{"id":192427,"date":"2019-07-31T06:15:42","date_gmt":"2019-07-31T06:15:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=192427"},"modified":"2019-08-02T06:32:22","modified_gmt":"2019-08-02T06:32:22","slug":"is-feminism-so-insecure-it-wont-admit-that-boys-might-just-be-better-than-girls-at-fortnite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=192427","title":{"rendered":"Is feminism so insecure it won\u2019t admit that boys might be BETTER than girls at Fortnite?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\">Igor Ogorodnev \u2013 RT July 30, 2019<\/h1>\n<div id=\"attachment_192429\" style=\"width: 550px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/8-of-the-Fortnite-World-Cup-finalists.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-192429\" class=\"wp-image-192429\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/8-of-the-Fortnite-World-Cup-finalists-1024x584.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"540\" height=\"308\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/8-of-the-Fortnite-World-Cup-finalists-1024x584.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/8-of-the-Fortnite-World-Cup-finalists-300x171.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/8-of-the-Fortnite-World-Cup-finalists-768x438.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/8-of-the-Fortnite-World-Cup-finalists.jpg 1240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 540px) 100vw, 540px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-192429\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fortnite finalists. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Once again, feminists go to preposterous lengths to explain differences in performance between the sexes, even when the truth is obvious, and not hurtful in itself (but highly dangerous for their ideology).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">After 40 million people spent\u00a010 weeks qualifying for the highest-paying ever e-sports tournament, the Fortnite World Cup, with a prize fund of $30 million, an inconvenient fact emerged. Not a single one of the 100 solo finalists who made their way to play the battle royale computer game in front of screaming crowds of thousands in Flushing Meadows, New York, was a woman.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Media explanations immediately defaulted to the social discrimination templates that have been around since before consoles existed. According to the Guardian, gaming communities are <em><a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2019\/jul\/29\/fornite-world-cup-100-finalists-female-gamer-esports-pro-sexism\">\u201c<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>unwelcoming<\/strong><\/span>\u201d<\/a><\/em>\u00a0while <em>\u201cwomen players are sometimes belittled and objectified, their abilities constantly questioned\u201d<\/em> when they are not being pelted with <em>\u201cmisogynistic insults<\/em>\u201d through the in-game chat. In its analysis, Forbes <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/paultassi\/2019\/07\/29\/the-good-and-bad-of-the-fortnite-world-cup-2019\/#43f909db3a54\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>spoke<\/strong><\/span><\/a> about unspecified but evidently unfortunate <em>\u201croot issues causing girls not to pick up games when they\u2019re younger\u201d<\/em> in addition to the assumed <em>\u201ctoxicity.\u201d<\/em> One of the many blue tick journalists commenting on the issue on Twitter distilled the argument to its essence: <em>\u201cmale gamers.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Of course, we have no definitive explanation for the superficial under-representation, and there are likely several factors in play here including the ones above, but I would propose three other reasons.<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong> Girls are not that into Fortnite.<\/strong> The Guardian article recycled the popular figure that 46 percent of gamers are girls, but more detailed analysis shows that the numbers are not distributed equally between all genres. For all the clich\u00e9s, girls dominate farming and life sims, and constitute a high proportion of casual puzzle gamers, but make up less than\u00a010 percent of players of FPS and sports sims. Even though Fortnite is considered a relatively girl-friendly game, a significant majority of World Cup entrants were probably men in the first place.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong> Even the participating girls don\u2019t want to put in the time.<\/strong> The top players talk of spending upwards of eight hours a day honing their skills at a competition where they have the exact same starting tools as hundreds of millions of other players. There has been talk of mothers throwing away their sons\u2019 Xboxes, and years of homework left unfinished. That single-minded obsession, that readiness to risk everything for the small chance of a reward and the niche fame of having your handle on a leaderboard may not appeal to as many women. In fact, they may not be desired or possible for most men either. I am someone in my\u00a030s who enjoys games, but I am not represented in New York, with the vast majority of the finalists being teen boys, who have the time, and can endure what at my age seems a non-enriching grind towards a hermetic proficiency.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong> Most controversially, girls may not be as good at these fast-twitch shooter games.\u00a0<\/strong><a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/221888321_Sex_Differences_in_Reaction_Time_Mean_and_Intraindividual_Variability_Across_the_Life_Span\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Multiple<\/strong><\/span><\/a><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC4456887\/\"> studies<\/a><a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cell.com\/action\/showPdf?pii=S0960-9822%2818%2930776-0\"> have<\/a>\u00a0<a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/shapeamerica.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/10671188.1963.10613242?journalCode=urqe17#.XUASssAzZaQ\">consistently<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0demonstrated that females have slower reaction times than males, and perform <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedaily.com\/releases\/2019\/04\/190411154728.htm\">worse<\/a> at <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2909401\/\">spatial<\/a> reasoning tests. The differences may not be that noticeable among the normal population, but at the apex of the pyramid, where only the fastest, most precise and most aggressive survive, the disparity in ratios becomes overwhelming.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">So, what we have is a game that does not particularly appeal to women, who don\u2019t tend to play as much competitively, and even if they did might not reach the same standard.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">But in the end, is it really so bad that most girls don\u2019t want to spend hours of every day shooting people in the head?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Is\u00a0it so catastrophic that the genders have different interests? That women watch more romantic comedies or that men consume more pornography or fill the Dungeons &amp; Dragons and chess clubs? That more Instagram influencers, knitting website founders and models are women, while footballers and oil drillers are men? That males are on average stronger and faster, while females have, on the whole, superior linguistic and social abilities?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Well, yes it is, now that gaming is being financially and socially rewarded, as opposed to relentlessly mocked as the preserve of sweaty boys with limited conversational skills.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Even in the most meritocratic activity, where all you need is a medium-powered PC and access to the internet, where no one needs to know which of the multiple genders you are, equality is redefined by outcome, and fairness is not a factor.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><em>\u201cThe onus is on the game publishers, event organizers, big-name sponsors and team owners to attract and employ more female gamers,\u201d<\/em> writes the Guardian. <em>\u201cAnd to pay well-known female players the same as their male counterparts.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">So the eight boys who became self-made millionaires at the weekend did so by winning in an open competition, but a woman should be remunerated in the same way by the virtue of her genitalia? And women are so weak that they cannot perform as well as the men, because they find the entirely optional banter too crude for their feminine sensibilities?<\/span><\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AXfkqXamJU0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Actually, this special pleading seems quite rote and non-specific here, and the real anxiety that shines through these concerns lies elsewhere.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I would guess that the feminists or the male allies penning these articles aren\u2019t truly that concerned about getting girls to play Fortnite. The real worry is admitting that there is even a single thing men are fundamentally better at. That feminism as a movement has become so ideologically uncompromising that conceding superiority without a laundry list of excuses would somehow shake its whole edifice, undermine its belief that women should be engineers and CEOs. But is an ideology that is so fragile, so vindictive even towards teenage boys, worth fighting so hard for?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><em>By\u00a0Igor Ogorodnev<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><em>Igor Ogorodnev is a Russian-British journalist, who has worked at RT since 2007 as a correspondent, editor and writer.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/465407-fortnite-feminism-males-toxic-games\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>40 million competed but not one of the 100 finalists was a woman. Could it be that men and women have different abilities?  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Current_Affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=192427"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":192435,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192427\/revisions\/192435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=192427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=192427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=192427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}