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:
Yeah. Newsflash: I have learned a great deal about masculinity and the problems and solutions from feminist discourse. Saying feminists don’t talk enough about the menz means you haven’t been listening to them AT ALL.
What it means is that any time taken discussing how sexism affects women is TOO MUCH TIME. Because if we examine how sexism hurts women MY GOD THE POOR MENZ. Because if we consider women WE’RE STEALING TIME FROM MEN.
THAT IS THE PROBLEM. THAT IS SEXISM.
You are sexist to the hilt, Dev. You can deny it if you like, but it’s plainly recorded in black and white. People called you on it, and you whined that they were mean or stringent.
CALLING PEOPLE WHO CARVE SPACE OUT TO DISCUSS WOMEN STRINGENT OR MEAN IS ALSO SEXIST.
It’s denying them a place to discuss the victims of sexism.
See how that works?
The problem isn’t that we don’t like you, or are too mean. THE PROBLEM IS YOUR SEXISM.
“It means the poster is derailing a conversation to whine about tone; You are a textbook example of the fucking concept.”
Dev — Derailing for Dummies please read it. And remember that most of us here have had it up to our frikken’ nosehairs with it.
Rutee — idk on that sockpuppet thing, quite possibly? I was already thinking about noting that to Dev, that we’re way past used to sockpuppeting, but I see you beat me to it.
Ah.. stupid feminist is back. Protip… if you are trying to insult someone, find insults that hit home.
Saying you don’t think I was in the Army… ooh, I shall have to retire to my fainting couch. I know if I was, or wasn’t. If I wasn’t, I’ve spent years faking it. I’ve faked it so well I’ve found photos of the same guy, on three different continents, and I’ve found photos of him on vacation in Galapagos (a fourth continent); hanging out with other soldiers (who came to visit him). I’ve linked to his photography website; so he can sell more photos, and had convinced people who knew him personally that I am him.
That, or you’re doubt is as stupid as the idea that I am horrified that you dislike my variably archaic use of commas. It’s the result of too much time spent reading original text, in English, which dates from the 1500s, to the present; and that the use of the comma has changed incredibly. Add the built in parenthetical phrasing of the каторыи clause in Russian and I admit that my informal writing can be a bit dense, and hard for those of a more limited intelligence to follow.
As to my sex life, or lack thereof, again it only hurts if it’s true. and I’m crying myself to sleep because I can’t get the nookie I want.
You can amuse yourself with the idea that I am, or that I am trying to convince women of how cool I am so they will sleep with me. I can’t stop you. The truth of it is something I (and my partners, if any) know, and you don’t.
One wonders what it is about my that has you so jealous that you come swanning in every few months to make the same attempts to hurt my feelings, and why you think these attempts at insult have the power to hurt me?
What have I done to you? Who can know? You aren’t brave enough to lift the veil.
(Aside: I don’t always use an Oxford comma, but there are times it’s really damn useful.
“They met the strippers, JFK, and Neil Armstrong,” vs “They met the strippers, JFK and Neil Armstrong.”
Morkais — I prefer:
“They met the strippers, Hitler, and Stalin,” vs “They met the strippers, Hitler and Stalin.”
Because Hitler and Stalin as strippers is even funnier to my mind. But yeah, that comma is important. (Also, bringing that up? You rock)
Shade: ..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!
But he(?) pre-emptively said the errors were intentional… they were attempts to mock me, so they were ART!
Stupid Feminist also seems to think, prima facie that the assholes who are the cause of this post are 1: white, and 2: male. I can see a reason for the latter, but the former seems a bit unsupported.
He seems to have a baseline expectation of white male behavior which is decidedly unflattering.
Argenti: 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.)
There are times the Oxford Comma feels correct, and times it doesn’t. And Latin is no basis for “correct English”, split infinitives are perfectly fine, and sentences can end with prepositions. 🙂
As I said to Stupid, I have so many different periods of English which are all transparent to to me (right down to the odd quirks of the Elizabethan use of Roman numerals in referential accounting), as well as two other languages of fluency; and a tendency to write oratorically, that my commas are a mess.
But this isn’t work for which the time required to massage them into more modern shape is going to make the clarity any better. My English Profs say my writing is clear (and my argumentation prof said I managed to bury the thesis in my end of term paper [comparing Confucious to Socrates] and pull it off, so I’m not really bothered that Stupid has his(?) knickers in a knot).
HellKell: Naw, it’s not Brandon. He accepts that I was in the Army… sort of hard for him to not, as I speak the lingo, fluently enough to swamp him, and he was in.
Katz: The trick to typing the angle-brackets is to use the html/ascii codes, elstwise they disappear. Like you I am too lazy to use the longer forms, but I am overjoyed to learn
strikeout.“And Latin is no basis for “correct English”, split infinitives are perfectly fine, and sentences can end with prepositions.”
If it makes you feel better, I insist English should allow both. I wasn’t calling your commas correct, so much as understandable.
“elstwise” — *claps* nicely done, I can never manage to break spell check with archaic English, all my favorite words are still in the dictionary. (Confused an idiot coworker once with “can you come hither?”)
“comparing Confucious to Socrates” — I’d have never thought of it, but that makes a surprising amount of sense, but this is so off-topic XD
People who get really annoyed about really inane parts of how people use language always amuse me (not refering to you Argenti, but the language “purists”), Oxford commas and “singular” they being at the top of the list.
I’ve been using both for as long as I can remember, they just make sense to me (especially “singular” they, we’re lucky that English is a language with in-built neutral terms and isn’t specifically gendered like some other languages are). And i’m quite happy to start sentences with “and” or “but” just to annoy purists. 😛
)
Yes, I did have to do that. Otherwise THE DISHONOUR WOULD STAIN ME.
I’ve been using singular they for as long as I can remember, for Person of Unknown Gender. Extending that to Person of Nonbinary Gender seems entirely sensible…
I don’t pay attention to those rules if they make it difficult for me to clearly say what I want to say. I had an English teacher tell me, “Go ahead and break any rule if the correct English sounds awkward”.
For example, I think it sounds fine to end a sentence with a preposition, especially if it’s a question. “Where are my car keys at?” sounds good. “Bring the dog inside” sounds good. It can also sound good to split an infinitive. “We need to quickly pick up these toys before Grandma gets here” or “I have to really think about that before I make a decision” both sound good. I don’t use double negatives, though, because they usually don’t sound right to me.
I always thought the using the serial comma is standard in American English. I don’t know how they are done in British English.
I often hit double negatives, I think.
“There’s no way that isn’t serious.”
Argenti: If it makes you feel better, I insist English should allow both. I wasn’t calling your commas correct, so much as understandable.
I’m not bothered. I’m having fun. 🙂
“comparing Confucious to Socrates” — I’d have never thought of it, but that makes a surprising amount of sense, but this is so off-topic XD
It was pretty much the entire course. The Georgics, and the Analects. We did three papers; one on Socrates, one on Confucious, and one making either a comparison, or a contrast. It was a class in argumentation.
I Was holding that the reification of “truth” was the fundamental flaw of socratic thinking, and the more practical aspects of confucianism made it both more workable, and actually rational.
Kendra: I think ending a spoken sentence with a preposition is fine, but it lacks visual euphony to write one.
Euphony is my rule for English. If it sounds good in my head; if speaking it as a sentence would not jar the ear, then I run with it.
That sentence has two clauses, so it’s not a double negative. “There’s no way” and “that isn’t serious” are separate clauses that both have one negative. A double negative would be “I don’t want none of those shoes” or “We didn’t have no phone”. I don’t mind when other people use double negatives, but I personally prefer not to.
By the way, I have no idea why wordpress keeps switching my name back and forth. I think it’s from when I tried to make a gravatar image, but I’m still a randomly created purple avatar. Ah well, whatever.
bionic mommy — try clearing your cookies, idk your browser, but wiki how should have directions. (Despite my “mac user who will not fix your PC” thing, that only applies if it’s truly because of windows)
Idk what gravatar’s issue is, but that might solve the random name one.
Dev: Okay, hellkell, you have a point – the blog is about “mocking” misogyny, after all. I still don’t think that precludes civil discussion here
It doesn’t. However we (that is the people who are regulars) get to define what is civil, unless Dave, the host/owner/bouncer decides to tell us we are wrong.
So, while you disagree, we think the level of civility expressed here, is just fine.
Complaining (ad nauseum) about how being told you are telling us how to behave, and we don’t care, isn’t really going to help. You are telling the members of community (to which you admit you are not an active member) that they need to shape up, and make you happy.
And that’s all you’re saying.
Ain’t gonna happen. Cope.
ithiliana/hellkell: I can agree to disagree, when the disagreement isn’t fundamental to issues of fact.
Also, I don’t like it as a passive aggressive way to say, “I’m right, and you know it, but refuse to admit it lest you lose face.”
Which is what it feels, to me, as if Dev is doing.
On-topic fun fact: the discussion on TV Tropes about this — and it’s not just the same word, she linked the the first set of Tropes vs Women to the relevant page on that site — is not overtly sexist, but there are people claiming that while they don’t object to the series they object to her raising money for it, people claiming to believe the only objectionable aspect is that she got more money that she asked for on Kickstarter, and at least one person seems to suggest she intended to benefit from the attacks on her in an “it’s all good publicity” sense.
@Hershele Ostropoler:
*HEADDESK*
So cunning women cunningly take advantage of the sexism that men don’t have in order to get sympathy and raise more money for their evil feminist projects attacking men…..who aren’t sexist.
*OW*
I should clarify that “not overtly sexist” was a poorly phrased way of saying that no one came out and said “stupid woman, who gave her permission to have opinions.” There may actually be overt sexism, but it’s not crudely sexist
I’m popping back to the indiegogo “An analysis of male roles and misandry present in modern video game media” site daily to see how the pledges are coming along. In the last 24 hours, they got pledged $5, and the day before that it was $10. They won’t hit their pledge target at either rate.
I’m looking forward to the videos by Anita. 🙂
Hershele: Sexism in the TVTropes forum? Say it ain’t so!
Kiwi girl: And someone, for some reason, totally chipped in $500. If you don’t count that, their rate is even more abysmal.
So, if they’re actually donating all their proceeds to charity except for the Indiegogo fee, why wouldn’t you just donate your money to charity? Saves you the fee.
Katz: agreed, and it would mean all the money would go to charity rather than indiegogo (for example) taking a cut as their % fee.
I would be interested in an analysis by sensible people of anti-male elements in video games.