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Comment by RyanZAG | Hacker News Reader

To be honest, the number of feminists who would have actually bought any of the penny arcade stuff is tiny, while the number of people who would enjoy the controversy and buy a rude t-shirt because it annoys all these people is probably very large. They actually said they were sorry they took down the merchandise, probably because it made a huge amount of money.

So I think they didn't really drive many people away and likely got more publicity, advert impressions and merchandise revenue by stirring the controversy. So maybe they handled it just right if their goal at the time was to make money and not make everyone happy? I'm guessing this 'apology' is because the idea of 'boycott pax' has come up in large gaming media now and they need to stop it quickly? Pretty sure we wouldn't be seeing this if there was no boycott movement.

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Can we place a moratorium on using the word feminist?

Note that I am only tangentially talking about your comment. I started reading your comment and as soon as the word feminist appeared, my instant reaction was "oh, one of those guys". (Of course, after reading the entire comment, my reaction turned out to be wrong.)

So my gut feeling now seems to have an instantaneous "if somebody on HN uses the word feminist, he belongs into category X".

IMO, that is because the "average HN user" uses the word feminist in about as nuanced a manner as the "average American" uses the word socialist. These are words that have actual, definable meanings but are used as arbitrarily redefinable derogatory strawman terms by so many people, that they become emotionally loaded.

This is not helping the conversation.

Yes, this. I'm the original poster of this thread, I'm a man, and I consider myself a feminist. It doesn't just mean women who burn bras and join lesbian communes.

I'm honestly curious why someone downvoted this. All feminist means is "a person who advocates equal rights for women." I mean, it's in a bunch of dictionaries and everything.

I think you're underestimating who's a "feminist" and who's not. It's not just a small cluster of women who say "all men are bad"; it's (finally) gaining the same sort of widespread acceptance that gay rights are. And there are quite a few indie developers who were either rejecting invitations or being on the fence about attending PAX even before this most recent "we regret taking the shirts down" thing.

Also worth noting is this isn't the only situation where Krahulik has shown off his ability to place his foot firmly in his mouth-- there's also things like his peculiar stance on transgender people[1], which is why people have such a hard time taking him at face value when he apologizes.

[1]http://thefullbrightcompany.com/2013/06/21/why-we-are-not-sh...

Please don't compare gay rights to feminism. It's insulting to GLBT people.

It's hilarious that you bring up trans issues, given how poorly feminists have treated that particular minority over the years. The existence of trans people directly contradicts mainstream feminist ideology, therefore they are deemed "problematic." And everyone in the tech community knows by now what feminists do to people they consider problematic...

> Please don't compare gay rights to feminism. It's insulting to GLBT people.

Bullshit, speaking as a queer man.

Some feminists, a minority, have treated trans people very poorly. Quite a few gay and lesbian activists have done the same. Gay/lesbian activists have denied the existence of bisexuals, transwomen have feuded with transmen, African-American activists have treated feminists and GLBT activists poorly and vice versa... Look, some people in every group are closed-minded assholes. That doesn't give us an excuse to dismiss an entire group.

Equal rights and equal treatment for women, black folks, Hispanics, gay men, lesbians, transfolks, and every other minority are all in the same boat together. If someone thinks we're not, fuck 'em--and that goes for you just as much as it goes for bigoted feminists.

Feminism is fighting a war that was won long ago. Women already have equal rights in modern countries. GLBT people are only just now starting to see things progress. That's why it's not fair to GLBT people when feminists appropriate our struggles--they're trying to retain an appearance of legitimacy despite the fact that their movement is no longer relevant in virtually every first world country (and let's face it, first world feminists are too focused on criticizing any and every fictional female character to care about the problems of third world women--except for when they need to justify the continuing existence of feminism, after which they promptly go back to their first world "problems" again).

That's a ridiculously short simplification of his comments on transgender terminology and his ignorance thereof. If people are going to criticize Mike for not engaging long enough to dispel his ignorance, they could at least honestly engage with what he was actually saying in the first place.

This thread is going stupid places quickly. I might just flag it and get it over faster.

It sounded pretty sincere to me. He's not the type to say things he doesn't mean, nor the type to apologize just because of public pressure.

He was being a bully, and I think better of him now that he recognized it.

I'm sure Robert Khoo has been begging him to do something like this, but that doesn't make it any less sincere.

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