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| SSB: Women, Men, & Gaming; I will make the topic | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Sep 6 2014, 09:34 AM (14,629 Views) | |
| HyrulianJedi | Sep 7 2014, 03:48 PM Post #21 |
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uguu~
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Do feminists shy away from their title because of feminazis? Do supporters of social justice abandon the term because of SJWs? A label is what you make of it. Playing video games is one of my major hobbies; I am a gamer. It doesn't need to be my entire life, because no one can sum up their entire life in a single label, and they shouldn't be expected to. I'm also a writer, a booknerd, an engineer, and a BJJunkie, none of which are all-encompassing labels. Just because some people who also call themselves gamers are entitled little shits doesn't change how I refer to myself, particularly when they're, as usual in cases like this, a vocal minority. You seem to think the term "gamer" is separate from "video game player" when it really isn't (unless you're talking about other kinds of games, I guess). A label doesn't have to be a single word; "sports fan" is a label in the same vein as "gamer", and if you don't think sports fans have done horrible shit because of their hobby, then you haven't bothered looking into it at all. |
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| Nell | Sep 7 2014, 05:32 PM Post #22 |
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The Pretender
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Well, I don't think you can discount the fact that labels are also what other people make of them. I hate the term SJW because, prima facie, a social justice warrior is what I am - I'm someone who fights or advocates, in one way or another, for social justice. And confusion about the term has been showing up in the more mainstream media recently, because its most common use is derogatory - it brings a negative association to the idea of someone fighting for social justice - and there are a lot of people who are like, "Why is that a bad thing? Social justice is a good thing, right?" In the Tumblr context, it has a more specific meaning of someone who claims to be fighting for social justice in a particuar manner, but the phrase itself doesn't capture that. And so it's becoming more frequently used as a perjorative for feminists, etc. in general, because not everyone has that Tumblr background - which is a destructive thing. I hate the term MRA for the same reason - I think there are a number of valuable men's rights issues being pushed, but MRA, as a term that has come to mean a particular species of proponent of those causes, is also being used to denegrate anything to do with men's rights, which would make it difficult to voluntarily identify with. Shads, that NYT article - and just about every article that's appeared in mainstream press about video games and esports - is performing a different function and appealing to a different audience than 'video game journalism' of the kind I think we're talking about - which is, you know, games journalism, event coverage, industry news and gossip. People who are familiar with games aren't going to be the target audience for a quasi-anthropological report on this weird little industry where people sit at computers all day and make cash by clicking. We might find it interesting from a 'hey we got mainstream media coverage!' point of view, but I still don't think you can necessarily conflate the different standards of journalism that are going to apply to a NYT piece about gaming for non-gamers and a review of a new game written for gamers who have been following its development and community for three years. |
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| Kiki | Sep 8 2014, 11:39 AM Post #23 |
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Kiki Martius Chantico
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Yeah, that's true. You see some of the same problems there too. Sports is more accepted as mainstream, so I don't think they are as bad about facing criticism, but it's there. The "gaming community" (or those who consider themselves "real fans" in a special group) can't handle criticism because of how they see themselves. Anyone with criticism must be an outsider who doesn't understand. Criticism of the industry is seen as a personal attack to these people. The main reason Sarkeesian is attacked with such vitriol isn't just because she's a woman but because she came with criticism. The fact that she was a woman with criticism about the representation of women definitely fired up a misogynistic batch of trolls, can't deny that if you really delve into the things that have been done and said. It doesn't help that her criticisms are poorly researched and at times, ridiculous (I do like one of her videos though). Even if we look at more thoughtful critics who discuss the representation of women in games, we see a lot of shit too though. There are mountains of articles and videos about why feminism and gaming don't mix. It's one thing to accept that the majority of hardcore gamers are male and that naturally affects what games look like, but it's another to totally block your ears to the idea that some things might be messed up. We do have a problem going on where the "sjws" and the "special snowflake gamers" are just, as peytral put it in the sbox, "minorities screaming at each other." that's a big part of Gamergate too. There's nothing wrong with considering yourself a gamer, even a gamer who is more dedicated than other ones. But you can't deny that most of your peers are also gamers in some form, and their opinions on games are valid, and gaming does not make anyone special. |
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| Crash | Sep 8 2014, 11:54 AM Post #24 |
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Wheey! I've became a human being!! I am very handsam!
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Here you go Shadow http://www.objectivegamereviews.com/ (in all seriousness though their interviews are pretty good pieces about how video game reviews work and different peoples' thought processes when reviewing games) |
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| Role | Sep 8 2014, 06:14 PM Post #25 |
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Fulminous Witch
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Personally, I agree with the general idea that gaming needs to be more equal... but the way she presents it is specifically designed to pick fights. In no way, shape, or form, is it a fair representation of gaming. The overall feel is that "Games are bad and evil and anti woman", when that can't be further from the truth - not once does she show where gaming is getting better, nor does she champion games that go along with her ideals. One of her problems for example, is a lack of strong females. And yet, not once does she showcase Samus, one of the oldest of strong female leads in gaming, nor the outrage that gamers had about her treatment in Other M. As a gamer girl, I firmly believe that her tactics are making the problem worse, people are hunkering down harder in their ways, which of course lets her go "See? Told you they were horrible". She's doing this only to make a statement, not to actually encourage change. It's more of a cry for attention than a serious attempt to make gaming more progressive. |
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| Nell | Sep 8 2014, 07:02 PM Post #26 |
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The Pretender
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The end result of people 'hunkering down in their old ways' as a reaction to a not-well-rounded argument is, of course, that everyone loses, but I don't think you can ignore those same people's contribution to that loss. To use the least inflammatory metaphor I can think of, that's a bit like someone making a poor attempt to persuade someone to eat vegetables, but that person decides they're going to be more determined than ever to not eat vegetables, then, too, had agency in the result - and it's really something they should have been doing anyway. (And in case it isn't obvious, if that person, in becoming more determined to avoid eating vegetables, starts hurling abuse and threats, you can't attribute that as being caused by the person who was trying to get them to eat vegetables, however ill-conceived their method my have been.) It sounds like a lot of people are concerned that her arguments aren't representative of video games as a whole, and that she's leaving out all the positive stuff (as some of you seem to think, as a tactical decision to bolster her argument). But I was under the impression that the whole series was dealing with tropes - that is, devices that recur across titles that have become something shorthand and recognisable and taken for granted. The fact that a trope does not manifest in every text does not invalidate its status as a trope. Just because strong female characters exist in some games does not mean that there isn't a trope of using women as background decoration in a large number of other games. Neither does the existence of some games without women as a background decoration nullify the point that a lot of games do have that. If there were subversions of the trope of women as background decoration, that would probably be relevant and a welcoming touch for the sake of a well-rounded argument and giving productive examples of, "hey, some developers are actually making a conscious effort to change". But I do think it's important to keep in mind the fact that it's a study on tropes across texts, and while I think her point is that they are cumulatively revealing of some sexist ideologies underlying the industry, I very much doubt that her conclusion is that 'video games as a medium are evil'. |
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| Crash | Sep 8 2014, 07:16 PM Post #27 |
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Wheey! I've became a human being!! I am very handsam!
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Except oops she actually did do that in some of the videos I'm on a tablet so I can't really find exact times but she praised indie game Passage in one episode, and I know she's brought up god examples in some others |
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| Role | Sep 9 2014, 06:29 AM Post #28 |
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Fulminous Witch
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So she chose an indie game nobody has heard about over prominent examples of what should be done throughout gaming's history? That kind of heavily implies that she's exaggerating the problem. She's missing all these obvious examples, and doesn't even stop to consider things such as gamers as a whole hating the Save the Princess routine. I mean, hell - White Knight Chronicles got a huge mark against it because of how tired people are of that trope. She seems to be taking the approach of someone outside looking in, without really committing herself to doing any real research into the subject, no attempts to try and get people's viewpoints on some of these issues. I mean, it's saying something when a lot of the gaming populace is going "Yeah, no shit that needs to die" to some of these tropes, but she's ignoring the direction gamers themselves are leaning. I haven't seen more recent vids by her, but I am curious - did she have anything to say on the backlash against Ubisoft for Farcry and Assassin's Creed's lack of playable female characters? Gamer culture itself seems to be pushing away from the Boring White Dude approach to gaming, yet she seems to continue to push this idea that Gamers and Game Devs as a whole are Misogynistic Pigs. Pretty sure I have a hard time resonating with her message with insinuations like that, what with being a gamer girl and all. |
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| Admiral Miral | Sep 9 2014, 09:55 AM Post #29 |
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The Light of Hope
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I don't know if you guys are familiar with the term "true nerd" or "real nerd" but I think gaming is currently in a similar position. A lot of people who are nerds/gamers were picked on or teased because of their hobbies so they sort of have a chip on their shoulder about it. They have in their mind who the "real" or "true" nerds/gamers are and if anyone differs from what their mental image of what a real nerd/gamer is they lash out at them. This does include superficial things like appearance (a lot of the time they lash out against women or attractive men because there's no way someone like that could be a real nerd/gamer) but hell, they even do it with stupid shit like "Oh you don't like Doctor Who, so there's no way you're a real nerd" or whatever. These kinds of people just can't accept that anyone who isn't the stereotypical nerd as being a "true nerd" and lash out against them and a lot of "gamers" demonstrate the same shit. |
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| Nell | Sep 9 2014, 05:14 PM Post #30 |
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The Pretender
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Repetitions of "I'm a gamer and I don't agree with her/like what she's saying/like her approach" together with that "she's an outsider/she doesn't know what she's talking about/she's deliberately trying to make gaming look bad" are certainly indicative of this defensiveness and possessiveness over gaming discourse. Some random on reddit wrote this (in a thread I was reading last night about why there's a perception that men have difficulty writing female characters) about tropes: "The problem is that people tend to fall back on certain tropes and stereotypes. There's a certain way that characters act and any particular type of scene plays out that people seem to recognize as "default." Half of making things interesting is recognizing what those tropes are and going against them." |
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| Role | Sep 9 2014, 05:56 PM Post #31 |
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Fulminous Witch
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Well with the way she presents her case, it's no freaking wonder people are being defensive. She's basically giving off the feeling "these are bad and so are you", and nobody wants that to be said about them or their hobbies. The messaging has been a complete disaster, and has basically been compounding the very problems she's pointed out. This is my common complaint with a lot of modern feminism - it's too militant and aggressive, and it's why the term feminazi is thrown around so much. They're attacking targets more than they are lifting up their cause - basically, trying to bring a target (in this case, men) down rather than bringing women up. Probably the most insulting thing I've had said to me was in a feminist rant - that women like me should be essentially brainwashed into thinking like men, so that we like all the things men like and that we'd be equal then. As you can imagine, by response was a rather lengthy retort of outrage. |
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| Ian889 | Sep 9 2014, 08:14 PM Post #32 |
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Death comes to all of those who oppose me.
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The threats against her are fairly asinine, but honestly she's not nearly the only one whose received them. Unfortunately gamers seem to be prone to that kind of asininity not as collective unity but a few very vocal voices. See the ME3 creators, TotalBuiscuit, PewDiePie, Angry Joe, and many others. I think Anita probably get's it worse because of what she's saying, but she's not part of an minority when it comes to game commentators. Jim Sterling made a video just yesterday about how you can not like her or disagree with her and still be against those attacking her. I don't like the way she has stolen video game footage for her videos and art for her kickstarter without giving any credit to the actual authors. I also don't like how she is on record saying she doesn't play that many video games, but in her Fem videos claims the contrary. Not to mention there are reports to where people backtracked her IP adress so that some of the threats made to her came from her as well. As far as her content I agree with it as a baseline for the most part, but her lack of game experience really does show through on her finer points. Her statistics are often tweaked to favor her which isn't that surprising considering how often it's done for a variety of things. Honestly to me personally she's a non entity. She's just another talking head on Youtube. If it wasn't for the fact that some facebook friends who are by in large not gamers tagged to to look at her stuff I probably wouldn't have. Again as Jim Sterling made a good point it's the haters who made her. If people just ignored her she would have just vanished. So I suppose in the end She'll keep making videos haters will keep hating, and I'll keep enjoying my video games as a fun activity the same way I have always done. |
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| Saturos | Sep 9 2014, 09:31 PM Post #33 |
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heart-under-blade
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I don't think that's what she's saying, Role. I think there's a part of it that gives that impression, but I can recognize that there's both good and bad points to her argument. And almost universally, correcting sexist tropes leads to better writing, because it avoids the stale and repetitive aspects you mentioned and treats women as human beings, well-rounded characters, and equal in the narrative. That's not saying women can't be NPCs, but that you have a diversity across the gender, instead of the same kind of woman OR the same kind of man seen again and again. I do think there's more to it than just having a female playable character. It's also critiquing the representations of women as they are (for example, I definitely agree with her criticism of say Dante's Inferno, which is widely recognized to be a shit game). I think you're generalizing "modern feminism" a lot there based on a subset that you've had bad experiences with in the past. Like some men's rights activists being crazy, or like some gamers making harrassment and death threats, or like 4chan basically orchestrating #gamegate, just because a portion is bad doesn't mean the whole thing is bad. In my experience and in my education and reading, I've seen feminists both pointing out the problems that people try to avoid (whether because they benefit from the status quo or because it raises a huge shitstorm), and then also advocating for real alternatives. I almost never see "bringing men down" in mainstream feminism. Maybe on someone's Tumblr, but no one takes those people seriously. Nell was saying to me and I agree: people who are opposed to feminism and the "feminazis" you mentioned come from the same place of not understanding feminism, having only a superficial grasp of the concept and then going forward with that. Incidentally, the superficial grasp of the concept is frequently the same in both parties: "yeah the word feminism has feminine in it, it must mean that women are better than men! They must be man-haters!" As to your personal experience, the feminists I agree with would say "how you act as a man or a woman is all made up/societal conditioning anyway, so just do whatever you want." To paraphrase Judith Butler, anyway. So if you want to do some things like a woman and some things like a man, more power to you. At its heart feminism is about the freedom to make choices and live your life unimpeded by restrictions based on gender. And that's something that applies to both men and women. Ian that's a lot of contentious points, can you supply a source for the following?
I know she spent a lot of her kickstarter money on research, buying and playing games, and there's pictures of her with her collection. She has a hell of a lot more games than I do. But even if she didn't play as many games as the biggest gamer in the world, she can still render commentary on the tropes in the games she HAS played. So yeah, source for the IP address thing and the tweaking statistics, please. |
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| Peytral | Sep 9 2014, 09:41 PM Post #34 |
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peytral pls
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One of these things is not like the others. |
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| Nell | Sep 9 2014, 10:08 PM Post #35 |
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The Pretender
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Just because TotalBiscuit (and lest we forget, part of the flack he got was because of stuff Genna was doing) and other men get abuse on the internet is true in a technical or factual sense, but ultimately irrelevant to the point at hand. And we've had this discussion before. "But other people [men] have problems too!" is not a relevant refutation to the proposition that the most problematic harassment and abuse Sarkeesian has been receiving has been ostensibly for being a feminist/making feminist commentary/being a woman, ie. that the underlying motive is misogyny. I get that there is a lot of pervasive confusion about what exactly about those threats is misogynistic, if 'everyone [ie. no just women] gets them', and because they're often not explicitly phrased as being 'we hate you because you're a woman' (unlike what happened with Quinn, where she was specifically targeted by a known community of misogynistic miscreants), and if that's something that needs to be talked about, sure, let's talk about it. I understand it was something that came up with Squee, so maybe if he wants to re-contribute his perspective, we could start there, but if not, we could talk about it anyway. Also, I'm going to make the quick point (again, because I made it earlier) before I head off to class, but blaming Sarkeesian for people getting angry and defensive and abusive about the issue is victim-blaming. |
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| Saturos | Sep 9 2014, 10:09 PM Post #36 |
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heart-under-blade
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Apologies, they were all examples relevant to the topic at hand. Though I'm sure there's overlap between some parts of those groups (so not all 4channers make death threats, but some do. Not all men's rights activists make death threats, but some do. Not all SJWs make death threats, but some do. etc). That's what I'm trying to say, you can't generalize the entire group based on the actions of a few. But you can't ignore the few, either. |
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| Ian889 | Sep 10 2014, 08:28 AM Post #37 |
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Death comes to all of those who oppose me.
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To Satty. I'll give you an example when it come to her statistics. On I want to say her second video she started that only 3% of games feature female leads. Which is probably fact however, that would lead anyone not really into games that 97% of games then have male leads. A friend of mine made this very mistake. Yet what she doesn't explain is the number of games you can create your character like a huge portion of games do. She also doesn't feel the need to include that games like fighters and MOBAs have no real main character. Has she have qualified the data by stating that x % of games have soley male leads I wouldn't have had a problem with the statement. You'll have to wait until I'm at a computer to get to the IP thing as I'm on my phone now To nell.I would disagree that the harassment of men is irrelevant in gaming because it speaks to the larger issue of sadly there are too many assholes in gaming communities. Feminist book, tv, or movie commentators don't receive the same amount of backlash that game commentators do. In fact she hasn't been attacked as much for her non gaming criticism as she had for gaming criticism. I suppose where we differ is the reason for the backlash. I see it having more to do with the fact that it's games she's speaking to; not because she's a feminist. Furthermore, I have not started that Anita deserved it nor refuted the point that harassment is bad. In fact I said the opposite. |
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| Crash | Sep 11 2014, 11:01 AM Post #38 |
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Wheey! I've became a human being!! I am very handsam!
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How can you say this when literally every one of her videos starts out with a message about how pointing out negative and hurtful examples of tropes in a video game does not make that game or those who enjoy it bad, and that it is actually "necessary" to enjoy problematic media? |
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| Jenn-uh | Sep 11 2014, 03:02 PM Post #39 |
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hunny bunchkins sugarcube lettuce chamomile sweetie pumpkin schnitzel fries
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It's also worth noting that a massive hate campaign against her started after she announced that the series was in production, even before the videos were published. [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZAxwsg9J9Q[/youtube] |
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| Nell | Sep 11 2014, 06:29 PM Post #40 |
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The Pretender
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No, that's kind of the issue, actually - people are willing to admit that harrassment, generally, and as it happened here, is destructive thing. What people aren't willing to talk about is whether anything should be done to address it, or what sort of things should be done to address it, or why it happens - as in, what kind of things are going on in society that produce these sorts of things that everyone seems to agree is disproportionate and ridiculous. They're only willing to talk to about it's Sarkeesian's fault and how she should have expected backlash, and how backlash is normal, and how if she wants it to stop, she should stop making videos. You could probably argue that there are two major issues at play. The first is the protectiveness around the gaming community. Apparently members of the gaming community overwhelming agree that they want the gaming community to be more inclusive. The whole 'journalistic integrity' thing? Leaving aside the other stuff for a second, it's motivated by this idea that reviewers and the press should be less nepotistic, and should be willing to cover all kinds of stuff regardless of who is giving them the most and best freebies. Does this sound like a good cause? Sure. It would be wonderful if the gaming communities were to put their money where their collective mouths are and embrace diversity of all kinds. It would certainly do wonders for their reputation. But saying 'we want people to feel included' and then turning around and saying (or condoning by silence), 'I'm going to kill/rape you because I don't like the content you make, or maybe someone over there said something that could be interpreted as corrupt' is actually not inclusive at all. It actually scares people away. So on some level, they (we?) have to acknowledge the hypocrisy and do something about it, or continue to have to endure the status quo. The second issue is the feminism thing. I don't think you can entirely excuse (if that's even the right word - because why you would even want to excuse that kind of behaviour is questionable) the events because 'lol gamer assholes'. One of the reasons the gaming community is such a nightmare is, in my experience, because of the misogyny that runs rampant and largely unchecked through it, which probably derives from an infinite number of sources: the historical demographic; its perceived current demographic, etc. Are male gamers abusive towards other male gamers? Sure. Doesn't mean the community's not misogynistic (which is kind of why I said that fact is true but irrelevant). Women in gaming communities are treated differently from men in gaming communities - there's a pervasive push to delegitimise them (us?) as 'real gamers', the type of abuse they (we?) get is different to the abuse that men or gender-neutral* community members get (usually derived from gender, gender perceptions), and lastly, I think, being the most fundamental point, is the reasons they (we?) get abuse differs from the reasons people generally get abused in the gaming community. So, yes, the fact that it's the gaming community is definitely relevant - but I don't think can disentangle the treatment of women in gaming communities from feminist issues, and even though people keep yelling, 'but men have problems too!', I don't think you can say that the treatment of men and the treatment of women in/by gaming communities is the same, and that's the important point. And as I said in the post above, if you're not sure whether or want to argue that there is no substantial difference in the types of abuse men/gender-neutrals* and women get in gaming communities, then let's talk about that. I'm just still waiting to see if, to my disappointment, Squee has checked out of this thread after releasing all his grievances about Sarkeesian, since this issue came up with him earlier. *By gender neutral, I mean, people or users or community members or players whose gender isn't identifiable by their username/behaviour/supplied details. |
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