I find myself stricken by how many of you think you have the right, if not basis, to psychoanalyze people. We have declarations that criticism of gaming is an affront to ego defenses. The evidence? Who really knows.
This underpins the largest issue with current critical approaches. Critical social change theories are, except for a singular theory, not as popular as they once were. Conflict theory, structural theory, and biological theory really aren't as prolific as they once were. However, feminist theory is very prolific if not majorly ineffective since the 70s and Roe v Wade. Which, quite interestingly, radical critical feminism arose in that time and came to the forefront.
Which brings me to what I believe is the problem. I do not believe that Anita Sarkeesian is the problem. I think the theory and the methods of argumentation are the problem, and she's very aware of it. Radical critical feminism requires men be hostile to women's rights and intentions--the patriarchy. Men must be. If they are not, there cannot be a gendered inequality exacerbated by institutional bias against women. This remains a weakness of radical feminism, and it is very well documented as a weakness.
So, Anita often has to bring in alternate fields to discuss her point; you can't just say "Men hate women. Goodnight!" Radical critical feminism identifies the problem (the trope) and then another field addresses it--philosophy's subject/object problem, communication's transactional communication theory, and mass communication's third person effect hypothesis which applies psychology's illusory superiority or superiority bias. None of this is in itself an issue, but it does cause Sarkeesian to occasionally reach outside of her educational background.
That results in Sarkeesian often misapplying the concepts. Subject/object does not stipulate that men do, women are. That is feminism's lens of the argument. Subject/object deals with the existence of objects outside of the subject's perception. Women can, in fact, be subjects. Communication is not transactional of men speaking to women who must then exist; communication is multidimensional and occurs on multiple levels with interactions often being cybernetic in nature.
However, she never talks about the weaknesses of these arguments. Instead, they are presented as ironclad by the nature of the argument itself. This leads the consumer with questions they cannot ask as Sarkeesian has walled herself off. It can be argued as to the necessity of doing so, but the effect is the communication pattern that she uses and decries:
Communication becomes transactional. She speaks, we react. She does, we are.
None of this is a criticism of her as a person. I reserve that to others. However, radical critical feminism is not strong enough to hold up its own arguments. It has to borrow from outside the field. When concepts are borrowed, they're often borrowed incorrectly. They're then presented in a matter-of-fact style with no method of correction and no mechanism for correction to be delivered with the same impact. This is how the method is the problem.
Then add in the theory has weaknesses that are never discussed, the utilization of "sexist" or "misogynist" as some as a tool of silencing criticism, and the fact that feminism is probably the only critical theory currently being utilized in examining games and you have a lightning rod of unreasonable discussion. The theory is flawed at its roots, the information presented is flawed, and the method of presentation is flawed. Noting any of this, however, can often land you with the Scarlet M for misogynist.
How to fix it? Simple: have more theoretical approaches to criticizing video games. Technical criticisms are always welcomed. So are critical theories. We've yet to see someone using post-modernism, metamodernism, humanism, cognitivism, behavioralism, etc to look at games. This will naturally balance the very negative view of the world that radical feminism requires.
We also need fewer armchair psychoanalysis. Most of you don't have a high enough degree to do what you're trying to do. You're intellectualizing your opinions of people via jargon. Stop it. Stop generalizing that people respond to the criticism by seeing it as a personal affront and a failure of their ego defenses. You don't know that, and it is exacerbating the problem by saying, "You criticized? Well, it's clearly because you're weak and have a problem."
And for the love of all that's good in the world, stop using -isms as an insult to shut people up. It waters down actual -isms. You know, stuff like knocking the crap out of women because they should listen, voting on the rights of LGBT people, forcing men into particular gender roles because they seem macho, and shutting down medical access for women because of a personal opinion? Those are -isms. They are all signs of systemic, institutional problems in our society that bias against a group.
Edit: As for the "games are art so need criticism" discussion, art criticism is on the art itself utilizing particular technical terms. You'll occasionally read about the medium, strokes, author's perceived message, and so forth. However, I've never heard of a "feminist art critic" who only looks at art through the lens of radical feminism nearly exclusively. Feminist art critics existed in the 70s, but they're relativity few and far between today.
Feminist art criticism may be present, but often it's accompanied by something more than just the patriarchy in terms of technical ability. So using art criticism here is rather dishonest.
Instead, we should probably talk about this criticism as popular criticism. Many of these arguments are applied to popular media. That's why many of those who criticize these media are mass communication majors focusing on magazines, movies, comics, TV shows, and video games--mass media. Art isn't a mass media, so using it as a lynch pin of why we need mass media criticism isn't exactly translatable.
