So?
Does that make them the “real” voice? Is there any such thing as a “real” voice?
Feminism is not a political party where someone wins a nomination to be the leader based on popularity. Nobody is elected as the “real” voice for a movement.
…I asked a question. You didn’t even attempt to answer that question. Yes: Thunderf00t did creepily zoom the camera in on Anita’s breasts. And her face, and her hoop earrings. That isn’t the thing a normal person does and it didn’t do anything to prove any kind of point.
Is this the sort of video rebuttal of Sarkeesian’s that you expect to speak for itself? What do you think it says?
Is it accurate to say that Anita Sarkeesian got $400 000 for cancelling a talk? Is that what the video was about? Is that what the video proved?
Feminism? Women shouldn’t bother their pretty little heads about it. 
Actually as a male (and the father of a young daughter) I’ve been a strong supporter of feminism since the 60s and 70s. Back then much of it was about sexual freedom. Why should a man get to fuck anything with a hole in it with no consequences at all to his reputation (other than boosting his status) while a woman who fucked around was instantly called a slag, whore, tart. The young women rightly blew the whistle on that one and became as sexually liberated and active as the men (the introduction of the pill didn’t hurt either).
Now though I get the impression that things have changed. Young women don’t seem as sexually robust now and the feminist rhetoric is all about protecting women from the evil designs of men. It’s all very Victorian.
Still what the fuck do I know? Anything that empowers women is good in my book. I just wish some of the sisters out there would stop treating all men as the enemy.
Are we watching the same video? What is she talking about when he’s zooming in on her breasts, lips, nails, and eye makeup? She is talking about the exact same things in female video game characters. Shes saying all these are used to identify female characters while wearing makeup, low neckline, hoops, etc hence identifying herself as female. He’s pointing out the inconsistency of her argument. That’s not obvious to you? He further points out her hypocrisy when he notes that her Kickstarter campaign got 400k in donations in the wake of a cancelled speaking engagement because she was “threatened” even though authorities from multiple agencies found the threat was not legitimate. She essentially got paid for being a “damsel in distress” the very thing she rails against in her videos. I’d say the title of his video is accurate.
Yes it is. In her video Women as Background Decoration she states:
“Research has consistently found that exposure to these types of images negatively impacts perceptions and beliefs about real world women and reinforces harmful myths about sexual violence.”
She doesn’t specify what research she’s alluding to, but I’ve been unable to find any research which links sexist representations of women in video games to actual real-world sexism. That’s not to say such research doesn’t exist. Maybe it is out there somewhere. But until I see it for myself I’m going to persist in my opinion that Sarkeesian has failed to substantiate her own case.
But batshit crazy hate is, unfortunately, part and parcel of expressing an opinion on the internet. I once had a guy tell me he was going to hunt me down and rip my lungs out through my arsehole because I disagreed with him about the Bush tax cuts. And while some of the messages Sarkeesian has received are disturbingly sexist, most of the ones I’ve seen are just common-or-garden flames that wouldn’t be out of place right here in the BBQ Pit.
I’m not saying that Sarkeesian and Green are representative of feminism. I’m just saying that, by virtue of their popularity, they’re more representative of feminism than the feminist posters in this thread who seem to think that their version of feminism is somehow the definitive one.
…I was going to address this: but I thought that I’d just let your post and the Thunderf00t video speak for themselves. This is gamergate folks.
On the one hand we have a feminist who helped improve the story for one of the greatest video games ever made. On the other we have the thunderf00t video.
*"I’ve got a theory. Every single time a man sleeps with a lot of women he’s called a stud, but every time a woman sleeps with a lot of men she’s called a slut. And people think this is unfair.
Nah.
It’s completely fair. And I’ll tell you why. Because it’s easy to be a slut. It’s fucking hard to be a stud. To be a stud you have to be witty, charming, well-dressed, handsome, have nice shoes and a fake job. To be a slut you just have to be…there. There are fat ugly sluts out there but there are no fat ugly studs. I have met slutty dwarves. I’ve never met a stud dwarf."* - Jim Jeffries.
…and you’ve proved my point. What she actually said and what you claimed she said are two very different things. Thanks for the concession.
Perhaps you might want to go back and read the words that Sarkessian wrote (and said) again. If exposure to certain types of images didn’t either negatively or positively impact perceptions and beliefs, then the entire advertising and marketing industry have been throwing money down the drain for the last century.
This is batshit crazy.
You obviously haven’t looked hard enough. Nearly every single one of those tweets would not be acceptable in the pit.
I’m absolutely sure that one day some random guy told you he was going to hunt you down and rip your lungs out through your arsehole because you disagreed with him about the Bush tax cuts. But you don’t have to deal with thousands of random arseholes doing this to you every hour of every day via email, on facebook, on twitter and every other social media feed.
Could you please explain how? Because they look very identical to me.
But Sarkeesian is talking about exposure to certain types of images in video games specifically. Advertisements are meticulously crafted to be as manipulative as humanly possible. Video games aren’t.
I’m not sure why you put so much effort into making a point I’d already conceded. I said in my previous post that some of the messages Sarkeesian got were disturbingly sexist. Clearly, those tweets comprised the worst of the worst from that particular week. Most of the negative tweets I’ve seen on her twitter feed (to which I’m a subscriber) are far more innocuous.
That said, you’re right that I hadn’t seen those particular tweets and had underestimated the level of abuse she’d gotten, so I’ll recant this particular point entirely.
…but they aren’t identical. Both literally and in implied meaning. She doesn’t say “sexist representations cause sexism in the real world”. She says “exposure to these types of images negatively impacts perceptions and beliefs about real world women and reinforces harmful myths about sexual violence.”
Which is the entire point of the tropes series of videos. These images and stereotypes are so common place that they are put into video games without any thought from the developers. The tropes series of videos puts the spotlight on these images and stereotypes and made many developers think about the way they approach things. This is a good thing.
I didn’t read what you wrote as a concession, but as a downplaying of the real world abuse and harasment that Sarkeesian and many others have to put up with every single day.
This however is a concession. Nicely done. 
I could just about buy into iiandyiiii imagining he was the centre of the feminist universe, but what do standards here have to do with communications elsewhere? There are plenty of posts on this board, outside the Pit (hell, even in this thread) which wouldn’t be acceptable in plenty of other places I converse.
But thanks for the link. People on the interwebs are rude to each other. In other news, dog bites man. My favourite was this one:
“@femfreq Stop. You do not understand about gaming, Death Threats are made daily, as well as rape threats. guess what? It’s not only women!”
Indeed, it’s not only women (and it’s not only men making the threats - feminism gave license to women to be more like men, and many of them took it up enthusiastically). But Anita insists on portraying it as a misogynistic issue - so she can say any old tripe and dismiss arguments against her idiocy as issues with women (a tiresomely familiar feminist trope). Just as she critiques games that allow you to kill women (GTA, Hitman etc) while ignoring that most of the victims are men - because, like feminism (and the ‘patriarchy’), she doesn’t give a **** about men. Her whole schtick is one massive Damsel-in-Distress on behalf of all women…who must be treated as different and more valuable and more fragile and yet somehow ‘equal’. Her feminism (like pretty much all feminism except, apparently, iiandyiiii’s) has nothing to do with equality. It has nothing to do with feminism, in any meaningful sense. She wants to leverage men’s natural instinct to protect (not oppress) women, to give women privileged status.
Want to know who’s actually in charge, who has the real power? Ask who you cannot criticise…
…another post that just stands on its own.
I still find it incredible that someone that posted a series of fairly innocuous youtube videos can inspire such venom. Simply mention her name and look what happens.
Argumentum ad populum and ad hominem fallacies aren’t doing your posts justice **Banquet bear **.
…says the guy who claims that the multitude of rebuttal videos on YouTube for both of them should really speak for themselves.
Have you tried watching them? Granted, that wouldn’t help anyone incapable of independent, rational thought, but you should give it a go. I feel real pain, deep disturbance, when I see ‘male feminists’ supporting a movement that hates them.
…I’ve watched both the tropes videos and the Thunderf00t series of videos. Bruce Wayne was referring to the latter. Which one were you referring too?
Who hates me exactly?
I’ve yet to see a Sarkessian “rebuttal” video that even comes close to addressing her central thesis. They’re mainly concerned with making character attacks and claiming she’s calling for censorship of video games, something she makes a specific point of NOT doing.
And nothing on Laci Green? So we’re all agreed that she’s a sex positive blogger and educator, not a radical man-hater?
In summary: Laci Green and Anita Sarkeesian are both alive and NOT batshit crazy
*A key that opens any lock is called a master key.
A lock that opens to any key is just a shitty lock.*
LinusK, you are welcome to your opinion, but I find it very naive. Pity that you are not willing to look more closely at
feminism, and instead just parrot off extremist positions.
Though Sarkeesian made many clear and good points about sexism in gaming, I’m not sure she’s the best person to have pointed it out. I really want to like her at first, but she says some things that I really don’t agree with.
“Not a coincidence it’s always men and boys committing mass shootings. The pattern is connected to ideas of toxic masculinity in our culture.”
Masculinity is the problem? Whatever it is, it’s toxic. It’s probably a number of things depending on the individual… but I wouldn’t say that it’s masculinity. Masculinity seems like a expression of manhood to me. I think Sarkeesian has a difficult time understanding men. Too me, shooting a bunch of people is akin to crying in public. It’s desperate and not a sign of strength in the least.
Sarkeesian also said she wasn’t a “gamer” and then said that she was… I’m guessing she’s somewhere in between.
There are more things about Sarkeesian that rubs me the wrong way, but on the other hand, she’s not perfect and I say stupid shit all the time… which is why I don’t have twitter.
I’ve heard people talk poorly about Green, but I’ve never heard her say anything I didn’t object to in context.