Prominent gamer exhibits misogyny, news at 11
I was disheartened and surprised (naïve much?) to read this series of posts from the Penny Arcade guys, in which Gabe uses the excuse of his anxiety attacks to justify a good bunch of misogynistic clichés.

It all starts with an editorial by Tycho, in which he mentions that from time to time he feels fascinated with subcultures/ideologies with a dark side, like Scientology and, more recently, the "seduction community" (the one that spawns ridiculous douchebags like Mystery "The Pickup Artist").

Gabe responds with a post of his own:

I don't know, Love Systems doesn't seem so bad to me. It's really hard to talk to girls, and this is just helping guys with their confidence. Women are terrifying and strange, I don't see anything wrong with getting some advice.

And then, after Tycho responds to him:

I think you're being overly dramatic. Girls have been using their "feminine wiles" to manipulate men since the beginning of time. Do you really think the mind games girls play on guys are any better or worse than this stuff. The only difference is that this sort of thing comes naturally to women. Guys are in a tight spot because in very real terms, we have nothing they want. They on the other hand, have vaginas. They can make us do pretty much what ever they want. I don't see anything wrong with guys trying to learn some tricks of their own.

Up until this point, I sincerely thought he was joking, and taking the piss out of well-known sexist attitudes. But of course, that's because I credited him with a certain level of intelligence he might not possess. The next day, he posts this:

Wow, just fucking wow.

I decided to play devil's advocate yesterday with Tycho just because that's something I enjoy doing. I think in reality I fall somewhere in the middle of this argument but that's not as much fun. What I didn't expect was to get flooded with mail from guys thanking me for sticking up for this system because they use it. I also got my share of mail from angry girls but honestly I expected that. I made some pretty ridiculous exaggerations for the sake of a silly argument. Just like any time we exaggerate for the sake of a joke, we end up offending people who don't see the humor in it. (...)

From :D to D: in 0.3 sec.

At this point you can see Tycho back away slowly from the whole thing, cringing inwardly at his friend. It all ends with Gabe posting an apology in which he says that he didn't notice this flirting system was wrong, but now that he's learned more about it, he thinks it's not ok to use it. Notice that he never apologizes for the reductionist and misogynistic view of women and their history of relationships with men that he's been spewing to the gaming world at large from atop his soapbox.