Mikeyfell said:
Anyways, the reason I didn't bother to finish the quote is because the rest of what she said wasn't relevant.
It was more you didn't provide an actual quote at all.
Because in the statement "When a woman does anything" implies a distinct difference than "When a man does anything"
When someone who crusades for gender equality uses language that implies that she does not care about gender equality she comes off as being full of crap.
Or they acknoledge the current state of the real world where men and women experience different things, are forced under differing stereotypical conditions by society, etc...
You can't talk about sexism being bad if you believe the gender of the subject has an effect on the connotation of the exact same action.
...sexism is
based on gender and how it affects us...
I'm not sure I see the relevance of that.
Yes, that is true
The relevance is that you said that one cannot claim sexism if they believe gender effects how people, or events, are perceived.
That is patently ludicrous and fundamentally misunderstands sexism.
The point is that Anita Sarkeesian is pro sexism. She is anti-misogyny. Which is specific to woman.
The between-the-lines theme of all her videos is that men are inherently misogynistic, and that every shirt skirt and side boob was put there by a mustache twirling woman hater for the express purpose of keeping women down.
Ah, yes, the "
You're the real racist/sexist" argument.
Firstly, just because anti-misogyny is "specific to women" does not mean that it's somehow "sexist" which, again, comes from your lack of understanding what sexism actually is.
Secondly, no, over all these videos and analyses, I have never gotten the impression nor have I ever seen any evidence that shows this supposed "men are inherently misogynistic" viewpoint.
Thirdly, she has
never specifically gone after individual, personal developers nor has she ever stated, or suggested, that the developers are
intentionally or
inherently misogynistic. She
does state that developers and content creators often use these sorts of tropes because of laziness or lac
which is totally true and several developers have supported this statement.
That's what her message comes off as filtered through her biases.
She looks at overused archetypes and sees "representation of all women" That's the foundation of the whole TVW series is.
She cherry picks her examples and uses tricks of language bordering on logical fallacies to subtly reinforce her viewpoint.
1) Providing examples is not "cherry picking"
2) She never even suggests that these are representations of "all" women.
3) Yes, they are overused archetypes.
That's a major portion of her point.
Or such a basic story telling tool like "The bad guy does something bad, and warp that to make video games look sexist and the worst part is that people fall for it.
It's this type of thinking on what stories tell us that
prevents us from being able to actually intellectually analyze our media. Essentially, you're suggesting all critics be out of a job because they're just "warping" a simple story of "guy tries to get suitcase full of valuables" (Pulp Fiction) or "Guy saves a bunch of Jews" (Schindler's List) to mean something that they supposedly aren't.
I made a mistake it wasn't about GTA it was about Sleeping Dogs. In the first part of "women as background decorations" and it starts 17:47
"In many open world or sand box style games developers construct their virtual worlds in such a way as to enable players to directly abuse nonplayable sex objects"
So tell me again how she never said that?
1) My original point remains unaffected. She never stated that that game had women just to "give something pretty to shoot at"
2) Her point is still valid. All she stated was that players are able to directly abuse sexualized NPCs. Do you think when she says "players" that she's specifically refering to you? Or the
concept of the player?
And there's more from that video 8:25 when she says "We need to consider the 'fact' that players are 'encouraged' to participate directly in the objectification of women"
What's wrong with that statement? She was making a statement on the differences in interactivity between passive media like film with interactive media like games. Often times players
are encouraged to participate in certain actions because, you know, they're interactive.
or 10:00 when she says "These active viewing mechanics encourage players to collaborate with developers in sexual objectification... blah blah blah"
She
literally provides an example of the developer explicitly leaving a box for the player to hide in, which
conviniently lets you look up on the women. There are several more exmaples of this throughout her video.
And all of this
still doesn't prove your original statement.
How 'bout 16:10
"When men are depicted using female npc's as tools or commodities" I'll continue with the quote but do you see how she said "men" and "female npc's"
She's putting arbitrary gender divides into her speech
She is the one doing the dehumanizing.
How is it "arbitrary"? It's literally what happens. There are far more male protagonists/playable characters, which is what she was refering to, and they are often portrayed as dominating or using female NPC's as tools, often in a sexual way.
You're basically trying to say that "gender doesn't matter" when it clearly does. It's attempting the "I don't see color" argument when it comes to race, completely ignoring the very real effect that race has on us. This is why I feel more secure in my assessment of you not understanding sexism when trying to go for the "
You're the real sexist" claim.
"Their actions are portrayed as part of what makes them powerful"
and that's bullshit for lots of reasons most obviously of which adding a mechanic that makes a male character reliant on a female character for health and stat buffs portrays them as weak not powerful.
The only instance I can think of that does this is Bioshock: Infinite, and even then that's disengenuous at best. Are you seriously saying that game protagonists, who are often male, are not portrayed as powerful, individual beings with agency? Because they occasionally need help?
Third she's not personifying the female character at all.
If she assumes the male gets a feeling of power from sleeping with the female, how can she not assume that the female gets something equal out of it?
Because the female in that interaction rarely gets any characterization regardless, and the game is rarely designed to give perspective on the female character's interaction.
She does a lot of talking down to whores in those videos. but women can like sex, if women didn't like sex there wouldn't be nearly as many humans. She says a lot of things that imply that female video game characters have no agency, and a lot of things that imply that male video game characters do have agency.
She is not "talking down to whores", nor is she shaming women for liking sex. Everything she is referencing is
what other people do to those women, what
the media creators have inputted into these games. These types of portrayals of women are
rarely in control or shown to have agency, or portrayed in ways to specifical evoke titilation, "edgy-ness", or other lazy ways to bring "life" to the world. She is
not talking about these women. She is talking about
how and
why they are portrayed the way they are.
