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:
@Argenti Aertheri
Ew on that last one. bad anboy bad.
maybe next time I engage him I will call him annoy. It does seem fitting.
Just to clarify, that ew was assuming he’s not a teenager trying to buy sex from teenagers, not at the actual buying sex thing.
He implied he was at least mid-20s, but probably not much older than me (27) — so no, he wasn’t soliciting sex from his peers.
Point noted about buying sex not being the problem there — though really, the finding it hilarious we’d be outraged part was what really got me. Any of the rest could be false just to troll us, but that he found it funny? That’s legit and skeevy.
There;s this persistent myth among misogynists that the only reason adult women object to men having sex with teenage girls is that they’re jealous of men’s sexual attention going to young girls rather than to women.
In fact, older women are protective towards teenage girls because we still remember being teenage girls ourselves and having creeps like Abnoy harass us.
He likes to talk as if he’s an adult buying sex from twelve-year-olds – whether he’s lying for lulz or not, he’s a failtroll.
Calling women: gurls and wimminz is dehumanizing.
“Do what Japan does, “objectify” our side as much as we “objectify” yours, but don’t force us to stop being true to our primal (sexual) natures. ”
Right. We’ll totally be allowed to do that.
Otome games/romance novels are trash. Justin Bieber is pure evil. Twilight is TEH WORST THING EVARRRRR *homophobic slurs*!!
Despite that fact that these things may indeed be terrible and regressive, the majority of their hate is just backlash to finding out that girls have fantasies, too. And guess what? These aren’t even remotely close to the level of sexualization imposed on women. Not. Even. Close. They’re timid dippings of the toe into the already huge sea of fanservice and wish-fulfillment that a certain demographic already owns and protects rather vigilantly.
So, no. You aren’t going to be okay with us doing the same to you.
I would imagine his main problem, as was mine at one point, is losing the exclusivity which comes with having gaming be a ‘boys club” environment. You only notice this environment when females enter and try to change it. We can’t really have our lads being lads fun when women are around which leads to some men resenting the presence of women in certain activities.
Should we all start posting “men we lust over” stuff here and see how long it takes for Abnoy and the other angry geekboys to flip their shit about it? Because that could be arranged.
Do Re – I’m a complete outsider in gaming, never played anything but Freecell or Tetris, but d’you reckon part of the problem is not just the “it’s our space” stuff, but how extremely misogynistic that space seems to be? I mean, if these guys didn’t dislike and resent women anyway, would they react that strongly? (Genuine, not rhetorical, question, btw.)
Cassandra – are we lookin’ at clad or unclad or semiclad or whatever pics, or just names?
I was thinking pics and videos. but hey, given the term “tingles” pretty much any reference to women having sexual preferences seems to upset these guys.
::rubs hands:: First in, then!
I wish Sarkeesian had done a better job at this. Yeah ‘Damsel in Distress’ is a prevalent trope, yeah it’s lazy writing and yeah it’s harmful to women to have a trope in which women are reduced to useless macguffins be so prevalent. But she spent most of the video just showing that it exists and giving us a history lesson, not giving much meaningful analysis to the harms the trope presents (hopefully that will come up in the next one, although she implies it’s to going to be more of a modern history lesson). Everyone knows what a damsel in distress is, what more people need to be told is how it is actually problematic and how it translates into society, and therefore why we should be trying to get rid of it.
No, I probably couldn’t have done a better job, but I’m a science student, gender studies isn’t my expertise and it isn’t how I make a living. I had hoped for something more from someone who does this for a living.
Still good nerd rage bait though.
I would say it may play partly on ignorance, especially with women demanding to be more than sex objects in games, as opposed to full blown misogyny. Obviously a lot of heterosexual men have no problem with females depicted as sex objects and would naturally be frustrated by women coming in and trying to change it, especially with the perceived notion that women aren’t even into gaming (or golf, or whatever else it may be) they just want to “come and ruin our fun”. This perceived invasion by women into male spaces for the sake of invasion has not just come about with gaming, it’s been around for a long time. But no, I don’t think it’s got anything to do with these people disliking women (though the most vocal of complaints probably are coming from misogynists), it’s just that in their mind women are only complaining for complaining’s sake and have no actual interest in the outcome of their complaints (ignorant? Definitely. Bit of a stretch to call it misogyny though).
I’m going to guess that I’m not the only woman who loves this guy given that someone bothered to make a video that’s just a 10 minute loop of him standing around in the shower.
I think he wins the all-time boy band fanservice award for this little number.
(Starts to get interesting about 3 minutes in.)
Rain taught him well, though I think Joon may be even better at fanservice since he’s not as big and intimidating as Rain.
Aw, videos posted all messed up. Let’s try that again.
Thanks, Do Re.
Small tip, if I may? Don’t use “females” as a noun, especially when it’s in the same sentence as “men”. It’s dehumanising. It’s fine as an adjective.
Adding to the tip from Kittehs – avoid describing adult women as “girls” when you’re describing adult men as “men”. If you’re an adult man and you want to talk about your attraction to actual girls, just don’t, nobody wants to hear it.
(Not that Do Re gives any indication that he’d do that, this is just a general public service announcement.)
Oh gross, it’s only going down to 24C tonight … I hate summer I hate summer I hate summer
Posted with the permission of the subject.
(more or less NSFW)
I think you missed my point kitteh, I was purposely using the word females in context with what I was saying, pointing out that they’re just females in that perspective.
And I’m not quite sure what your apparent obsession with pedophiles is about, Cassandra, lol.
Okay, sorry, but your phrasing didn’t make it clear that you were referring to “how this group of men see women”. It read as if you were simply using the word that way yourself. BTW, calling women females when men are not called males is misogyny. It makes us less than human.
Oh yeah, Do Re, that last crack really helps to build up your credibility.