'anal' littered about my source code or in a browser tab.

Now, this doesn't prove the existence of a widespread or generalized problem for the entire Love community. It is only evidence of there being a problem for me. Maybe I'm just a prudish American who needs to 'grow up' -- I'm not going to insist that my feelings of discomfort are somehow universal or correct. But it's much more likely that I simply won't use those libraries, and I'm guessing from this thread that I'm not alone in that.

The question for the Love community is whether the insistence on a particular (I would say infantile) sense of humor is really important enough to risk the alienation of its less 'grown up' members.

[Azhukar]

It is only evidence of there being a problem for me. Maybe I'm just a prudish American who needs to 'grow up' -- I'm not going to insist that my feelings of discomfort are somehow universal or correct. But it's much more likely that I simply won't use those libraries, and I'm guessing from this thread that I'm not alone in that.

You won't use the libraries, but the claim was that you would be discouraged from using the LOVE project itself because someone else using the LOVE project used such names.

Similarly, if we were to use a "mainstream" virtual machine for a larger sample audiance: anything ever coded in java

I'm sure you see how silly it is to stop using a virtual machine from a moral principle such as this.