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Television Movies

Men Are Sabotaging The Online Reviews Of TV Shows Aimed At Women (fivethirtyeight.com) 858

FiveThirtyEight has an interesting article today which accuses men of sabotaging the online reviews of TV shows aimed at women. The publication cites an example of "Sex and the City", a show which apparently won plenty of awards and ran for many years on TV, getting hammered by males on IMDb. Compared to women, who amounted to 60% of the people who rated the show with an average of 8.1, men gave it a 5.8 rating. It's not an isolated case, FiveThirtyEight says, citing several other instances where the male audience has downvoted shows aimed at women audience. From the article: The shows with the largest proportion of male raters are mostly sports, video game web series, science fiction and cartoons. The programs with the highest proportion of female voters are -- at least the American ones -- mostly from The CW and Freeform, the new name of the network previously called ABC Family. This list is pretty hilarious. Beyond the top 25, shown in the table above, male-dominated shows of note include: "Blue Mountain State" (92 percent male), "Batman: Beyond" (91 percent), "Batman: The Animated Series" (90 percent), "The Shield" (90 percent), "Ballers" (90 percent), "Justice League" (90 percent), and "The League" (88 percent). "Star Trek: Enterprise" is the most male-heavy of the various official live-action Trek enterprises, while "Battlestar Galactica" still managed to grab 15 percent of its ratings from women, which is somewhat shocking. For women, other skewed programming includes "Private Practice" (71 percent female), "Gossip Girl" and "Gilmore Girls" (67 percent each), "Grey's Anatomy" (60 percent), "Scandal" (60 percent), and "One Tree Hill" (59 percent).
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Men Are Sabotaging The Online Reviews Of TV Shows Aimed At Women

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  • by omnichad ( 1198475 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:33PM (#52143375) Homepage

    Just because someone's not your intended audience, doesn't mean a review from them isn't fair or valuable. If it was better TV, it might have favorable ratings across the board. And most, if not all TV programming is very pandery and not very quality.

    • by Fwipp ( 1473271 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:39PM (#52143439)

      Still - women don't seem to feel the need to go trash-talk shows that are designed to appeal to men. (See the figure entitled: "Men are more likely to give the crappiest rating").

      • by ravenscar ( 1662985 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:50PM (#52143531)

        Probably because most men couldn't care less if their significant other watches "The Shield" or "Star Trek" with them. In fact, many would prefer to watch it alone. As such, fewer women are exposed to male targeted shows. On the other hand (and this is, for sure, just an anecdote) it seems like every straight guy in my office is forced to watch "The Bachelor" with their S.O. every week as part of their "quality time" together. Since they're exposed, it seems reasonable that they might also rate the show.

      • by tom229 ( 1640685 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:59PM (#52143607)
        I think you're making wild conclusions with your data. How many women are forced to cuddle on the couch while her husband watches Southpark? I'd be willing to bet not many. I've spent countless hours of my life watching terrible shows like sex and the city to meet imposed requirements of "quality time", and I know I'm not alone. When you already have an idea in your head it's easy to find causes for it isn't it? There's no conspiracy. No one's out to sabotage women's television.
        • I've spent countless hours of my life watching terrible shows like sex and the city to meet imposed requirements of "quality time", and I know I'm not alone.

          And it never occurred to you to come up with an alternative?

      • by omnichad ( 1198475 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @03:06PM (#52143677) Homepage

        When deciding to watch a show, I don't see a warning that says "The following program contains content intended for women. Viewer discretion is advised." I decide to watch a show on its own merit. Whether I do or don't like it, I probably wouldn't review it. But for the people that do, a review is just a review. Who is doing the reviewing is almost as telling as what the review says. Aggregating those scores to get a "number" that's supposed to be meaningful is the big mistake.

      • by Jeff Flanagan ( 2981883 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @03:26PM (#52143907)
        Men don't trash shows meant for women either. Why would we care that some shows are not targeted to us? This is something that reactionary, little-boys with issues do. There's a weird online misogyny movement that constantly freaks out when anything isn't made with them in mind. None of these nuts are men, though some are very old males who never matured into men.
      • Uhm, yes they do. They do it all the time. Go on a date and tell a girl that your favorite TV show is Batman Beyond. The article said it skewed heavy to men, and it is a great example.

        The difference is that women do it openly and reject men as dating companions for it, while men do it secretly because we don't want to piss off the 'dating goddesses'.

        This is not sabotage, it is a simple example of the failure of rating systems.

        A single number is useless for most rating systems. A graph is what we nee

      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @03:37PM (#52144025)

        Doesn't matter. Characterizing one demographic choosing to review a particular set of TV shows as "sabotage" is clickbait sensationalism at best. This is an opportunity for sites like IMDB to detect a gender based split and report it:

        "'Sex and the City' received an overall 3.8 stars, but female reviewers rated it 4.7 stars."

        Or you could get even more useful: "General Hospital received an overall 1.0 stars but the distribution of ratings is non-normal, suggesting that while most viewers thought it was a waste of airwaves, a small demographic really enjoys the program."

      • Still - women don't seem to feel the need to go trash-talk shows that are designed to appeal to men.

        Nope. They only trash-talk games that are designed to appeal to men.

    • by sycodon ( 149926 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:45PM (#52143477)

      ...a guy would hammer a show about 4 whiney women.

      • Re:Go Figure... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @03:02PM (#52143649)

        ...a guy would hammer a show about 4 whiney women.

        Instead of "hammering" it, he should just realize he is not part of the target audience, and watch something else. I don't enjoy watching Teletubbies, but I don't give it a bad review because I am not a three year old.

        • Your point makes sense. Don't go around just thinking of things that piss you off and then spend your time trashing them, it makes you a negative person.

          But on the other hand doesn't that kind of boil down to "don't poorly review shows you don't like"? Doesn't that kind of break the concept of reviews?

          I can see both of these points, not sure if they can be reconciled. The concept of voting isn't so good for protecting minority opinions, and the author mentions that IMDB voting population is 70% male.

        • Re:Go Figure... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by im_thatoneguy ( 819432 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @04:06PM (#52144321)

          He should just realize he is not part of the target audience, and watch something else.

          I have watched Sex in the City, I would not have watched Sex in the City by my own volition. I would give it a solid 6-7 rating.

          My Fiancee does not watch Clone Wars, nor would I even suggest that she watch Clone Wars, because it's bad. I know it's bad. I complain about how bad it is. But I keep watching it. I would also give it a solid 6-7 rating. I'm sure she would give it a 1. But she doesn't watch it.

          I think that's the difference. Guys watch mediocre or bad television with their female partners, female partners go do something else.

          • I think that's the difference. Guys [are forced to] watch mediocre or bad television with their female partners, female partners [are allowed to] go do something else.

            FTFY. Since complaining about the show to said female partner would disqualify him from nookie time later, guys suffer through the show and instead vent by bashing it online. I'm not sure why anyone who's been in a typical MF relationship would be surprised by this.

    • by WarJolt ( 990309 )

      I agree. First of all online reviews of TV shows are bullshit because it's not a fair sampling of the total audience. Online reviews are also faked all the time. You should be sampling all TV viewers and correlating demographics intelligently with particular shows because you get viewers by filling a niche at the right time. If any real decisions are made by the industry using these numbers I'd be shocked. It's a fluff piece.

  • Suprise (Score:5, Insightful)

    by farble1670 ( 803356 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:34PM (#52143385)

    Men don't like shows focused at women. More news at 11.

  • Bollocks isn't it. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Fragnet ( 4224287 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:34PM (#52143391)
    Sex and the City is shit. Next question.
  • Sabotaging? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:34PM (#52143393)

    What kind of SJW bullshit is this? Maybe men just have different taste in TV shows. I can't imagine too many men wanting to watch The Bachelorette, either. The low ratings are just a reflection that men don't like the show. It's not sabotage. Cut the SJW bullshit. Why is Slashdot so full of SJW nonsense lately?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      OMG, stop trying to oppress me with your logic! If you like a show and I don't, it's because the show is trash.
      If I like a show and you don't, it's because you are the oppressive arm of the patriarchy flaunting your male privilege!

    • Re:Sabotaging? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by queazocotal ( 915608 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:59PM (#52143615)

      The article is not actually that unreasonable apart from the headline.
      'Men are downvoting shows aimed at women' may be a more fair title.
      To quote:
      " But ratings taken as an aggregate obfuscate crucial detail. They can smooth over dramatic imbalances in demography that belie a thoroughly unscientific sample. They have the habit of lumping the divisive among the universally mediocre. And as long as they purport to underscore the true value of a work, they undermine people’s ability to find new and interesting material just because a subset of passionate and vociferous dudes on the internet somehow hold it in low regard."

      This is not unreasonable.
      Another example is complex software only usable by professionals (or very skilled amateurs). Votes from people coming to it who have no idea of the field are basically worthless.

  • by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:35PM (#52143403) Homepage

    I'm going to throw out a radical suggestion here....

    Maybe men legitimately don't like shows that are aimed at women, and they're more vocal about it?

    Is that wrong? Are men supposed to simply sit down and keep their opinions to themselves? What's the hope here?

    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:38PM (#52143421)

      When a boyfriend and girlfriend want to watch different things on TV, the girl wins out. Men get stuck watching girl shows. Women don't get stuck watching guy shows. As a result, men have the knowledge to rate girl shows poorly. Women don't see the guy shows, so they have no reason to rate them poorly. This isn't sabotage. Slashdot needs to cut the SJW bullshit.

      • by Anrego ( 830717 ) * on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:45PM (#52143485)

        So much actual this.

        And beyond that, when your GF does sit through one of "your shows" she's usually doing something else, whereas for whatever reason I feel guys are compelled to watch what's on the TV even if we hate it to our core.

        There are certainly legit social issues relating to gender inequality, but I wish we could find a balance and accept that yes, there _are_ actually differences between how men and women generally behave and that may not actually be a bad thing.

      • When a boyfriend and girlfriend want to watch different things on TV, the girl wins out. Men get stuck watching girl shows. Women don't get stuck watching guy shows. As a result, men have the knowledge to rate girl shows poorly. Women don't see the guy shows, so they have no reason to rate them poorly. This isn't sabotage. Slashdot needs to cut the SJW bullshit.

        That's certainly the script. However I don't follow it - I tend to encourage my wife to watch the shows she likes because I won't be watching them with her. I've even got an agreement with her that I will watch exactly three chick flicks in a given year (no carryovers) as long as i get to veto her proposed chick flicks.

        I haven't seen a show aimed at women since (possibly) 2004. I simply refuse.

      • by tom229 ( 1640685 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @03:02PM (#52143637)
        I think you've identified the real cause of this data. Only someone with a victim complex would interpret this as "men sabotaging women's shows". Men simply watch way more television aimed at women due to them defining that as quality time.
    • by rossz ( 67331 ) <<ogre> <at> <geekbiker.net>> on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:40PM (#52143443) Journal

      Are men supposed to simply sit down and keep their opinions to themselves?

      That is exactly what the radical feminists are demanding.

      • by geek ( 5680 )

        Are men supposed to simply sit down and keep their opinions to themselves?

        That is exactly what the radical feminists are demanding.

        Its the victim mentality.

    • by Your.Master ( 1088569 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:43PM (#52143467)

      You didn't read the article.

      The difference is that when men don't like shows that are aimed at women, they apparently rate the show, but when women don't like shows that are aimed at men, they don't rate the show. There are shows popular with men and unpopular with women, and vice-versa, and the latter get way more "wrong-gender" votes. No particular reason was proposed as to why this is. The call to action was to recognize that single-number rating systems obscure important details in general.

    • by tom229 ( 1640685 )
      Amen. Sex and the city IS a terrible show. It's junk food for the SJW agenda and anyone interested in benefiting from it. Men (the least likely to benefit from any modern social justice agenda) are acutely aware of this and develop appropriate opinions. Was someone under the impression that straight men liked sex and the city?
      • by jareth-0205 ( 525594 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @03:44PM (#52144103) Homepage

        It's junk food for the SJW agenda and anyone interested in benefiting from it. Men (the least likely to benefit from any modern social justice agenda) are acutely aware of this and develop appropriate opinions.

        See, this worries the fuck out of me and is why I'll give time to this so-called agenda even though it riles me too - because since when have we become so fucking selfish that any other group trying to improve their lot immediately means we have to fight it? Maybe we should recognise imbalances (even if they are in our favour) and help to right them?

    • by denzacar ( 181829 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @05:32PM (#52145143) Journal

      Cause its audience is supposedly up to 15% female. And that's shocking.
      Cause it is clearly a show "aimed at males". So women have nothing to do with such a show, and apparently, should avoid it in favor for shows "made for women".

      What? Strong female what? Characters? You mean Starbuck is a girl? And president is a girl?
      And a bunch of cylons are girls, one of them portrayed by Xena?
      Ah! But I forgot. It is SciFi!
      Which means it's automagically "for boys" and not "for girls".

      Good job explaining that there. Women shouldn't meddle in things that are not their concern.
      Stick with soap operas about shopping and finding Mr. Right. Or Mr. Big. Or the right shoes.
      And let's just disregard the fact that apart from "Ballers" and "Blue Mountain State", which are both not shows for men but for sportsball jocks, and which both have quite a lower rating both by men and women - women grade "male shows" similarly to how men do.

      In fact... "Ballers" is the only show mentioned that women like less than "Private Practice". Barely. By 0.2 points.
      They more like every other "male show" mentioned.
      They like "Gossip Girl" less than any Batman show. And none of them have "girl" in the title. And they are all CARTOONS. From two decades ago.
      And women only like "Batman Beyond" (out of animated Batman shows) LESS than "Sex and the City". By 0.1 points.

      Could it be that this is the case of cherry picking?

      "Female shows", male votes, male score; female votes, female score, score difference:
      Gilmore Girls - Males 17130 7.3; Females 34638, 8.5, 1.2
      Scandal - Males 15678, 7.3; Females 23146, 8.3, 1.0
      Grey's Anatomy - Males 52515, 6.9; Females 79175, 8.3, 1.4
      Sex and the City - Males 27631, 5.8; Females 39410, 8.1, 2.3
      One Tree Hill - Males 19575, 7.1; Females 28637, 8.1, 1.0
      Gossip Girl - Males 31125, 6.7; Females 64088, 7.8, 1.1
      Private Practice - Males 4634, 5.7; Females 11156, 7.1, 1.4

      "Male shows", male votes, male score; female votes, female score:
      Battlestar Galactica - Males 84715 , 8.8; Females 15521, 8.7, 0.1
      Batman: The Animated Series - Males 38196, 9.0; Females 4032, 8.6, 0.4
      Justice League - Males 19039, 8.6; Females 2228, 8.3, 0.3
      The Shield - Males 41769, 8.8; Females 4737, 8.1, 0.7
      The League - Males 27117, 8.3; Females 3577, 8.0, 0.3
      Batman Beyond - Males 13466, 8.1; Females 1375, 8.0, 0.1
      Blue Mountain State - Males 29078, 8.5; Females 2631, 7.6, 1.1
      Star Trek: Enterprise - Males 21473, 7.5; Females 3427, 7.4, 0.1
      Ballers - Males 10309 7.5; Females 1201, 6.9, 0.6

      But wait. What about arguably THE manliest shows ever?

      Band of Brothers - Males 164067, 9.6; Females 16053, 9.5, 0.1
      The Pacific - Males 53467, 8.3; Females 4193, 8.4, 0.1
      The Sopranos - Males 134921, 9.3; Females 18200, 8.8, 0.5
      The A-Team - Males 18727, 7.6; Females 2869, 7.4, 0.2

      What about simply the bestest shows evar?

      Band of Brothers - Males 164067, 9.6; Females 16053, 9.5, 0.1
      Planet Earth - Males 70632, 9.5; Females 9958, 9.5, 0.0
      Breaking Bad - Males 559396, 9.5; Females 104158 9.3, 0.2
      Game of Thrones - Males 596473, 9.5; Females 162356 9.4, 0.1
      The Wire - Males 135691, 9.4; Females 16281, 9.0, 0.3
      Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey - Males 38626, 9.3; Females 4978, 9.4, 0.1
      "Cosmos - Males 14761 9.3; Females 1519, 9.2, 0.1
      etc. etc.

      Hmm... is it just me... or is there a much lower number of women voting on imdb, even on shows they like, whenever it is not a "female show"?
      Also... Looks to me that women tend to like "male shows" more or as much as they like "female shows".
      While those average male votes are IN THE WORST CASE only 2.3 points lower. ~1.2 - 1.3 points on average.
      That does not look like much of a male conspiracy to !SABOTAGE! "female shows"... or even trying that hard to dislike.

      Meanwhile, women on average dislike "male

  • Sabotaging? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:37PM (#52143415)

    So, those shows are only for women, and men should not have an opinion of the shows? Really? Men don't seem to like them, but how is this sabotaging? What the fuck, really?

  • Oh please (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tom229 ( 1640685 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:40PM (#52143445)
    So... men can't dislike shows aimed at women? A show like sex and the city paints a pretty shallow, incomplete, and unfortunate picture of both sexes, it just tries overly hard to "empower" women while doing so. It's bad reviews are greatly deserved. What I gather from the tone of the article is that any SJW agenda deserves nothing but praise. *eye roll* This mentality is out of control. My wife hates a lot of the sports and sci-fi stuff I watch and would probably give them a bad review too.
    • Re:Oh please (Score:5, Insightful)

      by geek ( 5680 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:49PM (#52143519)

      A friend of mine posted something on Facebook today. I rarely look at Facebook and when I do I just glance but this caught my eye.

      The average wedding in Europe is around 6,000 euros. The average wedding in the US is around 36,000$. The blurb was accompanied by a little video showing a British woman talk about how its a family event and about the commitment, all the important stuff. Then it cut to a spoiled American girl screaming "ITS MY FUCKING WEDDING" while holding onto her dress and throwing shit.

      My response to her was "Too many princesses in the US and not enough women". Sex in the City embodied that to me. It was such a horrendous show that to this day when I hear a woman talk about how great it was I gag and throw up in my mouth a little. The women on that show were so shallow and lifeless I have a hard time understanding how it existed at all. Then I talk to some of the princesses this countries pumped out over the last 30 years and it all becomes clear.

  • by Registered Coward v2 ( 447531 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:41PM (#52143451)

    TFA brings up some good points:

    1. There are significantly more men rater stain women rates, which means their results will skew ratings towards what men like to watch

      A poor rating does not mean it is bad TV nor does a high one mean it is good

      The rating in and off itself is pretty much useless, a better idea is to look at the data to get a clearer picture if a show might be of interest to you

    IMDB could separate mens scores from women's; as well as show what shows were highly or poorly rated by the same people who rated a particular show. That would give you a better idea of the value of a rating in deciding if you might be interested in the show.

    • by Princeofcups ( 150855 ) <john@princeofcups.com> on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:59PM (#52143603) Homepage

      IMDB could separate mens scores from women's; as well as show what shows were highly or poorly rated by the same people who rated a particular show. That would give you a better idea of the value of a rating in deciding if you might be interested in the show.

      I suppose that would be useful, but you really can't solve for the general case. For example, my favorite film is Fellini's 8 1/2. It has a very high rating, but I suspect that people who would generally like that kind of film go out of their way to find it and watch it, and rate it. If Netflix pushed it on their front page, I'm sure IMDB would fill up with negative reviews from people who hate B&W films, surreal plots, over dubbing, long films, and generally not be ready for the experience. And then you have every terrible blockbuster start out with an 8 rating, mostly from teens, before the rating slowly falls as others discover the film. Another example is a film like ET, which I despise. It has a high rating, and I understand why. I have no problem with that. But it is still a terrible film. You have to take the audience and distribution into consideration. It also helps to read the top of the "Loved it" and bottom of the "Hated it" to see WHY people rated it the way they did.

    • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @03:20PM (#52143837)

      IMDB could separate mens scores from women's; as well as show what shows were highly or poorly rated by the same people who rated a particular show. That would give you a better idea of the value of a rating in deciding if you might be interested in the show.

      Next up, white people sabotage shows aimed at black people. Old people sabotage shows aimed at young people.

      The problem is you're playing the SJW game and will endlessly fall down the pit of trying to appease everyone because dammit it we're all being oppressed. It just happens to be men vs women today. .... actually it was whitewashing blacks yesterday. Tomorrow is "religion Friday" is it not? Looking forward to an anti-Islam article.

  • of shows aimed for men. Seriously, what is this nonsense? Next up, those who prefer certain skin tones when selecting sexual partners are racist! Only eye, hair, breast, and wallet size are allowed. Men are allowed to indicate they dislike shows just as much as women are allowed to indicate they like them. If anything the system is unfair to men because there are more women than men in the world.
    • by Ogive17 ( 691899 )

      There are not enough women giving reviews to sabotage anything. Even if the viewership were equally split between men and women, many women would probably not log in simply to give something a bad rating.

  • by hibiki_r ( 649814 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:46PM (#52143491)

    Pretty much everything is rated horrible because, from an adult perspective, yes, they are horrible.

    So what we really have here is that a single dimensional rating alone is not good at separating something that is mediocre for everyone, or something that is loved by some, and hated by others. What a surprise.

  • by Just Some Guy ( 3352 ) <kirk+slashdot@strauser.com> on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:48PM (#52143513) Homepage Journal

    I'm too lazy to read the article so I'll wildly speculate in grand Slashdot tradition. Did the authors investigate why that's happening? I could imagine at least a few non-nefarious causes:

    Maybe men are more likely to vote against a show they dislike than women are, so as many women dislike "Blue Mountain State" as men dislike "Private Practice" but they don't bother downvoting it.

    Maybe men are more likely to watch shows they dislike with their partners than women are (and this is certainly true in my house). I'll sit through shows I don't care for because I'm not all that picky and I'd rather spend time with her watching Grey's Anatomy than doing other stuff. The converse isn't true: she isn't likely to sit through COPS with me. I'm more likely to have an opinion and vote on her shows than she is mine because I've seen more of hers.

    As a variant of the last one, maybe women generally feel that they have less spare time around the house to watch TV. In households where routine chores are "women's work", the male resident might put in more screen hours than the female who has laundry and cooking and only has time to watch the shows she really cares about. (Note: I am not saying laundry and cooking are women's responsibility, just that lots of households divide work that way, and I think probably enough to sway the numbers.)

    Yes, I'm sure there are dumbasses who routinely vote down female-centric shows (as defined by the study) just to be jerks. I'd stake money that there are plenty of women who would go down the list of male-centric shows and vote them down, too: "Batman? Dumb. The Shield? Dumb. Star Trek? Dumb." But are there enough to make a difference, or is it more likely the effect of different TV viewing and/or Internet poll taking habits between the sexes?

    • It very well could be any of these reasons, but the other day I found out there was this weird society of men who feel persecuted and sabotaged by women, and believe there is truly an orchestrated affront to their gender. So maybe it's these weirdos [mgtow.com]. The idea that there is any conspiracy either way makes me laugh. The internet is full of people who love to complain so I'm sure any place that allows reviews has some of this.

  • by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:52PM (#52143553) Homepage
    There's a movie site called Cinemaclock. One of the things I like is that it shows the ratings in a table divided among gender and age ranges. Then I can look and see, if it was liked by men in my age range I'll probably enjoy it too.
  • by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt@ner[ ]at.com ['dfl' in gap]> on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:56PM (#52143585) Journal

    Wow... so instead of assuming that people have different tastes, blame the fact that apparently a lot of men don't seem to like some shows that happen to be popular with a lot of women happen on their gender.

    Could this story be any more sexist?

    This kind of tripe makes me sick. Just sick.

  • by Pyramid ( 57001 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @03:03PM (#52143655)

    So I need to consider the feelings of the other gender before offering an honest opinion of TV SHOWS?

    Do they have any idea where the "Special Snowflake" stereotype comes from and how this reinforces it?

  • For some anecdotal evidence my wife was skeptical when I wanted to watch Battlestar Galactica (the 2004 version) but ended up loving it greatly and with good reason. It's an excellent written show with a great cast that includes several strong women roles. Much stronger female roles than say TNG had (which she also enjoyed after some coaxing to give it a chance). If anything i find that only 15% of women reviewed as a case that maybe more women should give it a shot and it's probably one of the best shows for introducing Sci-fi to women, who in my experience are just as quick to write things like that off as men are of writing off something like Sex and the City without giving a chance first.
  • by kheldan ( 1460303 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @03:32PM (#52143959) Journal
    The use of the word 'sabotage' seems to indicate a conspiracy. Seems more likely to me that people are just rating according to how much they liked a program. Also seems likely to me that, ironically, this article has some sort of agenda all it's own.

    Nothing to see here?
  • by rundgong ( 1575963 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @04:02PM (#52144275)
    It appears IMDB has the same problem all online, voluntary polls have. You do not get the opinion of the population at large, you only get the opinion of people who like to answer polls.
    For IMDB this means their scores represent the score of people who like to rate movies.
    From the article this appears to be men to a greater extent than women. There are most likely other biases as well. Maybe tech savvy people are more likely to do online ratings, and the scores are biased towards show that techies like?

    You don't have to be a SJW to find this an interesting problem.
    It's the same problem as can be seen in voting polls for presidential election, and all other election where people are trying to predict the result. You are trying to predict the general result based on the answers from people willing to answer the polls.

    A second problem specific to movie ratings is that I may not be interested in the general opinion. For recommendations I want opinions that correlate with my own opinions. If you happen to like Sex And The City, you don't care that all the nerds vote Firefly to the top. You want shows that align with your interests.

    But lets start with figuring out the real score for the general population...
  • Seems biased (Score:3, Informative)

    by dotslashdot ( 694478 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @04:20PM (#52144461)
    "Sabotoging" means deliberately destroying something. The author failed to provide any basis that men want to deliberately destroy programming for women and overcome the glaringly obvious reason men voted against certain shows: they disliked the program. In fact, the article dismisses all men's opinion by calling it "sabotage" rather than a valid expression of their feelings. Men may dislike shows depicting guys as the bumbling idiots often portrayed in shows targeting women. Rather than blame men for their vote, the author should encourage women to vote, or ask why such shows portray men that way.
  • by eepok ( 545733 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @04:51PM (#52144751) Homepage
    There is no scandal here. Some amount of taste is shaped by demographics.

    Men dislike Sex and the City more than women.
    Black women and Latinas probably dislike Sex and the City more than White women.
    White people probably didn't like Culture Clash as much as Latinos did.

    There's no sabotage. It's just demographics.
  • by Cloud K ( 125581 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @06:26PM (#52145477)

    And Feminism is now considered a Very Bad Thing by large chunks of the internet (I still like it, but I see/understand it differently to how most seem to).

    It's hated for two primary reasons by my view:

    1) Some of the newer third wave stuff often associated with Tumblr has gone a bit too far the other way and started to push man-hate, and they're so loud and vocal that they've managed to give the illusion of hijacking the entire movement, which is moderate and supposed to help men as well as women (by for example changing the image of feminine away from something to somehow be ashamed of)

    2) Younger generations are less keen to associate themselves with the sins of their fathers i.e. historical misogyny and privilege. As they were born into a world where equality is encouraged and we don't have so much of an indoctrination into the old patriarchy, they feel that those who tell males they're privileged and should be mindful of feminist issues, are actually trying to oppress men and make people feel guilty for being born with the wrong genitals.

    Sadly, this has manifested itself in quite rampant hate towards all things interpreted as feminist, which includes anything aimed at females or featuring a female heavy cast (Ghost Busters). One could rightly argue other factors (like whether Ghost Busters is crap regardless of gender) but I do think it gets silly sometimes as I do see a heavily anti-anything-that-smells-feminist bias out there at the moment.

    As always I think both sides are simply human and have their own worries and issues of defensiveness. But at the moment are more likely to dehumanise and attack each other, unfortunately, or go on mass sabotage efforts like this.

  • by Time_Ngler ( 564671 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @06:39PM (#52145573)
    You can tell how big a problem this is by the lack of television programs aimed at women.
  • by Dcnjoe60 ( 682885 ) on Thursday May 19, 2016 @07:39PM (#52145921)

    Really, sabotaging? That implies intentionally messing up the reviews. Yet, they are looking at reviews with at least 10,000 reviewers. So, are so many men really trying to skew the ratings for shows target at women or are they just rating them based on how they feel about the show? Yet, the article admits that the same thing happens with show with a predominately male audience, such as various sporting events. How come the woman down rating boxing, for instance, aren't accused of sabotaging men's shows?

    Here's news, the value of the ratings is questionable at best. It's not statistically valid by any measure. These measures only measure the opinions of those who happen to spend time on IMDB and rate shows. They aren't Nielson or other ratings system. As worthless a measure as the rating is on IMDB, it would be even more worthless if only people who value the show (ie. by gender) are allowed to rate it.

    In short, the IMDB ratings are about as valid as Distrowatch's linux distro popularity rating. Here's a thought - if you want to know if a show is good or not, read the reviews people write, not an arbitrary number they click on. Or better yet, watch a few episodes and decide for yourself.

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