Rape, Feminism, and The Escapist Forums

[BloatedGuppy]

There's a show called "Girls"? OMG sexism! (Seriously, never heard of it, I'll check it out)

One of the most polarizing shows on television. Half the people who watch it think it's the voice of a generation, the other half want to hang Lena Dunham up by her neck.

Couldn't find the scene, but here's a tedious blow by blow discussion of the controversy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gyyVmRQNMQ

Oh wait, the scene is in the clip. Hurrah! Well, most of it anyway. They chopped it up a bit.

PS - If you want my opinion, it wasn't "rape" per se, but it wasn't cool either. It existed in that problematic grey area that makes discussions about the subject so troubling and difficult. Can't decide if that's because the writing was really good, or really oblivious.

To illustrate that you can take offense at everything; like being offended that people are easily offended. It's quite offending.

Of course you can. It's not evidence that being offended is wrong, or that it's not worthy of discussion when issues of offense arise.

What's wrong with Robocop? It's a classic!

=\

True. I just don't see how she justifies it's support toward negative attitudes toward women and inherently misogynist ideas. Tropes are an explanation for something which already exists; they don't really do anything.

A trope CAN be evidence of a prevailing attitude. It can also be evidence of laziness or lack of creativity. If there was a long history of games with, say, black slave characters, I might use it as evidence in a thesis that the game industry has a racism problem. It's not really an outrageous assertion, and I've never really been clear why the discussion around sexism in gaming keeps making people throw a strop.

 

[Weaver]

We should make a gender issues subforum so it stops shitting up all of off topic.
We already get enough threads that should really, really be in Religion and Politics not going into R&P.

If you guys were around before the R&P subforum came up... you haven't seen anything in terms of "hot topic" threads. OT was like 90% political and religious debate, it was terrible.

So yeah, gender issues forums. All the freindzone, feminism, rape, etc. "discussions" would go in there. I know rape isn't really a "gender issue" per say, but we could name it something else.

 

[ShiningAmber]

This is a primarily male dominated site which I personally believe many of them have some serious issues with women, feminists, etc. Yet they continuously make god awful threads about these topics, even though they hate them and then find other like minded users who hate just as much and then go on hate rants.

It's just plain creepy the stuff that is said here.

 

[Legion]

Because they get forum badges.
Because they get lot's of views.
Because they get lot's of replies.

That's my cynical answer, but considering none of them seem to actually be trying to have a serious discussion, instead tending to be an ill informed rant of some kind or another.

Being here since 2008, this is kind of normal for the Escapist to go through a controversial phase every year. I don't remember what last years was.

ME3's ending, before Anita Sarkeesian became a name everybody knew.

We should make a gender issues subforum so it stops shitting up all of off topic.
We already get enough threads that should really, really be in Religion and Politics not going into R&P.

If you guys were around before the R&P subforum came up... you haven't seen anything in terms of "hot topic" threads. OT was like 90% political and religious debate, it was terrible.

So yeah, gender issues forums. All the freindzone, feminism, rape, etc. "discussions" would go in there. I know rape isn't really a "gender issue" per say, but we could name it something else.

I agree, I think feminism and all related topics should be in R+P or similar. It really does remind me of the time before R+P existed, and it's kind of tiresome. Especially because like most religious topics it seems like a thinly veiled reason to get on a soapbox of one kind or another.

 

[DEAD34345]

People talk about what they want to talk about, I don't see why they should particularly care if this "perpetuates the stereotype that all nerds or "Gamers" are whiny, neckbearded pseudo-intellectuals who can't get any". I, for one, don't give a damn about the current "Gamer" stereotype, and I'm certainly not going to dedicate any effort to alter it.

As for why this topic has come up, it's probably because the population of this site is extremely left-wing compared to the average in most places, and rape and feminism are exactly the sort of things that are a big deal to those with that kind of political mindset. It's the current controversy, and The Escapist cycles through these things all the time, including the "What's with all the X threads?" threads which pop up during them, like this one.

 

[KOMega]

I think a few very vocal members incite a whole bunch of conversation, and as such get some other people all riled up too.
And then it sorta propagates until the number of new people creating threads matchs or goes below the number of people who feel like they have had enough for the day.

Because they get forum badges.
Because they get lot's of views.
Because they get lot's of replies.

A good way to get a few numbers up on the post count too.

 

[josemlopes]

In addition it adds a bit of variety to the forum, being able to talk about things other than gaming and films.

Shit, at this point games and films are the variety (E3 balanced things out now).

 

[Rebel_Raven]

I'm not entirely certain what section I should put this in, or if there even is a section that fits it, but this needs to be said. I'm not going to lie and say that I'm a massive user of these forums, I'll browse them casually now and then, but every time I glance down at the "Popular Forum Posts" box there's a post about Anita Sarkeesian or rape or a discussion of sexism. My question is why, on a website at least ostensibly about video games are there so many angry posts about feminism and rape? Of the top ten most discussed topics of the last year, five directly or indirectly referenced feminism or sexism in the opening post. From an outsider, this seems like overkill, and I really don't see a good reason for it. At best it seems excessive, at worst it perpetuates the stereotype that all nerds or "Gamers" are whiny, neckbearded pseudo-intellectuals who can't get any.

It's pretty simple. Because sexism exists in all layers of the gaming industry. Developers, publishers, market testers, the community. Of course people are against the notion it exists, so the threads blow up as people try to explain their side.

New news pops up on the subject so more threads get made. People want to investigate the matter, or sweep it under the rug, or at least talk about it.

Anita's become a lightning rod for talking about videogames poorly, and people don't like her character, the points she brings up, and/or how she presents them. And there's a sizable amount of people that hate feminism, too.

Rape? It's largely due to the e3 event, and the obnoxious members of the community using it as smacktalk, threats, and the sort. Especially against Anita, it seems.

Of course I know there's bright spots in the community, publishers, developers, and the sort, but the tarnished bits are a bit more obvious.

 

[TehCookie]

It's the new hot topic, at least it hasn't gotten so bad they mods felt they needed to ban it like the pedophile flamewars. Then you also had the videogames are art/Mass Effect 3 ending, whirlpools, and others I've forgotten. It's just the latest trend and people want to make an entirely new topic to voice their opinion instead of containing it in one.

 

[Nowhere Man]

I'm not entirely certain what section I should put this in, or if there even is a section that fits it, but this needs to be said. I'm not going to lie and say that I'm a massive user of these forums, I'll browse them casually now and then, but every time I glance down at the "Popular Forum Posts" box there's a post about Anita Sarkeesian or rape or a discussion of sexism. My question is why, on a website at least ostensibly about video games are there so many angry posts about feminism and rape? Of the top ten most discussed topics of the last year, five directly or indirectly referenced feminism or sexism in the opening post. From an outsider, this seems like overkill, and I really don't see a good reason for it. At best it seems excessive, at worst it perpetuates the stereotype that all nerds or "Gamers" are whiny, neckbearded pseudo-intellectuals who can't get any.

I was thinking of posting the very same question myself. I've never seen a website (a primarily gaming one) with so many feminism and rape threads. Its a bummer seeing that shit every day. I have my own opinions on all of those issues. But I stay far away from posting what I feel. And for good reason.

 

[Ryan Minns]

I actually like the threads. I don't read them all but the Escapist was used heavily in my friends speech she gave at Uni.

 

[tilmoph]

Because sexism in gaming has become a major talking point, and one of the biggest and most visible individuals involved identifies as a feminist.

More generally, because gamers as a whole have distinct fear that any criticism of their favored media invites censorship. Now, before anyone jumps on me, I'm not saying that any group is calling for censorship of games right now. What I am saying is that a lot of criticism of games has lead to calls and attempts at censorship.

http://www.mavav.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_(activist)#Video_games
http://www.ign.com/articles/2010/09/14/poll-72-of-adults-support-violent-game-law

I think this a decent list of the attempts to censor games based on criticism of their violent content, which was the last major point of criticism of games that got a lot of media attention. Concerns over piracy, which got into the mainstream media, lead to the current wave of DRM, which while not censorship, is generally classed as a bad thing.

To put it simply, gamers have grown in a culture where, whenever they get criticized, someone starts trying to regulate them (DRM) or their games (Thompson et al.), where a fair chunk of the reporting on any controversy within their hobby is heavily biased against them (ME1 sex-scenes), in short, where they are frequently on the defensive. So when someone or a group of someone's come along with critiques and complaints of some measure of validity (I will not say how valid except to note "a value between 0 and completely"), the gamers first instinct is to get mad, assume another attack is incoming, and start trying to attack, or rally their fellow gamers to defend themselves. Because it has been necessary before. This is not a good environment to have reasonable discussions, but I really don't see it as an incomprehensible one.

 

[Private Custard]

snip

My theory is that we get a lot of badge-hunters (possibly like you), who know full well that a thread on feminism, sexism or rape stands a good chance of getting them what they seek.

 

[Nickolai77]

I think one thing you need to bear in mind that when I was a fresh faced Escapist user with less than a hundred posts to my name there wasn't an R&P discussion board. Instead, all debates about politics and religion as well as feminism would have gone on in the off-topic section- and those threads would have at least as many pages if not more as the feminism threads today.

Now all the politics and religion threads have gone leaving feminism behind in off topic for some reason, which leads people to think that Escapists have an issue with feminism when really it's the one topic that got left behind when all the other controversial topics were shifted to R&P.

However, i feel this probably has forced many Escapists to take an interest in feminism, and this interest is stoked further by Escapist contributors who, perhaps noting the supposed popularity of feminism threads, make sure their content reflects what users are talking about.

So, i don't think feminism was really any more or less popular than any other subject in politics and religion back before R&P existed- but when R&P was created this removed all the controversial subjects of debate except feminism from off-topic. Which has probably led to escapists to taking more of an interest- negative or positive, in the subject.

 

[Cheesepower5]

Feminists: Yeah, all these threads against us are weird and creepy.

Non-feminists: Yeah, what's the deal with all these feminists complaining all the time?

Funny how different an interpretation of something can be, depending on the views of those making said interpretation. The actual contents of the threads are far more balanced and evenly represented than any of you seem to make it sound.

As an aside, I really don't appreciate the label of these faceless misogynists as 'creepy'. As one creepy ************, I feel you're being unfair to unattractive men (I say men, because I've never heard a woman called creepy, I could be wrong.)

 

[sky14kemea]

I just wish mods would actively boot those threads to R&P, since they are not designed for OT and R&P can handle that kind of stuff. That was why they made it years ago anyways, to help curb this annual flame wars, but you'll still see nothing but political threads on OT for months. Sigh.

You rang?

The Mods don't get to browse the forums as much as they'd like during their free time, and when we do we prefer it to be "off the clock", so to speak.

However, if you spot more of these threads in future, you can always PM me and I'll move them to R&P as fast as I can!

Now to have an internal debate on whether or not I should move this one...