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.
Dalton,
Have men ever gotten a barrage of rape and death threats for suggesting a man be put on the British ten pound note? Because that happened to a woman for leading a campaign to get Jane Austen on them. In fact it got so bad that law enforcement got involved and arrests were made.
When celebrity nudes are stolen and plastered on the internet what is the gender of the vast majority of victims?
What male video game reviewer is getting the amount of threats and harassment as Sarkeesian? Why did gamergate focus only on Zoe Quinn? Why didn’t the journalist she allegedly slept with get the same level of harassment?
Why is that this guy couldn’t last two hours posing as a woman on OKC because he got so much harassment? http://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/1uqym6/as_a_guy_i_wanted_to_know_what_it_was_like_to_be/
It is not that hard to find numerous examples of women facing worse harassment than men. What do you know? Just like meat space! Or are you one of those guys who also thinks street harassment is no big deal?
You’re either staggeringly ignorant or just trotting out the tired old “it happens to both men and women, it can’t possibly be misogyny!” crap as an excuse to bury your head in the sand and not see the misogyny in our culture.
Is this troll a sock?
“Being mean is a right people have.”
Owww, heavy man, real heavy. And you’re so brave for making that point, mister.
You do have the right to be an asshole, and people have the right to respond to assholes.
“Can’t we all agree that problems that don’t affect me personally aren’t really problems?”
@Dalton Jones:
You have five minutes. Go.
Homeless and hunger are easy to solve? Then why is it that there are still homeless and/or hungry people left in the world. Why haven’t you solved it?
Two caveats, Dalton. The dudes you find have to be harassed in relation to commentary on the gaming industry. Gotta make sure the situations are comparable. And someone like Phil Fish, who got harassed for speaking out against harassment against a woman, doesn’t count.
This what goes through my head when these dudes refuse to believe this a problem because it’s never happened to them:
I’ve already communicated to you that I’m familiar with many a kind of abuse on the internet. I’ve received it and I’ve seen it showered on both men and women that I respect, pretty much uniformly. Do you think If a man had published the exact same videos Anita did then the public reaction would have been different?
If you want to tell me my privilege is showing but don’t want to tell me how or what you mean by that then you’re just not being communicative. Honestly, I think I’m being very reasonable.
Of course you think you’re being reasonable, dear.
I AM communicating with you, I’m telling you to fuck off. You’re a slow learner.
You know how you’re showing your privilege — telling people who have been threatend with stalking and rape that they should suck it up — that’s it, there it is. But you knew that. You’re pretending that women aren’t treated differently online, which is adorable as fuck, but not believeable.
Dalton – The nature of that abuse is markedly different. The graphic intensity and hyper-sexualized nature of the harassment that is directed at women varies greatly from that which men face. Furthermore the argument that because there are other problems in society therefore this issue should be ignored as invalid is a classic evasion used to dismiss the pain of other people. It is a tactic frequently used to excuse rape and abuse and if you had spent any time at all looking through comments here you could easily see that the community as a whole rejects such flawed apologia wholesale.
As for your privilege well I’m new here still and thus will at least pretend your asking in good faith. Stating that you need to “check your privilege” in this case applies because you seem to be operating under the assumption that because abuse and harassment of the nature that’s being seen here doesn’t bother you it shouldn’t bother anyone. You’re assuming your viewpoint and opinions are inherently more valid and than those of others. That’s your privilege.
It’ll pass.
Dalrton Jones:
Your privilege is two-fold.
First, believing that since “everyone” receives abuse, that everyone received abuse equally in both tone, content and volume. Women tend to receive greater volumes of sexualized and personalized harassment than men for similar opinions.
Second, you believe that all the threats are empty, and that no-one will carry out a threat of sexual assault. You are unaware of the much higher rates of sexual assault against women, and the relatively low rate of prosecution for such crimes.
As such, you dismiss the fact that women recieve more threats of a specific type aimed specifically at women for a crime that goes comparatively unpunished, and say “both sides do it, it’s no big deal”.
Alright, I missed my five minute deadline because I was reading that reddit thread, which was about as illustrative as a personal anecdote can be, but Jack Thompson, David Smalley, Thunderfoot, Richard Carrier, and The Amazing Atheist.
I didn’t say homelessness or hunger in general was easy to solve, I meant that you could do more good by feeding one homeless person one meal than you could bashing your head against internet rudeness forever.
I’m leaving for a minute to buy some smokes. Please don’t think I’ve walked out in frustration.
Meh, I may as well get it out there for the lurkers. I have in illusions about convincing this guy.
Don’t bother coming back.
Hellkell – I’m sure it will, having seen how many times you and others have had to go through this exact same conversation I just figured I might as well take a turn while I still had the stomach for it. Having spent a bit over a year lurking here before making my first post I kind of feel like I owe it to the community for all the times I kept my mouth shut instead of speaking up. 🙂
Feel free to be that dude in a country song who walks out for smokes and never comes back.
Would a man get harassed for speaking out about misogyny is video games? Probably. They hate “manginas” and “white knights” almost as much as they hate women. Would the harassment be as intense and consist of as many rape threats? Probably not.
David (if you haven’t bothered to look past the fact that there’s a post about the bullying of Anita Sarkeesian, he’s the man who owns this blog) does get some threats and harassment for being a feminist and speaking out against misogyny. However, he has acknowledged many times that he doesn’t get it anywhere near as bad as female counterparts such as Rebecca Watson or Jessica Valenti.
Do men get harassed for having opinions about things not in the social justice. Not really. Not to the extent that feminists do. Not even close.
By the way, we’re still waiting on those examples of privileged white men who’ve been harassed worse than Anita Sarkeesian.
I think it’s funny that he thinks we’ll believe he was showered with abuse online (just like Anita, damn it) and that we’ll believe him just because.
Then the shaming tactics ensue, in the hopes we’ll stop talking about this issue.
I wonder if he was one of the trolls who threatened Anita, or at least thought it was funny or cool. When he tries to convince himself what a nice guy he is, does he tell himself that he’s a garden variety meanie and not a hate-mongering reactionary?
Of course he’s a fan of Thunderfoot and Amazing Atheist. And of course he didn’t provide screencaps of the abuse or evidence that a police/FBI report has been filed.
He tells himself it’s right to be mean. ‘Murrica!
Where are the nudes of these dudes? Where is the hacked info? Where were their friends’ social security numbers posted publicly? What is the volume of rape threats they receive? Death threats? How many of those were credible, with home address info and specific plans?
Where are the chatlogs of groups of people coordinating the above campaigns to destroy their lives?
I’ll give you 5 more minutes.
I like hows claiming Jack Thompson as another example, being mocked is not the same thing as having people threaten to rape you.
And apparently I can’t form a legible sentence worth a damn today.