http://www.gamesetwatch.com/ggamerz.jpgNot that I'm trying to start beef, following the Kotaku vs. IGN incident, but VH1's Game Break has a post up sharply criticizing Kotaku's treatment of women, and referencing a Michael McWhertor post from last weekend.

In the post, McWhertor comments: "So, you girls want to come into our boys club and play our video games. Fine. A lot of us like girls. But you've got to understand our natural instinct to harass you over the internet at the slightest hint that you might be the bearer of actual breasts—the naturally occuring kind, that is, not the masculine version borne of fistfuls of Peppermint Patties and Cheese Puffs.”

VH1's Harold Goldberg rants: "Kotaku wants girls to spend $99 for a tech item so they won’t be harassed when they play an MMORPG? Why not simply say, “Hey, guys, grow up: don’t harass”? And by saying that a guy’s natural instinct is to harass women is pretty low … and pretty scary. Sounds like the “He-Man Woman Hater’s Club” with a gamer bent. At its best, it’s written by a guy who’s afraid of girls."

Wait, but here comes the capper from Game Break: "At its worst, McWhertor is promoting something religious extremists like the Taliban would enforce: the idea that it's a girl's fault that a guy harrasses her. She was the one that didn't have a veil on her face (or in this case, a voice changer on his mic, right)?" Yay, jihad reference!

Here's our view on it - McWhertor, who posted a few times on GSW in his day and runs GeekOnStun, has been getting very much 'this way' on his personal weblog, such as this one - but we think it's highly, highly ironic and significantly based on the UK Resistance school of being well adjusted and playing at being heavily maladjusted. Does this mean some people won't take it the wrong way? Probably not!