Some Morons are Crowdfunding an Anti-Anita Sarkeesian Documentary

“If they’re faking it, the worst that will happen is that the person will eventually be exposed and it will be embarrassing for everyone”

What if they’re not exposed? What if there’s a witch-hunt based on evidence that’s not strong enough? It’s happened before.

I disagree with your argument. Going to either extreme is dangerous, actually. We need level-headed thinking, not everyone jumping on a bandwagon. People aren’t analyzing this rationally, they’re following the herd.

in the case of Anita Sarkeesian there is no downside to that.

If you knew anything about logic or set theory you’d see that you’ve established that MAYBE one person – as a joke – might say it in theory. Problems are these:

a) You haven’t established that he’d send a rape or murder threat
b) one person is slightly different from the rampant “misogyny” we’re supposed to be seeing

It’s pretty clear that the people on one side here cannot think clearly and impartially.

I pointed out the flaws in your logic, you just repeated the accusation. Well done sir!

The downside is of whole communities wrongly thinking that misogyny is rife – of feminists trying to persuade girls that men hate them for what they are.

And the effect on the men who are duped by this.

And the damage this does to relationships.

And the effect on a legal system when such ideas begin to influence the legal system and government

And the obvious effects on everyone’s psyche of believing that we’re surrounded by hate all the time.

Enough downsides?

Certainly not but you’re relying heavily on emotive irrational argument. If you sent everyone to live on different planets or castrated all men you’d prevent rape every happening. There’s all sorts of things you could do.

A sane person, especially one with male children and half a brain, will not want boys and men discriminated against in culture and in the law, because unintelligent individuals have been duped by exactly the kind of dishonest argument we’re seeing here

People are arguing she may be taking a lion’s share of the fund for her pocket, yes. There are a whole bunch of YouTube videos, blog posts, etc.

You bring up another valuable point. If it’s fair to dismiss Aurini’s credibility on this video because of his behavior, is it fair to dismiss Anita’s? There’s pretty clear evidence out there that she didn’t make the gameplay clips herself; that she stole them off YouTube. There’s also evidence that she previously said she hated video games and didn’t play them, then later she says she’s a gamer and always loved them. Etc.

Why aren’t these journalists going after her credibility like they’re going after those who disagree with her? Aruini may have asshat opinions, but AFAIK he hasn’t plagiarized or lied. Asshat opinions don’t go to credibility, but stealing clips and lying kinda does. That would get one dismissed from university, or fired from any reputable media outlet.

I think the answer is pretty clear. They’re not engaging in objective journalism (or blogging or whatever). They are supporters of a worldview and engaged in promoting it even if it means covering things up, being one sided, and engaging in sophistry.

Their opinion may not be relevant to you, and, you know, fair enough. But given that she didn’t produce at least some of the game clips herself, she listed the games she bought and the amount of money, while trivial, isn’t a huge chunk, and that the videos are short segments, etc., and so forth, it’s pretty clear they won’t cost anywhere near $160K to make. They wouldn’t cost probably even half that.

So, no, there aren’t “sources of proof,” but there is enough evidence for someone of integrity that backed her in an article to want to find out if she’s doing the right thing by the people to whom the author recommended funding her. A person of ethics would only recommend something they were willing to stand behind, and if shit hit the fan, they would want to tell people he or she could no longer recommend it and they were sorry for being part of something untoward. If for no other reason, so it wouldn’t happen again.

It’s kind of an unnecessary point, however, because “Feminist Frequency” is a 501(c)3 non-profit, and their funding is a matter of public record. Anyone who wants an accounting can get it after it’s filed and see how much of that funding went to Anita and Jonathan’s pockets as salary rather than production costs. Eventually, it will probably come out. Then it will be interesting to see who reports it and who ignores it both if she did a great job with the money or bought a new car with it.

Which is my point: the “morons” are making this movie because a lot of people seem to be covering certain things up. They ignore her apparent dishonesty with regard to the clips and her statements, and they blow off any questions about the use of the money even though they put their support behind her.

Even with all the dubiousness around some of Anita’s stuff, it would be a mistake to dismiss what she says in the videos because of it – she may in fact have a point, she just might be a douche-nozzle with a point. So even if the “morons” are complete douche-nozzles, it doesn’t mean they don’t have a point and should be dismissed out of hand and ridiculed before they even make a statement.

No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. Of course they can draw a salary. The question is how much is reasonable. That’s why there’s tons of sites out there that list the salaries for non-profit CEOs and where their money goes because “legal” doesn’t always mean “ethical” or “right”.

I’m glad we had this discussion because I went and looked up the filing. “Feminist Frequency” is claiming less than $50K funding per year. She must have mad accounting skillz, or she accepted the money as her own income rather than as the 501(c)3. Even more reason to ask questions.

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.profile&ein=463408143#.VAKtVfldWio

In accounting, receipts means how much a business takes in.

Please re-read what you quoted again, especially the section I have *’ed:

Gross receipts are the total amounts the organization received from all sources during its annual accounting period, **without subtracting any costs or expenses**

Gross means BEFORE you pay bills. Filing a postcard means she took in $50K (or less) before any expenses, salaries, etc. Unless there’s a filing the IRS isn’t showing, but that seems unlikely. If she took it as straight income, that would be on her 1040 personal income tax form which is not public.

501(c)3 is a federal filing and allows any U.S. citizen to deduct their donations to that organization from their federal income taxes. What she filed with CA would only be if she claimed tax-exempt status there for business purposes; like if CA gave her company a tax break.

This may all be smoke with no fire; I’m not an accountant. My point, however, is there is enough smoke around the finances that an ethical journalist would at least want to ask her about it. She can refuse to answer, but I think they would want to ask.

The IRS doesn’t get a full listing if you file a postcard. All you file is the postcard. If the IRS suspects something funky, they’ll audit them and demand the accounting records then.

This is all they file if they use the 990-N (postcard).

http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Information-Needed-to-File-e-Postcard

My concern is not what she filed. My care is that people who are promoting her via blogs, news, etc., and attacking others aren’t looking into it and ignoring other issues like they’re covering something up. They can look into it and say “all is well” and that would address my concern. My concern is with the “yellow journalism” if that makes sense.

Have you tried reasoning? Spamming a forum with whiny assertions about people being fraudulent or lying, or how journalists haven’t done their ‘research’ isn’t reasoning.

I’m not the one who has to back up what he’s said. You want people to believe Sarkeesian is dishonest and wrong. You have to back that up. And posting links to fucking youtube videos where people ramble on at length but never say anything of any substance whatsoever is not backing you up. It is not proving anything.

And fucking hell, you don’t even know what a shill is.

Oh, fuck off back into the manosphere, you child.

I don’t white knight. But yeah, I expect the fact I have regular sex is in some way related to the fact I treat women like human beings.

Don’t grind your teeth too hard now.

Speaks the voice of experience.

Enjoying today’s revelations?

Male feminist? What a sad person you are…desperate for sexual intercourse…

Oh god, just let it go.

Admit that you’re a freak of nature whose been brainwashed by a male-centric society into believing the only thing a (straight) man should aspire to is getting their dick wet.

Only then can the healing begin.

Feminism is one of the only ideologies that looks at cultural, sociological, and gender based history rather then just going with what it says in our “official” history.

You would be hard pressed to find an “ignorant feminist,” because the position entails a massive amount of research and self reflection.

Sort of like the opposite of what you’re doing here.

Have some vapid broad mindlessly quote her feminist idols, and bam you’ve got an ignorant feminist. Nothing easier than that, and no, “feminist” isn’t the equivalent of “scientist” here, more like an equivalent of “leftist” or “libertarian” – it’s determined by the positions you take, not your level of education.

Also, isn’t feminism kind of the mainstream history? I thought it was “established” that women were completely oppressed in the 18/19th century, i.e. the feminist narrative? Not a history expert though – all I know is that feminists, as a rule, have a fantastically bad record of getting the present right. Especially in this area of popculture analysis.

Ah, how much better they’d be off if they’d just stuck to history, culture and society! They could’ve maintained this image of “serious academics” or whatnot, who know all the right things about society and violence and power dynamics, and if you wanna talk to them you better stop playing video games and study up – they don’t concern themselves with trivial matters like this!
Instead, they had to go in here, start spreading laughable notions about entertainment and everyday social life that any toddler can see through cause it’s just SO OBVIOUSLY STUPID, and now they’re losing droids I mean reputation fast and people are getting sick of it all.
Not the brightest strategists, eh?

Why, people saying “broad”? Wow, an important cause to justify a political movement fo sho.

I wasn’t talking about you, just a hypothetical example – though I’d say you fit match it perfectly aside from that one detail :)

Well if you’re a dolt who believes everything a political movement tells you, you deserve to be patronized.

You know what, I’ve had it with your vacuous laconic quips – you’ve obviously got nothing left to say, just like the rest of them – so yea, bye.

Let me quote a little something from a guy who knows a little more about women then you.

“The term “White Knight” is tossed about to shame men into not defending
women or challenging the sexist harassment. It’s a form of gender
policing; “conform to our way of thinking or get your masculinity taken
away”. After all, the only possible reason someone might
disagree with the gatekeepers of gaming is because they’re trying to
ingratiate themselves to women in hopes of sex. White Knights can’t
possibly be real men. Real men don’t put pussy on the
pedestal; they wave their disgust and resentment of women loud and
proud! (Like you!) And what quicker and easier way is there to validate your
manliness in the eyes of your peers than by striking back against those
emasculating feminists?” (Like you just did!)

Why do you automatically associate defending women with wanting sex?

Would you accuse a woman who defended a man of the same thing?

They have no connection.

“Only some of the time”

And yet EVERY time I see people like you using that term, it’s in a negative fashion.

Taking scenes out of context is *entirely* reasonable when your show is about *tropes*. Do you know what a trope is?

Yes, it is professional and legitimate academic behaviour. It’s what critics and academics do – they take fragments out of a narrative to demonstrate arguments. They do not tirelessly recite the entirety of a text just to give context. This is obvious to anyone who’s done a fucking degree in anything and used quotes, ffs.

“No, it’s not if taking it out of context completely misrepresents the game.”

By this logic, no one could quote anything ever, or give examples of anything ever, because there would always be a greater context which wasn’t being ‘represented’. If you wanted to talk about anything, you would have to start with an entire history of the world, just to make sure your viewership understood the ‘context’ in which something happened.

Sarkeesian never purports to give a ‘representation’ of the games she critiques. She identifies recurring tropes within them and talks about them. The fact that you don’t have to kill the prostitutes in GTA is irrelevant to and outside the point she’s making.

“The fact you think you can take something out of context, misrepresent the game’s intentions and call it legitimate argumentation, proves you’re a moron.”

No, it proves I’m familiar with the way academic argument works.

There’s a simple test here Lawrence – if I and other people (people like Tim Schafer and many other games journalists) can be familiar with the games she’s critiquing, and still find that the points she’s making are sound, then it can’t be the case that the points are invalidated by understanding the context.

I think you know this, which is why you and others are so upset that so many people who do already know the context of the games are perfectly happy to broadly agree with Sarkeesian’s points. The very fact that people like us exist shows you’re wrong – unless, of course, you can somehow prove us to be lying about our experiences, conspiring with Sarkeesian to perpetuate some kind of idea we know to be false.

To put it shortly: your opinion leaves no room for disagreement. In your world, if someone who has played GTA also agrees with Sarkeesian, they *must* be lying.

Well, I’m not. Suck it up. Or carry on living in a world where the only way you can make sense of anything is to try to convince yourself other men don’t have penises.

Oh god, shut up with this misogyny.

Why the fuck should it be bad to have a vagina? Why is it an insult to a man to be told he has one if women have them and no one bats an eye?

“Mangina” is a word meant to imply weakness, when it really means nothing of the sort. You should stop using it, or you’ll look like a PUA.

Neither, not that it should matter when you’re being this obtuse. And this is how I can tell you’re a misogynist:
You call getting death and rape threats “whining”

Lawrence Newman, go soak your head. You live in a made up world where you apparently both fear and desire the vagina, and don’t see anything contradictory in using it as an insult.

That’s just irrational.

“because holding women to the same standards as men”

Has it ever bothered you how you never see the opposite. “Holding men to the same standards as women”?

Does it seems strange that you’re using “men” as the default here? That women are the “other,” while men are the inclusive group doing the comparing?

I think it would if you thought about it.

Also, if you do not believe a women who has been repeatedly sent threats calling her a “bitch” and worse (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZAxwsg9J9Q) is more likely to be telling the truth when another group of threats come in, then you are reaching for straws.

And the fact that you immediately resort to a gender essentialist view of the world which you bolster with a pithy claim about how you never complain about being called a bitch means you have no perspective beyond your own on this.

Isn’t it so funny that Feminists are always criticized by men for being male-bashers and “unfair” to them, but then someone like you comes along and proves they are entirely right to be wary of your misogynistic attitude.

Isn’t it funny, Lawrence Newman, that you and your words are exactly what other men are constantly trying to distance themselves from, and yet you remain oblivious to it?

Isn’t it funny, in other words, that you have no place among men or women, and yet you don’t even see it?

“Has it ever bothered you how you never see the opposite. “Holding men to the same standards as women”?

Does it seems strange that you’re using “men” as the default here? That women are the “other,” while men are the inclusive group doing the comparing?”

This isn’t about who’s the default gender you horst, it’s about who’s getting away with more. You can use the phrase “holding men to the same standards” when someone employs the slut/stud double standard – though, of course, not so much when someone else employs the “playa / independent womyn” double standard, then it’s the reverse again.

Okay, I looked up that word and either you’re so angry you can’t make a proper insult, or you’re mixing up your Germanic phrases.

Either way, I think you’re pretty dim if you don’t look at this world and see that “man” is not just the default, but the accepted default for the majority of people. Even women.

Uh, it’s not inherently a bad thing. But society says it is.

They’re not fringe.

I’m just going to reply to your Darwin example. It doesn’t help your argument because you posit someone seeking to represent a person’s *views*. The example doesn’t work when someone isn’t intending the use of a quote or an example from a text to represent an author’s ‘views’ or as a summary of the whole text.

Nothing you say negates the fact that it’s normal critical procedure to take sections of a text ‘out of context’ to demonstrate the use of a trope or to show it as part of a pattern across a medium.

I have several degrees and I’m pretty confused about how you think intentionally taking something out of context is professional academic behaviour.

It would be nice – and honest – if they would make a ban announcement for people they ban. Some of these people are probably thinking, “HaHA! We got ‘er!” and going back to wallowing in blatantly dumb, hateful opinions.

Aw, shucks, dude. I enjoyed talking to you as well. Some of those people were true pieces of work, though. I was the troll? Lol.

Every time you quote anything you are taking it ‘out of context’ and doing so intentionally. That is the nature of quotations and selective sampling.

Did you get through your several degrees without quoting anyone or anything at all?

I don’t think his position is either indefensible or wrong.
She’s used quotes to back up her argument, both from theorists and the primary texts. Precisely the same things you were doing in your English degree.

“We were discussing her use of scenes in which women are killed, presenting them as if they are rampant while ignoring that 1000-10,000 men are killed between each instance of it–indeed that murdering men is the core mechanic of all these games.”

As you are aware, having done an English degree, if you were to do a paper on the representation of women – in the novels of Jane Austen for example – and used feminist theory to talk about how Emma (and whoever) were represented, you would not also need to automatically talk about the male characters by comparison. You could, if you wanted to frame it that way, but you don’t have to.

That would be perfectly IN context with the title of the paper to solely focus on the representation of women in the novels of Jane Austen.

By the same token if she was discussing how women were represented as background decoration (or whichever video your example comes from), ignoring how the NPC men are treated by comparison is perfectly valid. Because it’s not in the context of that discussion.

“She also took games where you can kill any NPCs, recorded the player killing women as examples of misogyny, ignoring the fact that you could have killed men or chosen not to kill anyone.”

Yes, she has. She’s made the argument that – given the developers establish the rules, the parameters of players behaviour in the game world, they decide what the players can and cannot do within that world. So she’s making the point that deliberately giving the players the option to do (particularly against highly sexualized representations like strippers or prostitutes) implicitly encourages it.

I don’t actually agree with her on this point, because I think player freedom of choice – do make immoral misogynistic acts or not – is important, nay fundamental, to certain games. But it doesn’t matter that I disagree with her. She’s free to make the argument, and it isn’t mendacity or idiocy to do so.

Further – how well do you think you’ve represented her arguments here? How charitable in interpretation have you been?

“Your buddy Jon is currently arguing that taking things out of context like this is “professional and legitimate academic behaviour,” and you’re defending it.”

I don’t think that was what he was arguing, but I’m sure he can speak for himself to clarify what he meant. (He also doesn’t know me personally, so “my buddy Jon” is slightly embarrassing. I wouldn’t mind if he was though, he seems a reasonable chap) But given you’ve decided what I’m defending, I’ll clarify how I took it.

He said:

“Taking scenes out of context is *entirely* reasonable when your show is about *tropes*. Do you know what a trope is?

Yes, it is professional and legitimate academic behaviour. It’s what critics and academics do – they take fragments out of a narrative to demonstrate arguments. They do not tirelessly recite the entirety of a text just to give context.”

I took this to mean, taking a quote – or in this case the primary text as a game (so a clip) or ‘cherry picking’ to demonstrate what you are saying is not automatically taking it out of context. If you’ve argued something exists, and found an example of it, and sourced it, that’s legitimate.

You do not need to quote the entire book, or play a movie of an entire run through, from your primary source for it to be ‘in context’. That would be absurd, and every paper would be the size of a novel+ in order to do this.

Of course, referencing specific quotes from a particular text to reinforce an argument MAY be taking it out of context, it MAY be a misreading of the text. It’s all up for debate, and you can counter-argue to show why. But as you are well aware after doing an English degree, analysing a *representation* of something fictional is highly subjective – it’s going to be having an interpretation of that representation, then arguing why you think this.

That her interpretation is different from yours does not mean she is arguing incorrectly by “cherry picking” her examples. Further, as I’m sure you’re aware, her argument does not have to show all sides. it’s perfectly legitimate for her just to make her argument from a particular standpoint and let others argue theirs.

I would also ask you, on a separate point, in your academic career, what grade do you think you would have received if you thought an appropriate way to engage with someone’s essay was to rant and froth about its author? How acceptable do you think it is to do this?

“As you are aware, having done an English degree, if you were to do a paper on the representation of women – in the novels of Jane Austen for example – and used feminist theory to talk about how Emma (and whoever) were represented, you would not also need to automatically talk about the male characters by comparison.”

You absolutely would have to talk about the males as well if you wanted to establish the presence of sexism–the very definition of which is one gender being treated differently. You can’t establish this without explicit comparison. But you already know that and you’re being willfully ignorant.

“You do not need to quote the entire book, or play a movie of an entire run through, from your primary source for it to be ‘in context’.”

We’re talking about willfully excluding relevant information. This would be like quoting Groucho Marx “Marriage is a wonderful institution” and intentionally omitting the second half which changes the entire meaning: “but who wants to live in an institution?” It’s blatant dishonesty, and you know it.

“I would also ask you, on a separate point, in your academic career, what grade do you think you would have received if you thought an appropriate way to engage with someone’s essay was to rant and froth about its author? How acceptable do you think it is to do this?”

I’ve not only taken an English degree, but also taught English at a university, grading papers, so you can can it with your pedantic sophistry about how papers are written. You either don’t really know anything about it or are intentionally being ignorant in service of your ideological ends.

It is not only completely appropriate and acceptable to criticize authors–it’s essentially the core mechanic of academia–so stop pretending otherwise.

Are you going to try to demonstrate where Sarkeesian’s wrong? Just one single point? Come on. Do it. Or else you’re all fucking talk.

“I don’t have to.”

Right. Everyone gets it now. You “don’t have to”. You can just fly in here and assert that someone is dishonest, but you “don’t have to” back it up or demonstrate it in any way.

Do you understand how this works? You’re the one who is accusing someone of being dishonest. You have to demonstrate it. I don’t have to do jack shit until you demonstrate the dishonesty. ‘Demonstrating the dishonesty’ does not equal linking to videos of mindless ravings.

OK, great. Let’s go through this. You accuse her of having preconceived notions or ‘doing it backwards’.

1) You can never know this for sure. You don’t know what was in her head when she started. This is just supposition.

2) Just because a notion is preconceived doesn’t mean it’s wrong. So this gets us nowhere by itself. If a detective immediately suspects X was responsible for the murder, and then subsequently proves it, it doesn’t matter a jot that he began with a presumption,

You then accuse her of ‘cherry-picking’. By this you mean she chooses key examples that support her case that certain tropes recur in video games. This is an entirely legitimate way to make an argument. Have you ever written a literary essay? Or performed a critical analysis of anything? You use quotations. Quotations are, by their nature, cherry-picking.

There is literally no way that ‘cherry-picking’ can be a bad thing if the only thing you are trying to prove is that something is a recurring trope in a medium. If you can find the cherries, you’ve proved your point. That is it. She does not ever say, “This is full of misogyny”, as you paraphrase her – she demonstrates recurring tropes and explains how they are problematic.

That is not, in any way, shape or form, ‘intellectually dishonest’. It is an entirely legitimate way to make an argument.

You then try to demonstrate that she hasn’t examined this from all sides by asking about Mario: “Isn’t that an offensive portrayal of men?”

The answer is no, because in the world of Mario, male is the default state and has no bearing on which side you are on. The real problem with Mario that Sarkeesian points to is that the female character has no agency – she does not ‘act’, either in opposition to or support of the hero. The lack of agency is the real problem with the damsel in distress trope – the fact that it’s a portrayal of femininity as essentially passive. In Mario, men act, while women wait to be rescued.

There was therefore no reason Sarkeesian should feel she had to mention the weighting of male enemy characters. It is a non-point.

You say “one can construct outrage from anything”. Sarkeesian does not ‘construct outrage’. She identifies problematic tropes and explains why they are problematic.

You say she has not studied the effects, and ask “Do people come away from playing Mario assuming that most men are bad and hell-bent on kidnapping women?” There are numerous studies (not to mention common sense) demonstrating that media affects the way we view things in real life. It is the *cumulative effect* of tropes that can negatively affect attitudes to women (by both women themselves and men). It is not the case that one game ever teaches you a particular viewpoint, but that the reiteration of the same trope over a multitude of different media reinforce certain viewpoints.

I agree that “calling someone out for a flawed process or intellectual dishonesty is not “misogyny””. The reason I accuse people of misogyny quite liberally is that I can see no better explanation for the total failure to sit back and think soberly about the points Sarkeesian is really making and understand their merit. I can see no other reason for constantly putting words in her mouth and twisting her arguments so that they are easier to attack. I can see no other reason for misconstruing her position as wanting, say, an end to *all* violence against women in games, or as being against any non-positive portrayal of women in games.

It seems to me that many people, driven by a misogyny they themselves are perhaps blind to, want to tear her down by any means necessary just because they are not prepared to entertain the idea that her points are sound.

I am a man, and a gamer, and I have enjoyed playing many of the games she talks about in her videos. But I am capable of seeing that the things she highlights are problematic, and that most games would be improved if they took her arguments into account. Because I am not a misogynist.

The problem with your argument is that you arbitrarily place the starting point for her investigations at the point she began her Kickstarter. Realistically, one does not propose a series of investigative videos without having already carried out some research and having started to form conclusions.

It’s reasonably clear that Sarkeesian had already formed a lot of conclusions about the problems that exist with games from playing them. The point of the series is to investigate further.

*But*, importantly, we’re not talking about a single, ringing conclusion here. Just because she went into this project with some idea of what already existed doesn’t mean that she can’t then go on to nuance it and form a multitude of separate, related conclusions from what she finds. It’s very unlikely that she began with *all* these conclusions marked out. The trouble is that people tend to conflate her multiple points and conclusions into one massive, generalised statement.

What you call an ‘agenda’ is the very thing that is utterly necessary for carrying out academic investigations – an expectation and idea of what you hope to find, and what the implications of this are.

There is literally no reason to start an investigative endeavour like this without what you term an agenda. One does not start an essay or thesis with an attitude of “I have no idea what’s out there – could be anything.”

Sarkeesian had an idea of what tropes existed in games and what problems this presented. She formed this from playing games, not, as far as I can see, from judging them from afar. The series she proposed promised to be a further and deeper investigation and subsequent presentation of her findings. There really is nothing untoward about that.

I’m sure you, like me, have also read articles that have looked at positive portrayals of women in games. These have also gone in with an ‘agenda’ and ‘cherry-picked’ their findings. But that doesn’t make these articles ‘intellectually dishonest’ either. They exist alongside Sarkeesian’s videos, and neither contradict each other.

A Preconceived notion means there was never a need to do any research because you already have the answer. Your Justification for it isn’t really formulated on a reasonable base since you were not given the full answer.

Preconceived notions work a little differently, it’s something like an analyses created after a study that for the most part stands as is due to a multitude of people who believe it. It can be comparable to a Hypothesis, but it’s more so along the lines of a belief in a close to religious fashion.

So your argument is that I have to understand feminism before I can argue this matter of sexism ? Using the literal definitions is not enough to understand her points, and discrediting her isn’t possible without that knowledge ?

She would be guilty of the same thing when she removes the context from the examples in her videos. She doesn’t understand the worlds and nature of the environment in her games, as well as bringing in a viewpoint that doesn’t exist in that game world. Something like this seems rather confusing but it is totally plausible. Most Video Game Developers don’t make games with feminism in mind, so any analysis using that as a starting point will only end with “This is not a feminist perspective”. That is the issue with this preconceived notion and the overall conclusion she keeps coming up with. It would always be a clash of ideals, The Developers may not think there game is offensive, Sub Group Finds game offensive, other group finds game to be totally evil, other group loves and adores it. It’s too convenient to accept one perspective, and too easy. Preconceived notions stint the amount of places you can look for data because in this case it can only be viewed from a feminist perspective.

Since that Preconceived Notion is already a feminist one, I doubt she ever tried to challenge it, as she was able to title her videos years before they came out. We can disprove her claims with the Damsel In Distress and this with very little Logic. Her “Hypothesis” utterly fails under the light of testing.

Yes, This is the Feminist Perspective (If the other Feminists choose to accept it). However Feminist Theory is something that isn’t necessarily challenged by Feminists and exists more as a religious belief system. The Prevailing arguments coming from it are one sided by default and can not hold up under the eyes of scrutiny. Anita is a Public Figure and every public figure deserves to be challenged in the means of discrediting them. I myself do not feel she is equipped to talk about gaming as she only offers the Feminist Perspective, not the Feminist Gamer’s Perspective. This has everything to do with her claiming to not play video games, and how she for the longest time has presented rather ignorant viewpoints on games in the past on her Youtube.

Feminsist Theory for the most part is indicative of Social Science but a lot of the time the statistics used are easily skewed and done in a fashion to where the theory couldn’t be dis-proven. It’s one of the reasons why I think accepting the Feminist Perspective as part of the conversation to be too convenient. Even if it is a source to a discussion, using Feminist Theory as part of the Discussion itself would be totally devoid of sense. Many of the definitions she uses are not substantiated by anything other than conjecture.

The more balanced argument is never had as Journalists have never put her project under a critical lense. Lots of them seem to simply agree and do nothing but contribute to the controversy around it. It’s gotten to the point where it feels like talking about the Project at all to be totally engulfed in the political nature surrounding it. The preconceived notions and most radio silent Sarkeesian don’t seem to want to discuss anything so long as it makes their stance look more victimized. It even feels like they don’t want to further the discussion at all since people wont ask her the tough questions and when they do she totally folds and gets mad about it on twitter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0qxtKz2vZw

Her GaymerX is the only case where she addresses the criticism and her stance is generally that no ones gets her point. She turns what should of been a serious discussion into a talking point to poke fun and act generally like she is the authority on gaming. To me that would be rather intellectually dishonest .

“Feminist Theory is something that isn’t necessarily challenged by Feminists and exists more as a religious belief system.”

I don’t really understand how you came to that conclusion. Are you aware that feminist discourse covers a HUGE range of thoughts and ideas, movements and ideologies, much like philosophy? Given that, when you think about it, it is a subset of philosophy? There is no feminist holy text that people claim holds all the answers. That’s what makes it such a fascinating subject. Feminists are constantly challenging other feminists in discourse over a range of different topics, and with each wave of feminism ideas are updated and changed with our growing understanding of the intricacies of the human mind and sociology, amongst other things.

Have a read, or at least a scan, and you’ll see what I mean. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism

Excuse me? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Go look at the discussions I’ve been having with Hzle. They’re actually reading what I say and responding in kind and we’re having a great time. :)

I think you need to check your definition of “rationally”.

I think you’ll find that:

1) Increasingly “women’s studies” and “feminist studies” classes are being relabelled as “gender studies” classes to reflect the greater scope that these classes represent, i.e. studies into sociology regarding both women and men of all backgrounds, sexualities and identities. The LGBTQ community and people of colour are also explored deeply in these classes with regards to gender identity and representation.

2) I think you’re confusing feminism in general with a strand of radical feminism. Most modern feminists agree that feminism benefits men as much as it does women, and all they really want is equal representation and opportunities. You might be surprised to find that feminist groups have given more money to support male victims of domestic violence and other causes relating to males than the “Men’s Rights Movement”! Many people actually follow a feminist ideology without realising it.

I’m not really sure why there is such a strange conviction around that feminism is out to destroy men. Men are great. So are women. Everyone deserves to feel safe and welcome. That’s why people are starting to discuss issues regarding the representation of women in video games – to open up gaming to reflect its audience, which is increasingly built up of women and minorities (more adult women than under 18-year old boys now!). It’s bizarre that some people are taking these efforts to make gaming better as a personal attack on their livelihood. More representation and variety in games is going to be more fun and interesting for everyone, including straight white men. Imagine the possibilities for narrative and game design! :)

“Religious belief tends…to be the opposite of enquiry (you aren’t attempting to question or find out if your religious beliefs are right or valid, for example. you just have faith).”

There are different kinds of religious belief; some value faith; others argue that that there totally is a God and they’ve arrived at that realization through rational, empirical means. Some, like Ken Ham, kinda try to have the cake, too, by saying the validity of their belief can be rationally demonstrated, but just in case it can’t, so what.

Sometimes it’s kind of a mixture – “faith” is the true path, but if you ask why, they’ll start trying to make a case why… and, of course, arrive at the conclusion they were supposed to.

At any rate, this isn’t about religious belief – a much simpler word exists to descrbe that kind of thing, it’s called BIAS?!

“can be called a bias, if you like”

HEY I JUST SAID THAT.

“There is no reason not to challenge Sarkeesian’s arguments from another perspective,”
I’d argue the lack of any “lens” would be a good perspective.

“Perhaps one of the reasons (some) people feel so threatened is because they haven’t come across this kind of lit-crit/theory stuff before, so they don’t really know how to counter-argue effectively – so just end up insulting and attacking her, or trying to undermine her credibility, rather than actually engaging with the arguments.”
Sometimes I guess it’s that; but it’s also true that a lot of people have been fed up with this kind of thought for years and may have lost the patience.

“You create a fake dichotomy where you either believe that all video games — fucking video games, mind you, not even real things happening in the real world outside of Tumblr — are systematically damaging women the world over …”

That’s not the argument.

“What she picks out is a bunch of 2-3 second clips out of 8-30 hour long games and goes SEE LOOK OPPRESSION.”

No – she says SEE LOOK TROPES. Tropes, by their nature, are things that recur across different contexts. If she can find the cherries, she’s done her work. If she can find a bunch of 2-3 second clips that portray sexualised violence against passive female characters in prominent games over the last few years, she has proved her point.

“… she deliberately mislead people into thinking certain games (Hitman and others) rewarded the player for killing or abusing women …”

It’s not misleading. If you can do it, that is in itself a reward. A game rewards you intrinsically by letting your actions impact its world. When we play a violent game, it’s the satisfaction of killing that is the primary reward.

If you let someone kill a defenceless character, as long as they die with a satisfactory splatter, you are rewarding the player. Which in itself, we might say, isn’t a big deal. If we were just talking about male and female citizens in GTA, that’s questionable, but not gendered violence.

However, when you prominently feature, as your defenceless, passive victims, representations of women who are normally viewed in a sexualised context – prostitutes and strippers – you create gendered, sexualised violence. And when those make up the majority of the women in a game, no context can excuse it.

“… Thunderf00t who pointed out that not only does the game not encourage mutilating women, it penalizes you for it.”

Thunderf00t missed the point spectacularly. He tried to argue that a level based around ending a sex trafficking ring couldn’t be sexist, completely avoiding Sarkeesian’s argument – that the problem is women being used simply as props and components to give a male character a reason to act.

It’s difficult to say ‘missed the point’ though, when Thunderf00t, on the evidence of that video, is actually just disingenuous. He reminds me a lot of Rush Limbaugh or Richard Littlejohn – all faux outrage and an argument pitched solely to people who already agree with him.

“…. problematic for letting you save Chinese sex slaves from futuristic gangs that prey on women by killing their ‘pimp’ and helping them find sanctuary from said gang (OMG MISOGYNY) …”

Yes, this is a problem, because the male character has all the agency. The women are just props in his story.

“It’s so incredibly disingenuous that anyone who has played these games will watch her doctored footage and go “hey, that’s not what I remember happening.””

Except you know that’s not the case. You know plenty of gamers, including many journalists, watch her footage with the full knowledge of what happens throughout these games, and don’t take issue with her sampling. People who do are, as I keep repeating, missing the point, which is the lack of female agency throughout these games.

The only sense in which her sampling would be unfair is if you could point to a game she’s sampled from where you can actually play as a female character and entirely avoid instances of sexualised violence against females. That’s the only thing that would bring some measure of balance to what she highlights.

“… which is clearly a satire of social decay …”

She addresses that point in a way that, again, all of her detractors seem to magically forget or pass over. Satire or historical recreation, as she points out, are not an excuse in themselves. To be a context with changes the way the sexual violence operates, the satire has to be making the player think critically about what they are doing and what’s wrong with it. If you’re just enjoying killing things, GTA fails as a satire.

“… she goes out of her way to discount ‘strong female characters’ outright by saying that if female game characters are on equal footing with their male counterparts, they’re inherently exempt from her analysis …”

What on earth is your problem with that? They should be exempt from her analysis of the trope because they do not fulfil the trope. Again, the only way you could possibly make this stick as a criticism is if you could show that the vast majority of games presented both genders on equal footing and that Sarkeesian was only presenting a few outliers.

“Emotional appeal; people see that scene and think of their sisters, or daughters, or friends in that situation.”

Again, women as props to make men feel emotions or to tell you about male characters, to make male players angry because it reminds them of women they know. Women in a passive role, given no representation as actors or people with their own stories.

“Nevermind the possibility that sometimes we like to play a tragedy, and when you are a straight male, nothing invokes an emotional response from your audience like the death of the person you love.”

This part of your argument manages to both misunderstand Sarkeesian’s point and to actually confirm exactly what she says. The point is that it’s done to provoke a reaction from an assumed male audience, and it does so by reinforcing stereotypes about ourselves as actors and heroes, and women as people we are supposed to protect.

I find it very, very difficult to believe you wouldn’t be able to see Sarkeesian’s point entirely if we were talking about a medium in which the typical protagonist is a woman who kills other women, saves other women and faces off against other women, where the main job of the very few male characters is to give that woman motivation and to provoke emotional investment from the player.

“All of this assumes that games and gamers exist in a vacuum where we are naught but drones being programmed to carry out these misogynistic writers’ agenda …”

No, it doesn’t. The argument is much more nuanced than that. We are all influenced by the media we consume. It affects our idea of what is ‘normal’. The more a medium portrays women in a negative or reductive light, the more that affects, in general, how consumers of that medium see women.

I am affected by the media I consume. You are. Everyone is. This is just a fact.

She also doesn’t accuse anyone of having a misogynistic agenda. Sarkeesian’s subject, like that of many feminists, is passive sexism – is things that are worse for women because people don’t think sufficiently carefully about what they’re doing, about their assumptions.

“No one should be policed into frankensteining their original ideas into a PC pile of shit just because non-fictional people are harmed by non-fictional sexism.”

No one is arguing for ‘frankesteining’ (I guess you mean bowdlerising?) of ideas, but most of these games would be better if the elements she highlighted were either removed, or if they were done differently. Games in general would be better if women were featured in more prominent roles and in a wider variety of roles. Games would be better, and less problematic, if developers thought very carefully about how you responsibly portray serious, difficult subjects like sex trafficking and rape, instead of using them as cheap devices to wring blunt emotions out of players.

I cannot remotely see how games could be made worse – how they would lose any element of what makes them a worthwhile and interesting medium – if developers set out to address Sarkeesian’s criticisms.

“Charlatans like Anita drawing the focus away from the real fight for justice and onto her fictional narrative that means jack shit in the social context of real freakin’ life.”

No, this isn’t what harms the fight for equality most. What harms it is people being unwilling to consider their own behaviours part of the problem, to accept that there are things about themselves and the things they consume that could be changed for the better.

Sarkeesian’s points are sound – and to me, they’re soundest when it comes to the games I recognise and have played through which she features. Every single time one comes up that I’ve played through myself, I can’t help but agree with her that it could have been better, that it lets itself down in the way she highlighted. Her criticism is sound criticism of the kind that all adult media receives, and will, I think, be instrumental in improving games, especially as the hostile response to her work more than proves her point about what kind of attitudes the negative portrayal of women breeds in consumers of gaming media.

Thanks, though, for the full response.

This is a very old thread to dig up, so I don’t really care to spend much time responding to you. Having given your reply, and the others you’ve posted, a quick readthrough, all I can say is that I don’t believe you’re thinking very logically, fairly or open-mindedly – you’re just determined to defend a pretty shady position because it suits your own sense of entitlement and laziness not to have to rethink your intellectually malnourished attitude.

You got REKT dude, along with every other “supporter” on this article. Bye.
:)

“Well, now that I’ve carefully explained to you how they’re anything but, I’m sure you’ve modified your opinion within a reasonable degree …”

Not really – sorry. I think what you’ve written here, although you’ve taken care to try to phrase it as argument, is based on a starting premise that your enemies are caricatures – “concerned, uptight and eternally frightened Stiffy Stiffersons” – which is all arse about face.

I’m also not convinced by the argument ‘horseshit’ when it comes to anything that doesn’t fit your preconceived notions.

And the question “How can entertainment suffer in any way by taking advice from people who don’t understand anything about entertainment?” is an interesting one, seeing as much of the landscape of gaming consists of people who don’t understand anything about entertainment insisting that their opinion is right on the basis that they are regularly entertained and therefore understand the mechanism behind that.

Honestly, I think if all of Sarkeesian’s suggestions had been implemented from the get-go – if none of the problems she identifies ever existed as problems and if there was nothing that needed changing – neither you nor anyone else would be complaining about a lack of entertainment or a lack of kicks. You’d be perfectly content. You all argue from the position of: “Here’s something I like – some people are suggesting changes – this will RUIN everything!”