How To Reform a Creeper – or A Woman Has a Right To Her Own Boundries

How To Reform a Creeper – or A Woman Has a Right To Her Own Boundries

 

Stumbling across this article today, I was surprised at how much it’s message resonated with me.  As a female geek there have been many occasions where I’ve found myself in a situation where I did not feel comfortable and yet felt unsure about how to speak up about my own boundaries being crossed.  This article goes right to the heart of it being quick to point out that as a woman I am entitled to how I feel regardless of the reasoning.  It is okay to speak up and say “I’m done here and you need to step back” without being required to re-evaluate and see the other side.  I don’t have to be understanding if I’m feeling threatened.  I have a right to my own feelings.

I was actually a bit surprised to see the book The Gift of Fear referenced here, as it’s one I read roughly 15 years ago and have recommended to many friends.  It goes to the heart of the issue of the Creeper, namely that you need to trust your instincts.  I honestly believe that our instincts are the subconscious logic we all have noticing pieces of information so quickly and quietly that they are processed in the background while we’re going about the rest of our lives.  I believe they are generally a truer reaction to what is going on around us than our conscious mind is capable of since so many are attempting to persuade us one way or another.

I’m rambling at any rate but I found this to be a great read and some food for thought.

Tackling the Gamer Identity Crisis

An in depth walkthrough of a title that has taken on a lot of subtext and baggage lately. Really well written.

VG Researcher

This post is written by Rachel Kowert (University of Münster). Rachel has published  articles about cultural stereotypes of online gamers and relationship between social (in)competence and online video game involvement. She can be reached via Twitter. Also cross-posted at Gamasutra.

Recent events have called into question just exactly what it means to be a “gamer” today. What was once a title associated with being a member of a fun loving community now seems to have become intertwined with the promotion of misogynistic and discriminatory behavior.

This perceived shift in gamer culture has been spurred by a series of recent events: the influx of threats directed towards Anita Sarkeesian following her Tropes vs. Women YouTube Series, the scriptedunscripted interaction presented at Microsoft’s E3 event that seemed to condone “rape culture”, and the transphobic comments by one of the hosts of the Video Game Awards, just…

View original post 2,502 more words

Should.

I write it here because I have as many problems with using this word as anyone else.

Should.

It is a word that by all rights I would love to see stricken from the English language. It is a word designed to inspire guilt and wreched feelings of the inability to live up to some imaginary law put in place long before we were ever born.

I should do this or that never leads to any good.

My therapist (yes I had one – bite me) noticed that word come out of my mouth far too often, and called me on it every time she heard me say it. She forced me to rephrase what I was attempting to say to actually verbalize what I meant.

“I should take care of…” became “I feel like I’m supposed to take care of…” which has interesting implications.

“I should be able to…” became “I want to” or “I need to” – again, helping me to understand better what was driving me.

I have a challenge for you – try to go a week without using the s-word. See if it changes anything for you.