Dear Internet: Grow Up

[Conando]

On the subject of girls and gaming.

 

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/6535-Fake-Nerd-Girls

 

This is the thing I see a lot. Gaming, and the internet, is such a boy's club that it's gone past the point of obnoxious. Who the hell sits there and thinks about whether some one on the internet is a real gamer or not; that target generally being girl and women gamers.

[SuperStingray]

I don't know what these trolls expect to gain by spewing immature libel everywhere.  She didn't have to be much more than a simple social commentator, but they're only making her job easier by drawing attention to her and her cause.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

I don't know what these trolls expect to gain by spewing immature libel everywhere.  She didn't have to be much more than a simple social commentator, but they're only making her job easier by drawing attention to her and her cause.

Well to them, she dared to challenge the culture they hold dear, so it's not that surprising they are acting like this. Isn't that how most humans tend to act when the status quo is challenged?

Edited February 4, 2013 by 743-E.D. Missile

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Welcome to Missing the Point 101!

 

First lesson: How to prove your oppositions point by acting a total fuckwad by harrassing, insulting, and all-around promoting cyberbullying by claiming it doesn't exist.

 

Pop-Quiz! We're going to learn about how sexism doesn't exist by making sexist comments towards the oopposite sex!

 

Honestly, it's really just grown men afraid of cooties from girls infecting their masculinity of being gamers. (lol, see how that works?) Reminds me of when I watching Extra Credits episode on Harrassment and was led to find the video of a girl being harassed while the guy doing the harassing says "It's a part of our culture".

 

I've watched a number of Feminist Frequency videos on the Tropes vs. Women, and the only thing I can say is that Anita could benefit by being less black and white over some of the examples she uses. She makes a lot of valid points, and it's not helping her opposition when they're acting so toxic towards her.

 

But Jim Sterling kinda said it best: had she not gotten this attention, she wouldn't have become as known as she is now, and this probably wouldn't have become an issue. But at the same time, I think it was necessary to expose the vile parts of gamer culture.

Edited February 4, 2013 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[SuperStingray]

Well to them, she dared to challenge the culture they hold dear, so it's not that surprising they are acting like this. Isn't that how most humans tend to act when the status quo is challenged?

Doesn't make the approach less counter-intuitive.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Doesn't make the approach less counter-intuitive.

Wasn't saying it was a smart or mature thing to do.

Edited February 4, 2013 by 743-E.D. Missile

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I'm opening my self to some heavy ass fire by asking this question, but hear me out (or chew me out, which ever you prefer):

 

When told a death threat, has anyone ever got the balls to actually call them out on it? Anita isn't the only one I recall getting a death threat, as Hideo Kojima was said to have recieved such threats during the development of MGS4 when he said he wasn't going to be involved.

 

It goes without saying people are serious when it comes to their lives being threatened, but something tells me that if someone were to issue a death threat over something so petty as a video game or a critique of video games, they probably wouldn't really carry it out...but if they DID carry it out, they would do their group a MASSIVE disservice by having all the media attention on that group and efforts to prevent it.

 

Obviously it would cause even more backlash than what I'm presenting, but it makes me wonder if such is even worth doing. Both for the person daring to face the threat and the person who issued it. And I see more to lose for the person issuing the threat and more to gain for the person challenging it.

Edited February 4, 2013 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Pelly <3's U]

I'll be honest:

 

As far as Anita goes....before this all went down I'd heard of her (I know for a fact CSS had linked her to me at some point in a topic as well), and.......I wasn't crazy with her arguments. While I did enjoy the idea of her Tropes video series, it just wasn't my cup of tea. So basically I stopped watching the series and resigned myself as someone who while subscribing to the general argument behind her (feminism and gender inequality), I wasn't personally in line with all her arguments.

 

And I like Jim Sterling !

 

BUT 

 

I really don't agree with the Jim Sterling video about her. The reason is, I feel like he failed to realize that likely a large portion of the hate against her was stemming from actually misogyny and discrimination, rather than just a general frustration with gaming becoming politicized. I don't think she was a Frankenstein monster gamers created, so much as a tangible conception of the actuality of our culture and the reality of when discrimination and sexism in gaming is called out....and it happens time and time again. 

 

I really feel like the reason people lashed out at her and threatened, harassed, and were all around horrible to her is because in some way they really hated the idea of a female coming into what they perceived as male territory and trying to call attention to how the status quo doesn't really have to be the norm. Because in some way, they have a cultural attitude ingrained in them that women are inferior, and they've been brought up in a patriarchal society that reinforces this time and time again.

 

So no, I do not believe that she was simply a product of general frustration towards her arguments or about gaming becoming about gender rather then 'teh funz time.'

As someone who despite agreeing and liking the idea of exploring gender issues in media, I wouldn't have supported her idea because I wasn't a fan of her previous work. Discoid, who posted earlier in the topic that he didn't think her work would bring any new insight into things, is almost certainly another example of someone who didn;t care for her project and wouldn't have funded it. Or anyone who really honestly didn't care about her or her video series or just wanted to play Mega Man, in the end though they probably could have gotten annoyed or just not wanted to deal with it....they wouldn't have funded her project and moved on.

 

I, they, us.....this group of people who felt apathy, or disagreement  or disregard to her project to the point where we either didn't want or didn't care for it to get funded.......we were not the ones who were sending her death threats, telling her she should get raped, going off about her and other women all over the internet, spouting out discrimination and sexism all over the place because we think we have the right and that's acceptable.

 

The people sending her these threats, and trolling her, and hating her, and hating women, and hating the idea of women interfering and sticking their viewpoint into games.......they were not some mass body of people who simply disagreed with her on some intellectual level and made a mistake in the way they handled her. They were and are the very real reality that women who enter the gaming world, or the world at large have to face everyday. There are a large percentage of people, women and men, who have the attitude ingrained in them that women are to be ridiculed, mocked, bashed, trashed, abused, silenced, not taken seriously, and made to feel inferior. That this idea may not be overt, or as rampant and explicit as it was in the past, but when you get right down to the core it is still very much alive and there.

 

I think 'Anita' (as a concept, rather than the person) is in some ways a monster we have to face. A monster of this attitude, that most of us are able to ignore and go on through our daily lives almost acting as though it doesn't exist. A monster that we as a society have created. And a monster that hopefully most of us are tired of seeing, and are willing to stand for a change.

[Candescence]

What puzzles me most is why the hell would some men NOT want more women to become gamers. Kinda mind-boggling.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I really don't agree with the Jim Sterling video about her. The reason is, I feel like he failed to realize that likely a large portion of the hate against her was stemming from actually misogyny and discrimination, rather than just a general frustration with gaming becoming politicized. I don't think she was a Frankenstein monster gamers created, so much as a tangible conception of the actuality of our culture and the reality of when discrimination and sexism in gaming is called out....and it happens time and time again. 

 

Perhaps I was looking at those words completely differently. I thought he was calling her a "frankenstein monster" as a way to mock those who were acting toxic about her, and that they created the very thing they tried to silence.

 

 

I'm probably not putting the right words in, but I was looking at it more like "It's your own damn fault she got the attention you didn't want her to have."

 

What puzzles me most is why the hell would some men NOT want more women to become gamers. Kinda mind-boggling.

The thing is, they do want women to become gamers...the irony is that don't want women to act like women.

 

I know, it's stupid. And they'll probably say its something else, but that's how I look at it.

 

EDIT: There, fixed it. Freaking...*mumbles*

Edited February 4, 2013 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Pelly <3's U]

CSS, I'd assume most death threats are carried out anonymously....or at least fairly anonymously over the internet, likely with absolutely zero percent of intention of carrying them in.

 

In this way we disregard them and don't take them seriously. 

 

Honestly, I can hardly imagine going into a police station and claiming you got a death threat over the internet, on some game or from some youtube comment. You would probably be 'trololo'd' out of the station. 

 

And in some ways I can see this, but honestly....I wish we would take a harder line on this as an internet culture.

 

I wish we would hold people more accountable for the things they say online, especially if they're actually committing crimes with what they say. This is not acceptable behavior from anyone, and as long as we keep pretending that it's some big joke and 'that's just how the internet is', then we're really coming up with some lame ass excuses to not hold people accountable for some truly horrendous rights violations.   

 

On SSMB, we have banned people for even jokingly making death threats. We take this very seriously. It's a standard I would like to see upheld more strictly across other communities, especially those consumers are paying for. The right to threaten harm, to make others fear for their safety, this is not a matter of free speech or censorship.....it just seems like fucking common sense.

[Badnik Mechanic]

 

*watches the first few moment*

Oh her. Would that be this lady by any chance?

 

 

I nearly made a topic on this lady last week because theres quite a cautionary tale here. Basically, it's slowly becoming aparent that she used and is still using her stance on feminism to con thousands of people out of money to support her projects which don't come to light.

 

Don't know what I'm talking about?

 

She held a kickstarter about 9 months ago and made a rather nice video to advertise it... see below...

 

 

The aim was to raise money in order for her to get enough capital together in order to make a series of videos about the perception of women in videogames.

 

Nothing too bad about that right? Well... just a few problems.

 

Shortly after the project was funded she closed down all the comments and the ratings on her kickstarter video. Which you can see above.

 

She has since not made one video on her main youtube account, not an update on the project video, nor any other video about her subject or... well... anything. Theres nothing. The last video was her kickstarter one, which like I said, has been frozen to stop people requesting updates or warning others about the dodgy dealings.

 

Her main website has had TWO updates since the kickstarter, one which was just the TV segment posted a few posts ago, the other was about a meeting she went to in order to promote herself and her project, which suggested strongly that production hasn't actually moved on as quickly as she first made out.

 

Her twitter and facebook are the only active pages and guess what... not a single update about the kickstarter made since it ended.

 

Now... what does this have to do with kickstarter? Well, it turns out that Kickstarter has a rather glorious loophole in it which a lot of people seem to think she might be using which means... she doesn't ever have to complete the project or give back ANY of the money.

 

Kickstarter does not offer refunds. A Project Creator is not required to grant a Backer’s request for a refund unless the Project Creator is unable or unwilling to fulfill the reward. Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill. Project Creators may cancel or refund a Backer’s pledge at any time and for any reason, and if they do so, are not required to fulfill the reward."

 

Redit, NeoGaf, and several other places that originally promoted this have commented on the lack of progress from this lady, someone even found this.

 

 

July 22nd - She "began production". 1 month after she received funding.

 

September 2nd - She puts out an update surveying her backers for her

 

1st episode. This is 1.5 months after she began production of her 20-minute long episodes. 2.5 months after she received funding.

 

November 3rd - Puts out a quick update. It is now 4.5 months after funding. 3.5 months "beginning production". And 2 months after she surveyed her backers for the first episode.

December 10th - Another update. This is the latest update. From 1.5 months ago.

So apparently 4 updates in 6 months is considered posting regular updates.

A full-time crew of her, a professional producer, and another researcher/writer. 6 months since funding. Planned 10-20 minute videos.

Zero results.

 

This isn't just tied to redit and gaf either, just google 'kickstarter feminism' or 'kickstarter women tropes' and you'll see lots of other places are talking about it and trying to get in touch, yet no word from the woman or her production crew about the status of the videos.

 

 

For the moral high ground, she's certainly a bit shifty when it comes to business.

 

Now as for the video itself.

 

So women get called names online... yeah so do men. Sorry but I've had tons of abuse thrown my way over the psn and on other online games, sometimes it's just from entering the lobby and not doing anything. Lets see now, gay derogatories, threats of death, violence, general abuse, in game actions, heck one person even sent me a picture via the photo attachments service and during a game of MAG one guy would constantly kill me in the game and request that I suck his dick for the whole match? Reason? No idea, just entered the game and away it went.

 

I don't particually see why this is somehow tied exclusively to women as the video is making it out to be. Block them and grief report them. Then when it goes on about the guy who made the 'beat up anita' online game urm... correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't this been done to both men and women who are high profile?

[Tornado]

Shortly after the project was funded she closed down all the comments and the ratings on her kickstarter video. Which you can see above.

 

She has since not made one video on her main youtube account, not an update on the project video, nor any other video about her subject or... well... anything. Theres nothing. The last video was her kickstarter one, which like I said, has been frozen to stop people requesting updates or warning others about the dodgy dealings.

Or, and I'm just putting this out there...

It was frozen because of that. Which was pretty much the entire reason this topic was started in the first place.

[Badnik Mechanic]

It was frozen because of that. Which was pretty much the entire reason this topic was started in the first place.

So the excuse for not updating via other means is...?

9 Months on since the kickstarter, 9 months on since this topic was made, not one update on the progress that people funded her to do.

[Tornado]

Dunno. I don't know if maybe she was also seeking additional funding for it. I don't know how she was thinking about making the videos once she got everything ready. I don't know if she even feels as strongly about the project after she got such an immediate and horrific response to it, and if she had to make changes in response to that. And yes, she probably should update people on what is going on. That'd be why I responded to one part of your post rather than the entire thing. I'm sure she expected some backlash, but I'm not sure if she was prepared for hundreds of comments in the first couple hours basically calling her a feminist whore; and more importantly the fact that she shut down the comments after they just kept pouring in probably has something to do with that.

Edited February 4, 2013 by Tornado

[Stacy]

Really reluctant to post this *sallows hard*. 

 

I can't say that I am fan of her's she does have some valid points but I find some of videos are a bit extreme like her Sexist Christmas Song videos. "Baby Its Cold Outside" is sexist? Please whatever you don't play her The Prodigy's 'Smack My Bitch Up'. Its videos like that remind me of Alex Jones where he takes something distorts it and blows out of proportion for his own agenda.

 

Female Gamers being treated unfairly and down right insulted for being Female is bullshit and unfair. This I do agree with and it needs to stop.

[Nepenthe]

Really reluctant to post this *sallows hard*. 

 

I can't say that I am fan of her's she does have some valid points but I find some of videos are a bit extreme like her Sexist Christmas Song videos. "Baby Its Cold Outside" is sexist? Please whatever you don't play her The Prodigy's 'Smack My Bitch Up'. Its videos like that remind me of Alex Jones where he takes something distorts it and blows out of proportion for his own agenda.

 

Female Gamers being treated unfairly and down right insulted for being Female is bullshit and unfair. This I do agree with and it needs to stop.

 

What? "Baby It's Cold Outside" can be very easily argued as sexist because the woman in the song expresses a desire to go home, but the man insists she stay- most likely to get liquored up and have sex- under the guise that it's too cold for her to be out. It's basically a happy Christmas-fied version of not taking no for an answer; I mean hell, there's a lyric in the song where she literally says "The answer is no," but clearly the man isn't listening. The man's behavior isn't acceptable from a realistic point of view and has inevitably led to rape, but dress it up in Christmas bells and Bing Crosby vocals and suddenly it's not sexist at all?

 

Granted, I don't know if this is the argument she made considering I've not watched the video, but to dismiss that song (of all songs) as not having a sexist context is misguided; to suggest she focus on another which is more blatant in its potentially-sexist themes and lyrics also goes back to my point that we need to focus just as much, if not more, on the more innocuous examples of prejudice as the blunt ones because these are more imbedded in our culture and thus deemed more acceptable. We don't say to gay rights advocates "Hey, why are you so worried about Chik-fil-A donating customer money to anti-gay organizations when gay kids are getting beat!" or to anti-racist advocates "Hey, why are you so worried about the disparity in incarceration rates when the KKK still exists!" A seemingly worse act of prejudice should not exclude focus on the lesser ones. Everything must be combated. 

Edited February 4, 2013 by Nepenthe

[Carbo]

So the excuse for not updating via other means is...?

9 Months on since the kickstarter, 9 months on since this topic was made, not one update on the progress that people funded her to do.

I believe there has been one or two updates as far as her Tropes vs. Women Kickstarter is concerned. Both of which the most notable ones, show just the real problem in her entire undertaking with this series.

The first update was an open plea to her followers and fans for suggestions and elaborate examples of the subjects she was expecting to bring up in her video series. For many, including supporters of hers, this raised a number of red flags, because not only was this a blatant admission of her having gone through explicit crowd-funding to support the supposed undertaking involved in making the series (which if her previous videos were of any proof were already a good enough quality to represent the audience she's aiming to capture) but it's practically asking her fans to do the research for her. This might be something of a "no duh" example to few but I can quote a number of GAF members, even feminist ones, who supported her project and actually felt cheated out of this particular choice of hers when approaching the production. It questions whether or not we're watching a factoid or her supposed well-involved insight on the matter. This isn't even like how the crowd-funding for Indie Game: The Movie was made. It's not a documentary - it's supposed to be a research piece credited to that of one person who, supposedly, is a pretty big deal for her line of work.

The second update was a billboard where she had written down a handful of examples of games and applied them to - wouldn't you know it - tropes. Tropes that are perfectly available from TVTropes no less and that anyone could look into, at any given time. Again, refer to the sentence about the show being based on her insight or an overly elaborate, over-produced factoid. Showing a billboard with a bunch of doodles after months of overdue progress is not the assuring sign of "being done". This is the kind of billboard/project workflow layout you expect at a company seminar a week into any project has been greenlit, and even then that billboard is of absolutely no use to anyone at this point in time. TVTropes has examples for every trope she listed on that Billboard, perfectly indexed and available - why the hell did she spend all that income on games when this level of research boils down to nothing but a quick Google Search and games that could essentially be replaced with YouTube playthroughs?

Perhaps the most notable part about that billboard was a number of select games that in some cases could be considered grasping for straws when trying to apply their light in any way how they're significant in some "sexist" way or why they should matter in feminist light, and that reminds me how pages ago in this very topic I believe there was a line of discussion supporting her choice of going for "obscure choices" that no one's going to contend against. But that's not really true, is it? One of Destructoid's editors Chris Carter, who works for the very same site that held the interview with Anita where she mentioned games she had a problem with, broke down all her arguments and responded to them in perfectly rational ways to counter the notion that they're in any way sexist or good examples of bad female representation.

Her statements in and of it's own in that interview didn't exactly sit well with a deal of supporters either because validity of obscure choices or not they're not exactly the kind of introspective issues that are that important to observe, or which people expect to see out of a massively crowd-funded video series. This certainly didn't really help after a ton of gamers got a bitter taste in their mouth after a completely ignorant video she made of Bayonetta, and her opinion that ICO was supposedly the most sexist game she'd ever played.

A lot can be said about how gamers really have a massive way of blowing what is supposedly a molehill into a mountain, and especially this nature of representing loud vocal minorities as the common main voice of gamers as a whole but it really has to go without saying - to imply that the majority of dissenters or at least those that matter belong to a clique that are afraid of some power fantasies being left unfulfilled is simplifying a lot of legitimate counterpoints to what Sarkeesian is vouching for. If anything, from an entirely different angle I'd consider it nothing short but patronizing to people who enjoy working on these things to assume that designs, storytelling and such are always an inherent result of there being some subconscious facet telling me to oppress females or any gender period, at least speaking from a designer standpoint myself. Denouncing games with fantastic, awe-gripping narratives such as ICO on the account that they're supposedly "sexist" does a rather big disservice to all the love and care that went into creating the game, never mind the fact that the game is anything but such and that interpreting the game that way shows a massive level of ignorance you'd have to try really hard to think that way. At the very least that is but one angle I see in this entire debacle about people "not liking" what these people are out to discuss, and there's a ton of different ways to see it from as well.

Does that mean that the designers should be devoid of criticism where it arises? Well, no. Frankly implying differently would be absolutely stupid. But remember - a ton of people here are dealing with extremes. One might say a lot about what angry gamers on YouTube like to say to this woman but how about the other guys? These other extremes are also baffling in how underrepresented they are, if not most notably this entire "social justice" and "cis scum" trend that prevails on Tumblr like a plague - perhaps the only location on the internet where these kind of extremists are able to go all out without any repercussion. Are we just to ignore those? Is it only important to pay attention to the most easily accessible parts of a social medium where people only against you are worth paying attention to, and where the loud minority are something that needs bringing into light?

Reminds me how Michael Pachter recently went on GAF and whined like a baby about people calling him an idiot for his asinine video game predictions, and said that he'd speak out against GAF on a radio show this Wednesday about how supposedly "asshole-ish" they are for not taking to his predictions or, dare I say it, critical against him as a person.

Tl;dr I don't like Anita. She has a dubious way of making points, nothing really good has come out of the entire kickstarter, and there's some double standards in this entire debacle that need to be considered. If people are to criticize the mediums and the people behind them for certain approaches and devaluing works then it's perfectly reasonable to criticize the people who voice those opinions in return. I'm not entirely sure just how much of an impression she's going to make for gamers or developers when it's easy to see that people have pretty much already made up their mind as to where they stand with her and her opinions, and for that reason alone I've never really enjoyed the idea of a closed space analysis that would have been so much more suited for an open video format delving into crowd interaction and discussion. The entirety of both bases here need to chill and sit around a table and take the time to discuss things instead of taking the time to throw out radical statements.

[Stacy]

What? "Baby It's Cold Outside" can be very easily argued as sexist because the woman in the song expresses a desire to go home, but the man insists she stay- most likely to get liquored up and have sex- under the guise that it's too cold for her to be out. It's basically a happy Christmas-fied version of not taking no for an answer; I mean hell, there's a lyric in the song where she literally says "The answer is no," but clearly the man isn't listening. The man's behavior isn't acceptable from a realistic point of view and has inevitably led to rape, but dress it up in Christmas bells and Bing Crosby vocals and suddenly it's not sexist at all?

 

Granted, I don't know if this is the argument she made considering I've not watched the video, but to dismiss that song (of all songs) as not having a sexist context is misguided; to suggest she focus on another which is more blatant in its potentially-sexist themes and lyrics also goes back to my point that we need to focus just as much on the more innocuous examples of cultural failings as the blunt ones because these are more imbedded in our culture and thus deemed more acceptable. We don't say gay rights advocates "Hey, why are you so worried about Chik-fil-A donating customer money to anti-gay organizations when gay kids are getting beat!" or to anti-racist advocates "Hey, why are you so worried about the disparity in incarceration rates when the KKK still exists!" A worse act of prejudice doesn't exclude focus on the lesser ones. Everything must be combated. 

 

Its a song its lyrics can be interrupted differently like Phil Collins 'In The Air Tonight' some people think it is about a drowning that could of been prevented by the protagonist.  But it is actually about the breakup of a marriage that Phil Collins was going through around the time that he wrote it.

 

As for 'Baby Its Cold Outside' I see it from a different point of view like I don't know the male is genuinely looking out for her. That is what I would like to think its about, even then we have worse songs that hit the top 40 that could be regard as sexist instead she targets a song that is 60 years old.

 

Once again it comes down to the listener.

 

I don't agree with this guy 100% here but he does have some valid points:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQJFWt84xxo

Edited February 4, 2013 by BW199148

[Nepenthe]

Its a song its lyrics can be interrupted differently like Phil Collins 'In The Air Tonight' some people think it is about a drowning that could of been prevented by the protagonist.  But it is actually about the breakup of a marriage that Phil Collins was going through around the time that he wrote it.

 

As for 'Baby Its Cold Outside' I see it from a different point of view like I don't know the male is genuinely looking out for her. That is what I would like to think its about, even then we have worse songs that hit the top 40 that could be regard as sexist instead she targets a song that is 60 years old.

 

Once again it comes down to the listener.

 

We're not talking about SEAL and his kind of ambiguous poetry; I have no idea how you can interpret lyrics like this--

 

My mother will start to worry

Beautiful what's your hurry?

My father will be pacing the floor

Listen to the fireplace roar

The neighbors might think

Baby it's bad out there

Say.. what's in this drink?

My sister will be suspicious

Gosh your lips look delicious!

There's bound to be talk tomorrow

Think of my life long sorrow!

 

-- as meaning the man is looking out for the woman's interests instead of his own. A funny-tasting drink, an irrelevant praising of her features when she says her sister will be suspicious, asking her to consider his needs and wants regardless of any talk going around town. There is no metaphor here. Even if you want to with the nicer idea that it's about a wolf and a mouse, it's still pretty blatant coercion.

Edited February 4, 2013 by Nepenthe

[Diogenes]

even then we have worse songs that hit the top 40 that could be regard as sexist instead she targets a song that is 60 years old.

Because, of course, unless you're attacking the worst/most recent example of something, you're wrong. It's not possible to have a valid point about an older, less overtly sexist song. It's only okay if it's addressing the things you think are bad.

Once again it comes down to the listener.

But of course if the listener thinks differently than you, they're blowing it out of proportion for their own agenda. When someone says something you disagree with, they're obviously ridiculous. When someone challenges you to defend yourself, well obviously it's just a matter of opinion and opinions can't be wrong.

[Kuzu]

I know sexism is a pretty divisive topic on this board, but honestly, what really counts as sexism anymore? I've seen that word thrown around to many times and the justifications for it, and it seems to me that it's getting to the point where I think it's just a term people use to describe treatment against their particular sex. I'm not saying sexism doesn't exist, but I feel when people bring it to attention like this it causes uproar from both the feminists and Anti-feminists. 

 

Basically people need to calm the fuck down, and take a chill pill.

[Pelly <3's U]

Hogfather.

 

First off, I have to say that I feel like it's completely irrelevant to the topic what she did with the kick starter project and all that. Not because it's right or I agree with it or anything, but because I think that it doesn't do anything to counter the fact that she was the victim of a pretty horrible onslaught of sexism in the gaming community. If anything it's like a straw argument that can be brought up anytime her name is around, which I don't really care if anyone wants to debate her on her merits as a creator or her arguments or whatever in of themselves, but bringing them up like they counter any notion of what happened to her is besides anything that this topic of the argument around the situation is about.

 

However, you raising the point that 'why is it different when females get harassed, when males do as well' brings up a very common misconception on the whole debate. Yes, the internet is a volatile place, and online gaming is rite with shit talk and put downs. Granted I understand that just a part of what everyone gets, and for the most part I'm just completely like whatever to that part. But I can't help but think about some circumstances in my life.

 

Such as when I walked into my living room and heard my brother making fun of a group of guys online for being Mexicans (if they even were from that country) with accents. Now my brother is a pretty typical troll online, and basically always says awful stuff to people day in and day out. So I could have just walked on by and rolled my eyes and never thought about it again. But the weird thing was.....it wasn't the same as a typical joke. Because I knew, somewhere deep down, that in some ways my brother really thought that because they were Mexicans (and pay attention to the bolded part because this is key), that in some way he really was thinking about them differently. It's not as if in that moment he had no issue with Mexicans  or Hispanics  or people of a different race in general and was using the racially insensitive insults from a place of clear neutrality where they meant just the same as any other insult. Because when he said 'fuck you' or whatever else to any other player, in most ways it was just completely benign trolling that has to do with his fucked up attitude in general, but in this instance (and others with him I've noticed), these insults ring from a different spot.....a spot that really in some ways says 'Haha I'm laughing at you for this shit in a different way, in a real way, because in this case I have actual hatred against you'

 

And that is not the same.

 

I have also heard my brother insult women online. And I have heard him talk about how he wouldn't vote for Hillary Clinton because she's a women. Do you think that when he insults women that he is completely bypassing over this critical sense in his mind that, at least in some ways, women are inferior to men?

 

Do you think that all those people who call you gay or a fag are 100% completely cool with the idea of homosexuality and are just using it as a blank word with no alternative negativity or discrimination? Because what I think is these people have grown up in a world where homosexuality is looked at in many ways as dirty and gross and not right and a sin, a world where the idea of being gay seemed so bad that it could just be casually thrown around as an insult. And I think a lot of these people probably somewhere inside them do feel that it's wrong or gross or horrible, and that comes through when they say it.

 

My boyfriend has made 'make me a sandwich' jokes to me, and they have really fucking pissed me off. Not because I care when someone makes a "senseless lulzy joke with no real meaning to it". It was exactly because I wasn't going to blind myself to the reality that it really was just a stupid, lulzy joke with no deeper meaning. When we first started dating, my boyfriend asked me "Why do you dress like a slut if you're not a slut?" Wow, he's an asshole, right?! Except I can count almost completely equally offensive things said to me from male and female friends, that stem from a completely discriminatory and sexist view of what a women should be. Of what's an acceptable way to be a women. 

 

So ya, it sucks to be called names online, but what I really think sucks are when those names aren't just random internet insults. 

 

As for Ragna. I feel like you're using the 'we're getting too politically correct' argument, which to me is a bullshit argument. What is sexism/racism/homophobia anymore? You can't say anything without it being regarded as offensive to somebody? AMIRITE?

 

Except for all you're doing is using a thinly viewed excuse to block off understanding and empathy or logic and critical thought to a group of people so that the 'status quo' isn't  disrupted. 

 

You don't have to ask what is sexism anymore. There's tons of pages in this topic dedicated to pointing out and debating it, and they're there for you if you actually want to understand.

[Kuzu]

 

 

As for Ragna. I feel like you're using the 'we're getting too politically correct' argument, which to me is a bullshit argument. What is sexism/racism/homophobia anymore? You can't say anything without it being regarded as offensive to somebody? AMIRITE?

 

Except for all you're doing is using a thinly viewed excuse to block off understanding and empathy or logic and critical thought to a group of people so that the 'status quo' isn't  disrupted. 

 

You don't have to ask what is sexism anymore. There's tons of pages in this topic dedicated to pointing out and debating it, and they're there for you if you actually want to understand.

 

 

 

Believe it or not, I don't really care about the "status quo" but I have a difficult time understanding or empathizing with this group of people when this supposed "sexism" doesn't go beyond the female crowd. Maybe it's because I'm not a woman so I don't pay much attention to it, but most the examples of "sexism" basically boiled down to "the objectification of women" and I have to ask; well aren't men just as objectified then, so does sexism only apply when it's the women being objectified or what, because I'm having a hard time understanding.

 

Pelly, I'm not trying to say you don't have a right to be angry or upset at this whole fiasco because the whole vitriol and bigotry behind it is indeed childish and misogynistic, but it makes me wonder would there be this much of an uproar if the genders were reversed.

[Diogenes]

... and I have to ask; well aren't men just as objectified then

...no. Like, not even close. e: I mean, look at this shit.

so does sexism only apply when it's the women being objectified or what, because I'm having a hard time understanding.

Sexism most certainly can go both ways, but sexism against woman is so deeply ingrained into society that it's considered normal.

Pelly, I'm not trying to say you don't have a right to be angry or upset at this whole fiasco because the whole vitriol and bigotry behind it is indeed childish and misogynistic, but it makes me wonder would there be this much of an uproar if the genders were reversed.

I think if men suddenly had to put up with what women put up with, there'd be rioting in the streets. Just look at how ugly some guys get at the mere suggestion that there is something wrong with the way they act.

Edited February 4, 2013 by Diogenes