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:
They zip down the side! I don’t have the patience to lace all that!
And fuck, I have a corset around here someplace, I lace that…actually, that’s be very much Mr. K’s era. Maybe a bit later.
Also, as far as the whole thing about how heels without heels are meant to hobble and look like foot binding (or torture devices if you ask me) — this — http://design-milk.com/scary-beautiful-shoes-by-leanie-van-der-vyver/
Read the text as they aren’t “real” (they physically exist, but it’s an artistic statement, not actual footwear)
They satirise the hell out of the damned fashion industry, don’t they? I wouldn’t call them beautiful in any sense, but they certainly make a statement.
Cassandra, those are awesome.
Some Gal — they come up to just below my knees, kinda awkward currently as I have an egg sized multi-color bruise at that level from my idiocy on the stairs the other night (fell up the stairs, barefoot, I’m just gifted like that)
@Argenti
I remember you saying you fell. TBH, it is something I used to do all the time when we had an apartment with stairs. I luckily just got rug-burn, though, never bruises. I am so happy to not be dealing with stairs anymore. [stair rant redacted]
That seems like a very bad spot to have a bruise and a boot end at the same time. Can you wear them (and walk) or do you need more healing first?
Have you been able to undo the laces at the top of the boot, Argenti, to get a bit less pressure there?
I had a devil of a time about three years back, when I tripped over a low chain fence and landed on my ankle. I had a spectacular swollen, purple foot for weeks and was limited to one pair of lace-up boots – good thing it was cool weather!
Totally OT, the blog I post when can’t be stuffed writing is up. 🙂
Good arch supports are supposed to keep your feet from pronating or the arch from flattening. I have custom orthotics for my feet because I have massive heel spurs and bad plantar fascitis in both feet. I can’t wear shoes without them. But since they’re custom made they were fitted to my feet. An arch support that forces your foot into an uncomfortable position is not something you should wear.
Jason Mamoa = yum. He was Ronon Dex on “Stargate: Atlantis” and they NEVER gave him enough to do. *is still bitter he and Elizabeth did not spend an episode stranded together somewhere*
Plantar fasciitis sucks majorly. I have it too, it’s what finally sent me to a podiatrist. Have you had the treatment with the ultrasound wand thingy?
Nice boots!
Kittehs’ and I must have been blogging at the same time.
So, the MRAs at AVfM have written a statement of unity, kinda sorta, or maybe it’s a MANifesto. To be honest I can’t read it, it’s really long. But you know how we’ve pointed out that they always seem to want to make things WORSE as long as they can make women suffer, rather than trying to improve things for everyone? “Perseus” in the comments makes that abundantly clear when he proposes the following demands:
I struggled with monster plantar fasciitis for three long years and it was debilitating. I discovered a couple years ago that another one of the women in the lab, a neuroscientist, had the exact same thing and it was revelatory. Our experiences were near identical. Both of us spend most of the day standing at a lab bench, which is just the worst with plantar fasciitis.
Over a two month period of working at a desk, I lost 15lbs and stayed off my feet. After those eight weeks, it was as though I’d never had plantar fasciitis. There was no indication I had ever had the condition. It was as if it had been a really bad, persistent dream.
I feel the faintest ache in my heal now and panic. It’s never recurred though.
Who’s hosting that? That seems likely to violate their ToS (a terrorist act if you piss off the US gov’n in the process *rolls eyes*)
As for my boots and knee, my knee doesn’t hurt so much as look hilarious, and the boots aren’t that tight (probably doesn’t hurt any that I unlaced them completely to treat the leather since I bashed my knee, so they fit beautifully now)
And yeah, I fucking hate stairs, the law firm office manager from hell always insisted the lunch room was the third floor, because the mezzanine “didn’t count”. Like fuck, I have to walk up a flight of stairs right? It’s the fourth floor then!
@Argenti
The not hurting is good!
The stairs in our last apartment were trying to kill us (with the cat helping by sleeping on them)! I can’t count how many times the boyfriend or I fell down them. And I think I used 90% of the energy/pain tolerance I had in a day going up and down them once the fibro started. Now, no more stairs for me and I can actually do some things around the apartment. So, yeah, stairs are evil.
made up words
All words are, “made up”.
“Hierarchy is always going to be around, no matter what form it’s in, so quit challenging this one and just accept it!”
This is why Republican Rome still rules the world.
Go ahead, pretend feminism outside the West is anything as prevalent or extreme as the kind practiced by whites.
False premise. If one looked at the feminism of 200 years ago it was trivial, and very localised and beneath contempt. Today you are trying to defend against it, and seem to be aware (just barely) that it’s spreading.
No, kitty. We’re not concerned about feminist whines. We’re concerned with crushing feminism itself. You see the distinction there?
No, there is no distinction. What you call feminism is also what you disparage as fruitless whining. One and the same. Your idea of, “crushing” feminism is to make the feminists, “stop whining” and accept the world the way you wish it was.
What logic? You’ve not presented an argument. You’ve asserted that “feminism is irrelevant” because “the West” is outnumbered and the non-west doesn’t do feminism.
That’s not logic, it’s bloviation.
Stairs ARE evil! Death to stairs!
Down with stairs!
Bad pun is bad
Kitteh said:
“Plantar fasciitis sucks majorly. I have it too, it’s what finally sent me to a podiatrist. Have you had the treatment with the ultrasound wand thingy?”
I had that problem for years and it still flares up sometimes. Anti-inflamatories help (I use Celebrex) and so do anti-inflammatory gels, things like Voltaren and Feldene if placed right at the ends of the muscle where it attaches to the bone at the heel and just behind the ball of the foot. If it’s really bad there are injections into the heel of the foot that really help but are very painful for about ten seconds after the injection. Also hard orthotic insoles made of plastic and molded to your foot. You’d need to see a podiatrist for those because they need to take impressions to get them just right. The “ultrasound wand thingy ” helps too but you need to have the treatment often. There are also heat treatments that can help. Physiotherapy is great!
Orthotics are a lifesaver! I’ve had mine about fifteen months. My podiatrist’s reaction when he saw how flat and pronated my feet are was “Wow … ”
I haven’t had the injections (brrr … reminds me of the anaesthetic I had when I had growth whatsits burned out thirty years back: felt like the needle went all the way up my leg) but I had a course of the ultrasounds, which also got pretty painful. I’m seeing an osteopath now. Part of my problem is my back locking up and the way my pelvis rotates when I walk; I think it all goes back to a lifetime of bad walking because my legs are such different lengths. Still, it did lead to the band name Pelvic Tilt being coined. 😉
PS yes, anti inflammatories are very helpful. I had Voltaren pills on scrip and use the gel as well.
What gets me is how inconsistent the pain is. My feet are mostly okay now, but from day to day I might have pain in one knee or both, or in the thighs, hips, calves, ankles … not all at once, but I never know when it’ll be a good day or when the damn things will play up. It’s not crippling pain, nothing like that; the worst is if it makes bending squatting to get things from low shelves at work painful. Or, yeah, after a vigorous round of having my legs mauled by my osteo, lol! Ow, ow, ow …
What I’m not getting about all this brouhaha and MRA whining is why they care at all. Nobody’s stopping them playing the games they like, when they like and Anita’s videos may well draw more women into gaming, especially if the companies create games to cater to them but why is that and skin off the guy’s noses? Is it really that they just don’t want women horning in on what they consider to be “their” turf? Are they really stupid enough to think they can do that?
They also complain about the money Anita raised through Kickstarter and whether or not they consider it to be a good use of the funds but why do they care? They didn’t pay it, it was donated by people who are interested and supportive and they are really the only people to whom she’s answerable. It’s none of the male gamer’s business, it’s strictly between Anita and her backers and I haven’t heard them complaining.
Maybe it’s simple envy. Anita asked for support and was given far more than she asked for. People believed in what she was doing and wanted in on it. When was the last time an MRA project garnered that kind if support? I can’t think of a single instance.
There are many questions that I hope she’ll address later in her series but as an introduction the video isn’t a bad place to start.
Perhaps they don’t like hearing any suggestion that there’s something wrong with their violent fantasies – these being the same guys whose reaction to women online is threats of rape and worse. How dare anyone remind them that women are people, not objects of their fantasies.
Kitteh said:
“What gets me is how inconsistent the pain is. My feet are mostly okay now, but from day to day I might have pain in one knee or both, or in the thighs, hips, calves, ankles … not all at once, but I never know when it’ll be a good day or when the damn things will play up. It’s not crippling pain, nothing like that; the worst is if it makes bending squatting to get things from low shelves at work painful. Or, yeah, after a vigorous round of having my legs mauled by my osteo, lol! Ow, ow, ow …”
Yep, that’s generally what happens. You tend to favor the sore foot, shift your weight about trying to accommodate it, that upsets the muscles and joints in your knees, then your hips, which pushes your spine slightly out of alignment, which affects your shoulders and eventually your neck. Am I right in assuming you’re in your twenties? I’m in my fifties and the lopsidedness is pretty obvious with me but I waited much to long to have those orthotics made. With any luck you’ve caught it in time and it won’t have upset things too much. I can walk but not very far and it hurts, so please, if you have this problem see if there’s a way of dealing with it now rather than later. My medical file is about a foot thick and many of my problems could have been avoided if I’d gotten my orthotics fifteen years earlier. Voltaren has it’s own set of problems (stomach ulcers and that kind of thing) and Celebrex does unpleasant stuff to one’s liver. They help hugely with one problem but create others.
Ah, before I forget…something both simple and helpful. A long piece of strong elastic or latex that you can use as resistance while stretching your legs. You can shift your foot in such a way as to stretch and relax all those sore foot, hip and calf muscles. Do it often enough and they’ll get much stronger and less painful.
Kitteh:
I really think you have something here. I find it darkly amusing that when women talk about violence, sexism and objectification their first response is to threaten to rape or kill them, thus making the women’s point for them, far more graphically than they any amount of reasoned argument or simple denial. Funnier still, they don’t seem to realize it!
Seranvali — just an FYI here, but I’m nearly certain that kitteh is closer to your age than mine (27 here)
As for joints, my back thinks ~20° curve wuld be just a dandy trick, throws everything else out of whack. It’s part of my aversion to truly flat shoes actually, I slouch and roll my ankles in them, even a little heel makes me stand up much straighter. Not really relevant I guess, but goddamned am I glad I didn’t land an inch higher — I whacked that stair with my less happy knee.
In completely random things, my fish are being weird, even for them. Looks like our weather’s deciding to go from questionable to rainy, love my cute little barometers 🙂
Seranvali – flatterer! 😉 Argenti’s right, I’ll be fifty in a few months, and it’s only in the last year-odd that these problems have really caught up with me. Thanks for the tip about the elastic, and for the variablility of the pain. I should mention that to my poor osteopath, she’s getting a bit baffled by it all and I’m getting a double session (two osteos) tomorrow so she can have a second opinion.
I find one thing that helps often is a back brace – just a shaped elastic belt with various adjustable straps and stiffening strips. Adds support, and it’s nice in cold weather because it concentrates heat, but it’s a pain having to wear it in 36C weather!
Argenti, you’ve mentioned you have scoliosis, haven’t you? OT really but did you see the news about the recovery of Richard III’s skeleton? Turns out he had severe scoliosis that took inches off his heigh (he’d have been about 5′ 8″ otherwise) and probably developed in his teens.
Barometers … we have one at work called the Mood Barometer, with things like Happy or Cranky or whatever written on it. We were saying today that it’d be great to have an online Mood Barometer for customers to check before they ring us. If it reads “Overnight server meltdown” it goes red and you don’t ring us before midday.
Argenti Aertheri:
“Argenti Aertheri | March 12, 2013 at 4:32 am
Seranvali — just an FYI here, but I’m nearly certain that kitteh is closer to your age than mine (27 here)”
Ah…thankyou, I stand corrected.
“As for joints, my back thinks ~20° curve wuld be just a dandy trick, throws everything else out of whack. It’s part of my aversion to truly flat shoes actually, I slouch and roll my ankles in them, even a little heel makes me stand up much straighter. Not really relevant I guess, but goddamned am I glad I didn’t land an inch higher — I whacked that stair with my less happy knee.”
Both flats and heels are a problem, I find. I need either a small heel or memory foam inner soles. I like high heels but I’ve not been able to wear them since I broke my leg about ten years ago. I gave them all away and it made me sad. I think my sister has most of them so at least I know she’ll get to enjoy them!
“In completely random things, my fish are being weird, even for them. Looks like our weather’s deciding to go from questionable to rainy, love my cute little barometers.”
I think fishes Know Stuff and they aren’t telling. I suspect that cats do too but if you’re really nice to them they’ll give you hints but you have to figure out the details by yourself. Cats like to make you work while they sit and look inscrutable.