Kickstarter Video Project Attracts Misogynist Horde
- Thread starter The Wooster
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Yeah, because the "point you were trying to make" was irrelevant to the "question" of whether people impaired by alcohol can consent.Schadrach said:
And so you should. Those two points of view are ones I hold myself (and are therefore obviously correct *smug smug feminist smug*). And I won't deny that a small amount of women lie about being raped. That kind of miscarriage of justice, where a person is sent to prison on a charge of rape when they didn't do it, is horrific. However, reading the above posts really made me angry. I was going to quote some stuff from them but now I'm not, since I've just read them again and decided that my problem with them is on a purely personal level. There's just something so vehement about the way it's being spoken about and it scares me a bit. Rape, more than any other crime, relies so heavily on believing one or the other party. To have a closed mind on the issue - either believing strongly that women (or men)often lie about being raped or believing strongly that women (or men) never lie about being raped is really dangerous. Innocent until proven guilty is a no-brainer, but so is supporting victims and not making them feel like liars just because of the nature of the crime they may have been subject to.Schadrach said:
Again, I'm not sure where this thread jumped from discussing the threats against a feminist pop-culture critic, and a general discussion about the portrayal of women in the media, to miscarriages of justice against men in rape cases. I'm not saying that it's not a topic worth talking about and I take on board the 'controversial' comment but I just don't see the thought process, I really don't. I'd love to be able to say that a discussion about females in video games leading to a discussion about women lying about rape charges is a total fluke but I have a nasty feeling it's not. And that's really really scary.
So women shouldn't report rape?Trekkie said:
All women should be blamed for the few that falsely report rape?
All rape isn't really rape but women feeling bad the next morning?
Rape shouldn't be investigated because the women may be making a false accusation?
Mate, your attitude is more than a little disgusting. If a person is raped and the report it to police they deserve, nay, absolutely must have their claims taken seriously.
If you want to have a go at someone have a go at the predatory nature of US prosecutors who instead of simply presenting the facts have an almost psychopathic drive to win at all costs.
It's not just rape defendants who get the hard end in the US justice system. Prosecutors often go for the highest possible charge regardless of whether it may fit the crime. Usually it is to cow the defendant into taking a plea bargain because nobody is sure that they can "win" a jury trial. But sometimes I have to wonder at the ethical landscape that prosecutors live in.
Possession gets turned into trafficking, lending a car to a mate gets turned into a murder charge, completely innocent accidents turn into manslaughter charges, miscarraiges get turned into murders.
It's fucked.
BUT IT IS NOT OKAY TO BLAME WOMEN FOR RAPE.
Yeah, that's what I meant. People get complacent sometimes, especially when deadlines and shit are involved. Plus, sometimes the more eyes you have on something, the more watered down it ends up getting in the end. Too many cooks spoiling the broth, so to speak v:Grahav said:
Eating cheese on toast and reading this thread is incredibly interesting. Just thought I should let you guys know.
Point 1: Rape is very very bad.
Point 2: False accusal of rape is bad, even if a conviction isn't sent through, a social stigma, and a very powerful one at that, is forever over the man's head.
Point 3: Rapists lie about not being rapists.
Point 4: Women can (and indeed do) lie to discredit others. Case brought to mind is where after a messy divorce, a woman complained her ex-husband had threatened her with a shotgun. He'd sold all his guns 6 weeks before the date she mentioned and had reciepts and the gun shops sold to to prove it. Summed up, an accusation is not always true.
Point 5: Just because the above is true, does not mean rape accusations are false.
Point 6: I've learnt some very interesting things through this thread.
Point 7: Femenism is the belief that women should have equal rights to men.
Point 8: Thus follows that they should also have equal responsibilites to men. No first dibs on lifeboats by virtue of gender, etc.
Point 9: Can people please make more constructive and responsive comments and concede when someone you don't agree with makes a point well? Common couertesy and maturity is a good thing.
Point 1: Rape is very very bad.
Point 2: False accusal of rape is bad, even if a conviction isn't sent through, a social stigma, and a very powerful one at that, is forever over the man's head.
Point 3: Rapists lie about not being rapists.
Point 4: Women can (and indeed do) lie to discredit others. Case brought to mind is where after a messy divorce, a woman complained her ex-husband had threatened her with a shotgun. He'd sold all his guns 6 weeks before the date she mentioned and had reciepts and the gun shops sold to to prove it. Summed up, an accusation is not always true.
Point 5: Just because the above is true, does not mean rape accusations are false.
Point 6: I've learnt some very interesting things through this thread.
Point 7: Femenism is the belief that women should have equal rights to men.
Point 8: Thus follows that they should also have equal responsibilites to men. No first dibs on lifeboats by virtue of gender, etc.
Point 9: Can people please make more constructive and responsive comments and concede when someone you don't agree with makes a point well? Common couertesy and maturity is a good thing.
Hollyday said:
Actually the big muscles are a sexual fantasy along with a power one. That's considered to be attractive, women go gaga for "hunks", there is a reason why groups like the Chippendales are mostly bodybuilder types. A big part of the fantasy of having the huge muscles is getting the girls with them.
It's sort of like breasts, not every guy finds large breasts attractive, but enough do where it's a safe bet that if you have big ones your odds of finding someone you find attractive who wants you go up substantially.
Those guys who pump iron at the beach don't do it to show off their power. The whole thing is "hey ladeez look at thuse massive arm boulders and this six pack... watch me flex, oh yeah...". It's like the male version of swimsuit behavior.
-
Your arguement about movie characters is inherantly loaded. You can take any list point to who isn't there and claim it's in some way biased, especially if one group dominated. It's like saying that a lack of white players on certain recent sports lists of best players is actually proof of some racist conspiricy to keep the white man down. I'm sure you could take a look at a "100 best characters list" which is pretty much an opinion piece, and probably find 20 or 30 groups you could claim it's bigoted against. In reality the most you can claim is that your taste in what makes a good character is differant from Empire's or those that care enough to have answered the polls.
That said, being an "all time" list also loads it, because while sexism is currently not an issue, and most definatly not within video games, in past decades it was an issue. Back when feminism actually stood for something valid in like the 1960s and 1970s the various "Bond Girls" were a big deal due to the way they were breaking stereotypes by not being demure and covered all the time. Women showing sexuality there and in control of it, and in things like Playboy was actually empowering. Things, and the flow of them changed, but if you figure it's only been a non issue for the last few decades it's less surprising. If you were to say limit the list to say "best 100 movie characters from the last 30 years" going back to say 1982 which is around where this battle had been more or less won and started to become more political than anything, your more likely to see more stand outs. Likewise when it comes to opinion pieces it depends on who you ask or is compiling the data.
Besides which, none of this has to do with anything, the discussion is about some Vlogger claiming that the tropes/characters in video games are sexist and offensive and campaigning to get people to fund a bigger platform for her, so she can spread the message of how wrong and male dominated it all is.
The kind of thing she's getting on is say asking the question of why a character like Bloodrayne runs around killing people in a leather catsuit. The answer is "because it's more fun that way" and that's not just from a male dominated perspective either. When women write their killer vampire characters they tend to also do a lot of their violence in exotic and sexy costumes, oftentimes irregardless of the period. There is nothing inherantly wrong, exploitive, or one sided about the character. Indeed Bloodrayne (which was a mixed success, it did get a sequel and a few B movie tie ins) was probably green lit because it's such a universally appealing image, and one which hadn't at that time been exploited much.
Take a bunch of popular characters from mainstream fantasy novels aimed mostly at women (many of which have gone successfully cross gender in their artwork) and think about how they would look if rendered as video game characters. On average, they would wind up being exactly like what we see now, in part because it's those kinds of characters that inspire the ones in video games and such. The gaming industry doesn't do it because they are "ignoring 50% of the potential audience" but because this is what women as a whole and want and create/read about on their own, and it also happens to have universal appeal.
If someone decided to make an Anita Blake video game, or one based off of Kim Harrison's "Hollows" series (which I read) ladies like this Vlogger would be screaming a proper representation of the characters would be "exploitive male fantasy", which is lulzworthy because of both the author, and the target audience they were created for.
It doesn't make men "victims," considering not all (if any) men are sex robots who can't help but buy games that promise big-breasted women who are largely one-dimensional.Spearmaster said:
Plus there wouldn't be anything to exploit if the men weren't predisposed to accepting (or actively desiring) material that is sexist/etc, considering men who don't like sexism aren't the ones buying these games or being exploited by developers who make them.
You're making it sound like video games are training men to be sexist and therefore men are the real victims of the situation. Video games can't train men (or women) to be anything unless they are predisposed to be that already (video games don't make people violent unless they had a violent streak to begin with; video games can't make people sexist unless they already assumed the stereotypes perpetuated in the games were true, etc).
But here's the thing: those big-muscled men aren't there for women (or men) to oogle at, and they typically have important contributions to the plot or the action. They aren't objectifying men, but providing the player (who is typically presumed to be a man) with a shell through which he can enact his own power fantasy. Considering the man probably wouldn't be playing the game if he didn't think what the character was doing was cool in some way, it's fair to say that by pretending to be this character, the man can derive some satisfaction (at least from the character's actions, if not from the fact that he himself wishes he COULD have those big muscles, etc).
When women are dressed like strippers and sluts and/or have ridiculous proportions, it's generally obvious that it's not done for the purpose of allowing women to have their own power fantasy (or comparable experience). I think it's safe to assume few women gamers dream of dressing like sluts, or being the inconsequential sidekick for the guys who go out and actually do the cool stuff. The women are typically (not always, obviously, but typically) there for the purpose of pleasing those guys who like oogling at scantily-clad women, or for the purpose of sticking a love interest into the plot in the case of lazy script-writing, etc.
In other words, neither sex is necessarily depicted in a realistic way, but the problem is women are generally depicted in a manner meant to please men sexually, and men are generally depicted in a manner meant to please men who want to slip into an idealized version of themselves. In order for depictions of men to be equally sexist, you'd basically have to create the same kind of soft-core porn effect for women (i.e., attractive men with six-pack abs who never wear shirts and are just there for the women gamers to stare at and/or who are just there as an accessory to a female lead who actually gets to do all the cool stuff or act like a real person).
Awesome.JerrytheBullfrog said:
So its more the way women aren't realistically portrayed then?...and the fact that its used to target men is because men that respond to it positively are already sexist?...so if men that respond positively are already sexist and men that don't wont become sexist because of it then if it doesn't change men how does it affect women different?minuialear said:
Is it that there are no proper role models for women in games?
There aren't for men either so it then must be that there are just not any/enough women in major roles in games that aren't of the submissive/hooker archtype?
It cant be gender roles because both sexes are stereotyped horribly.
I can see how its a stereotype problem, I do see it as a problem (girls need games to), but how is it an equal rights for women issue? and how does it hurt women if its not changed?
In my original post I also said
"Also what can actually be done about it other than a direct boycott or asking them nice to stop, even the most impressive speech or rant about a problem without a viable solution is just whining right?"
it was the only part that has not got any response.
How can we fix it?
Wait.Therumancer said:
I am trying to think of characters I can play that are flat-chested women.
Actually, any female characters at all that have boobs smaller than a D-cup.
Can't play them on World of Warcraft. Can't play them on Rock Band. Heck, I think the only place I can play girls without big boobs is when the characters are childlike or cartoony (and sometimes even the kids are sexed up, see e.g. 15-year-old Rikku from Final Fantasy X).
But let's get back to your argument:
So, when someone says something you don't like, or engages in a study attempting to prove a position you disagree with, the proper response is to gag them? What the hell, man?Therumancer said:
Let's try this: All the people in the world get to say things, and some of them will be right and a lot of them will be wrong. And you can choose which ones you listen to. But you don't have any right to go around deciding which ones OTHER PEOPLE get to listen to. Let alone deciding which ones other people give their money to.
I mean, clearly enough people disagree with your premise (they think this issue exists and is worth discussing) that they managed to raise all the money she needed in, what, 24 hours?
You ever hear the quote "I may disagree with what you're saying, but I will defend to the death your right to say it?" Or here's one I read the other day: "We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes."
People are free to differ. No one should be praising people for shutting them up.
It is somewhat like that, only more applying to the whole curiculum than a single class. It would be narrow-minded if it happened and I'm sure the creator has more than one priority in life but I just felt it apt to state perhaps a more well-formed version of what all of these... violent rapists who inhabit the YouTube comments section were trying to say.Hollyday said:
I honestly can't tell if they're being serious, on that note! Hell, I wouldn't put it past 4 Chan or some community like that to have a little troll at someone's expense... maybe they're even generating publicity? Who can say?
I indeed do not promote ignorance when it comes to subjects such as sexism, I merely promote caution. It is entirely possible to fall into the trap of favouring one side or the other, a desire to see something or an expectation causing false-negative and false-positives in research, etc, etc.
I actually think she's fairly correct, but again I think by looking at the industry, the priorities are wrong. As I said in the "Gamers make poor feminists"-thread...gamers make poor feminists! In general.
The industry reacts to the needs of the market, and the consumers obviously wants this kind of crap. It appears to be in -slight- decline, as there relativly recently has been a growth in popularity for games that treat women as something other then sex objects, but the problem remains with the GAMERS themselves, and not neccecerily with the gaming companies. Not that that's always the case, mind you.
Fortunetly, the standard gamer isnt what they used to be 20 years ago. Then it was practicly 99% dudes. Today, female gamers make up 42% of the gamerbase in America. I dont have numbers for the rest of the world but its probably higher then you'd think. One can only hope that this shift will result in a greater change in the video games market.
Despite this great shift in the numbers female-male gamers, harassment against female gamers is a BIG problem, and a very common occurance. Why? Im guessing the internetz has something to do with it, and the fact that most gamers are still hormon-riddled teenagers that sometimes just say the most stupid things without really meaning it. Its probably the case with many of those youtube comments.
This is not a problem that's going to go away easily, as gender roles has existed deep in the human mind for millenia, and its not easy for them to change. But I give credit to this woman for at least giving it a shot, because its definetly not going to change if people dont try.
The industry reacts to the needs of the market, and the consumers obviously wants this kind of crap. It appears to be in -slight- decline, as there relativly recently has been a growth in popularity for games that treat women as something other then sex objects, but the problem remains with the GAMERS themselves, and not neccecerily with the gaming companies. Not that that's always the case, mind you.
Fortunetly, the standard gamer isnt what they used to be 20 years ago. Then it was practicly 99% dudes. Today, female gamers make up 42% of the gamerbase in America. I dont have numbers for the rest of the world but its probably higher then you'd think. One can only hope that this shift will result in a greater change in the video games market.
Despite this great shift in the numbers female-male gamers, harassment against female gamers is a BIG problem, and a very common occurance. Why? Im guessing the internetz has something to do with it, and the fact that most gamers are still hormon-riddled teenagers that sometimes just say the most stupid things without really meaning it. Its probably the case with many of those youtube comments.
This is not a problem that's going to go away easily, as gender roles has existed deep in the human mind for millenia, and its not easy for them to change. But I give credit to this woman for at least giving it a shot, because its definetly not going to change if people dont try.