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:
Good to know. I admit that I use i and b purely because they’re shorter, but perhaps I should switch.
Also, you win for also figuring out how to print HTML tags as plain text; I highly doubt this quote will display correctly.
How do you pronounce squak? I’m imagining something like quake but with an s in front. If it’s what I’m doing, I want to make sure to pronounce it correctly.
cloudiah — the physics squark is s-quark I think, but this usage is probably a typo of squawk (rhymes with hawk)
oh, ze said squak…I have no idea either then >.<
katz — > is & gt ; (without the spaces) and < is & lt ; (again, no spaces) — write enough html/css/php/js combos from hell and you learn these things.
I didn’t even notice the typo lol. I think it would rhyme with quack. Ducks quack and women squak.
(I know it was just a typo, but I am having fun with the idea that it’s a neologism.)
🙂
Rhyming with quack works for me! I squaked my mouth off this morning, training a new student. She squaked right back.
The following is mainly @Ithiliana, but it can be addressed to others as well.
Well, thanks to y’all, I have now been introduced to the concept of the “tone troll.” From what I can tell, it means a (so-called) “troll” concerned that the level of discussion is too civil – in other words, not enough insults, ad hominem attacks, etc. Honestly, I’m amazed that anybody could ever think that such things would be a positive force in a discussion, but apparently I was wrong. The term is also supposed to somehow denote a poster who wants everybody to think the same way they do. Well, there may be an element of truth there, and so much as there may have been that in my post, I apologize. But I hardly think the people who responded to – no, I suppose a less “tone trollish” way to phrase it would be “atom bombed” – my post seem to be hardly less set on having others believe exactly what they believe. You call me out for wanting you to think like me (debatable; again, if I came across that way in my post, I’m sorry), yet what you want is to have me think exactly as you do. You gave me criticism a good twenty times greater than I gave you, and in a spirit of anger and meanness that was quite different from what I intended for you. I was annoyed; you destroyed me. Seriously, I’d expected a bit of vitriol from somewhere or other, but I was amazed at the sheer spite leveled at me, which exceeded my expectations many times over. All I wanted was to make my voice heard in a discussion, and I got shouted down and called a troll. If you want to vent your anger on the internet (the best place to vent, I suppose; the world’s an infuriating place), then alright, but I think it’s unfair to unleash it on those who mean no harm and just want to contribute. I had always understood that “trolls” are inherently mean and just want to cause trouble, and that could not have been further from my intention, and I would hazard that my post, whatever else it may have been, did not qualify as pernicious. If you think my post was wrong, tell me so, but don’t try to tell me I’m malicious, a troll, just trying to cause trouble. All I did was voice an opinion you disagreed with. If that’s part of what being a “troll” is, then perhaps you should take a look at yourself.
That is the exact opposite of the actual meaning. You can look these things up, you know.
Also, please learn to use the enter key.
I am shocked, shocked to find that there is mockery going on here!
@snowy
Oh the horror! the dread!…if only he had read he subtitle of this site…..but they never do and complain when they don’t get what they wanted…..
Snowy, should I read that in a Claude Rains voice?
Yes! The voice is essential!
An example of tone trolling:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57454431/mich-lawmaker-barred-for-vagina-comment-in-abortion-debate/
@Dev
That’s nice, dear. If you had looked up the term that would have saved you some confusion, but I guess that was too much work?
There are plenty of blogs where misogyny is discussed in serious rather than mocking ways. If that’s more to your liking then perhaps you can go find one, or even start one yourself. Think – if you did that you could even ban anyone who you perceived as impolite!
Now when I disagree with you, I’m perceived as mocking?
As for “tone-troll,” I already saw both those links before I posted, thank you very much. Apparently attempting to be civil is a crime now.
Dev, read the header of the blog. Move your lips if you need to.
Okay, hellkell, you have a point – the blog is about “mocking” misogyny, after all. I still don’t think that precludes civil discussion here. And I’ve never understood “mocking misogyny” to mean “rain verbal hellfire on a person who basically shares your views, with minor differences, and wanted to express those differences civilly”
Whoops, here’s that period. “.”
Well, Dev, we get a lot of scolds who are trolling up in here. Perhaps that shouldn’t have been your first post.
I suppose my post was a bit scolding. I confess I’m generally a lurker, and not really used to the culture of message boards. If what I did was a faux pas, then I apologize. I have not changed my opinions, but I will try to keep the larger picture in mind before jumping headfirst into a conversation.
Oh my lord. Some of the comments on that Kotaku comment are even worse than the originals. The guy who complains about being on the receiving end of domestic violence, so he claims – not downplaying violence, but he seems awfully concerned with holding doors and bathrooms for someone fight for greater attention for male victims in DV cases.
Mark my words. It always, ALWAYS, comes down to opening doors and nice bathrooms (and sometimes Ladies Night at the local wateri hole). Guess what? open doors for everyone, all the time, and the world will be fine (unless you do it too early and they have to go out of their way to hurry up, that’s just a dick move). And in any place I’ve been where the women’s WC or locker room was nicer than the men’s, it was the women themselves who made it that way! They used their money and time to make curtains or bring in beauty products for everyone to share. The only exception I’ve seen is a couch in some washrooms, so women can nurse. Sorry about that! Here, have the vote back!
Dev, I saw three people who posted criticism of your post — hardly “verbal hellfire,” especially on this blog. (Check out the pasting Pecunium and Argenti are giving to Aktivarum on the “WTF is a MGTOW” post on the header for something much more akin to a scorched earth campaign against a true troll.) Rutee and Ithiliana both explained exactly why they were critical; if you can get past the tone and read for content, you might find their posts useful.
TK, where I work women bring in hand lotion which they share in the restroom. Last year, we had to shut down the men’s restroom for about 2 weeks to repair rotten flooring, so we came up with a complicated system of sharing the women’s restroom. After that period was over, a male co-worker of mine asked me, “Do all women’s restrooms offer free hand lotion?” (in a tone of pure awe). Of course I told him they do — it’s part of Title IX, and we force men to pay for it by crying in the streets.
Kotaku is always like that. They’re a perfect encapsulation of every negative stereotype about geeks.
@Cloudiah: I admit, my post was reposted (I am an impatient person and figured out why the moderation and so reposted), so I guess I’m doubly mean.
@Dev: Yes, yes, yes, we’re mean; we call you a troll because you don’t agree with us (or you do, but want to be civil–I am a bit confused by which you mean because you sort of say both), blah blah.
But it’s true: lurk and read for a while before posting is good advice on any forum.
I’ll have to go back and re-read (I don’t remember the specifics, too much other writing between then and now), but I suspect you did a bit more than just present your views civilly….back in half a mo.
@Dev: I was annoyed; you destroyed me..
I was annoyed too. But jumping jupiter, you sure typed a lot for a destroyed person. You must be a zombie.
I suspect a teensy bit of hyperbole–but if you’re trying to make me feel guilty, it ain’t working. I am old and grumpy and have heard the same sort of crap so many times that it’s gone beyond annoying to boring to holy shit, not again.