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> of so much of it

... but how do you know? How could anybody know that?




Believe it or not, on gender, it is actually possible for most of us (men) to verify this empirically.

As a cis male, one way to do this is to represent yourself as female, and see how much more you get questioned. You don't have to go so far as to cross-dress -- you could simply sign an email with a majority-female name in the signature.


My experience of presenting as female online in video games is I got a lot more attention, help, and outright handouts.

I want to see an actual study, because my anecdata doesn’t match the claimed experience.


> in video games

First of all, this is a different demographic. Second, workplaces have a totally different dynamic.


You don't think that getting more attention, help, and outright handouts isn't its own form of bullying? You don't think it hints at an ever-more underlying reason behind the attention, help, and handouts?


>You don't think that getting more attention, help, and outright handouts isn't its own form of bullying?

Yes, if we distort bullying out of all sense to just mean "different treatment"...

In that sense, a rich person who receives more attention, the best seats in the house, VIP treatment where they go, are also "bullied".


I don't think that help and handouts is bullying, and frankly I find it amusing that somebody would argue that


You don't see an issue with being unable to have your in-game relationships progress past "you're a woman and that's the only thing we care about you"?


The most helpful answer I can give is: you’d have to start from a neutral position. Which means really giving up on what you believe and being open to the possibility that there is a real difference you haven’t seen yet.

From that position you can then try to practice active listening. You’d need to develop a rapport with people—lots of people, both people who see things similarly to you and especially people who see things differently. You’d have to be gentle with other people’s ideas so they feel safe telling you what they really think.

After doing that for some time, and ingesting stories from whole populations of people, you would begin to get a sense of the breadth of experiences beyond your own.


By listening




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