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:
They use the word f***** a lot, mras, never shy about their massive homophobia. Also, I like that they attack more slender, delicate, or feminine protags as unrealistic f*** while also complaining about hypermasculine muscled protags in the very next line.
F*** and their dancing with chicks.
Why all the alpha violence?!!!
Is women playing video games still seen as that unusual? Even girls I know who hardly ever play games still played Zelda, Yoshi’s Island, Goldeneye and stuff…
“I noticed the ovendodger thing in the author’s response to the harassment, but I thought it was a “get back in the kitchen” thing, which would be bad enough. Only now do I realize it’s an anti-Semitic slur, and one that is a reference to the Holocaust to boot. ”
Ugh, I didn’t notice it either and came to the same conclusion you did…that’s fucking disgusting >:(
Urragh.
One of the things I like here is that people call you on your shit. Many, many times. So yeah. Ugh.
darksidecat — is that Cloud dancing?! Wow…emo boy does that? If that is Cloud, yeah he’s just so effeminate, what with that hilariously oversized sword and all.
TBH, aside from the rampant sexism/racism/homophobia, we could do some good looking into tropes vs. men as well. Hypermasculine physiques and personae are just as hokey and unrealistic as those of women. Emotionless protagonists capitalize the expectation to ‘man up.’ Male heroes tend to be fueled by their female love interests to accomplish their goals; even though this seems noble, if we applaud female protagonists for not getting hung up on a man, maybe we could inject some MGTOWs (not OUR MGTOWs) into the gaming world. Even the “dumb dad” trope, which was a response to “father knows best” during the ’40s and ’50s, is reverse discrimination that could use a rest in media. If only these procedures could understand that common decency could go a long way, then some of these issues could hit home.
yeah no. mocking authority is an important thing that must never die.
@Hershele, not that far off with the Farsi — lots of Armenians went to Iran after the genocide. Most of the Armenians I know, in fact.
You people are so unfair. It’s perfectly reasonable to make genocidal threats when you’re dealing with something as important as the threat of girls playing Minecraft.
Oh my gosh, the list of “misandric” tropes in video games is hilarious!
The Musclebeast: Why are all men 7 foot roided up killing machines?
This would be a more legitimate complaint if a) all men in video games actually were seven-foot musclemen, and b) if their original pitch hadn’t included “Fucking bishonen unrealistic anime faggot” as a category.
The Fat Comedic Sidekick
Wait, in video games? I admit I don’t own any console more advanced than a Super Nintendo, but are there lots of video games with fat sidekicks?
Gender incompetence: Mums commonly portrayed as the smart, clever one whilst the father is a bumbling fool.
And are there tons of video games about ass-kicking moms? Because actually that would be awesome.
Men are always protecting women, sacrificing themselves for women’s sake.
Men are ALWAYS the heroic ones, pressuring modern day men into thinking they have to be, as well, alpha heroic males. This sets a standard men can’t obtain.
Ah, the classic MRA “being constantly told I’m wonderful is haaaaard!” complaint.
The “Average Joe” as the bad guy, and the “Macho Man” as the hero.
I…don’t know any video games where this is the case. Are there games where it’s like Snake Plissken fighting Redditors? Because, again, I would play those games.
Men as sex symbols
TELL ME THESE GAMES I WILL PLAY THEM TO DEATH
Sexuality stereotypes or “All gay men are flamboyant” – Or a gay man’s sexuality is his entire character!
Another possibly legitimate complaint ever-so-slightly undermined by the fact that roughly 25% of their initial pitch consisted of variations on “faggot” and “homo.” They’re very upset by how unfair it is that people screencapped this and reposted it around the Internet, by the way.
“Well, I don’t feel badass when I play *insert male video game character here*” IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU! IT’S ABOUT THE POWER DYNAMICS IN SOCIETY! PATRIARCHY IS TO BLAME FOR ALL THOSE STEREOTYPES! Why is everyone expecting feminists to analyze male problems as though male socialization is a feminist responsibility too? Sorry, feminists are not here to clean your toilet for you!
Bedelia Bloodyknuckle — “Why is everyone expecting feminists to analyze male problems as though male socialization is a feminist responsibility too?” — because not talking 50/50 about men/women is MISANDRY!! (to these fools)
As to why — idfk, immaturity? narcissism? some combo of the above? In any case the world revolves around them in their minds, and if it doesn’t, for even one moment, that’s proof all women hate all men. (Don’t try and make it make sense, or if you do, I have advil for when you’re done, you’ll give yourself a headache.)
“Procedures.” Err, I meant protesters.
Goddamn autospellcheck.
We, feminists already analyzed masculinity, you just threw a tantrum when it wasn’t a shower of praise!
by “you” I meant the men.
Exactly,Argenti! Men can be such attention-seekers and expect women to coddle them and assure them that “yes dear, you are a STRONG MAN!”
A wild NWO appears!
Twice!
As for your damned question NWO, the 1 in 5 stat is the CDC data? You want me to prove the CDC knows how to do research? Just how fucking thick are you?
Re: Berkley, as I suspected you’re using the official “reported to campus security” data while ignoring that campus security can decline to take the report (just as one major issue). Huh, funny that, the rape I didn’t report is counted among my alma mater’s stats, wonder how that happened!
You are at least capable of understanding that colleges have a vested interest in keeping these numbers as low as possible right?
So let me repeat myself, again — the 1 in 5 number is lifetime data, from the CDC, and self-reported. Since you’re never going to actually give a flying fuck about why rape is seriously under-reported, I’m not going to compare apples and oranges with you.
I see you also have no idea how kickstarter works, big surprise on that.
The first line isn’t a question, I was apparently too pissed at “you want me to proof the CDC can do research?!” to write a statement.
@Sharculese Well no, that’s not what I meant. Trust me, I’m all for mocking authority, but TV offers several popular shows where the dad/husband is ridiculously lazy and incompetent – King of Queens, Everyone Loves Raymond, House of Payne, Simpsons, anything from Seth McFarlane … Dads aren’t perfect, but they aren’t perpetually stupid, either.
@Bedelia and Argenti I’unno, because the core idea in feminism is … equality? That, while infrequent, men can be disempowered, too? I know MRAs are unable to translate “ME ME ME” into “Well, if we take a look from another perspective … ” but we should be able to.
@Bedelia Bloodyknuckle
Would the patriarchy be where all things that are bad come from men and all things good come from women? If we’d only listen to whatever women tell men to do and how to act and what to say the world would be filled with rainbows and butterflies and unicorns?
I hate to be the one to burst your bubble but women have been running the show for quite some time and we live in a shithole of debt. Women’s privileges are expensive.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
If men as a whole were running the show than men as a whole would be residing at the top. The fact is, as far as homeless, health, education, employment, life expectancy, reproduction, criminal sentencing, injuries, quota’s, ect, ect, ect, into every realm of society, men are at the bottom by far.
Prattling off see how patriarchy hurts men doesn’t mean shit. So if the patriarchy you speak of means women are privileged above men in all facets of life, than yeah. I got me an over priced hammer due to womens law, let’s smash that durned patriarchy and knock women off that fucking pedestal.
Idyelle: “reverse discrimination?” Please stop before you get to wondering why there’s no white history month.
For the record, I was speaking specifically of MRAs there. However, people with privilege do generally throw a small fit when it is, for once, Not About Them.
Bedelia — NWO is going to have a fit at you, just so you’re forewarned.
Idylle — common decency bit = agreed, completely. Re: games and men — the troupes surrounding female characters, and especially surrounding female players, are really much worse. Eg rape jokes — something like 1 in 20 men have, or will be, raped, contra the 1 in 5 number that NWO’s having a hissy over — this means the WoW “hope you get raped for that” type comments can be seen as a joke by most men, while most women will find it not funny and potentially threatening. Even things like the “men as tanks” troupe — the female counter is the “half naked warrior” — superbuilt dude is taking the role too far, supernaked lady is directly counter productive (being extra strong would help for warrior types, while being extra naked would hurt).
hellkell — yeah really on the reverse discrimination, Idylle does have half a point about video game men not being realistic either, but its a less hateful fantasy all the same.
@Argenti Aertheri
No, I said 1 in 4, you corrected me by saying it was 1 in 5. You parroted what you were told to say. I’m asking, “you” to tell me the number you come up with. Since the lie has been told here over and over again. This way when one of you comrades spouts that same old nonsense, you can say that’s a bullshit lie. Unless you enjoying demonizing men and propogating the feminist party line.
I’m personally amused that the MRAs organizing the anti-Tropes Vs. Women campaign had to solicit a bunch of volunteers to make a video for them, handle promotions, and come up with ideas for “misandry” they could complain about… whereas Sarkeesian, as far as I can tell, did the whole thing herself.
I also like that the MRA thing is on IndieGoGo rather than Kickstarter, presumably because on IndieGoGo you get to keep the money you raise whether or not you meet your goal.
Oh, and the backer rewards! People who backed Tropes Vs. Women got digital downloads of the series, stickers, postcards, and DVDs. If you back the MRA project, you get nothing but their thanks unless you pledge at least $500, which gets you a “Mystery Box.” For $1,000, the creators will have a Skype conversation with you.
But you know, this is just proof of how oppressed men are. They don’t even have the resources to scrape together a decent fundraiser.
What happened to Anita Sarkeesian is appalling. It also provides a reference for when people deny or try to explain away what women experience online.
Also, the constant derailment of feminist issues by co-opting them into “but it happens to men too” is getting really pathetic. It kind of reminds me of a child throwing a temper tantrum because he thinks his sister got .03 ounces more ice cream than he did.
You notice that all this horrible male oppression in video games didn’t pop up until now.
I’ve been playing video games since the early 80’s. Maybe it was because it was hard to identify with crudely rendered 8-bit characters, but there wasn’t a whole lot of problematic gender issues in video games back then. I mean it was hard to tell if the Atari Pitfall guy had bulging muscles and a bulging crotch. As the technology evolved, it just reflected the overall sexism of the culture.
I’m encouraged by how a lot of industry professionals are taking this seriously. Unfortunately there seems to be an equal amount of shitty industry people who seem hell bent to keep the sexism alive as well as an army of entitled neckbeards who consider harassing female gamers as tantamount to survival.
It also makes me laugh when they cry about how games are the last “safe” place for men. Safe to do what, exactly? Act like raging douchebags? Sounds kind of misandric to me. 😉