What a surreal life Anita Sarkeesian must lead, in which virtually everything she says and does becomes grist for the Great Internet Lady Harassment Machine, Sarkeesian Division.
Take the latest blowup, which followed a few comments Sarkeesian made in the wake of Friday’s school shooting in Marysville, which may have been triggered by the shooter’s angry response to a romantic breakup. On Friday, Sarkeesian posted a few thoughts on the matter on Twitter:
We need to seriously address connections between violence, sexism and toxic ideas of manhood before boys and men commit more mass shootings.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) October 24, 2014
Not a coincidence it’s always men and boys committing mass shootings. The pattern is connected to ideas of toxic masculinity in our culture.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) October 24, 2014
While it it not literally true that every single mass shooter in history has been male, we are talking about an almost exclusively male club: one recent attempt at crunching the numbers found that 97% of school shooters have been male, and 79% of them white. (The Maryville shooter was Native American.)
In any case, the notion that a crime so heavily associated with men might have something to do with our society’s notions of masculinity isn’t exactly a radical notion. Indeed, it seems rather obvious.
But to Sarkeesian’s many haters, on Twitter and elsewhere, it was as if Sarkeesian had just posted a video of herself drowning puppies. Cue the twitterstorm.
Here are just a selection of the literally hundreds of lovely comments that Sarkeesian had Tweeted at her on Friday and Saturday after making her original comments.
[Giant TRIGGER WARNING for violent, explicit threats, harassment]
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There were, of course, the explicit threats:
And the implicit threats:
And the sexual harassment:
And those who merely expressed their hope that Sarkeesian would kill herself:
Or die a horrible death:
Or simply die :
But not everyone wished violence on her. Some just told her that the threats and/or harassment she’s already getting is totally justified:
(Apparently by “fishing” Mr. de Alba means “expressing an opinion or making an observation.” Also note that the tweets that set off this latest wave of harassment didn’t contain the #GamerGate hashtag. )
Speaking of harassment, we’re just getting started in our chronicle of the latest wave.
Let’s continue with an assortment of Tweets using the c-word, a favorite slur amongst Sarkeesian’s detractors.
Why, yes, that is Suzanne McCarley, A Voice for Men’s “Assistant Managing Editor” happily adding her voice to the harassment.
Others pulled out the f-word:
She was called a “bitch.”
She was called a “whore.”
She was called a “terrorist.”
And a Nazi:
One fellow said that he thought Sarkeesian’s tweets were actually worse than the shooting itself:
And one even declared her “officially worse than Wil Wheaton,” the former Star Trek:TNG actor who has won mass opprobrium from internet dicks for publicly expressing his belief that people should not be dicks.
To add insult to injury, a few reported Sarkeesian herself to Twitter for various imaginary infractions:
Another asked why she wasn’t in jail for her, er, crimes:
Just to remind you: these tweets are all from TWO DAYS’ worth of harassment and threats on Twitter. And this isn’t all of them.
At this point anyone who claims that Sarkeesian is “making up” the harassment she gets, or writing it herself, or just the work of a “few trolls,” is either disingenuous or delusional.
I’ll leave the last word to Sarkeesian herself.
Our culture is deeply sick when simply asking questions about how toxic forms of masculinity may harm men leads to hours of hate on Twitter.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) October 25, 2014
EDITED TO ADD:
ATTENTION NEW COMMENTERS! I would like to draw your attention to this bit from my comments policy:
[I]f I’m writing about someone who’s gotten harassed by misogynists on the internet, and you want to talk about how much they deserved it, or what a lying liar they are? Well, fuck you! Your comments go right into the trash.
So take that into consideration. It might save you some time.
CORRECTION: I removed a screenshot of a Tweet that wasn’t threatening but was posted by a troll. See here.
There is a lot of toxic human behavior out there in the world. This is not a masculinity problem, this is a human problem. Do not allow hatred to beget hatred.
http://i.imgur.com/5ZSxGdO.png
You know, in light of all rape and death threats, harassment and gendered insults that Sarkeesian is receiving, maybe it’s time for the “rational” critics who don’t condone harassment to back the fuck off for a bit.
Focus not on condemning her but condemning her harassers. Tell the harassers and name callers that they’ve created an environment that makes it impossible to critique her videos in a substantive way. Instead of tone trolling her defenders, tone troll the trolls. If you really care about being calm and rational, do your part to create an environment in which her videos inspire a conversation instead of a screaming match.
If you’re getting lumped in with harassers, maybe it’s because you spend time more time criticizing the people who oppose them than the harassers themselves.
Nobody is vilifying men. And the reason for discussing toxic *masculinity* has been thoroughly explained. I think right on this post by David.
t1oracle, thought experiment. If someone said that popular culture promotes hypersexualized women, would that be vilifying women?
Yep, that’s why men commit the vast majority of mass murders, and the vast majority of the people calling Sarkeesian a c— are men. Because everyone does it! As long as “everyone” means “men” and women are nobody important.
Oh dear. A troll two-fer.
To what specifically are you referring? Saying “correlation does not equal causation” is not an automatic win button for every argument. What is that you think is correlation that we’re mistaking for causation and what do propose the cause is? Your post is not as brilliant and logical as you think it is.
First of all, you’re mistaking criticism of toxic masculinity in our culture for finger pointing at every man. Saying toxic masculinity contributed to this shooting is not the same thing as saying all men are violent. Learn reading comprehension.
Second of all, is this a human problem and not a masculinity problem than why are mass shooters overwhelmingly male? If toxic masculinity isn’t the answer, then what is? You need to present an alternative hypothesis and present evidence for it if you want your statement to be taken seriously.
Gee, thanks, Yoda. It’s so helpful to have a totally neutral, enlightened being materialize from the spiritual ether to gaslight us and dismiss our concerns. Tell us more about how we should be feeling.
OK fxc, assuming you won’t stick your flounce, Iet’s have a reasonable discussion about about that Hitman sequence everyone is so angry about.
So firstly, it’s a bit embarrassing that you don’t actually know where the Hitman clip is actually located. It’s in Women as Background Decoration, Pt. 1 about 21 minutes in. Honestly, the most basic requisite for making a reasoned and measured critique of anything is being familiar with the primary text. Otherwise it kind of makes it look like you’re just regurgitating thunderf00t’s favourite talking point without actually looking at the clip in context of the full video. And that would be really sad and kind of intellectually dishonest, right?
Secondly, worth pointing out that the entire sequence on Hitman, including the introduction, is roughly a minute and a half long. Sarkeesian has produced over three hours of critique in the Tropes vs. Women in Video Games series to date, but this seems to be the only example anyone can ever give of her “lying to support her thesis”. That’s pretty weak, my friend. Can you give some other substantial examples of where she lies or misrepresents games in order to support her thesis. If you can’t, it really looks like you’re just cherry-picking to prove your point – and we all know how bad cherry-picking is!
Thirdly, let’s look at what she actually says about Hitman, shall we? So to start, she never actually says anything about Hitman specifically and she certainly doesn’t say “the developers of the game encourage you to murder, and mutilate the women within the strip club”. She uses a clip from Hitman as one example of how vulnerable, eroticized women often become objects to be acted upon within the game space. She’s actually making a wider point about videogames as a medium and how they differ from static, non-interactive forms such as film. She points out that while all games have rules, part of the fun of games is testing the mechanics of the world; to use Anita’s own words, “we are encouraged to experiment with how the system will react or respond to our inputs.” (Emphasis mine) So the point is not whether you lose points or not for murdering strippers: the point is that when game developers set up scenario after scenario of vulnerable eroticized women standing around and gives the player character a gun, the game is implicitly asking “Hey, what happens if you attack them?”
If you’ve done even cursory reading of game theory (which I’m sure you have), you’ll know that this isn’t some wild new idea Sarkeesian is pushing. It’s actually a standard trope and there are loads of examples. The classic example is the cuccos in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. You’re not supposed to attack them: in fact, the game punishes you if you do, and you will almost certainly be killed unless you leave the area as fast as possible. But I guarantee that every single person who has played OoT has attacked the cuccos at some point during their game, out of a perverse desire to see what will happen. Because pushing the boundaries of the game space is what makes games fun.
The echo chamber awaits your reasoned and measured response, including more examples of where Sarkeesian has “lied to support her thesis”. You might also want to rewatch the video in question – it sounds like you haven’t seen it in a while and you’re not very familiar with the overall thrust of the argument. Never any harm in refreshing yourself on the source material!
And furthermore, t1oracle, telling us it’s a “human problem”, not a problem with toxic masculinity, is just another way of saying “sit down and shut up”. It’s an attempt to deflect attention away from the root cause. It’s even more obnoxious when dressed up in the language of neutrality and spiritual “master your hatred, grasshopper” counseling, as if our feelings about this are somehow wrong and dark. It’s patronizing and completely misses the point.
If you’re really questing for enlightenment, learn to distinguish hatred from “hey, this model of masculinity doesn’t work for everybody and has some bad effects that ripple out into the real world”.
That’s our call to make, not yours.
Why is that relevant to an article about the harassers and their harassment? Are these people who are upset that they have been lumped in with harassers the ones going DIE DIE DIE? ‘Cause if they are….
Nope, if that had happened, it would have been hypocritical, not ironic.
Oh shit guys, incoming truth bombs! Get to your shelters!
Oh wait, never mind. It’s this bullshit again. Didn’t someone link to a debunking upthread?
Oh man, guys, Sherlock here looked for it, and couldn’t find it, therefore it must not exist.
And even if she did make that footage herself, that doesn’t change the fact that the game was made to allow that kind of gameplay. If the programmers didn’t want you to shoot strippers, then they’d have no problem designating such an action as an instant game over, or making anybody but your target invincible.
My babies pout way cuter than you, dude.
Did any of you all listen to Diane Rehm’s story last week?
Women And Online Harassment from The Diane Rehm Show – http://stitcher.com/s?eid=35758897
Holy illegible graphic, Batman!
http://i.imgur.com/5ZSxGdO.png
Your background figures interfere with your text. Every word is another color. And the sentiment is fatuous and contributes to silencing. Good day, sir.
It’s true, it’s true! I know that attacking the cuccos in Legend of Zelda will draw the wrath of the Chook Collective, I’ve known it since I played Link’s Awakening. And yet I still did it in Ocarina of Time. I’m an awful person!
@Falconer, do you prefer this version? http://i.imgur.com/GkQflXN.png
Also, please explain how equating masculinity and femininity is fatuous and contributes to silencing? Do you believe masculinity is less valuable?
Do you believe that masculinity must be a concept separate from femininity? In other words, if men were to wear women’s clothes and do women’s work, and talk and behave like women, would that be a terrible outcome in your view? Explain.
Nope, all you’ve done is remove most of the color and turn your background gray. Doesn’t fix the problem that your background and your text clash, making both hard to read.
What Policy of Madness said. Also, are you entirely unaware of the “you should call yourself a humanist” red herring? Because you’re invoking that, not in so many words. Not to mention, the genders (all of them) are not equal. You probably think income inequality doesn’t real, for instance.
@Falconer I am not telling anyone what they should call themselves. I am only asking that they do not vilify one group in the effort to uplift another. I would not call that humanism, I don’t even like that label. Furthermore, I have donated to charities that promote women and I have even taught an introduction to programing class for teenaged girls in assistance to one of my friend’s charities. I have no problem with supporting women. Loving others is always good.
*wanders in*
Interesting data:
http://www.themarysue.com/newsweek-gamergate/
*starts to wander back out*
…
It’s also fatuous because you plopped down your graphic for no discernible reason.
No one here is saying that men (or even necessarily those who wish to adhere to many traditional versions of masculinity) are “toxic” or “bad”. They (and Sarkeesian) are saying that cultural forces that tell boys and men that they must meet opposition with violence in order to really be men are toxic.
…Probably in the same way that most of them would argue that cultural forces that tell women that they must meet opposition with submission are toxic.
It’s not that complicated, dude.
@t1oracle
I await an answer. Would it be a terrible outcome if men and women behaved in the same manner, and that manner was how women are (expected to) behave today? And why do you believe the answer you give?
@Policy of Madness
People should not be forced to adopt an identity.
@t1oracle
Don’t evade. It’s a straightforward question, and “forcing” is not involved in it.
@t1oracle
Indeed. Everyone “adopts an identity.”
@proxieme
By paring the two words “toxic” and “masculinity” you imply that masculinity is toxic. Furthermore, by framing discussions of abuse, rape, and murder as debates about masculinity, you imply that only males (or that the least, the masculine) are guilty of these action.
None of these things are true, masculinity is not toxic, and abuse, rape, and murder are not issues of masculinity. Abuse, rape, and murder are issues of humanity and those actions are committed by both the masculine and the feminine.
@t1oracle
No, by pairing the words, you do exactly the opposite: if all masculinity were toxic, it would be sufficient to say “masculinity.” BY saying “toxic masculinity,” it says that is a particular form of masculinity, and there is also non-toxic masculinity.
The idea that abuse, rape, and murder might be proportionate responses to real or imagined affronts to one’s masculinity is toxic, and not exactly rare.
Falconer:
On that note, is there anyone who never removed the stepladder while their Sim was in the pool? Just to see what would happen? Like you technically lose because your Sim dies, but also you get to see the Grim Reaper show up, which is awesome!
It’s almost like Sarkeesian is analysing the options presented by the game world, which give the player the illusion of agency and control, as opposed to analysing the “perfect” playthrough as though games were static texts with only one correct narrative resolution.
In conclusion, Sarkeesian is pretty smart and dudes who are freaking out over strippers in Hitman need to brush up on Game Theory 101.