TLDR: That’s not what I said, that’s not what I meant, but I apologize that what I wrote could be construed that way. But that doesn’t mean that CHS’s logic is any better.
My friends think it’s pretty funny that I’m now being linked wholeheartedly into the SJW Conspiracy that is in bed with the media and is out to destroy gaming. I’m simply a free speech zealot. I believe firmly in free speech for gamers, game makers, and game journalists. I believe that voices like Anita should be listened to. I also think they can frequently be wrong, or ill-suited for the market. I loudly advocated for Penny Arcade during the dickwolf scandal. I’m usually the one pissing off the feminists by loudly supporting boobplate – if your game is aimed for the right audience. I just simply don’t like people telling me who should be allowed to talk to me about games.
But then, we’re living in a time where Reddit, F13, 4Chan, Penny Arcade and Something Awful have all been named as potential members of the grand SJW conspiracy. These are usually sites that the feminists get the ANGRIEST at. It’s surreal. Not as surreal as being called out by a frequent television personality, I’ll grant you. But tonight, Christina Hoff Sommers did, of course,
Dear Damion Schubert, Invoking KKK & Nazis is ludicrous. Plus you misspelled “anti-Semitic.” @ZenOfDesign #GamerGate pic.twitter.com/XfIgZLyECB
— Christina H. Sommers (@CHSommers) September 21, 2014
This, of course, prompted my twitter feed to explode with people declaring that I had compared gamers to Nazis or the KKK. This is pretty clearly not what was intended by my statement. If anyone believes that’s what I was trying to say, they are sorely mistaken, but I apologize for allowing my chosen language to put this anywhere in doubt. The blog post (which is unedited other than a link to this post) is here. The quote in question is as follows:
Sommers throws out some stats and figures, and then somehow leaps to the assertion that Games aren’t Sexist, it’s just that women don’t like games. This is roughly akin to saying that the KKK isn’t racist, it’s just black people don’t want to join, or the Nazis weren’t anti-semetic, it’s just the Jews weren’t jiggy with the way they did things. Which is to say, it’s a nonsense logical leap, entirely circular in nature, and one that would get you a big red ‘F’ if you handed in a paper with this argument in your Intro to Logic or Philosophy class.
Okay, so she has a good point on my spelling error.
I didn’t compare gamers to Nazis. I was merely pointing out that her logic is nonsensical, counterintuitive, and circular. Well, I was trying to. Put another way, the fact that women don’t buy Maxim doesn’t in any way prove that Maxim isn’t sexist, and probably suggests otherwise. Or if you prefer, the fact that hardcore feminist criticism isn’t popular with men doesn’t in any way prove that that brand of criticism isn’t sexist, and probably suggests otherwise. Note in both cases, the statements above AREN’T saying they are sexist, necessarily. Just that logic being used to dismiss these concerns is hilariously malformed.
So to do her a service, I will offer a more full analysis of her point.
There is one thing that Sommers is very right on, and that is that the ESA’s numbers are wildly misused by many people throughout the media and the games industry on the way and nature that women approach games right now – and a lot of those people should know better. Simply put, there are a shit ton of women playing games right now, but they’re playing very different games. They’re playing the Sims, Kim Kardashian’s Hollywood, Candy Crush – all of these games have what are very ‘pink’ designs (an internal term I think Zynga coined that is now in widespread use). Meanwhile, as I mentioned previously, games like League of Legend have 90% M/F ratios. Call of Duty is very similar. Console purchasers are OVERWHELMINGLY male. The gaming market is wildly bifurcated, and surprisingly few games have anywhere near 50/50 splits.
Here’s the thing – throwing stats and figures in this regard is nice and all, but it doesn’t actually help her case, it hurts it. A large split in gender affinity requires an explanation, you can’t just poo-pooh it away. But she gives no explanation. She just makes a blanket declaration that there’s not.
It is very likely that more women don’t play these games BECAUSE they are sexist. Game designers have pretty good reason to believe this: we’ve found, over and over again, that having more positive depictions of women increases the number of women who play our games. In MMOs, giving women the choice to wear a bikini OR a robe makes them more comfortable. Displaying more women in empowered or combat roles seems to dramatically increase a reach towards this market. Being sensitive about the use of sexual assault as a story trope in your games does as well. Should the designer worry about that? Depends. I have no problem with designers consciously making a more hardcore game experience. I also have no problem with the makers of Maxim, Playboy or Porky’s. But those three definitely have content that many women could reasonably consider sexist, and so does Dragon’s Crown. I’ll defend the right for the DC team to make the game they want until the ends of the earth. But any reasonable person would agree its depictions of women are sexist, and likely resulting in many women choosing not to play. Things like this RESULT in the statistical split that Christina argues is not a factor.
Are there games that are rife with sexism, is that true? Do they promote a culture of misogyny and violence that must be dismantled? My answer is no.
So there are NO games that are rife with sexism? Oh, dearie me. Screw Dragon Crown or the surprisingly problematic Far Cry 3, I can’t wait until you see the latest hot tentacle porn games from Japan.
You’re absolutely right! And I’ve been shouting about this for years! But, bringing in the topic of violence is intellectually dishonest. Long-term violence being caused by video games has been pretty strongly disproven. Attempting to conflate this point with your thesis statement does not progress it in any way. Violence != sexism.
Now these critics are gaming is largely a hetero-patriarchal capitalist pursuit.
My attempt to google your emphasized phrase brought up…. links with quotes from you, or talking about this quote. Did I miss a point where Anita or another notable feminist I would have heard of said this, or is this just a strawman designed to earn disdain for hipster cultural studies professors who like words with lots of syllables?
They do a lot of cherrypicking and ignore the fact that the world of gaming has become inclusive!
That’s great! Although it seems to disagree with your initial stat dump which found that women aren’t playing games nearly as often as men! The existence of O! magazine doesn’t mean that Maxim isn’t going to have content that plenty of women find sexist or offensive, and anyway, using the example of a couple of Tomb Raideresque games with female heroes to prove that an audience you claim has a 7-1 M/F split is actually inclusive seems to be – what’s the word – cherrypicking?
That’s a bold statement. Anita in her video bends over backwards to say that these tropes don’t necessarily make a game bad, nor is it bad to enjoy a game with her tropes. Anyway, is there any actual reason to be concerned it could actually happen? No. No one is going to take GTA V and Call of Duty from male gamers – Take Two and Activision would and should be shelled by their stockholders if this were to happen. As long as there is no government censorship (something I would fight until the ends of the earth), we’re going to have blood, violence, and more impressive boob physics for years to come. Which is nice, because those are the games *I* like.
There is no evidence that games are making males more racist, sexist or homophobic.
Um, that’s not your thesis statement either. Why are we talking about this? Why can’t you simply explain why Games are Not Sexist? Incidentally, number of times in her videos that Anita called gamers sexist: zero.
Look, I’m not saying that all games are sexist, nor am I saying that all gamers are sexist. There are, indeed, some truly repugnant assholes, but it’s a fairly small number (and I’m not saying that there aren’t some being repugnant on the other side of the debate right now). But there is a HUGE split between how genders are playing games right now. And there is no doubt there is a lot of content that a reasonable person would consider sexist in some of these games, particularly high-profile AAA games aimed for male audiences. There is little doubt that these are connected to each other.
Maybe mentioning kkk or nazis in a heated debate was a bad choice 😉
That said. Your point that she is making a flawed argument is very true. And I think you argue that case -very- well in the above post.
Your original post however, that her tweet responds to seems a bit more agressive and less well thought through than your usual posts. Hope people who reads that also takes the time to read this one.
I was thinking Miss Sommers could be an interesting addition to this debate. Her video had flaws, was incendiary, but the lady at least looked serious.
But then:
1) she associated with Milo, despite everything that makes this guy toxic, going to his new radio show. What a clear lack of judgment…
2) this tweet she made of your post. Clearly looking to be incendiary, to get attention of the Gamergaters, to push an agenda, etc….
I think she clearly showed her colors. She is yet another personality playing the gamergaters for attention.
Given that Milo’s show is just a parade of voices all in lockstep to proudly defend the integrity of video games that in his and Christina’s case, they don’t play and attack an industry they don’t understand, it’s hard to take it as a serious addition to the debate.
Don’t fight the frame. If someone makes an inaccurate misread of your point, fighting their framing just reinforces the frame.
You made a simile, they chose to misread it literally. Arguing about it just makes their gross misreading seem reasonable. Now it’s *your* fault for bringing up Klansmen while talking about gamers, as far as the bystanders are concerned.
–Dave
Lets see now, you ranted on about how Sommers concluded that games aren’t sexist, and then you made an analogy where you use the Nazi and the KKK as examples. I mean really? So if I say something like:
“Saying that Damion Schubert isn’t an idiot because he writes stupid articles that lack proper research is like saying that a rapist isn’t a rapist simply because they rape somebody.”
^see how that works? Oh, I never called you a rapist, not not at all.
That said, gamers really aren’t sexist, it is just targeting a specific market and catering to what it believes its consumers want. Men generally like sexy women, so an easy way to sell games is to use sexy pixelated women as a lure. If more women played games, then I’m pretty sure we would see games with men, sweat dripping don’t their finely chiseled muscles as they work out in nothing but a pair of tight boxers. See it isn’t sexy, it is just lazy.
Dragon Crown isn’t sexist… I honestly can’t fathom why you even mentioned it. Big breasted girls in skimpy outfits… is that all it needs for a game to be labeled as derogatory towards women/men?
You mentioned that you have a problem with that there aren’t enough female mooks in games. While this is true, your mention of how women appear in combat IRL is just silly. Think about it. Women in combat are used in supporting roles in the military, and while terrorists do use women as fighters, these women are far weaker than their male counterparts. So if we did include female terrorists in games like Call of Duty or whatever, then the specs for that mook would have to be substantially lower than that of the male one. I.E it would be a lot of time-consuming programing, and then when everything was said and done — feminists would rage that the female enemies are weaker than the male ones.
Now as for Anita. How is she bending backwards? Remember, she wants people to believe that she is being fair and neutral. Sure, she says “these tropes don’t necessarily make a game bad” … but then she dedicates her videos to show us just how bad the tropes are. She continues to hammer down how terrible these things are, leading to the conclusion that she wants to change the games. But many of these games are good BECAUSE of the “tropes”, so she really is saying that the games are bad.
ANITA: “The games aren’t bad, but everything that makes these games what they are is.”
^Is basically what she is saying.
“Gamers aren’t sexist” is a factual claim, and one that has a great deal of evidence stacked against it. Certainly ALL gamers are not sexist, but what evidence do you have that all gamers are NOT sexist?
This is going to depend a lot on how you define sexist. However, the general gaming population has made significant inroads, both in reaching broader audiences and being better actors. A good example is WOW. The majority of the people playing that game right now are heavy gamers who practically make the game a lifestyle choice. WoW is 40% women.
Similarly,PAX has grown their female populations and is now largely a very diverse and welcoming crowd.
That’s not to say there are no sexists. There are some bad actors, and some vile sub communities, who don’t speak for everyone. These are the ones who insist on bringing back gg to Zoe, SJWs and Anita when everyone else wants it to be about corruption. Unfortunately, dissonant voices like this get magnified by the damage they do and everyone else’s negative reaction to them, so what feels like 10% sexist asshole rate is probably well less than 1%
“games with men, sweat dripping don’t their finely chiseled muscles as they work out in nothing but a pair of tight boxers.”
I don’t see the gameplay here. Sounds more like a movie. Such movies exist, but they are fewer in number and lower in popularity than their counterparts intended for a male audience.
Sexualizing men is not a good way to draw in more female gamers. Desexualizing and empowering women *is* a good way to draw in more female gamers. And bonus: it won’t turn away very many men.
Marketing games using sex is lazy and often dishonest, and it turns men like me away from the product, just like Axe ads do.
““Saying that Damion Schubert isn’t an idiot because he writes stupid articles that lack proper research is like saying that a rapist isn’t a rapist simply because they rape somebody.”
^see how that works? Oh, I never called you a rapist, not not at all.”
Other than being a dreadful simile, you’re correct. You didn’t call him a rapist in the above sentence. So what’s your point?
Thank you for expressing your opinion in a rational and engaging manner. I think this whole conversation will end up being productive and worthwhile, but some of the voices are pitched at a volume and tone that makes the real issues less visible, rather than more. Keep up the good work!
Man, this is just a word salad of bad logic. My favorite is the part where you say designers & programmers should spend serious amount of time trying to make women weaker. Why, again? Female characters aren’t weaker in WoW, and the game attracts both hardcore gamers as well as a 40% female audience. And anyway, even if it were a goal, combat stats are just numbers in the database.
Also, you grossly misrepresent what Anita says. The problem with most tropes is not their use as much as their repetitiion. The Fact that Mario rescues a princess doesn’t make Mario bad. However, the fact that that trope is used SO HEAVILY means that women in many, many games have no representation beyond trophy or quest goal. You could counter this with the rescue trope DOESNT do that, or that it’s not that pernicious (I make a similar counter argument). You can’t seriously absorb her work though and walk away believing that Mario is bad, the trope should never be used, she explicitly says otherwise.
If you don’t think that Dragon Crown’s representation of women isn’t sexist, it’s possible you may not be a reasonable person. I haven’t played the game, but I can tell you it’s representation of women is a massive turnoff to a lot of people, most of whom are women and many of whom are probably fine with less egregious boobplate like LoL.
Here’s the thing: If you take away the moralist framing, “Sexism” is a useful concept. I’m sexist. I’m a guy who likes looking at depictions of women in scanty clothing (or no clothing at all). Being a guy, I think it’s easier for me to identify with male viewpoint characters, to see violence as a useful approach to solving problems, and so on.
I recognize that sometimes my sexist awareness of the world leads me to unfairly judge other people for being women or not fitting into the gender binary, and I actively work against that and try to encourage others to do the same. I don’t feel guilt for being sexist, only when my sexism makes me treat others unfairly.
But I reject the position that until I achieve some state of perfect awareness and denial of my sexism that I am a bad person. I’m a human being, flawed but trying, and fuck you if you don’t think I am trying hard enough.
You put a moralist frame about what should be a wholly impersonal assessment, and you poison it. “Privilege” is a similar concept, it’s good to “check your privilege”, examine how the world looks different to you because of your experiences and how qualities you never earned but just have affect that view. But telling someone else that their opinions are being discarded because of their privilege doesn’t “raise their awareness”, it just makes them defensive.
And too often, it’s used as a tool to deliberately alienate and “other” other groups. They have privilege, benefits they didn’t earn, so it’s okay to be mean to them.
“But I reject the position that until I achieve some state of perfect awareness and denial of my sexism that I am a bad person. I’m a human being, flawed but trying, and fuck you if you don’t think I am trying hard enough.”
Yes, but if you abdicate your effort to treat women as human beings, respecting them for their differences and for the choices they should be thought of as capable of making on their own, you should accept any effort, provided it’s graciously made, to correct your behavior, and acknowledge that you might be wrong.
Within reason, anyway. No one likes being reminded that we’re not perfect individuals, and efforts to do the above will be imperfect. But fuck YOU if you or anyone else uses that state as an excuse to say, well, bitches is crazy, we’re not going to even try.
Privilege is at best a thought experiment for self-examination, so I agree on that point. But some divides and barriers still exist even if people don’t always point them out.
“No one is a villain in their own story.” When people are being sexist, they don’t think they’re being unfair. They think they’re using common sense, or just working off their own experience.
Using “Sexist” as a pejorative with moral weight doesn’t do anything to make them change their minds and see how they were treating someone unfairly, it just makes them defensive and more likely to “double down” on their behavior. You need to point out their unfairness *without* just labeling it sexism.
To many people on the “Social Justice” side treat it as a rhetorical game of tag; If you can get your opponent to say/do something that you can label sexist or misogynist, you “win” and everyone is supposed to ignore them from then on. This is what turned “Social Justice Warrior” into a cliche.
Can you two get a room? (Note to observers: these two have both been in my living room on many occasions)
Here’s my take: I like boobies.
In more detail, I don’t mind, and sometimes actively enjoy, entertainment with strong sex-based components to them, with some of that bleeding into beliefs or depictions of women that could be construed as ‘sexist’. Sexist media exists all over, be it music, movies, hip hop, porn, what have you. And yes, video games.
What I object to is people who reject that sexist media may well lead to and reaffirm sexist attitudes, and people who attempt to claim that, for example, porn, Game of Thrones or Dragon’s Crown aren’t either sexist, or have largely sexist or problematic content in them in terms of that debate. GoT is interesting in that, for the most part, it shows a very sexist picture of background women (most women are whores and Sansa is almost perfectly a damsel waiting rescue), but it redeems a lot of that by having strong characters such as Brienne, Arya and Daenarys. To some extent, their characters seem even STRONGER because of how harsh the world is to the ‘normal’ woman. This is all okay for the artist to play with.
Beyond that, I do think that (a) different people react to sexist works in different ways and (b) different people are going to have different calibrations of what crosses the line in terms of sexism. You could make a pain scale.
I do think that ‘sexist’ is an adjective that describes a work of art that is often a pejorative, but then I don’t think it’s all that different than describing the film as ‘action packed’, ‘plodding’, ‘derivative’ or ‘incomprehensible’.
I think that when ‘sexist’ is applied to human beings, common usage of the term is only on targets who have passed the line into unacceptable behavior. I definitely have a strong sex drive and like women and gratuitious content to some degree, but I’ve rarely done something to actually take action to earn that moniker. That being said, there are plenty of men who deny promotions to women who don’t sleep with them, whistle at women on the way to work, or treat women with the respect you normally treat a dog. There’s a wide gulf between sexist and non-sexist when describing humans, IMHO, whereas with media, it’s much more of a sliding scale.
How exactly is Dragon’s Crown sexist? I haven’t played the game but as far as I know half the playable characters are female. From the picture that you use as an example all I see is that one character is a stereotypical barbarian, muscle clad and not wearing much else. You can see male barbarian characters with this same sort of aesthetic in games like Diablo 3. Same goes with the archer which doesn’t really seem to scream anything sexist to me. And sure the Wizard has extremely exaggerated proportions, which is very obviously sexual, but is also a wizard which is usually associated with being extremely intelligent and wise.
Like I said, I haven’t played the game and for all I know how the characters themselves are portrayed in game could be sexist but from just that picture all I see is three women, all playable characters, with three different body types, ranging from roles that require wisdom and intelligence to ones that require raw physical strength.
Sexism in character designs is about a lot of things, not just about whether or not a character is empowered. When a character is designed visually to appeal primarily to a male’s sexual fantasy rather than a female’s sexual fantasy, that starts to bleed into sexism. There is a ridiculous amount of research that shows that representations in this light result in both fewer sales to women, and oversexualization of women has been shown in studies to have social effects as well, including being damaging to the self esteem of girls, for example.
That is not to say that highly sexualized women are always sexist or that people should be forbidden to make these games. However, if characters in your game fail the Maxim test (I.e. one would feel vaguely ashamed if a relatively normal mother or wife came in while reading it), I think its fair to suggest that sexism might be that role.
I’ll admit I was pretty heart broken when I saw a tweet of yours this morning. You work for a company that my daughter enjoys, and who I gave my money to up until today. I really feel like these places might want to revisit corporate policies on how their employs blog and tweet. If you worked at McDonald’s and tweeted about work, you’d be fired. Yet you work for a company with much more expensive products, with a more tech savvy market, and they just let you have free rein.
If you’re going to repeatedly support the bad science that Anita spouts as fact, you have to give equal credence to Christina. Neither one of them are gamers. Both make their living criticizing society. Just because, for whatever misguided and horribly judgmental reason you’ve decided Anita is “right”, doesn’t mean you get to dismiss her equal. If you’re going to buy into political rhetoric, which you have, at least try to pretend to listen to all of it.
I don’t know which tweet in particular you mention, and I would be happy to respond to it if you pointed it out. I have seen people refer to my statement as ‘referring to gamers as Nazis or Klansmen’, which I wrote this article to respond to (no, that’s a massive misinterpretation).
I have, in the past, analyzed Anita’s arguments heavily. Short form: she’s wrong about some stuff but right about an awful lot, and people do a discredit to the field if they try to shut her down or terrorize her via the bomb threats and personal Doxing that she’s encountered. Here’s a link where I do that analysis
http://www.zenofdesign.com/i-watch-anita-sarkeesian-so-you-dont-have-to-but-you-should/
I analyzed Christina’s point as well, and above you see my rebuttal. I do point out where Christina is correct (i.e. the massive misinterpretation of gender data in the games industry). Unfortunately for her, after that she either uses terrible logic or none at all.
You are aware that people are threatened on the internet, everyday, without the histrionics that she displays, right? I’m sure you are. She isn’t special. She is though, more than happy to escalate things for profit. I understand wanting to make money, but being a social pariah in an area I care about isn’t going to win any sympathy from me. Add in that she is very genuine in the fact that she isn’t a gamer, gets caught lying, and everything else… yeah, no. No one needs to listen to her. She’s welcome to keep talking, but people who actually care about gaming and gamers need to stop buying into what she’s forcing out.
After seeing your name come up, I went to your page (wall? I’m old, this lingo is lost on me). Right there is a retweet from Gamasutra. Now, Leigh Alexander is by and far one of the most toxic people I’ve had the displeasure of coming across online. The things she says on her twitter and in her blog, just… I’m shocked she’s employed. And supporting the company that gives her money? Yeah. No. If you willingly associate with that level of hate it is going to cast a very bad light on you. And you repeatedly call people “right wing nut jobs”. You do realize that being conservative doesn’t make someone a monster? I hope? The fact that “liberals” are so comfortable wallowing around in hate speech, censorship, and forced inequality is casting a *really* bad light on them. Language like implying just because someone is conservative means they’re bad is going to keep adding to that.
I don’t see a large different in how Christina justifies her work verses Anita. They actually would be interesting to see in a debate (not that Anita would ever speak outside of the safety of a place where everyone agrees with her). It might be just that you really want to agree with Anita is presenting. It’s human nature.
That was rambly. But the simple fact is, Anita’s not right. Games aren’t bad for women. Maybe if she stopped pushing an agenda and silencing those of us who love games, she’d learn that.
#GamerGate isn’t a bunch of monster who hate women. We people who spend our free time playing games. We don’t live in our mom’s basements, we’re not virgins (why on EARTH is that an insult!?!), and we’re not women haters.
#notyoursheild is not sockpuppets. We’re Moms, women and minorities who are really tired of middle class white women telling us what we can and cannot like. We’re tired of journalist
“Leigh Alexander is by and far one of the most toxic people I’ve had the displeasure of coming across online. The things she says on her twitter and in her blog, just… I’m shocked she’s employed.”
Please cite your example.
“But the simple fact is, Anita’s not right.”
Could you explain what you mean?
“#notyoursheild is not sockpuppets. We’re Moms, women and minorities who are really tired of middle class white women telling us what we can and cannot like. We’re tired of journalist”
Oh wait, you’re actually a sockpuppet and your copypasta got cut off. NM.
No, his comment box seems to have a character limit. But thanks, you’re just once again being a shining example of why no one has any respect for the anti-GG side. You refuse to hear anything that doesn’t agree with you. How is *that* not misogyny? Forcing your views on a woman, and tell her no, she can’t have her own views.
Are you really RemipunX the cosplayer, or are you just using her handle?
Could you answer either of my other questions?
You can think what you want. You shouldn’t need my permission for that, though.
I work in MMOs. I have seen vile shit that will make you question the very basic decency of human nature. The vast majority of that stuff is rooted in various -isms: racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. And women who get it get more of it, and way more toxic stuff, on average.
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/internet/2012/07/what-online-harassment-looks
Leigh Alexander said a couple of things that were snide. Hell, so have I, Scott Jennings and, oh, Milo, Christina and many GG personalities as well. However, putting this even in the same league as what Anita has encountered is beyond belief, on par with some of the worst behavior I’ve seen in 20 years of watching MMOs.
Just off the cuff, she’s had email and twitter that is CONSTANTLY full of rape and murder references. She has had to leave her home and contact the FBI when one of these people referenced the name of her son, and talked about wanting to kill her. People have made flash games that allow you to punch her in the face. The GDC, the largest conference in the world, was given a bomb threat, threatening to blow up the awards ceremony given every year if they didn’t back off of giving her an award.
Now, she’s been mentioned a lot, but hasn’t actually talked about GamerGate, but still, people throw the word ‘bitch’ and ‘cunt’ at her every 20 seconds. By comparison, I’ve been relatively active in discussing #gamergate, and been very active in my stance on matters, which often challenges the very precepts of that cause. I’ve actively dissed a couple of their heroes and, arguably, made a fairly crucially bad choice of words last week. You know what people do to me?
Well, a few guys have sneered that I’m part of Bioware/EA which supports SJW causes (sorry, I favor LGBT diversity in the industry and games, so I wear that proudly). A couple of guys sneered that ME3’s ending sucked. One guy made fun of me for cut and pasting levels in DA2 (Note: I had nothing to do with either game). And some mild profanity and slams.
It’s simply not even in the same league as the shit that rained down on Anita or Zoe.
My wife and two of my best friends, on the other hand, who are all female, absolutely REFUSE to state their opinions on things online, because they are terrified of what abuse will rain down.
Being conservative doesn’t make someone a monster. However, trying to silence a political point of view is seriously uncool.
As for Anita: she’s right about an awful lot. She’s also wrong about some stuff, and I point that stuff out too. Games do many things that are positive for society, but many games, especially major releases, still lean on representations of women that is fair to challenge. And challenging any aspect of game design should not earn people bomb threats.
To expand on this, and on a link buried in this or another thread from recent days:
Jack Thompson saw the same kind of abuse that Anita Sarkeesian has been seeing. I don’t know the relative amount that each of them saw, but the vile depravity was the same.
Jack Thompson acted like an asshole and he deserved to be disbarred. But he did not deserve death threats any more than Anita does. The people who sent threats to Jack Thompson should denounced just as thoroughly as those who threatened Anita or Zoe or anyone else who claims their right to speak their mind, or have an influence on this industry.
It doesn’t matter what one person thinks about another person’s opinion, threats of harm are never appropriate or acceptable. The appropriate response to speech you disagree with is more speech, addressing their points like a goddamn adult.
When people make posts defending gamergate by saying “Anita is horrible and wrong” without addressing her actual points, they implicitly join the small gang of sociopaths that kicked off the movement with threats and insults instead of the group of adults who named it and would really like to talk about real issues in the industry.
If a woman doesn’t want to be a carpenter….
doesn’t want to fight on the front lines…
to play golf…
to work full time…
Are full time jobs sexist?
I don’t see the logic in it. It is possible that the genders are different and might look for different things?
The point I’m trying to make is as adults we have to stand up and take criticism and be honest that we might be wrong. that is Why this is going on. Gaming media is stuck up on their own prejudices.
I’m left leaning and many with me are, But I will back anyone who has a sound argument.
Sexism is inherent in society, because society is made up of individuals, who are inherently flawed.
Those who point out sexism don’t necessarily expect sexism to be erased. But you can minimize sexism, and uphold the idea that people of all genders and whatever sex can still be treated as people, able to make their own decisions.
Criticism is great! If more people criticized Anita Sarkeesian, we would probably have less general strife over her name. In this post, Damion criticized Christina Hoff Sommers. Not merely for who she is, but what she has said.
It’s problematic when people are told to get raped or kill themselves, in the name of criticism. That’s bad. No one should do that.
Sorry last post. If you see this I was pretty angry and I apologize.
This is what makes me angry. These address the talking points.
Rape culture
https://archive.today/e86C7
Wage gap 23%
http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20Final%20Report.pdf
1in5 Women
http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fvsv9410.pdf
email me if you see the problem.
No, full-time jobs aren’t sexist. Some careers strongly favoring men over women aren’t sexist. Some careers being strongly favored by men over women aren’t either – Lumberjacking isn’t inherently sexist, though I strongly suspect the field to have a strong male split.
However, there are a lot of sexist aspects to the games industry. I wrote another article about how no one tries to copy the Sims, whereas we get a million copies of male franchises like shooters, MMOs and MOBAs. That’s market blindness led by sexist – because the games industry is dominated by males, particularly at the CEO and creative leadership position, we keep getting games aimed for that market.
Hollywood has solved THAT problem – there are a ton of ‘chick flicks’ and entire television channels devoted to women. They still have huge problems with sexism in that industry, including the infamous casting couch, the fact that women’s careers end far sooner than men’s and top actresses usually make much less money than their counterparts, and the vastly lower number of leading and speaking roles that women get instead of men. Now, some of these are for good reason – people tend to like attractive people on their television screens, and for women, youth seems to be a factor in that – but that doesn’t mean that reason isn’t another kind of inherent sexism in our society.
A woman choosing to stay at home to raise her kid isn’t sexist. A woman being EXPECTED to do so might be.
At any rate, I want to stress that I don’t think that everything sexist should go away, and many problems with sexism can never be fixed. I do, however, think it’s completely valid to raise these issues and discuss them openly, because sometimes there are solutions that are within the reach for an artist, that might result in better art, larger markets, and perhaps, just maybe, a positive societal impact.
I’m being flippant but
“A large split in gender affinity requires an explanation, you can’t just poo-pooh it away.”
Did you follow my links?
Those are from the department of labor, bureau of justice, and rainn A famous anti-rape website.
I have being sexually assaulted by a women.
Try to google for a study on how often women abuse men. Just try to look.
“Many of them want more than women on both sides of the video screen. They want the male video game culture to die.”
Actually, this is totally true. The day that male video game culture dies will be a glorious one. I’ll celebrate by firing up DotA2 and playing an entire match without homophobic or gendered slurs.
God, that’d be the fucking day, right?
Do you really think men have cornered the market on being insulting? I’ve had more horrible things said to me since gamer gate started than I have playing CoD. I’ve been told I’m not a woman, told I deserve to be raped because I am not a feminist, and that I should just die.
If this is what female run culture looks like, no thank you.
I like how when John points out that many of these things were probably said by men, you immediately call yourself a sockpuppet and GG out. So uh, ggwp!
But actually, what I want is radical third-wave queer intersectional culture, which I’m sure would blow your mind!
Actually, John called me a socket puppet in his comments above. Quoting John:
“Oh wait, you’re actually a sockpuppet and your copypasta got cut off. NM.”
I’m not being rude or attacking you guys. I’m trying to express a voice that’s different from your own. If you want to just have everyone agreeing with you, make sure that Damion knows that. He’s tweeting and making it sound like civil conversation is welcome.
Well, in your only direct, substantive reply to me thus far, you’ve been civil but you haven’t said much worth replying to.
But let’s drill down. Okay, you object to people calling you “not a feminist”. You don’t appear to apply any feminist critiques to the situation as hand, as I note that:
1 – The implicit assertion that the lack of male-dominated culture necessarily is the existence of female dominated culture hasn’t been part of feminist theory since, I dunno, the onset of third wave feminism?
2 – Even if I look back at second wave feminism, there was very much an acceptance that peoples’ actions are in the context of the existing societal power dynamics; so just as second wave feminists critique sex work as a reflection of patriarchy (broad strokes, here) they would also point out that a woman’s actions in the whole gameghazi thing are in the context of the structural sexism in the gaming culture. So nothing you see is reflective of what woman-dominated gaming culture would look like.
So while I wouldn’t say that you’re not a feminist (because that’s a matter of how you identify), I would say that your posts thus far have shown no awareness of any feminist theory that I’ve studied, and on that basis I question whether you’re using the word “feminist” in the same way that I would use the word.
Also, I have literally never, in my *thousands* of hours of playing MOBAs, had someone who identified as female use gendered or homophobic slurs in the course of the game.
Even the one who trash-talked me after baiting me into dying mid that one time did it liked a drill instructor. “IF YOU HAD ONE OUNCE OF DISCIPLINE IN YOUR DISGUSTING LITTLE BODY YOU WOULDN’T HAVE OVER-EXTENDED!”
So I’m again all for the death of male gamer culture. A day when trash talking is required to be conducted without racist, homophobic, or gendered slurs by order of the Matriarchy would be glorious.
Aaron, there are plenty of good men, and a small number of poisonous assholes. I prefer to call the problem ‘fuckwad culture’, to highlight that it’s not all men, but a small handful that we do not do enough (as players and gamemakers) to culturally correct.
That being said, most of these assholes are women. Not all – there’s plenty of horrible shit coming from women on the antigamergate side – but when running a game service, it’s almost always men who act with this level of assholishness.
http://www.zenofdesign.com/our-growing-fuckwad-culture-problem/
I don’t agree with Aaron, I think he was being flip =) I do think that online harassment, in both directions, is probably one of the single largest hurdles that gaming has to overcome in order to reach another level of exponential growth.
That being said, insulting behavior online is FAR more toxic when men go at it towards women, rather than vice versa. See http://www.fatuglyorslutty.com/ or http://www.notinthekitchenanymore.com/
Anybody who says that anybody should rape anybody should be called out and shut down. This goes for anybody doxing, anybody DDOSing, or anybody accusing anybody of calling the other side Nazis.
Period.
One of the more annoying things as an observer of GG is the fact that BOTH SIDES seem oblivious that THEIR SIDE IS DOING IT TOO. Neither side has ANY moral high ground on this right now. Temperatures are just too high. And yes, I’ll concede I let it affect me too.
No one on the GG side is oblivious to it. We’re making list of people who are harassing others, and working very hard at cracking down on it as fast as we can in our hastags. We don’t want trolls and bored jerks derailing something we take very seriously and are working hard on. Changing the industry so that our journalist actually understand what journalism is, aren’t just sitting in a knitting circles repeating what the loudest person said, and *gasp*, as a by product, protecting and defending the games we want to play.
Now I am reading, right here, on your blog where you *could* cause change and allow conversation, it being okay to call people “asshole MRA shitheads” and the honest, open loathing of men you’re completely okay with it. You’re defending the horrible things Leigh writes on twitter, saying “Leigh Alexander said a couple of things that were snide”. You’re not apologetic at all for your sides bad behavior. You refuse to even recognize it.
I have John and Aaron looking into who I am. Should I be concerned? People supporting gamer gate are getting fired, getting threats at work… and you’re zen with this.
David Wong said that those of us standing up for fair and unbiased journalism were going to wake up someday, leave our parents basements, and hate ourselves. I have to wonder, in five years, maybe even less, if you guys are going to look back and go “Oh man, the women we said we wanted to defend and treat as equals, we really acted like jerks at”. Maybe that’s to much to hope for. It seems to ingrained in the “good guy” culture to tell actual women and actual minorities to sit down, be quiet, and listen while you self loath.
Good luck having further “conversation” Damion. No one wants to have one sided talks where they aren’t heard.
I am not familiar with the works of Leigh Alexander. I went as far back as Twitter would allow me (Sept 5) and found nothing objectionable, except for insults directed at her.
What am I missing?
When David Wong said gamergate were going to wake up, etc., he was clearly referring to the trolls and sociopaths threatening Zoe. He was clearly not talking about people who want to have adult conversations about gaming journalism. Asserting that he did is creating an enemy where none existed, and getting rolled up into some us vs. them mentality that isn’t going to help anyone do anything productive.
The problem is that the gamergate movement started with threats of death and rape, then some other folks tried to redirect it for another nobler purpose. And now you are interpreting attacks on the trolls that started your movement as attacks on the adults that tried to take over.
It’s like if I put on a kilt then complained when people called me Scottish. “It’s just warm out!”
“Changing the industry so that our journalist actually understand what journalism is, aren’t just sitting in a knitting circles repeating what the loudest person said, and *gasp*, as a by product, protecting and defending the games we want to play.”
That was what the GJP group was doing, btw. Glad you support it. (Also, ‘support and defend games you want to play’? what happened to not being biased and judging them on their own merits?)
“it being okay to call people “asshole MRA shitheads” and the honest, open loathing of men you’re completely okay with it. ”
We don’t loathe men, we loathe sexist, misogynist assholes. Like MRAs. And many (but not all) GG supporters.
“You’re not apologetic at all for your sides bad behavior. You refuse to even recognize it.”
He literally did recognize it. Also, it pales in comparison to what the pro-GG/anti-Anita/Zoe side does. Literally no comparison.
“I have John and Aaron looking into who I am. Should I be concerned? People supporting gamer gate are getting fired, getting threats at work… and you’re zen with this.”
Source? Prove someone was actually fired for supporting GG, and not, say, fired for being a bigoted shithead. There’s a difference.
“Good luck having further “conversation” Damion. No one wants to have one sided talks where they aren’t heard.”
And that’s why GG kind of sucks, eh?
By the way, I’m going to wait for baited breath to see if you actually respond to the Aaron’s use of “GameGhazi”. *You* want the name calling to stop? Stop it. Stop it here, on your blog. I’m not a sockpuppet or some monster. So why are you sitting being completely okay with the hate spewing our of your side right where you’re reading?
Remi, you’re being heard just fine. It’s just that people don’t think what you’re saying is of any value. You can convince me otherwise by engaging with the substantive criticism of your position I posted, but as yet, you haven’t.
A failure to engage with substantive criticism isn’t, like, against the law or anything, but it does mean that I’m very unlikely to take you as anything more than a drive-by #gg shill.
And the whole “should I be concerned” schtick is laughable. I didn’t doxx you, and I don’t know and don’t care who you are offline; my curiosity began and ended at “I wonder if RemipunX is a sockpuppet or an established identity”.
Of course, I’m not surprised that you’re concerned, because this whole thing gameghazi *started* with orchestrated attempts to silence independent devs and journalists by doxxing them and taking down their sites. But that’s y’all, not me.
So just to see if I’ve got this clear: you want me to censor someone on a forum? I could have sworn that #gamergate was about not censoring people and letting them speak freely. No, wait, it’s only when the OTHER side says something you don’t like.
And this, in a nutshell, is why #GamerGate is, in its current incarnation, hypocritical and astoundingly full of shit.
For what its worth, I’ve challenged Aaron on a couple points here. However, I see no problem with #GameGhazi. Benghazi is a better analogy to Gamergate than Watergate, in that it is a ‘scandal’ which is mostly ideological bluster, sorely absent of any actual fact, that has now become a litmus test.
Since for some reason your forum doesn’t allow replies after a thread of a set length…
No, not censorship. Asking people to be civil. Can you not tell the difference?
Anyway, you guys enjoy shouting into the wind tunnel, or whatever the term for circling yourself with those who will tell you that you’re always right. It’s clearly working well for you.
I give you a B- for evasion. I ask you a third and last time: if you’re here to engage in any substantive way, do it instead of ineptly trying to tone-police the situation. You’ll find my criticism of your position from the standpoint of feminist theory to be entirely tractable if you want to discuss it, after all.
Aaron, hi again. I’m not going to engage in conversation with someone who out the gate was insulting. I didn’t do that in my post to Damion, and I’m not going to feed into your need to belittle women who don’t agree with you. Like I keep saying, good luck finding people who want to have conversation Damion, if you wonder why they aren’t here, this is why.
You keep talking, but all I hear is “Why won’t you just let me troll this comment thread in peace without demanding that I engage in a substantive manner?!”
Seriously, if you think my asking you to elaborate on your positions w.r.t. your claim to a feminist identity is insulting, I recommend never, ever leaving the echo chamber you live in. Because it’s a harsh, harsh world out there.
Also, reading back on your comments here, it’s pretty fucking funny that as a professed socialist you use left-identity as an insult and leap to the defense of the right wing. Sounds like you have some pretty major issues to work through in terms of the identities you’re grasping for, and you should probably work on those instead of levying judgment on just how calmly other women should act when harassed and threatened.
I’d really like to get enlightend how the female questioning of male sexuality will get lifted by the vanish of some percieved culture. Or how it’s just a male culture of using gender specific slurs.
Judging from reports on demostic voilence and other studies on the subject of agression, i don’t actually see how voilence, especially psychological voilence, or aggressive behaviour will get lessend by any degree. Not even to mention, another time on this blog, how humanity has a quite constant supply of people showing signs of having problems with empathy, not even accounting other mental problems leading to aggressive behaviour…
Ahem. Female questioning of male sexuality with a patriarchial power dynamic, along with the use of gendered slurs by women, exists within the context of society. The eradication of kyriarchical power dynamics and the concomitant progression to a society that is intersectionally “flat” (in that there is no structural oppression) necessarily means that “questioning male sexuality” is entirely robbed of any animus it might have had. The question “Are you gay?” today holds the ability to wound because homosexuality is considered an effete abrogation of maleness; in the glorious queer future, “Are you gay?” is powerless to hurt anyone.
There’s your bit of enlightenment, I suppose, though a proper education in third wave feminist theory takes, y’know, years.
I’m neither sure you’re actually making a good point about slurs like “Wanker”, “Jerk”, who are mainly aimed at the individual inability to have sex – and therefore don’t really depend upon some power/opression of what we currently percieve as group, nor do i see you presenting much of backing for your idea of the ability of such a society to exist.
So i’m saddly not enlightened by what you offered there. But i’m happily going to take a look at any hard evidence you want to offer and naturally read up any explanation going toward such slurs.
“You don’t get laid” as a form of insult is most definitely within the bounds of kyriarchical dynamics, see also sexual potency as a reflection of worth in masculinity being part of same. It’s also not even close to equivalent in terms of capacity to wound as nearly any gendered, racist, or homophobic slur.
For further education on this subject, I strongly recommend bell hooks, Millett, or Firestone. All three are readable and worth reading regardless of your identity or positions w.r.t. gender, sexuality, or feminism.
Using examples of Nazi’s and the KKK where they equate directly to video games is blatantly comparing them. There is no way for you to back peddle from or weasel out of that. It’s pretty laughable that you then talk about Intro to Logic as if you’re a master logician and didn’t just pull a Reductio ad Hitlerum, the most ridiculous fallacy of them all. Even bringing up those classes like that is a fallacy. You’re appealing to their authority. Hypocrisy via ignorance fucking everywhere. Get it together.
Nope. Nice try, though.
Saying “This thing (which is clearly true) is not true” and “This other thing (which is clearly true) is not true” is not comparing the things themselves. It is comparing their state of truth.
Here are some other examples that would have worked just as well:
Diabetics don’t have an insulin problem, they just don’t like sweet things.
Japan isn’t a xenophobic, impenetrable culture, outsiders just aren’t interested in fitting in.
The minimum wage isn’t too low, people are just too lazy to work more than one full-time job.
Creationists aren’t wrong, scientists just refuse to believe the evidence provided by the Bible.
Seriously, mentioning Nazis or the KKK just guarantees that some people lose all powers of reasoning. The best reason for avoiding their mention is so we don’t have to wade through this bullshit every goddamn time.
“Do you really think men have cornered the market on being insulting? I’ve had more horrible things said to me since gamer gate started than I have playing CoD.”
Were none of them said by men?
No one should be told they should be raped. That’s awful. I’m genuinely sorry that happened.
I’m surprised you’re concerned. I’m just a sock puppet without feelings, right? I can’t wrap my head around how you guys can view yourself as good and right in this and telling people they aren’t real and they don’t count… It’s baffling.
I’m often wrong about certain things, but you’re probably right about being a sock puppet. Thanks for playing.
She’s actually not a sockpuppet; or if she is, she’s totally in keeping with the actual Remi’s beliefs. See her Twitter feed; it’s like the Tea Party all over again.
More people should get blogs if they have so much to say.
I think you’re googling (or knowledge of economics) is a little bit off. I’m a registered member of the socialist party, so I’m not sure where conservative fiscal beliefs play into any of my social stances.
(Replying to myself because of limits on nesting in the blog software).
“I’m a registered member of the socialist party, so I’m not sure where conservative fiscal beliefs play into any of my social stances.”
Well, the Tea Party isn’t about conservative fiscal beliefs, just as “GamerGate” (henceforth referred to as GameGhazi) isn’t about ethics in journalism.
Instead, the Tea Party is an astroturfed organization funded by self-interested extremists to terrorize the Republican Party (it succeeded by dint of primary’ing out moderate Republicans). It managed to agglomerate, Gelatinous Cube-style, a mass of other issues to armor its fundamentalist (and intensely racist) core.
Similarly, GameGhazi is a systematic effort to silence women in gaming and people who oppose the doxxing of, harassment of, and threats levied at same, with similar agglomeration of purportedly reasonable positions as a shield.
At this point, we’re observing a group of asshole MRA shitheads attempting to subvert gamergate for their own agenda. The prominence of CHS is definitely part of this.
I’ve always thought pulling someone up on their spelling is a bit of a douchebag move. Especially if you know what they mean. It’s a last resort when you have a weak argument.
Damion, the trouble is we’ve all gotten completely off topic. And that topic was “are videogames harmful?”
Anita Sarkeesian says they are very harmful; without even referencing the ones many of us find to be harmful (say, rape/date simulators). And her evidence of this harmful premise is Mario/Peach?!? Or the murder-simulator, Hitman.
Is there rampant sexism in my murder-simulator? Yes. Should I care? No! It’s a murder-simulator. Does it make me want to murder people IRL? No! Does it make me sexist IRL? Maybe!?! Good question.
Anita Sarkeesian isn’t asking this question, however. She asserts that I am sexist the minute I purchase what she deems “harmful videogames.” Without any evidence of them (the sexist murder-simulators) actually being harmful to anyone.
Christina Hoff Sommers doesn’t do much to refute “Are videogames sexist?” but she does provide statistics on “Are videogames harmful?”
I’m not qualified to confirm/deny Mario/Peach “sexist content in videogames.” But I’m certainly qualified to say Mario/Peach are not harming anyone.
“Anita Sarkeesian says they are very harmful”
>Citation Needed
“Anita Sarkeesian isn’t asking this question, however. She asserts that I am sexist the minute I purchase what she deems “harmful videogames.” Without any evidence of them (the sexist murder-simulators) actually being harmful to anyone.”
>Citation Needed
You are either unintentionally or deliberately misconstruing her points. At the beginning of every episode of TAWIVG she explicitly says enjoying these games is not wrong as long as you are aware of the ways in which they are problematic and educate yourself accordingly.
“enjoying these games is not wrong as long as you are aware of the ways in which they are problematic and educate yourself accordingly.”
you don’t see the trap here? no citeation needed.
“The best reason for avoiding their mention (sensitive triggers) is so we don’t have to wade through this bullshit every goddamn time.”
That’s a very insensitive viewpoint on sensitive triggers.
You are assuming that all who are concerned with sensitivity in general are concerned with each individual’s sensitivity. No one is perfect, and neither are the games they make. That doesn’t mean we can’t have a useful discussion on the topic.
… but you should cite your assertions if you’re going to participate.
John, are you suggesting that many are simply insensitive? I agree. My assertions are just as loose as any that started all this. First assertion: Anita Sarkeesian isn’t creating a discussion on “Are videogames distasteful?” That would be a very short discussion. Second assertion: Anita Sarkeesian isn’t creating a discussion on “Are videogames sexist?” Our entire society is sexist. So it trickles down to videogames/art/subculture. Third assertion: Anita Sarkeesian has no solution to the society’s “sexism issue,” but she sure knows how to get people fired up over nothing (sexism in art, lol).
Anita Sarkeesian made some videos using a mode of doctrinaire feminism to criticize mainstream media.
Our entire society is sexist. Yes. Some will perceive sexism faster than others. It is worth pointing it out. If you don’t want to pay attention, you don’t have to.
But there is harm in sexism. Not to the same degree that games are supposedly “murder simulators,” but if the only citation you mean to make about Anita’s work is that she asserts sexism, and sexism is harmful, then yeah, we already know that. It’s a given.
Well said. And I wish it were that simple; e.g. sexism bad; distasteful art tolerated in the name of art.
There’s also emotion and a failure to think critically that has gotten us where we are today (re: both sides of Gamergate and NotYourShield).
I’ll cite Anita, “Enjoying these games is not wrong as long as you are aware of the ways in which they are problematic and educate yourself accordingly.”
So are they problematic or aren’t they?
Even with sexism IRL, there’s a gradation of merit, and time-honored contingency that exists to help further the species. Some of this exists at the core of the “Save Princess Peach” trope and it has little to do with what gender the rescuer is.