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.
@Exuin.exe:
Do you care about what you’re saying here? What misogyny did she make up, exactly? I’m at work, so I can’t watch youtube videos, but I have watched all the tropes vs women videos so far, so give me a text summary if you please.
Exuin.exe’s “commentary” boils down to, “A woman is talking and I don’t like it, but I need to come up with a reason for that because I can’t admit that I just don’t like it when women talk and are visible. I know, I’ll rely on some shit that somebody on the internet invented, and it doesn’t matter that this shit is not based at all in reality, because all I needed was an excuse to justify my sexism. It doesn’t have to make sense!”
Yeah, I’m not going to take that seriously.
Answer the question of GTFO.
*or
These weird one-line non sequiturs kind of remind me of Woody.
Shut up, Woody.
Shorter exuin: sure she recieved threats so credible that she had to call the police and leave her home, but she doesn’t even play video games!!!1″
How do you know?
He probably shouldn’t have done that, then.
And you’re OK with that? It’s just the way the world is, so why bother fighting it? What a cop-out.
Even if that’s true (LOL), what’s it got to do with fair use? Try to at least follow your own argument, dude.
You know, the video game industry is enormous, and has produced an enormous body of work. The FemFreq videos are long and detailed, because one can’t do justice to such a huge body of work without long, detailed commentary.
And Exuin.exe thinks that doing an equivalent critique of FemFreq is as easy as saying OMG HITMAN! on a blog comment board.
That’s not how critique works.
Oh, so if a sucky game sucks, that’s HER fault, then? Wow, so much power Anita Sarkeesian has…
Also, all your so-called points were debunked MONTHS ago. Try to keep up!
“Answer the question.”
I did. But if you want me to answer it in another way, I don’t condone rape or death threats and I’ve never made them myself, but I’m not about to call the police every time someone comments on me saying they’re going to kill me or rape me over the internet. If the threat was tangible then measures should be taken but until then I also don’t condone the misuse of public resources. And while this slightly doesn’t have much to do with the issue, While police forces all across america are getting military-grade equipment, my school district is damning their funds from reaching the classrooms.
“And you’re OK with that? It’s just the way the world is, so why bother fighting it? What a cop-out.”
So you’re going to be the super hero that stops every human with malicious intent?
Honestly go for it man.
So, you’re saying that rape and death threats are OK because they can’t possibly be serious. Yet, the phrase “or you’ll end up like JFK” seems to suggest that the threats are real and she was asking for it because that’s just what women should suggest when they speak up.
Your last sentence proves that you know misogyny and gendered harassment are real. Not something the feminazis made up. More disturbingly, you seem to be pleased at the prospect of someone shooting Anita Sarkeesian.
You are truly a piece of shit.
Some people might start to have the faintest glimmer of self-awareness there, but not Exuin.exe. No sir.
What if those threats were made hundreds of times and included your personal information, including your address?
Yes, you would call the police.
Oh, I see. So if I found out your real name, your home address, the names of your relatives and pets, and posted a screed at you about how I am going to come to your house and perform graphic and gendered violence on you, and proved that I am capable of physically carrying it out by demonstrating the above knowledge, that’s not a “tangible” threat?
Right.
The thesis of FemFreq is that video games are frequently sexist (and generally unnecessarily so). Can you prove that this is not true? Can you refute the thesis?
Wow. All I can conclude, based on all you’ve posted, is that you’re not a realist at all. You’re an idiot who all but endorses violence and threats of violence.
When you finally manage to pull your head out of there, please let us know. Until then, kindly fuck off.
“Also, all your so-called points were debunked MONTHS ago. Try to keep up!”
Just as “dubious” my sources are called the same is said about those who debunked them. In all honesty I do have to hand it to Anita while she has pretty much flat out lied to the internet (even if all my other points as many people here say are false she’s not on schedule with her own schedule and she did get way over the amount of money she asked for with that much she should be making videos faster than she told people.) shes covered her tracks from getting to accepted credible sources really well. It kinda reminds me of how no mainstream gaming news site would even talk about the Five Guys incident.
Is it opposite day for Exuin.exe who argues to justify rape and death threats by pointing out that someone is in jail somewhere for rape and death threats? Is this poster really arguing that other people being jailed for threats makes it okay to make those threats? Or that Sarkeesian should be threatened with rape and death because “a kid in Texas” is already atoning for the sins of assaulters everywhere?
What I don’t get is that assault is a crime. Threatening another with bodily injury or death is an assault under every state’s law I know of (lawyer here). Is Exuin.exe really saying that assault shouldn’t be a crime and that people assaulting others should not be convicted?
I truly am stumped by Exuin.exe’s comments.
Exuin, you have been seen through. The moment you walked in here:
1) Unaware of fair use
2) Regurgitating “stuff some guys said was true about Anita Sarkeesian”
…you lost.
Hang around here and get made into an exemplar of why Anita Sarkeesian was right all you want, but you were done from the start.
“The thesis of FemFreq is that video games are frequently sexist (and generally unnecessarily so). Can you prove that this is not true?”
Can you prove that they are sexist. Cause while Anita has made few videos discussing there is no irrefutable proof that determines them sexist. Otherwise its just whining that games are designed around you and your tastes.
“Anita … has pretty much flat out lied to the internet” is one of the most ridiculous statements I have ever read. Thank you for the lulz, Exuin you asshat.
I’m bored with games that use GRIMDARK or sexual content as a lazy way to make a game seem “adult” or “hardcore”.
To paraphrase Grant Morrison (on comics, natch), nowadays video games are considered ‘adult’ if they contain lots of swearing, breasts and violence; God help us if that’s what ‘adult’ means.
I don’t think English is exuin’s first language, which could be why we cant understand him? Or his writing skills are worse than Heartiste’s.
OMG leftwingfox! I nearly fell off the treadmill and bust a rib laughing at that!
Did you actually watch the videos, or are you quoting something someone else said about them?