SEXUAL HARASSMENT FOR FEMALE PLAYERS IN STARCRAFT2
Sexual harassment has been on the rise for a long time now, and in most harassment cases, the victims are women. Primarily, sexual harassment is unwelcome sexual behavior towards someone, which is intimidating and offensive. Such conduct is punishable by law because it has adverse effects on the victim mentally, socially, and psychologically. Moreover, harassment is in many forms. People must understand the various types of sexual harassment for them to seek help whenever they feel like they are getting harassed. For instance, these harassments could be in the form of touch, sexual comments, sexual favors, sexual insults, or any other sexual indecency.
Sadly enough, harassment is also rampant on social media platforms where people get sexual comments whenever they ask questions. Women are the most affected group in getting harsh responses that are sexually-oriented in these platforms. Generally, in a starcraft2 forum, female players usually get this type of comment often, which intimidates them. It also makes it difficult for them to associate with other players on the platform.
A women on the starcraft2
For starters, a woman on the starcraft2 forum posted a question to ask if there are female players on the platform that would like to participate in a game without men. In response, a male gamer said to her that she should first post her picture on the platform before she asks questions. The woman then responded to the man and said she does not wish to post her photo, but she can post a picture of her favorite dog. Sadly, after she posted her dog’s picture, harassment comments started flowing from different people in the forum.
About four pages contain sexual comments based on that photo that the woman posted on the forum. Funny enough, all the words came from men, and at some point, they even started insulting the lady for no apparent reason. The guys continued to troll the lady until a moderator of the platform finally spoke out, and he told them that they should stop or get banned from the starcraft2 forum. Despite the moderator’s efforts in protecting the woman, non of the guys who were sexually trolling her pulled down their comments. Some guys who were trolling the woman told the moderator that they were offended by the woman because she was requesting to create a woman-only clan, and they found her sentiments discriminative. Ironically, there were many male-only clans at the time.
Harassment on the conversation
The forum’s administrator then joined the argument, and he told the guys to stop. Ideally, the administrator said that the women are also free to create their clans, just like the men. Moreover, the administrator said that if women make their clans, they can play together with men and compete. Someone joined the conversation, and they said that when the girls lose to the guys, they should say” rape.” This statement is very offensive, especially to women, and they did not hesitate to talk about how offended they were with those sentiments. Nevertheless, the guy who commented on how the women should respond when they lose to the guys did not pull down his comments.
While women are supposed to stand for each other when such sentiments get made about their gender, a woman started commenting and attacking the woman who was the subject matter of the whole thread. She comes on and starts defending the guys who were sexually harassing the lady by saying that there are sexists all over the world. Additionally, she said that the lady should have known that before posting a picture according to the guys’ demands. She said that the lady in question was ignorant of this fact, and she deserved all the harassment comments she was getting. Ideally, she asked why someone would post a picture if they do not expect people to start commenting.
As the threads continued, it became clear that the starcraft2 forum is full of misogynists as every guy who joined the thread was against the woman. They came on and threw harsh words at her, and some of them continued to harass her and make fun of the whole thread sexually. Some people were even saying that they were not even sure if she was a woman, or just a man posing as a woman. Some people said they were unsure if her intentions about creating the women-only clan were genuine, or she was seeking attention from the group members, calling her an attention-seeking whore. In truth, the group’s sentiments about the woman were all sexually-oriented, and they were very disheartening.
One should stand against harassment and raise voice
The sexual harassments on the platform are so severe towards women, making it necessary for most women not to disclose they are female to avoid getting harassed. Ideally, it becomes the women’s responsibility to stand for themselves on the platform. They should not depend on the forum’s administrators to shut down the harassment comments on the platform. Essentially, women should always look out for themselves on the starcraft2 forum because of the platform’s misogynists.
In truth, many online platforms get associated with harassment, especially against women. Many people don’t know each other on many of these platforms, giving the harassers the confidence to do what they do. If you do not see the person harassing you on these platforms, it becomes almost impossible for you to follow it up, and it becomes difficult for you to take legal measures against them. However, for some women, the online harasser is someone they know, and he threatens them about posting their explicit photos. As such, they intimidate their victim, and in some cases, they end up extorting them.
Fortunately, harassment is a crime, and it has many legal repercussions. However, many people are not aware of the standard measures they should take when faced with harassment on social media. While sexual harassment on social platforms may not be physical, they still have many adverse effects. For instance, the woman trolled on starcraft 2 suffered a lot of emotional damage when the guys were trolling and insulting her sexually. Sometimes, if the emotional damage is not controlled, it leads to severe mental disorders like depression, for instance. It makes someone shy to participate on social platforms because of the fear of being trolled or being sexually harassed.
Better Environment
Indeed, members of society should come together to stop harassment, especially on social platforms. The harassments that women experience on social media like starcraft 2 are unfortunate. The administrators on such platforms should take strict measures to ensure that members don’t engage in such activities. As such, they should impose strict regulations against such misconduct in their forums like burning any person who sexually assaults other people, for starters. Normalizing this behavior makes it prevalent on these platforms, which makes it revolting because of the adverse effects it brings to the victim. In this modern society, we should learn to use social media to share experiences and knowledge. People should learn how to be conscious of other people’s feelings, and what their actions on the internet could do to other people. Social forums get created for people to share and comment positively on other people’s questions and concerns.
Furthermore, it would also be helpful if more strict laws were incorporated to punish online sexual offenders, making online platforms better. Generally, the casual harassment comments that people throw at each other on social media are sickening. The internet would be much better without such people who find joy in trolling people on social media platforms.
