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Special Guest Edition: The Hawkeye Initiative IRL!

thehawkeyeinitiative:

I recently received an email from an anonymous fan sharing how she pulled a Hawkeye Initiative themed prank on her CEO to illustrate a problem with some artwork.
My personal compliments to her and her accomplice on a mission well done; they perfectly took they perfectly took the concept of The Hawkeye Initiative one step farther, and effected actual change. I hope this gives you as much of a laugh as it did me (the artwork is currently my desktop), and inspires you to be unafraid to stand up and take action in your own awesome way.

Now, excuse me while I go play my new favorite mech game. :)
-Skjaldmeyja

AnonymousFan8675309:

I work with an all-female team of data scientists, in the gaming industry. This makes me the professional equivalent of Amelia Earhart riding the Loch Ness Monster.

I love my job. Our company in particular is great. Firstly, our game (HAWKEN) is beautiful and people love it. Secondly, half of our executive branch is female. Half of them are punk rock, and all of them are badassed. Our gender awareness standards, compared to the industry at large, are top shelf. We are talking Amelia Earhart in Atlantis, at a five star resort, getting a mani-pedi from Jensen Ackles. I have it good.

For the last six months of my tenure at Meteor Entertainment, there has been only one thing I did not love about my job. This
picture:

image

Our CEO loves this picture. It is to all appearances his favorite piece of comic art for the game. He had it blown up poster-sized, framed, and displayed on the out-facing wall of his office. There, it looms over the front room like a ship’s figurehead. It is the first thing workers and visitors see when they enter the building and the last thing they see when they leave. This little lady’s undermeats have been the open- and close- parens to my work world for the last six months.
I loathe this picture.

Why do I loathe it? How, you ask, can I stay mad at a sweet young belle who has so obviously taken a break from her important welding to offer me a piping hot cup of coffee and/or a vigorous hand job? (And probably, given her apparent safety consciousness, simultaneously?) If you don’t already know the answer, you might want to check out things like #1ReasonWhy, and the Bechdel Test, and also this, and this, and this and this, and all these other things. (And while we’re talking you should check out this other bullshit right here.)

So at our office holiday party, while our CEO was having everyone in the company sign it, I stand there grinding my teeth into tiny shards. Until, suddenly, it came to me: a vision.

 And so it came to be that I approached Sam Kirk, a wickedly funny co-worker who shared my sentiment. Sam, turns out, is a very talented artist who can be bribed-slash-inspired using a medley of feminist indignation, hysterical giggling, and two $90 bottles of añejo tequila.

A month-and-a-half later, our vision was a reality. I give you:
Bro-sie The Riveter.

image

I want to make it completely clear that everything in this prank that required actual talent was done by Sam. Find this, and more of Sam’s art, at TheRealSamKirk.com.

We blew (ahem) Brosie up poster sized. We framed him. And then, at 7:30 on Monday, April 1st, we snuck into our CEO’s office and switched them.

I stood in the entryway, dizzy with joy. It was glorious. There Brosie stood, proud, nipples testing the air like young gophers in springtime, the post-apocalyptic breeze gently swaying his banana hammock. Brosie said, loud and proud: “Get ready, world! I am here to lubricate your joints and tighten your socket.”

I basically spend the next few hours having a joy-induced neurological episode.

As the morning progressed, Brosie (ahem) revealed himself to our co-workers. The air resounded with startled, suppressed gargles of mingled joy and horror.  Some take pictures. Some instantly turn and flee. Several men blush and grin in vindicated solidarity. Several women ask us for prints. At this point I am in total rapture. This is the moment I have been dreaming about for six months.

Yet somehow everyone in the office manages to keep quiet about it. Until, finally, our CEO arrives.

We hear a loud: “What the hell is this?!” And then all goes quiet. Ten minutes pass. We panic.

We are both suddenly and painfully aware that we have, in fact, just punked the CEO of our company. He is by all accounts an awesome dude. He is also a late-50s ex-army guy who happens to determine our employment futures in an at-will state. Meep.

Twenty more minutes pass. And then our CEO comes up to my desk, taps me on the shoulder, and says this:

“That was a brilliant prank. You called me on exactly the bullshit I need to be called on. I put up pictures of half-naked girls around the office all the time and I never think about it. I’m taking you and Sam to lunch. And after that, we’re going to hang both prints, side by side.”


image

Ruby Underboob and Brosie the Riveter, together at last


Yeah. That happened.

This wonderful experience has taught me two things that I hope to carry with me for the rest of my career in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and in gaming. It taught me this:

  1. Lots of men (like Sam) are already sympathetic to the stupid, constant crap women put up with in gaming/STEM, and they are ready and willing to call that crap onto the carpet.

  2. And, most importantly, many of the guys who are behind that stupid, constant crap are totally decent, open-minded human beings who just don’t realize they’re doing it. You know how sometimes you don’t realize how much you and your girlfriend are talking about shoes or menstruation until some dude walks into the room? Well sometimes guys don’t realize how much they’re talking about titties.

We just haven’t been around enough for them to notice.

There is only one solution to that, ladies. Bust out your baby-Gap tee and your protective welding goggles, and let’s turn this damn industry into the environment we want it to be. It’s hard work, and yes, there are a couple genuine assholes along the way. But if Ruby Underboob can brave the occasional droplet of molten metal, so can we.

Speaking from experience, it’s worth it.

—K2


About our CEO, Mark Long:

Mark has a long and storied history with, among other things, research, games and comic art. He’s a partner in the RoqlaRue gallery in Seattle, representing “chick art.” Mark considers himself a feminist activist. He is proud to have created a graphic novel trilogy with Nick Sagan (Carl’s son) that features a female hero so strong, Hillary Swank is attached to star as her.

Mark and I are now in an open dialogue about gender in comics and gaming.


“Indeed, the idea of ‘winning the girl’ – of overcoming female objections or resistance through repeated and frequently escalating efforts – is central to most of our modern romantic narratives. (Female persistence, by contrast, is viewed as pathetic.) And the more I think about instances of creepiness, harassment and stalking that culminate in either the threat or actuality of sexual assault, the more I’m convinced that a massive part of the problem is this socially sanctioned idea that men are fundamentally entitled to persist. Because if men are meant to persist, then women who say no must only be rejecting the attempt, not the man himself, so that every separate attempt becomes one of a potentially infinite number of keys which might just fit the lock of the woman’s approval. She’s not the one who’s allowed to say no, not really; she should be silent and passive as a locked door, waiting patiently while the man runs through however many keys he can be bothered trying. And if he gets sick of this lengthy process and just breaks in? Well, frustration under those circumstances is only natural. Either the door shouldn’t have been there to impede him, or it shouldn’t have been locked.”

The Creepiness Question (via notemily)

(via msjosephinemarch)

“For the last three decades many Americans have puzzled over a system that gives an R to a movie in which a women is carved up by a chainsaw and an NC-17 to one that shows a woman sexually pleasured. From such ratings one might conclude that sexual violence against women is OK for American teenagers to see, but that they must be 18 to see consensual sex. What message does this send to the kids the MPAA presumably means to protect?”

Carrie Rickey

(via fireworkselectricbright)

“You have to question a cinematic culture which preaches artistic expression, and yet would support a decision that is clearly a product of a patriarchy-dominant society, which tries to control how women are depicted on screen. The MPAA is okay supporting scenes that portray women in scenarios of sexual torture and violence for entertainment purposes, but they are trying to force us to look away from a scene that shows a woman in a sexual scenario which is both complicit and complex. It’s misogynistic in nature to try and control a woman’s sexual presentation of self. I consider this an issue that is bigger than this film.”

-Ryan Gosling on the controversy around the rating of his film ‘Blue Valentine’

(via misandry-mermaid)

(via tommyshepherds)

“A woman saying yes to a date with a man is literally insane, and ill-advised, and the whole species’ existence counts on them doing it. I don’t know how women still go out with guys when you consider that there’s no greater threat to women than men. We’re the number one threat to women! Globally and historically, we’re the number one cause of injury and mayhem to women, we’re the worst thing that ever happens to them. If you’re a guy, try to imagine that you could only date a half-bear, half-lion, like, “Ugh, I hope this one’s nice.”

Louis C.K. (via unignorable)

(via tommyshepherds)

A couple of things on Margaret Thatcher:

  1. I don’t think that someone who “despises” feminism, as she did, can’t be an example of a powerful woman for future generations. Obama’s social media people tweeted this morning, “She stands as an example to our daughters that there is no glass ceiling that can’t be shattered.” They’re not wrong. That’s one angle to see a very complicated woman from. Thatcher was a woman in power — arguably one of the most powerful women in modern history. And she was visibly powerful. The importance of visibly powerful women at all points of the political spectrum cannot be understated, even though her policies were atrocious. Education doesn’t happen in a vacuum; men have historical examples of tyrannical dictators and great rulers all over the place. 
  2. I despise Thatcher’s record and her self-obsession and Ayn-Randian individual narcissism, but I am disgusted by the sexist barbs continuously lodged at her since the announcement of her death this morning.
  3. Thatcher was a victim of sexism and misogyny just as much as Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama have been, her deplorable record notwithstanding. Failing to recognize that is just that: a failing.

OKAY I THINK EVERYONE ON THIS SITE NEEDS TO REPEAT AFTER ME:

bapgeek:

thebeginningofhealthy:

strider-sister:

  • the solution to misogyny IS NOT misandry
  • the solution to negative body images IS NOT calling thin girls “ugly”
  • the solution to racism IS NOT targeting white people
  • the solution to homophobia IS NOT hating straight people
  • the solution to transphobia IS NOT hating cisgendered people
  • THE SOLUTION TO OPPRESSION IS NOT BY OPPRESSING MORE PEOPLE

THANK YOU.

Sorry, but no. All of the people you are saying are part of the “oppressing more people” group are NOT being oppressed. They are the oppressors.  They are the majority.  Women cannot oppress men. POCs cannot oppress White people. Queer people cannot oppress straight people. Fat people cannot oppress thin people.  Men, white people, thin people, cis people, straight people, and any combination of the above ALL have culpability in the oppression of marginalized groups, be it directly or indirectly.  We all live with the negative effects of euro-centric, puritanical colonialism, and no amount of “we all bleed red” whinging will change that.

And I say this as a cis, straight, able-bodied, Black woman: if queer or trans or disabled folks want to throw a little shade my way, I can handle it. They have every right to say “i cant stand straight people!” or “stfu cis folks!”  Why? Because those words are usually spoken in frustration and anger of having to deal with day-to-day, moment-by-moment oppression.  I don’t get my panties in a bunch when a disabled person vents about some bullshit an able-bodied person put them thru. I don’t chime in with “but not all able-bodied people are like that!”  Because I know it’s not about ME per se, it’s about the system that marginalizes and oppresses them on the daily. A system from which I benefit in many ways.

Oppression is privilege + power, so these marginalized groups have little to no power to actually oppress majority groups.  I have privilege + power compared to a queer person. I have privilege + power compared to a trans person. I have privilege + power compared to a disabled person. It doesn’t make me a bad person or evil.  It just makes me privileged.

Pointing out that you have privilege doesn’t mean you are being oppressed. it means you are being asked to examine how —despite whatever struggles you have had in life— how much more difficult your life would be if you were also a person of color, and/or queer and/or disabled and/or fat and/or trans and/or poor. It’s called intersectionality.  Google it.

It is not my place to tell anyone who is part of a marginalized group how to deal with their oppression, and neither is it yours. It IS my job to shut the fuck up and listen to what they have to say.

Preach.

This week in horrifying misogyny…

[TRIGGER WARNING: Rape, domestic violence, assault]

A 13-year-old girl is raped by two 18-year-old football players, is then bullied mercilessly for being a “ho” and a “snitch.” 

SendGrid developer evangelist Adria Richards tweets a picture of a PlayHaven developer calling him out on making sexist jokes; PlayHaven fires the developer; SendGrid is subject to a huge DDOS attack and Richards is attacked with rape and death threats; SendGrid fires Adria Richards. Their response (why they fired her) is total bullshit — I could write an entire goddamn book on why public shaming of sexism is crucial in dismantling sexist culture, particularly in fields where outright misogyny is basically standard.

Marissa Alexander, after being repeatedly beaten by her husband, fires a warning shot into the ceiling during an episode of abuse. No one is hurt. She’s facing 20 years in prison, despite the “Stand Your Ground” law.