I used to dislike Anita Sarkeesian, but...

[DaMullet]

I don't say they do play The Darkness for the storyline. Mechanics first, narrative second.

I mostly agree with the assertion that a game tells it's story through it's game-play too, and I think it's counter-productive when there's a clear difference between cut-scene narrative and the actual meat of the game (the action). I see no point in challenging eachothers moral view these things, we could raise eyebrows all day long and I doubt it'd do anyone any good. Opinions... I'm still laughing about "Obviously there are some people out there, like me, that don't like to be constantly murdering someone's child like you do." Good times...

You might wonder why I'm talking about anti-masculinity, I might wonder why you're bringing up racial-segregation... It actually ties in fairly nicely with "Problems are not fixed by inverting the issue.", which I do agree with. The problem being that-that seems to be exactly what our actions are achieving on the gender issue. Men aren't doing so well these days and it seems set to get worse.

By the way, your actions in Mortal-Kombat make Sub-Zero's mother and father very sad.

edit - Captcha is "bad egg". Even captcha is judging me...

Maybe the "murdering someone's child" comment was a little over the top. My apologies. I just still fail to see how someone could enjoy a story about a hero that murders people in the hundreds without regret. Maybe you could help shine some light on that.

I like to use racial-segregation as a comparison because it has one big thing in common with sexism; Both are negative stereotypes based solely upon a person's appearance. It's the old judging a book by its cover idiotic mentality.

My view of the common man these days, I'm going to really over generalise like crazy here, is that there are very few actual men. Most are whiny babies that feel threatened and have a panic attack when they meet a woman that's a strong willed, free thinker, educated, and/or over 100lbs. That's just too much for their pathetic little minds to handle and they go into a defensive mode to protect their fragile little egos by whatever means necessary.

If men were actually men and could handle a real woman, then I think a lot of this sexist crap would go away. Maybe 'handle' isn't the right word. If men took it as a compliment to themselves that they have a strong woman, instead of being intimidated by her, then things would get better. I know I would much rather have a wife like a tiger then a wife like a hamster.

By the way, your actions in Mortal-Kombat make Sub-Zero's mother and father very sad.

Hey, he knew exactly what he was getting into when is showed up in that arena with me! LOL

 

[DaMullet]

Right, I'm not gonna post much on this thread, I think Anita is a fraud, or at best poor at getting her point across and her series is ultimately pointless.

I'm not gonna talk about her characters, I'm not going to pretend to know her feelings or her thoughts or any such bullcrap.

But if you wanna sit here and argue with me that "her videos make sense" then I have a challenge for you:

Get me her research material.

Because let's remember, these videos were supposedly made to be used in classrooms on an academic level, so that means there must have been some scientific research that she undertook, I also understand that Anita promised some of her actual research in the kickstarter to some of her backers, and if any of the backers actually has this research I would love to see it.

And bear in mind I want to see SCIENTIFIC research, not just opinion pieces masquerading as a sub-par college paper, because until anyone does that for me, Anita might as well be worst than Jack Thompson or Joe Lieberman when they argued "Violent Videogames make you violent" (which I'm surprised so few people mention the irony that so many people are defending what is essentially the same accusation) much like today's "sexist videogames make you sexist", because those guys that we despised so much? Remember them? They at least had that, granted, it was bought off research, but it was something at the very least.

So there's your challenge, and until you do that, I'll consider your words nothing but hogwash.

I agree, an opinion without fact is just smoke. So yes, she should release all of her research data. But until that happens, let's work through our own together shall we? We will build a hypothesis, make some observations, and then see if we can come up with some conclusions on our own.

Let's build a simple hypothesis;
Games and gaming culture is sexist towards women.

Now let's see if there's any evidence to suggest that this may be correct;
http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/20/publishers-rejected-remember-me-because-of-female-lead/
Hmm... publishers think that women don't play video games
http://tmblr.co/ZqM2IvrRirdE
Oh wait, they do. I wonder why they're being ignored?
http://fatuglyorslutty.com/
If these were not frequent, then they wouldn't be a problem. But they are, at least enough to build a whole website around it.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7671-Gamer-Guys
Jimquisition, need I say more?
http://www.feministfrequency.com/2012/06/harassment-misogyny-and-silencing-on-youtube/
This seems like overkill, maybe its just me.

Hmm... interesting. It took me about 10 minutes to make a pretty strong list for my hypothesis.

What evidence can you provide to me to support your theory that there's isn't a problem that needs to be talked about by .... someone?

 

[generals3]

Now let's see if there's any evidence to suggest that this may be correct;
http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/20/publishers-rejected-remember-me-because-of-female-lead/
Hmm... publishers think that women don't play video games
http://tmblr.co/ZqM2IvrRirdE

You failed already. Publishers don't think women don't play video games, publishers think female leads sell less. Totally different. And what this useless ESA study doesn't tell you is that male gamers in general spend a lot more time and money on VG's. And it's money spent which matters for publishers, not the percentage of who touched a video game.


And the rest is pretty much pointless. Everyone knows there are idiots on the internet. Racists, sexists, homophobes, etc. And because of anonymity they aren't scared to express these heinous feelings.

 

[broca]

Let's build a simple hypothesis;
Games and gaming culture is sexist towards women.

Which is a useless hypothesis. Core terms are not clearly defined (Which games? AAA? AAA + Indie? AAA on console? CoD and Halo? ... What means "gaming community"?, Which definition of sexism is used?) and the hypothesis on the whole is to broad, as games and the gaming community are far to diverse to make sweeping statements about all of it.

Now let's see if there's any evidence to suggest that this may be correct;
http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/20/publishers-rejected-remember-me-because-of-female-lead/
Hmm... publishers think that women don't play video games

That's not what the article says. Instead it says that a unspecified number of publishers rejected a game with a female lead or recommended change the lead to a male. Three problems: We only have their side of the story, so it's impossible to accurately assess what happened. Based on only one example without any real details (e.g. how many developers declined because of the gender) it is impossible to make assessments of whether it is a general problem in gaming. Even if a significant number of developers decline to develop games with females leads, you haven't shown that they do this for sexist reasons or that this behavior is sexist.

http://tmblr.co/ZqM2IvrRirdE
Oh wait, they do. I wonder why they're being ignored?

First, the given statistics are mostly useless, as they come from a study that doesn't give its methodology and was commissioned by a games industry lobby group. Second, even if we accept the statistic as valid, there's still the problem that the number of male and female players is compared without taking into account the different gaming habits of younger males and older females. Males (especially younger ones) are much more likely than females to play AAA games, which is one of the reasons why there are more AAA games aimed at males than females. Still no proof of sexism.

http://fatuglyorslutty.com/
If these were not frequent, then they wouldn't be a problem. But they are, at least enough to build a whole website around it.

Yes, harassment is clearly a problem. But, it's also clearly a problem of specific games or genres, not gaming in general. And while sexism can be a reason for harassment, there are other possible explanations. Still no proof of sexism in general.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7671-Gamer-Guys
Jimquisition, need I say more?

I never understood why people value Jimquisition so much. But that aside, isn't the episode you linked about the hole "fake gamer girls" controversy? While that could be explained by sexism, but could also explained by other stuff. Even if we accepted that the "fake gamer girls" concept is based on sexism (which is at least debatable) there is no evidence for how common such sentiments are, so that it can't be used to make assumptions about gamers in general.

=http://www.feministfrequency.com/2012/06/harassment-misogyny-and-silencing-on-youtube/
This seems like overkill, maybe its just me.

Great, you have proven that youtube comments sections can be hellholes. Still doesn't say anything about sexism, as long as you can't distinguish between trolls and misogynists. Also doesn't allow making assumptions about gamers, as there is no way to know how much harassment (trolling or misogynist) comes from gamers and how much comes from other people (remember, Sarkeesian did get a lot of internet attention, which makes her a natural target for all kinds of people).

Hmm... interesting. It took me about 10 minutes to make a pretty strong list for my hypothesis.

What evidence can you provide to me to support your theory that there's isn't a problem that needs to be talked about by .... someone?

I think there are problems and i think that they should be talked about, but not because of the points you bring up, which i mostly find unconvincing. If anything, sweeping statements like "Games and gaming culture is sexist towards women" hurt the debate by putting people on the defensive.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

I don't say they do play The Darkness for the storyline. Mechanics first, narrative second.

I mostly agree with the assertion that a game tells it's story through it's game-play too, and I think it's counter-productive when there's a clear difference between cut-scene narrative and the actual meat of the game (the action). I see no point in challenging eachothers moral view these things, we could raise eyebrows all day long and I doubt it'd do anyone any good. Opinions... I'm still laughing about "Obviously there are some people out there, like me, that don't like to be constantly murdering someone's child like you do." Good times...

You might wonder why I'm talking about anti-masculinity, I might wonder why you're bringing up racial-segregation... It actually ties in fairly nicely with "Problems are not fixed by inverting the issue.", which I do agree with. The problem being that-that seems to be exactly what our actions are achieving on the gender issue. Men aren't doing so well these days and it seems set to get worse.

By the way, your actions in Mortal-Kombat make Sub-Zero's mother and father very sad.

edit - Captcha is "bad egg". Even captcha is judging me...

Maybe the "murdering someone's child" comment was a little over the top. My apologies. I just still fail to see how someone could enjoy a story about a hero that murders people in the hundreds without regret. Maybe you could help shine some light on that.

I like to use racial-segregation as a comparison because it has one big thing in common with sexism; Both are negative stereotypes based solely upon a person's appearance. It's the old judging a book by its cover idiotic mentality.

My view of the common man these days, I'm going to really over generalise like crazy here, is that there are very few actual men. Most are whiny babies that feel threatened and have a panic attack when they meet a woman that's a strong willed, free thinker, educated, and/or over 100lbs. That's just too much for their pathetic little minds to handle and they go into a defensive mode to protect their fragile little egos by whatever means necessary.

If men were actually men and could handle a real woman, then I think a lot of this sexist crap would go away. Maybe 'handle' isn't the right word. If men took it as a compliment to themselves that they have a strong woman, instead of being intimidated by her, then things would get better. I know I would much rather have a wife like a tiger then a wife like a hamster.

By the way, your actions in Mortal-Kombat make Sub-Zero's mother and father very sad.

Hey, he knew exactly what he was getting into when is showed up in that arena with me! LOL

Ha, a little over the top!? Baby-steps...

I do think that games are about gameplay before story, that's just me... But I can also enjoy a story that centers around questionable, or even completely unquestionably immoral actions from the protagonists. Without intending to spoil anything, breaking-bad would be an example of that. My favourite game series is the Max Payne series, and I do still like Max, despite his murder spree. I just don't think it's necessary for every story to have a protagonist that you route for, I actually like it when that expectation is subverted. You don't emotionally route for them, but it's still a good ride if executed well.

I don't think racial segregation is a good analogy for this at all, sorry, but that's crazy to me. Sexism isn't based on appearance either, I'm pretty sure of this.

The rest is just ranting. You hold modern men in very low regard, wonderful. Is that sexist? I would imagine you think it's not, but I'm fairly certain that if someone was whinging about modern women that would draw a fair few accusations about that persons character.

You seem to have lost focus of the fact that what we're talking about is women(and some men) being frustrated by representations in luxury products that have been primarily made and bought by men since their inception. Which is like racial-segregation because... reasons?

It's not to say there's no room for change or subjective "improvement" of any kind (though changes would have to be supported by a market of willing buyers for what is being sold). It's to say that framing the damn thing in such a hyperbolic way is insanity.

 

[Thr33X]

This is a quotation from a Tumblr account that I follow that pretty much sums it all up:

pretentioushipsterbullshit:

To feminists, a "strong female character" is?. Oh wait, it doesn't exist. Because having a woman in anything is automatically sexist and a tool of the patriarchy.
If she's attractive/sexy she's objectified eye candy.
If she's unattractive she's an unflattering and offensive portrayal of women.
If she can hold her own and kick ass then she's just a man with a vagina.
If she's demure, weak, and/or subservient then she's either a damsel in distress or reinforcing the "stay in the kitchen" mentality.

There?s no winning with these fucks.

To wish for something more, you have to accept what's already in place. Anything done otherwise is not doing any service. By it's very virtue, making a female character that's suddenly this uber-femme, "I don't need a man" type is not liberating, it's in fact alienating...because then you're forcing that onto the consumer as well. The very context of how the problem "NEEDS" to be solved sounds forceful in and of itself. If it's not gonna be handled productively (ie, not pointing fingers and throwing blame out), then it's not going to be handled.

 

[Elate]

I'm not sure if has been mentioned yet (that's a lot of pages to look through) she hasn't even been doing said "research", the majority of her footage has just been lifted off lets players, without their consent, without credit, and without their knowledge.

My two cents? I think she's a massive fraud, I said that from the start. I could put together a better argument than she has and I have no qualifications that she claims to have, what she did was make a massive fuss to accrue interest and publicity, and rode that train to money town.

Having watched bits and pieces of her videos, she explains things like a 15 year old, doesn't substantiate on her points, and instead just points things out, out of context from the actual games (most of which aren't actually what she's claiming them to be.)

 

[DaMullet]

Now let's see if there's any evidence to suggest that this may be correct;
http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/20/publishers-rejected-remember-me-because-of-female-lead/
Hmm... publishers think that women don't play video games
http://tmblr.co/ZqM2IvrRirdE

You failed already. Publishers don't think women don't play video games, publishers think female leads sell less. Totally different. And what this useless ESA study doesn't tell you is that male gamers in general spend a lot more time and money on VG's. And it's money spent which matters for publishers, not the percentage of who touched a video game.


And the rest is pretty much pointless. Everyone knows there are idiots on the internet. Racists, sexists, homophobes, etc. And because of anonymity they aren't scared to express these heinous feelings.

The thing is, you said "Anita might as well be worst than Jack Thompson". The reason why Thompson was full of crap was because there was no evidence to support his claim. Maybe one or two people, but they might have gone insane over My Little Pony for all we know.
Finding sexist things in video game culture is easy, you could probably find a dozen new examples every day in a just few minutes.
So how is 'no evidence' the same as 'new evidence every day'?
Let's say for example, in a different world, there was a dozen new reports of violence every day. The crimes were re enactments of video games and when the criminals were caught, they all confessed that they got these ideas from those games. After the crimes hit over a thousand, do you think Thompson would have won then?

Unless you're talking about the quality of her argument. And the problem with her, is that she's the only one willing to weather the shit storm. There's probably 1,000s of better people to make her argument, but we'll never hear from them because of the hostile nature of the gaming culture right now. I'm defending her because of the few things she has gotten right, as well as the hope that she is paving the way for someone better.

 

[DaMullet]

I think there are problems and i think that they should be talked about, but not because of the points you bring up, which i mostly find unconvincing. If anything, sweeping statements like "Games and gaming culture is sexist towards women" hurt the debate by putting people on the defensive.

Okay, you make some good points so let's roll with this then. In your opinion, what would be a better hypothesis to help isolate the problem of the continued sexism towards women in their portrayal games, as well as their treatment by male gamers?

 

[Vegosiux]

Finding sexist things in video game culture is easy, you could probably find a dozen new examples every day in a just few minutes.
So how is 'no evidence' the same as 'new evidence every day'?

That's, uh...not exactly a factual claim, at this point, it's a speculation. Also, did you mean "a dozen new games with sexist elements (probably) get released every day" or did you mean "If I start looking through the list of all existing games today, I can find a dozen examples every day?" (there's a difference, in the latter case you eventually run out of examples unless the former is actually true)

Unless you're talking about the quality of her argument. And the problem with her, is that she's the only one willing to weather the shit storm. There's probably 1,000s of better people to make her argument, but we'll never hear from them because of the hostile nature of the gaming culture right now. I'm defending her because of the few things she has gotten right, as well as the hope that she is paving the way for someone better.

I just hope that the "someone better" won't have to point out "I am not Anita Sarkeesian, by the way", if they walk the path she paved. Human minds are quirky like that. I mean, I would be a lot more willing to take "someone better" seriously, and much more amicable. But, many people will go "Oh gawd, not this feminist shite again" in that once bitten, twice shy fashion.

 

[DaMullet]

Ha, a little over the top!? Baby-steps...

I do think that games are about gameplay before story, that's just me... But I can also enjoy a story that centers around questionable, or even completely unquestionably immoral actions from the protagonists. Without intending to spoil anything, breaking-bad would be an example of that. My favourite game series is the Max Payne series, and I do still like Max, despite his murder spree. I just don't think it's necessary for every story to have a protagonist that you route for, I actually like it when that expectation is subverted. You don't emotionally route for them, but it's still a good ride if executed well.

You know, I've never actually had someone explain this to me, so thank you. You have grown my understanding.

I don't think racial segregation is a good analogy for this at all, sorry, but that's crazy to me. Sexism isn't based on appearance either, I'm pretty sure of this.

sex·ism
/ˈsekˌsizəm/
Noun
1. Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.

rac·ism
/ˈrāˌsizəm/
Noun
1. The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, esp. so as to distinguish it as...
2. Prejudice or discrimination directed against someone of a different race based on such a belief.

You just swap out the word 'race' for 'sex' and you have the same thing. I really don't see a difference in the concepts.

The rest is just ranting. You hold modern men in very low regard, wonderful. Is that sexist? I would imagine you think it's not, but I'm fairly certain that if someone was whinging about modern women that would draw a fair few accusations about that persons character.

I do tend to rant a lot and I apologize for that. I see everything as a connected web of ideas and thoughts. It helps me with my programming, but it also makes me connect every problem to everything else in one world wide pile of shit. I think if I took up drinking I would end up like one of those conspiracy guys. However I do see the hope and potential, so I know this world isn't a lost cause.

You seem to have lost focus of the fact that what we're talking about is women(and some men) being frustrated by representations in luxury products that have been primarily made and bought by men since their inception. Which is like racial-segregation because... reasons?

After I hit post, I realized that I was off topic, sorry, ranting again. And as I'm sitting here I want to rant about 3-4 things right now but I'll do my best to stay on topic.

Games have given us the ability to see and connect with people. But you have to notice what you see and what you don't see.

How many times have you seen racism in the last few years in gaming? Its essentially non existent. For example, I didn't see some racist remarks to stop Admiral Anderson from Mass Effect from being black. Or articles saying that games with black people as their main characters don't sell because black people are poor. That doesn't happen.

Yet if you changed the word 'black' to 'woman' then you do see those problems happen. You also see people defending their right to be sexist and hostile towards women and people applaud this and support it!! (.... damnit... I lost the link. There was a youtube guy that was gloating about how he would troll women on WoW until they left for some stupid reason like they weren't hardcore enough, and all the comments were people cheering him on. I wish I could find that link again.... dang.)

Games are not to blame, they have just showed us the problem. How often do you talk to a group of 20 strangers after seeing a movie? After reading a book? I never have. Games do that though. The reason why I would like games to change is because they are allowing this problem to freely flow and gain support because of their social nature. Even though they're just "luxury products", I think games have the potential to make our world a better place.

It's not to say there's no room for change or subjective "improvement" of any kind (though changes would have to be supported by a market of willing buyers for what is being sold). It's to say that framing the damn thing in such a hyperbolic way is insanity.

The problem is there are people out there that truly believe that it is the god given right to treat women like slaves and objects. Being calm and professional while having a nice talk about it to someone some where, does nothing. It never has. You need to go overboard just to get their attention.

 

[broca]

I think there are problems and i think that they should be talked about, but not because of the points you bring up, which i mostly find unconvincing. If anything, sweeping statements like "Games and gaming culture is sexist towards women" hurt the debate by putting people on the defensive.

Okay, you make some good points so let's roll with this then. In your opinion, what would be a better hypothesis to help isolate the problem of the continued sexism towards women in their portrayal games, as well as their treatment by male gamers?

Ok, if you wanted to study sexism in a scientific context, you first would have to give a definition of the term. I don't really know which definition you want to use, so practical advice is rather hard. But what's important in any case is to not to make conclusions about populations (like all gamers) based on a non-representative sample (like only players of game or genre X).

Anyway, here's an example for a correlation study of harassment and sexism that i just made up:

Our first assumption (based on past research) is that females get more harassment than males when they are identifiable as female, so we would state:

"There is significant higher number of negative comments for female gamers than male gamers in multiplayer in game X when the gender can be identified."

This is relatively easy to test. Now comes the hard part.If we assume that this higher rate of harassment it as least partly due to sexism, we could state:

"There is a significant positive correlation between the number of negative comments against a female by a male and sexist attitudes"

And here the problems start. To test this hypothesis you would need to survey sexist attitudes by a group of males who make such comments in multiplayer. I don't really see a way to do that in reality. But let's assume we could: if we found that there is a significant positive correlation between the number of negative comments and sexist attitudes, we would have some evidence (not proof!) that sexism is part of the reason for harassment of females in this specific game. The more different studies for different games would find this correlation, the stronger would be the support for the assumption. But of course correlation does not proof causation, so we would need further, more advanced studies (like true experiments with manipulation and both treatment and control group) to bolster the claim, which is where stuff gets really complicated.

 

[DaMullet]

Finding sexist things in video game culture is easy, you could probably find a dozen new examples every day in a just few minutes.
So how is 'no evidence' the same as 'new evidence every day'?

That's, uh...not exactly a factual claim, at this point, it's a speculation. Also, did you mean "a dozen new games with sexist elements (probably) get released every day" or did you mean "If I start looking through the list of all existing games today, I can find a dozen examples every day?" (there's a difference, in the latter case you eventually run out of examples unless the former is actually true)

I ment in gaming culture as well. I'm not a writer so getting my ideas across is frustrating for me at times. I hope I develop telepathy soon, this would be so much easier then.
My point was that someone somewhere, people make sexist comments and gets away with it because everyone thinks its okay to act like that. I know there will always be sexist idiots out there, it's the fact that no one tells them to shut up that bothers me.

Unless you're talking about the quality of her argument. And the problem with her, is that she's the only one willing to weather the shit storm. There's probably 1,000s of better people to make her argument, but we'll never hear from them because of the hostile nature of the gaming culture right now. I'm defending her because of the few things she has gotten right, as well as the hope that she is paving the way for someone better.

I just hope that the "someone better" won't have to point out "I am not Anita Sarkeesian, by the way", if they walk the path she paved. Human minds are quirky like that. I mean, I would be a lot more willing to take "someone better" seriously, and much more amicable. But, many people will go "Oh gawd, not this feminist shite again" in that once bitten, twice shy fashion.

Agreed!!

 

[DaMullet]

I think there are problems and i think that they should be talked about, but not because of the points you bring up, which i mostly find unconvincing. If anything, sweeping statements like "Games and gaming culture is sexist towards women" hurt the debate by putting people on the defensive.

Okay, you make some good points so let's roll with this then. In your opinion, what would be a better hypothesis to help isolate the problem of the continued sexism towards women in their portrayal games, as well as their treatment by male gamers?

Ok, if you wanted to study sexism in a scientific context, you first would have to give a definition of the term. I don't really know which definition you want to use, so practical advice is rather hard. But what's important in any case is to not to make conclusions about populations (like all gamers) based on a non-representative sample (like only players of game or genre X).

Anyway, here's an example for a correlation study of harassment and sexism that i just made up:

Our first assumption (based on past research) is that females get more harassment than males when they are identifiable as female, so we would state:

"There is significant higher number of negative comments for female gamers than male gamers in multiplayer in game X when the gender can be identified."

This is relatively easy to test. Now comes the hard part.If we assume that this higher rate of harassment it as least partly due to sexism, we could state:

"There is a significant positive correlation between the number of negative comments against a female by a male and sexist attitudes"

And here the problems start. To test this hypothesis you would need to survey sexist attitudes by a group of males who make such comments in multiplayer. I don't really see a way to do that in reality. But let's assume we could: if we found that there is a significant positive correlation between the number of negative comments and sexist attitudes, we would have some evidence (not proof!) that sexism is part of the reason for harassment of females in this specific game. The more different studies for different games would find this correlation, the stronger would be the support for the assumption. But of course correlation does not proof causation, so we would need further, more advanced studies (like true experiments with manipulation and both treatment and control group) to bolster the claim, which is where stuff gets really complicated.

I agree. However, I think we need to narrow down the hypothesis some more in order for find a more useful conclusion.

"There is significant higher number of uncontested negative comments for female gamers than male gamers in multilayer in game X when the gender can be identified."

Its one thing to note the comments, it another to take into account the other player's reactions to said comment. There will always be sexist idiots, but if they're uncontested in making those comments, then that reflects on the game's community as a whole.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Ha, a little over the top!? Baby-steps...

I do think that games are about gameplay before story, that's just me... But I can also enjoy a story that centers around questionable, or even completely unquestionably immoral actions from the protagonists. Without intending to spoil anything, breaking-bad would be an example of that. My favourite game series is the Max Payne series, and I do still like Max, despite his murder spree. I just don't think it's necessary for every story to have a protagonist that you route for, I actually like it when that expectation is subverted. You don't emotionally route for them, but it's still a good ride if executed well.

You know, I've never actually had someone explain this to me, so thank you. You have grown my understanding.

I don't think racial segregation is a good analogy for this at all, sorry, but that's crazy to me. Sexism isn't based on appearance either, I'm pretty sure of this.

sex·ism
/ˈsekˌsizəm/
Noun
1. Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.

rac·ism
/ˈrāˌsizəm/
Noun
1. The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, esp. so as to distinguish it as...
2. Prejudice or discrimination directed against someone of a different race based on such a belief.

You just swap out the word 'race' for 'sex' and you have the same thing. I really don't see a difference in the concepts.

The rest is just ranting. You hold modern men in very low regard, wonderful. Is that sexist? I would imagine you think it's not, but I'm fairly certain that if someone was whinging about modern women that would draw a fair few accusations about that persons character.

I do tend to rant a lot and I apologize for that. I see everything as a connected web of ideas and thoughts. It helps me with my programming, but it also makes me connect every problem to everything else in one world wide pile of shit. I think if I took up drinking I would end up like one of those conspiracy guys. However I do see the hope and potential, so I know this world isn't a lost cause.

You seem to have lost focus of the fact that what we're talking about is women(and some men) being frustrated by representations in luxury products that have been primarily made and bought by men since their inception. Which is like racial-segregation because... reasons?

After I hit post, I realized that I was off topic, sorry, ranting again. And as I'm sitting here I want to rant about 3-4 things right now but I'll do my best to stay on topic.

Games have given us the ability to see and connect with people. But you have to notice what you see and what you don't see.

How many times have you seen racism in the last few years in gaming? Its essentially non existent. For example, I didn't see some racist remarks to stop Admiral Anderson from Mass Effect from being black. Or articles saying that games with black people as their main characters don't sell because black people are poor. That doesn't happen.

Yet if you changed the word 'black' to 'woman' then you do see those problems happen. You also see people defending their right to be sexist and hostile towards women and people applaud this and support it!! (.... damnit... I lost the link. There was a youtube guy that was gloating about how he would troll women on WoW until they left for some stupid reason like they weren't hardcore enough, and all the comments were people cheering him on. I wish I could find that link again.... dang.)

Games are not to blame, they have just showed us the problem. How often do you talk to a group of 20 strangers after seeing a movie? After reading a book? I never have. Games do that though. The reason why I would like games to change is because they are allowing this problem to freely flow and gain support because of their social nature. Even though they're just "luxury products", I think games have the potential to make our world a better place.

It's not to say there's no room for change or subjective "improvement" of any kind (though changes would have to be supported by a market of willing buyers for what is being sold). It's to say that framing the damn thing in such a hyperbolic way is insanity.

The problem is there are people out there that truly believe that it is the god given right to treat women like slaves and objects. Being calm and professional while having a nice talk about it to someone some where, does nothing. It never has. You need to go overboard just to get their attention.

Are you suggesting that men who hate women do so because they look different to them?... Racial differences are primarily the result of different climates, are they not? There's far more to differentiate between men and women, look it up.

Alcohol might calm you down.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if games with black protagonists didn't sell as well, in fact, I find it much harder to think of games with black protagonists than with female protagonists. I understand what you're trying to demonstrate to me, but it just doesn't line up with reality, and I think you're actually demonstrating disparity in feelings of self-righteousness and entitlement between different groups... Which is amusing.

"The problem is there are people out there that truly believe that it is the god given right to treat women like slaves and objects."

Name 5...

 

[Viredae]

Right, I'm not gonna post much on this thread, I think Anita is a fraud, or at best poor at getting her point across and her series is ultimately pointless.

I'm not gonna talk about her characters, I'm not going to pretend to know her feelings or her thoughts or any such bullcrap.

But if you wanna sit here and argue with me that "her videos make sense" then I have a challenge for you:

Get me her research material.

Because let's remember, these videos were supposedly made to be used in classrooms on an academic level, so that means there must have been some scientific research that she undertook, I also understand that Anita promised some of her actual research in the kickstarter to some of her backers, and if any of the backers actually has this research I would love to see it.

And bear in mind I want to see SCIENTIFIC research, not just opinion pieces masquerading as a sub-par college paper, because until anyone does that for me, Anita might as well be worst than Jack Thompson or Joe Lieberman when they argued "Violent Videogames make you violent" (which I'm surprised so few people mention the irony that so many people are defending what is essentially the same accusation) much like today's "sexist videogames make you sexist", because those guys that we despised so much? Remember them? They at least had that, granted, it was bought off research, but it was something at the very least.

So there's your challenge, and until you do that, I'll consider your words nothing but hogwash.

I agree, an opinion without fact is just smoke. So yes, she should release all of her research data. But until that happens, let's work through our own together shall we? We will build a hypothesis, make some observations, and then see if we can come up with some conclusions on our own.

Let's build a simple hypothesis;
Games and gaming culture is sexist towards women.

Now let's see if there's any evidence to suggest that this may be correct;
http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/20/publishers-rejected-remember-me-because-of-female-lead/

Hmm... publishers think that women don't play video games
http://tmblr.co/ZqM2IvrRirdE

Oh wait, they do. I wonder why they're being ignored?

Oooh, sorry to break it to you, but no, you see, if you bothered to actually READ or VERIFY your sources, you'd find statistics that point to the majority of "girl gamers" dwell on the Wii and mobile/browser games a la farmville, they don't even touch the mainstream games on PC, PS3 and XBox:

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/WandaMeloni/20100330/4812/The_Next_Frontier__Female_Gaming_Demographics.php
http://nationaltvspots.com/files/TVstat.pdf

http://fatuglyorslutty.com/
If these were not frequent, then they wouldn't be a problem. But they are, at least enough to build a whole website around it.

http://www.feministfrequency.com/2012/06/harassment-misogyny-and-silencing-on-youtube/
This seems like overkill, maybe its just me..

And this particular one really irks me, show of hands, have you ever played any FPS on the 360? Or visited a Youtube comment's section of ANY video, whether the host was male or female? And if so, how can you sit there in all honesty and cry "save our women" when nobody even said a single word when it was "just us guys" who were being insulted and trolled and "harassed".

Raising a shitstorm only when once it was women who got this sort of treatment is sexist, you know, it shows you don't respect women or think they're capable of handling this sort of reaction.

I on the other hand, will continue to call out this sexist behavior whenever I see it.

Hmm... interesting. It took me about 10 minutes to make a pretty strong list for my hypothesis.

Yeaaaaah... See, this is why it takes more than ten minutes to actually publish research, because you actually have to, you know... verify your sources.

Now let's see if there's any evidence to suggest that this may be correct;
http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/20/publishers-rejected-remember-me-because-of-female-lead/
Hmm... publishers think that women don't play video games
http://tmblr.co/ZqM2IvrRirdE

You failed already. Publishers don't think women don't play video games, publishers think female leads sell less. Totally different. And what this useless ESA study doesn't tell you is that male gamers in general spend a lot more time and money on VG's. And it's money spent which matters for publishers, not the percentage of who touched a video game.


And the rest is pretty much pointless. Everyone knows there are idiots on the internet. Racists, sexists, homophobes, etc. And because of anonymity they aren't scared to express these heinous feelings.

The thing is, you said "Anita might as well be worst than Jack Thompson". The reason why Thompson was full of crap was because there was no evidence to support his claim. Maybe one or two people, but they might have gone insane over My Little Pony for all we know.

Oh, I forgot to respond to this one as well, so here's a little something:

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/12/5/353.short
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140197103000976
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2001.tb00787.x/abstract
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1018709905920
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/78/4/772/

See, the difference between Anita Sarkeesian and people like Jack Thompson is this, apparently you seem to have forgotten that we used to get a new study on the link between real-life violence and video game violence every other week, which were mostly funded by people who DID want to link them and people who wanted them to stay in a positive light, sufficed to say, there was a veritable wealth of information on the subject for Jack Thompson and his ilk (and any other individual) to draw from and eventually ferret out the truth.

Anita Sarkeesian has no such thing, search the internet for any factual and scientific links between sexism and video games and you'll find very little to go by, which is why I said she was worse than Jack Thompson:

SHE HAS NO SOURCES!!!

 

[Vegosiux]

I ment in gaming culture as well. I'm not a writer so getting my ideas across is frustrating for me at times. I hope I develop telepathy soon, this would be so much easier then.
My point was that someone somewhere, people make sexist comments and gets away with it because everyone thinks its okay to act like that. I know there will always be sexist idiots out there, it's the fact that no one tells them to shut up that bothers me.

Ahhh, I getcha. Sorry, was too fixated on just the games I suppose. Also, I'll need to actually respond at a later time, right now my brain is a little too tired. For now tho, thanks for clearing that up.

 

[DaMullet]

SHE HAS NO SOURCES!!!

I have to confirm this about you; Are you saying that there is no sexism in gaming or gamers at all? In order for there to be NO SOURCES then there shouldn't be any evidence to find. I'm confused as to where your line of thinking is going.

 

[DaMullet]

Are you suggesting that men who hate women do so because they look different to them?... Racial differences are primarily the result of different climates, are they not? There's far more to differentiate between men and women, look it up.

You can't apply logic to prejudice. It obviously doesn't work. If everyone was intelligent and logical then we would all be dancing under the rainbow holding hands.

And yes, "I hate them because they're not white" and "I hate them because they're not men" have the same idiotic reasoning. Its different from what they are, so they have to hate them for some stupid reason.

Alcohol might calm you down.

No go there. For some reason I can taste alcohol and its like someone poured a bitter vinegar in my drink.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if games with black protagonists didn't sell as well, in fact, I find it much harder to think of games with black protagonists than with female protagonists. I understand what you're trying to demonstrate to me, but it just doesn't line up with reality, and I think you're actually demonstrating disparity in feelings of self-righteousness and entitlement between different groups... Which is amusing.

I see something wrong, and you don't. I'm trying to find something else we both see as wrong and point out the similarities. Obviously they won't totally overlap, but if the racism example isn't working, then I'll try something else...... hmmm...

"The problem is there are people out there that truly believe that it is the god given right to treat women like slaves and objects."

Name 5...

I'm heading to bed, so I only found 3 examples for you. I'll find ya more in the morning if you want.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2320519/Amanda-Berry-Gina-DeJesus-Michele-Knight-Ohio-trio-went-missing-TEN-YEARS-ago-ALIVE.html
http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/sexual-harassment-as-ethical-imperative-the-ugly-side-of-fighting-games
http://manspire.com/tags/get-back-kitchen

 

[Specter Von Baren]

SHE HAS NO SOURCES!!!

I have to confirm this about you; Are you saying that there is no sexism in gaming or gamers at all? In order for there to be NO SOURCES then there shouldn't be any evidence to find. I'm confused as to where your line of thinking is going.

There's a difference between Sarkeesian saying that this or that game is sexist and is causing people to be sexist and that there are sexist people already playing games.