I used to dislike Anita Sarkeesian, but...

[VanQ]

The thing is, it's not like the welders association is just not letting women in, there are just simply no women entering the industry. Similarly, it's not like no man can run a daycare; they just aren't, in general, very inclined to do it.

A lot of this has biological motivations as well. My real question is, why is the fact that gender roles exist the worst thing ever to happen in society? Because, the way people react, it's fucking atrocious.

I apologise if you've already been quoted a hundred times to be told this but in some parts of the world (see: Australia) there are a large majority of day cares that won't permit men - regardless of qualifications - to work in daycares.

I also heard of a few private hospitals that won't allow any men besides Doctors from working in the childrens wards. Though I believe the hospital example may just be heresay from a friend.

 

[Olikar]

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?

So you pull up a few almost entirely anecdotal and extremely bias news stories as 'evidence', well excuse me if I remain unconvinced.


EDIT

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?

I don't understand the point of the statement at all, are you trying to say that there IS this sort of evidence that 'sexism' in games lead to sexism in real life? Well show me the dozen examples of men beating their wives in an attempt to reenact video games.

Jack Thompson probably had more evidence (or credibility anyway) than Anita has in fact, at least he tried to scientifically support his argument (even if he did ignore the science as soon as it disagreed with him) Anita hasn't even tried to substantiate her claims scientifically.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

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

It's not the same reasoning. I don't know any man who doesn't get along with women on the basis that they physically look different, in fact, those differences in physical appearance are usually things that men very much appreciate. There are differences between the sexes, this isn't a crazy assertion.

You don't need an analogy, I'm perfectly capable of judging something on it's own merits... I don't need to be manipulated. I just think it's funny that you use black-representation as an example of a situation where there is no problem when I have trouble thinking of one black protagonist. Women are being noisier, it doesn't mean they have a better case.

3 links, let's look.

A Comedy site.

Some petty nonsense that I'm not going to read just before leaving for work (I don't deny the presence of assholes, for the record).

And... something that is news because it's so rare and so shocking.

I did actually ask for 5 examples to mock your point, I didn't expect you to even attempt to take it seriously.

 

[Viredae]

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.

Basically this.

If anything, the rate of rape and other sexual harassment cases has been reduced by %80 in the last 40 years (and still decreasing steadily), interestingly enough, that coincides with when we started becoming more dependent on more electronic media, you know, like video games! So if anything, these sexist video games? There's a legitimate argument to be made for them actually reducing real-life sexism.

http://justice.uaa.alaska.edu/forum/17/2summer2000/c_rapefigs.html
http://whatmenthinkofwomen.blogspot.com/2010/09/lies-we-are-told-about-rape.html

 

[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.

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.

Basically this.

If anything, the rate of rape and other sexual harassment cases has been reduced by %80 in the last 40 years (and still decreasing steadily), interestingly enough, that coincides with when we started becoming more dependent on more electronic media, you know, like video games! So if anything, these sexist video games? There's a legitimate argument to be made for them actually reducing real-life sexism.

http://justice.uaa.alaska.edu/forum/17/2summer2000/c_rapefigs.html
http://whatmenthinkofwomen.blogspot.com/2010/09/lies-we-are-told-about-rape.html

Hey, that's great news that rape is going down in America! Woo!
What about the rest of the world?
https://www.causes.com/causes/7710/updates/47448
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/quick-click/which-country-has-the-highest-reported-incidents-rape-data

With your stats, it also doesn't take into account women who are emotionally abused and/or the women who don't report it because they feel that that's just the way things are. I've seen at least a dozen relationships in my lifetime where the guy was a complete abusive asshole and yet the woman kept going back to him despite her friends telling her to run! And they had jobs, some were collage grads, and could make it on their own. There was no logical reason for them to go back!
And that's just my experience in my small viewpoint of the world. How many others are out there? Why did these women feel they had no other choice? Do you seriously think there is a no underlining problem here?

 

[DaMullet]

It's not the same reasoning. I don't know any man who doesn't get along with women on the basis that they physically look different, in fact, those differences in physical appearance are usually things that men very much appreciate. There are differences between the sexes, this isn't a crazy assertion.

You don't need an analogy, I'm perfectly capable of judging something on it's own merits... I don't need to be manipulated. I just think it's funny that you use black-representation as an example of a situation where there is no problem when I have trouble thinking of one black protagonist. Women are being noisier, it doesn't mean they have a better case.

3 links, let's look.

A Comedy site.

Some petty nonsense that I'm not going to read just before leaving for work (I don't deny the presence of assholes, for the record).

And... something that is news because it's so rare and so shocking.

I did actually ask for 5 examples to mock your point, I didn't expect you to even attempt to take it seriously.

Here's some more
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=130158&page=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burqa
http://www.aifs.gov.au/acssa/statistics.html
http://youtu.be/a1HTKWX15oo?t=21m52s (The part where the woman immediately has sex with you when the body is in the same room. This game got released. A publisher thinks that this game is perfectly fine on the market. I know that's just one problem out of many, but its still there.)

But, I agree that my argument has been off topic and pretty shitty up to this point.
So let's scrape off everything and start fresh.

Let's get on the same page by asking you a question. Which I have a bad feeling I'm not going to get right on the first go...

More often then not, do video games showcase women as victims of violence or make them nothing more then a goal to achieve? (I put these together because they both imply that a woman cannot defend herself.)

If no, please explain and back it up with some evidence.

If yes; why is this acceptable or at what saturation point does it become a problem?

(Obviously making a rule to stop stories like this out right would be ridiculous and would stifle creativity which is already a problem. I am trying to make video games better, not worse.)

 

[Viredae]

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.

Basically this.

If anything, the rate of rape and other sexual harassment cases has been reduced by %80 in the last 40 years (and still decreasing steadily), interestingly enough, that coincides with when we started becoming more dependent on more electronic media, you know, like video games! So if anything, these sexist video games? There's a legitimate argument to be made for them actually reducing real-life sexism.

http://justice.uaa.alaska.edu/forum/17/2summer2000/c_rapefigs.html
http://whatmenthinkofwomen.blogspot.com/2010/09/lies-we-are-told-about-rape.html

Hey, that's great news that rape is going down in America! Woo!
What about the rest of the world?
https://www.causes.com/causes/7710/updates/47448
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/quick-click/which-country-has-the-highest-reported-incidents-rape-data

With your stats, it also doesn't take into account women who are emotionally abused and/or the women who don't report it because they feel that that's just the way things are. I've seen at least a dozen relationships in my lifetime where the guy was a complete abusive asshole and yet the woman kept going back to him despite her friends telling her to run! And they had jobs, some were collage grads, and could make it on their own. There was no logical reason for them to go back!
And that's just my experience in my small viewpoint of the world. How many others are out there? Why did these women feel they had no other choice? Do you seriously think there is a no underlining problem here?

So?

No, I don't mean to be harsh here, Rape is awful and all, but...

How does this prove that sexist video games cause real life sexism? Or even disprove the fact that it could be reducing it?

Or are you just arguing for argument's sake and attempting to derail the point of this discussion?

And While I'm at it, I'll be answering your other post as well:

Here's some more
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=130158&page=1

This is a very long topic so I'm not going to waste my time typing out an entire lecture for you, instead I'm just going to link you to a video that does, in fact, watch this woman's entire channel, it's a great education tool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp8tToFv-bA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burqa

Okay, this one is getting ridiculous, it's an argument thrown out by ignorant people who don't even have the brain capacity to understand what the fuck is going on outside their own solipsistic bubble.

So this one I'll take my time spell it out for you, even though it's once again explained in the video above:

1) %97~ percent of women in islamic countries who wear Burqas are not, I repeat, ARE NOT forced to wear them, they wear them of their own volition.

2) the other ~%3 who ARE forced to wear them live either in Iran and Afghanistan, fairly backwards countries all around where the living conditions of both males and females, there's no special level of mistreatment, if anything when the boys of those countries are forced to prostitute themselves and become child soldiers at the age of 12 with a life expectancy of 13-15 just to support their households (and this is just the boys, the women get to stay at home), I'd say there is a bigger crisis concerning men in that country.

http://www.aifs.gov.au/acssa/statistics.html

If you bother to read the report of 2005 more carefully, you'll find that the rape and sexual assault numbers have an asterisk next to them, here's what the asterisk is for:

"estimate has a relative standard error of 25% to 50% and should be
used with caution"

Which means that this data might as well be useless for use in any serious situation other than exploitative fear-mongering.

http://youtu.be/a1HTKWX15oo?t=21m52s

(The part where the woman immediately has sex with you when the body is in the same room. This game got released. A publisher thinks that this game is perfectly fine on the market. I know that's just one problem out of many, but its still there.)

Anecdotal data, really I don't need to say anything more, congratulations, you've found one company who has assholes in it, how does that prove sexism is anything but rare in video games.

But, I agree that my argument has been off topic and pretty shitty up to this point.
So let's scrape off everything and start fresh.

Thank god.

Let's get on the same page by asking you a question. Which I have a bad feeling I'm not going to get right on the first go...

More often then not, do video games showcase women as victims of violence or make them nothing more then a goal to achieve? (I put these together because they both imply that a woman cannot defend herself.)

If no, please explain and back it up with some evidence.

If yes; why is this acceptable or at what saturation point does it become a problem?

(Obviously making a rule to stop stories like this out right would be ridiculous and would stifle creativity which is already a problem. I am trying to make video games better, not worse.)

Oh, for the love of...

Okay, I don't think you understand how this works, you want to claim something is true about the video game industry?

IT'S YOUR JOB TO PROVE IT!!

The onus of proof falls on the accuser, not the other way around, anecdotal data and "see? This game has sexism in, thus video games MUST be sexist." does not fly, this shit is taught in highschool for fuck's sake.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

It's not the same reasoning. I don't know any man who doesn't get along with women on the basis that they physically look different, in fact, those differences in physical appearance are usually things that men very much appreciate. There are differences between the sexes, this isn't a crazy assertion.

You don't need an analogy, I'm perfectly capable of judging something on it's own merits... I don't need to be manipulated. I just think it's funny that you use black-representation as an example of a situation where there is no problem when I have trouble thinking of one black protagonist. Women are being noisier, it doesn't mean they have a better case.

3 links, let's look.

A Comedy site.

Some petty nonsense that I'm not going to read just before leaving for work (I don't deny the presence of assholes, for the record).

And... something that is news because it's so rare and so shocking.

I did actually ask for 5 examples to mock your point, I didn't expect you to even attempt to take it seriously.

Here's some more
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=130158&page=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burqa
http://www.aifs.gov.au/acssa/statistics.html
http://youtu.be/a1HTKWX15oo?t=21m52s (The part where the woman immediately has sex with you when the body is in the same room. This game got released. A publisher thinks that this game is perfectly fine on the market. I know that's just one problem out of many, but its still there.)

But, I agree that my argument has been off topic and pretty shitty up to this point.
So let's scrape off everything and start fresh.

Let's get on the same page by asking you a question. Which I have a bad feeling I'm not going to get right on the first go...

More often then not, do video games showcase women as victims of violence or make them nothing more then a goal to achieve? (I put these together because they both imply that a woman cannot defend herself.)

If no, please explain and back it up with some evidence.

If yes; why is this acceptable or at what saturation point does it become a problem?

(Obviously making a rule to stop stories like this out right would be ridiculous and would stifle creativity which is already a problem. I am trying to make video games better, not worse.)

Chinese people want sons rather than daughters because sons are duty bound(by law) to look after their parents financially when they get older, the daughters don't have that same pressure. They want sons because they are fearful about their futures, not because they hate females or anything like that. It's a shame that any baby would be abandoned, but I would say that not being financially responsible for your parents by law is pretty nice.

Burqa... I'm not sympathetic to the idea of forcing women to cover up. Neither of these things have anything to do with western women and video-games, I feel I should point out.

Stats and... an example of a shitty game with shitty ideas. Your linking is a little schizophrenic.

The overwhelming majority of the time in video-games that you see a human being brutalised, that human is male. I don't accept that video-games are unduly violent towards women, because they're not. I can accept when people criticise video-game violence in general, but when you specify that it's particularly violent towards female characters, I have to assume that you're not paying attention or are oblivious.

I don't think there are that many "rescue the damsel" games these days. I assumed that's why Anita has spent such an inordinate amount of time focusing on Peach. I don't understand why we're so uniformly agreeing that this is bad, rescue missions are good fair in action games... they always have been, and they're only "gendered" if you choose to see them that way. How often do you save gruff-manly-men strapped to chairs in CoD and games of that ilk? And how often do the other soldiers make fun of him for being a "stupid-girly-girl" that "got captured like a woman"?

The answers are often, and never.

 

[generals3]

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.

Actually Jack Thompson and his ilk have more evidence than Anita. Just go on google scholar and search for "Video games violence" or "video games aggression". Meanwhile if you research "video games domestic violence" or " Damsel in distress video games sexism" you probably won't find a lot which supports Anita's assertion that certain tropes normalize violence against women and are dangerous because "domestic violence" nor will you find a lot supporting the assertion princess peach is reinforcing traditional patriarchal attitudes.

Finding sexist things in video game culture is easy, you could probably find a dozen new examples every day in a just few minutes.

Which doesn't prove any assertion Anita made.

So how is 'no evidence' the same as 'new evidence every day'?

Because you seem to use evidence which proves something totally different. The fact there is sexism in the video game culture just proves that there is sexism in the video game culture. Which btw is an extremely vague statement.

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?

I don't see how that is relevant considering it doesn't have to be a re-enactment to be linked.

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.

Considering she's getting a butload of money i'd hope she is willing to.

And she has gotten nothing right. Well no, she got some things right, telling us what happens in games which anyone who plays the games already knows "look guys, mario needs to save princess peach!" ... no shit sherlock. And even there she sometimes failed due to ignoring context or omitting important elements to create a deceptive and wrong image of certain games.