Questioning the lack of diversity of body types for female avatars compared to make avatars is “throwing probably the most explosive political grenade that you can.”?
I don't see it. Or, I sure see how the blatantly sexist response [0] could be viewed as politically explosive, but I don't think she anticipated or reasonably should have that that would be the response.
[0] which either outright claimed or implicitly relied on each of these: (1) that avatars of a particular gender matter only to players of that gender, (2) that female players are concerned only with the attractiveness of their avatar, while men have more varied interests, (3) that only a single female body type is attractive.
> a lot of modern feminism starts from the assumption that there are zero differences between men and women
No, it doesn't, though a lot of sexist rants about feminism start with the claim that it does.
> I don't agree with it but it's just a stupid political argument he's having with her, it's not in any form sexual harassment.
Alone, it's maybe not extreme enough to constitute sexual harassment as a single event, though it's quite easily the kind of thing that with a bunch of other stuff reported in the story could easily qualify as part of a pattern constituting sexual harassment by creation of a hostile workplace.
No, very little of modern feminism starts from this perspective. And even if it did, this is a strawman.
Regardless of the manager's goal, it is vastly inappropriate. It would have been inappropriate even if the genders in the story were reversed. Arguing that the manager was so immature that they engaged in petty political bickering to make a point at the expense of a team member's emotional well being doesn't make me feel like they were any more justified.
That's not something that should happen in a professional environment.
> My whole point was that the article is very thin on specific bad experiences
From the article: "While on a team outing, the same senior staff member messaged a new employee’s girlfriend on Facebook asking if she was “DTF” - shorthand for “down to f-ck”. He thought it was a funny joke. The new staffer didn’t feel comfortable challenging him, even though his girlfriend was very uncomfortable and called to ask why she was being harassed by his boss."
But I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for why it's appropriate for a manager to abuse a power structure to hit on an employee's girlfriend that he's never met.
Seriously, the entire article is example after example after example. Employees asking personal questions about her sex life. Abusing fans - a female just got fired for being short with fans on Twitter, but sure, forcing a cosplayer to tears is just boys being boys. Trying to run blackface in a cosplay parade. Physical advances and professional retaliation against female employees.
This isn't a conversation at this point. You're mischaracterizing her story to throw doubt on her claims. You're not arguing in good faith, you're just gaslighting.
If you have a low level ongoing argument with your manager it's going to get rough at some point. My whole point was that the article is very thin on specific bad experiences and mostly about her own reaction to third party conversations within earshot.