The problem is that she raises two separate issues, one of which was his fault and one of which was partly his and partly hers. People are following her lead and conflating the two.
1. The guy was a sexist prick.
This was his fault, and she obviously doesn't deserve any of the blame for his broken worldview.
2. She didn't get to play the game.
This was partly her doing. He still deserves some of the blame because it's his job to represent his company well to her and he didn't do that. But she didn't so much as indicate a desire to play it, which I don't think is too much to expect from an adult acting in a professional capacity. Non-videogame journalists have to deal with much fiercer opposition to their reporting than some sexist twit making unwarranted assumptions, but somehow political stories still get written (by women, no less).
Have you though that maybe she is a video-game journalist and not a non-video-game journalist partly because she doesn't want to deal with what you describe?
Its ridiculous to demand the same amount of experience in dealing with adverse situations to people who choose to review commercial products for a living and to political or war journalists. Specially when you are demanding expertise in approaching a hostile subject in order to get your facts prior to forming your opinion.
There's women are more-stupid/less–competent than men sexism and there's women are less likely to have spent time attaining a useless (and kinda dorky) skill at first person shooters non-sexism.
I think there's a pretty substantial difference between being offered a play-through of a game and having your house robbed. That analogy just doesn't apply here. He wasn't violating her civil rights, he was just treating her like she was something that she wasn't (which, yes, was 100% his fault).
And once again, I did not say she deserves "some of the blame" for his dickish behavior. You're still conflating the two issues I tried to separate out there. I said she deserves some of the blame for not getting to play the game. If I had a reporter, male or female, who told me they couldn't get a story because the first person they talked to was uncooperative, I would ream them. And this guy wasn't exactly uncooperative (after all, she hadn't given him any direction to cooperate with), he was just dumb and in possession of a backwards worldview.
If you have trouble buying the second point, ask yourself: Was there any way, without a truly exceptional degree of effort, that she could have played the game? I think the answer is yes — she could have asked. If you agree with this assessment, then you agree with my second point.
To be clear: This doesn't make his behavior more appropriate, and it also doesn't mean that women don't have legitimate gripes both in the tech world and in video games specifically. Sadly, those are both very much the case.
> If I had a reporter, male or female, who told me they couldn't get a story because the first person they talked to was uncooperative, I would ream them.
That's fair, but she's not a reporter. She's reviewing games. A game reviewer's job is much different from a journalist's: their stories come to them, pre-packaged with ample spin that inevitably carries over into their write-ups. They aren't really supposed to be asking hard questions and digging up obscure but glaring facts to shine the light of the public eye upon.
> I think the answer is yes — she could have asked.
A friend of mine was recently charged an unexpected 400 by his dentist who asked him a question while he was under the influence of chemicals. He ended up successfully disputing it and extracting an apology from the man. This isn't exactly analogous–I don't keep many anecdotes handy, unfortunately–but the point is that you're not always at your best 100% of the time.
This wasn't a one-time deal. As noted in my other comment on this thread, it kept happening and she did, in fact, push back several of those times. She probably even got to play and properly review some of those games. But not this one; I chalk it up to sheer shock and context-shifting, personally. Sometimes you're just more prepared to stand up for yourself. Sometimes you just came out of a screaming fight with your S.O. and dealing with a misogynist on top of that hurt just makes you want to crawl into a hole and die.
I think my overarching point might have gotten lost here. I'm not trying to excoriate Katie Williams. I'm saying that there are two separate issues here, and saying that she shares fault in one of them doesn't mean she shares fault in both of them.
She didn't really do much to make sure she played that game. Maybe she had a good excuse (fight with the SO or whatever), maybe she didn't — I don't really care. I think it's fair to say that she did less than she reasonably could have in that particular instance. If she did it differently in other cases, that would seem to support this hypothesis.
But that is a totally separate issue from the guy's behavior. Whatever fault you feel she may have had in not playing the game, that doesn't make his behavior any less his fault or any more OK. It's a separate issue.
Conflating the two leads people to this odd view of the situation where it's her fault the guy was a sexist. That just makes no sense at all. So we should not conflate the two. That was where I was trying to go with my comment.
"Sometimes you just came out of a screaming fight with your S.O. and dealing with a misogynist on top of that hurt just makes you want to crawl into a hole and die."
That's kinda overwrought. Personally I'm very happy people never assume I play video games (I'm a guy, and they're right, I don't).
1. The guy was a sexist prick.
This was his fault, and she obviously doesn't deserve any of the blame for his broken worldview.
2. She didn't get to play the game.
This was partly her doing. He still deserves some of the blame because it's his job to represent his company well to her and he didn't do that. But she didn't so much as indicate a desire to play it, which I don't think is too much to expect from an adult acting in a professional capacity. Non-videogame journalists have to deal with much fiercer opposition to their reporting than some sexist twit making unwarranted assumptions, but somehow political stories still get written (by women, no less).