There’s a great big petition on the internet right now – along with a couple of frankly godawful videos – calling for Anita Sarkeesian to be wrested from the development team for the Mirror’s Edge sequel. As of right now, there are nearly 40 000 signatures on the thing. That’s 40 000 people who’ve angrily signed a petition, without doing the most rudimentary fact checking.
Here’s what the petition calls for:
We the undersigned are presenting our names in solidarity against the decision of EA Games and DICE to include Anita Sarkeesian in any aspect of the game development of Mirror’s Edge 2. Our reasoning follows as thus:
Anita Sarkeesian has no credibility or experience in game development. She is merely a self proclaimed critic and her opinions should offer no sound foundations in the development of this or any game. She has no experience in the industry.
Anita does not speak for gamers, female or otherwise, on the difficulty or appeal of games. She only offers personal insights catering to her own agenda. In fact, she went so far as to say that women needed a whole new “simplified” control set for this game, based on her personal experiences, passing them off as the opinion of the female gaming community.
In the past, Anita has even spoken against her status as a gamer, only to rebut her stance to serve her own purposes.
We are not against strong portrayls of women in video games, but believe that consultations on games should be given by more credible and experienced sources. We agree with Anita’s right to voice her opinion on any subject matter she sees fit, however we do not agree with her input on a professional level and do not want to see the game we love influcened by ignorance.
According to angry people on the internet, Anita Sarkeesian was hired by EA to help develop the female roles in Mirror’s Edge 2. What they’re most angry about, it seems, is that Sarkeesian will assert her feminist wiles on the game, but doing silly things like force an alternate control scheme for girls to be included in the game. Take a look at this hate-filled video:
That is a heck of a lot of anger, directed at something that’s just untrue. Here’s the rub: Anita Sarkeesian hasn’t ben hired by EA to develop Mirror’s Edge. The whole thing stems from a user blog on Destructoid, that’s based entirely around hearsay. From two and a half years ago. Before the Mirror’s Edge reboot was even announced.
Speaking at XOXO Festival in October this year, Sarkeesian even disputes the rumours (check the 6:17) mark.
And in the end, even if she was employed by EA and DICE to make more realistic females in games: SO WHAT? I’d have no problem with Sarkeesian actively being involved in game development, especially if it lead to more realistic portrayals of women, which I believe can only lead to better games. I don’t agree with everything Sarkeesian says, or how she says it, but it’s always been her goal to have better women in games; behind them, and as characters in them.
You know what won’t lead to better games? Misguided, angry petitions on the internet.
Last Updated: December 10, 2014
Admiral Chief BellatorMachina
December 10, 2014 at 12:05
http://makeameme.org/media/created/muppets-muppets-everywhere.jpg
RazorNine
December 12, 2014 at 14:15
Petition signed.
Frank and beans
May 26, 2015 at 06:33
EA have said many times she has nothing to do with the game. So why would you sign a petition?
Have some herp with your derp lol.
Captain JJ glitterati fantasti
December 10, 2014 at 12:11
I liked the idea of Mirror’s Edge but that stupid autosave function was so terrible. There was a part that I played on over an hour, failed it, hadn’t saved any of my progress. Had to do it again. I prefer to have the ability to save when I want to.
RinceThis
December 10, 2014 at 12:12
Yeah little girls would *RUNS
Captain JJ glitterati fantasti
December 10, 2014 at 12:20
I recall being taller than you.
EDIT: Damn it. Should have said something about being called a girl.
Alien Emperor Trevor
December 10, 2014 at 12:21
You’re bearded too. Remember your beard facts.
Captain JJ glitterati fantasti
December 10, 2014 at 12:22
Exactly. That’s why dwarves can be short and still maintain their badass reputation. The beards!
Hammersteyn
December 10, 2014 at 12:23
So you’re a tall girl?
Captain JJ glitterati fantasti
December 10, 2014 at 12:25
*bearded girl
Hammersteyn
December 10, 2014 at 12:34
Makes you more manly than Rince then
Captain JJ glitterati fantasti
December 10, 2014 at 12:35
lol
RinceThis
December 10, 2014 at 12:36
How do you know I don’t have a beard right now?
Alien Emperor Trevor
December 10, 2014 at 12:39
Did you get one of those cut-out Daniel Bryan ones?
Hammersteyn
December 10, 2014 at 12:41
Is it your beard?
RinceThis
December 10, 2014 at 12:31
HAHA
RinceThis
December 10, 2014 at 12:31
Meaning? OVG is taller than you 😛 You are a girl to someone always!
Captain JJ glitterati fantasti
December 10, 2014 at 12:32
Meaning I’m not little. Because if I am, so are you.
RinceThis
December 10, 2014 at 12:33
I think if you were 1m and weighed 150 you would also not be ‘little’ so your point is a KAK POINT IS KAK!
Captain JJ glitterati fantasti
December 10, 2014 at 12:35
Damn it.
Fine. I’m a little girl :/
RinceThis
December 10, 2014 at 12:11
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! Dude in the video went full retard https://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdum01IUqi1r57yezo1_500.gif
purpandorange .
December 12, 2014 at 00:51
…. and Anita’s videos don’t? LOL
bob
January 6, 2015 at 01:17
care to explain?
purpandorange .
January 14, 2015 at 05:55
LOL do you have a year? Lying, nitpicking, misrepresenting, unsourced and ridiculous claims, not actually playing the material she talks about, refusal to defend any of her claims, etc everything that could possibly be wrong with a video, is wrong about her video.
bob
January 14, 2015 at 20:23
you need to be specific also all of her stuff is sourced in her documents
purpandorange .
January 15, 2015 at 11:23
Almost none of her claims are sourced. She sourced one claim but besides that, nada. So that for starters. Nothing she says is backed by anything. She lied about Hitman, she lied about watch dogs, she lied about grand theft. She changes definitions, so things that are not sexist are considered sexist under her own definition. She contradicts herself, first something is to feminine, then when something isn’t feminine she says it’s to manly. She thinks saving a loved one is sexist and somehow making that loved on your property. She doesn’t actually play the games, she just takes people’s lets play footage, (without crediting them) which defeats the purpose of being a critic. She doesn’t understand economics and marketing. Her own suggestion for a game doesn’t even pass the bechdel test (which she uses when judging games). So pretty much everything. And worst of all she is sex negative, which basically means she is a slut shamer and tells women how to dress and act.
bob
January 17, 2015 at 01:18
so… you ar etelling me you can’t give specific examples. Lets start with Hitman how did she lie about that?
Dan
January 17, 2015 at 02:11
“The player cannot help but treat these female bodies as things to be acted upon, because they were designed and placed in the environment for that singular purpose.”
Referring to prostitutes in the background that you can easily sneak by and have no incentive to interact with.
bob
January 17, 2015 at 10:37
umm yeah because that’s true. They were only designed for one purpose. Intresting that you called the strippers prostitutes though.
Notice how the Strippers are the only characters that don’t run away or fight back, they cower in the corner.
OH hey look its exactly what she said
http://pettie.us/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/sarkeesian-thunderf001.png
Ceyber, The Metal Rabbit
January 17, 2015 at 12:18
I’m sorry but you’re wrong in this case. Have you even played the game?! You miss the point that he’s(Dan) trying to make.
Look at Hitman… that example you just gave? Complete and utter bullshit, if you played the game you’d know that.
The game DOES NOT imply in ANY way that the strippers are meant to be harmed. Never. Not once. The game will actually SUBTRACT from your overall mission score if you kill ANY innocent(s). If you kill anyone besides your contracted target, your score is negatively affected!
The game tries to urge you to STAY UNSEEN. Even killing henchman gets you a negative mark on your score, unless you hide them away, in which case your score gets reset, so it’s actually better to NOT KILL ANYONE. It teaches you that KILLING UNNECESSARILY is not only wrong, it’s unprofessional.
Stop being such a “sheeple SJW” and open your eyes.
bob
January 17, 2015 at 22:49
and yet…. people make videos killing the strippers and doing horrible things to them…. yeah points reallly matter in that game.
Ceyber, The Metal Rabbit
January 17, 2015 at 23:43
Is that the best you can come up with?
The points tell you whether you’re a successful hitman or a daft twat who’s better off crushing candies… so yes, they do matter, especially if you used your hard-earned money to acquire the game, so you want to play it properly, unless you’re a “toddler”, in which case GTFO.
And no…. it’s not people who make those videos, just a select few who don’t know how to play a specific game properly and choose to exploit and dramatize trivial elements of said game. Stop generalizing, never mind the fact that the source for your argument is a video that could well have been recorded by a five year old.
If you wanna be sadistic, that’s your own problem. This game didn’t make you that way. That is all.
bob
January 18, 2015 at 00:50
its more then a select few that make those videos kid. It also doesn’t explain why the developer chose to make the strippers AI act in that fassion.
and yet look at they way they adverise hitman. Its as if they really know their audience
https://thoughtsofafemalegamer.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/hitman1.jpg
https://thoughtsofafemalegamer.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/hitman2.jpg
https://thoughtsofafemalegamer.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/hitman3.jpg
Ceyber, The Metal Rabbit
January 18, 2015 at 01:03
“People” make child pornography and snuff films too. STOP GENERALIZING.
Those advertisements were spot on for their target audience. Why would you not market to the people that give you the most money? Morality is shaky at best when it comes to anything marketable, that goes for anything ad-related. Some design teams make adverts that they know will be frowned upon or outright banned… that’s the objective. I used to be in advertising, I know.
The world is full of people who need help, who struggle with basic concepts from independence to morality and everything in between. A digital construct meant for entertainment does not need help, regardless of controversy. If you want a game with lethal strippers and wheelchair-bound ninja grannies, make your own.
bob
January 18, 2015 at 05:06
so you are saying that the audience for Hitman wants to kill women who are in their underwear and are posed like pin up models?
Ceyber, The Metal Rabbit
January 18, 2015 at 09:52
No, I’m saying they find women attractive, so along with a play on words that advert campaign was not too much of a stretch for the imagination. Not exactly a very creative set of ads but successful nonetheless (you’re STILL talking about them, so they’ve done their job).
Most people who play Hitman want to kill contracted targets in as efficient a manner as possible, regardless of said target’s gender. MOST people.
Anyway, I have a feeling most of what I’m saying is going over your head. You’ve already lost but it seems like you have no clue. Enjoy what’s left of the weekend.
bob
January 18, 2015 at 18:46
you really don’t get it do you?
Ceyber, The Metal Rabbit
January 18, 2015 at 19:44
Yeah Bob, me and the rest of this thread don’t get it… not like you’re in the minority here or anything. That was sarcasm, you know, just in case.
You’ve done nothing but enjoy your pitiful and condescending attitude, attempting moral superiority with a STUPID topic (that I’ve debunked and now you literally have no argument, except that I don’t understand, how’s that for ignorance?)
Using false logic and over-stereotyped thought-processes, never mind a blanket criticism of a whole gender… You’re delusional Bob, a delusional white knight who feels you need to show everyone how much of a fembot you are.
Your entire argument is one big sham. No academic would take you seriously, I just needed a place to vent and show people that the nonsense people like you have been spewing is reaching the point of public apathy, where because you harp on about inconsequential things the things that really matter become a “been there, done that“-type scenario.
Pick a real fight, like equal pay in the workplace, or get ready for a lot of people being tired of your misplaced SJW nonsense.
Thanks for the platform. Bob.
orangeandpurp
January 18, 2015 at 23:55
Can’t upvote more 🙁
That part about public apathy!
bob
January 19, 2015 at 01:13
I could not stop laughing thank you for that. This might have been my favorite part
“No academic would take you seriously,”
Right…. its amazing how you actually defend a game that uses dead pin up girls to advertise to guys. No really i totally don’t think you’re into necrophilia now.
Oh and what a shock a bunch of gamergaters don’t understand what is wrong with Hitman? who would have ever thought that!
Hey even better why don’t you tell me how Gamergate is “winning” the battle… against what ever…
Its not like major developers haven’t condemned your actions. No really you guys are doing great work!
What I love most about this is that you already lost and you dont’ even know it.
Ceyber, The Metal Rabbit
January 19, 2015 at 01:20
Sure, label me as a “gamergater”. Clearly you’ve lost the plot. We’re done here.
bob
January 20, 2015 at 04:07
haha no one has ever said Hitman was even a good game let alone a perfect game.
hey its cool you enjoy killing women and masturbating to corpses good for you.
MunkeeFlip
February 2, 2015 at 04:55
Ceyber, Thank you for being professional and fair in your debates, but you can never win against ignorance, while in this case you were OVERWHELMINGLY correct in my opinion, ignorance can’t be won over, so there is no need to continue this argument. You may as well be arguing with a wall.
Dan
January 19, 2015 at 02:21
Bob, I hope you at least realize that the posters in question are from an entirely different Hitman game that came out 6 years before Absolution? That’s just one of many things that make Anita’s presentation look misleading. Then you have her complain you can get money from killing women in GTA5, which is a completely moot point because you can get them killing anyone in that game. And every time she starts with “Studies show”, she fails to present any sources for that. Whose studies? That’s not very academic of her.
bob
January 20, 2015 at 04:01
that’s the point it is an ongoing thing with hitman. She never used those posters in the video, so how could it be missleading?
Are there male prostitutes in GTA?
I take you don’t realize that she does show all of her sources in the accompning papers she writes with each video,
Dan
January 20, 2015 at 07:14
Dangit Bobbeh, you catch me slipping a lot. You still have a few things to explain though.
So this never happened? http://www.newstatesman.com/sites/default/files/styles/fullnode_image/public/blogs_2014/08/hitman.jpg?itok=ccW0POG7
She actually does say they are from Blood Money, but why use the advertising campaign of one game and the gameplay of another? And how come you didn’t see them, I thought you were her biggest fan, for shame.
Would it make anything better if there were male prostitutes? Then Anita would complain that homosexual characters are being “played for laughs” like she’s done before. And this doesn’t explain her misleading statement.
Well shit. You got me. She does provide a lot of sources on her own page. Would have been much more helpful if she put them in the video description, but whatever. Oh… only one problem. THEY COST MONEY TO LOOK AT.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejsp.755/full
You would think after having her kickstarter funded multiple times over, she would at least make sure to provide resources that are freely accessible.
João Fardilha
April 19, 2015 at 10:14
one mission out of twelve has a part in which for 30 seconds there are two strippers in the background. And yet that is the biggest problem Sarkeesian and our dear bob have?
Here I was trying to find a definition for nitpicking…
jlenoconel
June 24, 2015 at 07:09
You suck at life.
Ceyber, The Metal Rabbit
January 18, 2015 at 10:01
That’s like saying women want to have sex with Magnum ice creams. Get a grip.
Dan
January 18, 2015 at 02:58
You missed a couple.
http://www.tombraiderchronicles.com/images/hitmanbloodmoney_print_01/screen1.jpg
http://www.tombraiderchronicles.com/images/hitmanbloodmoney_print_01/screen3.jpg
bob
January 18, 2015 at 05:02
no i didn’t thats the point. Look how the men are killed as compared to the women. Are any of those men in pin up poses? naked? or even considered attractive?
What is the point of the adds? are they going after a necrophila crowd?
Dan
January 18, 2015 at 06:05
How would you spin that around? Handsomely executed? I suppose if they made a mission where you assassinate a diver, it could be “swimmingly executed”. Pitch the idea.
The point is to make a pun. Why see something as horrific as necrophilia in a stupid harmless pun? That’s reaching.
bob
January 19, 2015 at 01:17
yeah…. except the two puns they use for guys aren’t gender specific. Notice how the ones for women are gender specific.
Dan
January 19, 2015 at 01:49
“Shockingly” is not gender specific. If you mean “beautifully”, that’s just about the most common adverb used to compliment the performance or execution of something. How would you depict “beautifully executed”? With a ripped Picasso drawing?
bob
January 20, 2015 at 04:06
easy kill an artist. Seriously use photoshop to cover up the gore on the women and its something that could be in Maxim. You really don’t get it do you?
Dan
January 20, 2015 at 07:29
Bob, drop the attitude, I’m trying to have a friendly conversation here.
So like, a propped up beautiful painting with a dead artist lying on the floor? There we go, bob, we’re being productive! That’s pretty original. Although, it would be more “artistically executed” than “beautifully”.
But that’s about all that can be said about the posters, they’re unoriginal and unimaginative. They just put beautiful women because people like to see beautiful women. It’s not some necrophilic agenda.
bob
January 21, 2015 at 00:16
except it is necrophilic as they are all dead. Its hitting a specific audience that likes to see dead women.
Dan
January 22, 2015 at 01:38
Why does everything have to be sexual with you? Beautiful does not equal “put your dick in it”. Are you saying a woman can’t be beautiful in her death? If they were really marketing to necrophiliacs then that’s some really shitty marketing because they’re reaching for a miniscule audience. It’s like you get a kick out of finding the most sinister explanation.
Hedrack
January 22, 2015 at 15:35
Since when it’s “beautifully” considered “gender specific?” So if someone says a mountain is beautiful, they think the mountain is female? And I like how you conveniently skipped over you being wrong about her using the posters.
EvilRO
March 18, 2015 at 13:55
Bob, men can be beautiful too. You are very sexist! how dare you, get off the interwebs and leave it for us non sexist people
Matthew Bryant
January 20, 2015 at 20:34
Obvious cherry picking fallacy. You included every single advertisement that seemingly confirms your argument and ignored the plethora of other Hitman ads that don’t show dead naked women. In fact one ad even shows a woman dressed in black killing scantily clad men. You do you though. Your entire argument is one huge begging the question fallacy. You want Hitman to advocate violence toward women, so you you find all of the evidence that confirms your argument and ignore everything else about the games. It’s ridiculous and completely illogical. The vast majority of victims in Hitman are male. Just stop.
bob
January 21, 2015 at 00:13
no its not cherry picking at all those are all the Hitman adds from one game. We could also include the decision to advertise the Stripper fetish wearing nun assasins..
I don’t think that will help your case at all.
Matthew Bryant
January 20, 2015 at 20:29
Your argument makes no sense. The developers didn’t go out of their way to make killing strippers fun. The strippers follow the same game mechanics as every other NPC in the game. Yes, you can kill them. That doesn’t mean you’re encouraged to kill them or get any benefit out of killing them. You can kill women, strip them down to underwear, and drag them around in Skyrim too. It’s just not something that the vast majority of gamers even care to do. Most people who played Hitman did exactly what they were supposed to do which is sneak past the strippers. Some people are sadistic? Nothing new there. Let’s limit player choice because of a few children. Great argument you got there buddy.
bob
January 21, 2015 at 00:15
no they went out of their way to make it easy to kill them. They are easier to kill then any other NPC as they don’t fight back and they don’t run away and get help.
In Skyrim all the NPCS fight back and call for help if there is help near by. The AI for the women in Skyrim isn’t any different then any other character.
In Hitman they specifically had to change the AI for those characters.
João Fardilha
April 19, 2015 at 10:11
Look at youtube the video killing the stripper is actually Sarkeesian’s, not normal “let’s plays” and etc..
Dan
January 17, 2015 at 19:11
Sorry bob, I mix those up sometimes, I know I’m terrible.
The game encourages you to attack the strippers as much as an open window in a game encourages you to jump and kill yourself. They are there because they fit in that scene. Would you rather they made it impossible to attack them, changing the rules of the game just so you felt comfortable?
bob
January 17, 2015 at 22:49
easy fix make them fight back. As now they are just background decorations designed for the player to kill and do what ever he wants with. As shown by the videos people made doing just that.
Dan
January 18, 2015 at 00:03
Why should every character fight back? It’s perfectly realistic for someone to be terrified when facing an armed assassin.
There are videos of people killing female characters in oblivion and simulating sex acts by moving their limbs around. Does that mean they were designed for that purpose?
bob
January 18, 2015 at 00:47
have you ever met strippers? Out of anyone in a stripclub the strippers would be the ones fighting back. Also they are the only characters who don’t react when you walk around right in front of them.
Can you link those videos? Obvlion is slightly different as odds are its modded for the sex acts. This is as the deveolper intended.
Dan
January 18, 2015 at 02:50
Hmm, those are fair points. So maybe they were improperly designed. But what makes you think that was intentional? They do have a dialogue, so they serve more purpose for world building than they do for being randomly murdered.
You don’t have to modify anything. There is a “grab” button a player can use however they want. Here is one example… with a dead wolf… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riYYD73sPc0
bob
January 18, 2015 at 05:05
it has to be intentional because the developers designed it that way. They made those NPCS different from every npc in the game. You can’t interact with them per say the dialoge is stuff about how they are basicallly sexually abused… which also is the point.
As for oblivon i thought you meant the sex mods that there are a few of for Obliviion and Skyrim. Also the women in Oblivion fight back and acknowledge your presence .
Dan
January 18, 2015 at 06:20
Have you actually played through the entire game and try to do the same to all the npcs?
I did a quick check on the mission. “Hunter and Hunted takes place in a seedy portion of Chicago, and eventually the Vixen Club. Here Agent 47 is to kill the club owner, Dom Osmond, who has been working as a criminal informant for Blake Dexter.”
So let’s get this straight. The objective of the mission is to kill the club owner. While going through the club you hear about the sexual abuse going on by the victims. The point is to make the player feel bad about them, want to kill him more and feel satisfied when the objective is complete. What are you complaining about?
Everyone in oblivion fights back, which is absolutely ridiculous. And you didn’t answer my question, did the developers intend for the player to grab the dead bodies of their victims and simulate sex acts? I doubt it.
bob
January 19, 2015 at 01:21
In Oblivion? yeah they probably did intended the player to do that. Thats the kind of thing that Bethesda would get a kick out of. Notice how there aren’t any sex workers in Oblivion though.
Except everything the strippers say in the club is already in the breifign for the mission and isn’t needed in the story.
The strippers serve no purpose.
Are you familer with the term Women in Refrigerators?
Dan
January 19, 2015 at 02:02
Why would they intend the player to do that? The “grab” function simply serves for the player to move objects around, since this is the kind of game where objects stay put forever. If someone chooses to grab a corpse’s head or leg to simulate sex acts, that is outside the developers’ control. What are they supposed to do?
Reading a briefing would hardly get the same emotional response as hearing it from the victims firsthand. What do you mean serve no purpose? Didn’t you say they are intended to be attacked and messed with? And you didn’t really explain why it’s bad they talk about their victimhood. If anything, this should DETER the player from attacking them. If some players respond differently, that doesn’t mean it’s the intended response.
Yes, I watched Anita’s videos as I’m sure you did. Oddly enough the only pictured refrigerator contains a male, but I’ll admit that’s irrelevant. Isn’t the trope meant to do exactly what I described above? Make the player/reader feel bad about the woman in the fridge?
bob
January 20, 2015 at 04:04
face palm…. women in refridgerators is a term that comes from comic books. Its used to describe super hero girlfirends whos only purpose is to give the male character a tragic backstory or motivation.
The only purpose of the strippers talking is to give the player a white male character motovation to kill the bad guy.
Also from a story perspective its absolte shit. Its just bad writting, pure coidence “oh how convient everyone i run into talks about the guy i’m supposed to kill”
A better game would have had the strippers talking about ANYTHING else to make the world feel more alive and realistic.
Dan
January 20, 2015 at 07:35
Why facepalm? What did I say wrong?
See, bad writing is a fair criticism. Do more of that.
You’re still not explaining the contradiction though. How can they be simultaneously meant to make you feel bad about them and want to kill the guy AND to make you want to kill them on the spot? That makes no sense.
purpandorange .
January 18, 2015 at 04:17
Yea they kill everybody. You’re playing a game called “hitman” the goal is to kill people. And they aren’t made for the sole purpose of being killed and played with, they are designed as an obstacle to your goal, that’s how video games work. What’s the big deal here, why does it matter if they fight back? If the player wants to kill them they are going to die, and as studies show, this has no real world consequence. So if it makes you uncomfortable personally, don’t play the game.
Matthew Bryant
January 20, 2015 at 20:19
You’re actually penalized for harming the strippers in any way. Sure, you can kill the strippers. You can kill people in real life too if you wish. That doesn’t mean people are going to run out and go do it. Simply because the game gives you the option to kill anyone you want to kill, doesn’t mean the game is promoting violence against women. You’re not supposed to kill anyone in that mission except your target. The game actually penalizes you for killing innocents (including the strippers). Sure, someone could go run over a nun crossing the street, but that doesn’t mean society is advocating killing nuns. Just stop.
I don’t hate Anita Sarkeesian. She does have some good points. She also has some absolutely terrible points regarding parts in video games that she takes WAY out of context. It seems like she just looked up every negative video game scene on Youtube possible and did a video on it. It’s horribly researched. She’s not the devil incarnate like some people like to claim, and I completely agree that there’s far too much negativity to women in gaming and society in general, but she isn’t helping things much overall. If she wants gamers to take her seriously, then she needs to be more honest and less idealistic.
purpandorange .
January 18, 2015 at 04:12
Say’s I’m not giving you specific examples
Asks about a specific example I gave in the very next sentence.
Dude, if you’re trying to have a debate, don’t be a complete idiot.
Since you already got trashed on Hitman. Her whole “subject object dichotomy” Is essentially the service industry. She use something that was made up, and used to to say society objectifies women with it, when she was really describing how people pay for a service.
bob
January 18, 2015 at 05:01
how did i get trashed in hitman? seems there is plenty of evidnece that Anita is right since people do exactly what she says and post the videos to youtube.
purpandorange .
January 19, 2015 at 03:51
No, she says the game encourages you to kill the strippers, the game offers you no reward whatsoever for doing that, in fact most people just sneak right past them, but I’m sure those videos you cherry picked are representative of the vast majority who don’t kill them.
João Fardilha
April 19, 2015 at 10:20
you are funny, reality hits you in the face and you still white knight just because…Jesus man… you are as irrational as Anita… Oh wait, that makes sense…
Now go around and doxx me like her fans like to do 🙂
purpandorange .
January 15, 2015 at 11:24
And I mean a scholarly source. She only uses 1 in her entire series, which wouldn’t pass in a middle school English paper.
I'm really feeling it! (Umar)
December 10, 2014 at 12:17
Pretty disappointed in AlphaOmegaSin…He’s a good guy actually but he really hates Anita..a shame…
In any case, pretty sick of this now. 40K signatures. That’s absolutely CRAZY… I just …. yeah … don’t know anymore
Hammersteyn
December 10, 2014 at 12:18
Same here
*Upvotes comments and closes window.
CAE9872
December 10, 2014 at 12:19
World truly has gone mad…or at least majority of gamers!
I'm really feeling it! (Umar)
December 10, 2014 at 12:20
40K…..My word, can’t get over that number
Kane Cochrane
December 10, 2014 at 21:26
40K? Seems like the God Emperor has spoken.
Hart Ponder
December 10, 2014 at 16:38
People Just don’t like being told what is “good” and what is “bad” in their entertainment. Anita doesn’t back her claims with any evidence. She asserts that sexist games are linked to sexist behavior in men, but not one shred of evidence supports her claim. She has lied and lazily crafted videos that essentially argues that she’s offended at video games that portray women the way that she doesn’t like them portrayed.
Most gamers are tired of being told that their games are terrible and causes problems. So am I.
Mandom (Umar)
December 10, 2014 at 18:41
Look I understand that. I am in NO WAY a fan of her work. I think some if her stuff is baseless and untrue. However….regardless of what we feel towards her, she is still fighting for a cause that is, after all, a major problem…40 THOUSAND people, collectively signed a petition against her. Do people even realize the severity of such a thing? There is a petition to stop the hate in the industry but its only at 10K….yet so many people can sign a BASELESS petition against ONE person….its sickening. More so the fact that people REFUSE to acknowledge that there is a problem in this industry….ffs we have death threats sent to a person because she is a female….
Gamers need to look past Anita and realize there is a problem. Blizzard speaks out about this and everyone praises them. Anita does the same and she gets condemned….I’m not defending her when it comes to her baseless claims but come the F on man…..she is not fighting for something bad even…..we cant keep burying our heads and only care about ‘our’ games….
Eric Degrechie
December 10, 2014 at 19:30
“However….regardless of what we feel towards her, she is still fighting for a cause that is, after all, a major problem.”
What is her cause and how is what she’s fighting against a problem? I haven’t seen much blatant sexism in games and her examples of such are poor in my opinion.
“40 THOUSAND people, collectively signed a petition against her.”
So what? Are you mad that a lot of people disagree with her?
” Do people even realize the severity of such a thing?”
No, I don’t! How is this severe? I don’t see how signing a petition to get her off the development of a game is damaging in anyway. It’s people voicing their opinion and they’re free to do so.
” There is a petition to stop the hate in the industry but its only at 10K.”
First of all, have you considered that many people aren’t convinced there is so much hate in the industry that it’s a major problem? Sorry that people aren’t buying your narrative and signing your petition, but whining about it does nothing. Second, how would you even go about preventing hate in the industry? I don’t know of any way you can just control another person’s feelings to stop them from hating something or someone. Even if the gaming industry was rife with hate against women and minorities, I doubt a petition is going to change anyone’s mind.
“Gamers need to look past Anita and realize there is a problem.”
It’s not as if gamers just arbitrarily hate this person so much that they automatically disagree with anything she says. The reason she’s criticized so harshly is because they aren’t convinced there is a problem in gaming to begin with. They have looked past Anita, have heard similar arguments from other critics, and they still reject the claim that the industry and gaming culture is generally hostile towards women.
Mandom (Umar)
December 10, 2014 at 19:57
“So what? Are you mad that a lot of people disagree with her?”
Mad? …. I’m mad that not more people would sign a petition against hate than against a single person’for a video game.
“Even if the gaming industry was rife with hate against women and minorities, I doubt a petition is going to change anyone’s mind.”
Really?? So what then, we’re just to keep quiet about it all…Whether or not it changes anything, the fact of the matter is it needs to be spoken out against. We can’t change what people feel, but does that mean we should sit ideally by and do nothing as if hating based on a predetermined factors is justifiable??? This is not just about feminism or Anita this is about all discrimination and the fact that its time we shift our mindset to not keep brushing these things off. FFS look at Ferguson….
“and they still reject the claim that the industry and gaming culture is generally hostile towards women.”
AGAIN, it doesn’t make it right FFS….That’s part of the problem. How in the world can people still reject these things when females get harassed JUST for being females…Thats ignorance. Discrimination is discrimination and not okay in ANY circumstance…
And call this a narrative of mine or whatever you want, but ignorance solves NOTHING
Eric Degrechie
December 11, 2014 at 23:28
“Mad? …. I’m mad that not more people would sign a petition against hate than against a single person’for a video game.”
Again, I have to point out that some people just aren’t convinced that it’s that widespread of a problem, and again, I’m also going to have to point out that a petition against hate is like a war on terror. You’re not going to get rid of hate. The goal of the petition is too fucking vague and you’d have to get the entire industry and culture of gaming on board to stop hate. It’s not like there’s a president of video games that can outlaw hate because he was so moved by your petition. Sorry, but it’s a futile petition. Rage all you want.
“Really?? So what then, we’re just to keep quiet about it all.”
No, speak your mind. Make a million petitions, I don’t care. Don’t get butthurt because other people aren’t on board with your misguided petition. You’re raging because people have priorities that are different than yours. Cry me a fucking river.
“AGAIN, it doesn’t make it right FFS….That’s part of the problem. How in the world can people still reject these things when females get harassed JUST for being females.”
Because you haven’t demonstrated how widespread a problem it is, nor have you demonstrated that it’s a problem specifically within video game culture or the industry. A little evidence would be nice, and I’m not talking about cherry-picking a handful of incidences. People get trolled on the internet and they get trash talked while playing games online. If you’re being harassed, how about you grow a thick skin, realize that there are assholes in the world and get on with your fucking life? I know a lot of gamers, many of them are women, and none of them want to keep women out of gaming whatsoever. But because video games are so widespread, you’re going to get people from all walks of life playing, including asshole misogynists. Also, has it ever occurred to you that much of the harassment women receive is from adolescent boys who are still in the “girls are icky” phase?
JonathanNathan
December 14, 2014 at 10:59
“Again, I have to point out that some people just aren’t convinced that it’s that widespread of a problem”
Of course this is true. It is also true that easily 95% of those people are white men.
Gregg Braddoch
December 17, 2014 at 20:29
“Of course this is true. It is also true that easily 95% of those people are white men.”
Yep, so therefore, your own double-standards say “well they must be wrong because they’re white men”
You are racist and sexist.
Eric Degrechie
December 18, 2014 at 01:53
Oh, wonderful. This whole time I’ve been talking about how unconvincing these arguments are and you pull a number out of your ass and present it as fact. Even if what you said is true (and it isn’t), it’s irrelevant. You have yet to provide any evidence that sexism, hatred and intolerance is widespread throughout gaming culture and the gaming industry.
You only speak for yourself. You don’t speak for women and you don’t speak for minorities. Your talking points only make you look ignorant.
Phoenix King
December 17, 2014 at 14:59
They point is that Anita is not fighting for womens rights, she is an extremist trying to reverse the male dominant role.
Jacky
December 10, 2014 at 19:32
This petition is sincere. Read what it talks about, and even though this petition is fighting for no reason whatsoever, not everyone is signing because they hate her; people are signing because they don’t want her influence on the game. While I’m not exactly indifferent to her, she had said many hypocritical and sexist things herself, which makes it hard for me to take her seriously, and she has often spoken selfishly about issues.
Most of the 40k signed probably not out of spite, but to keep a certain person away from a game, and this didn’t have to be Anita, but if you had a person in charge of a game, who had no real experience in game developing, and is a self-proclaimed critic of anything that they don’t like, I’d try and get that person off the team. Things like death threats and doxing are done by the vocal minority, and I doubt many of the people who signed associate themselves with the extremes of the spectrum.
Better females in games is one thing, but Anita is only a caustic representative of herself when it comes to “fighting for women’s rights”.
Mandom (Umar)
December 10, 2014 at 19:48
100% and I can totally agree that she has been extremely sexist herself and has done things to push her OWN agenda, but, like I keep saying, I don’t like her, nor am I defending her, she is speaking out about real and very serious issues. Sincere the petition may be, don’t you think the fact that a petition to STOP hate cannot garner enough signatures than one that merely sets out to keep away someone from a video game…Sure, not all of it is out of hate, but when people are blind to the occurrences going on (death, constant harassment, fighting, discrimination etc) then there is a BIGGER problem than Anita and that is my main issue. Please don’t get me wrong, its not about her, but when someone brings forth legit facts we need to be able to sift through the BS and speak out against it, this goes for ALL forms of discrimination.
My thing is….I don’t care WHO speaks about it, but as long someone does, even if its not pure, it needs to be brought to the forefront and we need stand together in fighting against it….
Phoenix King
December 17, 2014 at 15:03
She proceeded to knock Buffy and Nikita for being unrealistic interpretations of women, then bashed Mulan for being a facade.
Then she went and uploaded a game concept that was a blatant copy of prince of persia, and the main character was The Prince with a women’s head.
In many of her videos she describes a strong female lead as a man with boobs.
__________________________________
Do not support someone that you have not done research into.
Phoenix King
December 17, 2014 at 15:05
”Death Threats”
Dude, do you even know what Anita stands for?
She wasn’t threatened because she is a women, she was threatened because she is a contradicting nutcase.
Top Kek
December 10, 2014 at 22:32
>ffs we have death threats sent to a person because she is a female….
Were the threats made against Jack Thompson done because he was male? Or was it because his message was so off-base and unsubstantiated it angered those that were being attacked?
Did you support Mr. Thompson by the way? If not, why? (Not being old enough to remember him is an acceptable answer, since most everyone involved in this seems to be a clueless fresh-out-of college liberal.)
There is sexism involved here– people like you continue to inject it where it does not exist, because you enjoy feeling like victims.
Also, being called mean names on the internets is not a “death threat.” You should see the weakass trolling the feminists cry about, and much of that is blatant fakery where anti-male feminist groups have promoted sending hateful messages to each other under pro-GG tags, or using “I’marepublicangamerwhohateswomen” throwaway accounts. Something we have also proven.
The only supposed “real threats” she has received she has refused to cooperate with law-enforcement to investigate. She has about as much credibility as Meg Lanker-Simons.
Hart Ponder
December 11, 2014 at 03:01
Thats just the issue though. Having her on the development team of Mirror’s Edge will cause censorship amongst the game devs. It is completely unethical to tell somebody what they can and cannot create. Anita thinks that sexism in video games is linked to sexism in everyday life. This is wrong and there is no evidence to support such a claim. She is trying to be the morality police and dictate what we can and cannot fantasize.
If you don’t like a game that’s fine. Anita forgets that all sorts of games come in a spectrum of wide veritety. There are games for everybody. We want her out of the game industry because she has proven through her actions that she doesn’t care about video games. In essence, there is no problem. Anita is literally trying to fix what isn’t broken.
bob
January 6, 2015 at 05:54
except SHE HAS NEVER ONCE BEEN PART OF THE DEVELOPMENT TEAM!!!
The story WAS NEVER ONCE TRUE! It was debunked the second it came out months ago
you are being an absolute idiot for nothing. But hey I will play your silly game prove how if she was on the team the game would be censored? She has stated that she was a big fan of the original and that it was a perfect game.
So what do you think she would have changed about it to “censor” it as you put.
Top Kek
December 11, 2014 at 18:33
>There is a petition to stop the hate in the industry but its only at 10K
Then maybe, just maybe, there aren’t very many people convinced there even exists “hate in the industry.” You’ve deluded yourself into thinking there is a huge problem. The actual public, when polled, does not agree…
Clearly this is just their own internalized misogyny clouding their judgement, right?
None of the women who’ve been actually working in gaming over the last few decades, or playing actual games, seem to have this overwhelming concern about how “oppressed’ they are. I’ve never heard any of you feminists explain how someone like Roberta Williams was hindered because of her vagina when she created gaming history. (Are you kids even old enough to remember Sierra?)
The only people screaming about their vaginal oppression are con-artists who don’t play or follow video gaming or their development who jumped in recently, while demanding donations for it.
Not once are these cons promoting women. They’re only attacking men, and occasionally even attacking other women who make them look bad by *actually getting involved in video games and doing a damn fine job at it.*
Feather
December 13, 2014 at 00:32
Hello, you must be new to the internet. See, when someone, it doesn’t matter who, lies to your face a hundred times, there’s gonna be some people who won’t like you. Frankly,i’m surprised that there arnt MORE signatures, given that every single one of her arguments has been systematically disproven. I don’t disagree that there may be people that play games and hate women… But the whole industry structured to oppress women? You’ve gotta be senile…
Phoenix King
December 17, 2014 at 14:57
,Anita is not fighting for women’s rights. She thinks women are retarded if they try to stand up to her, lots of female gamers have already said they do not stand for her way of thinking.
Shadow
December 31, 2014 at 18:41
Likely because those female gamers are as misguided as you, sir.
Phoenix King
December 31, 2014 at 21:44
Oh, so you do support her?
Please then, explain to me why you support her.
Shadow
January 1, 2015 at 01:34
Define support? I haven’t given money to her, though I do agree with a lot of her points because she can and does back them up and she is speaking plain English. So it’s not hard to understand what she is saying in context and what she means while the little monkeys of the internet strip away context and plaster her face everywhere and strawman her arguments so horribly, it’s embarrassing and amazing that they made it to 18yrs old on that same thought process that their brain goes through on a regular basis.
Phoenix King
January 2, 2015 at 14:22
Another blind sheep that follows a misguided dictator.
So, all you just did is give no reason to why you support her and berate the people that don’t support her…
So female gamers that dont agree with her are misguided to you? That’s cute.
Shadow
January 5, 2015 at 05:58
“Another blind sheep that follows a misguided dictator.”
Actually I’ve probably research the issue far more deeply than you have.
“So, all you just did is give no reason to why you support her and berate the people that don’t support her…”
The people that don’t support her or at least agree with her points is because they take what she says out of context to the fucking max to make easy strawmen arguments. It’s easier that way then admitting there is a problem that needs to be challenged.
I support her at least in the fact that I agree with her views because she is correct, games cater to men, straight white men when minorities and women are literally the other 50% of the demographic simply because white straight men are the default human, very easy to make generics of and stories for.
Not once did she claim that gamers were misogynist for playing the game she talks about or the devs or even the games themselves but you’ll find people in troves claiming she did. When people exaggerate to make themselves sound like victims some how in this, how can you side with them?
“So female gamers that dont agree with her are misguided to you? That’s cute.”
Females can be just as misguided as men on gender issues. You should read the book called Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture
Might help you understand the other side a bit and the sociology and psychology behind why this happens.
Though if I’m being honest, you don’t seem the type to do this because you don’t care about furthering your knowledge or finding the truth but making sure that you are right instead. Feel free to prove me wrong.
Phoenix King
January 5, 2015 at 15:06
”Games cater to men”
You lost your argument.
Educated people see she focuses only on the small amount of games that feature no female leads.
She batantly ignores games like Bioshock and Last of Us, and never focuses on the two recent installments of Mario and LoZ, that feature the icon female princesses being their own characters.
I have watched her entire series of Women Tropes in Gaming, and it all focuses on 40 year old games that are generations past what we have evolved into.
Her Youtube channel is full on contradictions, as she repeatedly says that people like Buffy, Nikita, and Mulan are all false portrayals of women.
Then she even goes to as far as say the the female leads such as Anya in Gears 3 is just a man with boobs trope.
After her Tropes series, she goes and uploads a video which contains her personal idea of what a game should be with a strong ”true” female lead.
All this is, is a blatant rip off of Prince of Persia, given the set up is the same, the character is in a suit of armor, taking out guards and saving the kingdom.
So, her personal idea of a perfect game is a Man with Boobs trope.
________________________________
What do you have to say to that?
darthmalgus
January 6, 2015 at 00:05
… well… since you think that a strong female character is just a man with boobs trope i would say that says a LOT about you.
you also started your statement by completely dismissing his entire post.
However this aritcle and petition is why people like you are stupid. Anita was never once hired by EA or contacted to give any advice on the game.
I would say.. you’re a pretty big idiot.
Phoenix King
January 6, 2015 at 00:24
You think you have a point, but you dont.
Don’t reply, you obviously don’t have a clue what the real problem is.
Me and Shadow were not talking about the article, we were talking about Anita specifically.
Phoenix King
January 6, 2015 at 00:28
Hold on, hold on….
What the fuck did you just say?
”Since you think that a strong female lead is just a man with boobs trope”?
I never said that, I said Anita says that, and its in her thesis, the one that got her the bullshit degree in communication.
bob
January 6, 2015 at 00:42
“Educated people see she focuses only on the small amount of games that feature no female leads.”
Lets take a look at the top 10 selling games of 2014. I am going to use the Finical Times article which bases them on total number of units sold
1. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare – NOPE no female main character
2. Destiny – well sort of i mean you can make a female character so sure thats 1
3. Grand Theft Auto V NOPE absoulutely not.
4. Madden NFL 15 – nope granted its a sports game about a man sport but… yeah
5. Minecraft ehhh its not anti women and i think you can make a female charater so… ok sure
6. Watch_Dogs – NOPE yeah and you are stuck as a white male only.
7. Call of Duty: Ghosts – NOPE
8. Super Smash Bros. – ehhh yeah there are female characters but it doesn’t exaclty cater to females in anyway. But i will give it to you
9. Titanfall – Nope
10. NBA 2K15 – another sports game
So we have a total of 7 games with a hard no and 3 games where you can pick a female character…
It should be noted that those games where you can pick a female character aren’t character driven stories. Notice we don’t see a game on the list where there main protagonist is a female, where the story centerers around her.
So in conclusion you sir are full of it.
Phoenix King
January 6, 2015 at 04:40
The ONLY game on that list that has a sexist trope might be GTA V.
But even then Rockstar has stated that GTA is a parodic look on the world around us.
Phoenix King
January 6, 2015 at 04:47
1. Game is focused on Multiplayer, you can play as a female in multiplayer.
3. GTA is confirmed to be a parody of our world, so it does not count, plus, you can play as a women in multiplayer, so again, does not count.
Madden again is a male sports game, doesnt even make sense to call this one a trope.
Watch Dogs, doesnt matter if you cant play as a woman, a woman is a strong female cast member in the game.
Ghosts, same as Advanced Warfare, you can play as a women in multiplayer and there is a strong female cast member in its campaign too.
SSB, to sat it doesnt cater to women is sexist, I have no doubt females play this.
Titanfall, armor covers face, wont know its woman unless they told it to you.
NBA 2K15 has a face scanner that allows for a female character to be created.
____________________________
A game does not have to be centered around a female to have strong female members in its main cast.
bob
January 6, 2015 at 05:28
That is not what you said. You said and I quote here
“Educated people see she focuses only on the small amount of games that feature no female leads”
No FEMALE LEAD. Doesn’t matter if there is a female character in the game it matters if it is the lead those are YOUR OWN WORDS
Sorry you are really grasping at straws here and you are showing to be incredibly dishonest.
Phoenix King
January 6, 2015 at 15:09
JRPG games feature lots of female leads.
Where is the publicity in that.
Get the fuck out, you are too ignorant, you too are just focusing on a small percentage of games.
bob
January 6, 2015 at 17:24
ok how many JRPGs in 2014 had a female lead? How many of them made the 2014 top selling list?
Don’t get mad at me because I showed how ignorant you are.
By all means list all the games in 2014 that had a female lead.
Do you want to bet there are more with a Male lead?
What games in 2014 did you play that had a female lead?
I know you won’t answer these questions because you realize that you have lost and look stupid. Its ok concession accepted.
Phoenix King
January 6, 2015 at 20:41
confession*
And all you are doing is trying to be right with no facts at all.
bob
January 6, 2015 at 20:54
…. haha wow… you’re kind of stupid no i meant Concession accepted, it means you have conceded and i accept that you have given up.
So you are making the clam that more games in 2014 came out with a female lead then ones with a male lead.
Well you have to prove that. I already showed that the top 10 games of 2014 do not have a female lead.
Now you claim i’m just cherry picking however i would like to point out those are the highest selling games ie the games that most gamers bought.
Lets look at some of the other games of 2014 that a lot of people bought
Assasins Creed- No female lead
Shadows of Mordor – No female lead
Far Cry 4- no female lead
Wolfenstien new order – no female lead
Halo anniversy – no female lead
Dark Souls 2 – no female lead
South Park Stick of Truth – no female lead
Metal Gear Solid 5 – no female lead
Infamous second son- no female lead
Off the top of my head i can think of only 3 games that do have a female lead
Bayontetta 2 Alien Isoltation, and The Last of Us DLC Not the main game just the DLC
So… lets see if you can come up with more AAA games then the list I just provided that have female leads in 2014
Phoenix King
January 7, 2015 at 00:16
claim*
bob
January 7, 2015 at 00:28
so nothing? ok then concession accepted thank you for letting me take this time out of my day to school you. I’m sorry i had to make you look like an idiot in the process though
Phoenix King
January 7, 2015 at 06:33
Only retard is you.
bob
January 8, 2015 at 01:23
haha yeah.. i didn’t call you a retard, so your comment is just as stupid as you are. Once again thank you for letting me make you look like a fool.
Next time let the adults talk since you bring nothing to the conversation.
Spartaaàaaaa
January 7, 2015 at 03:16
Well said
Shadow
January 7, 2015 at 04:56
Lol I didn’t expect for others to do my job so quickly in pointing out how wrong you are but regardless, you were replying to me so I guess I have to refute it myself.
“Educated people see she focuses only on the small amount of games that feature no female leads.”
A small amount of games that feature no female leads, you mean not the vast majority of other games that don’t feature female leads? Someone you were arguing that this “female leads” thing also included sidekicks. I think you need to restate your point more clearly. Otherwise Anita gets the point here.
“She batantly ignores games like Bioshock”
Having just been playing through Bioshock infinite Elizebeth while probably the best SIDEKICK character in a game I’ve ever seen, still needs to be rescued quite a few times no matter how powerful the game tries to portray her power/abilities are.
“and Last of Us”
Haven’t played, can’t comment
“never focuses on the two recent installments of Mario and LoZ, that feature the icon female princesses being their own characters”
You mean Peaches game where all her powers are stereotypical of women? If so Anita covered that. And in LoZ? I’m not sure which installment you’re referring to her, please give me the title. If by chance you’re referring to Hyrule Warriors then your point is quite moot
“I have watched her entire series of Women Tropes in Gaming, and it all focuses on 40 year old games that are generations past what we have evolved into.”
Well this is completely false, seems to me you only watched like 3 of her videos where she was introducing when these tropes came about and didn’t watch how it effects modern day games still
“Her Youtube channel is full on contradictions, as she repeatedly says that people like Buffy, Nikita, and Mulan are all false portrayals of women.”
Maybe they are, who are you to say she’s wrong there? Mulan had to pretend to be a man and struggled to do what the men did but overcame that in the end. I rather liked the story but it was pretty sexist in the beginning
“Then she even goes to as far as say the the female leads such as Anya in Gears 3 is just a man with boobs trope.”
Considering she is, I barely played the 3rd game but she has no other purpose than to be something young boys can fantasize about, in a world of men that seem like the only thing they got going for them is their chest and arm size while the women retain their dainty look, Anya and Mary are the only women in the game and one is shown to be tortured.
“After her Tropes series, she goes and uploads a video which contains her personal idea of what a game should be with a strong ”true” female lead.”
The woman isn’t sexualized, dressed up in a faced poised as “empowered or powerful” simply because she is sexy and she is fully capable of fighting and defending herself, she doesn’t have to be rescued.
“All this is, is a blatant rip off of Prince of Persia, given the set up is the same, the character is in a suit of armor, taking out guards and saving the kingdom.”
This gave me a good chuckle. Rip off? What the hell is CoD and Battlefield then?
I suppose you’d prefer it to be her wearing skimpy armour if any at all, seduce the guards and unite the kingdom by some arranged marriage. Then again you’d probably associate it as a chick game and avoid it all together.
“So, her personal idea of a perfect game is a Man with Boobs trope.”
Can you show me where she comes up with this “man with boobs” thing? I only hear it mentioned by people like you that seem to have an issue with it
Phoenix King
January 7, 2015 at 06:34
”You mean Peach”s game?’
No you dumbass, I meant the Mario 3D Land game that she had a star lead in.
Shadow
January 7, 2015 at 07:35
You had to post multiple times to reply to different sections of my argument? And I’M the dumbass?
Oh I’m so sorry, you’re right Peach is defintely the star in this game
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/archive/4/42/20140301233601!Super-Mario-3D-Land-Logo.jpg
I see her front and center in this next image, oh wait no that’s Mario, she’s being kidapped AGAIN by Bowser and looks helplessly onward.
http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/15/158251/2260514-super_mario_3d_land_wallpaper.jpg
“Her Thesis, the thing she got her degree for, its public, she uploaded it, and it has everything that she relates to man with boobs.”
Welp I checked her Thesis, I doubt you read the whole thing, you certainly don’t seem to have the attention span to do so and searched for boobs and man with boobs and the search found 0 results so unless you can tell me where in her thesis she states this, I’m going to call bullshit.
“We are not discussing game rip offs, I said that the idea of her game was coined from Prince of Persia, with the other fact her lead is just a blond chick in a suit of male armor.”
What is wrong with the lead being a blonde chick in ARMOUR and how is it coined from PoP? Games with similar ideas can’t be made now?
“I said it contradicts her opinion about the man with boobs trope when she uses it in her own idea for a video game.”
How?
Phoenix King
January 7, 2015 at 15:31
I was tired, it was late.
Phoenix King
January 7, 2015 at 15:33
Not 3D land Im sorry, the Wii U one.
__________________
You didn’t read her thesis, most person that did thought it was a joke.
Shadow
January 7, 2015 at 15:54
“Not 3D land Im sorry, the Wii U one.”
I assume then Super Mario 3D world in which you have a selection of characters to choose from.
That doesn’t scream to me, strong female lead when she is still technically a ditsy princess and the main hero is easy interchangeable.
It’s like having a game that allows a custom character and being like “Look strong female lead!” when the options are 3 guys and 1 girl till you at least unlock Rosalina later and the majority of people are not going to choose her unless they specifically like her ability.
“You didn’t read her thesis, most person that did thought it was a joke.”
Are most people qualified to judge/grade her thesis? Or are these just fools who are looking for any bit of morsel they can use to laugh at her while completely disregarding actually talking about the points she makes.
Her thesis has no merit what so ever on what she is saying in her videos now. That is the only thing people should be concerned about.
Phoenix King
January 9, 2015 at 06:14
Her thesis has no merit in her videos?
That is the exact reason she is looked at like a fool.
Shadow
January 9, 2015 at 11:06
Pretty sure she was disliked before her thesis ever came into play. Not to mention there is no way you read her entire thesis, let alone even began to understand it. Thunderf00t brought up her thesis, people watch his videos and then think from there on out that he MUST be right without ever reading it themselves or considering that he might be wrong.
Phoenix King
January 7, 2015 at 06:35
Her Thesis, the thing she got her degree for, its public, she uploaded it, and it has everything that she relates to man with boobs.
Phoenix King
January 7, 2015 at 06:36
We are not discussing game rip offs, I said that the idea of her game was coined from Prince of Persia, with the other fact her lead is just a blond chick in a suit of male armor.
Phoenix King
January 7, 2015 at 06:37
Again, you disregard what I was trying to say in favor of your own.
I said it contradicts her opinion about the man with boobs trope when she uses it in her own idea for a video game.
michael woodruff
December 10, 2014 at 20:15
IKR This Chick needs to stick to Candy crush
JonathanNathan
December 14, 2014 at 10:57
Is there anything more whiny than the modern gamer? If there is, I haven’t come across it.
Hart Ponder
December 14, 2014 at 11:45
They can be as “whiny” as they want. It doesn’t matter. Insulting a demographic of gaming enthusiasts doesn’t dismiss the fact that Anita is academically dishonest about her work by lying and plagiarizing.
When somebody lies, there is zero trust. So how do you expect people to trust her being on the development team of a AAA industry?
bob
January 6, 2015 at 00:55
what has she been dishonest about? Can you cite specfic examples?
btw you know that she has absolutely nothing to do with Mirrors Edge 2 right? the entire story about her working for EA was completely untrue
Shadow
December 31, 2014 at 18:37
Wrong fella. In every video of hers she gives a link to the full transcript and sources.
If you were to follow that link it takes you here http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-big-questions/201106/the-sexual-objectification-spillover-effect And from there here:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejsp.755/abstract
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103109000432
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002210311000288X
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103185710220
How can I be the ONLY one here to see this?
Titanium_Cranium
January 4, 2015 at 14:08
Perhaps because you’re creating a problem, just so you can feel offended by it? These SJW/feminists are the most sexist/racist group I’ve come across. “Cis white men did this; Cis white men did that!” These people live such comfortable, sheltered lives, that they have to create things to feel victimized by. These are the same people who claim there are such things as stare-rape, and sex that someone regrets is rape. It’s not hard to understand why the great majority steer away from these people.
Shadow
January 5, 2015 at 05:50
You have absolutely ZERO facts to back up all your shit claims. Nice job though.
Do you hate all social justice? I get rather confused when people throw around the SJW tag, where do you draw the line? I have also never seen anyone claim stare-rape or that regretting sex afterwards is rape nor can they even begin to prove it in a court of law. So if true just let them think whatever bat shit crazy they want to.
Phoenix King
January 5, 2015 at 16:48
Most female gamers hate her idea of thinking…
Sir, I would like you to reread what you just said…
”She said that Devs are not sexist for using these tropes in games”
That is a contradiction my friend.
darthmalgus
January 6, 2015 at 00:10
really? cool show me your source where you talked to a majority of female gamers and they told you that they hate her. otherwise STFU with your bullshit
Phoenix King
January 6, 2015 at 00:26
http://thelearnedfangirl.com/2013/02/24/im-a-feminist-gamerand-im-over-anita-sarkeesian/
Sorry, but it isn’t bullshit, I’m not sure if you are just arguing to argue, but I’m done arguing with you.
bob
January 6, 2015 at 01:19
no its not at all. Whats hard to understand about it? Just because you use a sexist trope does’t make you sexist.
Phoenix King
January 6, 2015 at 04:42
It is a contradiction, saying you are not sexist but using sexist things in your game is retarded.
Anita wants women to be played better in games, but doesnt fault devs more making the women that way in the first place.
That doesn’t sound at least a bit wrong to you?
bob
January 6, 2015 at 05:55
no its not a contradiction at all. Weren’t you the one who was claiming that GTA V is a parody of the real world so it doesn’t matter?
Andrew Brian Evagelou
May 25, 2016 at 13:07
Not every game is a parody of real life.. dude wtf?
Jacky
December 10, 2014 at 19:15
If it were all true, all those points are valid. However, Anita had been infamous for quite some time for a lot of things she had said before not regarding this misunderstanding.
Touma
December 12, 2014 at 08:06
shes brought it on herself. lying and stealing money from people by not using the money for her videos. aswell as stealing gameplay footage from lets players without proper credit. seriously i don’t see how anyone can like her with her blatant dishonesty. it honestly stuns me that any other person would be rightfully shunned but this woman gets away with it. and indeed praised for it.
she isn’t a good person. not at all. look up evidence against her. there’s a staggering amount of it. sure there’s some hate filled video’s but this is the internet. there’s plenty of well thought out video’s against her. seriously i encourage you. look up the other side instead of taking her word for it.
and by look up evidence i don’t mean look on gaming sites like ign, kotaku, and all those because they’re incredibly one-sided.
Gregg Braddoch
December 17, 2014 at 00:08
“Pretty disappointed in AlphaOmegaSin”
lol, its funny how he can rant and rave angrily over just about anyone else, for a lot of the same reasons, but when it comes to Anita, then you are “disappointed”.
Side note: His video was picked for this simply because he’s always shouting in his videos. He has zero other videos about Sarkeesian.
Mandom (Umar)
December 17, 2014 at 06:25
Seriously?……I’m disappointed because he usually does he his research. He goes on a full on rant over something that is non existent, she’s not part of the game develepmont even…not just because its Anita……sigh .. and by the way he does have videos of her and I agree for the most part with him…
Phoenix King
December 17, 2014 at 15:08
How do you know she isn’t apart of the development team?!
This article is a bias opinion, there are no facts here.
The facts though, are that this would not have been the first time EA has brought in a feminist to help with the development of the game.
Gregg Braddoch
December 17, 2014 at 16:44
“and by the way he does have videos of her and I agree for the most part with him…”
Hmmm… Do you know what these videos are titled? I was waiting for him to say something about Anita forever, and I somehow missed them.
Also, I don’t trust that this is non-existant – All judgments saying so are at Anita’s word, and she embeds NLP pseudoscience (which is intended to manipulate) in her kickstarter video, promises 12-13 videos by december 2012 for 6k, and then makes half that number with borrowed footage and 160k two years later, all the while still asking for donations. She’s dishonest as crap.
Mandom (Umar)
December 17, 2014 at 20:08
Its really old. It was way when she made he female trope videos I think. And yeah I get that…argh..look, I get why people dont like her…but yeah. Unfortunately or fortunately, her latest topics are real…the abuse has gotten worse. Just look at gamergate
Gregg Braddoch
December 17, 2014 at 20:20
“Unfortunately or fortunately, her latest topics are real”
Actually her latest topics are woefully misinformed at best, or outright lies at worst.
The Women As Background Decoration Part 1 video outright claims that video games that Anita deems sexist will cause real-life violence against women. (Despite decades of research that shows video games do not cause real-life violence, and additional studies that show the age groups that play the most games are the least sexist people in society).
“the abuse has gotten worse. Just look at gamergate”
Gamergate has not, and does not abuse Sarkeesian. The only link between gamergate and Sarkeesian’s harassment is Sarkeesian herself blaming it on gamergate, because gamergate supporters disagree with the falsehoods she’s spreading about the video game community.
A good rebuttal (which is backed by academic peer-reviewed studies and data) is from Christina Hoff Sommers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RVlCvBd21w
Additionally, the Pew Online Harassment poll shows that according to their survey, players of video games (male or female) suffer less abuse online than in any other area of the internet. It also shows that the majority viewpoint is that gaming is either more welcoming to women, or equally welcoming to both genders.
All this “online harassment” is just hype that Anita is using to get more money. There are numerous other celebrities, public figures, etc. (male or female) that receive worse threats and harassment on a daily basis, so Anita’s assertion that it’s because she’s a woman in video games is also false, and borderline lying.
Phoenix King
December 17, 2014 at 14:56
It’s a shame he hates Anita?
It’s a shame that a good petition has received lots of signatures?
This article is based off of his opinion, so he the writer of this page just showed himself to be a hypocrite.
Libeller
December 23, 2014 at 08:10
EA themselves have confirmed that this isn’t actually happening. She was never working on Mirror’s Edge 2 and there was never a reason to believe she was. The whole rumour stems from a blog post from 2012 and if you research this you will find that every mention of it ultimately just links back to that one unsourced blog post.
You got trolled.
Rags
December 10, 2014 at 12:18
“but it’s always been her goal to have better women in games; behind them, and as characters in them” hahaha
Ragnar The Vengeful
December 10, 2014 at 12:18
Where can I sign? I love petitions petitioning petitions. Things that do nothing.
Top Kek
December 10, 2014 at 23:41
It’s kind of like internet prayer: Thousands of hands clicking furiously while doing nothing.
Phoenix King
December 17, 2014 at 15:09
A petition to get GTA V off Target shelves worked….
CAE9872
December 10, 2014 at 12:18
Sigh! ze internet…AGAIN!
Alien Emperor Trevor
December 10, 2014 at 12:22
lulz. I bet when this little fact gets pointed out it’ll all be a conspiracy by her against them.
Raptor Rants A Lot
December 10, 2014 at 12:24
Oh man. Look I don’t like her. Not many people do. I believe her dedication to woman in gaming is more harmful than good because she makes it sound like woman are seen as lesser beings in the gaming industry. She should rather try celebrate woman in gaming. Anyway, getting back on track, petitions like this are even worse. Not only does it reinforce this false image she is trying to say exists but actually proves it thereby just giving her more ammo to paint the industry as a whole in a bad light. Sickening
Quo Vadis?
December 10, 2014 at 13:08
both parties are equally big piles of turds. She, for wanting more “realistic” females in games. Really? When are male protagonists or antagonists portrayed realistically? Leather clothing and armour with ripped bodies. A more realistic portrayal would be a guy with a R50 haircut and a bit of a beer belly, in jeans and a T-shirt, that ogles other female characters and farts when he takes a piss. IT IS FANTASY AND ESCAPISM! None of the stuff you see in games are real!
Them, for wanting to remove her from a dev team. They are simply adding fuel to her fire, and giving her more credence and an opportunity to wave her flag saying “I told you so”.
Raptor Rants A Lot
December 10, 2014 at 13:42
This is the crux of the whole thing I think. People like Anita see woman in games as unrealistic and that they are aimed at the male demographic (Let’s be honest, of course they are) but tend to not see (as you pointed out) that men are just as over portrayed. The buff soldier capable of deflecting bullets with his pectorals flexed and heal in an instant.
Games of old went about the fun factor. In recent years it’s all about “connecting” with your character and this is where the problem comes in.
As men we can “identify” or “connect” with a buff male character because let’s face it, we are mostly egotistical and testoterone fuelled. It’s easy for us to associate with even the most over portrayed male character. For woman the same is not true. They don’t want to connect with a skimpy clad, big chested woman. But therein lies the big issue. Most these characters are indeed created by men. So as men they will do what they think would work. That isn’t to say they are objectifying woman, they are simply doing what they do best. Overdo EVERYTHING.
The biggest reason this happens is because the industry is still mainly man driven. Not because woman are pushed out (What people like Anita would like us all to believe) but because there is a naturally larger interest from men. More men want to be game designers than woman. That is changing rapidly however as the industry matures and people start realising it’s not just a man’s playground anymore.
Anita, instead of saying how it’s easier to be a man in the industry, should rather be pointing out how woman are starting to take more and more interest in not just the hobby but in the industry itself. More woman are becoming devs or want to be part of big publishing houses. Yes, they are few, but yet again not because they are pushed away but because few have dared. People like Anita just make woman more scared of entering the industry because they make it sound big, bad and ugly because men are territorial and don’t think woman can do the job as well. This is wrong. I don’t believe that’s it at all. Yes, as men we are fiercely competitive and that gets skewed and shown as hate towards woman when all it is, is just another competition just like it would be against any other male.
If people like Anita who have such a huge following and such a huge impact would stand up and point out the possitives and show the woman that are making it in the industry I believe the industry would fill with woman far quicker and become more “equal” if that’s what you want to call it. But currently it won’t happen. They make it sound too scary. Heck, with the way she makes it sound I myself wouldn’t want to get involved in the industry
Admiral Chief BellatorMachina
December 10, 2014 at 14:07
tl;dr
Raptor Rants A Lot
December 10, 2014 at 14:09
lol
Quo Vadis?
December 10, 2014 at 14:31
see? I told you! I am too mush kleva 🙂
Raptor Rants A Lot
December 10, 2014 at 14:42
So clever you don’t need a PS4 as you can just imagine it all in your amazing mind. So I shall win it then ok? You don’t need it afterall…
Quo Vadis?
December 10, 2014 at 14:44
in your twisted dreams!
Raptor Rants A Lot
December 10, 2014 at 15:04
Results posted :'(
Libeller
December 11, 2014 at 02:32
Just so you know, this is ridiculous.
We do not need cheerleaders for the industry, or for the hobby. Nobody needs cheerleaders. Everybody needs critics to keep them at their best. And few appreciate their critics, but they should be lauded nonetheless. It takes tremendous courage to do what Anita Sarkeesian does. She is articulating a view point that many agree with but have not seen articulated elsewhere and she does so knowing that millions of intellectual children are going to get enraged at the things she says.
What does not take any courage is being a cheerleader and telling people the things they want to hear. We need more people to tell us the things we don’t want to hear.
You may not find Sarkeesian helpful, but she is at worst harmless.
Raptor Rants A Lot
December 11, 2014 at 09:46
Was I attacking her? no. So my reaction is actually quite fine. Yes, many people love her viewpoints because her viewpoint often attacks a specific group of people. Specifically men.
Now I don’t know about yoyu, but critics should not be making attacks on groups of people but rather only pointing out flaws. Now while she definately does point out flaws (which is fine) she does also do so by making it sound like men are the enemy.
The moment you go from critic to enforcing hate towards ANY demographic then you have, as a critic, failed.
But people refuse to see this. They insist on either attacking her personally (completely wrong) or using her as a reason to hate men (also completely wrong).
Anita is in an exceptionally powerful position right now where she could actually critique without causing more hate but she isn’t doing this. She is using this universal mantra of “feminism” to push an agenda, which is to make herself well known.
If she honestly cared about the video game industry she wouldn’t be going to war with men. She’d be working with them to get to a common ground.
But that’s just my view.
I honestly think she has some valid points and that she really does point out some flaws in the industry. But she is not making it sound very appetizing for other woman to get in to. If anything she’s most likely just driving woman away from the industry as all they see is that “The industry hates woman” because that’s what her arguments always boil down to. Which is unfortunate because as I said, she is in a position to really and truly make a difference
Libeller
December 12, 2014 at 22:26
I do not know how it’s possible to watch her videos and come away with the impression she is “attacking” men. Especially if you’re not “attacking” her in your posts – whatever definition of “attacking” we’re now using, Anita Sarkeesian’s videos don’t “attack” men and don’t promote hate.
It’s not her job to make it sound “appetizing” for women to get into. She’s just telling the truth as she sees it, knowing full well that people like you will misinterpret her, but also know that she isn’t responsible for that.
Phoenix King
December 17, 2014 at 15:12
”Male gamers are sexist pigs that don’t care about anything but sex”
One of her videos.
That is considered an attack.
Libeller
December 18, 2014 at 03:01
Can you link me to that video, preferably with a timestamp to where she says that? I would be surprised to learn that she did in fact say that.
Gregg Braddoch
December 17, 2014 at 20:46
“I do not know how it’s possible to watch her videos and come away with the impression she is ‘attacking’ men.”
That part comes from her tweets blaming mass shootings on masculinity, her false assertions that gamers and tech workers have a misogyny problem, and probably her citing sources that quote Andrea Dworkin and Gail Dines, who essentially categorize heterosexual sex as “degrading” toward women (or in Dworkin’s case “always rape”).
“She’s just telling the truth as she sees it”
More like telling transparent and convenient lies.
“but also know that she isn’t responsible for that.”
lol, yeah she’s an angel who was touched by God himself. It’s not like she took 25x the amount of money she needed to make half of the videos she promised to make 2 years late, and stole video footage, artwork, etc. from other people, then misrepresented games to say that the developers were literally encouraging players to commit violence against women in games (and therefore causing men to commit violence against women in the real world – against all scientific data available), or embedded 60+ NLP pseudoscience phrases supposed to manipulate people into her kickstarter video, and continues to lie about the number of female protagonists in video games, despite rebuttals with evidence to the contrary.
All of that isn’t her fault either, right? It must be the fault of people who think those are things that horrible human beings do.
Libeller
December 18, 2014 at 03:00
Look, just because I don’t agree with her harsher critics doesn’t mean I think she’s an angel who can do no wrong. It would be great if we could get away from the “my side” vs. “your side” bit that these conversations always degenerate into. I’m certainly not going to defend the positions of Andrea Dworkin although I think she’s worth reading if only to give onesself a greater understanding of where radical feminists are coming from.
Personally, as a gender non-conforming male I always assumed that toxic masculinity was to blame for most of the evils in the world. It certainly was to blame for most of the misery I endured growing up. That said, it needs to be clarified that “toxic masculinity” does not refer to all masculinity, just the kinds that are, well, toxic.
How many school shooters are female? I think there was one, but have there been any others?
Gregg Braddoch
December 18, 2014 at 05:04
“That said, it needs to be clarified that ‘toxic masculinity’ does not refer to all masculinity, just the kinds that are, well, toxic.”
What is ‘toxic’ is a matter of opinion, and Anita’s opinion on what is problematic is anything that disagrees with her radical views.
“How many school shooters are female? I think there was one, but have there been any others?”
And how many mothers have killed their own kids, etc. etc. etc, yet you will never see Anita talking about “toxic femininity” and blaming it for infanticide – If anything she’d come up with a reason to say the patriarchy was to blame.
Libeller
December 23, 2014 at 08:12
I have never read an argument that attempted to blame either femininity or patriarchy for infanticides.
But denying the connection between masculinity and violence is just fucking absurd.
Gregg Braddoch
December 23, 2014 at 16:53
“But denying the connection between masculinity and violence is just fucking absurd.”
Which is why I’m sure you have peer-reviewed, scientific studies and data demonstrating a connection between an abstract concept and real world violence, right?
Libeller
December 26, 2014 at 20:15
Go fuck yourself. What would that even mean to demonstrate such a connection? I’m 31 and a gender non-conforming male. I went to elementary and high school with lots of other boys. No one can tell me that masculinity AS IT IS IMAGINED BY OUR PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY is not connected to violence. I have lived it. You can find no shortage of MRAs who will tell you that men as a sex are inherently violent – I disagree. I am a social constructionist. I believe that masculinity is a social construct – men are not inherently masculine or inherently violent.
Gregg Braddoch
December 26, 2014 at 22:03
“Go fuck yourself.”
Done. What’s next?
“What would that even mean to demonstrate such a connection?”
Dunno, but since there is no connection demonstrated, we don’t have to worry about it, now do we? If you are asking what a demonstration would consist of, it would be scientific study and elimination of any other variables, such as economic & social classes, ethnic background, genetic traits, etc, etc, etc.
“No one can tell me that masculinity AS IT IS IMAGINED BY OUR PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY is not connected to violence.”
A. There is no evidence that human society has been patriarchal within the last 400 years.
B. There is not, nor ever has been one definition of masculinity, nor has their been one for femininity. To claim this is the case is to ignore the hundreds to thousands of cultures and differing ideas about being male and female from those cultures.
” I have lived it.”
Not surprising from someone who says “go f@ck yourself” when their ideas are shown to be irrational.
“You can find no shortage of MRAs who will tell you that men as a sex are inherently violent”
And there are no shortage of feminists who think it is ok for women to beat the crap out of men if they feel said men deserve it. Not sure what your point is. There will always be crazy people making illogical and unscientific assertions.
” I am a social constructionist. I believe that masculinity is a social construct -”
Yeah, well that’s the key word there ‘believe’ – You are believing in something that is not demonstrated by empirical reality. The nature vs nurture debate has hardly been settled, and most reasonable scientists and researchers have concluded that the answer is a mix of nature and nurture, without any precise amount of either.
“men are not inherently masculine or inherently violent.”
Men have inherent traits from biology. So do women. Masculinity is defined as that which is inherently in men, and femininity is defined as what is inherently female, so you are making an absurd assertion here. Violence is inherent in members of both genders, and is most likely not related to gender.
Keep making assertions, it definitely makes you a little more “right” each time you do so.
Libeller
December 27, 2014 at 16:18
So, you don’t think there’s any connection between EITHER the social attitudes that society inculcates into boys (especially the attitudes that macho fathers put into boys’ heads) OR testosterone levels, and violence, bullying, and aggression? Go to a high school sometime. Seriously, this is an absurd conversation. I think you fully intend to challenge me to prove every assertion that I make just for the sake of being difficult.
“A. There is no evidence that human society has been patriarchal within the last 400 years.”
What planet do you live on? What definition are you using for “patriarchy?” Women not legally being considered persons, or being allowed to vote, or being allowed to own property, or their testimony not being worth the same in a court of law as a man’s…these aren’t patriarchal? Please, set me straight.
Gregg Braddoch
December 27, 2014 at 21:10
“So, you don’t think there’s any connection between EITHER the social attitudes that society inculcates into boys (especially the attitudes that macho fathers put into boys’ heads) OR testosterone levels, and violence, bullying, and aggression”
Do you have scientific evidence that this is the case? If so, then let’s see it. Stop trying to put words in my mouth and start demonstrating what you are saying with science. I’ll be much more likely to agree if you have any credible scientific data.
“Go to a high school sometime. Seriously, this is an absurd conversation.”
If you would start providing scientific evidence / studies that back up your assertions, it would be a lot less absurd. Instead we have hand-waving and mocking from you, which isn’t credible evidence of anything but your own hysteria.
“What planet do you live on?”
Same one as you. It’s called earth.
“What definition are you using for ‘patriarchy?'”
What is yours? Mine is a society that is ruled by men, and only provides benefit to men.
“Women not legally being considered persons, or being allowed to vote, or being allowed to own property, or their testimony not being worth the same in a court of law as a man’s…these aren’t patriarchal?”
These things do not prove patriarchy because for the majority of the last 400 years common men were also unable to do those things as well. Please, I’d like you to show me how for the last 400 years society has only been about the whims of every man, and never about women. The only way one can do this, is to ignore any detriments that men have had. As far as voting, men were given a vote for military service, women were given it because they were women and demanded it, and never had to serve in the military as men did. Most of your other examples are also equally ridiculous.
Gregg Braddoch
December 30, 2014 at 03:09
The irony of all of your arguments linking violence with masculinity is that you ignore violence done by women. Numerous women have killed their own children, killed their significant others, killed other women,etc., etc. And even less than that, girls will bully and harass other girls based on their clothes, backgrounds, etc. But I don’t see you arguing that traditional femininity is inherently violent.
I think the more reasonable stance to take is that human beings are all inherently violent for survival reasons, and that in modern society, some situations cause people to revert to instinct instead of reason, and that is what causes violence.
Your insistence on saying “masculinity as imagined by our patriarchal society” instead of masculinity is also telling. It tells me that you have prepared a strawman of “masculinity endorsed by patriarchy” which bears little or no resemblance to anyone’s views of masculinity.
Your anecdotes about highschool are also funny, as they are all demonstrations of “in-group / out-group” behavior that have nothing to do with masculinity or femininity but rather simply human tribalism without regard to gender. (I’m sure those bullies who made fun of you for ‘throwing like a girl’ were totally basing their insults on your gender, and not the fact that you sucked at sports, and therefore were not a member of their group).
Competition is the BASIS of life. Without competition, there would be no evolution, and therefore would be no life. Life is all about competing, and a good life is about competing and winning. Even DNA does it – you received DNA from both of your parents, and in different portions of your body, some DNA wins the competition and some loses.
To say that ideas “about masculinity perpetuated by our culture inherently cause violence” is to ignore the larger nature of life as competition (and therefore some measure of violence) and to try to reverse nature itself.
Libeller
January 2, 2015 at 22:32
I think you’re projecting a lot and talking about other things than what I said. Life is not all about competing: we have unions, which are a form of refusing to compete with one another. We have minimum health care standards, etc.
Yes, the people who said I “threw like a girl” were pointing out that I sucked at sports, but that wasn’t the only thing I did that was “like a girl.” Apparently I dressed like one, walked like one, cried like one, argued like one…what I don’t understand is how someone can make these statements and then turn around and claim not to be misogynist. These statements are the very essence of misogyny.
Gregg Braddoch
January 3, 2015 at 06:58
“what I don’t understand is how someone can make these statements and then turn around and claim not to be misogynist”
Because these guys weren’t making those statements to put women down, but to point out that you were not as manly as them – if the genders in the situation were reversed, the accusation would be “like a boy”
“These statements are the very essence of misogyny.”
If you are male, they are not misogyny at all, but rather saying you are a fruitcake.
Libeller
January 3, 2015 at 07:02
I don’t agree about life as competition. Unions for example represent a refusal of workers to compete with one another. Within a family, children do not compete with one another for food. These have real world consequences. They represent a triumph of sentiment over cold-hearted rationality…one that I unequivocally support, as I consider all of humanity to be an extended family. This willingness to refuse to compete with one another is what has allowed humans to construct a society in the first place.
Very few people actually believe that there is NO cultural component
to gender – women are not predisposed to like the color pink, or to
wear their hair long. Similarly, very few people believe that hormones and brain chemistry play no role in gender differences. However, we don’t know what is cultural and what is biological, so raising children based on assumptions of what boys and girls are “supposed” to be like is most likely unwise or at the very least will have some problematic assumptions built into it. Feminism (the kind that I am interested in) seeks to dismantle those assumptions.
I don’t agree that men are inherently violent. But, teachings such as “don’t hit girls” (as opposed to ‘don’t hit people’) and dismissing violence and bullying among boys as “boys will be boys” are examples of the relationship between the cultural concept of masculinity and violence (a relationship I don’t want to overstate so I’d appreciate it if you quit strawmanning me). You can find no shortage of examples of extreme right-wingers insisting that bullying – gender policing, in fact – is normal for boys to do to one another and is an acceptable way to weed out and marginalize homosexuals and effeminate males. Most people reject those arguments.
I’ll give one more real world example. I’m 31, so maybe things have changed in many places over the last 15 years, but when I was in high school girls were taught self-defense in phys ed and boys were not. Presumably it was assumed that boys would receive that education elsewhere. This is an example of how a patriarchal assumption harms men and boys. It’s thanks to feminism that anybody at all is receiving self-defense education in high school (and really, shouldn’t that be one of the most fundamental ingredients of any complete education?) and if things have changed in some places, and boys are now being taught self-defense in high school P.E., that is also because of feminism.
Gregg Braddoch
January 3, 2015 at 21:24
“I don’t agree about life as competition.”
Well thankfully viruses, bacteria, and every other living thing up to humans disagreed with you, otherwise we would not exist.
“Unions for example represent a refusal of workers to compete with one another.”
Yeah, no. People in unions still get paid differing wages, and have differing compensation, and new people can easily be kept out, and then of course there are union officials who are above other union employees, etc. There is still competition, dumbass.
“Within a family, children do not compete with one another for food. ”
You’ve obviously never had children, or been a part of a family with more than one or two children. Again, this happens all the time, and not only do children compete for food, they compete for achievement, and praise from parents, friends etc. I really wonder how you can simplify things down to such a simple level without feeling stupid.
“Very few people actually believe that there is NO cultural component to gender ”
Neither do I, but you’d have to demonstrate that it is A. Greater than the biological influences on gender, which it is not and B. That this cultural component is harmful if it doesn’t follow your own biased form of morality, which you can’t. (In fact your mode of morality and cultural gender ideology is arguably more destructive than many traditional ideas about gender)
“However, we don’t know what is cultural and what is biological, so raising children based on assumptions of what boys and girls are ‘supposed’ to be like is most likely unwise or at the very least will have some problematic assumptions built into it.”
I’d submit that throwing out all cultural ideas on what boys and girls should be like is more problematic. Are you seriously suggesting that these ideas had ZERO influence from actual biological differences? My god, it really takes a special type.
“I don’t agree that men are inherently violent. ”
Well that is fine, but biology shows a different story. Violence in your mind = bad, uncivilized. In my mind context heavily matters, so I have no reason to reject biology when it tells us men are more violent. I sure as hell won’t sit by and let my family members be hurt by a stranger, and that is definitely a biological cause of violence.
“ut, teachings such as “don’t hit girls” (as opposed to ‘don’t hit people’) and dismissing violence and bullying among boys as “boys will be boys” are examples of the relationship between the cultural concept of masculinity and violence”
Which again you assume has ZERO biological bearing, something that is even more ridiculous than someone claiming that it’s all nature, and nurture has no part. Welcome to the mental gymnastics finals.
“You can find no shortage of examples of extreme right-wingers insisting that bullying – gender policing, in fact – is normal for boys to do to one another and is an acceptable way to weed out and marginalize homosexuals and effeminate males.”
That has a biological cause: biology is all about reproduction, and therefore it is normal for one who has normal reproductive instincts to mock those that do not. Does it make it polite? No. Does it make it right? No. But your opinion most certainly doesn’t make it “wrong” in anyone’s mind but your own. Again, we must all bow to your moral values or be considered to be bad people.
“Most people reject those arguments.”
And most people are scientifically illiterate and believe in non-falsifiable entities, many of which are called Gods, but some are called demons, and even the patriarchy – what’s your point? Are you seriously going for argumentum ad populum here?
There are a number of scientists who have dared to state that race is distinct differences in DNA, and therefore distinct differences in fitness for certain things (runners from Kenya isn’t just a stereotype, its genetics). that gender differences are mostly biologically determined, etc. and these scientists are promptly attacked by millions of angry idiots because it doesn’t jive with their “everyone is equal” BS.
The original enlightenment thinkers would weep that people turned “equal rights” into “equal treatment” in this modern age, making people from self-sufficient productive individuals into whiny crybabies who can’t live without being part of an “oppressed” group who needs to be given things in order to achieve anything.
“Presumably it was assumed that boys would receive that education elsewhere.”
Yeah no shit – you never had a brother before? I have, and had fistfights too – But we’d always have each other’s backs today. You just don’t understand culture, and therefore want to change it to one which fits your own views on how society should be run. Just like millions of other idiots.
“This is an example of how a patriarchal assumption harms men and boys.”
Not the ones who know how to fight because they’re not afraid of a little “violence”. SMH you are so dense.
“It’s thanks to feminism that anybody at all is receiving self-defense education in high school ”
You mean GIRLS. No feminist that I know of has said there is a need for self-defense classes for boys. Why isn’t this enlightened movement suggesting that everyone should be taught self-defense? Because of idiotic viewpoints such as yours. If anyone tried to teach boys “violence” there would be feminist outrage across the western world, and it would be cancelled by feminist ideals, not by any cultural ideas of masculinity. Girls and boys have been taking martial arts since well before schools even bothered.
“and if things have changed in some places, and boys are now being taught self-defense in high school P.E., that is also because of feminism.”
Yeah, more like you are delusional. Feminists would say “teach men not to hit” and cancel any boys self-defense movements, but I said this already.
Libeller
January 6, 2015 at 20:58
I’m trying to treat your arguments as genuine and not get bogged down by the insults and I’d appreciate it if you could do the same. I apologize for the length of the post but that’s what it takes.
This conversation has taken a bizarre turn so I’d encourage you to re-read the whole thread as I’ve just done. Let’s put things in proper context. Earlier in this thread I said it was absurd to deny there’s a connection between violence and masculinity, and you saw this as attacking men and called on me to back up my statement. Now, you’re saying you agree that there’s a connection between violence and masculinity and that that’s okay because violence is necessary sometimes. So, I’m glad that we agree there is a connection between masculinity – which is a social construct with a basis in biology – and violence.
“Masculinity” is not the same as “maleness.” Masculinity refers to the cultural trappings we associate with maleness, and different cultures have different conceptions of what it means to be masculine. In many cultures it’s acceptable for men to greet each other with a kiss, while in many other cultures that would be considered a breach of the protocol for normal male-male interaction. The idea that boys don’t cry is a cultural construct, not a biological reality. Like all other human behaviours it is based on a biological reality but it isn’t the same as that biological reality.
For most of western history, women were not considered legal persons. They could not own property or run for elected office. This was based on the traditional understanding of gender, that it was natural for women to be subordinated to men as children are subordinated to parents. Women as a class were not thought to possess the capability to be judges, lawyers, scientists, managers, diplomats or warriors. I could go on.
So, the question is are we making some assumptions about males and
females that are not true and can we do better? Where you come down on
this generally has more to do with ideology and on how willing one is to
question tradition as a source of wisdom and as a sufficient
justification for a custom, than on any hard science.
I claimed that the assumption that boys will learn how to fight on their own so only girls need formal self-defense instruction is a patriarchal assumption that harms men. You replied “Not the ones who know how to fight because they’re not afraid of a little “violence”. SMH you are so dense.” That was exactly my point, it harms the ones who don’t know how to fight, which is the point of self-defense instruction.
The end of your post is simply factually incorrect. Boys ARE being taught self-defense in many high schools across the world now, and feminists have been at the vanguard in advocating for this. You might be surprised to learn that feminists generally do support things like universal self-defense instruction, universal selective service IF there is to be a draft, etcetera. They aren’t the bogeyman you think they are. There simply is no basis for the statement that “Feminists would say “teach men not to hit” and cancel any boys self-defense movements.”
At this juncture I want to recommend a book to you, “Stiffed” by Susan Faludi. It should be required reading for anyone who doesn’t think feminists have anything to say about men’s issues.
“I’d submit that throwing out all cultural ideas on what boys and girls should be like is more problematic. Are you seriously suggesting that these ideas had ZERO influence from actual biological differences? My god, it really takes a special type.”
No, I never suggested anything of the sort, only that it’s mostly arbitrary how you go from biological differences to cultural prescriptions, and very little in the way of actual hard science to go on if you were going to invent some new cultural prescriptions. Post-enlightenment I think it makes sense to demand that our reasons for doing things be grounded in scientific data and logical reasoning rather than trusting the wisdom of tradition.
There are obviously differences between male brains and female brains and there’s all kinds of research showing how boys don’t do as well as girls in classroom settings. Stuffing all students into a one-size-fits-all public education system is systematically short-changing the boys. The question is how can things be done to fix this, and the answers are coming from the sciences (both social sciences and natural science) and from rational inquiry, not from the wisdom of tradition.
“That has a biological cause: biology is all about reproduction, and therefore it is normal for one who has normal reproductive instincts to mock those that do not. Does it make it polite? No. Does it make it right? No. But your opinion most certainly doesn’t make it “wrong” in anyone’s mind but your own. Again, we must all bow to your moral values or be considered to be bad people.”
No, you’ll be labelled a bad person if you callously hurt others.
There is no such thing as normal. That’s a social construct. There’s no scientific basis for labelling procreative social behaviour as “normal” and non-procreative sexual behaviour as abnormal. That comes from religion. The prejudice against homosexuality is cultural, even if it obviously has a basis in biology because ALL human behaviour has a basis in biology. There are cultures that don’t have the legacy of homophobia that the Judeo-Christian tradition has sadly left imprinted on the west.
For the record I think there is much to admire in the Judeo-Christian tradition, but there’s also much to condemn and the whole thing needs to be understood in terms of the context in which such ideas developed.
Now onto competition.
There is competition within families, yes, but it’s generally considered good parenting to dissuade most competition for parental affection (inauthentic ingratiating behaviour), and to stop children from stealing food from each others’ plates for example. The ideal is for children to live in harmony and solidarity and to support each other. The family is an example of a functioning collectivist unit, that cooperates for both reciprocal and altruistic reasons. The key word is solidarity.
Unions do represent an attempt to mitigate the effects of competition; that’s what a union is. It is workers saying, “we stand together in solidarity so that you can’t play us against one another.” I didn’t say that unions have replaced or eliminated competition but they do represent a rejection of it. Now, some unions are better than others and some union practices are better than others. This should not be understood as a blanket support for unions since I know you’re apt to make those kinds of generalizations. The fact that some members are above other members due to seniority is not an example of competition. Rule by seniority is an ANTI-competitive practice.
Gregg Braddoch
January 6, 2015 at 21:45
“Now, you’re saying you agree that there’s a connection between violence and masculinity and that that’s okay because violence is necessary sometimes”
Strawman. It’s not masculinity, it is humanity. The same violent tendencies you wish to defame in men are also found in similar numbers in women.
“So, I’m glad that we agree there is a connection between masculinity – which is a social construct with a basis in biology – and violence.”
You can stop being glad – see above.
“The idea that boys don’t cry is a cultural construct, not a biological reality. ”
There is actually not enough scientific data on that particular topic to be sure. Studies have checked to see whether hormonal changes such as menstrual cycles affect crying in women (spoiler: they do), but not on whether or not hormones have a similar or inverse effect in men. So really ,we just have a bunch of opinions by people like you stating that it is cultural.
“For most of western history, women were not considered legal persons. They could not own property or run for elected office. This was based on the traditional understanding of gender, that it was natural for women to be subordinated to men as children are subordinated to parents. ”
This depends highly on what you call “western history” and is certainly not anytime in the last couple centuries. This conversation you wish to have has many books filled with information that demonstrates women doing what you are claiming they could not do for much of ‘western history.’ To hold your viewpoint is to cherry-pick and ignore the reasons most women didn’t have property or vote. (Hint: It’s not because of their gender)
“Where you come down on this generally has more to do with ideology and on how willing one is to question tradition as a source of wisdom and as a sufficient justification for a custom, than on any hard science.”
I agree that it comes down to ideology, but yours has little to no “hard science” backing it. Also, your previous statement references the subjective word “better” – I submit to you Better for WHOM? Better than WHAT? Better HOW? And then finally, why do I have to accept your subjective opinion on what is “better”?
“That was exactly my point, it harms the ones who don’t know how to fight, which is the point of self-defense instruction.”
Unlike you, I feel no obligation to correct evolution for men or women.
“The end of your post is simply factually incorrect. Boys ARE being taught self-defense in many high schools across the world now, and feminists have been at the vanguard in advocating for this.”
Show me a feminist anywhere who has said “Lets tech boys in school self defense” and actually raised money or did anything to support such a movement. Hint: Doing so for girls, and then other people saying “what about the boys?” doesn’t count.
” It should be required reading for anyone who doesn’t think feminists have anything to say about men’s issues.”
Yeah, feminists have a lot to say about mens issues:
“They don’t matter”
“They can’t be solved by groups that are anti-feminist”
“They aren’t as big of a problem as those facing women – See: Lots of sexist video games hurt women!”
“Men should be more like women, most of their problems are caused by toxic masculinity”
“Post-enlightenment I think it makes sense to demand that our reasons for doing things be grounded in scientific data and logical reasoning rather than trusting the wisdom of tradition.”
So yeah, where’s that scientific data linking masculinity to violence again? Oh wait. You prefer shiny new traditions that PRETEND to be scientific while still having no scientific evidence. I understand.
“and the answers are coming from the sciences (both social sciences and natural science) and from rational inquiry, not from the wisdom of tradition.”
Ironically, traditional wisdom has already held for centuries that men and women are different, and generally has said that there are differences between male and female brains. The only people denying this are gender ideologues such as yourself that want to suggest that all the evil in the world comes from traditional views on gender. Funny how the traditional view has more science backing it up.
“There is no such thing as normal. That’s a social construct. There’s no scientific basis for labelling procreative social behaviour as ‘normal’ and non-procreative sexual behaviour as abnormal. ”
LMFAO. Yeah, because you know – the majority of all species don’t reproduce, especially because science can’t determine that reproduction is “normal”.
“The prejudice against homosexuality is cultural, even if it obviously has a basis in biology because ALL human behaviour has a basis in biology. ”
A. Not cultural – Cross-cultural. Homosexuality has been maligned in most cultures throughout most of history, with a few exceptions.
B. My point exactly: Human behavior is overwhelmingly biological, despite our futile attempts to flaunt our egos about how we are more “evolved” and our rationalizations that ultimately lead to whatever we were biologically going to do anyway. (Science has demonstrated that the majority of decision making is not rational, but irrational)
“There are cultures that don’t have the legacy of homophobia that the Judeo-Christian tradition has sadly left imprinted on the west.”
Again, these cultures are the minority. (And I might add, most of which are DEAD CULTURES now.)
“The family is an example of a functioning collectivist unit, that cooperates for both reciprocal and altruistic reasons. ”
Yeah, because biology has nothing to do with familial co-operation at all. Seriously? This is what I mean by human arrogance too: You ascribe basic biological functions as things that are accomplished through collectivist ideals, altruistic ideals, etc. Yes, because before humans could write, rationalize, etc., etc. etc, they never co-operated. Arrogance and stupidity at it’s finest.
“It is workers saying, ‘we stand together in solidarity so that you can’t play us against one another.'”
Yep unless you didn’t make the cut to be in the union, or there are layoffs and you are the newest union member, etc. etc. etc. I can’t believe you keep making this mindless statement. Today unions even have multi-national chapters that give orders to tell workers what to do. Soo much freedom, sooo much solidarity.
“This should not be understood as a blanket support for unions since I know you’re apt to make those kinds of generalizations.”
But it IS a blanket statement in support of unions, duh. If it’s not, then would you care to tell me what it’s supposed to say? Because I’m pretty sure if you weren’t trying to make a blanket statement, you failed miserably.
“Rule by seniority is an ANTI-competitive practice.”
Yes, and similarly, a plutocracy is ANTI-competitive in practice, but neither benefits a poor worker trying to get a job and feed his family.
Libeller
January 8, 2015 at 14:06
There are good unions and bad unions but I support unionization because democratic organization is better than hierarchical organization and because wage labour is like economic feudalism, where you give up your autonomy, you “sell your labour” and your natural right to own the product of your labour (the natural right that capitalists agree exists) in return for a wage. I think workers should refuse to make that bargain. They should, collectively, demand better. I oppose the power of teachers’ unions, but not for the reasons the right opposes them. I don’t support “multi-national chapters that give orders to tell workers what to do.” Can you even give an example of this?
I didn’t ascribe familial altruism to culture! I ascribe it to biology! Richard Dawkins’ selfish gene metaphor is the best explanation for altruism. Nevertheless cultures can either emphasize this tendency or repress it, and many cultures do things differently. I think you are determined to read EVERYTHING that I write through a certain prism, as though I’m arguing for a certain point.
It took me a while to find examples of feminists supporting self-defense instruction for boys, because just about every feminist I know does support this, and furthermore this support is taken for granted so most of them don’t talk about it – to their discredit! I agree this is a weakness of feminism! Serious men’s activism would be expected to make up the difference, and there is practically no serious men’s activism, or reputable MRA organizations, or serious MRA scholars, but I digress – Helen Benedict in “Recovery: Surviving Sexual Assault for Men, Women, Teenagers, and their Families” is your one example, but I’m sure I can find mannnnny more, but that would be really tedious. You could go to r/feminism and ask what others think about the question “Do feminists support teaching self-defense to boys as well as girls?”
Gregg Braddoch
January 8, 2015 at 16:59
“There are good unions and bad unions but I support unionization because democratic organization is better than hierarchical organization ”
Which is why unions should let the market sort things out. Much more democratic than telling employers what to do.
“because wage labour is like economic feudalism, where you give up your autonomy, you “sell your labour” and your natural right to own the product of your labour (the natural right that capitalists agree exists) in return for a wage. ”
Capitalists also believe that one can own property, and if you are being paid a wage to make things with property that belongs to someone else, then it isn’t a your “natural right” to have all the profit from said labor.
“Can you even give an example of this?”
Yes, a friend of mine is a boiler maker, and has to pay dues to not only his local union, but to international union bodies which regulate his job. From what I understand this is common, especially among trade unions. These unions also screw up retirement by relying on ponzi-scheme-esque retirement programs.
“Richard Dawkins’ selfish gene metaphor is the best explanation for altruism.”
Um, no – The Selfish Gene demonstrates that pure altruism isn’t to be found in the human species. Selflessness is a requirement of altruism, and humans are selfishly motivated.
Note: When I speak of altruism, I am speaking of universal altruism “This person deserves my help, because we are both human”, not “I helped my neighbor because we are close friends”.
“I think you are determined”
I think that you are determined as well, to put words in my mouth.
“It took me a while to find examples of feminists supporting self-defense instruction for boys, because just about every feminist I know does support this”
And a net ZERO citations.
“Serious men’s activism would be expected to make up the difference, and there is practically no serious men’s activism, or reputable MRA organizations, or serious MRA scholars”
According to feminists of course. Funny how you can claim that feminists support self-defense classes for boys, provide no citations, and then make a blanket claim that there are no serious men’s activists, reputable men’s organizations, or serious men’s scholars. This is complete bull: Former feminists Warren Farrell, Erin Pizzey and even ‘factual feminist’ (most feminists deny she is a real feminist) Christina Hoff Sommers have all talked about men’s issues, and are told by feminists that they are either not needed, a bunch of whiners, or they compare them to serial killers and PUA community idiots.
“You could go to r/feminism and ask what others think about the question ‘Do feminists support teaching self-defense to boys as well as girls?'”
Yeah, and I would most likely get a lot of affirmative answers, much like feminists claiming feminism is about equality. But when we look at the lobbying, activism, and other parts of feminism, not a single prominent feminist in the movement has done anything to get self-defense taught to boys, and most of the effects of feminist lobbying, activism, etc. are to solve #firstworldproblems for #middleandupperclasswhitewomen. Anita Sarkeesian is a perfect example: She’s complaining about the “toxic tech/video game cultures” when every bit of research data on the people whom she’s talking about shows their is LESS misogyny and LESS sexism in both areas. She raised 300 million from intel for “diversity” projects, when the US government has already spent billions on the same thing with little to no effect on gender diversity (most women don’t want to work in STEM, even in so-called “feminist” / “gender equal” nations like Sweden. Meanwhile there are women in the middle east suffering, and poor women of minority groups suffering, and Anita does ZIP to help them, and instead helps her own career by fixing an imaginary problem with an imaginary solution that just happens to get her a super high-paying job.
Libeller
January 9, 2015 at 22:32
I’m not going to defend Sarkeesian’s fundraising activities other than to point out that Intel can spend that money wherever they want and that it’s a calculated business decision on their part.
There is no research data on video game cultures you can point to showing me that it’s less sexist, and as a gamer myself (I play fighting games, strategy games, and have played my share of magic: the gathering and poker over the years) I can tell you that’s utter nonsense and that most men simply do not perceive misogyny as such. They don’t see men shaming other men by demanding they “man up” and “don’t be a bitch” as misogynistic, they don’t see aggressive macho behaviour as misogynistic, they don’t see homophobia as misogynistic, many don’t even see excluding women from what THEY see as a boys club, as misogynistic, and they’re utterly blind to the ways in which their behaviour “polices gender” among men and women.
The reason Christina Hoff-Sommers is considered an anti-feminist is that her schtick is bashing feminists. She works for a hard-right think tank (the American Enterprise Institute) and she doesn’t have much of value to say. Like every other “scholar” who works at the American Enterprise Institute she is an apologist for power.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/books/reviews/waragainstboys0703.htm
Warren Farrell, once actually a radical feminist, briefly had something important to say about men’s issues when he first turned away from feminism in the 70s. That was before there was a “men’s rights” movement. Back in the day they used to talk about “men’s liberation.” It was understood that men also had to be liberated, not from feminism, but from patriarchy, and Farrell has made plenty of statements to this effect. I have no idea what he believes now. He’s mostly considered a clown. What has he said of value in the last 20 years?
As for Pizzey, I know stories about her but little of her actual work. I know that she’s currently “running” a bogus charity website that seems to be trying to appropriate the name and image of the white ribbon campaign. I say “running” in quotes because she isn’t actually doing anything to run the site, it was just transferred to her possession from A Voice for Men to dissociate itself from the comments Paul Elam made where he basically admitted to setting the site up maliciously. There’s currently a lawsuit and Pizzey/Elam’s website is sure to lose. I realize this is all a bit off topic, but I bring it up to illustrate that MRAs are clowns who are more interested in trolling and bashing feminists than in actually doing jack shit for real men’s issues.
It is true that much feminism has overly focused on the problems of middle or upper class white women. This has been noted and critiqued by many third wave feminists (and is the reason there is a “third wave”) such as bell hooks. In this respect feminism simply mirrors the cultures from which it emerged. Society in general is not only sexist, but racist and classist. Despite some unreconstructed second-wavers insisting that women’s oppression is the primary axis of all oppression, most modern feminist politics are informed by a thing called “intersectionality” which I’m not going to define for you.
“Um, no – The Selfish Gene demonstrates that pure altruism isn’t to be
found in the human species. Selflessness is a requirement of altruism,
and humans are selfishly motivated.”
No, GENES are “selfishly” motivated. That’s why humans behave altruistically towards family members and those perceived as being genetically similar to us. That’s why “blood is thicker than water.” That’s why parents will die to save their offspring.
Gregg Braddoch
January 10, 2015 at 00:16
“There is no research data on video game cultures you can point to showing me that it’s less sexist,”
Demographics for video games range from millenials to generation x, both which are less sexist than the rest of society.
” They don’t see men shaming other men by demanding they “man up” and “don’t be a bitch” as misogynistic, they don’t see aggressive macho behaviour as misogynistic, they don’t see homophobia as misogynistic, many don’t even see excluding women from what THEY see as a boys club, as misogynistic”
Because none of the above things demonstrate a “hatred of women” dumbass.
“As for Pizzey, I know stories about her but little of her actual work. ”
But are perfectly ok dismissing all of her work using an ad hominem attack. Classy.
“This has been noted and critiqued by many third wave feminists (and is the reason there is a “third wave”) such as bell hooks. ”
And Anita Sarkeesian, Gloria Steinem, and Gail Dines who continue to harp on rich / middle class white woman problems. So yeah, don’t try and pretend that feminism is fixing the problem. Case in point: Feminists popularize Gail Dines, Sarkeesian, Steinem (and even Dworkin) but most have probably not even heard of Bell Hooks.
” Despite some unreconstructed second-wavers insisting that women’s oppression is the primary axis of all oppression, most modern feminist politics are informed by a thing called ‘intersectionality’ which I’m not going to define for you.”
and that is because ‘intersectionality’ is BS, and is mainly concerned with rich / middle class white women speaking for all women and minorities, and silencing those who disagree.
“That’s why humans behave altruistically towards family members and those perceived as being genetically similar to us.”
You are using the word ‘altruism’ wrong. Altruism speaks to a universal principle – by your definition the Mafia is “altruistic”.
“That’s why ‘blood is thicker than water.’ That’s why parents will die to save their offspring.”
Its also why people do not owe all of society benevolence, just those that are related to them, friends with them, etc.
Gregg Braddoch
January 8, 2015 at 17:09
In addition, your Helen Benedict citation is a load of hooey. She says both girls and boys should be taught self-defense, and then pretends like boys already received such training by default. She was also not behind any activism to make sure that boys are taught self-defense. Saying it is necessary, and then focusing on girls is worse, in my opinion than not mentioning it at all – especially in the context of the document you are citing.
Feminists have always paid lip service to ‘equality’ and ‘men’s issues’ so they can claim that if you stand for these things you should be a feminist. Then all the activism, lobbying, etc. done by feminist groups A. Does nothing to fix the problems for men and B. Makes things WORSE for men and boys. (Example: Feminist groups continually oppose shared-parenting bills) After which, when this is pointed out, feminists gaslight by telling men that “feminism isn’t about you, mr. entitled” – Even though previously, they told men to let them handle men’s issues and did NOTHING, or OPPOSED solutions to them.
Libeller
January 9, 2015 at 22:02
“Saying it is necessary, and then focusing on girls worse, in my
opinion than not mentioning it at all – especially in the context of the
document you are citing.”
How do you figure?? This is just ass-backwards thinking.
What is a shared parenting bill exactly? That’s ambiguous language. I’m a bit of a policy wonk but the details matter tremendously. Courts generally award primary custody to the primary caregiver which is as it should be, and most divorcing couples work out parenting arrangements BEFORE going to court. If a shared parenting bill means a mandatory presumption of joint custody irrespective of who the primary caregiver is or even what both parents want, then that is absurd and it should be opposed.
Gregg Braddoch
January 10, 2015 at 00:08
“How do you figure??”
Because if it is really a problem that needs to be solved, it would be best focusing on CHILDREN REGARDLESS OF GENDER.
“What is a shared parenting bill exactly?”
Shared parenting bills support the courts giving parents equal priority to custody. NOW has opposed all such legislation, holding that women should get preference in custody cases. (Which has been disastrous for children with abusive moms)
“Courts generally award primary custody to the primary caregiver which is as it should be, and most divorcing couples work out parenting arrangements BEFORE going to court.”
So what you are saying is that if a dad pays all the bills, and the mom stays home with the kids, it is totally fair to give the mom the kids? That is BS, and doesn’t protect children who have abusive mothers, which is a rising problem.
“If a shared parenting bill means a mandatory presumption of joint custody irrespective of who the primary caregiver is or even what both parents want, then that is absurd and it should be opposed.”
It’s a presumption of joint custody at the outset, after which a judge can work with the individuals in question if they want something different, and is most certainly not absurd – Care to explain WHY it is absurd?
Phoenix King
December 17, 2014 at 15:11
You realize she isn’t even apart of GamerGate right?
It was a women that started the petition.
Anita has no female gamer supporters.
PointsOutTheObvious
December 13, 2014 at 21:55
Can you show me the female version of Mario or WarLuigi in recent AAA gaming? Just curious. I’d also like to see a female Blanka, Zangief, and E. Honda, if you have the time. No indie games or create a character, please.
Gregg Braddoch
December 17, 2014 at 20:49
Nice an irrelevant comment. There are numerous female protagonists from all the companies who’s characters you mention – they simply have their own game series, instead of changing what have been long-selling, solid series.
Additionally: Can you demonstrate that this has any harmful real world effects? Of course not – All you can do is assert that it does, much like Anita.
Gregg Braddoch
December 17, 2014 at 20:37
Ironically, Adrienne Shaw (from DiGRA and the academic source for the “gamers are dead” articles, and a source cited by Anita) did research in early 2011 to see what arguments could be made for more diversity in game protagonists.
Her research indicated that people are not looking for game protagonists to identify with personally, but rather game protagonists with interesting powers that players can become while playing – Therefore she said, there is no good argument for forcing increased diversity in video games.
Later that year, she wrote another paper still trying to argue for diversity quotas in games, but now arguing that all gamers suck because they are not bothered by the fact that games aren’t enveloped in her socjust political values, and gamers of all races, genders, etc. don’t need diversity. She then argues that the industry has to change to fit her political views.
Pretty much just like Phil Fish “My game is awesome, its the audience that sucks”
Caitlin Wolford
December 11, 2014 at 09:50
She actually addresses your points at exhaustive length, if you’d bother to watch her videos.
Quo Vadis?
December 11, 2014 at 10:05
couldn’t care less to be honest.
Drew_Gehringer
December 12, 2014 at 01:24
so you finally admit you hate her because of the strawman of her you and other fools have made in their head rather than anything she’s actually done?
Touma
December 12, 2014 at 08:47
you mean the videos that say that guys enjoy shooting their prize when they’ve been ruined by turning into monsters over some percieved “male power fantasy”.aka someone having to put their loved ones out of their misery because they’re in horrible anguish. then going to rightfully take down whatever caused it because the character loved the other one. even at the cost of the mc’s own life.
yeah, i had watched all three of her videos. though there should be TWELVE videos. its completely cynical and is clearly from a woman that has horrible bias against men. seriously those videos are so nitpicky and biased. not a slight bias. a deep hatred of men just by her wording. like guys aren’t capable of feeling humanity towards women. they’re just prizes to be won and disposed of when they’re tarnished.
and you wonder why people are signing this petition? shes a bad person. and a horrible role model for women. i certainly wouldn’t want my niece to grow up idolizing any woman like her. “fleas” in “fear” of “death threats” from “misogynists”. someone who fleas from criticism by pretending to be scared doesn’t deserve the backing or support shes gotten.
Caitlin Wolford
December 17, 2014 at 04:26
That was seriously incomprehensible.
Gregg Braddoch
December 17, 2014 at 20:56
“That was seriously incomprehensible.”
funny, I read it and understood it, so your “incomprehensible” part should say “incomprehensible to me”. (Which is generally the problem with Anita’s supporters)
Gregg Braddoch
December 17, 2014 at 20:54
“She actually addresses your points at exhaustive length”
No she doesn’t. To address them would imply she found factual evidence from scientifically peer-reviewed studies that debunk his points – unfortunately peer-reviewed scientific literature supports his points.
The only way she “addresses” the situation is by making lying assertions that are unsupported by any scientific peer-reviewed study done on the topic.
Top Kek
December 11, 2014 at 18:51
> She, for wanting more “realistic” females in games.
This argument is laughable on its face. What about the women who actually do possess these body types? Are attractive women with defined figures not “real” now?
We’ve gone so far through the looking glass I’ve seen fat girls now *shaming the healthy ones.*
Meanwhile, you make the most valid point: women have no problems picking only the most fit and athletic of males to feature as their “eye candy” in women’s literature, the covers of romance novels, and on their TV shows. And this is fine… for these men are attractive to the majority due to their vitality and a physique that demonstrates their health! But please… don’t cry to me about how only culturally accepted “attractive” women are featured at targeted-male media until your next romance novel stars a balding middle-aged man with a bit of a beer gut…
“Ted gasped for air, winded by the exertion of three minutes of clumsy hip-pumping. A bead of sweat rolled down his hair-covered beer belly before dripping onto the slightly stained sheets…”
Come on, ladies… let’s see some REALISM in your fiction!
Quo Vadis?
December 12, 2014 at 09:37
LOL I completely agree!
jlenoconel
December 10, 2014 at 15:40
Bear in mind that Anita Sarkeesian isn’t a real gamer and has wormed her way into the industry through deceit and lies. http://youtu.be/FW-69xXD734
Caitlin Wolford
December 11, 2014 at 09:50
She’s as real a gamer as you are. She explained that out-of-context quote rather well if you’d bother to google.
jlenoconel
December 12, 2014 at 07:27
Oh, and you were cleaver enough to believe her? Did it go along the lines of “Oh, I played the Wii, that’s why I didn’t consider myself a real gamer”?
Gregg Braddoch
December 17, 2014 at 20:57
“She’s as real a gamer as you are. ”
Really? I know how to turn my xbox controller on before trying to use it. Anita, on the other hand apparently doesn’t – she filmed herself “playing” games with an xbox controller that was not powered on for her kickstarter video.
That, and she tried to manipulate people with NLP pseudoscience by dropping 60+ NLP phrases into her kickstarter video as well.
Such gamer, much reals, so lies.
JDVisa1000
December 10, 2014 at 12:25
I wonder what needs to change in my life in order to have such a strong sense of entitlement.
I'm really feeling it! (Umar)
December 10, 2014 at 12:28
Join Twitter
Hammersteyn
December 10, 2014 at 12:33
There’s a difference between standing up for what you believe in and being an attention whore. Take Elizabeth Blackwell who became Americas first women doctor. They enrolled her as a joke but she graduated top of her class, and then you get Anita.
Caitlin Wolford
December 11, 2014 at 09:52
Hate her all you want, but Anita is changing gaming.
Hammersteyn
December 11, 2014 at 09:59
Look I agree there’s a problem. But she’s not doing it because she cares about gaming. So bring on the change. It will benefit all.
Deceased
December 11, 2014 at 10:55
After reading the article… and then a bunch of the comments… I scrolled back to this specific one Sir Hammersteyn… Not because of what you said… but rather, I felt that 4 comments are sufficiently deep to start commenting on comments, while recording, so that I can post this on youtube, and see if I can make some money by commenting on comments, where people commented on a comment where the original comment was a comment on an article…
That kind of took a while ( I was typing and commenting on the comments in parallel – imagine that!!! )
Yeah, this comment is kind of senseless, but so is taking any article on Anita… sooo… you know… just kind of stalling for more time, whilst I’m commenting on the comments…
Aaand, that’s roughly 2 minutes.
( If you’re still confused about what’s going on here… go and watch #REHASH from South Park )
Cheers
Gregg Braddoch
December 17, 2014 at 21:01
“Hate her all you want, but Anita is changing gaming”
Yeah, she does a good job stirring up hate for money.
Caitlin Wolford
December 18, 2014 at 00:46
Awww how cute! My very own stalker!
Gregg Braddoch
December 18, 2014 at 05:05
Yeah, because commenting on two of your comments (now 3) is classified as stalking…. I guess that means you are stalking half the people commenting here.
Caitlin Wolford
December 18, 2014 at 18:26
If by “two” you actually meant “five”.
Gregg Braddoch
December 18, 2014 at 18:32
Oh my bad… I thought this was a public article, and that you were here for discourse.
Gregg Braddoch
December 18, 2014 at 18:50
Either way, according to your own definition of “stalker” you are stalking everyone here too.
I'm really feeling it! (Umar)
December 10, 2014 at 12:26
First its the moe Tekken character and now this…When?….When did gaming become like this?
Sir GIF Sexy
December 10, 2014 at 12:35
About 4 years ago more-or-less?
#iWasThere
Sir GIF Sexy
December 10, 2014 at 12:32
RABLE! RABLE RABLE RABLE! RABBLE RABBLE! RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!
https://31.media.tumblr.com/dd341c9ab4781ec64c940713a1a7673b/tumblr_inline_mn2c2wuCX71qz4rgp.gif
Captain JJ glitterati fantasti
December 10, 2014 at 12:37
I loved this episode.
Viking Of Divinity
December 10, 2014 at 12:33
If Sarkeesian is an example of a realistic female… then the world is f****d.
Captain JJ glitterati fantasti
December 10, 2014 at 12:41
Of course she is. Just as much as Alisa Bosconovitch from Tekken.
Hammersteyn
December 10, 2014 at 12:42
I dunno, do feminist still have straight sex?
Captain JJ glitterati fantasti
December 10, 2014 at 12:44
I don’t think most of the the feminazis have sex.
jlenoconel
December 10, 2014 at 16:01
They do, but they turn all the lights out and cover themselves with bubble wrap, so the husband/boyfriend won’t “objectify” them. Just imagine being married to an extreme feminist? Every 5 minutes “STOP OBJECTIFYING MY BODY!”
Medusa Jordan
December 10, 2014 at 18:03
Having sex whilst covered in bubble wraps sounds fun! Yay, feminist sex!
Quo Vadis?
December 10, 2014 at 13:20
NO! a ding-a-ling is BAD! only the baddies have them! (I am a proud baddie btw)
Hammersteyn
December 10, 2014 at 13:39
hahahaha
Jaded_Reprobate
December 10, 2014 at 12:44
i think it could be a good thing to have this Sarkeesian lady involved in the development of games… 1 of 2 things will happen…
1. She will actually learn something about our beloved industry, and what actually goes into the production of games and maybe, just maybe, she will see that yes there are some issues that need to be resolved but it’s not all as bad as she has been trying to make it out to be.
2. She won’t learn a thing but more people that actually matter, in the greater scheme of things, will see her for what she truly is and she will fade away into oblivion…
personally i’d hope for point 1… because i do think there are area’s in this industry that we love that needs work…. and a positive influence with a decent amount of “shout” could definitely be used
Anon A Mouse
December 10, 2014 at 12:49
Or 3) The world goes on as usual and not o fuck was given.
Jaded_Reprobate
December 10, 2014 at 12:50
that my friend is more than likely what would happen…..
(refresh)
JonathanNathan
December 14, 2014 at 11:01
“and maybe, just maybe, she will see that yes there are some issues that need to be resolved but it’s not all as bad as she has been trying to make it out to be.”
Which is exactly what she’s already saying. You people really never even watched the videos, did you? Watching thunderf00t’s smug masturbatory “rebuttals” doesn’t count.
Gregg Braddoch
December 17, 2014 at 21:05
“Which is exactly what she’s already saying. ”
No its not at all. She’s saying the problem is “worse” than she thought, which is against all data or evidence available.
“You people really never even watched the videos, did you?”
I watched every painful godforsaken second of said fail. Logical fallacies, assertions without citations about real-world harms, etc.
“Watching thunderf00t’s smug masturbatory ‘rebuttals’ doesn’t count.”
Its funny how his videos on the subject are criticized, when to date, nobody, not a single person who has criticized his videos has come up with one single credible criticism. Last time I asked, I got a ton of strawmen which were easily debunked by watching his videos.
So practice what you preach bub, or at least give me a good reason why Mason’s videos are wrong.
Gregg Braddoch
December 18, 2014 at 20:08
No? Not any rebuttal of a single video thunderf00t made about Anita? Heh. Typical.
Tauriq Moosa
December 10, 2014 at 12:45
38,952 is an unbelievable number of signatories (I use unbelievable in both senses). Imagine if that same support could go toward actual issues in the industry like firing reviewers for low scores, fighting microtransactions and companion app usage in AAA games for content that’s there; and demanding early review copies and working servers. But nope: let’s target a harmless woman cos… she has total control of a game made by a powerful corporation that apparently isn’t interested in making money and has never made a successful game before. Angry gamers know best.
It’s about ethics in game development, not misogyny.
Libeller
December 10, 2014 at 18:36
Firing reviewers for low scores is an actual issue in the industry? On what planet?
Tauriq Moosa
December 10, 2014 at 21:44
This one http://kotaku.com/5893785/yes-a-games-writer-was-fired-over-review-scores
Libeller
December 11, 2014 at 02:37
Wow, good catch. I did not know about that.
The worst part about that story is that apparently his termination agreement required him not to talk about it. That kind of stuff should be illegal.
Caitlin Wolford
December 11, 2014 at 09:54
“It’s about ethics in game development, not misogyny.”
If only that were true.
Gregg Braddoch
December 17, 2014 at 21:07
“If only that were true.”
It is, get over it.
oVg elfroot slayer
December 10, 2014 at 12:52
All new to me. I thought the anger was about FAITHs creator Rinoa Pratchett not being allowed to further develop her character.
Ceyber, The Metal Rabbit
December 10, 2014 at 16:06
Why is u so ignorants? All mine Facebook AND Twitter frendz is signed petition, stoopid parents say must wait next week for 50megapixel to record ma Let’s Playz tho… Noobs. So unfair.
oVg elfroot slayer
December 11, 2014 at 08:40
Reminds me, I need to create a bookface profile for my Elfroot.
Dutch Matrix
December 10, 2014 at 12:59
Is it okay if I blame Anita Sarkeesian for Femsheps overtly silly walk in ME3?
Alien Emperor Trevor
December 10, 2014 at 13:29
Yes that’s cool. Anita also made Hansie do it.
Admiral Chief BellatorMachina
December 10, 2014 at 14:06
I HATED that silly walk
Drew_Gehringer
December 12, 2014 at 01:25
why? what does she have to do with it?
Gregg Braddoch
December 17, 2014 at 21:08
According to Anita Mass Effect is sexist because “femshep” isn’t the default, and is a man with boobs.
SMH. I don’t understand how it can be controversial to state that Sarkeesian is full of poo.
Kromas, Guardian of Cenarius
December 10, 2014 at 13:00
Call me crude but I think they should let Trey Parker and Matt Stone help out with femal character design.
I’ll start creating the petition. 😛
Quo Vadis?
December 10, 2014 at 13:09
YAY! bigger tits! LOL
Gavin Mannion
December 10, 2014 at 13:07
Having a rabbid feminist or anti feminist on the design team would be a disaster for any project.
Which is probably why if she ever got involved in game development it would be on a purely consultatnt basis and only her none insane ramblings would be taken seriously
Alien Emperor Trevor
December 10, 2014 at 13:09
You mean these Rabbids? That would be bad. ;P
Brady miaau
December 10, 2014 at 13:58
A disaster indeed. Ask them to do something, they say it is because they are a woman. No, it is because I judge you are the best person for that task. That is it. Crisis. Egg shells.
MyNameIsNotImportant
December 11, 2014 at 19:01
OMFG!?? A game journalist that actually use logic and aren’t just jumping on the white knigh/SJW bandwagon?? :O
Kickedintheribs
December 10, 2014 at 13:09
Fuck off.
Norman Pleasant
December 10, 2014 at 13:26
This petition’s purpose is as pure and true as it is linguistically sound.
Exalted Overlord Geoffrey Tim
December 10, 2014 at 13:36
I laughed.
jlenoconel
December 10, 2014 at 15:42
I agreed.
Touma
December 12, 2014 at 08:48
very nice rebuttal. certainly a response one would want from a writer. you certainly come off as unbiased and intelligent.
Tom Krager
December 10, 2014 at 14:29
Anita disgusts me honestly but if she in fact isn’t currently hired to consult on Mirror’s Edge 2 then the people who made this petition are just lazy. Do your damn research ppl! Either way, she needs to just be shunned from the gaming community. she was never a gamer and even admitted it.
jlenoconel
December 10, 2014 at 15:38
Another news article slamming #GamerGate and putting Sarkeesian etc on a pedestal. Surprise, surprise.
Gavin Mannion
December 11, 2014 at 07:13
There are plenty other articles on the site putting Sarkessian in the basement instead… Everyone’s allowed their own opinion and to declare it freely without fear of reprisal.. that’s what both sides of GamerGate get wrong
Gregg Braddoch
December 17, 2014 at 21:15
“Everyone’s allowed their own opinion and to declare it freely without fear of reprisal”
Actually, people have the right to say what they want, but the supreme court doesn’t hold the “no reprisal” part.
If consumers dislike writers for holding certain opinions, and therefore voice their dissent, and boycott, there is no legal or moral reason to keep said writer from reprisal. (Minus of course, illegal means of reprisal).
If a neo-nazi claims he wants to slaughter innocent people, he will be met with a swift reprisal. Same for anyone else who threatens another human being.
The only side that thinks they are owed a non-reprisal is Anti-GG. They think it is unfair that consumers may petition advertisers to punish media outlets which libel gamergate as women-hatred. They think it is unfair to point out their harassment, misanthropy, and other bad behavior that is publicly available information. They call this “harassment” and detract from the actual criminal actions of a few internet trolls being taken seriously and prosecuted.
MDawg DizMizzle
December 10, 2014 at 15:53
If this whole thing is in fact true, It’s just publicity on EA’s part. Your article seems just as lazy as this sights name. Anything to stay in the positive light I guess. She has no place in gaming. Profound liar and self proclaimed critic to a genre she knows nothing about… well… that’s unfair. She knows now but could care less growing up as a kid I guess. If she is in kahoots with this thing… oh well. Not our decision to make. But if people can petition against selling GTA at specific retail stores due to violence against double standards… I don’t see the problem with this.
jlenoconel
December 10, 2014 at 15:58
GTA V will be one of the first games I buy for my new Xbox One.
Leandro Montanari Braz
December 10, 2014 at 19:45
I would love to see a more realistic portrayal of women, which can be achieved by making the industry more attractive and less toxic for female developers, not by hiring feminists as consultants. Also, by showing that games with this characters are profitable, that people will buy a game with such characters and that the industry don’t need female characters made to please men in order to sell games.
Anita would end up selling a idealized idea of what a woman is, biased by a feminist world view. The industry don’t need characters created to preach feminism, the industry need real women, that aren’t there to please men, that aren’t there to please feminists, they are there to be women.
Anyway, I’m glad it’s a hoax and I hope nobody will think this is a good idea, it would be a step back…
michael woodruff
December 10, 2014 at 20:13
Wow way to make gamers look like they are thinking based on just emotion.
michael woodruff
December 10, 2014 at 20:17
Anita does not speak for gamers, female or otherwise, on the difficulty or appeal of games. She only offers personal insights catering to her own agenda. In fact, she went so far as to say that women needed a whole new “simplified” control set for this game, based on her personal experiences, passing them off as the opinion of the female gaming community.
Brian Murphy
December 10, 2014 at 20:24
So, let me get this straight, Sarkeesian makes an entire career out of mis-characterising games, and gamers, and that’s fine. But, some folks don’t do their due diligence, and that’s crossing a line? I wonder what’s worse, 40,000 ignorant people, or 1 ignorant person, whose voice reaches millions?
Personally, I don’t care what project she works on. I’m not about to sign a petition like that. Hypothetically speaking, if any company wanted to hire her for a project, that’s great. It would be nice to see a new segment of gaming that’s oriented around women’s dreams/fantasies etc… at the same time, maybe she’d shut the fuck up, and stop attempting to interject her misandry into my leisure activities. Imagine if this kind of shit were to start happening due to the direction of SciFi/Fantasy books.
Gregg Braddoch
December 17, 2014 at 21:18
Thank you. Faith in humanity restored.
Although I hope Anita gets hired for another reason: Any game that has her name on it is doomed. Only will take one company giving her a voice to find out that she’s not helping women, just whining and lying to make a quick buck.
You idiot
December 10, 2014 at 20:35
You’re an idiot
Top Kek
December 10, 2014 at 23:06
Much of the hate these hair-dyed harpies screech is either fabricated or retaliation after endless onslaughts of their own. They’re bigots and racists themselves, and completely unashamed about it.
It would be like a klansman wandering into Ferguson in full regalia, insulting every black in attendance with the most pointed and insulting racial slurs they can think of, (including new ones they invent daily complete with edgy hashtag…) then have the gall to insist they were victims of oppression when someone finally fed up with their shit yells something back.
Most of the kiddies involved today are too young to remember their granddads getting their first Atari 2600s… and being harassed and belittled by the “mean girls” of their day with the same tired insults about their manhood and maturity. Women have been harassing men in gaming since gaming first began. Their tired “loser virgin” insults haven’t even changed from when they were slinging them in the 70s. And the 80s. And the 90s. And the 00s.
Thomas Atchley
December 11, 2014 at 01:19
Did this jack ass just say Anita “Princess Peach is a weak character and was put in smash as a mistake because I dislike to acknowledge her non platformer appearances and Super Mario Bros 2” Sarkeesian would make more realistic female characters? Sure buddy. Also the idea that the game NEEDS an alternate control scheme for females in yours and her opinion is itself inherently misogynistic and suggests women are dumber at games. Sorry to burst your magical bubble on that.
Raiden
December 11, 2014 at 01:55
I say let her work on it.
Then when it undersells due to the vast majority of the people who buy video games not wanting to buy or play a game with her name on it. The developers in the Industry may begin to wake up and see her for the dishonest woman she is once they finally lose money because of it.
I can’t wait to hear the horror stories from the people involved in the games production.
Devin Hall
December 11, 2014 at 02:39
I’m not giving my money to shit she’s involved with. She’s not helping make any fucking game I buy. You know your boy don’t play that bullshit.
An actual gamer
December 11, 2014 at 04:08
This is the same woman who said Hitman games are all about killing women. That Hitman is a game where the purpose of the game is to kill women and move their bodies into sexual poses like trophies. That’s just one example of the craziness she spews, one of many. This women is nuts. Any gaming journalist who stands by her opinions is a tool.
Rags
December 11, 2014 at 16:01
I still have a raging boner from dragging around female bodies from 2 years ago.
Lars Anderson
December 11, 2014 at 06:03
Dice isn’t going to let her do squat, it’s just a PR move by EA. That said, I wouldn’t want Anita’s cry baby brand of feminism near any creative IP.
Kaaria Mucherera
December 11, 2014 at 06:09
Terrible biased article. Anita Sarkeesian is an absolute poison to the game industry and communuty. She is a liar, and a con artist. Every one of her videos bends the truth to support her unfactual and bias claims of sexism that for the most part isnt there. How can you take someone who said that “having a female Commander Shepard is Sexist” seriously. This writer deserves to be fired.
Gavin Mannion
December 11, 2014 at 07:10
How is this biased, there is a petition to remove her from a position she doesn’t have. If that isn’t the stupidest pettion on the planet I don’t know what is
MyNameIsNotImportant
December 11, 2014 at 19:49
It’s extremely biased because it’s clear that Geoffrey is in support of Anita “I’m not a gamer” Sarkeesian.
Look at the way he’s describing the people that are against Anita. He only use negative words like “hate” “angry” etc.
If you read through a bunch of the comments from the petition, you can clearly see that the general tone of people signing aren’t as he points them out to be, filled with hate and anger.
No one is threatening Anita, EA or Dice, as a matter of fact, many people mention that EA are (of course) free to do as they please, but that people just won’t support it.
AlphaOmegaSin is always angry, like AVGN, Angry Joe etc., it’s their “persona”, so using him as an example is pathetic, he just chose that video because it’s the only/best video on youtube with a guy getting worked up over the subject.
The fact that most of the article is about discribing the kind of people signing that petition and not just explaining the situation (which I could do in way, WAY less words than this article use) clearly shows why he is biased.
I took courses in journalism, and some of the first things we were thought was how to be subjective, and how to write biased articles without it being too obvious, which exactly what Geoffrey is doing (or at least trying to) in this article.
He’s painting a very negative picture of the people that are against Anita, but it’s all wrapped up in an article about the petition. That way, some people will only react to that subconscious, and it will affect the way they think about the people that are against Anita, without them even realizing it.
It’s (obviously) okay to state opinions about games etc. (that’s what gaming journalism used to be about), but bringing all this SJW bs, and personal opinions about what other people should and shouldn’t do into articles is pathetic, and it shows us exactly where (this so called) gaming journalism is going.
izak1399
December 11, 2014 at 08:03
Ha ha, I feel somewhat responsible for this post.
PailOfAwesome
December 11, 2014 at 08:17
So wait…you *don’t* see the irony about a feminist proclaiming: “Hey. We ladies want to be treated like equals. We deserve our own roles in the gaming industry too!” And then her turning around and saying: “These controls are too much for females. Simplify them for us please.”?…really? You think someone that turncoat ‘ s so easily on their own argument/stance just to worm into the industry deserves any kind of position like that?…I think you really need to reevaluate your rational and possibly your career choice.
izak1399
December 11, 2014 at 10:14
She never had a problem with the controls, that was a rumour made up on 4chan, which she addresses on her video, if you watched it.
jlenoconel
December 12, 2014 at 15:42
I watched her say, in a video, she wanted to change the controls. Making up facts eh!
izak1399
December 12, 2014 at 22:34
Feel free to post me a link to that video.
izak1399
December 14, 2014 at 06:04
Feel free to post a link to this video.
Gregg Braddoch
December 17, 2014 at 21:23
It was destructoid.
you SJWs are so cute, thinking that the entire internet is run by 4chan.
izak1399
December 17, 2014 at 22:04
screw Social justice warriors.
With that said the Destructoid post was a reaction to the 4chan post that was posted a day earlier, which is the earliest known reference to any of this.
Either way, both are founded on hearsay and rumours.
This isn’t about social justice, this is about writers not referencing or fact checking and readers taking things on faith, as I assume you still are.
Gregg Braddoch
December 17, 2014 at 22:09
“This isn’t about social justice, this is about writers not referencing or fact checking and readers taking things on faith”
You mean like assuming gamergate is at fault for harassment without evidence? Or assuming that Anita is correct that games will cause misogyny and violence against women with no demonstrable evidence? Or assuming that Brianna Wu wasn’t home because she said so, even though she was streaming her video from her own home while claiming to be in a safehouse?
“as I assume you still are.”
Yep. You’d do that. I don’t really believe Anita is working for EA. That’s giving her too much credit. Even EA can see she’s a pot-stirring antagonists trying to bilk people of money. (EA is pretty good about taking people’s money too, so they studied up on this).
izak1399
December 17, 2014 at 22:17
“You mean like assuming gamergate is at fault for harassment without evidence? Or assuming that Anita is correct that games will cause misogyny and violence against women with no demonstrable evidence? Or assuming that Brianna Wu wasn’t home because she said so, even though she was streaming her video from her own home while claiming to be in a safehouse?”
I’m not assuming any of those things since that’s outside my purview of interest and reflects little on this specific instance.
“I don’t really believe Anita is working for EA. That’s giving her too much credit. Even EA can see she’s a pot-stirring antagonists trying to bilk people of money.”
I’m glad we can agree on something.
Gregg Braddoch
December 17, 2014 at 22:31
“I’m not assuming any of those things since that’s outside my purview of interest and reflects little on this specific instance.”
It’s very relevant though – Gamergate gets flak from media all the time for the aforementioned unsourced, unproven BS, but then criticizes GG for much smaller mistakes, such as trusting a destructoid post. (Instead the media would rather have us believe misinformation from Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, and Brianna Wu, who have repeatedly been shown to be outright lying, or making false assertions.
“I’m glad we can agree on something.”
Statistically speaking, it is likely that we agree on much more than one thing.
izak1399
December 17, 2014 at 22:37
You might even find that I agree with you on a lot of things regarding gamergate as well.
However, this article doesn’t once mention gamergate, and even if it did, would you continue to defend something that’s patently wrong and misguided?
Gregg Braddoch
December 17, 2014 at 23:14
I’m merely pointing out the double standard.
Personally, if Anita wants to work on a game, that’s great – I simply won’t buy the game, along with everyone else who thinks her work is terrible.
I’d also love to critique said game after it was released by her own impossible to please standards, because that would be fun. Joss Whedon looked like a colossal asshat supporting her critique, while using all of said tropes in everything he’s created – The same would happen to Anita – We already have her own game concept that utilizes the very tropes she calls “pernicious” and “problematic”.
izak1399
December 18, 2014 at 01:07
Fair enough. Maybe it’d be wise to pick and choose your battles man, this thread isn’t helping that stereotype.
Caitlin Wolford
December 11, 2014 at 09:35
Every time gamergaters mobilize against Anita, they prove her right. Keep it up, guys. Developers can see how you’re acting, and it makes you look bad.
Rags
December 11, 2014 at 15:59
That’s such a non argument. We can ridicule a women in any other sphere of life. But just call anita on her bullshit and we are painted as angry and misguided. Developers are more intelligent than you give them credit for. They are certainly not on her side of the argument.
jlenoconel
December 12, 2014 at 00:03
When gamers stop buying games from developers who pander to people like Sarkeesian, we will see what happens.
Drew_Gehringer
December 12, 2014 at 01:28
Nothing will, because gamers who hate Sarkeeisan are a steadily-shrinking group that’s ultimately holding the industry back from maturing at all.
jlenoconel
December 12, 2014 at 15:40
No, I think you’ll find that the number of people who dislike her is growing, especially the more people hear about her.
sonicsnake4
August 2, 2015 at 18:18
1. Kickstarter lies
Before Anita started her Kickstarter campaign she held a talk where she said she was being harassed by a organized group of 4chan members for months. She said these 4chan members subscribed to her channel so they would know when she released new videos so they could attack her. The type of comments she said she received were sexual insults, death threats & rape threats. She said sometimes she got together with a friend to read through the comments because it would get overwhelming. She says that she probably has the biggest block list on Youtube and anytime they leave any anti feminist, harassing, or threating comment they would be blocked. She said that she had gotten use to these kinds of comments. She said she monitored her Youtube comment section so the only comments that were allowed to be shown had to be approved by her.
She lunched her Kickstarter campaign and made a Youtube video for the campaign. She for the first time allowed comments on her video. she makes a post on her website entitled Harassment, Misogyny and Silencing on YouTube. She says this in the post.
“Here is a very small sample of the harassment I deal with for daring to criticize sexism in video games. Keep in mind that all this is in response to my Kickstarter project for a video series called Tropes vs. Women in Video Games (which I have not even made yet). These are the types of silencing tactics often used against women on the internet who dare to speak up. But don’t worry it won’t stop me!”
“These messages and comments have included everything from the typical sandwich and kitchen “jokes” to threats of violence, death, sexual assault and rape.”
http://feministfrequency.com/2012/06/07/harassment-misogyny-and-silencing-on-youtube/
She says that all of these comments are because of her Kickstarter campaign because she dares to speak critically about video games. These statements completely contradict what she said before she started her Kickstarter campaign. Before her Kickstarter she said she was systemically being harassed by people on 4chan and that among the things they said to her were sexual insults, death threats & rape threats and sometimes it was so overwhelming she read them with a friend as a way to cope with it and she had gotten use to it by that point. So she leaves comments open on her youtube kickstarter video which is something she never did before and she was surprised by the negative comments but how can she be surprised by the same type of comments she was receiving long before she launched her Kickstarter. When she started her Kickstarter and left her comments open she knew exactly what the comments were going to be like because she been receiving them for months prior. So when she says during her Kickstarter that all of the negative comments were because of her Kickstarter campaign she’s lying.
2. Other Lies
She says that Grand Theft Auto and Saint Row encourage players to kill women by giving players money for killing random female NPCs.
“some games explicity incentivise and reward this kind of behavior by having murdered women drop dundles of cash for the player to collect and add to their own stash”
The truth is money is dropped by any NPC that is killed in the games and has nothing to do with gender.
She says that the female stripper NPCs from Hitman Absolution were put their because the developer wanted players to kill them. The game discourages players from killing innocent civilians by taking away points. The whole point of the game is to sneak by people and keep unnecessary killing to a minimum while moving toward killing your intended target not to kill random strippers and lose points for doing so. The path to the strippers is one of two paths that the player can take. The path to the strippers is the harder of the two paths to take. The other path that the player can take is easier and doesn’t involve coming near the strippers at all.
She also says this in her Background Decoration video.
“their status as disposable objects is reinforced by the fact that in most games discarded bodies will simply vanish into thin air a short time after being killed”
She tries to tie disappearing bodies as something that only happens to female NPCs but it has nothing to do with gender its just something that happens in a lot of games irregardless of gender because of limited ram Capacity and not having the game slow down because of bodies pilling up.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EverythingFades
shes a life long gamer
at a Santa Monica College in California back in early 2010 Anita says that she’s not a fan of video games and she had to learn a lot about them. she says that she would love to play video games but she doesn’t what to go around shooting people and ripping off their heads. During and after her Kickstarter she says that shes been playing video games since she was 5 years old and shes a life long gamer. How can she be a lifelong gamer if she said pre Kickstarter that she doesn’t like video games specifically because she thinks that all games are violent. If she’s a lifelong gamer than what has she been playing all of this time and why does she thinks all video games are violent. She obviously not a lifelong gamer and only said that as a way to try and give herself more credibility.
In her damsel video she said Zelda was never a playable character in a console game. Zelda was playable in the CDI games Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon & Zelda’s Adventure. I am not saying these are good games but they are console games where Zelda was the star of her own adventure.
She says that gaming is all boys club and women have until recently been barred from playing games. This is untrue their has never been anything stopping girls from playing games. Most game genres are not gender excluding. Racing, fighting, beat em up, real time strategy, role playing, puzzle, point and click, action adventure, platformers, MMO, Simulation, rhythm action.
Women have been involved in the making of games for years. Theirs been female programmers, artist, composers, designer, CEO, etc. Women have also been involved in the journalism side of things as well. This false narrative that Anita’s trying to push that games have somehow excluded women until recently is a lie that she tells to try to push her gender base agenda.
The other thing that she tries to push is the ideal that man are trying to keep women from playing or criticizing games. Both things are false but she keeps to that script so she can fight against the imagery boogie man that she created and so she can justify the existences of her video series.
Anita omitted the fact that she has connections to the developer of the game sword and sworcery but I am sure that has noting to do with the reason why she chose that game’s character as a positive female even though it contradicts her previous videos.
https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/315zh3/possible_ethics_issue_with_anitas_latest_video/.
3. Poor Research
In dismals in distress she said that peach was added to Mario 2 to fill a per existing gender role that existed in the original game Doki Doki Panic except for the fact that her own footage clearly shows that two females were playable in Doki Doki Panic. If she did further research like actually playing the game than she would know that it wasn’t just one girl in Doki Doki Panic. The core concept that Anita doesn’t understand about games is the fact that graphics assist can be replaced with anything. In fan made mods the cast of Super Mario Bros 2 have been replaced by numerous things like Star Wars ships, Pokemon, Transformers, Spider-Man villains, etc.
http://www.romhacking.net/?page=hacks&game=749
In Women as Background Decoration Anita says this
“In order to understand how this works lets take a moment to examine how video game operate as playgrounds for player engagement. Games ask us to play with them. Now that may seem obvious but bear with me. game developers set up a series of rules and then within those rules we are invited to test the mechanics to see what we can do and what we can’t do. We are encouraged to experiment with how the system will react or respond to our inputs and discover which of our actions are permitted and which are not. The play comes from figuring out the boundaries and possibility within the gamespace. So in many of the titles we’ve been discussing the game makers have setup a series of possible scenarios involving vulnerable eroticized female characters. Players are than invited to explore and exploit those situations during their play through. The player cannot help but treat these female bodies as things to be acted upon. Because they were designed constructed and placed in the environment for that singular purpose. Players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters. Its a rush streaming from a carefully concocted mix of sexual arousal connected to the act of controlling and punishing representations of female sexuality.”
Theirs two basic concepts that she doesn’t understand. The first one is that games are interactive so players can do things that developers never intended players to be able to do. The second is the fact that games have bugs in them which also allows players to do things that the developers never intending for them to do.
For example in Halo 2 players can do button combos. Button combo is a sequence of buttons that, when pressed in order, results in the execution of an exploit. Typical button combos take advantage of unforeseen attributes of certain actions. Some actions, such as meleeing, can disrupt animations for firing and reloading weapons, performing melees, etc. By chaining these and other actions, players can perform special tricks, such as automatic Plasma Grenade sticks and instant close-range kills. However, many players disapprove of such “cheap” exploitations, and Bungie has declared these combos all as cheating and therefore banworthy
http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Cheating
Another example is in early versions of arcade Mortal Kombat 2. Players figured out how to hit babies after performing Babalitys.
http://bbh.marpirc.net/mk2/
By Anita’s logic midway endorses child abuse because players tested the bounders of the game and were able to interact with the objects (babies) in the game that were put their by the developer. So that clearly means that the developer supports any action the players can do in the game including hitting babies. Or it can just mean that games are interactive and filled with glitches and just because a player can do something in a game doesn’t automatically mean that the developer endorsed it or even meant for player to be able to do it.
In her Bayonetta video she complains about Bayonetta clothes coming off when she summons demons. she doesn’t acknowledge or knows that Bayonetta’s hair is also her cloths so that’s why her cloths disappears when she summons demons. She also makes the claim that Bayonetta is fighting demons when in fact Bayonetta is actually fighting angles. She also says that Bayonetta has a child except for the fact that Bayonetta doesn’t have any children. She claims that Bayonetta is a “choose your own patriarchal adventure porno fantasy.” Lets take a second to look at what the word Patriarchy means. Patriarchy is a social system in which males hold primary power, predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property. So how is Bayonetta a game in which players play as a strong women who is always in control of a situation and is more powerful than any man in the game enforcing ideals of Patriarchy. Bayonetta is not a choose your own adventure type game nor is it a porno.
She says this in a tweet
“Everything about Bayonetta’s design, mechanics and characterization is created specifically for the sexual pleasure of straight male gamers”
Bayontta was design by a women
http://platinumgames.com/2009/04/17/designing-bayonetta/
http://soulcalibur.wikia.com/wiki/Mari_Shimazaki
McIntosh said this on twatter about the Witcher.
“Geralt from Witcher 3 is emotionally deficient in the extreme. Never cries or laughs. Never expresses grief, fear, sadness or vulnerability.”
Witchers are unable to express emotions on their faces because of the training that is involed to become a Witcher. Taken in as children, Witchers-to-be are subjected to intense alchemical processes, consumption of mutagenic compounds and relentless physical and magical training to make them dangerous and highly versatile against their vast array of opponents.
http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Witcher
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2015/05/31/why-feminist-frequency-is-dead-wrong-about-the-witcher-3/
“In the beginning of “Women as Background Decoration: Part 2,” Sarkeesian references a scene from Dragon Age’s City Elf Origin story, in which a group of guards make disturbing sexual comments over the player character’s dead female companion. Sarkeesian implies that BioWare’s narrative is built on the “brutalization of women’s bodies,” using dead women “as an indicator of just how harsh, cruel, and unforgiving their game worlds are.”
“However, the female elf’s treatment is better understood as a thematic commentary on systematic misogynistic violence. Both women and elves are confined to strict socioeconomic roles within the origin story, as the brutal city government uses institutional force in order to keep women and elves oppressed. Essentially, the game explores the use of sexual violence as a form of violent oppression within a misogynistic institutional structure. Yet, Sarkeesian and McIntosh misread this moment – ignoring a critical look at misogynistic oppression within Dragon Age’s narrative.”
“Sarkeesian has criticized the postmodern video game Hotline Miami for utilizing the “Damsel in Distress” trope. However, Feminist Frequency’s analysis completely erases the game’s subversion of the trope – as the narrative’s “damsel” seems to be held hostage by the player, and avenging her death produces no reward. Indeed, writers such as Maddy Myers have dissented from Sarkeesian and McIntosh’s analysis – praising Hotline Miami as a postmodern exploration of hypermasculinity which subverts the “damsel” trope.”
http://gamemoir.com/lgbt-gender/frequency-anita-sarkeesians-strengths-weaknesses/
4. Things taking out of context
She shows footage of Fallout New Vegas where a womens body is being dragged around with psychic powers and says that games often permits women to be knockout, pickup, carried and thrown around. All of these things can be done to male NPCs as well. She also says that assault, mutilating & murder can be done to women in games but all of those same things can be done to male NPCs as well. She tries to use these things as examples of sexism towards women but its not sexism if the same thing can be done to male NPCs.
She claims that the objectification of female NPCs is terrible.
“Unlike other NPCs that exist for purposes outside of their sexuality, Non-Playable Sex Objects have little to no individual personality or identity to speak of. since these women are just objects there’s no need or reason for players to have any emotional engagement with them. meaningful relations or interactions are not even possible. Their programming simply does not allow for it.”
She tries to say this is unique to female NPCs. The lack of deep personalities, non emotional engagement or meaningful relations is true of all Pedestrian NPCs male or female.
“when assaulted by the player non playable sex objects might scream. but regardless of their canned automated reaction they are will designed to be expendable to be used and then tossed out.”
Same thing is true for male NPCs as well.
In background decoration she talks about female character being objectified while showing footage of the main protagonist from Watch Dogs in the process of shutting down a human trafficking ring.
In her background decoration video she said this.
“In the realm of interactive media I use the term “instrumentailty” to refer to the practice of using virtual women as tools or props for the players own purposes. Courtesans in the Assassins Creed series, for instance, are available to be “rented” and used to help you “blend in” to the environment. Once acquired, they can be ordered to flirt with guards to distract them. Allowing the protagonist to slip by undetected. ”
The courtesans were one of the four factions allied to the Assassin Order, with the other three being the thieves, mercenaries and Romanies. They usually aided the Order by collecting information from clients, or by acting as distractions and allowing allies to slip into restricted areas.
The player can also hire male thieves & mercenaries to aid them with blending into a environments and killing. So is using man as Tools bad as well or is it only bad when it happens to women in Assassin Creeed.
http://assassinscreed.wikia.com/wiki/Courtesans
Anita and mcintosh purposely says controversial things on tweeter to provoke a negative reaction from people so they can use the response to prove Anita’s continued harassment. mcintosh even admits to purposely provoking gamers with his comments.
Here’s an example of Anita provoking a reaction from people and using the response as a example of her continued harassment to coincide with a Kickstarter update.
You only have to watch the first 3 minutes.
Lets take a look at some of these comments.
“A few months ago I started posting deliberately provocative tweets whenever I’d see the angry gamer mod launch a harassment raid on someone”
“I’d only post things I basically agreed with, but I did it in an overtly antagonizing way designed to enrage these specific hateful gamers”
“The goal was to see if I could draw some of their fire & distract them a bit from their usual targets. It worked like a charm. It still is”
“Its shockingly easy to drive these bozos into frothing fits of rage. Simply tweet critically about their beloved Ico, MGS or Bayonetta”
Caitlin Wolford
August 5, 2015 at 20:01
TLDR
sonicsnake4
August 5, 2015 at 20:28
http://ct.fra.bz/ol/fz/sw/i56/2/11/25/frabz-LAZY-Level-Expert-27bb65.jpg
Caitlin Wolford
August 8, 2015 at 04:28
Learn brevity. You don’t need 700 sentences to say something.
sonicsnake4
August 12, 2015 at 01:52
Somethings require 700 sentences.
Ozzh3D
December 11, 2014 at 10:04
This week’s FFD should just say “Anita Sarkeesian”
UFOKENWOT
December 11, 2014 at 12:43
ljrich
December 11, 2014 at 16:41
It isn’t really about whether she will or won’t work her derpy magic on the game. I have a problem with any gaming company aligning themselves with any radical ideology. Whether it be anti-feminism or feminazi. And, Anita Sarkeesian has earned every single letter in the word “feminazi”. I would never fork over money for any game where the consultant was anyone with a militant ideology, pro or con. It’s something we don’t need in gaming, ever, at all. If they want to make more realistic females, fine. I do not care. But, I will never reward a gaming company for hopping onto a bandwagon. Not only would I not buy Mirror’s Edge 2 if Sarkeesian was involved anywhere in it’s development, but I would think long and hard about buying any game from a company that would ask her opinion on anything. It’s about WHO IT IS, not really what they’re doing.
Anita Sarkeesian is a shitstain on the underwear of society. She is a liar, a conartist, and a person to be shunned, not embraced. And…..she’s not even a gamer. Whether you believe her lies or not, she isn’t.
Oh, and BTW, everyone knows those petitions don’t do jack shit. So, all your bleating about it is hilarious. Like it actually matters.
MyNameIsNotImportant
December 11, 2014 at 18:53
There’s PLENTY of people signing the petetion (myself included) that are well aware of what you are stating in this article (that it’s all from an old rumor, and that she isn’t involved in ME2 at all).
If you had read more than the 5 top comments (that’s assuming that you at least did that), you would’ve seen that a lot of people are simply signing it to show game companies that any future cooperation with a person like Anita, won’t be supported by them. I explained that in the comment section myself.
“along with a couple of frankly godawful videos” “That’s 40 000 people who’ve angrily signed a petition” “According to angry people on the internet” “I’d have no problem with Sarkeesian actively being involved in game development” (guess we all know what the point of this article is with that last quote huh)
“You know what won’t lead to better games? Misguided, angry petitions on the internet.”
You know what also won’t lead to better games? This kind of mud throwing extremely biased gaming ‘journalism’.
Also, I just have to point out that using AlphaOmegaSin as an example of one of these so called “angry people on the internet” is the worst example you could ever use.. He’s ALWAYS angry, that’s his thing.
The fact that you point him out to be one of the feminist hating people shows that you haven’t done your research at all (what a surprise)..
Just last week he posted a video where he talked about his support for Alanah Pearce, and there’s plenty of videos on his channel like that one.
There’s a reason he has 270k subs.. I wonder if even 10k reads your articles?
And it’s not like gaming sites like lazygamers never post an article about a rumored subject like this, jumping to conclusions without knowing if it’s true or not, nooooo way!
Maybe you should spend more time being a game journalist, instead of a white knight supporting a problem that doesn’t exist, but pays the bills for people like Anita 😉
jlenoconel
December 12, 2014 at 00:00
Agreed. This is tasteless journalism.
recontruth
December 11, 2014 at 20:29
Speaking of someone that needs to do research. Anita is working or asked to work on the Mirrors Edge to project, or at least at the time I am posting this. You should REALLY know that if you are going to be a gaming journo.
“Speaking at XOXO Festival in October this year, Sarkeesian even disputes the rumours (check the 6:17) mark.”
So Anita wouldn’t lie now would she?
You know what won’t lead to better games? Every game becoming desert bus because we can’t offend anyone that may play a video game.
purpandorange .
December 12, 2014 at 00:49
Hey someone said something bad about Anita, better show how desperate I am to sleep with her and ruin what is left of my pitiful career. Why didn’t I go to college and get an actual journalism degree? My parents don’t call me anymore…
Charl van der Merwe
December 12, 2014 at 09:38
she says a “vocal aggressive male gamers”, why didn’t she add MINORITY in there? See this is what pisses me off about her, every thing she says is a half truth to serve her own selfish purpose, just like the fact that the majority of this video is just serving as a platform to vindicate herself from rumours.
The whole video shes is just talking about herself! Wow
Samantha Patterson
December 12, 2014 at 09:40
It’s always a bit sad seeing a beta try to make the pack believe he’s an alpha. The #firstworldproblems are amazing.
shin
December 12, 2014 at 14:02
” Anita Sarkeesian hasn’t ben hired by EA to develop Mirror’s Edge. The whole thing stems from a user blog on Destructoid, that’s based entirely around hearsay. From two and a half years ago. Before the Mirror’s Edge reboot was even announced.
Speaking at XOXO Festival in October this year, Sarkeesian even disputes the rumours (check the 6:17) mark.”
she never disputed that EA employed her for the next “Mirrors Edge” in the video you linked
RazorNine
December 12, 2014 at 14:20
Sorry, but I disagree, seeing how things have been going lately this needed to be stated, even if she wasn’t directly involved.c
Johnny Hart
December 12, 2014 at 16:15
Anita Sarkeesian wants to be Jane Addams so bad, Its like Jessie Jackson saying hes Martin Luther king lol funny and sad.
Reginald Dingsworth Clemens
December 12, 2014 at 16:25
But that ISN’T her goal, Geoff. Her goal is to be famous. I’d love for a true feminist to speak to women’s issues in gaming, because we need it. But Anita ain’t it. She can’t even tell us what’s ACTUALLY wrong with how women are portrayed in games, so why would anyone expect her to have a solution to the myriad problems women face in the industry?
This sucks to hear for some people because they’re immediately suspicious of motives, but it’s true: Anita Sarkeesian is a fraud. She’s an idiot without a filter who exploits a genuine crisis for her own benefit. (Ask her where that Kickstarter money is, btw. Oh, right, can’t do that, because that would be misogynistic!)
Seriously, stop it. I get that your heart is in the right place (as was GameInformer’s when they give her a full spread in their magazine and then scoff self-righteously at complaints about her credentials) but you’re just feeding a troll. The fact that she’s been targeted by the internet’s gross underbelly does not mean she deserves to be given a platform. Being threatened does not make you important.
Catboy
December 12, 2014 at 19:28
Anita Sarkeesian is no more of a game critic than Jerry Falwell was a music critic. When I was a kid buying heavy metal albums all Jerry Falwell ever did was crap everywhere, condemn the entire culture, and claim everyone involved in the industry and the fans were all horrible evil people. And whenever he tried to justify that he just cherry picked whatever facts supported his beliefs and blatantly lied about the rest. How true it was meant nothing to his followers because they enjoyed having something to hate on. Sarkeesian is no different.
SignItBrahShesBad
December 13, 2014 at 10:44
If you deciding if you should sign or not just watch this (she’s a sham brah it’s not hate filled, it’s truth, if the truth is hate then you most live in a world of love (denial duh)):
Momo Ritsu
December 13, 2014 at 11:32
Lol a whiteknight
Jack Omalley
December 13, 2014 at 20:34
That video is as hate filled as all of his other videos that he goes on a rant about. The video is no different from his others. It is not that bad.
jlenoconel
December 14, 2014 at 17:43
This journalist is trying to spin his liberal views, that’s all. Gamers know better.
Dan
December 13, 2014 at 22:27
Petition signed. That woman is fking crazy and needs to be put down.
Guest
December 15, 2014 at 01:33
i love how the idiot who wrote this article thinks anita speaks for female gamers when in reality female gamers hate her (Except for the ones that share her fucked up extremist views), seriously stop pretending she speaks for female gamers when in reality most female gamers hate her a lot.
James
December 15, 2014 at 13:22
I’ve watched a few of Anita’s videos (two 10-minutes videos, I think) and so far I can’t see anything I distinctly disagree with, nor do I see any reason why her opinions are harmful to the gaming industry, nor do I see any reason for anybody to so passionately loathe her.
I’d be grateful if someone could tell me why her actions and words warrant hatred, mockery, insults and death-threats.
Sterling Ericsson
January 6, 2015 at 22:24
Because she’s challenging video games. And the l33t haxxor video gamers can’t handle criticism, let alone criticism from a woman.
sonicsnake4
August 2, 2015 at 18:09
1. Kickstarter lies
Before Anita started her Kickstarter campaign she held a talk where she said she was being harassed by a organized group of 4chan members for months. She said these 4chan members subscribed to her channel so they would know when she released new videos so they could attack her. The type of comments she said she received were sexual insults, death threats & rape threats. She said sometimes she got together with a friend to read through the comments because it would get overwhelming. She says that she probably has the biggest block list on Youtube and anytime they leave any anti feminist, harassing, or threating comment they would be blocked. She said that she had gotten use to these kinds of comments. She said she monitored her Youtube comment section so the only comments that were allowed to be shown had to be approved by her.
She lunched her Kickstarter campaign and made a Youtube video for the campaign. She for the first time allowed comments on her video. she makes a post on her website entitled Harassment, Misogyny and Silencing on YouTube. She says this in the post.
“Here is a very small sample of the harassment I deal with for daring to criticize sexism in video games. Keep in mind that all this is in response to my Kickstarter project for a video series called Tropes vs. Women in Video Games (which I have not even made yet). These are the types of silencing tactics often used against women on the internet who dare to speak up. But don’t worry it won’t stop me!”
“These messages and comments have included everything from the typical sandwich and kitchen “jokes” to threats of violence, death, sexual assault and rape.”
http://feministfrequency.com/2012/06/07/harassment-misogyny-and-silencing-on-youtube/
She says that all of these comments are because of her Kickstarter campaign because she dares to speak critically about video games. These statements completely contradict what she said before she started her Kickstarter campaign. Before her Kickstarter she said she was systemically being harassed by people on 4chan and that among the things they said to her were sexual insults, death threats & rape threats and sometimes it was so overwhelming she read them with a friend as a way to cope with it and she had gotten use to it by that point. So she leaves comments open on her youtube kickstarter video which is something she never did before and she was surprised by the negative comments but how can she be surprised by the same type of comments she was receiving long before she launched her Kickstarter. When she started her Kickstarter and left her comments open she knew exactly what the comments were going to be like because she been receiving them for months prior. So when she says during her Kickstarter that all of the negative comments were because of her Kickstarter campaign she’s lying.
2. Other Lies
She says that Grand Theft Auto and Saint Row encourage players to kill women by giving players money for killing random female NPCs.
“some games explicity incentivise and reward this kind of behavior by having murdered women drop dundles of cash for the player to collect and add to their own stash”
The truth is money is dropped by any NPC that is killed in the games and has nothing to do with gender.
She says that the female stripper NPCs from Hitman Absolution were put their because the developer wanted players to kill them. The game discourages players from killing innocent civilians by taking away points. The whole point of the game is to sneak by people and keep unnecessary killing to a minimum while moving toward killing your intended target not to kill random strippers and lose points for doing so. The path to the strippers is one of two paths that the player can take. The path to the strippers is the harder of the two paths to take. The other path that the player can take is easier and doesn’t involve coming near the strippers at all.
She also says this in her Background Decoration video.
“their status as disposable objects is reinforced by the fact that in most games discarded bodies will simply vanish into thin air a short time after being killed”
She tries to tie disappearing bodies as something that only happens to female NPCs but it has nothing to do with gender its just something that happens in a lot of games irregardless of gender because of limited ram Capacity and not having the game slow down because of bodies pilling up.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EverythingFades
shes a life long gamer
at a Santa Monica College in California back in early 2010 Anita says that she’s not a fan of video games and she had to learn a lot about them. she says that she would love to play video games but she doesn’t what to go around shooting people and ripping off their heads. During and after her Kickstarter she says that shes been playing video games since she was 5 years old and shes a life long gamer. How can she be a lifelong gamer if she said pre Kickstarter that she doesn’t like video games specifically because she thinks that all games are violent. If she’s a lifelong gamer than what has she been playing all of this time and why does she thinks all video games are violent. She obviously not a lifelong gamer and only said that as a way to try and give herself more credibility.
In her damsel video she said Zelda was never a playable character in a console game. Zelda was playable in the CDI games Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon & Zelda’s Adventure. I am not saying these are good games but they are console games where Zelda was the star of her own adventure.
She says that gaming is all boys club and women have until recently been barred from playing games. This is untrue their has never been anything stopping girls from playing games. Most game genres are not gender excluding. Racing, fighting, beat em up, real time strategy, role playing, puzzle, point and click, action adventure, platformers, MMO, Simulation, rhythm action.
Women have been involved in the making of games for years. Theirs been female programmers, artist, composers, designer, CEO, etc. Women have also been involved in the journalism side of things as well. This false narrative that Anita’s trying to push that games have somehow excluded women until recently is a lie that she tells to try to push her gender base agenda.
The other thing that she tries to push is the ideal that man are trying to keep women from playing or criticizing games. Both things are false but she keeps to that script so she can fight against the imagery boogie man that she created and so she can justify the existences of her video series.
Anita omitted the fact that she has connections to the developer of the game sword and sworcery but I am sure that has noting to do with the reason why she chose that game’s character as a positive female even though it contradicts her previous videos.
https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/315zh3/possible_ethics_issue_with_anitas_latest_video/.
3. Poor Research
In dismals in distress she said that peach was added to Mario 2 to fill a per existing gender role that existed in the original game Doki Doki Panic except for the fact that her own footage clearly shows that two females were playable in Doki Doki Panic. If she did further research like actually playing the game than she would know that it wasn’t just one girl in Doki Doki Panic. The core concept that Anita doesn’t understand about games is the fact that graphics assist can be replaced with anything. In fan made mods the cast of Super Mario Bros 2 have been replaced by numerous things like Star Wars ships, Pokemon, Transformers, Spider-Man villains, etc.
http://www.romhacking.net/?page=hacks&game=749
In Women as Background Decoration Anita says this
“In order to understand how this works lets take a moment to examine how video game operate as playgrounds for player engagement. Games ask us to play with them. Now that may seem obvious but bear with me. game developers set up a series of rules and then within those rules we are invited to test the mechanics to see what we can do and what we can’t do. We are encouraged to experiment with how the system will react or respond to our inputs and discover which of our actions are permitted and which are not. The play comes from figuring out the boundaries and possibility within the gamespace. So in many of the titles we’ve been discussing the game makers have setup a series of possible scenarios involving vulnerable eroticized female characters. Players are than invited to explore and exploit those situations during their play through. The player cannot help but treat these female bodies as things to be acted upon. Because they were designed constructed and placed in the environment for that singular purpose. Players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters. Its a rush streaming from a carefully concocted mix of sexual arousal connected to the act of controlling and punishing representations of female sexuality.”
Theirs two basic concepts that she doesn’t understand. The first one is that games are interactive so players can do things that developers never intended players to be able to do. The second is the fact that games have bugs in them which also allows players to do things that the developers never intending for them to do.
For example in Halo 2 players can do button combos. Button combo is a sequence of buttons that, when pressed in order, results in the execution of an exploit. Typical button combos take advantage of unforeseen attributes of certain actions. Some actions, such as meleeing, can disrupt animations for firing and reloading weapons, performing melees, etc. By chaining these and other actions, players can perform special tricks, such as automatic Plasma Grenade sticks and instant close-range kills. However, many players disapprove of such “cheap” exploitations, and Bungie has declared these combos all as cheating and therefore banworthy
http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Cheating
Another example is in early versions of arcade Mortal Kombat 2. Players figured out how to hit babies after performing Babalitys.
http://bbh.marpirc.net/mk2/
By Anita’s logic midway endorses child abuse because players tested the bounders of the game and were able to interact with the objects (babies) in the game that were put their by the developer. So that clearly means that the developer supports any action the players can do in the game including hitting babies. Or it can just mean that games are interactive and filled with glitches and just because a player can do something in a game doesn’t automatically mean that the developer endorsed it or even meant for player to be able to do it.
In her Bayonetta video she complains about Bayonetta clothes coming off when she summons demons. she doesn’t acknowledge or knows that Bayonetta’s hair is also her cloths so that’s why her cloths disappears when she summons demons. She also makes the claim that Bayonetta is fighting demons when in fact Bayonetta is actually fighting angles. She also says that Bayonetta has a child except for the fact that Bayonetta doesn’t have any children. She claims that Bayonetta is a “choose your own patriarchal adventure porno fantasy.” Lets take a second to look at what the word Patriarchy means. Patriarchy is a social system in which males hold primary power, predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property. So how is Bayonetta a game in which players play as a strong women who is always in control of a situation and is more powerful than any man in the game enforcing ideals of Patriarchy. Bayonetta is not a choose your own adventure type game nor is it a porno.
She says this in a tweet
“Everything about Bayonetta’s design, mechanics and characterization is created specifically for the sexual pleasure of straight male gamers”
Bayontta was design by a women
http://platinumgames.com/2009/04/17/designing-bayonetta/
http://soulcalibur.wikia.com/wiki/Mari_Shimazaki
McIntosh said this on twatter about the Witcher.
“Geralt from Witcher 3 is emotionally deficient in the extreme. Never cries or laughs. Never expresses grief, fear, sadness or vulnerability.”
Witchers are unable to express emotions on their faces because of the training that is involed to become a Witcher. Taken in as children, Witchers-to-be are subjected to intense alchemical processes, consumption of mutagenic compounds and relentless physical and magical training to make them dangerous and highly versatile against their vast array of opponents.
http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Witcher
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2015/05/31/why-feminist-frequency-is-dead-wrong-about-the-witcher-3/
“In the beginning of “Women as Background Decoration: Part 2,” Sarkeesian references a scene from Dragon Age’s City Elf Origin story, in which a group of guards make disturbing sexual comments over the player character’s dead female companion. Sarkeesian implies that BioWare’s narrative is built on the “brutalization of women’s bodies,” using dead women “as an indicator of just how harsh, cruel, and unforgiving their game worlds are.”
“However, the female elf’s treatment is better understood as a thematic commentary on systematic misogynistic violence. Both women and elves are confined to strict socioeconomic roles within the origin story, as the brutal city government uses institutional force in order to keep women and elves oppressed. Essentially, the game explores the use of sexual violence as a form of violent oppression within a misogynistic institutional structure. Yet, Sarkeesian and McIntosh misread this moment – ignoring a critical look at misogynistic oppression within Dragon Age’s narrative.”
“Sarkeesian has criticized the postmodern video game Hotline Miami for utilizing the “Damsel in Distress” trope. However, Feminist Frequency’s analysis completely erases the game’s subversion of the trope – as the narrative’s “damsel” seems to be held hostage by the player, and avenging her death produces no reward. Indeed, writers such as Maddy Myers have dissented from Sarkeesian and McIntosh’s analysis – praising Hotline Miami as a postmodern exploration of hypermasculinity which subverts the “damsel” trope.”
http://gamemoir.com/lgbt-gender/frequency-anita-sarkeesians-strengths-weaknesses/
4. Things taking out of context
She shows footage of Fallout New Vegas where a womens body is being dragged around with psychic powers and says that games often permits women to be knockout, pickup, carried and thrown around. All of these things can be done to male NPCs as well. She also says that assault, mutilating & murder can be done to women in games but all of those same things can be done to male NPCs as well. She tries to use these things as examples of sexism towards women but its not sexism if the same thing can be done to male NPCs.
She claims that the objectification of female NPCs is terrible.
“Unlike other NPCs that exist for purposes outside of their sexuality, Non-Playable Sex Objects have little to no individual personality or identity to speak of. since these women are just objects there’s no need or reason for players to have any emotional engagement with them. meaningful relations or interactions are not even possible. Their programming simply does not allow for it.”
She tries to say this is unique to female NPCs. The lack of deep personalities, non emotional engagement or meaningful relations is true of all Pedestrian NPCs male or female.
“when assaulted by the player non playable sex objects might scream. but regardless of their canned automated reaction they are will designed to be expendable to be used and then tossed out.”
Same thing is true for male NPCs as well.
In background decoration she talks about female character being objectified while showing footage of the main protagonist from Watch Dogs in the process of shutting down a human trafficking ring.
In her background decoration video she said this.
“In the realm of interactive media I use the term “instrumentailty” to refer to the practice of using virtual women as tools or props for the players own purposes. Courtesans in the Assassins Creed series, for instance, are available to be “rented” and used to help you “blend in” to the environment. Once acquired, they can be ordered to flirt with guards to distract them. Allowing the protagonist to slip by undetected. ”
The courtesans were one of the four factions allied to the Assassin Order, with the other three being the thieves, mercenaries and Romanies. They usually aided the Order by collecting information from clients, or by acting as distractions and allowing allies to slip into restricted areas.
The player can also hire male thieves & mercenaries to aid them with blending into a environments and killing. So is using man as Tools bad as well or is it only bad when it happens to women in Assassin Creeed.
http://assassinscreed.wikia.com/wiki/Courtesans
Anita and mcintosh purposely says controversial things on tweeter to provoke a negative reaction from people so they can use the response to prove Anita’s continued harassment. mcintosh even admits to purposely provoking gamers with his comments.
Here’s an example of Anita provoking a reaction from people and using the response as a example of her continued harassment to coincide with a Kickstarter update.
You only have to watch the first 3 minutes.
Lets take a look at some of these comments.
“A few months ago I started posting deliberately provocative tweets whenever I’d see the angry gamer mod launch a harassment raid on someone”
“I’d only post things I basically agreed with, but I did it in an overtly antagonizing way designed to enrage these specific hateful gamers”
“The goal was to see if I could draw some of their fire & distract them a bit from their usual targets. It worked like a charm. It still is”
“Its shockingly easy to drive these bozos into frothing fits of rage. Simply tweet critically about their beloved Ico, MGS or Bayonetta”
Whetsit Tuya
December 17, 2014 at 04:10
She made a Hitman: Absolution video where she murders 2 strippers then says the player is directed to kill them for sexual gratification, yet Hitman penalizes you for harming innocent people and actually directs you to sneak past the strippers
One down, Zoe Quinn to go
Sterling Ericsson
January 6, 2015 at 22:23
Nice strawman you have there. It would be a shame if someone pointed out that what she said is that the strippers only purpose of being included in the game is to be sexually titillating and that the ability to kill them in the game means their only purpose for being in the game is to be sex material or to be killed by the player, regardless of any built in repercussions.
sonicsnake4
August 2, 2015 at 18:07
1. Kickstarter lies
Before Anita started her Kickstarter campaign she held a talk where she said she was being harassed by a organized group of 4chan members for months. She said these 4chan members subscribed to her channel so they would know when she released new videos so they could attack her. The type of comments she said she received were sexual insults, death threats & rape threats. She said sometimes she got together with a friend to read through the comments because it would get overwhelming. She says that she probably has the biggest block list on Youtube and anytime they leave any anti feminist, harassing, or threating comment they would be blocked. She said that she had gotten use to these kinds of comments. She said she monitored her Youtube comment section so the only comments that were allowed to be shown had to be approved by her.
She lunched her Kickstarter campaign and made a Youtube video for the campaign. She for the first time allowed comments on her video. she makes a post on her website entitled Harassment, Misogyny and Silencing on YouTube. She says this in the post.
“Here is a very small sample of the harassment I deal with for daring to criticize sexism in video games. Keep in mind that all this is in response to my Kickstarter project for a video series called Tropes vs. Women in Video Games (which I have not even made yet). These are the types of silencing tactics often used against women on the internet who dare to speak up. But don’t worry it won’t stop me!”
“These messages and comments have included everything from the typical sandwich and kitchen “jokes” to threats of violence, death, sexual assault and rape.”
http://feministfrequency.com/2012/06/07/harassment-misogyny-and-silencing-on-youtube/
She says that all of these comments are because of her Kickstarter campaign because she dares to speak critically about video games. These statements completely contradict what she said before she started her Kickstarter campaign. Before her Kickstarter she said she was systemically being harassed by people on 4chan and that among the things they said to her were sexual insults, death threats & rape threats and sometimes it was so overwhelming she read them with a friend as a way to cope with it and she had gotten use to it by that point. So she leaves comments open on her youtube kickstarter video which is something she never did before and she was surprised by the negative comments but how can she be surprised by the same type of comments she was receiving long before she launched her Kickstarter. When she started her Kickstarter and left her comments open she knew exactly what the comments were going to be like because she been receiving them for months prior. So when she says during her Kickstarter that all of the negative comments were because of her Kickstarter campaign she’s lying.
2. Other Lies
She says that Grand Theft Auto and Saint Row encourage players to kill women by giving players money for killing random female NPCs.
“some games explicity incentivise and reward this kind of behavior by having murdered women drop dundles of cash for the player to collect and add to their own stash”
The truth is money is dropped by any NPC that is killed in the games and has nothing to do with gender.
She says that the female stripper NPCs from Hitman Absolution were put their because the developer wanted players to kill them. The game discourages players from killing innocent civilians by taking away points. The whole point of the game is to sneak by people and keep unnecessary killing to a minimum while moving toward killing your intended target not to kill random strippers and lose points for doing so. The path to the strippers is one of two paths that the player can take. The path to the strippers is the harder of the two paths to take. The other path that the player can take is easier and doesn’t involve coming near the strippers at all.
She also says this in her Background Decoration video.
“their status as disposable objects is reinforced by the fact that in most games discarded bodies will simply vanish into thin air a short time after being killed”
She tries to tie disappearing bodies as something that only happens to female NPCs but it has nothing to do with gender its just something that happens in a lot of games irregardless of gender because of limited ram Capacity and not having the game slow down because of bodies pilling up.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EverythingFades
shes a life long gamer
at a Santa Monica College in California back in early 2010 Anita says that she’s not a fan of video games and she had to learn a lot about them. she says that she would love to play video games but she doesn’t what to go around shooting people and ripping off their heads. During and after her Kickstarter she says that shes been playing video games since she was 5 years old and shes a life long gamer. How can she be a lifelong gamer if she said pre Kickstarter that she doesn’t like video games specifically because she thinks that all games are violent. If she’s a lifelong gamer than what has she been playing all of this time and why does she thinks all video games are violent. She obviously not a lifelong gamer and only said that as a way to try and give herself more credibility.
In her damsel video she said Zelda was never a playable character in a console game. Zelda was playable in the CDI games Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon & Zelda’s Adventure. I am not saying these are good games but they are console games where Zelda was the star of her own adventure.
She says that gaming is all boys club and women have until recently been barred from playing games. This is untrue their has never been anything stopping girls from playing games. Most game genres are not gender excluding. Racing, fighting, beat em up, real time strategy, role playing, puzzle, point and click, action adventure, platformers, MMO, Simulation, rhythm action.
Women have been involved in the making of games for years. Theirs been female programmers, artist, composers, designer, CEO, etc. Women have also been involved in the journalism side of things as well. This false narrative that Anita’s trying to push that games have somehow excluded women until recently is a lie that she tells to try to push her gender base agenda.
The other thing that she tries to push is the ideal that man are trying to keep women from playing or criticizing games. Both things are false but she keeps to that script so she can fight against the imagery boogie man that she created and so she can justify the existences of her video series.
Anita omitted the fact that she has connections to the developer of the game sword and sworcery but I am sure that has noting to do with the reason why she chose that game’s character as a positive female even though it contradicts her previous videos.
https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/315zh3/possible_ethics_issue_with_anitas_latest_video/.
3. Poor Research
In dismals in distress she said that peach was added to Mario 2 to fill a per existing gender role that existed in the original game Doki Doki Panic except for the fact that her own footage clearly shows that two females were playable in Doki Doki Panic. If she did further research like actually playing the game than she would know that it wasn’t just one girl in Doki Doki Panic. The core concept that Anita doesn’t understand about games is the fact that graphics assist can be replaced with anything. In fan made mods the cast of Super Mario Bros 2 have been replaced by numerous things like Star Wars ships, Pokemon, Transformers, Spider-Man villains, etc.
http://www.romhacking.net/?page=hacks&game=749
In Women as Background Decoration Anita says this
“In order to understand how this works lets take a moment to examine how video game operate as playgrounds for player engagement. Games ask us to play with them. Now that may seem obvious but bear with me. game developers set up a series of rules and then within those rules we are invited to test the mechanics to see what we can do and what we can’t do. We are encouraged to experiment with how the system will react or respond to our inputs and discover which of our actions are permitted and which are not. The play comes from figuring out the boundaries and possibility within the gamespace. So in many of the titles we’ve been discussing the game makers have setup a series of possible scenarios involving vulnerable eroticized female characters. Players are than invited to explore and exploit those situations during their play through. The player cannot help but treat these female bodies as things to be acted upon. Because they were designed constructed and placed in the environment for that singular purpose. Players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters. Its a rush streaming from a carefully concocted mix of sexual arousal connected to the act of controlling and punishing representations of female sexuality.”
Theirs two basic concepts that she doesn’t understand. The first one is that games are interactive so players can do things that developers never intended players to be able to do. The second is the fact that games have bugs in them which also allows players to do things that the developers never intending for them to do.
For example in Halo 2 players can do button combos. Button combo is a sequence of buttons that, when pressed in order, results in the execution of an exploit. Typical button combos take advantage of unforeseen attributes of certain actions. Some actions, such as meleeing, can disrupt animations for firing and reloading weapons, performing melees, etc. By chaining these and other actions, players can perform special tricks, such as automatic Plasma Grenade sticks and instant close-range kills. However, many players disapprove of such “cheap” exploitations, and Bungie has declared these combos all as cheating and therefore banworthy
http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Cheating
Another example is in early versions of arcade Mortal Kombat 2. Players figured out how to hit babies after performing Babalitys.
http://bbh.marpirc.net/mk2/
By Anita’s logic midway endorses child abuse because players tested the bounders of the game and were able to interact with the objects (babies) in the game that were put their by the developer. So that clearly means that the developer supports any action the players can do in the game including hitting babies. Or it can just mean that games are interactive and filled with glitches and just because a player can do something in a game doesn’t automatically mean that the developer endorsed it or even meant for player to be able to do it.
In her Bayonetta video she complains about Bayonetta clothes coming off when she summons demons. she doesn’t acknowledge or knows that Bayonetta’s hair is also her cloths so that’s why her cloths disappears when she summons demons. She also makes the claim that Bayonetta is fighting demons when in fact Bayonetta is actually fighting angles. She also says that Bayonetta has a child except for the fact that Bayonetta doesn’t have any children. She claims that Bayonetta is a “choose your own patriarchal adventure porno fantasy.” Lets take a second to look at what the word Patriarchy means. Patriarchy is a social system in which males hold primary power, predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property. So how is Bayonetta a game in which players play as a strong women who is always in control of a situation and is more powerful than any man in the game enforcing ideals of Patriarchy. Bayonetta is not a choose your own adventure type game nor is it a porno.
She says this in a tweet
“Everything about Bayonetta’s design, mechanics and characterization is created specifically for the sexual pleasure of straight male gamers”
Bayontta was design by a women
http://platinumgames.com/2009/04/17/designing-bayonetta/
http://soulcalibur.wikia.com/wiki/Mari_Shimazaki
McIntosh said this on twatter about the Witcher.
“Geralt from Witcher 3 is emotionally deficient in the extreme. Never cries or laughs. Never expresses grief, fear, sadness or vulnerability.”
Witchers are unable to express emotions on their faces because of the training that is involed to become a Witcher. Taken in as children, Witchers-to-be are subjected to intense alchemical processes, consumption of mutagenic compounds and relentless physical and magical training to make them dangerous and highly versatile against their vast array of opponents.
http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Witcher
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2015/05/31/why-feminist-frequency-is-dead-wrong-about-the-witcher-3/
“In the beginning of “Women as Background Decoration: Part 2,” Sarkeesian references a scene from Dragon Age’s City Elf Origin story, in which a group of guards make disturbing sexual comments over the player character’s dead female companion. Sarkeesian implies that BioWare’s narrative is built on the “brutalization of women’s bodies,” using dead women “as an indicator of just how harsh, cruel, and unforgiving their game worlds are.”
“However, the female elf’s treatment is better understood as a thematic commentary on systematic misogynistic violence. Both women and elves are confined to strict socioeconomic roles within the origin story, as the brutal city government uses institutional force in order to keep women and elves oppressed. Essentially, the game explores the use of sexual violence as a form of violent oppression within a misogynistic institutional structure. Yet, Sarkeesian and McIntosh misread this moment – ignoring a critical look at misogynistic oppression within Dragon Age’s narrative.”
“Sarkeesian has criticized the postmodern video game Hotline Miami for utilizing the “Damsel in Distress” trope. However, Feminist Frequency’s analysis completely erases the game’s subversion of the trope – as the narrative’s “damsel” seems to be held hostage by the player, and avenging her death produces no reward. Indeed, writers such as Maddy Myers have dissented from Sarkeesian and McIntosh’s analysis – praising Hotline Miami as a postmodern exploration of hypermasculinity which subverts the “damsel” trope.”
http://gamemoir.com/lgbt-gender/frequency-anita-sarkeesians-strengths-weaknesses/
4. Things taking out of context
She shows footage of Fallout New Vegas where a womens body is being dragged around with psychic powers and says that games often permits women to be knockout, pickup, carried and thrown around. All of these things can be done to male NPCs as well. She also says that assault, mutilating & murder can be done to women in games but all of those same things can be done to male NPCs as well. She tries to use these things as examples of sexism towards women but its not sexism if the same thing can be done to male NPCs.
She claims that the objectification of female NPCs is terrible.
“Unlike other NPCs that exist for purposes outside of their sexuality, Non-Playable Sex Objects have little to no individual personality or identity to speak of. since these women are just objects there’s no need or reason for players to have any emotional engagement with them. meaningful relations or interactions are not even possible. Their programming simply does not allow for it.”
She tries to say this is unique to female NPCs. The lack of deep personalities, non emotional engagement or meaningful relations is true of all Pedestrian NPCs male or female.
“when assaulted by the player non playable sex objects might scream. but regardless of their canned automated reaction they are will designed to be expendable to be used and then tossed out.”
Same thing is true for male NPCs as well.
In background decoration she talks about female character being objectified while showing footage of the main protagonist from Watch Dogs in the process of shutting down a human trafficking ring.
In her background decoration video she said this.
“In the realm of interactive media I use the term “instrumentailty” to refer to the practice of using virtual women as tools or props for the players own purposes. Courtesans in the Assassins Creed series, for instance, are available to be “rented” and used to help you “blend in” to the environment. Once acquired, they can be ordered to flirt with guards to distract them. Allowing the protagonist to slip by undetected. ”
The courtesans were one of the four factions allied to the Assassin Order, with the other three being the thieves, mercenaries and Romanies. They usually aided the Order by collecting information from clients, or by acting as distractions and allowing allies to slip into restricted areas.
The player can also hire male thieves & mercenaries to aid them with blending into a environments and killing. So is using man as Tools bad as well or is it only bad when it happens to women in Assassin Creeed.
http://assassinscreed.wikia.com/wiki/Courtesans
Anita and mcintosh purposely says controversial things on tweeter to provoke a negative reaction from people so they can use the response to prove Anita’s continued harassment. mcintosh even admits to purposely provoking gamers with his comments.
Example of Anita provoking a reaction from people and using the response as a example of her continued harassment to coincide with a Kickstarter update.
You only have to watch the first 3 minutes.
Lets take a look at some of these comments.
“A few months ago I started posting deliberately provocative tweets whenever I’d see the angry gamer mod launch a harassment raid on someone”
“I’d only post things I basically agreed with, but I did it in an overtly antagonizing way designed to enrage these specific hateful gamers”
“The goal was to see if I could draw some of their fire & distract them a bit from their usual targets. It worked like a charm. It still is”
“Its shockingly easy to drive these bozos into frothing fits of rage. Simply tweet critically about their beloved Ico, MGS or Bayonetta”
Sterling Ericsson
August 2, 2015 at 20:22
You do know that people that copy and paste huge chunks of things they didn’t even write themselves are the worst, right? And even what you pasted is utterly banal. The #1 is stupid and not even a lie, just her discussing different contexts of being attacked.
The rest is the same stupid three games I already pointed out that I knew would be brought up, because those are the only examples you ever have. Especially when her point is that the inclusion of such available actions (regardless of it being for all NPCs) is the problem. You’re just refusing to listen.
And then we get to one of the more egregious Gamergate lies that they’ve made into a meme. The “I am not a gamer” claim, where if you actually listened to the full video, you’d understand the context of her saying that if being a “gamer” means playing violent shooter games, then she wouldn’t consider herself one and wouldn’t want to be a part of that community, but that she plays all the other types of games and has for years. She is not a fan of shooter games at all and, like she said, has a lot to learn about them to break down the reasons why violently killing others is so popular among so-called “gamers”.
sonicsnake4
August 2, 2015 at 21:41
“You do know that people that copy and paste huge chunks of things they didn’t even write themselves are the worst, right? And even what you pasted is utterly banal. The #1 is stupid and not even a lie, just her discussing different contexts of being attacked.”
Anita during and after her Kickstarter says that a huge amount of harassing comments which included death and rape threats came here way by gamers because of her Kickstarter campaign.
Anita is lying about a huge amount of harassment starting because of her kickstarter. 2 months before she started her kickstarter she said that 4chan was harassing her with sexual insults, death and rapes threats to the point where she would read through the comments with a friend as a way to cope with the overwhelming amount of negative comments. She said she probably had the biggest block list on Youtube. Now Anita says that all of her harassment started because of kickstarters thats a lie. Anita says all of the people who were harassment her during and since her kickstarter are gamers thats a lie.
“The rest is the same stupid three games I already pointed out that I knew would be brought up, because those are the only examples you ever have.”
What three games are you talking about because I’ve mentioned a lot more than 3 games.
“Especially when her point is that the inclusion of such available actions (regardless of it being for all NPCs) is the problem. You’re just refusing to listen.”
I assume your talking about Hitman. Are you saying that her argument for that section of her video is that no violence should ever befall any female NPC.
“And then we get to one of the more egregious Gamergate lies that they’ve made into a meme. The “I am not a gamer” claim, where if you actually listened to the full video, you’d understand the context of her saying that if being a “gamer” means playing violent shooter games, then she wouldn’t consider herself one and wouldn’t want to be a part of that community, but that she plays all the other types of games and has for years. She is not a fan of shooter games at all and, like she said, has a lot to learn about them to break down the reasons why violently killing others is so popular among so-called “gamers”.”
I’ve seen the full video and that’s not the context of whats she saying but if you have a video of her saying what you’re claiming than I would love to see it otherwise she’s a lier.
Same 'al Same 'al
January 7, 2015 at 03:07
Feminism – Self entitled prats, who when don’t get their own way play the “I have a vagina’ card, cherry pick to justify their behaviour and whine like spoiled children till the parental society gives them the lolipop just to shut them fuck up to have a moment of peace. Because since self policing political correctness Society doesn’t know how to say no.
Repeat
Shane Frampton
January 12, 2015 at 19:16
the guy who wrote this article is so beta my dick is shrinking from just being here. Good by.
Vic George
January 15, 2015 at 22:25
I wouldn’t mind Anita Sarkeesian having an active hand in making video games, even as a consultant. The industry needs more people like her who aren’t afraid to call out things in video games as they are, and less people who are just whiny white “hardcore” male gamers who think that the industry has to revolve around them and their desires.
sonicsnake4
August 2, 2015 at 18:04
1. Kickstarter lies
Before Anita started her Kickstarter campaign she held a talk where she said she was being harassed by a organized group of 4chan members for months. She said these 4chan members subscribed to her channel so they would know when she released new videos so they could attack her. The type of comments she said she received were sexual insults, death threats & rape threats. She said sometimes she got together with a friend to read through the comments because it would get overwhelming. She says that she probably has the biggest block list on Youtube and anytime they leave any anti feminist, harassing, or threating comment they would be blocked. She said that she had gotten use to these kinds of comments. She said she monitored her Youtube comment section so the only comments that were allowed to be shown had to be approved by her.
She lunched her Kickstarter campaign and made a Youtube video for the campaign. She for the first time allowed comments on her video. she makes a post on her website entitled Harassment, Misogyny and Silencing on YouTube. She says this in the post.
“Here is a very small sample of the harassment I deal with for daring to criticize sexism in video games. Keep in mind that all this is in response to my Kickstarter project for a video series called Tropes vs. Women in Video Games (which I have not even made yet). These are the types of silencing tactics often used against women on the internet who dare to speak up. But don’t worry it won’t stop me!”
“These messages and comments have included everything from the typical sandwich and kitchen “jokes” to threats of violence, death, sexual assault and rape.”
http://feministfrequency.com/2012/06/07/harassment-misogyny-and-silencing-on-youtube/
She says that all of these comments are because of her Kickstarter campaign because she dares to speak critically about video games. These statements completely contradict what she said before she started her Kickstarter campaign. Before her Kickstarter she said she was systemically being harassed by people on 4chan and that among the things they said to her were sexual insults, death threats & rape threats and sometimes it was so overwhelming she read them with a friend as a way to cope with it and she had gotten use to it by that point. So she leaves comments open on her youtube kickstarter video which is something she never did before and she was surprised by the negative comments but how can she be surprised by the same type of comments she was receiving long before she launched her Kickstarter. When she started her Kickstarter and left her comments open she knew exactly what the comments were going to be like because she been receiving them for months prior. So when she says during her Kickstarter that all of the negative comments were because of her Kickstarter campaign she’s lying.
2. Other Lies
She says that Grand Theft Auto and Saint Row encourage players to kill women by giving players money for killing random female NPCs.
“some games explicity incentivise and reward this kind of behavior by having murdered women drop dundles of cash for the player to collect and add to their own stash”
The truth is money is dropped by any NPC that is killed in the games and has nothing to do with gender.
She says that the female stripper NPCs from Hitman Absolution were put their because the developer wanted players to kill them. The game discourages players from killing innocent civilians by taking away points. The whole point of the game is to sneak by people and keep unnecessary killing to a minimum while moving toward killing your intended target not to kill random strippers and lose points for doing so. The path to the strippers is one of two paths that the player can take. The path to the strippers is the harder of the two paths to take. The other path that the player can take is easier and doesn’t involve coming near the strippers at all.
She also says this in her Background Decoration video.
“their status as disposable objects is reinforced by the fact that in most games discarded bodies will simply vanish into thin air a short time after being killed”
She tries to tie disappearing bodies as something that only happens to female NPCs but it has nothing to do with gender its just something that happens in a lot of games irregardless of gender because of limited ram Capacity and not having the game slow down because of bodies pilling up.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EverythingFades
shes a life long gamer
at a Santa Monica College in California back in early 2010 Anita says that she’s not a fan of video games and she had to learn a lot about them. she says that she would love to play video games but she doesn’t what to go around shooting people and ripping off their heads. During and after her Kickstarter she says that shes been playing video games since she was 5 years old and shes a life long gamer. How can she be a lifelong gamer if she said pre Kickstarter that she doesn’t like video games specifically because she thinks that all games are violent. If she’s a lifelong gamer than what has she been playing all of this time and why does she thinks all video games are violent. She obviously not a lifelong gamer and only said that as a way to try and give herself more credibility.
In her damsel video she said Zelda was never a playable character in a console game. Zelda was playable in the CDI games Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon & Zelda’s Adventure. I am not saying these are good games but they are console games where Zelda was the star of her own adventure.
She says that gaming is all boys club and women have until recently been barred from playing games. This is untrue their has never been anything stopping girls from playing games. Most game genres are not gender excluding. Racing, fighting, beat em up, real time strategy, role playing, puzzle, point and click, action adventure, platformers, MMO, Simulation, rhythm action.
Women have been involved in the making of games for years. Theirs been female programmers, artist, composers, designer, CEO, etc. Women have also been involved in the journalism side of things as well. This false narrative that Anita’s trying to push that games have somehow excluded women until recently is a lie that she tells to try to push her gender base agenda.
The other thing that she tries to push is the ideal that man are trying to keep women from playing or criticizing games. Both things are false but she keeps to that script so she can fight against the imagery boogie man that she created and so she can justify the existences of her video series.
Anita omitted the fact that she has connections to the developer of the game sword and sworcery but I am sure that has noting to do with the reason why she chose that game’s character as a positive female even though it contradicts her previous videos.
https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/315zh3/possible_ethics_issue_with_anitas_latest_video/.
3. Poor Research
In dismals in distress she said that peach was added to Mario 2 to fill a per existing gender role that existed in the original game Doki Doki Panic except for the fact that her own footage clearly shows that two females were playable in Doki Doki Panic. If she did further research like actually playing the game than she would know that it wasn’t just one girl in Doki Doki Panic. The core concept that Anita doesn’t understand about games is the fact that graphics assist can be replaced with anything. In fan made mods the cast of Super Mario Bros 2 have been replaced by numerous things like Star Wars ships, Pokemon, Transformers, Spider-Man villains, etc.
http://www.romhacking.net/?page=hacks&game=749
In Women as Background Decoration Anita says this
“In order to understand how this works lets take a moment to examine how video game operate as playgrounds for player engagement. Games ask us to play with them. Now that may seem obvious but bear with me. game developers set up a series of rules and then within those rules we are invited to test the mechanics to see what we can do and what we can’t do. We are encouraged to experiment with how the system will react or respond to our inputs and discover which of our actions are permitted and which are not. The play comes from figuring out the boundaries and possibility within the gamespace. So in many of the titles we’ve been discussing the game makers have setup a series of possible scenarios involving vulnerable eroticized female characters. Players are than invited to explore and exploit those situations during their play through. The player cannot help but treat these female bodies as things to be acted upon. Because they were designed constructed and placed in the environment for that singular purpose. Players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters. Its a rush streaming from a carefully concocted mix of sexual arousal connected to the act of controlling and punishing representations of female sexuality.”
Theirs two basic concepts that she doesn’t understand. The first one is that games are interactive so players can do things that developers never intended players to be able to do. The second is the fact that games have bugs in them which also allows players to do things that the developers never intending for them to do.
For example in Halo 2 players can do button combos. Button combo is a sequence of buttons that, when pressed in order, results in the execution of an exploit. Typical button combos take advantage of unforeseen attributes of certain actions. Some actions, such as meleeing, can disrupt animations for firing and reloading weapons, performing melees, etc. By chaining these and other actions, players can perform special tricks, such as automatic Plasma Grenade sticks and instant close-range kills. However, many players disapprove of such “cheap” exploitations, and Bungie has declared these combos all as cheating and therefore banworthy
http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Cheating
Another example is in early versions of arcade Mortal Kombat 2. Players figured out how to hit babies after performing Babalitys.
http://bbh.marpirc.net/mk2/
By Anita’s logic midway endorses child abuse because players tested the bounders of the game and were able to interact with the objects (babies) in the game that were put their by the developer. So that clearly means that the developer supports any action the players can do in the game including hitting babies. Or it can just mean that games are interactive and filled with glitches and just because a player can do something in a game doesn’t automatically mean that the developer endorsed it or even meant for player to be able to do it.
In her Bayonetta video she complains about Bayonetta clothes coming off when she summons demons. she doesn’t acknowledge or knows that Bayonetta’s hair is also her cloths so that’s why her cloths disappears when she summons demons. She also makes the claim that Bayonetta is fighting demons when in fact Bayonetta is actually fighting angles. She also says that Bayonetta has a child except for the fact that Bayonetta doesn’t have any children. She claims that Bayonetta is a “choose your own patriarchal adventure porno fantasy.” Lets take a second to look at what the word Patriarchy means. Patriarchy is a social system in which males hold primary power, predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property. So how is Bayonetta a game in which players play as a strong women who is always in control of a situation and is more powerful than any man in the game enforcing ideals of Patriarchy. Bayonetta is not a choose your own adventure type game nor is it a porno.
She says this in a tweet
“Everything about Bayonetta’s design, mechanics and characterization is created specifically for the sexual pleasure of straight male gamers”
Bayontta was design by a women
http://platinumgames.com/2009/04/17/designing-bayonetta/
http://soulcalibur.wikia.com/wiki/Mari_Shimazaki
McIntosh said this on twatter about the Witcher.
“Geralt from Witcher 3 is emotionally deficient in the extreme. Never cries or laughs. Never expresses grief, fear, sadness or vulnerability.”
Witchers are unable to express emotions on their faces because of the training that is involed to become a Witcher. Taken in as children, Witchers-to-be are subjected to intense alchemical processes, consumption of mutagenic compounds and relentless physical and magical training to make them dangerous and highly versatile against their vast array of opponents.
http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Witcher
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2015/05/31/why-feminist-frequency-is-dead-wrong-about-the-witcher-3/
“In the beginning of “Women as Background Decoration: Part 2,” Sarkeesian references a scene from Dragon Age’s City Elf Origin story, in which a group of guards make disturbing sexual comments over the player character’s dead female companion. Sarkeesian implies that BioWare’s narrative is built on the “brutalization of women’s bodies,” using dead women “as an indicator of just how harsh, cruel, and unforgiving their game worlds are.”
“However, the female elf’s treatment is better understood as a thematic commentary on systematic misogynistic violence. Both women and elves are confined to strict socioeconomic roles within the origin story, as the brutal city government uses institutional force in order to keep women and elves oppressed. Essentially, the game explores the use of sexual violence as a form of violent oppression within a misogynistic institutional structure. Yet, Sarkeesian and McIntosh misread this moment – ignoring a critical look at misogynistic oppression within Dragon Age’s narrative.”
“Sarkeesian has criticized the postmodern video game Hotline Miami for utilizing the “Damsel in Distress” trope. However, Feminist Frequency’s analysis completely erases the game’s subversion of the trope – as the narrative’s “damsel” seems to be held hostage by the player, and avenging her death produces no reward. Indeed, writers such as Maddy Myers have dissented from Sarkeesian and McIntosh’s analysis – praising Hotline Miami as a postmodern exploration of hypermasculinity which subverts the “damsel” trope.”
http://gamemoir.com/lgbt-gender/frequency-anita-sarkeesians-strengths-weaknesses/
4. Things taking out of context
She shows footage of Fallout New Vegas where a womens body is being dragged around with psychic powers and says that games often permits women to be knockout, pickup, carried and thrown around. All of these things can be done to male NPCs as well. She also says that assault, mutilating & murder can be done to women in games but all of those same things can be done to male NPCs as well. She tries to use these things as examples of sexism towards women but its not sexism if the same thing can be done to male NPCs.
She claims that the objectification of female NPCs is terrible.
“Unlike other NPCs that exist for purposes outside of their sexuality, Non-Playable Sex Objects have little to no individual personality or identity to speak of. since these women are just objects there’s no need or reason for players to have any emotional engagement with them. meaningful relations or interactions are not even possible. Their programming simply does not allow for it.”
She tries to say this is unique to female NPCs. The lack of deep personalities, non emotional engagement or meaningful relations is true of all Pedestrian NPCs male or female.
“when assaulted by the player non playable sex objects might scream. but regardless of their canned automated reaction they are will designed to be expendable to be used and then tossed out.”
Same thing is true for male NPCs as well.
In background decoration she talks about female character being objectified while showing footage of the main protagonist from Watch Dogs in the process of shutting down a human trafficking ring.
In her background decoration video she said this.
“In the realm of interactive media I use the term “instrumentailty” to refer to the practice of using virtual women as tools or props for the players own purposes. Courtesans in the Assassins Creed series, for instance, are available to be “rented” and used to help you “blend in” to the environment. Once acquired, they can be ordered to flirt with guards to distract them. Allowing the protagonist to slip by undetected. ”
The courtesans were one of the four factions allied to the Assassin Order, with the other three being the thieves, mercenaries and Romanies. They usually aided the Order by collecting information from clients, or by acting as distractions and allowing allies to slip into restricted areas.
The player can also hire male thieves & mercenaries to aid them with blending into a environments and killing. So is using man as Tools bad as well or is it only bad when it happens to women in Assassin Creeed.
http://assassinscreed.wikia.com/wiki/Courtesans
Anita and mcintosh purposely says controversial things on tweeter to provoke a negative reaction from people so they can use the response to prove Anita’s continued harassment. mcintosh even admits to purposely provoking gamers with his comments.
Here’s an example of Anita provoking a reaction from people and using the response as a example of her continued harassment to coincide with a Kickstarter update.
You only have to watch the first 3 minutes.
Lets take a look at some of these comments.
“A few months ago I started posting deliberately provocative tweets whenever I’d see the angry gamer mod launch a harassment raid on someone”
“I’d only post things I basically agreed with, but I did it in an overtly antagonizing way designed to enrage these specific hateful gamers”
“The goal was to see if I could draw some of their fire & distract them a bit from their usual targets. It worked like a charm. It still is”
“Its shockingly easy to drive these bozos into frothing fits of rage. Simply tweet critically about their beloved Ico, MGS or Bayonetta”
CRAZYCRAZYKEITH .
January 16, 2015 at 21:46
plot twist anita really is a man
Kespro
January 21, 2015 at 12:42
Misguided or not, Anita DOES NOT promote more realistic images of women in videogames. The most important thing for her seems to be the attention and money she receives for her wonderfully played role as the victim of absolutely everything. She doesn’t care about sexism in games, she proves that by making ridiculous statements (that she does not back up with any scientific evidence whatsoever), blatantly obvious cherry picking and lying. Her entire agenda is quite obviously taylored towards fooling others, not herself. There is quite conclusive evidence that she has fabricated at least some of the death threats she supposedly receives. She is on camera stating that she does not like videogames and doesn’t play them, which matches perfectly with the fact that most of the gameplay footage in her videos is stolen from other youtubers. She also likes to claim that her website regularly suffers from DDoS attacks, when in fact all websites behind CloudFlare are effectively immune to such attacks.
She is primarily a con artist, not a feminist.
In fact, her only feminist narrative seems to be that women should never be subject to violence in videogames, under no circumstances. In the latest ABC Nightline video featuring Ms. Sarkeesian, she focusses on how it is POSSIBLE to have sex, beat up and run over a woman with your car, and uses that as an example to show how sexist the game supposedly is. She doesn’t mention that it is MANDATORY to beat up, and in one case even rape a man. The hypocrisy is astonishing and yet the media completely ignores it. The only thing that matters is that women in games shall not be portrayed as anything else but super-strong heroes who beat up or shoot men. If she had in fact been placed anywhere on the team of developers for Mirror’s Edge 2, I’m sure that she would have pushed for male opponents to the female protagonist who don’t fight back, don’t shoot back or say anything unfriendly to her. Oh, and Faith would have probably gotten some long sleeves. Sounds rather boring to me.
Frank and beans
January 31, 2015 at 14:49
Mirrors edge is a below average game and she is not a gamet. Let them have each other.
Frank and beans
February 2, 2015 at 19:32
EA have said she has nothing at all to do with the game. So this entire story is pointless lol.
asdfasfd232
February 19, 2015 at 13:41
Sorry, but what the fuck does Anita Sarkeesian (someone who is self admittedly not a gamer who has never really played games in her life) know about anything involved in gaming? She’s an ambulance chaser. And you’re a pathetic douche for framing it the way you have. Are we just going to tell everyone who has an issue with games to come make them with us? Fuck that. If you don’t like games or gamers (and you fucking dislike games and gamers), stay the fuck out of them.
Also, we already saw her mother fucking design doc for her ideal “female empowerment” game and it was atrocious, trading in so many of the tropes she herself normally bitches about. She has a communications degree. She isn’t qualified to do anything more than write memos on behalf of a PR agency somewhere.
asdfasfd232
February 19, 2015 at 13:44
This site is full retard. I’m withdrawing my patreon funding.
elfodd
February 20, 2015 at 17:35
that guys video you feature and call god awful and angry is far more popular than some crappy website with a few viewers like lazygamer. You sound like a kiss ass little pussy.
Bobby
April 17, 2015 at 05:44
The gaming world does not want a hysterical feminazi inserting her warped agenda into our games. Period. How many different ways do we have to state this for everyone else to get it? We want her to go away. She’s not wanted. Her views have been completely debunked and rejected a thousand times over. Every video about her and her views that is pro-Anita has 1000 dislikes for every like and vice versa for the anti-Anita videos. Almost nobody agrees with her.
She’s too polarizing. If a calm, normal, sane woman wants to say hey let’s do this a little differently and is open to criticism and actually listens to what gamers say instead of muting them because nobody agrees with her views (all Anita’s videos on YouTube have comments disabled) then fine. Welcome. Anita is NOT that woman though.
João Fardilha
April 19, 2015 at 10:06
A feminist and a scammer are two completely different concepts. In the case of Sarkeesian they just intercept each other.
Frank and beans
May 26, 2015 at 06:22
EA have said she has nothing to do with the game. AT ALL and never did.
AnAverage Joe
July 27, 2015 at 02:31
Who the hell cares?
Anita is a shit human being. It people want to make more video and
sonicsnake4
August 2, 2015 at 17:55
1. Kickstarter lies
Before Anita started her Kickstarter campaign she held a talk where she said she was being harassed by a organized group of 4chan members for months. She said these 4chan members subscribed to her channel so they would know when she released new videos so they could attack her. The type of comments she said she received were sexual insults, death threats & rape threats. She said sometimes she got together with a friend to read through the comments because it would get overwhelming. She says that she probably has the biggest block list on Youtube and anytime they leave any anti feminist, harassing, or threating comment they would be blocked. She said that she had gotten use to these kinds of comments. She said she monitored her Youtube comment section so the only comments that were allowed to be shown had to be approved by her.
She lunched her Kickstarter campaign and made a Youtube video for the campaign. She for the first time allowed comments on her video. she makes a post on her website entitled Harassment, Misogyny and Silencing on YouTube. She says this in the post.
“Here is a very small sample of the harassment I deal with for daring to criticize sexism in video games. Keep in mind that all this is in response to my Kickstarter project for a video series called Tropes vs. Women in Video Games (which I have not even made yet). These are the types of silencing tactics often used against women on the internet who dare to speak up. But don’t worry it won’t stop me!”
“These messages and comments have included everything from the typical sandwich and kitchen “jokes” to threats of violence, death, sexual assault and rape.”
http://feministfrequency.com/2012/06/07/harassment-misogyny-and-silencing-on-youtube/
She says that all of these comments are because of her Kickstarter campaign because she dares to speak critically about video games. These statements completely contradict what she said before she started her Kickstarter campaign. Before her Kickstarter she said she was systemically being harassed by people on 4chan and that among the things they said to her were sexual insults, death threats & rape threats and sometimes it was so overwhelming she read them with a friend as a way to cope with it and she had gotten use to it by that point. So she leaves comments open on her youtube kickstarter video which is something she never did before and she was surprised by the negative comments but how can she be surprised by the same type of comments she was receiving long before she launched her Kickstarter. When she started her Kickstarter and left her comments open she knew exactly what the comments were going to be like because she been receiving them for months prior. So when she says during her Kickstarter that all of the negative comments were because of her Kickstarter campaign she’s lying.
2. Other Lies
She says that Grand Theft Auto and Saint Row encourage players to kill women by giving players money for killing random female NPCs.
“some games explicity incentivise and reward this kind of behavior by having murdered women drop dundles of cash for the player to collect and add to their own stash”
The truth is money is dropped by any NPC that is killed in the games and has nothing to do with gender.
She says that the female stripper NPCs from Hitman Absolution were put their because the developer wanted players to kill them. The game discourages players from killing innocent civilians by taking away points. The whole point of the game is to sneak by people and keep unnecessary killing to a minimum while moving toward killing your intended target not to kill random strippers and lose points for doing so. The path to the strippers is one of two paths that the player can take. The path to the strippers is the harder of the two paths to take. The other path that the player can take is easier and doesn’t involve coming near the strippers at all.
She also says this in her Background Decoration video.
“their status as disposable objects is reinforced by the fact that in most games discarded bodies will simply vanish into thin air a short time after being killed”
She tries to tie disappearing bodies as something that only happens to female NPCs but it has nothing to do with gender its just something that happens in a lot of games irregardless of gender because of limited ram Capacity and not having the game slow down because of bodies pilling up.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EverythingFades
shes a life long gamer
at a Santa Monica College in California back in early 2010 Anita says that she’s not a fan of video games and she had to learn a lot about them. she says that she would love to play video games but she doesn’t what to go around shooting people and ripping off their heads. During and after her Kickstarter she says that shes been playing video games since she was 5 years old and shes a life long gamer. How can she be a lifelong gamer if she said pre Kickstarter that she doesn’t like video games specifically because she thinks that all games are violent. If she’s a lifelong gamer than what has she been playing all of this time and why does she thinks all video games are violent. She obviously not a lifelong gamer and only said that as a way to try and give herself more credibility.
In her damsel video she said Zelda was never a playable character in a console game. Zelda was playable in the CDI games Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon & Zelda’s Adventure. I am not saying these are good games but they are console games where Zelda was the star of her own adventure.
She says that gaming is all boys club and women have until recently been barred from playing games. This is untrue their has never been anything stopping girls from playing games. Most game genres are not gender excluding. Racing, fighting, beat em up, real time strategy, role playing, puzzle, point and click, action adventure, platformers, MMO, Simulation, rhythm action.
Women have been involved in the making of games for years. Theirs been female programmers, artist, composers, designer, CEO, etc. Women have also been involved in the journalism side of things as well. This false narrative that Anita’s trying to push that games have somehow excluded women until recently is a lie that she tells to try to push her gender base agenda.
The other thing that she tries to push is the ideal that man are trying to keep women from playing or criticizing games. Both things are false but she keeps to that script so she can fight against the imagery boogie man that she created and so she can justify the existences of her video series.
Anita omitted the fact that she has connections to the developer of the game sword and sworcery but I am sure that has noting to do with the reason why she chose that game’s character as a positive female even though it contradicts her previous videos.
https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/315zh3/possible_ethics_issue_with_anitas_latest_video/.
3. Poor Research
In dismals in distress she said that peach was added to Mario 2 to fill a per existing gender role that existed in the original game Doki Doki Panic except for the fact that her own footage clearly shows that two females were playable in Doki Doki Panic. If she did further research like actually playing the game than she would know that it wasn’t just one girl in Doki Doki Panic. The core concept that Anita doesn’t understand about games is the fact that graphics assist can be replaced with anything. In fan made mods the cast of Super Mario Bros 2 have been replaced by numerous things like Star Wars ships, Pokemon, Transformers, Spider-Man villains, etc.
http://www.romhacking.net/?page=hacks&game=749
In Women as Background Decoration Anita says this
“In order to understand how this works lets take a moment to examine how video game operate as playgrounds for player engagement. Games ask us to play with them. Now that may seem obvious but bear with me. game developers set up a series of rules and then within those rules we are invited to test the mechanics to see what we can do and what we can’t do. We are encouraged to experiment with how the system will react or respond to our inputs and discover which of our actions are permitted and which are not. The play comes from figuring out the boundaries and possibility within the gamespace. So in many of the titles we’ve been discussing the game makers have setup a series of possible scenarios involving vulnerable eroticized female characters. Players are than invited to explore and exploit those situations during their play through. The player cannot help but treat these female bodies as things to be acted upon. Because they were designed constructed and placed in the environment for that singular purpose. Players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters. Its a rush streaming from a carefully concocted mix of sexual arousal connected to the act of controlling and punishing representations of female sexuality.”
Theirs two basic concepts that she doesn’t understand. The first one is that games are interactive so players can do things that developers never intended players to be able to do. The second is the fact that games have bugs in them which also allows players to do things that the developers never intending for them to do.
For example in Halo 2 players can do button combos. Button combo is a sequence of buttons that, when pressed in order, results in the execution of an exploit. Typical button combos take advantage of unforeseen attributes of certain actions. Some actions, such as meleeing, can disrupt animations for firing and reloading weapons, performing melees, etc. By chaining these and other actions, players can perform special tricks, such as automatic Plasma Grenade sticks and instant close-range kills. However, many players disapprove of such “cheap” exploitations, and Bungie has declared these combos all as cheating and therefore banworthy
http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Cheating
Another example is in early versions of arcade Mortal Kombat 2. Players figured out how to hit babies after performing Babalitys.
http://bbh.marpirc.net/mk2/
By Anita’s logic midway endorses child abuse because players tested the bounders of the game and were able to interact with the objects (babies) in the game that were put their by the developer. So that clearly means that the developer supports any action the players can do in the game including hitting babies. Or it can just mean that games are interactive and filled with glitches and just because a player can do something in a game doesn’t automatically mean that the developer endorsed it or even meant for player to be able to do it.
In her Bayonetta video she complains about Bayonetta clothes coming off when she summons demons. she doesn’t acknowledge or knows that Bayonetta’s hair is also her cloths so that’s why her cloths disappears when she summons demons. She also makes the claim that Bayonetta is fighting demons when in fact Bayonetta is actually fighting angles. She also says that Bayonetta has a child except for the fact that Bayonetta doesn’t have any children. She claims that Bayonetta is a “choose your own patriarchal adventure porno fantasy.” Lets take a second to look at what the word Patriarchy means. Patriarchy is a social system in which males hold primary power, predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property. So how is Bayonetta a game in which players play as a strong women who is always in control of a situation and is more powerful than any man in the game enforcing ideals of Patriarchy. Bayonetta is not a choose your own adventure type game nor is it a porno.
She says this in a tweet
“Everything about Bayonetta’s design, mechanics and characterization is created specifically for the sexual pleasure of straight male gamers”
Bayontta was design by a women
http://platinumgames.com/2009/04/17/designing-bayonetta/
http://soulcalibur.wikia.com/wiki/Mari_Shimazaki
McIntosh said this on twatter about the Witcher.
“Geralt from Witcher 3 is emotionally deficient in the extreme. Never cries or laughs. Never expresses grief, fear, sadness or vulnerability.”
Witchers are unable to express emotions on their faces because of the training that is involed to become a Witcher. Taken in as children, Witchers-to-be are subjected to intense alchemical processes, consumption of mutagenic compounds and relentless physical and magical training to make them dangerous and highly versatile against their vast array of opponents.
http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Witcher
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2015/05/31/why-feminist-frequency-is-dead-wrong-about-the-witcher-3/
“In the beginning of “Women as Background Decoration: Part 2,” Sarkeesian references a scene from Dragon Age’s City Elf Origin story, in which a group of guards make disturbing sexual comments over the player character’s dead female companion. Sarkeesian implies that BioWare’s narrative is built on the “brutalization of women’s bodies,” using dead women “as an indicator of just how harsh, cruel, and unforgiving their game worlds are.”
“However, the female elf’s treatment is better understood as a thematic commentary on systematic misogynistic violence. Both women and elves are confined to strict socioeconomic roles within the origin story, as the brutal city government uses institutional force in order to keep women and elves oppressed. Essentially, the game explores the use of sexual violence as a form of violent oppression within a misogynistic institutional structure. Yet, Sarkeesian and McIntosh misread this moment – ignoring a critical look at misogynistic oppression within Dragon Age’s narrative.”
“Sarkeesian has criticized the postmodern video game Hotline Miami for utilizing the “Damsel in Distress” trope. However, Feminist Frequency’s analysis completely erases the game’s subversion of the trope – as the narrative’s “damsel” seems to be held hostage by the player, and avenging her death produces no reward. Indeed, writers such as Maddy Myers have dissented from Sarkeesian and McIntosh’s analysis – praising Hotline Miami as a postmodern exploration of hypermasculinity which subverts the “damsel” trope.”
http://gamemoir.com/lgbt-gender/frequency-anita-sarkeesians-strengths-weaknesses/
4. Things taking out of context
She shows footage of Fallout New Vegas where a womens body is being dragged around with psychic powers and says that games often permits women to be knockout, pickup, carried and thrown around. All of these things can be done to male NPCs as well. She also says that assault, mutilating & murder can be done to women in games but all of those same things can be done to male NPCs as well. She tries to use these things as examples of sexism towards women but its not sexism if the same thing can be done to male NPCs.
She claims that the objectification of female NPCs is terrible.
“Unlike other NPCs that exist for purposes outside of their sexuality, Non-Playable Sex Objects have little to no individual personality or identity to speak of. since these women are just objects there’s no need or reason for players to have any emotional engagement with them. meaningful relations or interactions are not even possible. Their programming simply does not allow for it.”
She tries to say this is unique to female NPCs. The lack of deep personalities, non emotional engagement or meaningful relations is true of all Pedestrian NPCs male or female.
“when assaulted by the player non playable sex objects might scream. but regardless of their canned automated reaction they are will designed to be expendable to be used and then tossed out.”
Same thing is true for male NPCs as well.
In background decoration she talks about female character being objectified while showing footage of the main protagonist from Watch Dogs in the process of shutting down a human trafficking ring.
In her background decoration video she said this.
“In the realm of interactive media I use the term “instrumentailty” to refer to the practice of using virtual women as tools or props for the players own purposes. Courtesans in the Assassins Creed series, for instance, are available to be “rented” and used to help you “blend in” to the environment. Once acquired, they can be ordered to flirt with guards to distract them. Allowing the protagonist to slip by undetected. ”
The courtesans were one of the four factions allied to the Assassin Order, with the other three being the thieves, mercenaries and Romanies. They usually aided the Order by collecting information from clients, or by acting as distractions and allowing allies to slip into restricted areas.
The player can also hire male thieves & mercenaries to aid them with blending into a environments and killing. So is using man as Tools bad as well or is it only bad when it happens to women in Assassin Creeed.
http://assassinscreed.wikia.com/wiki/Courtesans
Anita and mcintosh purposely says controversial things on tweeter to provoke a negative reaction from people so they can use the response to prove Anita’s continued harassment. mcintosh even admits to purposely provoking gamers with his comments.
Here’s an example of Anita provoking a reaction from people and using the response as a example of her continued harassment to coincide with a Kickstarter update.
You only have to watch the first 3 minutes.
Lets take a look at some of these comments.
“A few months ago I started posting deliberately provocative tweets whenever I’d see the angry gamer mod launch a harassment raid on someone”
“I’d only post things I basically agreed with, but I did it in an overtly antagonizing way designed to enrage these specific hateful gamers”
“The goal was to see if I could draw some of their fire & distract them a bit from their usual targets. It worked like a charm. It still is”
“Its shockingly easy to drive these bozos into frothing fits of rage. Simply tweet critically about their beloved Ico, MGS or Bayonetta”
sonicsnake4
August 2, 2015 at 17:55
1. Kickstarter lies
Before Anita started her Kickstarter campaign she held a talk where she said she was being harassed by a organized group of 4chan members for months. She said these 4chan members subscribed to her channel so they would know when she released new videos so they could attack her. The type of comments she said she received were sexual insults, death threats & rape threats. She said sometimes she got together with a friend to read through the comments because it would get overwhelming. She says that she probably has the biggest block list on Youtube and anytime they leave any anti feminist, harassing, or threating comment they would be blocked. She said that she had gotten use to these kinds of comments. She said she monitored her Youtube comment section so the only comments that were allowed to be shown had to be approved by her.
She lunched her Kickstarter campaign and made a Youtube video for the campaign. She for the first time allowed comments on her video. she makes a post on her website entitled Harassment, Misogyny and Silencing on YouTube. She says this in the post.
“Here is a very small sample of the harassment I deal with for daring to criticize sexism in video games. Keep in mind that all this is in response to my Kickstarter project for a video series called Tropes vs. Women in Video Games (which I have not even made yet). These are the types of silencing tactics often used against women on the internet who dare to speak up. But don’t worry it won’t stop me!”
“These messages and comments have included everything from the typical sandwich and kitchen “jokes” to threats of violence, death, sexual assault and rape.”
http://feministfrequency.com/2012/06/07/harassment-misogyny-and-silencing-on-youtube/
She says that all of these comments are because of her Kickstarter campaign because she dares to speak critically about video games. These statements completely contradict what she said before she started her Kickstarter campaign. Before her Kickstarter she said she was systemically being harassed by people on 4chan and that among the things they said to her were sexual insults, death threats & rape threats and sometimes it was so overwhelming she read them with a friend as a way to cope with it and she had gotten use to it by that point. So she leaves comments open on her youtube kickstarter video which is something she never did before and she was surprised by the negative comments but how can she be surprised by the same type of comments she was receiving long before she launched her Kickstarter. When she started her Kickstarter and left her comments open she knew exactly what the comments were going to be like because she been receiving them for months prior. So when she says during her Kickstarter that all of the negative comments were because of her Kickstarter campaign she’s lying.
2. Other Lies
She says that Grand Theft Auto and Saint Row encourage players to kill women by giving players money for killing random female NPCs.
“some games explicity incentivise and reward this kind of behavior by having murdered women drop dundles of cash for the player to collect and add to their own stash”
The truth is money is dropped by any NPC that is killed in the games and has nothing to do with gender.
She says that the female stripper NPCs from Hitman Absolution were put their because the developer wanted players to kill them. The game discourages players from killing innocent civilians by taking away points. The whole point of the game is to sneak by people and keep unnecessary killing to a minimum while moving toward killing your intended target not to kill random strippers and lose points for doing so. The path to the strippers is one of two paths that the player can take. The path to the strippers is the harder of the two paths to take. The other path that the player can take is easier and doesn’t involve coming near the strippers at all.
She also says this in her Background Decoration video.
“their status as disposable objects is reinforced by the fact that in most games discarded bodies will simply vanish into thin air a short time after being killed”
She tries to tie disappearing bodies as something that only happens to female NPCs but it has nothing to do with gender its just something that happens in a lot of games irregardless of gender because of limited ram Capacity and not having the game slow down because of bodies pilling up.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EverythingFades
shes a life long gamer
at a Santa Monica College in California back in early 2010 Anita says that she’s not a fan of video games and she had to learn a lot about them. she says that she would love to play video games but she doesn’t what to go around shooting people and ripping off their heads. During and after her Kickstarter she says that shes been playing video games since she was 5 years old and shes a life long gamer. How can she be a lifelong gamer if she said pre Kickstarter that she doesn’t like video games specifically because she thinks that all games are violent. If she’s a lifelong gamer than what has she been playing all of this time and why does she thinks all video games are violent. She obviously not a lifelong gamer and only said that as a way to try and give herself more credibility.
In her damsel video she said Zelda was never a playable character in a console game. Zelda was playable in the CDI games Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon & Zelda’s Adventure. I am not saying these are good games but they are console games where Zelda was the star of her own adventure.
She says that gaming is all boys club and women have until recently been barred from playing games. This is untrue their has never been anything stopping girls from playing games. Most game genres are not gender excluding. Racing, fighting, beat em up, real time strategy, role playing, puzzle, point and click, action adventure, platformers, MMO, Simulation, rhythm action.
Women have been involved in the making of games for years. Theirs been female programmers, artist, composers, designer, CEO, etc. Women have also been involved in the journalism side of things as well. This false narrative that Anita’s trying to push that games have somehow excluded women until recently is a lie that she tells to try to push her gender base agenda.
The other thing that she tries to push is the ideal that man are trying to keep women from playing or criticizing games. Both things are false but she keeps to that script so she can fight against the imagery boogie man that she created and so she can justify the existences of her video series.
Anita omitted the fact that she has connections to the developer of the game sword and sworcery but I am sure that has noting to do with the reason why she chose that game’s character as a positive female even though it contradicts her previous videos.
https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/315zh3/possible_ethics_issue_with_anitas_latest_video/.
3. Poor Research
In dismals in distress she said that peach was added to Mario 2 to fill a per existing gender role that existed in the original game Doki Doki Panic except for the fact that her own footage clearly shows that two females were playable in Doki Doki Panic. If she did further research like actually playing the game than she would know that it wasn’t just one girl in Doki Doki Panic. The core concept that Anita doesn’t understand about games is the fact that graphics assist can be replaced with anything. In fan made mods the cast of Super Mario Bros 2 have been replaced by numerous things like Star Wars ships, Pokemon, Transformers, Spider-Man villains, etc.
http://www.romhacking.net/?page=hacks&game=749
In Women as Background Decoration Anita says this
“In order to understand how this works lets take a moment to examine how video game operate as playgrounds for player engagement. Games ask us to play with them. Now that may seem obvious but bear with me. game developers set up a series of rules and then within those rules we are invited to test the mechanics to see what we can do and what we can’t do. We are encouraged to experiment with how the system will react or respond to our inputs and discover which of our actions are permitted and which are not. The play comes from figuring out the boundaries and possibility within the gamespace. So in many of the titles we’ve been discussing the game makers have setup a series of possible scenarios involving vulnerable eroticized female characters. Players are than invited to explore and exploit those situations during their play through. The player cannot help but treat these female bodies as things to be acted upon. Because they were designed constructed and placed in the environment for that singular purpose. Players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters. Its a rush streaming from a carefully concocted mix of sexual arousal connected to the act of controlling and punishing representations of female sexuality.”
Theirs two basic concepts that she doesn’t understand. The first one is that games are interactive so players can do things that developers never intended players to be able to do. The second is the fact that games have bugs in them which also allows players to do things that the developers never intending for them to do.
For example in Halo 2 players can do button combos. Button combo is a sequence of buttons that, when pressed in order, results in the execution of an exploit. Typical button combos take advantage of unforeseen attributes of certain actions. Some actions, such as meleeing, can disrupt animations for firing and reloading weapons, performing melees, etc. By chaining these and other actions, players can perform special tricks, such as automatic Plasma Grenade sticks and instant close-range kills. However, many players disapprove of such “cheap” exploitations, and Bungie has declared these combos all as cheating and therefore banworthy
http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Cheating
Another example is in early versions of arcade Mortal Kombat 2. Players figured out how to hit babies after performing Babalitys.
http://bbh.marpirc.net/mk2/
By Anita’s logic midway endorses child abuse because players tested the bounders of the game and were able to interact with the objects (babies) in the game that were put their by the developer. So that clearly means that the developer supports any action the players can do in the game including hitting babies. Or it can just mean that games are interactive and filled with glitches and just because a player can do something in a game doesn’t automatically mean that the developer endorsed it or even meant for player to be able to do it.
In her Bayonetta video she complains about Bayonetta clothes coming off when she summons demons. she doesn’t acknowledge or knows that Bayonetta’s hair is also her cloths so that’s why her cloths disappears when she summons demons. She also makes the claim that Bayonetta is fighting demons when in fact Bayonetta is actually fighting angles. She also says that Bayonetta has a child except for the fact that Bayonetta doesn’t have any children. She claims that Bayonetta is a “choose your own patriarchal adventure porno fantasy.” Lets take a second to look at what the word Patriarchy means. Patriarchy is a social system in which males hold primary power, predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property. So how is Bayonetta a game in which players play as a strong women who is always in control of a situation and is more powerful than any man in the game enforcing ideals of Patriarchy. Bayonetta is not a choose your own adventure type game nor is it a porno.
She says this in a tweet
“Everything about Bayonetta’s design, mechanics and characterization is created specifically for the sexual pleasure of straight male gamers”
Bayontta was design by a women
http://platinumgames.com/2009/04/17/designing-bayonetta/
http://soulcalibur.wikia.com/wiki/Mari_Shimazaki
McIntosh said this on twatter about the Witcher.
“Geralt from Witcher 3 is emotionally deficient in the extreme. Never cries or laughs. Never expresses grief, fear, sadness or vulnerability.”
Witchers are unable to express emotions on their faces because of the training that is involed to become a Witcher. Taken in as children, Witchers-to-be are subjected to intense alchemical processes, consumption of mutagenic compounds and relentless physical and magical training to make them dangerous and highly versatile against their vast array of opponents.
http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Witcher
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2015/05/31/why-feminist-frequency-is-dead-wrong-about-the-witcher-3/
“In the beginning of “Women as Background Decoration: Part 2,” Sarkeesian references a scene from Dragon Age’s City Elf Origin story, in which a group of guards make disturbing sexual comments over the player character’s dead female companion. Sarkeesian implies that BioWare’s narrative is built on the “brutalization of women’s bodies,” using dead women “as an indicator of just how harsh, cruel, and unforgiving their game worlds are.”
“However, the female elf’s treatment is better understood as a thematic commentary on systematic misogynistic violence. Both women and elves are confined to strict socioeconomic roles within the origin story, as the brutal city government uses institutional force in order to keep women and elves oppressed. Essentially, the game explores the use of sexual violence as a form of violent oppression within a misogynistic institutional structure. Yet, Sarkeesian and McIntosh misread this moment – ignoring a critical look at misogynistic oppression within Dragon Age’s narrative.”
“Sarkeesian has criticized the postmodern video game Hotline Miami for utilizing the “Damsel in Distress” trope. However, Feminist Frequency’s analysis completely erases the game’s subversion of the trope – as the narrative’s “damsel” seems to be held hostage by the player, and avenging her death produces no reward. Indeed, writers such as Maddy Myers have dissented from Sarkeesian and McIntosh’s analysis – praising Hotline Miami as a postmodern exploration of hypermasculinity which subverts the “damsel” trope.”
http://gamemoir.com/lgbt-gender/frequency-anita-sarkeesians-strengths-weaknesses/
4. Things taking out of context
She shows footage of Fallout New Vegas where a womens body is being dragged around with psychic powers and says that games often permits women to be knockout, pickup, carried and thrown around. All of these things can be done to male NPCs as well. She also says that assault, mutilating & murder can be done to women in games but all of those same things can be done to male NPCs as well. She tries to use these things as examples of sexism towards women but its not sexism if the same thing can be done to male NPCs.
She claims that the objectification of female NPCs is terrible.
“Unlike other NPCs that exist for purposes outside of their sexuality, Non-Playable Sex Objects have little to no individual personality or identity to speak of. since these women are just objects there’s no need or reason for players to have any emotional engagement with them. meaningful relations or interactions are not even possible. Their programming simply does not allow for it.”
She tries to say this is unique to female NPCs. The lack of deep personalities, non emotional engagement or meaningful relations is true of all Pedestrian NPCs male or female.
“when assaulted by the player non playable sex objects might scream. but regardless of their canned automated reaction they are will designed to be expendable to be used and then tossed out.”
Same thing is true for male NPCs as well.
In background decoration she talks about female character being objectified while showing footage of the main protagonist from Watch Dogs in the process of shutting down a human trafficking ring.
In her background decoration video she said this.
“In the realm of interactive media I use the term “instrumentailty” to refer to the practice of using virtual women as tools or props for the players own purposes. Courtesans in the Assassins Creed series, for instance, are available to be “rented” and used to help you “blend in” to the environment. Once acquired, they can be ordered to flirt with guards to distract them. Allowing the protagonist to slip by undetected. ”
The courtesans were one of the four factions allied to the Assassin Order, with the other three being the thieves, mercenaries and Romanies. They usually aided the Order by collecting information from clients, or by acting as distractions and allowing allies to slip into restricted areas.
The player can also hire male thieves & mercenaries to aid them with blending into a environments and killing. So is using man as Tools bad as well or is it only bad when it happens to women in Assassin Creeed.
http://assassinscreed.wikia.com/wiki/Courtesans
Anita and mcintosh purposely says controversial things on tweeter to provoke a negative reaction from people so they can use the response to prove Anita’s continued harassment. mcintosh even admits to purposely provoking gamers with his comments.
Here’s an example of Anita provoking a reaction from people and using the response as a example of her continued harassment to coincide with a Kickstarter update.
You only have to watch the first 3 minutes.
Lets take a look at some of these comments.
“A few months ago I started posting deliberately provocative tweets whenever I’d see the angry gamer mod launch a harassment raid on someone”
“I’d only post things I basically agreed with, but I did it in an overtly antagonizing way designed to enrage these specific hateful gamers”
“The goal was to see if I could draw some of their fire & distract them a bit from their usual targets. It worked like a charm. It still is”
“Its shockingly easy to drive these bozos into frothing fits of rage. Simply tweet critically about their beloved Ico, MGS or Bayonetta”
Brian Hull
December 23, 2015 at 17:41
Actually she has no idea what she wants and her on a dev team would be a disaster. Remember how much more realistic the new Lara Croft was? Critics and gamers love her, she’s strong realistic and human. Yet Anita dismissed her as “too manly” which supposedly feeds right back into patriarchy. She’s a passive aggressive clown there’s no pleasing her.
EMA
May 23, 2016 at 00:50
https://cdn.meme.am/instances/67133510.jpg