Leave it to Vox Day, the proudly reactionary sci-fi author and game developer, to say what most of his #GamerGate comrades spend so much energy denying: that their little movement is at least in part a backlash against women in gaming. At least against real women, with their own opinions.
As Vox writes in a post on his Alpha Game blog,
Games have long been an escape from women and social pressure for many young men, so it should surprise no one that they aren’t particularly keen on seeing their retreat invaded by the very things from which they are escaping.
So why exactly do guys want an escape from women? Well, as Vox once explained in an interview with “Dr. Helen” for her book Men On Stike,
Women can be entertaining, but they’re expensive, inaccessible for most men, and from the male perspective, shockingly unreliable.
What makes it worse, Vox suggests on his blog, is that the kind of guys who play a lot of video games aren’t exactly the guys scoring the top quality women.
When people ask a gamma or an omega if he wouldn’t rather be out and about “with a real girl” instead of playing games, they should first keep in mind what sort of “real girl” is probably on offer for him. And considering the alternatives, who can truly blame him if he looks at his choices and decides that games and porn are genuinely the better option.
Huh. Aren’t you a game developer, Vox? I thought the first rule of GamerGate is that journalists and developers shouldn’t insult their customers.
But GamerGaters were quick to pardon Mytheos Holt for calling them all a bunch of dateless losers, and I suspect they’ll do the same with Vox, because no matter how pathetic he thinks most gamers are, it’s clear he thinks women are worse.
But, if “most gamers” are these dateless gammas and omegas, who are choosing vidya over “real women,” what about the fact that the statistical majority (slight margin, but still, more than 50%) are actually FEEEEEMAAAAAALE?
Oh, that’s right. We females, who have gamed for longer than many of these “gamers” have even BEEN ALIVE are simply figments of Anita Sarkeesian’s fevered imagination.
While the animated woman in the striped shirt is “real.”
Uh huh.
@grumpyoldnurse
I believe that is because when you try to pay for the date, you are taking away their “right” to have sex with you, thus making it so that the most they can rightfully expect from you is merely pleasant company. And they don’t actually care about the pleasure of your company. They just want to get laid.
It’s as if a hooker said, “No charge, but we’ll just chat, instead of getting down and dirty.”
John – “But, if I just wanted to chat, I’d hang out with a dude! Just take my money and my liquid effin’ gold, will ya?”
Hooker – “Sorry, no pay no play.”
John – “But, I’m willing to paaaay!”
Hooker – “But I don’t want to plllaaaaaayyy!”
John – “That’s FRAUD! How dare you not sell your merchandise to me?”
Hooker – “Because I’m off duty, now. Anyway, I reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. It’s perfectly legal not to sell to you.”
John – “MISANDRY!!!!”
And, of course, ALL females are whores, dontchaknow. If we’re not taking their money and their liquid gold, then we are evil.
And if we do take their money and their liquid gold, we are evil.
And if we take their liquid gold, but not their money, we are evil and cheap sluts.
As opposed to gold-digging sluts.
And if we actually maintain our virginity, we are effin’ whores. Because reasons.
::dies::
@KathleenB
problems and all, I loved Arcanum 🙂
Chun-li can take on Vox or Wolverine any day
I was determined to read all the comments, and comment replies and all that conversating stuff, but frankly, all this talk of games makes me want to go play games, so…
Now, I just have to decide which one to play right now. I’m torn between Sims, RuneScape, Baldur’s Gate, Civilization, SimCity, Tropico, or Township, or the Wii bowling.
Yeah, my brain’s off to game-land, so I might as well follow it.
“Women can be entertaining, but they’re expensive, inaccessible for most men, and from the male perspective, shockingly unreliable.”
…And every single mother with an absent baby daddy, struggling to make ends meets, keeping a home, and assuring the survival of her children’s, spat her coffee all over the desk and keyboard.
Where does one begin?
a) Women are entertainment, apparently. I think in his mind, all women equal strippers (has he ever encountered any other kind of woman? One can speculate that, no, he has not), which is why…
b) Women are expensive. Well, the women he pays to take their clothes off for him, anyway (but let’s be honest, she’s not just dancing for him, but also the 4 other guys who found themselves at the ‘Juicy Lucy’ at 2 o’clock in the afternoon on a Wednesday.)
c) Women are inaccessible for most men. If you only venture out of the dank of your computer room to obtain taquitos and a Big Gulp from 7-11 at midnight, yes, women will be inaccessible to you. Why? Because it is unlikely to encounter a single woman during the 5 minutes in which you leave your hovel in the middle of the night. These men are working against the probability that a female of the human species will not only appear at that location, at that time of day, but will ALSO take an interest in a man who likely decided that the short trek did not require pants, a clean shirt or a hairbrush taken to his rat’s nest of greasy hair. I know, I know — women and their UNREALISTIC expectations of men, amiright, dude bros?!
d) Women are unreliable. Ok… Let’s throw in some statistics here: ‘According to U.S. Census Bureau, out of 12 million single parent families in 2013, more than 80% were headed by single mothers*; [t]oday 1 in 4 children under the age of 18 — a total of about 17.5 million — are being raised without a father.**’ So for those of you counting at home, that’s a whole lot of women, with a whole lot of children, making it work in spite of the absence of men. Now, some of those women have their children taken away due to neglect or abuse, but I don’t see a quarter of all mothers in the USA losing their children to foster care. We can therefor assume that women are, for the most part, being reliable towards their children, and the men, who left them with no forwarding address, are being unreliable.
*http://www.census.gov/hhes/families/data/cps2013FG.html [Table FG10]
**http://www.census.gov/hhes/families/data/cps2013C.html [Table C2]
So-tangential-it’s-totally-OT: I indulge in long-winded comments on Polygon now and again because, even in that woman-ordered utopia in which all the writers are in on the Feminispiracy ™, I’m _constantly_ running into dudebros who think pointing out sexism is some kind of sexism.
Today I gut sucked into a back-and-forth over the Barbie-as-an-engineer book, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t make my point well, convince anyone or, at the very least, make the cretin pause and think about himself for a second. 0-for-3, bad show all around.
So, while I’m not terribly interested in converting the True Gender Believers, anyone have tips on at least deconstructing their arguments? I feel like showing the ugly assumptions behind “getting mad over Brian and Steve is a kind of sexism” and “you can’t prove who sent Anita a death threat … assuming she actually got them” talk would do far more than bickering with assholes, but I’m not really that good at it.
(In Polygon news, anyone else miss Shuma Radio? Totally MIA, and I fear permabanned.)
@ Mewens
I think that you can explain why getting mad over Brian and Steve isn’t sexism against men. Explain that the fact that Brian and Steve have to program the game that Barbie’s designing and that they have to fix the computer virus that she starts supports the idea that women can’t do computer programming at all and that all female engineers are being propped up by male engineers. Brian and Steve’s role in the book supports the idea that only men can STEM. If Barbie did everything in the book by herself, that wouldn’t change anyone’s perceptions about men’s STEM abilities, nor would it would it imply that men aren’t good at STEM. Furthermore, people getting mad at their bailing Barbie out has nothing to do with people thinking that men aren’t good at STEM.
As for Anita, point out that the FBI took it seriously. Point out the sheer number of threats that she’s gotten that are on public record on twitter, youtube, kickstarter, etc. to show that it’s impossible for all of them to be false flags.
They don’t actually think that, they’re just cargo-culting an excuse to try and make people feel guilty for condemning his asshattery. Because social justice is all about guilt.
So many of these Gaters seem to be under the impression that all the people who have always been feminists are suddenly becoming gamers, when really a bunch of people who have always been gamers are gradually becoming feminists. Not that there’d be anything wrong with the former, but “get out cuz we were here first” is a batshit argument.
The thing I find really telling about sexual objectification or socio-sexual dominance fantasies in games or anywhere else is that on the rare occasions when I’m given the opportunity to have them about men, I tend to get uncomfortable or bored quickly. I’ve been raised respecting men as people, so using them as things (without their explicit and enthusiastic human consent) feels wrong to me. Whatever we’re doing sexually, I want the man to have free will. It’s only sexy for me if he’s chosen this, if he likes this.
Even feminazi women like me have internalized “men are people, women are objects.” I think that’s why even as a straight woman I felt comfortable enough in Japanese Maid Cafes (a service fantasy) but was too embarrassed to go into a Butler Cafe. And why nobody proudly wears shirts decorated with men’s bodies. And why cishet male celebrities don’t do a lot of nude photoshoots. There is a major gap in fundamental human respect.
@Shiraz – Obviously the place for you to escape to is the kitchen, and the “escaping” involves making your man a sandwich. That’s what chicks do to unwind, right?
@Chie – so true.
@alaisvex – Right, they think that for women all instances of getting laid are equal, and that we only ever refuse sex with someone to be petty golddigging bitches or for entertainment or to demonstrate power or something. Not because we, you know, might only enjoy sex with people we actually want. Like they do. That would be insane.
@Tracy – Yes! I love Many A True Nerd!! The number of objectionable comments Jon has made is close to zero. Jokes about brutally murdering people are gender-neutral! 😀
Fair point, vaiyt. On the one hand, I could believe that they’re firmly convinced that they’re being persecuted for their conservatism and that they like Bill Cosby for being what they would consider a good black person because he seems to support white racists’ talking points. On other hand, we know that they don’t actually care about racism against black people, and we know that they don’t think that women being raped is all that bad.
Great posts lately, David.
Theo Beale calls women “unreliable” but men can be pretty unreliable as well. Witness how quick some of them are to abandon their families when the going gets tough. Why if you’re just looking for a little love in your life would you think of a woman like a car or a set of work tools? A woman is supposed to get with you and take care of you and never leave you no matter how you treat her?
Holocene Human – “Had a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack / Went out for a drive and I never went back,” comes to mind. Given that I grew up believing that I’d never be able to marry and raise children, my perspective may be a little different.
My biggest relief in this whole mishegass is that I don’t have to explain it to my kids. They have no *idea* who Bill Cosby *is*. I’d have them watch “Leonard Part 6”, but I love them too much.
Wait, so as a woman, what have I been trying to escape from with videogames? And when did games become about escape, and not just having some fun or blowing off steam?
Vidyagames: NOT FOR FUN. OR WOMEN.
Of course video games aren’t for fun. The only proper gamers are serious gamers, not namby-pamby female casual gamers. *Shudder*
These guys are like an even worse version of the Lost Boys in Peter Pan – just as amoral, just as cruel, just as loveless, but lacking even the pleasure of being so fucking awful and never growing up. Add their constant rageboners and voila, you have the perfect storm of failed human beings.
I’m sure the rest of GG will handwave this away, as per normal, but I’m enjoying the obvious misogyny. Oh, the poor GGators, having to deal with THINGS like women.
You know, my biggest response to #GG has been to actually buy more video games? I prefer creepy hidden mystery games in general, but I bought 4 video games off of one of my coworkers (he was selling all of his PS3 games because his system died) for my daughters. They’ve always loved games, and are now working their way through the Assassin’s Creed series.
I’m definitely going to buy some games this month. Yay for extra cash.
Yeah Puddleglum. it’s led to me playing games a lot more as well.
Latest Dragon Age, I’m a little disappointed. They’ve cut back on rp for strategy, and I’m lousy at strategy games.
I don’t see how women as consumers of video games threatens the making or development of games in any way. We are funding at least 50% of this bloody industry already, despite the fact that most game genres are not directly marketed at us. All we want is to be acknowledged as equal participants in something that is fun, without being condescended to.
“We play games to escape teh feeeeemales, so they can’t play” – What? I can’t boot up my games console in the privacy of my own home, and play offline single-player?
“Girls don’t even like games” – What? I’ve spent countless hours playing them without deriving any kind of pleasure from them?
“SJWs will ruin games with their liberal feminazi agenda” or some nonsense. – Oh, wait, I get it now. They play games to escape any kind of reality in which women, LGBTQ, or PoC folk exist and are represented as fully-rounded characters, because their favourite escapist fantasy involves being a big ole white macho-man. They think any narrative influences from people who are not straight white men will somehow cause them to confront their masculinity or something. And that gives them Sad Feels.
Surely diverse narratives and a wider dev talent pool would make for a lot of interesting new titles, rather than the same triple-A franchise re-hashes that every gamer complains about? And yet they constantly attack indie developers who keep the industry alive with fresh ideas.
They can’t chase us out of this sector. We are part of its backbone. If women (and other poorly-represented people who are sick of this bull) staged an industry boycott, I wonder how long it would be before the developers all begged us to come back?
Hello,
This site looks excellent and well-researched. I have been bullied my whole life for not conforming to the image of the muscular man by MRAs. Am I welcome here?
There’s a big difference between wanting to take a break from everyday life and blow off steam for a bit, and wanting to retreat fully into a fantasy world where straight white males are king, women are objects, and every boner is catered to instantly. People who use games for the former tend to have actual responsibilities and worries. For GGers demanding the latter, gaming *is* their real life. They’ve given up on the world and the very idea of becoming an adult, and they’re trying to frame their lazy, resentful failure to launch as a victorious “fuck you”.
Yeah, the world isn’t going to mourn too much if a bunch of emotionally stunted misogynists decide to opt out of relationships just because all the women around them aren’t hot DDs and don’t dispense blow jobs on demand. The human species will continue on happily without them.
I don’t understand why they think the best response to the consciousness-raising that’s gone on among women for the past several decades is for men to retreat into a perma-pout. Why not engage in some equal consciousness-raising? Why not take a close look at the harm the patriarchy causes to men as well?
Also, I am a nice guy, not a Nice Guy (TM) I like fedoras, but will gladly boycott them in the name of Tumblr feminism.
@ Buttercup – the consciousness-raising against the harm the patriarchy causes to men, more or less led to the Men’s Rights Movement. It’s because they can’t look at anything beyond their sense of entitlement and the “threat” to their masculine self-perceptions that is apparently posed by even basic thinking skills.
In terms of the social Darwinism they love to talk about so much, their poutiness puts them at an evolutionary dead-end.