I’d say you can move it to a new thread with a disclaimer and lock it right away?
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I’m going to share some personal details which may put this into greater context for those wondering why a North American white dude in his 50s has a horse in this race.
My wife and I have an amazing 12 year old daughter named Elsie, whom I love very much. As part of watching her grow up and socialize, I’ve had to observe time and time again people telling her how to live her life based on their ideas and stereotypes of what a woman should be:
- “Oh, you’ll never be a dancer with YOUR body type.” (note: unsolicited advice when my daughter had never even mentioned wanting to become a professional dancer, she just enjoyed doing her own choreography to pop tunes)
- random kids coming up to her and making unsolicited comments about her appearance, as if being aesthetically pleasing to them should somehow be her top priority
- other comments on various career ideas she’s had along the way based on whether that field is currently dominated by men or women, etc…
Now, on one hand, I can see that having to run a daily gauntlet of these stereotypes and expectations is tough. It’s discouraging, it’s exhausting, and she never feels like people are actually engaging with HER - they’re always engaging with this idea in their mind of who she is, what she wants, and what she’s thinking without ever actually listening to what she might have to say. This is a tale as old as time, and it’s been a pretty core aspect of women’s experience in society in general.
I am however finding something surprising in this young generation’s attitude towards these things - they’re no longer giving a damn. More and more, the ladies that I see growing up no longer care what men think of their goals, ideas, and plans. Sure they know they’re going to get discouraged, and told all kinds of stuff - but to a larger and larger degree - they no longer care.
My daughter recently did a poster for school as to what career she’s interested in. Her current idea is to become a Forensic Psychologist, and she doesn’t care that she’s going to have to look at dead bodies or deal with criminals, or any of the other things that people keep telling her that women should have no interest in.
So yeah, to all you fellows who believe that the women of the world are interested in your ideas and stereotypes of how they should be - I have news for you - they are tuning you out. They are moving on with their lives and doing whatever the heck they want without waiting for acknowledgement or approval from you. And that - my friends - is real change.
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They were patronizing and clumsy, but to me it seems that andersonie is having problems with expressing themself in English, that increases the possibilities for misunderstandings.
For transparency, why did I comment on your comment? Because I found it somewhat ironic that one person’s words made you talk about how men behave in general, while criticizing men’s stereotypes. In hindsight I think other issues of this topic are more important.
I said “women are less likely to stumble upon Alpha Go”, not that there’s a difference in interest level. It might just be a difference in what algorithms present to what they think are male or female users. But as I said, I wasn’t entirely serious.
Some definitely are. Of course there are women who do so to. Are men more likely to do so? Probably. Is this because of genetics or society? Probably the latter.
I also doubt that’s specific for men.
Little need for concern here (at least when it comes to my opinion on that). As I said I just found the timing of your comment odd, because andersonie’s comments were an exception to what was discussed recently (sure there were other men before, who revealed their personal gender stereotypes). So I was merely stating what was discussed, not endorsing it.
I think one big problem with this thread (and maybe discussions in general) is, that people aren’t really listening to each other too often, they/we just hear what we want to hear in order to give our two cents on the topic. Another thing is that some people (me definitely included) tend to express their opinion more often when they disagree than when they agree. Well, there’s not as much to say, when you agree, but this distorts our perception of what other people think about the topic. BTW that’s why I responded to everything of your comment, but I fear my response is still too heavy on the criticism side.
So, I still owe Sofia an honest answer.
For that I’ll quote yebellz, as they pretty much nailed it IMO:
15 people like that post, so people seem to agree. Odd thing is, that I didn’t even clicked “like” on that post yet. I think because of the first part:
Thought it was too humble, but I didn’t even know what “compelling” meant until I looked it up just right now.
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Coming back about @andersonie post, i just want to underline that he is a child.
as child it’s easier to go wrong, bringing ideas which are not always his own, lacking of discernement and he can be full of good will and write wrong.
it won’t be a loss of time at all if he gets clearly what was wrong in his words (if anything).
I add that i’m sorry about this but i don’t fully understand well his ideas he wants to share in english.
If you mean
“men are stronger at go.”
then you have a wrong idea. Women are not different as men in their go strength. They have same abilities and success. There are less female go players but they reach the highest levels, won major tournament…
I hope you understand that there is no reason at all to say this and after you will not make any difference between male and female players about their strength in go.
Last you will find many female players here on OGS that could feel offended by this, so maybe an apologize would be appropriate. Don’t you think?
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Maybe @andersonie just doesn’t express himself in English well. When he says
it could be interpreted in the following way: on average, men are currently stronger than women in go, but that’s not because of intrinsic gender differences. It’s a good thing that some women play go and win against men, to prove that women and men are equally smart and to encourage other women to practice go.
Reformulated like this (if it was what he had in mind), I think it’s perfectly fine.
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Is it some statistics?
I doubt that.
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I don’t have statistics so I may be wrong. But I think you did point out a difference: women have less time than men (because of cultural reasons, they spend more time on household chores and taking care of children).
In my own experience i met a majority of women players in tournaments and clubs who were in the bracket 2d-2k so much higher as the average level on OGS. I met stronger (we have claire here for ex) and weaker, but in any case i never feel something like on average the female go players have a lower go level. In the world of pros players, they did their proof of being able to be at the top when they had opportunities to do so and statistics on a so restricted pool make no sense whatever.
Anyway i never met any statistics about this, and my own opinion is that is even not a fact.
The fact is they are less but the ones who come in proved to be as valuable as men.
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Your anecdotes in tournaments don’t prove anything. Many people play go but don’t participate in tournaments (or used to but don’t participate anymore) so there may be a selection bias. For instance, going to tournaments sometimes involves traveling, and women may be less likely to do so because of children. Or perhaps some women don’t feel comfortable sleeping in the same hotel as many male competitors.
In this post
you quoted a female chess player who said
A disproportionate lack of free time will obviously contribute to lower chess achievement.
You didn’t seem to disagree with that sentence. Put it another way: if men had on average 3h less free time per week, don’t you think their average go level would suffer?
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I said tournaments and clubs.
I’m not washing away all difficulties women may have to play go. I just doubt of a difference of strength on average.
If you take very specific portion of the players like comparing national championships men/women yes on average in that case there is a difference. But for the global average i wait statistics to show up because i don’t think so.
Until this is proven why do we use it then?
I think people judge on some image coming from the highest levels to say “on average…” They don’t see that the women they can play around them have nothing special in their go strength but are just the same. As we think about global population, there are less, but whose who join may have found their way to enjoy their games and get the same respect as any player.
I’m not denying the difficulties, i just say that as a fact i doubt that the global on average level is lower at first. But anyway even if one day this is proven, then we should be careful what conclusion would come from this.
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OK, anyway I don’t want to argue on this, I was just reinterpreting what andersonie said, that’s not my own message.
My idea is that for a child at least, the first step is no difference between us, common players. All the same. Then if a point arise about our best players or about the restricted quantity we can research why and how to change it.
I’m especially nerved by these kind of argument where good women players are put like exceptions and that you know, on average, women are like this or that. I met too many ppl just thinking like this, and i am being always very disapointed when a child report me this kind of thinking.
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This thread is still going, huh?
I like the classroom analogy - these conversations normally end up like a classroom full of students who all think they’re the teacher and that they have nothing left to learn 
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I don’t think interpreting someone’s words without verifying, just because it makes them sound more positive, is the way to go.
Andersonie may indeed be a child, but let him rephrase if he needs to, the way he feels like to do it. It’s not a discussion if 3 (by my count) people step in to reply for him, to shed a better light.
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The point is simple. I always prefer feedback to silence. You cannot solve a problem without data.
The problem is the EXISTENCE of those stereotypes, not the expression per se.
If you just train people to be silent and just “avoid the problem”, that is like pushing the leaves under the carpet. The problem is still there, just temporarily unseen.
Or at least that’s how I see it.
I am not very keen on how things look or instances were people just “nod along” (see my comment below on Gooplet)
As far as I am concerned that’s good … I’ve learned more in the times we, as a class, outright verbally brawled and argued with the teacher than the times we sat silently and went “meh, we don’t care. Let’s wait for the clock to run out and go for basketball”.
I prefer people caring enough to argue, than indifference. My best time as a teacher is when my students asked questions, however obvious their answers. you’d be surprised what people have been struggling to ask about.
Example:
I was asked, in the middle of the term, by an 17 year old girl which of those two symbols “x<y” , “x>y” means x is larger and which means x is smaller.
That is an elementary school kind of question, but I answered it seriously and didn’t even make a comment about it. I was happy that she was comfortable in my class to ask something so embarassingly ignorant.
I was also shocked to realise that for all these months she didn’t know the difference so most of the times she was nodding along that she had understood, she was just going along with the rest of the kids that did understand it.
But it is just a class, who cares, right? 
Well, imagine if that is a whole society plodding along and pretending to understand about an actual serious problem. And we do that A LOT and for quite a large variety of problems.
As long as people discuss about something, then this means that they care enough to think and consider and spend time on that problem.
On the opposing spectrum is avoiding it and not caring about it.
I think that is realistic and not idealistic
For example, I agree with you on how these topics go, but consider this. Let’s say we make a topic and we have the first step:
“female members will come and share their experience”
And now we ommit the other ones and noone comes in to comment or even care.
I just fail to see how on earth is that better.
Let’s not take that extreme and say that people comment and express sympathy, agreement and offer support and noone else is saying anything.
Now that is positive, but is it productive since the people that should be reading all that are just not there?
I once made events for League of (toxic) Legends to promote good behaviour … that was the goal to have fun and show people that you do not be a toxic jackass to enjoy the game.
Well, it did work in the sense that we had fun (the first part in the analogy), but it did nothing on making anyone else less toxic, because the people that participated where already of the same opinion and noone else hopped in.
Those events were a bubble. Plain and simple.
So, I am not talking about idealism, but practical things that I’ve poured time and money to solve, unsuccessfully.
I haven’t thought of it this way, I admit, mainly because the original topic asked for opinions and now we ended up to the point of “who told you to come and have an opinion”, so that was indeed a “change”, but let’s say that next time I don’t even come in and read the topic.
Is that progress/improvement?
If yes, just let me know and I’ll gladly do so instead of thinking and re-thinking the issue. I am all for improvements.
P.S.
Words matter. “Change” is not “improvement”. The politicians of my country have been promising “change” since 1981 and indeed they delivered since the country is, indeed “changed”.
However they never promised “improvement” and we never asked for it, so no wonder we went downhill hehehe
Their trick still works.
One party is still called “Movement of change” all those decades after the introduction of that motto and isn’t it ironic how that didn’t “change”? 
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The P.S. section of your post reminds me of a quote attributed to Tony Robbins:
"Change is automatic, progress is not. Progress is the result of conscious thought, decision, and action
I’ve been staying out of this thread not due to indifference, but for other reasons. Where I’m from, if a female wanted to play Go, she’d just play Go. Or swing axes. I’m hearing that is not the case globally.
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There is enough “data” if you look for it. But if you do look for it, what you find is not pretty.
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Sometimes it is, sometimes it is not.
Random strangers being toxic over the net, in known toxic games with chat, as if the people in those playerbases even care who and what they are trolling?
Really? We are back to that?
And let’s say we are.
Was that video part of an awful behaviour? Yes, it was.
What is the equivalent of what people are now in favour is that if those dudes took their idiotic remarks to their own private discord server, that would have somehow “solved the problem” while that woman played in silence.
My point is that just because the behaviour moved “somewhere else” and you cannot see it anymore, that does not mean that it was eradicated and it does not exist.
Incidentally Riot Games had a similar idea with the “mute button” and do you know what usually happened?
Once the toxic flammers realised that their flamming is getting ignored, they proceeded to troll and lose the game.
Hiding a problem does not solve it.
This is true for all problems in life. Why would this one be different?
Honestly, the most difficult part is convincing you that these problems exist, apparently.
You keep saying that we need more confirmation of the existence of sexism, but when provided with examples, such as what @martin3141 shared, you react by downplaying the problem of sexism in gaming to “trolls be trolls anyways 
”.
You’re stating in all seriousness that it’s a good thing people get to be toxic in these games, so that we can all be aware of the existence of these problems. Would you also agree that it’s a good thing people get mugged, so we’re aware of the problem? It’s a ridiculous argument.
There is far and beyond enough evidence of sexism in this world, there are solutions for this as well, and being tolerant to the perpetrators that spread their bigoted opinion is not one of the solutions. Stop excusing sexism, please.
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Don’t worry, even within this thread, we know by now who’s not horribly sexist anyway to begin with,
who’s a bit sexist but willing to be a better person,
who only cares to make it about them because they just lack empathy,
and who’s so deeply sexist and hateful it would tear flesh if they tried to take it out.
My friendly advice is, choose your battles. Not everyone is teachable. We learn to not throw our good stones after bad, right?
I’m going to mute this now.
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