I don't want you to listen to my arguments, I was simply answering to your question about stats. I have often found out that convincing people that didn't want to be convinced took way too much energy.
Why I don't understand when I read your comment is the generalization over "men". These articles are not about how each and every single man harrassed, raped or killed a woman. It's the other way around: it's women saying "I've been harrassed, threatenned, or raped, in my life: is this a coincidence that it was always by men or is there something broken in our society". I think that generalization over "all men" comes from one's identification with the harassers (because you are a man, not because you are an harasser), not from the article itself. Feeling accused and then trying to dismiss such calls for help is really counter-productive, especially if you agree that women face harassment.
I don't get how you take a testimony of people enduring such violence and turn it into men being the real victims of such articles. "Men are much more likely to be accused of rape and murder", as someone said earlier. Can't you see how twisted that is? That's rape culture 101 by the way: putting the focus on how the attacker is a victim since he'll be facing society disapproval/lose job/go to prison.
Not everything in life can be apprehended through stats, and sometimes we should be able to simply acknowledge the fact that others are having a hard time because of the way we're shaping our society.
But anyways, here's something that's been posted earlier : "In 2006, researchers from the University of Maryland set up a bunch of fake online accounts and then dispatched them into chat rooms. Accounts with feminine usernames incurred an average of 100 sexually explicit or threatening messages a day. Masculine names received 3.7."
I think we should treat someone that's receiving death and rape threats on a daily basis differently than someone who does not. That we should treat someone that's more likely to be raped or killed differently than someone who is not that likely. And because the people receiving death and rape threats are also the people more likely getting raped and killed, that makes something considered as "taunting" much more real.
You are right, we should avoid treating women differently than men, that's something we're all able to agree on. That does not mean that men and women in our societies are treated the same as of now.
Women should not be considered as more vulnerable, yet that's how they are perceive, and that's also what they are being taught:
- don't fight, don't fight back
- always smile and be pretty
- don't get angry, that just shows you're hysterical/on your period/pregnant and hormone-crazy
- agree with the males, especially when they make sexist jokes, that makes you really cool
- don't be a feminist and try to improve your condition
We should not treat women differently than men, but letting society/communities/bullies target one group more than the other and then refusing to acknowledge it or to empathize with it, seems like a convenient way of not taking responsability, as a society/community, and not try to improve ourselves.
Your comments in this thread are about dismissing the message of the article, by reversing the roles (you talk about men being "harassed" by this article), by using rhetoric analysis (which looks to me like an excuse to share two links that have nothing to do with the article).
Sure, anyone can pick flaws in an article, especially in a piece of opinion like this one. One could go on and on about how this is biased, how that is a fallacy, how this is a red herring. That's usually the vast majority of comments you'd get on articles about women condition in our society/our communities. Thing is, this is not a mathematical demonstration or a scientific call for review.
What I didn't like about your comment is that you don't show the faintest sign of empathy towards what women in the video game industry might endure, and that you actually put a fair amount of energy dismissing what I see as a call for reflection, or help.
What I like about the other comments in this thread is the "shit, I never knew that was broken, thanks for the article, what could we do to fix it?" mentality that I generally see in HN threads about technology, hacking, health, etc.
I haven't been reading HN for that long, but I'm rather impressed that this thread didn't get that much similar comments. I think it shows community maturity and also that these subjects are getting through in the IT crowd.
If you consider an object as something to be acted upon, of the 4 ways of representation you cited, only the first usually applies. Other ways of representation, in the examples I can think of, are often of active characters, either the corporate alpha male, or the frat-house bro. Sure, these are simplifications and stereotypes of men, but I don't think they can compare to the objectification of women through their sexuality, as portrayed through our mass media. Men act, women are acted upon.