So Anita Sarkeesian, who apparently didn’t run off with all her Kickstarter money to found a Misandist Gynarchy in the wilds of Canada, has released the first video in her Tropes vs Women in Video Games project. (I’ve embedded it below.)
Naturally, this is causing great consternation in certain corners of the Internet (*cough* Reddit *cough cough* everywhere else that misogynistic nerds congregate *cough*). In the Man Boobz forum, Katz has started a contest to see who can find “the whiniest, brattiest, most entitled response” to Sarkeesian’s video on the Internet. So far Katz and Myoo have found a couple classic comments from irate Sarkeeianaphobes:
[H]ow does one go about stating that genders and gender roles are social constructs? I mean is evolution nothing to her? Does the patriarchy make male peacocks dress provocatively?
Yes. Yes it does.
And:
I’m gradually losing respect for the opposite sex. I’ve unfollowed people on tumblr who talk about how great she is, because it actually causes bile to rise in to my throat.
Yeah, that’s a totally reasonable response to a woman making a video about video games.
So anyway, I’m thinking we should bring the contest over here.
See what you can find! Consider it a sort of scavenger hunt.
Here’s my contribution, from the Men’s Rights subreddit, complaining that Damsels in Distress are the truly privileged ones:
Amazingly, this acutally got called out on r/mr as being pretty damn stupid.
Also, I have another question, to add to the stack of other questions I’ve been asking lately: Just why do you think so many guys get so angry when girls and women invade what they consider a male sphere, like gaming? (Also, why do they consider gaming to belong to boys and men?)
Oh, and here’s the video that’s causing all this hubbub:
“I’m gradually losing respect for the opposite sex. I’ve unfollowed people on tumblr who talk about how great she is, because it actually causes bile to rise in to my throat.”
Choking on self-imposed forever-alone virginity… Huh. More power to ya.
Source.
From the same source:
Oops, posted too soon. Same guy as just above, a little further down:
What about the menz + a dash of evo psych + hypergamy + “You’re just a raisin, no one will ever love you.”
OT but the blue cat-lady fox (that’s his name, right?) is holding is kind of cute.
…peacocks…peacocks don’t dress.
Lol @ ‘brings bile to my mouth’ dude. Mocking Imitation*: Those evil womenz talking about things that affect them, how it makes me sick to my stomach. siiiccck!!!!!
*I’m weird today don’t ask.
yeah, because everyone knows what it does and is scared shitless, not because you don’t have any power.
@cloudiah
that is… a very whiny dude you found.
and the more I read of cloudiah’s guy the more whiny he seems. It’s like he’s going to become a black whole of whininess when it all collapses underneath him.
/really really bad analogy.
Oh, I dunno, I thought the black hole of whininess was a pretty good image! 😀
I am disappointed that dalsgaard didn’t bother noting that it is really hard for us non-archetypal women to find bon bons because the Damsels in Distress have hoarded them all in their Womanhood Palaces.
@ kittehs
haha, thanks 🙂 It was just so true for him though XD
@some gal
now I want a bon bon 🙁 (technically I’ve never had one, but they have chocolate in them, right? As a lady*, I really, really love chocolate)
*tongue in cheek, I know not all women do.
IIRC, there was a “ewww, girl cooties” response from tabletop RPG players in the late ’70s. The difference was most of them were limited to bitching about it in game stores or their buddy’s basement rather than taking to the Internet.
As a GM and test player in those long ago times I met my share of these guys. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if I GMed for their fathers. I became infamous at local game stores as one of those women’s libbers after I politely tossed someone out of a game for *refusing to speak to me directly* while playing in a game I was running.
Okay, once I had warned him he was on thin ice and was ignored I did hit his character with a very localized electrical storm. “*ZOT* Annnnd we’re done here. Bye bye.” I waved over one of the players on the wait list and we went on.
Parts of today’s gaming culture are pretty damn toxic and a whole lot worse than in the ’70s and ’80s.
Source.
I was just disappointed that Sarkeesian forgot about Mario RPG, the other Mario game where Princess Toadstool gets an active role (after being a damsel in distress, of course, I mean, everyone else just jumped off of Booster’s Tower but she didn’t do that? And then Booster didn’t even seem to understand the concept of a wedding, let alone marriage, she could have told him that the cake was the end of it and then walked free after eating some delicious cake (“So good it makes me want to cry.”)). She joins your party and makes for 1/3 of the best combat team.
I really want to win!
Next:
I feel a bit mean, because that last dude looks about 13.
Source.
Now it’s time to go out to dinner! Catch you all later.
“Why rewrite video games for women when more MEN play them?”
Yeah, that only really applies to the big-name games. Your, “Medal of Glory Gears of Gods of Grand Theft of Wasted Final Fantasy?” But the thing is, other games exist, and women are the market.
Anyone actually using the word “feminazi”…. I just wanna pad ’em on the head and say: “that’ll, do sexist pig, that’ll do”.
ok, cloudiah, borrowing your whiny person for the moment, but…
dear whiny person, are youtube comments the best place to hold a discussion? I mean, youtube comments always make me want to bang my head in a wall.
…strange….
okay, was second whiny dude in that recent one saying feminists are like nazis because they hate men or something? It was unclear.
sorry for spamming all the comments on the people you find, cloudiah, I’m just in a really …weird mood today.
/sorry for spamming
At least the people who contributed to this Kickstarter didn’t get bilked like the MRA fools who did. I love it when they’re shown to be the suckers they are–if you sit in a stew of misogyny and whiny entitlement, you’ll clearly believe any fool thing.
Unexamined privilege. Everything’s set up for them by default, they get ascared when that’s proven to be not so true after all.
Have fun at dinner cloudiah!
@cloudiah
This strikes me as saying:
-I wish I could win a million dollars like that guy who won the lottery. He’s pathetic.
-I wish I’d ordered what you ordered for dinner, honey. You’re pathetic.
-I wish I could nap anywhere like my cat. She’s pathetic.
-I wish I could be anyone who isn’t whining about someone pointing out legitimate flaws in a medium I like more than I like other people like most of the rest of the world is. They’re pathetic.
Thanks for making a thread for this, since a lot of our current commenters don’t have forum accounts. And I’m expecting some good stuff from you guys, because I know full well that my contribution was weak sauce.
The great thing about contests like this is it turns your reaction to obnoxious comments from “argh, another asshole” to “ooh, another entry!”
The last person makes no sense at all. First of all, the “pedestal effect” isn’t nearly as pervasive and significant as people think, and second, the same reasoning could be applied to slaves. In other words, ze could just as easily say that slaves are privileged because they have “caretakers.” And then there’s the fact that it’s merely a form of so-called “benevolent” sexism.
Has the ‘amazing’ atheist already been mentioned:
If not I volunteer him as an entry.
Not as whiny as some of the others but …I was desperate to sumbit something, but didn’t actually want to come across more assholes, so I just put up the ones I’ve already found….
/lazy.
link: http://feministdisney.tumblr.com/post/44870900296/theyearsiwasashipwreck-casketscratcher
I at least understand the people going “This is a MAN’s space and we like it the way it is!” The way things are pander to their interests and they don’t want that to go away, it’s selfish but I get it.
What baffles me is the people who deny the sexism even exists. I mean, how far gone do you have to be to seriously argue that princess Peach isn’t a typical example of a damsel in distress?
@ Marie: that would be Krystal that Fox is holding, and she’s also a fox. (She would be a vixen, if I were to be more technical.)
Similarly OT: when I saw that picture leading off the article I had an internal “glee!” moment. I know that the game where Krystal makes her first appearance (Star Fox Adventures) is slightly deficient in the female agency department, though. The game was not originally a Star Fox title but was developed by Rare with the intent of being a game on its own. Krystal would have been one of the two playable characters and would have been a cat instead of a fox, but some developmental difficulties were encountered, similarities between that title and Star Fox were noted, and Rare and Nintendo re-tuned the game to be a part of the Star Fox franchise.
Krystal does make appearances in the next two Star Fox games as a romantic interest of and romantically interested in Fox, but she the only female character to appear in Star Fox Assault (the immediate sequel), though she also has a part in Star Fox Command (Assault’s sequel). Star Fox Command is different in that there are multiple endings where Krystal either joins Fox’s rivals/nemeses, reunites with him, or turns bitter and goes solo as a bounty hunter who is totally unrecognizable to Fox.
I apologize for the major derail and the ensuing wall of text, but I am an avid fan of the Star Fox series (Nintendo, why u no make another Star Fox game?!), and Star Fox Adventures holds a very special place in my heart because it helped kick off my interest in creative writing (but not as fan fiction; I dabbled in fanfic later, but I still entertain fantasies of Star Fox sequels adapted from the ideas bouncing around in my head).
He does understand that the fact we’re reading these words so readily means that PEOPLE ARE ABLE TO HAVE A DISCOURSE ABOUT THIS MATERIAL.
And also, so what? Fuck you.
“You are putting forth a particular ideological stance. Your unwillingness to allow that stance to be challenged undermines the legitimacy of your claims because it sends the signal to everyone who lands on your page that your ideas cannot hold up under scrutiny. ”
With this utterance he has just challenged her… so he’s just eaten his own words. And the only signal she’s sending is that she’s probably sick of “get raped” getting posted.