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:
@Marie
Probably every single pun I have ever thought of, I’ve immediately used. I just can’t resist them. 🙂
I warned you about stairs, bro!!!!
@Argenti Aertheri *fist bump* 😀
I still have a headache even after all other symptoms have stopped. Pain medication is proving highly ineffective.
@AK
My old roommate went barefoot all the time. He thought it was a good thing for everyone. I ignored him for the most part. When I was little I wandered barefoot constantly, but I grew out of it.
I wear heels occasionally, but mostly I’m a ballet flat girl.
@Marie and Some Gal
I live in a basement apartment. Which has the perk of nobody being below me, but no light and stairs.
That’s really interesting about the barefoot shoes, AK. Only time I’ve seen someone wearing them, I noticed her feet were really pronating, and I thought “Wow, you’re letting yourself in for trouble.” Didn’t occur to me she might be wearing them to fix just that trouble, ‘cos I didn’t know it could work that way.
Unfortunately I couldn’t use them. First, my orthotics are for correcting leg length; going without throws my hips and spine out. Second, my feet are very sensitive, and walking on stones or bumpy pavements or sticks in the grass or burning hot pavements (FUCK SUMMER) hurts like hell, and the blister-causing friction if I don’t have stockings or socks on is even worse.
On an unrelated clothing note (because why not) I have caved and am wearing a short tunic and leggings today. I blame Manboobz.
@melody
no lights at all? Or what? Sorry if this is nosy, I’ve just never heard of a basement apartment.
And related, but I’m glad my mom got first floor apartments (we’ve had two so far) because 1) of my sister’s joints and 2) on the note of having people below you, since I pace a lot, I’m getting the feeling if someone was below me they’d hate us XD
I have lights. I have lamps and whatnot, but my apartment is below ground (that is what a basement apartment is). So, you know how you might have a patio or a big window looking outside? I don’t have those things.
I dance when I’m stressed. And my job is stressful so I dance more nowadays. I really should get back into a ballet class, but it seems like a waste of time because I’m too top heavy.
Kk. Thanks for answering 🙂 I was just a little confused when you said you had no lights.
Does being top heavy make ballet harder? I’ve never done any before, so I have no clue.
The Brits know how to do basement flats (prolly kitchens originally, they’re in Victorian buildings) – they’re below street level, but have “the area,” a little space reached by steps, so you can have windows and a separate sub-street level door. Mum and I stayed in one last time we visited London.
I live in one of them. We have a small yard out front and back (when I say small I mean about 6×5 foot out back, 10×5 out front), so we have full-length windows and glass doors there. I was a bit skeptical at first but we get plenty of light, and since we have no one below us, a shop above us and we’re lower than the house next to us there’s no noise from neighbours and no one to complain when we have parties 😀
We did have a problem with damp, which is really common in basement flats, but a dehumidifier has solved that problem.
Insulated from neighbours – bliss!
Are you insulated when the weather gets hot? (Stop laughin’, I know you get hot summers over there.)
I wish we had flats like that here, but alas, no.
Oh, how’s the tattoo healing, too?
It can get a bit stuffy during summer, but the doors and windows are quite big so we just whack them open or go sit in the yard (best thing EVAH about working from home). The weather is being really odd. We had 4 inches of snow on Monday night, and since yesterday the skies have been bright blue and it actually looks like spring. Tattoo’s fine, still a bit itchy but seems to have healed quite well, it actually looks proper now. And I’m starting to get used to it. I’ll be seeing my dad in a couple of weeks though, that might be interesting…
@thenatfantastic
That sounds awesome. I love apartments to feel more isolated. Sadly my mom doesn’t and it’s her apartment I’m in XD
Sarkeesian works for EA. In her videos she trashes EA’s competitors.
Congratulations, on falling for corporate propaganda disguised as “socialjusticeblahblah”.
Again.
For those of you who donated to her, you just paid a company schill.
Idiots.
Shut up, Joe.
Requesting permission to troll Joe using other things abbreviated to EA.
Joe, am I still supporting Nazis by refusing to just accept the gender role assigned to my apparent biology?
In completely other things, the non-custom part of my timbuk2 order should arrive tomorrow *finally ordered a proper messenger bag and organizing bits*
Joe: where did you get that she works for EA? You may want to adjust your tinfoil.
Ah, Joe.
How’s the houseboat, dude? Still comfy?
CIA
Whoops, sorry.
PS: want to hear the first joe go on at length about why islamophobia isn’t a thing? He goes on for several pages here.
I think I tried to engage with him on that thread. Simpler times, etc.
Whoa there, Hellkell. Just because the dude thinks spelling out CIA is a good way to get their attention doesn’t mean we should make tinfoil jokes!!!
A google search shows that they decided she works there at the Spearhead, so that’s probably where he got this bon mot.
Elsewhere I see reports that they paid her to give a talk or a series of talks to their employees, possibly as a way to try to be less sexist. Nothing official-looking, but it sounds rather more believable.
@Argenti
I love messenger bags! Congrats on yours! (I also love giant purses that can function as messenger bags!)
@First Joe
Congratulations on being so much better than the rest of us. (We are congratulating each other on things that aren’t true, right?)
@howardbann1ster
Nonsense, the most ridiculous, convoluted, contrary-to-the-way-the-world-works answer is probably the correct one. That is also how I know that you and I are the same person, David, and “we” create these threads and all the comments from our feminazi base on Mars.
In true EA news, the boyfriend is getting a new computer and I will be able to play The Sims 3 on it. I am excited. (Also, there is one base game plus expansion pack that is cheaper than the same expansion lack alone. 🙂 Also, digital downloads cost more than mailing me a physical copy because of nonsense reasons.) Although I am leaning toward the cheaper one, are there any recommendations from people who play The Sims 3 on what my first expansion pack should be? (I think the cheapest one is Supernatural?)
Joe, what you’re saying doesn’t make any sense, and it wouldn’t make any sense even if Sarkeesian worked for EA (and I’m not seeing any compelling evidence that she does). Her analysis of the tropes themselves is compelling and matches that of many other people, and does not depend in any way on where those tropes appear. The damsel in distress has the same cultural and sociological impact whether she is in an EA game, a competitor’s game, a movie, or any other kind of media.
Now, if she worked at EA and deliberately excluded EA games from her examples in order to shield the company from criticism, or if she were to make excuses for their use of these harmful tropes when she would not make a similar excuse for a competitor’s game, then that would demonstrate bias on her part. But it still wouldn’t make her judgment of the tropes themselves any less accurate.
Gamers have caught onto Anita’s schilling for EA / EA’s pathetic attempts to bolster their market share through her political bullshit.
And gamers are not buying it.
http://mundanematt.tumblr.com/post/32469219836/v-breaks-down-just-how-ea-dice-are-using-anita
http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/TheKodu/the-sarkeesian-the-dice-and-the-mirror–235992.phtml
Of course if Sarkeesian – or any feminist activist were genuinely creative and innovative then she / they would have the ability to create their own politically correct feminist games and make a commercial success of them. The absence of feminist games tells us she and they don’t have that ability, nor the will to invest the work required – and/or not enough people want to buy / play that shit.
So, instead feminists criticise and attempt to politicise an art form which they have no ability to create in. Again.
Here’s a thought: Imagine if Sarkeesian and her ilk succed.
What will happen if all the millions of people who are sick to fucking death of feminism get their means of escapism cut off? Let’s say all computer games get watered down, so instead of being fantasy esacpism, instead they’re politically correct…
I’ve watched with interest the political “live rails” that *really* get the mob going.
They moved to try and tax pasties and increase booze prices in UK recently. There was rage. EU feminists tried to ban all porn.
http://news.msn.com/world/eu-decides-not-to-ban-all-porn
Imagine if people didn’t have junk food, booze, porn and fantasyland computer games where they can chop up / shoot / explode stuff – and forget about how completely fenced-in they are in real life.
Take away the bread and circuses and the mob wakes up.
Look how well that went for the tyrants in North Africa.
@First Joe
All of your points have already been addressed (one of them directly above you, and you aren’t whining enough to hope to win the contest.
Disappointing performance from our forgettable return troll.
They can make their own.
Lololol.