Kickstarter Video Project Attracts Misogynist Horde

[Agente L]

The problem isn't she being a girl. Or she creating a video blog about something connected to video games/sexism on video games.

The problem is asking money for it (when a thousand people do similar for free) and perpetuating the bad image of feminism, since feminism lost its true purpose years ago.People go as far as call them "feminazis"

Sure, females in video game are almost related to somne kind of sexy trope (Femme fatale/Most Common Super Power/Fan service) but's it's not like most male character aren't.Srs, most character, male marines, are atleast one of the following (or all of those together some times): Tall/Bald/"Badass"/Physically Rip, some times going to extreme levels/White or slightly mulatto)

Since people gonna quote me on this saying that I'm a misogynist, let me say a few things.

I'm a egalitarian. I think both women and men deserves the same rights. Neither deserves more rights, with very few exceptions. Womens should get pregnancy leave, for example. Married men should receive a small pregnancy leave, so the couple can fix the initials problems together. Nothing too huge, maybe a couple of days. Much smaller than a woman leave.

Neither man nor woman should have advantage over another. Much of the sexism in our society is perpetuated, not by what the feminists call "male chauvinism". I share many of my opinions about the subject with TJ Kincaid (Amazing Atheist). "Feminism is the idea that we can make both sexes equal by focusing solely on the issues of one of them". At the current age, women actually have MORE rights than man in USA, for example.

Thanks to many different policies, woman get advantage over man in multiple things. They receive less prison time for equivalent time, they have a HUGE default advantage when it comes to child custody or even who should pay children support. Hell, DISCOVERY CHANNEL had a program showing a guy that was IMPRISIONED because he couldn't pay the children support to his ex. Exactly. He COULDN'T pay. She asked for something around 110% of his income as children support. And the judge accepted it! He pretty much sold everything he had to pay for it, and still didn't managed to do so, and then a law abiding citizen ended up in jail.

 

[Khazoth]

In the interest of equal rights for both sexes i'm going to tell you what men are told when we talk about the issue of men being pidgeonholed in popular media.

GTFO

Equal rights, amazing enough, means equality for both parties, it does not mean you get to take the good aspects of being equal and then pick and choose which negative aspects you want to take.

I could name you female characters that aren't sexualized at all, and are taken quite seriously, but why don't you take a moment for me to name me off a couple of gay / transsexual male characters that are not..

*Gay for comedies sake

*Lack any personality other then being gay

*Are a character they stapled gay onto for the sake of generating more media attention. (Green Lantern is a good recent example of this)

 

[Eamar]

3: She's actually sexist herself. Yes, women are shoved into caricatures in video games. As are men. Granted, there's room for both to move around, but you find it in every medium that when content creators try to build product for a mainstream audience they have to use very narrow character tropes. Video games introduced the silent protagonist, but even then there's a very narrow set of expectations. We can call it the Link or Gordon Freeman effect.

Focusing on one set of issues more than another does not make you sexist. Would you call LGBT campaigners "heterophobic" because they don't mention all the problems straight people have?

Straight people have no problems. Literally none.

Unless you count a handful of gay bigots (yes they exist, but their numbers are incredibly small, and they're not noteworthy).

While I get what you're saying, I'm sure some people would disagree. For example, LGBT groups campaigning to help LGBT people in countries where being gay is a crime don't campaign to help straight people in the same countries who, say, have sex before marriage and are punished for it, or are forced into marriage. They almost certainly acknowledge that these things are problems, but it's not the focus of their campaigns. And that's completely understandable.

Similarly, a feminist is going to focus on women's issues. That doesn't mean they deny the existence of or condone men's problems. That's what I was trying to say.

 

[Zydrate]

The only thing I have a problem with is that she needs 40,000$ to do a short video series? The one in the article looks fine in itself, I don't think she really needs it.

Her goal was $6,000, which is more than reasonable for video production and clip rights costs, etc. for a series of 10-20 minute professionally made videos.

That the backers' donations are now totaling $68,000+ are of the backers' own volition.

Beyond that, it's a worthy subject and I'm not sure why there's so much controversy. I've seen this issue discussed before many times already, but there's nothing wrong with another voice.

I think honestly the controversy comes from some folks feeling like it's a personal attack on themselves/their beliefs (the rightness or wrongness of their beliefs set aside for the moment). It's irrational, but obviously from the quotes provided, they are not rational people.

Ah, fair enough.

Hate on YT comments is nothing new, but the sheer volume of it was enough to warrant some articles around the internet, and 300+ replies here. (I've observed that anything on this site that nets over 200 replies means something is a fairly big deal)
That's why I'm a little confused at the volume of hatred.

In related news; I've begun watching some of her videos. They're pretty good, if a bit monotone. (Which makes sense, pretty much every video I've ever seen in a classroom had a similar voice. Which has never been a good thing. Get some emotion, people.)

 

[Eamar]

I could name you female characters that aren't sexualized at all, and are taken quite seriously, but why don't you take a moment for me to name me off a couple of gay / transsexual male characters that are not..

*Gay for comedies sake

*Lack any personality other then being gay

*Are a character they stapled gay onto for the sake of generating more media attention. (Green Lantern is a good recent example of this)

All true, but that's not what's being discussed here. I just posted something to this effect- complaining about an existing issue does not mean you only care about that one issue. As a woman I am not happy with how women are generally portrayed in games. As a gay person I'm also not happy about how LGBT people tend to be represented. As neither a male nor a transgendered person, I am unhappy with how gay/trans males are portrayed. Just as I fall into multiple categories, I am able to acknowledge multiple problems, and I don't think competing to see who has the biggest problems is helpful to anyone.

[small]Why can't we all just be nice to one another?[/small]

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Why should people pay for propaganda? It's ridiculous. If you have extremist views you want to express, don't expect everyone to rush at you baring their cash in anticipation.

Sure give her money just so she can keep screamabout how all men are sexist.
How about if you want games to be more for you,MAKE THEM YOURSELF!

These would be valid points if people didnt already pay a LOT of money to see this series (which we dont know is about how all men are sexist or that its extreme).

So what youre saying is you dont want people paying for something that theyre willing to pay for to enjoy personally by giving money to said person who can provide that service via the use of money.

What exactly do you want to happen? No one can pay to hear something YOU dont want to hear? What if THEY want to hear it.

Also if the roles were reversed and no games were made for you id say the chances of YOU making a game for yourself would be less than zero. How much programming knowlegde do you have?

Also for the record i havnt donated. I dont want to pay to see it. Im not going to call it a "money grab" when.

1. The people paying know what they are getting.
2. The asking price is as much/little as YOU want
3. The maker of the content made no demands and simply asked.

Ive opted not to fund it as im not going to enjoy it. How does its existance affect you?

 

[Vrex360]

The gaming community is no longer worth defending.

It isn't, it can honestly go fuck itself. Misogynist obnoxious little douchebags who spam and harass an innocent vlogger who has done nothing to harm anyone, apparently enraged by the idea of someone questioning women's treatment in gaming media, decided the best course of action should be misogynist comments and blatant attempts to intimidate her with graphic threats of rape?

Seriously fuck this behavior and anyone who thinks it's acceptable. I'm amazed how many people have made her the villain here or as I saw on the first page believing that she's part of the 'evil PC police' and that therefore e-intimidation is the only way to stop her. What really would happen if she made this video series?
Would people die?
Would the gaming community explode?
Would the economy collapse?

No, there would be a video series that questions video games portrayals of women. One that you don't have to pay attention to, one that won't effect you in any way and that has no bearing on your life. If the thought of that offends you to the point of believing that widespread hate campaigns and rape threats are essential then you seriously need to reconsider your priorities.

As far as the argument 'grah she stealinz monez for her site', a few things:
Anita Sarkessian does these videos for free, she has stated numerously that she doesn't put ads on her videos so she gets no ad revenue money for doing them. Her videos have been used as educational material in women's studies and universities. I myself got a good grade at UNI for referencing her work, she's got a Masters degree in media and social studies and a bachelor in communications. I'd say she's pretty qualified to do her job and I'd hardly say she's greedy either, if she has supporters who want to help her raise the money to get the licensing for video game footage or whatever else that she might need because she, again, refuses to put ads on her work then that's fine with me.
She's qualified to talk about it (for instance she spoke at a conference hosted by Bungie about women's representation in video games) and is being very reasonable, she certainly doesn't deserve rape threats or for her work to be considered 'terrorism'.

Hell you know who IS a E-begging scammer? The Amazing rapethreatening Athiest. He made that site 'free speech vids' demanding $20 0000 in donations and once the site was up it failed within a week because he didn't spend any money on the basic things like bandwidth and file space. So where did all that money go?
More importantly where was the vicious hate campaign against him?

I've watched, and liked, a lot of Anita's videos. She's for the most part very level headed and respectful, I don't know where her reputation of an insane man hater comes from. There were a few times where she goes overboard but her original 'Tropes versus Women' series and the ones about LEGO and 'The Hunger Games' are pretty damn well written and thought out videos. All she has ever done is address issues, she doesn't even actually direct a blame figure. In her recent 'Oscars and the Bechdel test' video she admits that a movie passing the Bechdel test doesn't mean its inherently a good movie or that a movie that doesn't pass it is a bad movie, just that there is an issue to be addressed.

All she is doing here is making a series of videos about some of the harmful stereotypes aimed at women in gaming. That's all and frankly it's not unreasonable to have a video series that addresses this stuff, if we acknowledge problems like harmful stereotypes in our media enough that we can identify them easily it might help game developers in the future avoid those mistakes and move forward.

This outrage never happened when she made the original 'Tropes versus women' series. It never happened when she first asked for donations about gender and toys (specifically LEGO). This is the first time mainstream outrage by mean spirited insecure fat neck bearded virgins happened to her and it was coincidently the first time she decided to tackle video games.

And that is why I reiterate what I said before, if this truly is 'the gaming community' then:

THE GAMING COMMUNITY CAN GO FUCK ITSELF

Because I can't imagine many self respecting women would be about to.

And god bless you Anita, never stop fighting the good fight.

 

[Furrama]

Not that the Escapist community is very... um... sensitive to this issue on the whole, but my goodness people. Some of you are as bad as some of the youtube commenters, calling her a slut, questioning and nitpicking everything possible in order to defraud, but where I stand there is really nothing to pick at here. I've seen every episode of her other show, and I don't agree with everything she says. Same as with MovieBob, same as with Yahtzee, they all tend to see issues where I don't at times. That's okay. That's a thing. But on the whole, thus far... she's pretty level headed and on the mark most of the time.

She has an opinion she wants to share, she's asking for money to help get it out there and get research material, and that's also fine. People do that. She's gotten her contribution and then some, so there will be even more episodes then there would have been originally, so yay for those of us who wanted this. ZeFrank also asked for money recently, and got a whole lot of it for something very similar. Very very very few people threw a fit over that. Making documentaries/web videos, drawing, painting, making music, it's all art and it's all work. It's not that much of a stretch to expect that people should get paid for their work and materials if they are good enough. Go up to a famous artist and ask him to draw you a picture for free, and then tell him he should do it because he loves it. He'll laugh in your face. On the whole, she didn't ask for all that much considering the quality of work she does, (if it had been for a professional outlet she would have been paid more than that). The fact that she got many times over what she asked for is a testament to the issue at hand.

This discussion has been bubbling along the issues of gaming for a long, long while now. It is something that shouldn't need to be said, but judging by the hate speech I've seen here and there, it clearly needs to be brought out in the open. Women are people, just like men, we have fantasies and hopes and dreams, just like men. We want to play along side men, together, without feeling left out or objectified. Let us all stand up, point out that there is a problem, and let us all work together to fix it.

 

[Khazoth]

I could name you female characters that aren't sexualized at all, and are taken quite seriously, but why don't you take a moment for me to name me off a couple of gay / transsexual male characters that are not..

*Gay for comedies sake

*Lack any personality other then being gay

*Are a character they stapled gay onto for the sake of generating more media attention. (Green Lantern is a good recent example of this)

All true, but that's not what's being discussed here. I just posted something to this effect- complaining about an existing issue does not mean you only care about that one issue. As a woman I am not happy with how women are generally portrayed in games. As a gay person I'm also not happy about how LGBT people tend to be represented. As neither a male or a transgendered person, I am unhappy with how gay/trans males are portrayed. Just as I fall into multiple categories, I am able to acknowledge multiple problems, and I don't think competing to see who has the biggest problems is helpful to anyone.

[small]Why can't we all just be nice to one another?[/small]

The problem isn't that she's ignoring it, the problem is that this is all anyone in the gaming community talks about. I'm sick of it. "Oh, hur hur women are sexualized men are pigs."

Faith, April Ryan, Jade, Samus Aran, Kerrigan, Alyx Vance, Both L4D Girls, Shaundi, Purna, etc.

I could go on but i'm sick of this discussion and so are a lot of people. Can we move on from boo hoo poor women? Anyone remember when one of GTA's controversies was that you could beat up women? Fun how women are above being the target of violence, eh?

 

[Eamar]

Epic snip of epicness

*Stands up and applauds* Bravo, sir, bravo. You actually know what you're talking about. Could have done without the "neckbearded virgins" insults at the end, but otherwise you make very valid, well thought-out points.

This part in particular could do with being highlighted:

This outrage never happened when she made the original 'Tropes versus women' series. It never happened when she first asked for donations about gender and toys (specifically LEGO). This is the first time mainstream outrage by mean spirited insecure [people] happened to her and it was coincidently the first time she decided to tackle video games.

It never ceases to amaze me how blind people are to this issue, and how they fail to realise that a lot of the behaviour in this community is not normal and is considered shocking by "outsiders". Thanks for pointing it out.

 

[Furrama]

Epic snip of epicness

*Stands up and applauds* Bravo, sir, bravo. You actually know what you're talking about. Could have done without the "neckbearded virgins" insults at the end, but otherwise you make very valid, well thought-out points.

This part in particular could do with being highlighted:

This outrage never happened when she made the original 'Tropes versus women' series. It never happened when she first asked for donations about gender and toys (specifically LEGO). This is the first time mainstream outrage by mean spirited insecure [people] happened to her and it was coincidently the first time she decided to tackle video games.

It never ceases to amaze me how blind people are to this issue, and how they fail to realise that a lot of the behaviour in this community is not normal and is considered shocking by "outsiders". Thanks for pointing it out.

A-friggen-men. I agree with your statements. It feels good to know I'm not alone in a sea of bad behavior.

 

[Khazoth]

Also, I would like to introduce this forum to a revolutionary thought.

Youtube Community =/= Gaming Community.

Revolutionary thinking, I know.

 

[Eamar]

The problem isn't that she's ignoring it, the problem is that this is all anyone in the gaming community talks about. I'm sick of it. "Oh, hur hur women are sexualized men are pigs."

Faith, April Ryan, Jade, Samus Aran, Kerrigan, Alyx Vance, Both L4D Girls, Shaundi, Purna, etc.

I could go on but i'm sick of this discussion and so are a lot of people. Can we move on from boo hoo poor women? Anyone remember when one of GTA's controversies was that you could beat up women? Fun how women are above being the target of violence, eh?

Come now, this doesn't have to be about insulting those who have a problem with the portrayal of women. I for one consider the idea that women should never be the enemies in games inherently sexist, and so do most of the feminists I've seen on here recently. Likewise, no feminist worth her salt is going to say anything like "men are pigs." That's just as bad as "women are sluts" or something.

The way to make people talk about the things you want to talk about is to bring it up more often. But not in such a way that you insult other people who also have valid complaints.

If I went around saying "yeah, men get a raw deal sometimes but boo hoo poor men stop talking about it and address MY problems", I'd not be well received, and understandably so. You see what I'm saying?

I sympathise with you, I really do, and I agree this gets more exposure than some other issues. Based on the responses it gets from a lot of people I'd say there's still a way to go, but you obviously disagree. But there's really no need to belittle people's arguments or insult them.

 

[orangeban]

Right, here's why dealing with stereotypes facing women is a bigger issue than stereotypes facing men. Note, I'm not saying stereotypes around men aren't a bad thing, it's really to do with the reasons these stereotypes exist.

The stereotypes about men can be sorted into two major categories

1) Super manly
2) Not manly

These stereotypes revolve around this idea of men being the ultimate ideal. Manly stereotypes of men are all about "THE ULTIMATE MAN" and how God damn awesome he is. Marcus Fenix, the hordes of Call of Duty tough guy protagonists, Master Chief, Adam Jensen, and so on. These super manly men are generally protagonists.

Think about non-manly stereotypes.

- The gay man. Since being straight is a "MANLY" thing, this guy's normally played for laughs. Often, note how stereotypical gay men are often very feminine in their actions and mannerisms. They aren't straight, therefore they aren't MEN, therefore they should act like women.

- The nerd. Also played for laughs. He's a weakling, he's usually not the protagonist (think of Snake and Otacon).

- The evil guy. Your stereotypical evil wizard, what isn't he? Young, strong, big, surrounded by women, charging into battle swinging a sword. The whole idea of soldiers being more noble and honourable than wizards stems from MANLINESS being desired above all else and spells not being MANLY. This is partly why wizards are so often villains and kings so often good guys.

The stereotypes about women can also be sorted into two major categories.

1) Sexy
2) Burly

The sexy women are designed to be appealing to men. That's basically their only purpose, they're eye candy. Women who's only expected role is to look pretty. This is also where you get the whole "damsel in distress" thing, the hero's reward is a pretty woman.

The burly women are women is a relatively new stereotype I feel. These are women who are as MANLY as possible, it's all about basically making women men since men are the best right?

Basically, the only good is the MAN. Therefore, everything that isn't a man is inferior (or is not useful to men, see "sexy"), and this includes men who don't live up to standards of manliness.

Men are only inferior when they're not MANLY enough, women are always inferior and the best they can hope is to be sexy (since, to the straight "MANLY" man, this is something that can be done by men) or as much like men as possible.

Edit: As to my categories, notice how the different tropes dealt with by the Kickstarter fit rather neatly into them (apart from the voodoo priestess one, but that's actually covered under a separate category I didn't mention of "It's foreign, i.e. strange and barbaric and different i.e. they're allowed to do crazy stuff).

The sexy stereotype - Damsel in Distress - Video #1
The Fighting F#@k Toy - Video #2
The Sexy Sidekick - Video #3
The Sexy Villainess - Video #4
Background Decoration - Video #5
Women as Reward - Video #7

The burly stereotype - Mrs. Male Character - Video #8
Unattractive Equals Evil - Video #9
Man with Boobs - Video #10

 

[Eamar]

snip

I appreciate your agreement You may want to add something to that post to avoid a low-content warning though.

 

[Khazoth]

You pretty much nailed it. Some games overdo the whole sexuality thing, but instead of ignoring it, both men and women make a fuss about it that leads to publicity. I would have never seen the Hitman trailer if there wasn't a big ass article on every gaming website. I wouldn't even know what DoA is if it didn't appear in every topic about sexualization of women, possibly because it's one of those 5 games that does so.

Yeah, I hadn't heard about Hitman until it was brought up on the Escapist. Remake the trailer with a bunch of transvestites and there won't really be a problem with the media masses.

Funny how that works all these years later huh?