Uhura said:
There is nothing disingenuous in pointing out that people who spread the 4chan rumor do not actually have any proof that she did any trolling. Look, you have joined the forums only a month ago and I'm not sure if you have followed the Anita discussion before you joined, but the 4chan rumor is one the most common things people bring up when they want to attack Anita or dismiss the abuse she received. The argument is always "she had it coming, she trolled 4chan", and those posts are most of the time followed by other comments lamenting how fucking stupid Sarkeesian is for trolling 4chan.
There is no proof that she trolled 4chan.
People are spreading rumors to legitimize or downplay the abuse Sarkeesian received.
That's disingenuous.
There's evidence that she was likely involved in the 4chan trolling, it just isn't a smoking gun. Two notable points are that the trolling started within about a minute of the video being posted (which means someone who was aware of her video more or less the instant it was posted started the spam flood) and that the first posts in the flood of spam on 4chan used a posed photo of her that there's no previous evidence of anywhere else on the net (which means it was posted by someone with access to a posed-for photo of her [as opposed to a candid or a shot taken at an event] that wasn't previously in public circulation). The project video wasn't put on YouTube until fairly late in the project (which is itself unusual), and the initial video description apologized for trolling that hadn't happened yet (later removed, you might be able to find a copy on Wayback though -- it's also worth noting her Kickstarter page didn't get any kind of mass trolling prior to the YouTube video). Put those together, and who do you get as possibilities? Can you think of anyone who isn't either Anita or someone acting in her behalf?
CHUD said:
BUT, the loads of vile responses IS another proof of there being plenty of misogynists among gamers. Her twitter did not warrant such hateful responses, and neither is she "the cause" of the anti-woman sentiments these repliers show - these people are chauvinistic get-back-in-the-kitchen-and-leave-gaming-to-the-menfolk types *all on their own*.
So well, THERES your sexism! Not really so hard to spot, eh?
CHUD said:
Hope so, she's certainly getting MY money - this latest storm of Anita-bashing just proves further there is a genuine need for what she's doing.
"If anyone disagrees with me, that proves my point is true." Best. Argument. Ever.
But seriously, she's literally on a pedestal where she can simply invoke GIFT and get praise, "proof" of her position, and probably more speaking engagements out of it. Push button, receive bacon.
Does the trolling directed at twitter hashtag #INeedMasculism prove that MRAs are right in all things ever? (Interestingly, #INeedMasculism was started by 4chan to bait feminist trolls and was a smashing success in that department -- I feel kind of sorry for the handful of men who took it seriously because they didn't know 4chan was behind it. There were plenty of complaints when a feminist-related twitter hashtag that trended just a couple of days later got some trolls, including one of the people who trolled #INeedMasculism ironically seeing this feminist hashtag being trolled as proof of the unprovoked and immense misogyny on the internet, that people couldn't let women have a place to speak without trying to silence them. Pot, kettle, black and all that.)
The_Scrivener said:
Calling her a 'Twat' (all caps, nice touch) is a great way to show off how open-minded and unsexist you are.
To be fair, talking about a Tweeting Twat on Twitter has some amazingly awesome alliteration going for it.
CHUD said:
Where is the anti-women side to the industry? Heh. How about SEEING some of her videos it's pretty clear there's plenty of sexism to be found.
...and by not seeing how many of her claimed examples are utter BS when placed in their context. You probably also believe that MI state representative Lisa Brown was barred from debate in the state legislature for a few days merely for using the word "vagina", rather than for equating debating the topic at hand (abortion regulations) to raping her. In communication, context is EVERYTHING, and she goes out of her way to pretend it's nothing (or rather to pretend narrative context is nothing, but "larger social context" is everything), and to use examples that sound perfectly reasonable if you aren't familiar with the work in question (or in one case, it's history).
Let me describe something from a game for you, and see what you think: A woman goes to a lot of effort to manipulate the heroes and remove some of their obstacles. In the end, she calls them to come to her so she can make the ultimate sacrifice to stop her explicitly patriarchal and misogynistic father, who is the main antagonist. She provides a warning to one of the supporting cast, to keep them from falling to the same fate (as this member of the supporting cast is the only one who can take her place), but this is disobeyed and causes her sacrifice to be for naught. Is this person a damsel, serving as the "ball" in a patriarchal game of ownership? Does this character have agency?
The character I described above is Angel from Borderlands 2, who was used by Anita as an "euthanized damsel" example.
CHUD said:
And as for her speaking up about there not being any female protagonists. Well, I agree that in itself this might not be sexism (it is also wrong, I'm very much looking forward to Mirror's Edge 2). However, it is a "legitimiate" pet peeve for her to have, and I've certainly seen Twitters made from bigger "celebrities" on looser grounds.
...and I've seen larger hate campaigns waged across the internet on lesser grounds. Look up Alex Wuoori or Chris-chan for examples.
somonels said:
What? Is her 'public shaming' of internet users accounts supposed to be a deterrent? Hell no. The internet is a bubbling pot of hate. All she does is play herself as under attack form the dumb irrational patriarchy trying to keep the innocent woman silent and in bondage.
Go to the right place and you get death threats from stating you like Orson Scott Card for his books.
I've gotten death threats for talking about WoW class balance before.
Mikeyfell said:
Those attacks are personal though. Those idiots are attacking "her" not "women".
Don't you know how this works -- the very same people who will go on and on about how women need to be discussed as individuals and you should never, ever state any kind of generalization of any group of women *also* take anything negative said about any woman to somehow magically apply to all women, or at least a much larger set of women than the statement was directed at (precisely this happened when the whole "fake geek girl" thing was the topic du jour -- it's a phenomenon that very much does exist, and is very much a minority of women involved [or trying to be involved] in any given form of geekdom, but somehow this statement is magically accusing all women). It's kind of funny, when you think about it.
Angelblaze said:
The Remember Me scandal would be a good example. The game developers had to fight to keep the female protagonist. The Jimquisition's talked about this multiple times.
We have nothing but the say-so of a developer who stood to lose nothing and gain buzz from claiming that for a game that is a massive disappointment (for reasons completely unrelated to said protagonist -- Nilin is an interesting character with a great design). It's an interesting concept, a wonderful idea and setting, and incredible aesthetics wrapped around game play that at best I feel is "adequate" or maybe "passable." So much potential and such a poor execution (something it shares in common with the Purge).
Angelblaze said:
Or the Bioshock infinite cover. They didn't want the main female character on the front cover (although, that was tested so I will concede that one)
Or Last of Us, also wanted the main female character off the cover and put onto the back.
Marketeers suck. We all know this. Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us in particular absolutely needed the female lead to be on the covers -- not because "OMG women are oppressed by not being on enough game box covers" but because the respective narratives of those games are supposed to revolve around them.
Angelblaze said:
Or you know, some of the comments made about her. Most of them are made purely because she is a woman (I've never seen Glenn Beck or any male Fox news correspondent get rape threats en masse but they spout much more dangerous, terrorist level bullshit)
It's the internet, if you have any identifiable traits for which epithets exist, those are what you will be called specifically because it's supposed to cause more of a reaction and that's ultimately what it's about.
Angelblaze said:
He didn't have his video removed.
I suspect that one has to do with a feminist group mass flagging certain MRA videos on YouTube for showing clips of said feminist group's videos, then commenting on them to the point where one channel got several videos removed and a strike put against it. I wouldn't be surprised if this was essentially the same kind of attack from some folks who are really angry at "Those Pesky Dames" and are misdirecting that anger.
Angelblaze said:
And none of them had to do with his gender.
Give me some gendered insults on him for being male that you'd "count" as being gendered, since a lot of people that will talk about how using words with meanings like vagina or female dog as epithets are gendered slurs and hurt all women, generally have no problems with the words with meanings such as penis, male masturbation, or semen produced through male masturbation as epithets -- they somehow magically aren't gendered.
Moonlight Butterfly said:
She posted this today.
I must say I like the fact Princess Peach is playable too
and dat cat suit <3
http://femfreq.tumblr.com/post/52752086803/new-video-game-trailers-featuring-women-at-e3-2013
Note what she says there: First time she was playable since SMB2 in the ***core*** series of SMB games. That word "core" is absolutely vital, since it allows her to disregard Super Princess Peach (which is easily the most problematic presentation of Peach ever [seriously her special abilities are based on her extreme emotions], but it is a SMB platformer with Peach as a sole player character).
Although I'm confused, isn't Peach only "accidentally" playable in this one too, since they wanted to support four player, but only really have three other iconic SMB protagonists, so they "had" to include Peach by default? That was basically the argument regarding the Doki Doki Panic -> SMB2 conversion, after all.
