Many of you are no doubt aware of this already, but I just wanted to highlight a recent appalling example of the rampant misogyny in the gaming community online: the harassment that feminist pop culture analyst and video blogger Anita Sarkeesian has gotten for her Tropes Vs Women Kickstarter project, a video project designed to “explore, analyze and deconstruct some of the most common tropes and stereotypes of female characters in games.”
Her YouTube page has been inundated with comments calling her, among other things, a “Dumb ass nazi [obscene gender-related slur],” “faggo.. I mean lesbian,” and “the reason why womens are the inferior gender for the whole history of mankind.” IRONY ALERT: while some are calling her a Nazi, or comparing her to the KKK, others are denouncing her as a “bolshevik feminist jewess” and a “fucking ovendodger.”
And still others are defacing her Wikipedia entry with all sorts of vile shit. (Here’s a screenshot.)
Here’s her discussion of the harassment, which includes screenshots of some of the comments.
An Escapist piece on the harassment, which is where I got the quotes above.
A Jezebel piece, “When There’s So Much Bullshit Online, You Forget How to Feel.”
A piece on The Mary Sue, “The All-Too-Familiar Harassment Against Feminist Frequency, and What The Gaming Community Can Do About It”
Kotaku also weighed in, leading one commenter there to note that similarly misogynistic comments appear there all the time.
Meanwhile, over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, temple117 garners 138 net upvotes for a post urging poor oppressed men to “Fight back! Sexism exists for males too, support these men in their expose of gender tropes in video games!”
And, joy of joys, Men’s Rights buffoon Bernard Chapin has weighed in on the controversy as well. After dismissing the harassment — using a “funny” voice, apparently the most powerful weapon in his rhetorical arsenal — he suggests that women complain about video games because games are a male thing, and women are jealous that men are paying attention to something other than them. “Whatever the male is enjoying himself at,” he says, “it diverts him from taking orders; that’s got to be the focus of their ire.” Then he accuses Sarkeesian of being without “honor” because she’s asking for money to fund her project. (Might want to take that critique up with your pal Paul “Donate Today” Elam, dude.) His video is below, if you want to waste your time with it.
But before you get to that, here’s something a bit more encouraging on the gamer misogyny front: Comedian/actress/gamer Aisha Tyler’s take-no-prisoners takedown of the misogynist assholes who attacked her for allegedly ruining an Ubisoft press conference at the recent E3 gaming extravaganza, apparently by being too female or something. Here’s a screenshot of her comments, and a surprisingly un-disgusting Reddit discussion of the controversy.
Here’s Bern:
@Argenti: He pushes many limits.
Last summer, one of my doctoral students (who had graduated the past December, and who had gotten a fulltime college teaching job after working ft as a high school teachers to raise her children, while doing her doctorate, was killed by her ex-husband). (He shot her in public, in front of a police officer, and is incarcerated and facing trial this summer–the DA has chosen to go for the death penalty–ex-husband shot her in front of their two young children).
DKM thinks she deserved it–and has posted that on several occasions–this last time led to him being banned–and I’m not letting him forget it, whenever he claims to be reasonable and nice, that he thinks that men who are “forced” by women to kill the women are more to be pitied than….the evil harpies who push them to it.
The Kickstarter for the BronyCon documentary (made by and about MEN) raised over twice what Tropes Vs. Women did. MISOGYNYYYYYYYY!!!
…Or maybe people just really, really like My Little Pony.
Also, that Guardian piece is awesome:
Last month the creators of the game Hitman drew widespread criticism for a grisly promotional trailer that showed the main (male) character slaughtering a group of S&M killer nuns. Since this was merely the logical conclusion of a deeply boring trend for rubberised female assassins that’s been going on since the 1990s, some gamers were surprised by the outcry, and became indignant and defensive, as though someone had just walked in and caught them masturbating to the same goat porn they’d been innocently enjoying for decades, and judging them and making them feel bad.
Compare — “Mellertoad” vs “Dumb ass nazi cunt” or “fucking ovendodger.”
“Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.”
–Mel Brooks
Ithiliana — um…wow…yeah I have no competent words for that. The only possible debate there would be over the death penalty, idfk how the…how is whether she deserved it even…
Yeah, I am unable to grasp that level of hate. Will make a mental note that DKM is as full of it as NWO when he claims to be “reasonable”.
Shaenon — that Brooks line is itself comedy though isn’t it? Whereas DKM and NWO both actually think that?
I am shocked that in an entry dedicated to women and gaming, nobody (or at least nobody recently, I only skimmed 3 pages back) had mentioned “fat, ugly, or slutty,”:
http://fatuglyorslutty.com/
It is a picture blog consisting of screenshots of some of the most horrible crap that women get (via messages, PM’s, that sort of thing) in online games (often times FPS’ of various flavors, but there are a few taken from MMORPG’s.).
I wish I had the link, but my favorite was posted near the beginning of the blog as a whole that is a message that simply reads, “Do you like to fart?”
I like to imagine that is not an oddly specific come on, but rather there is some researcher thinking, “Blast, my electronic-correspondence convenience sample study design in order to assess the average attribution of women on online games towards self-flatulation is getting me nowhere, maybe I should redesign my experimental paradigm.”
I was a fan of Star Trek: Voyager, loved Captain Janeway. And I liked Seven of Nine also, but hated that she obviously had fake boobs, had to wear heels, and her costume was skin tight. What a shame to have a show with a female starship captain only to bring in another female character with a strong T&A emphasis.
Meller is scum incarnate. Luckily he’s a pathetic little nobody who spends most of his time playing with his doll collection.
FREE EVAN, Mellerscum!
Meller: Don’t pretend that not using “four-letter words” is the onlyt way to be cruel, nasty, foul, and evil.
You, for example, are a mean spirited, small-souled, sadistic twit, unable to imagine a woman who is both equal to you in intellect (without being a freak of nature) or entitled to the treatment of a human being.
Rather you see them as property, while imagining yourself as their Gorean master, able to rape them at will; while they beg, plead and grovel for more. At the same time you contemplate how much they long for your to abuse them with whips and chains.
The worst of it is that my detailing this (or that you think any woman who engages in sex for pleasure; without being the legal property of some man ought to be turned out as a prostitute; because she’s good for nothing else) is arousing you.
You’re pathetic, unable to interact with living, breathing; human, women you have to caress your dolls, converse with them, dress them (or undress them) and massage them with perfume to get some semblance of interaction with the objects of your atual desires.
It’s sad but that is better than the actual fruits of your, callous, affections, were real women not so repulsive to you.
You can’t say I was unkind, nor impolite; I used not a single word that couldn’t be said on the ten o’clock news, in 1955.
@NWO
“Why? Has the worshipful tongue lashing you’ve given your pussy been spoiled?”
How long do you think women’s tongues are? Mine doesn’t reach all the way down between my legs.
I don’t even understand the what this sentence is attempting to say. Why can’t you write a straight forward sentence that doesn’t sound like it was put together by a vomiting thesaurus?
Argenti, you may not realize this, but DKM is also a white supremacist, so he’s probably OK with the sentiment, if not the actual wording, of these statements. .
VoIP — arg, I should just start assuming all our trolls are, but then I get IR claiming I’m trying to gaslight him by assuming he’s a homophobe like the rest of the MRM >.<
@ Falconer
First time seeing that cover and wow. Agreed with the author – the problem with that cover isn’t that it’s too sexy, it’s that it’s not sexy at all. She’s smushed up like an accordian. Is she Wile E. Coyote?
The Rob Lietfeld cover further down the page still wins the WTF prize, though. Has he ever seen actual humans in the wild? The evidence points to no, given that he thinks that women are shaped like insects and men are shaped like armoires.
Pretty sure you can’t gaslight a troll.
“Let’s forget that hundreds of non-serious kickstarters have raised much more money than Feminist Frequency. MRAs are just upset about Anita’s kickstarter because they are an anti-feminist and anti-woman hate group.”
Really MRAs are upset? They don’t seem upset. What proof you have that they are upset? Sounds like another fat anti white males with with gynecomastia problems (man boobs) or squaking Feminist way to make the world on their sides.
Sounds like you and your Manboobs trolls are upset. Why else would David Futile post this?
Besides, I doubt all those people posting are MRAs. But rather, they are people just tired of Feminist bullshit. Feminist Frequency is a show for those with an IQ hovering around 70. Her assault on Lego’s was class-A humor. Only a retard would take her or any Feminist seriously.
4,682 likes, 5,259 dislikes. The dislikes is probably higher due to the sheer amount of negative comments (the total viewership being 127,457).
@ pecunium
You continue, to write, sentences, without, understanding, when to use a comma, and when not too. Run on sentences, for the win. I will use them too, because, it sounds hip.
You, the idiot, if I remember, who thought emotional, the brain, wasn’t, in, someone’s, head. And also couldn’t understand the how the word “strength” can be used in different context.
An idiot, who still, after all this time, doesn’t understand, that a human being, isn’t, based, on, treatment, A slave, is human, as well.
The person who mocks others for grammar still writes horribly.
At lest he has dolls, where you would be lucky to bang, being a skinny pale “ex army soldier (which is doubted).” A man with no worth, feels that if he “defends women (many women I know/met don’t subscribe to Feminism at all).”
This champion of left wing women, pats himself on the back, and cries himself to sleep, alone. Every night.
Self hating men, for the win!
katz — even assuming you can gaslight a troll, this is what I’d said. His comment is two below that one. Our trolls are making less sense than usual lately.
The rest of your posts are nothing but insults, but to answer your one attempt at a point — “Really MRAs are upset? They don’t seem upset. What proof you have that they are upset?”
http://youtu.be/dXzITH_fJbg
(Hilariously, youtube’s pre-video ad was something about cute babies…so very anti-Chapin)
That’s just the obvious MRA that required no work besides reading the fucking post.
I always laugh when someone criticising someone else on their grammar and/or spelling has such terrible grammar and/or spelling themself..
..But criticising someone for criticising someone about their grammar and/or spelling while also calling their intelligence into question over grammar/spelling errors *and* making mistakes of their own? Genius!
SP: they threaten her, wish and pain and death, call her cunt and racist names, vandalize her wikipedia entry.
I saw no anger in David post*, but feel free to point at it, and show us where he’s being anti white male. I’ll wait.
*though anger against undeserved violence and hatred can be justified
Really MRAs are upset? They don’t seem upset. What proof you have that they are upset?
You’ve got a point there. The guy who told Sarkeesian “I hope you get cancer” added a smiley face, so he can’t really have been upset. I mean, he was smiling!
But the guy who wrote “what a stuck up bitch. I hope all them people who gave her money get raped and die of cancer” didn’t add a smiley face, so I think he’s actually upset.
Also: “So you’re a bolshevik feminist jewess that hates White people…Fucking ovendodger.” I dunno, it’s probably just me, but that guy seems slightly upset too.
Let’s see… “NO1 WANT TO PLAY A GAME STARRING A FAT LESBIAN WOMAN ITS JUST THE TRUTH” I am sensing upsettedness like Counselor Troi.
(Just to break for a little comedy, my favorite comment in the Kickstarter thread was the guy arguing that video games should be exclusively about and for men because only men do hard work and “video games are all about doing hard work.”)
(Also the general assumption that calling a woman three million misogynistic slurs will prove that there’s no sexism in the gaming community.)
Oh, I forgot homophobic insults. And fatphobic ones. Is the list endless?
Just a thought on “I hope you get cancer 🙂 ” — could that have been a terrible attempt at referencing Thank You Hater? Maybe my sanity just needs me to think that at least some of the comments are not from assholes…
Kyrie — when dealing with the worst the internet has to offer, yes the list is endless (bad internet, no cookies for you!)
I wonder what former troll with an axe to grind Stupid Feminist is.
SF, Pecunium may serially abuse a comma, but at least he has a point, unlike some.
…
…
yeah, kid, i dunno why anyone could think you’ve got your undies in a bunch
hellkell — just a pedantic note, but it isn’t serial comma abuse, it’s serial clauses that English doesn’t tend to use, and typos. You’re right about our newest troll having no point though, and my guesses are either NWO, because Pecunium struck a nerve of his, or him, because he was just back. Could also be our glossary troll, considering he’s got a similarly shitty signal to noise ratio, but seeing how NWO doesn’t seem to sock puppet, and glossary troll has stayed on the glossary, I’d guess it’s He Who Shall Not Be Named.
Pecunium — your inability to decide whether to use Oxford commas or not does make me twitch just a little. I mean, either way is equally right, but damn, be consistent about it! (Pet peeves, nearly perfect English is among mine, blame all that Latin.)