Slashdot Mirror
Anita Sarkeesian, Creator of "Tropes vs. Women," Driven From Home By Trolls
Sonny Yatsen writes: Anita Sarkeesian, the creator of Tropes vs. Women — a video series exploring negative tropes and misogynistic depictions of women in video games — reports that she has been driven from her home after a series of extremely violent sexual threats made against her. Her videos have previously drawn criticism from many male gamers, often coupled with violent imagery or threats of violence. The Verge story linked has this to say: The threats against Sarkeesian have become a nasty backdrop to her entire project — and her life. If the trolls making them hoped for attention, they've gotten it. They've also inexorably linked criticism of her work, valid or not, with semi-delusional vigilantism, and arguably propelled Tropes vs. Women to its current level of visibility. If a major plank of your platform is that misogyny is a lie propagated by Sarkeesian and other "social justice warriors," it might help to not constantly prove it wrong.
Yes the subject is uncomfortable and no she isn't completely correct. Her arguments open to plenty of valid criticism that the female gender is not always misused in video games.
The problem is and will always be a reactionary subset of people who cannot be peer pressured into behaving like sane human beings on the Internet. You don't respond to a feminist critique by sending her death threats.
Trolling against her proves many of her points. Many take trolling as a sport to revel in their anonymity, but the threatening comments are extreme.
(https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/504718160902492160/photo/1)
In my opinion, her videos are, in places, poorly researched with many leaps of logic mixed with heavy opinions. But, they still contain very valid points and can be civilly debated.
Evolve, people. At least keep the trolling to a respectable severity.
It seems to me that the first few comments made to Slashdot about this story is indicative of the problem at large. The first comments (made by anonymous cowards) immediately conjectured that Sarkeesian is to blame, that she concoted the death threats as a publicity stunt.
You must ask yourself honestly : Why is it, when faced with stories like this, is your first instinct to claim that the woman lied or made it up?
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
The topic, which you might get if you read the summary, is that she's received credible death threats. Do you think it's okay for people to receive death threats when they say something you don't agree with? E.g., was it okay when they put a price on Salman Rushdie's head?
I do not personally know of any specific corroboration of this event. However i personally know one female who has told me that she's seen harassment at her job in the game industry. A large number of other females that i don't personally know have reported being harassed either while working in the game industry or while playing games. (Not to mention in a lot of other situations not involving games at all.) A number of males have corroborated a number of those accusations. Joss Whedon was told he should kill himself because he retweeted Sarkeesian.
So either there's a massive conspiracy to create the appearance of problem where this is none, or women get harassed a lot, as do a lot of men that try to support them (though usually not to the same degree.) And the problem seems to be exacerbated when they try to get involved in gamer or geek culture. (Or at least i am more aware of it in that case.)
Which means that there's plenty of circumstantial evidence supporting her statement. I'm certainly willing to accept it at face value unless there's some hard evidence presented to disprove it.
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I think this woman is a liar and an attention seeker, but she certainly doesn't deserve that sort of attention. An violent mob is morally repugnant, a self promoting professional victim is simply a pitiful individual.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
And of course they are all posting as "Anonymous Coward."
I think Slashdot ought to consider that some articles, especially those about anonymous internet trolls going open loop, might be set to not allow anonymous posting.
Hopelessly pedantic since 1963.
There's this relatively conflation of negative female stereotypes and feminists among MRA types that helps drive this. So they like to take all the bad things old-school misogynists about women, and pretend it's just true of (all) feminists.
"Emotionally manipulative liars" is one of those old school stereotypes about women, and so AC here takes that typification, and extrapolates it onto Sarkeesian without any sort of evidence to bear out that she's actually like that. It's sad that some people become tentatively aware of gender issues, and immediately turn that into overwhelming sexism.
She has 114 thousand followers on twitter, 150k subscribers on YouTube and whenever she puts out a video it gets picked up by Kotaku, Polygon/Verge, Destructoid, etc.
Publicity stunt? Not fucking likely.
After Elliott Rodger, even if it's a freak occurrence, one would hate to be the exception to that rule given that life is on the line.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Really? She insulted a whole gender? I'm male, and last i checked she hadn't said anything that insulted me. And that's aside from the whole point that death threats are an entirely different kettle of fish from just insults.
"I disagree with your argument, your points are stupid and you are an idiot" is not the same as "I am going to come over to to your house and rape you and kill you."
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Or, you know, you might do a little introspection on the fact that a criticism is not an insult, and perhaps there are more than a few grains of truth in what she might have to say.
Obviously such behavior is abhorrent, but it doesn't do to claim that most people that fit in any category are psychos publicly and then be surprised when a few people exibit the behavior and say essentially: See that proves it!. I could easily say all republican are, or all democrates are $INSERT_VOLATILE_CLAIM and then act surprised when a few of them behave that way and say "See! I told you so!", and it would be a similiarly foul conclusion.
News flash: A lot of people who play video games are immature and / or kids, and a subset of them will behave in this manner when provoked.
The only conclusion that can be drawn from this, assuming it happened as described, is: "Hey, this is what happened". Anyone surprised it happened doesn't understand the human race at all. It was pretty much guaranteed to happen.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
You must ask yourself honestly : Why is it, when faced with stories like this, is your first instinct to claim that the woman lied or made it up?
Come on, we all know why it is. Just fucking tell them. Tell them that it's their first instinct because they don't want to believe that they could be part of the problem, however slightly. Tell them that they don't want to believe that people they know and call friends are actually acting like complete shitbags. Tell them that you know that they've been hurt, that they feel worthless and useless and powerless, and that you know they feel more powerful and thus more worthy and useful when they make someone else feel even worse about themselves.
And then tell them that the only way that they're ever going to feel better is by helping to create a world where we don't just shit all over one another. Because you've got to tie it into their self-interest.
Naturally, most of them won't listen right away. But perhaps eventually, after continuing to try making the world shittier as a way of making it a nicer place to live, they will start watching where they shit.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Huh. I'm male, and I didn't feel insulted. I am also concerned about the issues she raised, and support her exploration of them, although I do not always agree with her conclusions. Why is it "insulting the entire gender" to say "gosh, you might want to consider whether using dead female bodies posed in necrophilic-erotic positions is really a healthy or appropriate thing to do." Personally I find it insulting to my gender that the creators of the game thing I would willingly tolerate such imagery. Essentially what the game producers are saying is "men are brutes with no compassion, let's pander to that." It's disgusting and insulting.
And, of course, she didn't do that. She insulted some common lazy writing and setting shortcuts that are used in fiction that also (sometimes) happen to be rather sexist.
There's no war on men, and in her latest series(I can't remember her older work perfectly, I seem to recall it's true there too, but let's keep it recent) she never makes even one even vaguely oblique reference to men as a collective. Not one. Neither positive or negative. She talks about assumptions of male audiences a bit, but that's clearly in reference to the thought processes of the developers.
Don't mistake this as an endorsement of her points all being correct, just none of them are this gendered insult strawman you're using to excuse inexcusable behavior.
This is EVERYWHERE amongst gaming circles right now, it's really hit the goddamned fan.
There's this line drawn in the sand and both camps are insisting you MUST be either on side A or side B, there's no middle ground.
Let it be known, trolls threatening people or harassing them is lame, it's stupid and they deserve mockery. No one should have to endure that.
The vast vast majority of the politically correct camp, arguing for equality are certainly correct.
However,... much like religion and many other things in life, there are hardcore fundamentalist type nutcases hijacking things. Pushing it to the extreme.
If you're a gamer who keeps your finger on the pulse, be it forums, podcasts, news articles, etc, you may have noticed there always seems to be someone, somewhere looking for a reason to find a flaw with what is being said, specifically to the political correctness of it. Something being said is offending someone. It honestly comes across to me like there's some kind of merit badge for being the most guilty, "No,.. no it's *ME*! I'm the one most aware of these issues and *I'm* the most offended on behalf of X Y or Z demographic"
These people then go on to belittle others and they are endlessly finding new ways to be offended, they've been labelled "SJW's" and honestly I hate to say it but it's a fitting description for some of these people.
I listened to a recent Eat-Sleep-Game podcast about 6 months back and one of the people on that, who is, well infamous for his excessive guilt tripping (mainly of himself) was discussing something regarding a game with a fellow journalist, something was said and he basically said something along the lines of "well that was clearly due to racism" (or sexism or homophobia) or some such. The problem was, what was said wasn't, it had nothing to do with it, it was completely off the cuff. You could basically hear the person he was talking it with do a o_O wtf. (sorry I don't recall finer specifics) This endless race to be *THE* best person and endlessly thinking about X Y or Z agenda.
I don't know where the line gets drawn, it seems any little thing is promoting "rape culture" or sexism or some such. I don't want to offend people, I genuinely, honestly do not want to - I don't want to be ignorant and just point and laugh or say stupid things. However I feel like the goalposts are constantly moving. What's not sexist according to politically correct group A, may be a "trigger" for politically correct group B and therefore I'm some kind of scum.
I really tire of reading my twitter feed and feeling guilty, or feeling like I'm supposed to feel guilty about something or other.
This post may read like I'm either condoning the actions of the idiot harassers or at least sympathising with them. I'm not. I can say I feel frustrated posting online for fear that *something* I say will offend someone, I'm expressing the frustration through anxiety, keeping my mouth shut and avoiding discussion about the topic. I'm not exploding at people, I'm not threatening, I'm hot even REMOTELY condoning the behaviour of those attacking others. I'm simply saying both sides aren't perfect.
It's not often I post using anonymous on slashdot but on this topic, I have no choice, because it seems, you're with or against us, I can't begin to argue in any way that hey, maybe both sides are being a bit nutty, unless I outright 100% admit, NOPE YOU GUYS ARE 100% RIGHT AND THEY ARE EVIL or some such. Honestly this is now worse than politics.
I've got no doubt this post will offend someone somehow, there's no intention to, I don't take delight in offending whoever you are, I'm sorry it offends you. All I can say is, I'm not surprised someone, somewhere is offended, that's life, you can't be everything to everyone.
God help us slashdot, please take note of dupe news articles though and please let us only discuss this particular event the once this month, I can't take much more of this, it's killing the internet.
I watched some of her videos last night. I don't see where she insulted a gender at all. At most, she takes game developers to task for using cheap, clichéd tropes about women as decorative or damsel in distress because they want an easy (or lazy) shorthand for character development or to get a cheap emotional response from the gamer.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
Did you ever notice that in every commercial the dad is the stupid one?
That the white guy is always the burglar?
That the mom is always the smart savior?
I am really ok with the fact that men are not the weakest and stupidest characters in a video game.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
It's reasonable to expect all people to refrain from credibly threatening the lives of others.
I'm not insulted either. Mostly because, like you, I'm male.
That's not the gender she insulted...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I personally have been somewhat critical of Sarkeesian, but hearing this really makes me feel bad. I would never want anything like that to happen to anyone, and I hope things get better for her. Even if I think she's a bit nutty she should have the right to speak her mind without threats of violence.
once more into the breach
If any member of the gender is not insulted, the entire gender was not insulted. And honestly, the idea that an appreciable subset of members of the gender would feel insulted by her videos is insulting to the gender, because it is an actual gender stereotype, directed at all members of the gender. Whereas her videos did not engage in gender stereotyping at all, but rather criticized specific game tropes in a way that was entirely compassionate and respectful of that same gender. IOW, she did not say "these tropes work on men, so men suck." She said "these tropes work on men, and promote an attitude toward women that is unnatural and not normal for men." So I would say she's being a lot more generous toward the gender than you are.
Yes, even don't send them death threats.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I wonder what else will surface in this story?
http://i.imgur.com/zHPLIan.jpg
Oh gosh, look the screenshots of her evidence tweets came twelve seconds after the tweets themselves, from someone who was not logged in and hadn't done a search.
Almost as if she'd created the account, threatened herself, logged out, hit the back button on her browser, and taken the screenshots just in time for the release of her new video. Never you say? What motivation could she possibly have to pull such a damselling fraudulent stunt you ask? Maybe the over €150,000 of donations she got last time perhaps?
Your agreement or disagreement is irrelevant. Death threats break the law and can be punished by jail time. Whether you agree or disagree has no bearing on that.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
How about we agree that stereotypes of any sort in fiction hurt people, and not let that be a fucking excuse for this case of stereotyping real people.
Yeah, and thus we throw those who go too far in jail. This is kinda how living in a society works. There are limits.
I don't care if they think rationally or not. Death threats are not acceptable. The people sending them are some really low scum. And we rational, level-headed people should work together to make sure the angry irrational people don't gain any more ground.
Actually she has a history of lying.
Remember her Bayonetta video? She took it down after being called out by people becuase she had never even played the game before analyzing it; she went off the trailer and box art.
And then there was the whole calling herself a gamer when right before that she said she had no interest in games and would not want to play them.
And of course her common tactic of misrepresenting quotes from game industry people if it'll further her agenda.
No, my worldview really does allow for a little flexibility when stakes are extremely high.
Let's just all agree that Sarkeesian is not Hitler. She posted videos with opinions.
Yes, and this is gender stereotyping, and if you read more feminist writing, you will discover that feminists are just as opposed to the stereotyping of men in these commercials as they are the stereotyping of women.
There's a huge leap from "men are not the weakest and stupidest characters in a video game" and "brutal depictions of violence against women," and "the use of scantily-clad female corpses as decoration." If men were being depicted as weaker and stupider than women in the game that would also be gender stereotyping.
I think this over-the-top PC trend is mostly shallow self-crongratulatory (or self-flagellating) mental masturbation - and the groups engaging in it are in their own feedback loop, in frenzied agreement with each other. It's like blaming domestic volence on old silent movies where the good guy saves the woman ties to the railroad tracks.
BUT
Threats and intimidation are wholly unacceptable responses to pretty much *any* idea or (non-violent) opinion or position. Such a response to something that might seem shallow and silly is not only unacceptable, but has the unintended consequence of giving credibility to the silliness.
I found her Youtube channel about a month ago and watched a number of her videos. They were informative, entertaining, and well written. I didn't see anything that I disagreed with and thought she was spot on in many cases. It is ridiculous that she has to suffer abuse for just stating the obvious, that there flaws with the way women are depicted in media and video games.
Anyone who gets so defensive about a video game they didn't develop or take any part in really needs to re-evaluate their mental health.
I think the issue most people have with her "work" is that for every "[hooker] being abused or murdered" there are orders of magnitude more men being abused and murdered. When Jack Thompson brought up all the killing in video games and said they were bad he was run out of town. Slashdot and the whole of the gaming community rejoiced. But now that the focus is on women it is all of a sudden something worth considering.
Also the fact that she deliberately does these things that are possible in a game but not encouraged or central in any way and paints them as centre-points to the narrative.
You are free to criticize her, you are not free to issue death or rape threats. It's that simple.
I'm a professional game developer and a life-long gamer, so perhaps it's fair to say that I've got as vested an interest in videogames as most. I've got fond memories of many "saving the princess" games, which of course she takes issue with. Is that really worth such outrage?
I'm fine with having our industry challenged from time to time. For example, there are worse things in gaming than a "save the princess" plot device, but let's face it, feminist issue aside, it's a horribly cliched trope that could stand to be re-examined. Even if you don't agree with her, I think she raises some interesting points of discussion. I'm watching some of her videos right now actually, and am actually finding them fairly interesting. A direct quote from her video:
This series will include critical analysis of many beloved games and characters, but remember that it's both possible and even necessary to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of it's more problematic or pernicious aspects.
It takes a certain moral fortitude to listen to criticism of something you care deeply about. Game developers deal with this all the time when a reviewer writes a scathing review of the game you just spent the last two years of your life working on, or when gamers casually dismiss the problems you've spilled blood and tears to solve. It's really hard to put your ego and indignity aside and ask how you could have improved your product rather than lashing out at the one criticizing your work.
It's not like I'm really expecting the general public to restrain from criticism and outright name calling, but I seriously wish it wouldn't devolve to the level of death threats.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Mod this up please...
I think a poster on the escapist forums but it most succinctly: "The gaming community is being bullied for profit".
The gaming community is being singled out for being misogynist, over the film/tv industry, over the music business, over religious groups, because they are a relatively easy target who won't put up as much of a fight. While it's almost certain that Sarkeesian has received threats, let's be honest, they do not carry anywhere near the same weight as those which would come from, say, a religious group who was called out for being conservative. Gamers also lack the PR money to respond, which would be readily available to entertainment companies. Overall, it's a fairly safe group to criticize.
I'm sure that misogyny exists in video games, but no more (and I would argue to a lesser extent) than that seen in general society and other forms of entertainment. Yet Sarkeesian and her backers have launched what amounts to an internet crusade against the most counter-cultural -- and I would argue visibly progressive -- media industries.
Her videos present selectively chosen examples from several video games, purporting to show that games are actually hateful towards women. Many of us have played several of these titles, and can judge how exaggerated such claims are. Indeed, using Sarkeesian's techniques, it would be perfectly possible to go through these games and more, and selectively picks clips and examples "proving" that games and the gaming industry promote animal cruelty.
Yet no-one makes the animal cruelty argument about video games. And the reason is I think obvious -- The misogynist argument makes more money. Sarkeesian has been backed to the tune of $150,000 to makes these videos. Sites like Kotaku generate huge ad-revenue from the inevitable click-bait headlines which follow from these exaggerated claims. The more games who take the bait, who defend their hobby from these accusations, the more revenue goes to the people making and promoting them.
This does not represent a genuine feminist movement. This represents a business model. Gamers are being singled out and bullied -- over religious conservatives, over music video directors, over corporate policies towards women -- because gamers are an easier and more lucrative target. Gamers are "hate-baited" with very, very ugly accusations painting them as haters of women, so that their predictable responses can be farmed out to ad-servers and marketing firms. Bullied; for profit.
I've played video games since 1990; I do not hate women; My hobby does not hate women; The vast majority of people who play video games do not hate women. Please, Sarkeesian's of the world, turn your attentions to the people who do.
May the Maths Be with you!
Threatening a misandrist social injustice warrior is not misogyny.
Shit, I've been threatened online. It wasn't misandry. So stop making this a fucking gender thing and treat it as the simple stupid criminal behaviour that it is.
If you mean in the sense that you can understand what makes religious extremists irrationally angry about some perceived slight, or what makes a mass murderer kill so many people, then sure.
Often "understand" is taken to mean that you believe there's a rational line of thought behind it. But I hope you mean you understand that some people do utterly despicable things for irrational reasons, and you have some idea what their triggers are. If so, I can get agree with that, I suppose.
That's very interesting. Of course, so is this: http://i.imgur.com/zHPLIan.jpg
Because video games do not have "brutal depictions of violence against men?"
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
What people should do is join their communities, use their communities instead of laws to fix the issues in their communities and be as responsible as they can be for their families, their friends and their neighbors.
Is this not exactly what Sarkeesian is doing? She seems to have garnered significant influence with notable game makers in the community.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Again you are completely missing the point she was making and the point of this slashdot article. The point she was making is that women in the games she's reviewing are uniformly depicted in these sexualized death poses and sexualized death scenes, and men are not depicted that way. That is gender stereotyping. And the point of TFA is that whether you agree with her about this or not, it's not a reason to threaten her and her parents with torture and death.
Who are *these people* who cannot be provoked? People that play video games? Are we really going to say that we cannot even talk about video games now without signing our own death warrants? Is that your point?
Take her work at face value or call it part of a conspiracy - all she's doing is speaking into a camera on the internet. Ms. Sarkesian is *not* a legislator, she's not out there suing companies and telling them what to do or what not to do. She's just stating her opinion and raising what she considers issues with the messaging of video games.
WTF is wrong with you?
I think the threats against her are retarded. The only way to kill her is to stop giving her attention. She would shrivel and die if no one listened to her nonsense.
You're bullying, Mellon. It's like this:
A. Tell me something you love.
Maybe you love the Bible. Maybe you love science. Maybe you love The Last Unicorn, by Peter Beagle.
B. Find something in it that you could make an unseemly story about.
If you love the Bible, get the story about the guy who had sex with his daughters.
If you love science, get the story about alpha silverbacks and how they dominate the society.
If you love The Last Unicorn, get the story about the red bull pushing unicorns into the sea.
C. Now accuse the fuck out of a person.
"If you love the Bible, then you define incest as life-defining, and you're not typical. You need to redefine your life, right now."
"If you think science is true, than you believe that controlling women is the Natural Order. You need to rethink the merits of science, and redefine your life, right now."
"If you get your rocks off watching the Red Bull dominate unicorns, you're not typical. You need to redefine your life, right now."
Forcing YOUR interpretations onto others is psychic/emotional violence, and it's also the behavior of a bully.
It's too bad that some teenage boy somewhere has rushed into Anita's damsel-in-distress gambit, but gamers everywhere and gamer culture are NOT the problem. Attack that kid, DON'T attack gamers as a culture -- which is what she's been doing.
Have you seen ye olde XKCD, where if a boy does poorly in math, it's "Damn, you suck at math," but if a girl does poorly in math, its "Damn, girls suck at math?" Well, the same here, but in reverse, and then further, socially embraced: When women are acidic towards men, it's "Damn, you're an aggressive individual." But when some teenage boy is acidic towards women, it's "Damn, gamer culture is to blame, and we need to re-engineer the thoughts and feelings of gamers everywhere, using social bullying."
Or almost as if someone was tweeting constantly (if the screenshot were taken 30 seconds earlier, it *also* would have been 12 seconds after the last tweet).
Almost as if someone were sent a link while they weren't logged in to twitter, and took a screenshot.
Now, nothing's impossible, but you'll need a hell of a lot more evidence to show this was staged. And speaking with such certainty based on such flimsy evidence just makes you look like another troll.
Last post!
Also ...
I would rather have people spend less time finding ways to be professionally offended.
In no way states that I think we must stand and prevent her from doing what I think is wrong. I only stated that I would rather she not do it.
It was a single line clearly written. So either you never read my post and just attacked "because", or ...
You could find no way to attack what I said but really needed to attack anyway and just attacked me for for stuff I was very clear that I did not say.
This is not a very efficient way to get to the truth of a thing. I am leaning toward the assumption that getting to the truth of the subject here holds no real interest for you.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
That doesn't in fact answer the questions raised in the image. In any case, I believe a healthy dose of suspicion is justified given this sort of carry on - don't worry, it's only a few seconds long: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Overall, it's a fairly safe group to criticize.
I'm sure the FBI agent that is right now being assigned to investigate the death threats she received will agree with you completely.
My hobby does not hate women; The vast majority of people who play video games do not hate women. Please, Sarkeesian's of the world, turn your attentions to the people who do.
The vast majority of gamer's don't hate women, but they do love escaping into their power fantasies, where they are tough, strong and desirable and where females (you know, the other 50% of the planet) are treated as objects and she has called you out for it. If this isn't the absolute stark truth, then why is it even a story? There are plenty of nut jobs on the Internet that are ignored by everyone because they are crazy and nobody cares what they say. The fact that she is getting all this negative attention from misogynistic bullies shows just how utterly correct she is. She is telling the truth and that scares people.
If gaming is so squeaky clean and there isn't any truth in what she has to say, why wouldn't you welcome shining a bright light on the industry and behavior of gamers? She is 100% correct in all her analysis, and I'll even go farther and say what she hasn't said, that the hobby is crawling with shit bag women haters who can only have some self-esteem because they are bullying others.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Anybody that would consider her being a hate-monger is out of touch with reality.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Sure, they should act - by rationally and calmly debating her points with facts, counter-examples, and sound logic.
Do you really believe that death, rape, and dismemberment threats are acceptable responses to somebody saying something that "kinda maybe hurt your feelings, a little bit, but not really, because their comments weren't even directed at you?"
It's funny that so many here keep whining about Sarkeesian being "professionally offended" - she seems far less offended by the stereotypes of women that she's criticizing than the people responding to her criticism with, "Oh yeah? Well I'll fucking MURDER you and your WHOLE FAMILY." Which person is the thin-skinned one in that calculation, again?
That doesn't in fact answer the questions raised in the image
Did I miss anything?
Last post!
Damnit. I was going to use some mod points, but I feel like I need to respond here.
Yes, a lot of men die in games. It's not really up for debate.
But when women die in games, they die as props or as a kind of sick joke (and it's usually a really unintentional joke, honestly). It's more a reflection of our attitudes at large about what a woman is worth than something solely limited to games per se, but that doesn't make it okay to have it in games.
I'm a (veteran--13 years, 3 companies) game developer, and I watch each of her videos with a lot of interest. She's not trying to make me feel bad, she's trying to make me pay attention to what I'm doing. I make games to entertain people, not to make a broad swathe of the population feel bad.
I'd like to stop using women as props in our games. I'd like to see more women as protagonists or just interesting characters in general. If there's a good reason to show a woman or a man dead in the game, that will still be okay. But when it happens, I'm going to be running through a little checklist in my head from now on. Was it necessary? Does it advance the game? Is it really a crucial bit of atmosphere, or could we do without it? Would it just be a good idea to hold off on showing this bit of violence given what we know about rape statistics and the deaths of sex workers?
From my perspective as a game developer (even though I'm a programmer), she's not blunting my ability to tell a story, but honing my desire to focus on the important parts of a story and make it better for everyone. This is criticism that the industry needs, and needs to respond to if it wants to be credible in the world. AAA games are huge and expensive to make. We can't afford to be sloppy with our storytelling any more. Players are interested in next generation graphics and AI and all that fancy stuff, but we need more strong critique and scrutiny to bring us up to the next generation of narrative and storytelling that I think they also desire.
(And to the trolls that seem to be lurking in the thread, do you notice how two people can have a discussion without it devolving into name calling and threats? There's zero need for any of the shit she's had to put up with. Adults can have discussions.)
But when women die in games, they die as props or as a kind of sick joke (and it's usually a really unintentional joke, honestly). It's more a reflection of our attitudes at large about what a woman is worth than something solely limited to games per se, but that doesn't make it okay to have it in games.
Men die in the same way! And in much more gruesome and jovial manners. I think when this occasionally happens to women and it's considered more important is more of a reflection of our attitudes of men's lives being less important than women's than any negative view there is of women. You can't honestly believe that male video game characters do not die in heinous ways more than female characters. You don't think it's interesting that you find that totally normal for men and something that needs to be stopped for women? Women cannot be the same part of a narrative as a men unless they can actually be put in the same part. Which according to Sarkeesian and yourself they cannot be because *reasons*.
I'd like to stop using women as props in our games. I'd like to see more women as protagonists or just interesting characters in general. If there's a good reason to show a woman or a man dead in the game, that will still be okay. But when it happens, I'm going to be running through a little checklist in my head from now on. Was it necessary? Does it advance the game? Is it really a crucial bit of atmosphere, or could we do without it? Would it just be a good idea to hold off on showing this bit of violence given what we know about rape statistics and the deaths of sex workers?
Given that we know men are far more likely to be murdered or die in war would it not be a good idea to hold off on this bit of violence? You can do what you want in your games. But when you're trying to tell other people they're being bad or "insensitive" based on the games they create or like to play you actually are trying to make them feel bad so that they stop.
The worst part about her criticisms is that she actually doesn't understand the tropes she's talking about. Or she just makes up new tropes. Tropes are pretty much a necessary part of storytelling. That's why we call them tropes. They've been around since the advent of storytelling. All stories are just rehashes and variations of old ones.
This is criticism that the industry needs, and needs to respond to if it wants to be credible in the world.
I really can't agree with that. Using her same irrational argument style you could paint that same problems onto any media. You think playwriting needs to respond to this criticism if it wants to be credible in the world? Shakespeare the misogynist! The gaming community tried to respond with the appropriate "you're going to have to do better" and explained why to her. She chose instead to focus on people making fun of her for saying stupid things. Everybody with civil disagreements went on and did their own things because she chose to ignore them and make a spectacle out of crazies instead.
This is criticism that the industry needs, and needs to respond to if it wants to be credible in the world.
Every AAA title made in the past 20 years disagrees with your assertion. Every AAA movies as well. Every AAA book. Unfortunately mass appeal appears to correlate extremely strongly with mass stupid.
Some people really aren't playing games for the story telling. Some people are. Games should not be limited to targeting only one of those groups.
You talk about trolls again like there has not been plenty attempts to discuss this in a civil manner. The reason Anita focuses on trolls is precisely so she can ignore actual criticism. She has literally ignored it all while waving her hands and screaming "look at all the hate! This is proof I'm right". A lot of us have seen this behaviour before and know that it has zero credibility.
Oh gosh, look the screenshots of her evidence tweets came twelve seconds after the tweets themselves, from someone who was not logged in and hadn't done a search.
Almost as if...
...she got a notification of the tweets aimed at her, viewed them without logging in and screen-capped it.
The level of paranoid thinking required to believe that it is more likely that a public figure like Sarkeesian would violate the law by faking threats of this nature than that an obviously hate-filled, fragile and easily offended group of nutjobs has a few members who are so over-the-top that they would actually threaten her speaks to a deeply deranged sense of the world.
Look at the discussion here on /. There are people who are absolutely incensed at her relatively mild and well-documented criticisms of some common features of video games. I personally find her theoretical approach a tad doctrinaire, but for depth and quality it easily exceeds the bar required to get a PhD from a decent school (I have a PhD--in physics--from a decent school, and have friends in a number of fields, so I've seen the standards of humanities departments up-close-and-personal.)
So what is more likely: that a large, irate, irrational, angry mob contains a few nutjobs who would go so far as uttering actual death threats, or that a well-known, widely respected, widely reviled public figure would go to such lengths to fake threats, putting her in a position of risk of discovery and criminal charges when it is inevitably found out?
Anyone who picks the second option as more likely is living in a paranoid fantasy of the kind that might lead them to, well, make death threats against a public figure they disagree with.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Oh noes, a content producer made a six figure lump sum for several years work - she must be criticized for not representing the games industry in its entirety, using a small set of unrepresentative examples to represent the whole - clearly she is open target for vicious criticism.
The games industry aren't content producers, never make any money and so are definitely blameless in the content they produce and should not be subject to negative criticism of any kind because so doing makes you a hate-baiter who is insulting the people that consume the content.
Her videos aren't about how gamers hate women. They are how women are commonly portrayed as sexual targets or victims in the games industry, to the point that it has a whole forest of tropes associated with it. That isn't because women are hated, it's that game designers seem to think without sexual imagery that appeals to men, they wouldn't sell as many games. Which is usually true only because big games tend to actually suck and they need to be visually appealing. There are plenty of games which are neutral or otherwise fine - but there are too many (big sellers) in which women exist only for the aesthetic appeal of men.Do you have any evidence of her saying that gamers are haters? Or have you conflated criticism of people involved in making games you enjoy as criticism of your group and therefore of you? That would be a little foolish, I think, so I hope that's not the case.
Incidentally, there are plenty of other people tackling the news, film and religious groups - so you don't have to worry that Sarkeesian is alone. I'm going to be frank - some of the ugliness that comes out of the gaming and tech industry is pretty damned ugly. If you want to see what women get for criticizing men in a religious-based discussion then you might look to Jen McCreight,Greta Christina, Aayan Hirsi Ali, Maryam Namazie. They tend to get death and rape threats for pointing out that the religious (and irreligious) cultures are still too infused with misogyny. It's not all that different than with the game industry, only gamers have less excuse than religious people because Assassin's Creed 2 is not a central part of (most) gamers' identity.
I watched one video, and it was 13 minutes of man hate. I'm pretty sure that saying testosterone is a negative trait is in fact insulting an entire gender.
The gaming community is being singled out for being misogynist, over the film/tv industry, over the music business, over religious groups, because they are a relatively easy target who won't put up as much of a fight.
She is focusing on the gaming community.... OTHER people focus on film, TV, music, other groups. The gaming community is NOT being singled out.
I'm still fuzzy on what constitutes a "credible" vs. non-credible death threat. Specific details?
Perhaps you were looking for a legal definition of the term?
As Ms Sarkeesian lives in California, State Penal Code Section 422 would apply:
(a) Any person who willfully threatens to commit a crime which will result in death or great bodily injury to another person, with the specific intent that the statement, made verbally, in writing, or by means of an electronic communication device, is to be taken as a threat, even if there is no intent of actually carrying it out, which, on its face and under the circumstances in which it is made, is so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate, and specific as to convey to the person threatened, a gravity of purpose and an immediate prospect of execution of the threat, and thereby causes that person reasonably to be in sustained fear for his or her own safety or for his or her immediate family's safety, shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail not to exceed one year, or by imprisonment in the state prison.
Did Brendan Eich receive credible death threats? I guess he might have, but I didn't hear about it and wouldn't condone it.
Did anybody offer Anita Sarkeesian a job as the head of Firefox? No, not at all.
With Eich, the debate was over a sort of flash-boycott over him becoming CEO, not his continued breathing.
When Jack Thompson brought up all the killing in video games and said they were bad he was run out of town. Slashdot and the whole of the gaming community rejoiced. But now that the focus is on women it is all of a sudden something worth considering.
That's some revisionist history there. Jack Thompson wasn't run out of town because he opposed violent games. He was run out of the legal profession because his conduct was unprofessional, uncivil, and harassing towards opposing counsel and judges. He made unsubstantiated claims against others, outright lies, and never responded to questions asked by courts.
For example, in Strickland v Sony, he was granted temporary permission to practice law (pro hac vice) in Alabama as his licensed state is Florida. Normally this is a procedural formality when a lawyer wants to take on a case in another state. Part of the pro hac vice application to the Alabama Bar specifically asks if the lawyer has had any disbarment proceedings (question 8) and any suspension proceedings (question 9) and to list them. Thompson responded "None, but please see the attached letter" to both. In the attached letter, Thompson described how he had been reprimanded 13 years earlier. Thompson however failed to mention that the case 13 years ago involved disbarment and suspension proceedings. Because of this and Thompson violated a gag order, Judge Moore revoked Thompson's pro hac vice status; he was no longer on the case. Despite being thrown off the case, Thompson continue to send emails and faxes to the court about the case for at least 2 years afterwards.
During that same case, Thompson harassed the lawyers of Blank Rome, the law firm representing Sony. Now it's one thing to oppose counsel in court but he attacked the lawyers including the gender of one of the attorneys. He also accused the law firm of participating in pornography and killing of police officers.
In an unrelated case, Thompson went after Al Cardenas, a partner in Tew Cardenas by accusing him of pornography, racketeering, and other criminal activity. What was the relationship between Cardenas and Thompson? As crazy as it sounds, almost none. Beasley Broadcasting Group owned a number of radio stations, and Thompson had issues with their programming. Normally their lawyer Norman Kent dealt with Thompson, and his dealings led to the point where Kent sued and won $50,000 from Thompson for defamation. Beasley also had Tew Cardenas on their retainer for other legal matters. Kent and Tew Cardenas had no relationship other than they represented the same company on different legal matters. Al Cardenas was a partner in Tew Cardenas but did not work the Beasley account. The attacks on Al Cardenas started one week when Norman Kent was out of town and did not respond to Thompson's letters and demands immediately.
These are the reason why Thompson was run out of the legal profession; not his stand, but his conduct.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
It is evident from your posts here that you have some personal issues to deal with.
It is NOT normal to lash out with a vitriolic tirade of graphic sexual threats under ANY circumstances, much less being "provoked" by inflammatory speech. It is sick, and it should not be tolerated or even expected in a peaceful civilized society.
You don't let a thief go or belittle the victim because the door wasn't locked at the time or there were no bars on the windows so a break in should have been expected. You don't defend a rapist and blame a rape victim because she wore a bikini to the beach on a hot day. And yoy certainly don't threaten someone with grave injury or death because what they say offends you. Actions of this sort are those of sick, twisted people...not always evil people as they could be victims of their upbringings, but sick people who need help nonetheless.
Men die in the same way! And in much more gruesome and jovial manners. I think when this occasionally happens to women and it's considered more important is more of a reflection of our attitudes of men's lives being less important than women's than any negative view there is of women. You can't honestly believe that male video game characters do not die in heinous ways more than female characters. You don't think it's interesting that you find that totally normal for men and something that needs to be stopped for women? Women cannot be the same part of a narrative as a men unless they can actually be put in the same part. Which according to Sarkeesian and yourself they cannot be because *reasons*.
So if you watch the latest video, she does touch on that somewhat. I'm going to assume you haven't (or at least, that someone reading our discussion hasn't) and point out the salient bits.
First, that when men die in these games, they're generally an antagonist or actor that actually has a measure of agency. They're killed because they were involved in a conflict that revolved around more than just their gender or their victimhood.
Second, part of why you're gruesomely killing the men in these games is often justified by the violence that the men are (arbitrarily) enacting against women. The women die as props to show off how bad someone is in a wild caricature of evil. She's right in pointing out that violence against women is most often perpetrated by 'normal' men. A woman is FAR more likely to be raped by a friend or family member than a random bad man on the street.
Third, men die in ways that aren't overtly sexualised. Women die on beds in lingerie with their legs spread and their tits hanging out. They're still T&A even after brutal violence.
She's right that sexual and sexualised violence is used as a lazy shortcut to show how bad a person is. You can instantly justify murdering someone brutally (to bring it back to your complaint) if we've just shown them as hitting a woman or raping them. It's not the nicest cycle.
Given that we know men are far more likely to be murdered or die in war would it not be a good idea to hold off on this bit of violence? You can do what you want in your games. But when you're trying to tell other people they're being bad or "insensitive" based on the games they create or like to play you actually are trying to make them feel bad so that they stop.
The worst part about her criticisms is that she actually doesn't understand the tropes she's talking about. Or she just makes up new tropes. Tropes are pretty much a necessary part of storytelling. That's why we call them tropes. They've been around since the advent of storytelling. All stories are just rehashes and variations of old ones.
I don't think people have to stop doing anything. But I think they DO need to think about what they're doing, understand whether it's appropriate narratively, and make those decisions with open eyes. Speaking personally, for the first ten years of my career, I definitely didn't think about this stuff as much. Maybe I would've spoken up more about certain things if I had.
I understand that the word 'trope' actually has several meanings, but in this context, she's using the word 'trope' as 'cliché'. You DON'T need to write something that relies heavily on clichés. At the very least, you don't need to write something that heavily relies on the sorts of tropes that may be damaging to our ideas about women.
I really can't agree with that. Using her same irrational argument style you could paint that same problems onto any media. You think playwriting needs to respond to this criticism if it wants to be credible in the world? Shakespeare the misogynist! The gaming community tried to respond with the appropriate "you're going to have to do better" and explained why to her. She chose instead to focus on people making fun of her for saying stupid things. Everybody with
This is what she actually says - and is the only mention of testosterone in the entire thirteen minutes: (from her transcript)
They can start by deemphasizing the macho testosterone and the combat, and create universally appealing sets that include occupations and adventure scenarios for children of all genders.
I am struggling to understand how this is suggesting that testosterone is evil. She additionally - and correctly - notes how women do not appear in their advertising playing with lego. She most certainly does not suggest that fathers and sons playing together is a bad thing - she instead suggests that there is a very strong gender bias going on in the Lego world. And she is right of course - with an 18-1 ratio of male to female minifigs I fail to see how any other conclusion could be reached.
There was one thing that annoyed me though - she kept on referring to Lego as 'Legos'. Americans. Please stop doing this.