On Monday, Anita Sarkeesian posted the latest installment of her Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games series on YouTube, a half-hour examination of the ways in which video game makers use sexualized violence against women as a cheap way to spice up their narratives and appeal to straight male gamers.
Her tone was measured, her analysis clear and logical and supported by dozens of clips from a wide assortment of games.
Late Tuesday night, this happened:
Some very scary threats have just been made against me and my family. Contacting authorities now.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) August 27, 2014
I’m safe. Authorities have been notified. Staying with friends tonight. I’m not giving up. But this harassment of women in tech must stop!
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) August 27, 2014
That’s right: Sarkeesian was forced to leave her home due to violent threats against her and her family … because she made a YouTube video analyzing violence against women in video games.
She then posted some of the threats she had gotten from a Twitter account set up specifically to harass and threaten her and her family. [TRIGGER WARNING for graphic rape and death threats.]
I usually don’t share the really scary stuff. But it’s important for folks to know how bad it gets [TRIGGER WARNING] pic.twitter.com/u6b3i0fysI
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) August 27, 2014
For a larger version of the screenshot, see here.
Sarkeesian has also been tweeting some of the other threats she gets on a daily basis from anonymous gamers who are incensed that a woman has anything critical to say about their precious video games.
It’s especially amusing that this misogyny laced email is unironically signed “See you soon m'lady. *tips fedora*” pic.twitter.com/rLk3CvoxXV
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) July 15, 2014
https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/504437681527353344/photo/1
I get so many emails like this I could publish a coffee table book full of them. pic.twitter.com/qMoYOtV9tT
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) July 15, 2014
Unfortunately, this is an all too typical twitter response to my observations about video games. #E32014 pic.twitter.com/aWmwtQZLnm
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) June 9, 2014
You’ll notice that several of these threatening comments mention videos by Thunderf00t, a “skeptic” videoblogger best known, at least in the corner of the internet I write about, for a series of videos in which he viciously attacks some of the women who’ve drawn the most internet hate from angry misogynists – from skeptics like Rebecca Watson and Melody Hensley to video game maker Zoe Quinn and video game critic Sarkeesian.
Thunderf00t’s attacks have won him kudos from assorted Men’s Rights activists, from the regulars on the Men’s Rights subreddit to A Voice for Men “operations manager” Dean Esmay, who has praised his videos and urged other MRAs to subscribe to them.
In other words, the harassment of feminist women on the internet is directly linked to antifeminist propagandists like Thunderf00t – and his MRA fans and enablers.
The constant, vicious, personal attacks on Sarkeesian you see not only in video game circles but from Men’s Rights Activists – on Reddit, on A Voice for Men, on YouTube, and so on – have helped to create a hostile environment in which critiques of sexism in games result in real-world death and rape threats against women. This has an undeniably chilling effect on the free speech of women. That in fact is the intent of the harassers.
Margaret Atwood once famously observed that
Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.
I think we need an internet corollary to Atwood’s observation:
Men posting on the internet are afraid that women will block them. Women are afraid that men will treat them like Anita Sarkeesian.
Thing is, Sarkeesian keeps moving forward, diligently researching and putting forth the videos she promised she would. All the huffing and puffing of her critics and attackers hasn’t shut her up. Each new video she puts out is a testament to her courage and her perseverance. Each new video is a blow against those who would shut women up. Each new video helps to inspire others who’ve gotten similar threats to continue speaking up and speaking out.
Supporting Sarkeesian helps to support every woman who wants to be able to speak out online without fear of violent threats. There’s no better proof of this than how angry the biggest misogynistic bullies get whenever feminists and other people of good conscience rally around her. The bullies are still angry about the money she raised via kickstarter, money that has enabled her to bring a new professionalism to her videos.
Hell, AVFM Bully-in-chief Paul Elam is still so angry about this that he’s already accusing her of “damseling for dollars,” collecting “gash-cash” because of these latest Twitter threats. Indeed, in a post that’s a lot more revealing than he intends it to be, he complains bitterly that she’s getting bigger donations than he is:
I am jealous. I have had half the major media in a couple of countries disingenuously and maliciously demonize me. Even after forcing some retractions I bet I got more threats than Sarkeesian.
My reward? Jack shit.
Maybe it was because I didn’t swoon hard enough or treat the threats like they were tickets to Disneyworld.
Oh, don’t be modest, Paul. You take in tens of thousands every year by pretending to be some sort of human rights generalissimo. You raked in $35,000 this summer by trumpeting “threats” that you were saying privately were phony.
While Elam “damsels” and fumes, Sarkeesian simply goes about doing the job she set out to do. Each video she puts out is yet another “fuck you” to her haters, and they know it.
U mad bros?
Here’s the video that caused all the stir. It’s well worth watching. CONTENT WARNING: Graphic violence against women.
*sigh* Yup. You’re right, of course. I guess what I’m looking for is an evolutionary reason for more people to be feminists. Not a reason to explain why more people aren’t feminists, but a reason why more people should be.
The obvious answer is because it’s right. Feminism is, IMO, the moral side.
But there are people who, for whatever reason, seem to need “scientific explanations”… so I’d love to make some.
Plus reading WHTH does, I think, give us a misleading notion of how anti-feminist the advanced world is. MRAs really are a (shouty) minority & most people have just never heard of them.
On the original topic, Anita Sarkeesian is tweeting links to some pretty supportive articles. Damn, she’s got guts!
And FTB, and Skepchick, and Shit Reddit Says, and Secular Woman, and listening to Citizen Radio and Radio Dispatch, and… well yeah… that’s pretty much what I read on the nets these days… 😀
Yes she does! I’m glad she does, though. I’m always very upset when another fave blogger of mine is silenced. Not at them, of course. They have every right to do what they need to do to protect themselves. I just hate the assholes who make them do it.
I hope Anita continues with her series and keeps making videos. I’ve not always agreed with her, but even where we have disagreements, she’s still amazing and makes brilliant points and I ultimately end up agreeing with her over-all points at the end.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-domestication
For a couple of million years people who get along better with others have had better reproductive success.
There’s a famous experiment in domesticating the silver fox:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2010/09/06/mans-new-best-friend-a-forgotten-russian-experiment-in-fox-domestication/
Apparently what they found is that neoteny corresponds with less aggression.
…And I’m just remembering that when humans think of a sexually attractive person, they are generally(but not always) going to be thinking of someone with fairlydelicate facial bone structure, a high forehead, and a gently rounded face face, right? A rather infantlike face.
As opposed to, say, a really heavy brow ridge and a huge, blocky jaw.
Nathan,
I encourage you to get that fedora. I got a little straw trilby this summer and it looks great. We can’t let jerks ruin haberdashery!
That’s the same mentality that gets us all those kooky evo-psych stories that say women like pink because they used to forage for berries in the Pleistocene.
It’s human values that should bring people to feminism, not a misguided appeal to nature. Women are people and should be treated like so. Evolution doesn’t tell us that, because the only thing evolution is about is surviving and passing on your genes.
Aren’t these the same people who go on about “logical fallacies?” Well, they’re committing some right there. The naturalistic fallacy, appeals to nature and biological essentialism/determinism. Damn shame, too since they claim to be ever so logical. They barely understand evolution.
How very true.
So before i honestly thought that “wehuntedthemammoth” was an unbiased source albeit one with a slightly feminist slant. Today i learned that you are just as biased as the rest of the feminist shit movement.
“In other words, the harassment of feminist women on the internet is directly linked to antifeminist propagandists like Thunderf00t – and his MRA fans and enablers.”
Or in other words, if you’re not a feminist and you make critical videos in which you show how these women are wrong or how they’re playing a victim where there really is none, you’re ‘viciously attacking them.’ Im assuming the author of this piece has never even seen one of the videos in question from thunderf00t. But again, to feminists every single piece of critique MUST be an attack from a vicious MRA dudebro who just hates women, especially when they speak. Please, do yourself and everyone else a favor and stop being stupid. It would be appreciated.
Looks like it might be a concern troll.
Yep. Concern troll.
Aw. Concern trolls are the most boring trolls.
Yes, sweetie, of course you did. /sarcasm
I don’t want an evolutionary explanation for why we should care about feminism, I want a values based explanation for why we should care about evolution.
Ninja’d!
Each new troll thinks we’re gonna fall for that old chestnut.
@katz, I agree, I really think it’s an awful path to go down, trying to derive a consistent moral code based on evolution. Evolution is a-moral (not immoral), it’s just a thing that happens to most organisms; we’re aware of it, so we should be able to make something better.
It’s sort of like starting from the efficient market hypothesis and ending up with libertarianism because free markets ‘work’. Yes, they produce a result which might be mathematically most efficient, but there’s nothing inherent in there that says this result is fair on all the participants in the market.
@vaiyt: It’s human values that should bring people to feminism, not a misguided appeal to nature.
Wait – I came here because I thought it would be a good place to pick up loose women.
I correct myself: evolution is all about the passing of genes, not even survival is necessary. Think of bees; all the workers have zero reproductive success but help their genes pass on through the queen and drones.
@Bledi Lalollari
I’m sure your valuable contribution to this blog will be sorely missed.
Shut up, and get me a sandwich.
Balls or GTFO.
Shut up, Woody. Shut up, Ed. (Gee, that was fun!)
/s To those here and elseweb who decided threatening Anita Sarkeesian would make them feel better: the intarwebz is not a private club. If you ever find yourself in need of employment, you may end up regretting your bilious wordage.
To all the lovely people represented by their comments at WHTM, thank you for all your attempts at explaining (pretty much anything) for willfully ignorant/intentionally trollish posters. Your collective way with words brings me much joy.
Logodaedaly — I do luv me some!
::dances with dictionary::
These fucking trolls equate “critique” with threats like, “Die cunt, die!” Of course, they always have a problems with false equivalencies.
Missed the ban on ed the boring. Good show, David. He was actually trying to explain away threats and misogyny by saying they don’t interest him much. Intellectual dishonesty at its worst.
Hey troll
It’s antifeminists who’re biased. It’s people who don’t see women as human, who refuse to even grant that’s what feminism is about, who’re biased.
Take your misogynist faux-concern trolling and piss off, loser. Oh, and take the blog name and subhead about tracking and mocking misogyny to your remedial reading comprehension classes.
Reminds me of an old line – from Milligan, I think – “I didn’t like to tell him most of the women I knew were so loose they were fallling apart.”
Duct tape, stat!
I think people trying to criticise this website for not addressing [whatever] that’s not pertinent to its purpose and people criticising Anita Sarkeesian for not being [whatever] enough in covering things that are irrelevant to her thesis are suffering under the misapprehension that whatever they’re reading, viewing or listening to should attempt to be all things to all people.
I call it Walmart Syndrome. 😀
(“What do you mean I can’t buy shoes here?! This is an outrage!!!” “Sir, this is an electronics store…”)
To those commenting on my bits about evolution… yeah, you’re all right. I’m still haven’t really teased out what I hope to actually accomplish with my studies. Add the end of the day, I’m fascinated by fanaticism. I consider a lot (if not all) of this shit we’re dealing with to be a form of fanaticism (keep in mind that fanaticism is a lot more common then people think… after all, “fan” is short for “fanatic”… which kinda makes the vast majority of the world population fanatics in a way). I’m curious about what fanaticism is and what it’s ultimate roots are. And since I’m convinced that there isn’t much of anything that’s actually “unique” to humans within the animal kingdom, I’m wondering if there may be some evolutionary roots to it. Wouldn’t justify or excuse it by any means… just would, perhaps, adds something, albeit small, to the conversation… maybe…
Or maybe I’ll just end up wasting my life entertaining a morbid curiosity, and end up being completely wrong. I don’t know…
To Bledi Lalollari… I don’t believe you’ve ever read this blog before. In fact, I’m willing to bet this blog wasn’t even on your radar until you decided to post here.
In short, go away asshole.