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Alright, I had no idea where to post this so I decided I would here. Just watched Angry Joe's video on Top 10 Controversies in Gaming for 2013 and a segment starting at 24:58 is just something I had to share.

http://angryjoeshow.com/2014/01/top-10-gaming-controversies-of-2013/

I knew people could be rather...aggressive in defending their passions and all but wow. How did I not know this was a thing? Also, really great points to be made. If I posted this in the wrong section or whatever feel free to move it or lock it of course. (Probably goes without saying, Explicit Content)

Wow how did I miss this whole thing to o.o As sad and disturbing the comments against her are, part of me was not shocked one bit. I really think these guys making these type of comments are not only pathetic, but probably feel that their "manly activity" is being threatened. Instead of being a decent/civil human being they have to be pure monsters and come up with the most horrible things to react with. This ties in with my thoughts on how men treat girl gamer's in general. Give female gamers loads of crap just because their manhood is threatened by a female gamer, and form my experiences a good portion of female gamers are as good or better then the ones giving them crap. Guys being really egotistic just because god forbid another human who just happens to be female or have female characteristics have any amount of skill or enjoy playing for fun. And then of course there are those men who think women were put on earth to have sex with and make them food. But screw those guys. But getting back on topic, I never put much thought into if i liked angry Joe; however after watching this he definitely earned some respect from me. As far as I can see I totally agree with at least most of what he said in that segment.

Wtf are they mad about? I just watched two of her videos and she's totally right. When they're creating a new race or weird cartoon character or whatever, they do always default to male and make a female variation later. The female variation is often just the male variation with lots of makeup and a pink bow. When they have like five superheroes or whatever, four of them are males with various personalities and one of them is "the girl". The damsel in distress trope is WAY overdone.

Guys are pretty self consious about it if you ask me...its still pathetic though...

Its really annoying to play an online game and only hear how big my boobs are!
or how I should stop playing that kind of game,,,or even when they treat me sooo nice as if I am a godess or something...
I had freaking love confessions in video games just because I was a girl , kinda though  , kinda ...lol

And , an other notice , nobody calls me bad names when they know im a girl,,,at least Im not having fights like guys usually have....

Wieeeerd stuff if you ask me,,,
why cant we just play the game normaly!
(btw it would be unfair if I didnt mention that I do actually get those normal games from time to time , without comments or anything...)

Quote from: FalsePrincess on January 05, 2014, 09:14:03 AM
Guys are pretty self consious about it if you ask me...its still pathetic though...

Its really annoying to play an online game and only hear how big my boobs are!
or how I should stop playing that kind of game,,,or even when they treat me sooo nice as if I am a godess or something...
I had freaking love confessions in video games just because I was a girl , kinda though  , kinda ...lol

And , an other notice , nobody calls me bad names when they know im a girl,,,at least Im not having fights like guys usually have....

Wieeeerd stuff if you ask me,,,
why cant we just play the game normaly!
(btw it would be unfair if I didnt mention that I do actually get those normal games from time to time , without comments or anything...)

Yeah...I played an online game before too and got a lot of, albeit positive, unwanted attention lol. So far as to one of the devs (It isn't a big game) spawned things for me, I kid you not o.o...

Yeah, her opinion is pretty valid. Female characters tend to be supporting characters at best. Luckily, there are a few exceptions. Granted, we really don't need any more Super Princess Peach's or Metroid: Other M's >> yeah I know they are both Nintendo, but I really hated both of those.

Her channel's actually pretty interesting. Imma subscribe (not that I agree with absolutely everything she says)

And I don't think she's "Man-hating" like he said, lol

Quote from: ~RoadToTrista~ on January 07, 2014, 02:26:03 AM
And I don't think she's "Man-hating" like he said, lol

Angry Joe knows she isn't out to get men or take away their precious games - he's just pointing out how ridiculous some of the more vocal gamers actually sound.  It's undeniable that Anita has taken some actions that I would like to see her apologize for (using Youtube footage without permission or proper crediting is weaksauce, especially considering how much funding she received for the video series), but that's nothing compared to the flak she's received for being the only girl who dares to voice her opinion.

Anyone mind if I borrow a soapbox for a minute?  Women are typically an afterthought when it comes to game and character creation - this is completely true.  Like she stated in one of her newer videos, in a cast of six characters, the five males will have distinct personalities.  The sixth is known as the "group girl," and wears a bow.  Most female characters are either submissive to men, waiting to be rescued as a plot object, or the plot focuses on how they find strength in a hopeless situation.  It's a horrifically bland palette of portrayal.

That being said, I feel like male characters in gaming are receiving just as much sexism as the women, and maybe even in a more harmful way.  IMO, the peak moment of female sexism in the gaming industry was the "Tomb Raider accident" (accidentally adding an extra digit to her breast size and deciding it was more attractive) and the spawn of similar character designs that followed suit.  This was nearly two decades ago, if I remember correctly.  Now, at least when it comes to purely physical aspects, females are being much more fairly depicted.  Instead of adding more T&A, more designers (Western, mostly) are giving their characters youthful faces, interesting makeup designs, elaborate hair models, interesting outfits, etc.  The characters may or may not be objects in the grand scheme of the plot, but at least their physical appearances are becoming less and less harmful to the image of a "sexy" female body.  That's not enough, but it's a huge step in the right direction.

On the male side, characters are made "more attractive" by receiving bigger muscles, gravelly voices, and being more...well endowed (the new developers of Halo literally made Master Chief's codpiece [is that the right word for it?] twice as large without changing anything else about his armor).  I can't stress enough how harmful this is to men.  I may not identify as male, but for my first twenty years of existence, I was constantly bullied for my small height and frame.  I've been taunted for having a higher voice than most.  I've had people call me a ->-bleeped-<-got for my slightly longer than average hair.  Of course, none of this bothers me now that I'm transitioning (I don't know if it bothered me much to begin with, but I was sick of hearing it by second grade), but for the smaller guys out there who aren't trans*?  They're subjected to a lot of the sexism that women receive.  Even though I received higher marks than most everyone in my graduating class, I was never taken seriously when placed in groups with other guys - they never saw me as a "man," so listened to nothing I had to say.  Video games certainly aren't to blame, but the way they depict "real manly men" is only going to make the situation worse.  It's great of Anita to take a step back and examine the industry from another perspective, as it's just as beneficial to men as it is to women.  The feminist movement shows that women come in all kinds of shapes and with a variety of distinctive attributes - maybe this will lead to the assumption that men can do the same while still being "men."

/end rant.  Sorry to go off like that, this has been on my mind for a while.  It feels good to just get all of it out there and be done.

Nonono! That's totally ok and understandable. I guess you can go with the argument that all things fantastical are going to be done through the use of archetypes and certain stereotypes, but we have seen time and time again it doesn't have to be that way.

Using WoW as an example of what you said, all the male characters are ripped as can be. Heck, they bulked up one race, Blood Elves, because their old model wasn't bulky enough. http://www.blogcdn.com/wow.joystiq.com/media/2006/10/oldnew01-1.jpg

I dealt with a lot of what you said as well Horizon, even though again, it personally doesn't bother me today.

Quote from: Lavender on January 07, 2014, 08:24:12 PM

Using WoW as an example of what you said, all the male characters are ripped as can be. Heck, they bulked up one race, Blood Elves, because their old model wasn't bulky enough. http://www.blogcdn.com/wow.joystiq.com/media/2006/10/oldnew01-1.jpg

aaand female characters always have huge breasts  :-\

only jinx is flat...but flat is justice.

I don't have a problem with either gender being designed to be attractive. But it is annoying in fighting games or whatever to see men being fully armored while women are put in skimpy armor you can't take seriously just to show off their stomach and cleavage. (which is totally fine if the men are dressed super skimpy as well ^^)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTGh0EMmMC8

Joe's vid hit me too. That guy with the long blonde hair going off on Anita was so over the top he was pathetic. His was like a WWE, "I'm going to smack you down at Wrestlemania!" speech.

In all seriousness, I don't think the Anita outrage and the Fake Gamer Girl outrage is about gaming or any woman's gaming cred or anyone trying to take anyone else's games away. Because when I think of these people so passionately trying to tear her and other women down, I find my memory going to ole' Mr. Gone from The Maxx:

Quote
"OF COURSE I'VE GOT A PROBLEM WITH WOMEN! Everyone has a problem with women because women taunt and tease because they are attractive and they punish you for being attracted."

Or to put it another way: Misogyny mixed with the victim mentality.

I've been working on this for a while and only have these few words which are probably enough. I just think we're looking at a problem that is bigger than gaming. The passionate, sustained outrage displayed does not fit the input of, "A woman is talking about video games that once said she didn't play games." Change that input to misogyny perhaps in combination with victimhood and that, or those inputs, seem to me to fit with the output.

Ever since I subscribed to her I get a bunch of hater videos recommended to me. >.> lol

Here is my oppinion!
I knew about this. Ive noticed in every medium that females are oversexualized. But i have noticed that most of the people in the industry who make this stuff, who reap the most profit, are men. And any person will make their product for themselves first. The fact is, there are not enough women in these industries to counter the culture in a way that actually changes it. As long as we stay hidden and feed the machine so to speak, we will always be seen as this way in videogames.
As women we need to step up to leadership. We cant stay behind the scenes anymore if we really want this to change. We must be at the forefront of innovation in this day and age or we will always be dictated upon how we should look or act.
Its time to act! \(>__<)/

Here are the facts:

1)  Many people have a problem with Anita not because the points she makes aren't valid, but because her points are buried by her gross dishonesty.

2)  It appears that Anita hasn't played many of the games that she critiques, even though all the money she raised for her "research" should allow her to do so fairly easily.

3)  Anita deliberately delivers one-sided arguments that present evidence for her conclusions while she omits male characters, sexism against men and male characters, and similar content that would reveal a fuller context to the problems of sexism in general (including sexism against women)

4)  Anita openly admits that she doesn't care about the context of the characters in the games that she critiques, and that she is only interested in how people might view such characters in a "larger cultural context"

5)  Nobody, Anita included, is going to achieve equality of genders by focusing only on one gender.  This goes for the MRA crowd, too....

Fallout, skyrim, mirrors edge, fable se :-\ries are examples of non bias female story development.  Typically MMO games are plagued with lewd females, that have large breasts and butts with tiny waists, slutty bikini armor, and unrealstic sqeaky combat sounds that resemble orgasms. The male MMO characters are normally generic with spiky hair or whatever. Anyway, single player games dont usually do this, but they sometimes include poor chatacter personalities with very little distinction between gender.
In short, either females aren't indivdualized enough or they are just eye candy for perverted men.

Having played mmos a lot I have noticed the sexism against females.  Myself even before questioning would rather defend the females if I can and sometimes it is pointless for one reason.  The immature idiots that gang up and perpetuate comments will always be there since their male ego is threatened and that fear combined with immaturity just leads to mob mentality.  On a side note it could be reversed but more male tendency by far compared to female and speaking of mind not body.  I heard one comment in WoW and it holds so true you do not want to fight the witless because they will only bring you down to their level.  All that being said I would love to see this change but realist enough to know it is like asking for peace on earth.  Sadly there will always be people mostly male that want/take/have the bigger toy, those in the middle that could care less and finally those that are the target of the toy or been abused from said toy.  And toy as in could be gun, tank or even just an idea.

Old saying Cant we all just get along!:)  I guess that must be a feminine side I don't know more just common decency has nothing to do with gender really:)

P.S. Maturity is not always acquired with age and I would bet all of you out there are more on the mature side due to the challenges we face as well females are in theory generally more mature since they have to fight the Period.

TERA is the worst when it comes to the slutty "armor" options.  And I say "options" loosely because your option for female characters is to look like a prostitute, or to look like a poorly dressed prostitute.  Maybe there are some actual clothes late-game, but when I tried playing that game my first thought was that every female character is basically wearing nothing regardless of what class they were.  Maybe some races get different armor?  I don't know.  I didn't play the game very much.

And don't even get me started on that race that looks like little girls.  And yes, if you were going to ask, their armor options aren't much better than the options for the elves/humans/etc

Actually, TERA didn't seem half bad.  My computer hates the game, though.  Maybe it's really graphic intensive, or something.  Even if I turn character models all the way to the minimum, the game is very unstable for me.  I can run Guild Wars 2 and it rarely crashes, but TERA wants to stall even if two or three other characters are barely within drawing distance.

I personally dislike Anita because of her tendency to steal, con, and take things way out of context.  She makes the occasional good point and she doesn't deserve the extreme hatred she gets, but honestly I want videos from someone who genuinely loves video games and happens to find problematic elements in games instead of some outsider looking to be offended.

Anything "feminism" with Angry Joe referenced is heading in the wrong direction from the very beginning.

Quote from: OreSama on August 29, 2014, 08:06:14 PM
I personally dislike Anita because of her tendency to steal, con, and take things way out of context.  She makes the occasional good point and she doesn't deserve the extreme hatred she gets

Actually, she does deserve the hatred that she gets.  She does make some good points, sometimes, though.

Thunderf00t has made some good video responses explaining why she deserves the hatred that she gets.  Her gross dishonesty is unforgivable.  For example, Anita claims in one of her videos that one of the Hitman games promotes violence against women because you can kill strippers.  She shows footage of Agent 47 dragging a dead stripper around.  The problem with this is that the game doesn't promote violence against women.  Most of the characters in the game you are likely to kill are men, and in fact the game DISCOURAGES you from killing the strippers because you are rewarded for not attracting attention and you lose points for killing civilians.  Anita never mentions any of these other facts even once in her video.  However, she does spend a lot of time talking about how you can kill the women and about how gross it is that you can kill the women.

Basically, it's "sexist" just because it's POSSIBLE to kill a woman in a game.  I guess she wants all video games to be made to where the female characters have a magical shield which makes them invulnerable to any and all attacks.  I guess that's the reason that she's a "pop culture critic" rather than a game developer coming up with new and groundbreaking games based on radical feminism where female characters could never be the victim of any kind of violence.  Those who can't act, talk.

Anita is the worst combination of confirmation bias, intentional misrepresentation, and willful ignorance.  So, yes, she does deserve the hate that she gets.  Her only redeeming quality is that she does make some valid arguments sometimes, and every now and again she'll make a really good point.  But, that doesn't excuse the obvious confirmation bias and the blatant dishonesty.  Even a broken clock is right twice a day.  She needs more than a few valid points to be excused from the derision that she rightfully deserves.  When you are a critic who is as biased as she is, you should expect to be criticized yourself.

Anita has just been driven out of her home because a stalker threatened to rape her to death and kill her family. I can't imagine how she "deserves" that for having said things about sexism in video games... that would be an overreaction for basically anything she's done short of murder someone herself.

(And she gets constant messages about how she's an ugly bitch who deserves to be raped, plus MUCH worse stuff. Again, that's not an adult's response to someone who makes an argument they don't like. Nor is it "derision" or "criticism"; after all, would it be legitimate criticism from her if she had called a male developer an ->-bleeped-<- who deserved to be tortured to death? If not, it's not fair to say that's a "criticism" of her either.)

Quote from: Jenna Marie on August 30, 2014, 10:18:07 AM
Anita has just been driven out of her home because a stalker threatened to rape her to death and kill her family. I can't imagine how she "deserves" that for having said things about sexism in video games... that would be an overreaction for basically anything she's done short of murder someone herself.

(And she gets constant messages about how she's an ugly bitch who deserves to be raped, plus MUCH worse stuff. Again, that's not an adult's response to someone who makes an argument they don't like. Nor is it "derision" or "criticism"; after all, would it be legitimate criticism from her if she had called a male developer an ->-bleeped-<- who deserved to be tortured to death? If not, it's not fair to say that's a "criticism" of her either.)

Yeah but that picture looked really fishy.  I mean I don't doubt that she gets real death and rape threats, but if it's as bad as she says it is why not post things that don't look extremely suspicious? 

Quote from: VeryGnawty on August 30, 2014, 05:23:21 AM
Actually, she does deserve the hatred that she gets.  She does make some good points, sometimes, though.

Thunderf00t has made some good video responses explaining why she deserves the hatred that she gets.  Her gross dishonesty is unforgivable.  For example, Anita claims in one of her videos that one of the Hitman games promotes violence against women because you can kill strippers.  She shows footage of Agent 47 dragging a dead stripper around.  The problem with this is that the game doesn't promote violence against women.  Most of the characters in the game you are likely to kill are men, and in fact the game DISCOURAGES you from killing the strippers because you are rewarded for not attracting attention and you lose points for killing civilians.  Anita never mentions any of these other facts even once in her video.  However, she does spend a lot of time talking about how you can kill the women and about how gross it is that you can kill the women.

Basically, it's "sexist" just because it's POSSIBLE to kill a woman in a game.  I guess she wants all video games to be made to where the female characters have a magical shield which makes them invulnerable to any and all attacks.  I guess that's the reason that she's a "pop culture critic" rather than a game developer coming up with new and groundbreaking games based on radical feminism where female characters could never be the victim of any kind of violence.  Those who can't act, talk.

Anita is the worst combination of confirmation bias, intentional misrepresentation, and willful ignorance.  So, yes, she does deserve the hate that she gets.  Her only redeeming quality is that she does make some valid arguments sometimes, and every now and again she'll make a really good point.  But, that doesn't excuse the obvious confirmation bias and the blatant dishonesty.  Even a broken clock is right twice a day.  She needs more than a few valid points to be excused from the derision that she rightfully deserves.  When you are a critic who is as biased as she is, you should expect to be criticized yourself.

I'm saying that people should simply criticize her, refuse to associate with her, talk about what a lying horrible excuse for a human being (and I'm seriously censoring myself here) she is instead of sending her threats.  She also stole fanart to use in a banner and refused multiple times to credit the original artist even though she raised something like 158000 dollars with the campaign that used said banner.  She is disgusting, not because of what she discusses but because she is an entitled con artist.  If I am to be perfectly honest about how I feel about her, I despise her with every fiber of my being.  I would still never send her death or rape threats.
EDIT: And yes, she does want it to be impossible to kill any female character from what I can understand, although it's kind of difficult to have a good unkillable female character that isn't a damsel in distress or a character in a game where nobody can be killed.  She wants a female character who is traditionally feminine while still defying gender roles.  She wants you to give her tons of money so she can continue to whine about things she doesn't even care about.

So, we have a woman who is calling out violence against women who is herself treated violently with language and threatened with acts of violence. That she's threatened in this way shows that there is something to talk about here and to my mind makes her media worthwhile.

Where does the anger for what Anita showcases come from? I mean, lies and theft aren't exactly rare things: Illegal file sharing and politics (<- con-artists too and with the ability to impact all our lives via laws they write). Michael Moore and James O'Keefe. Sampling in rap music. The money obsession is also interesting. I mean, she just used Kickstarter for what it's for. I got taken for $2,000 thanks to a sham book doctoring operation. No one cried injustice over me, thankfully.

It does seem to be the intersection of her and video games that brings out something particularly nasty in some people. What's being protected here? What ideas are so threatening as to give rise to such vitriol? I do not question that those mad at her see lies and theft but the intensity of the reaction tells me there is more motivating them that is not being said. Or, they don't actually care and she's just a favorite troll target.

Well for starters as an artist I am extremely offended by what she did, stealing and profiting off of someone else's artwork.  That is not fair use.
Second, this woman who has said on record that she isn't into games because she doesn't want to go around shooting people and ripping off their heads has actual influence in the gaming industry.  Someone who says something so ignorant about video games (why yes, not all video games are first person shooters!  Holy crap, and not all metal is about worshiping Satan?) has influence on gaming.  And of course, when people make legitimate criticisms of her, others attempt to silence them by screaming about how they're just a bunch of neckbeard fedora-wearing misogynists.

Quote from: OreSama on August 31, 2014, 06:12:13 AM
Well for starters as an artist I am extremely offended by what she did, stealing and profiting off of someone else's artwork.  That is not fair use.

That work was not yours then. If it was wouldn't you sue? Have the artists in question sued her and won? If they won, the matter is solved. If this is just a bunch of accusations, it's just a bunch of accusations and so that does not explain the intensity of your response. Also, if there is merit behind the assertion of theft and the artwork doesn't have legal protection well, it doesn't have legal protection and Anita then did nothing wrong.

Quote from: OreSama on August 31, 2014, 06:12:13 AM
Second, this woman who has said on record that she isn't into games because she doesn't want to go around shooting people and ripping off their heads has actual influence in the gaming industry.  Someone who says something so ignorant about video games (why yes, not all video games are first person shooters!  Holy crap, and not all metal is about worshiping Satan?) has influence on gaming.  And of course, when people make legitimate criticisms of her, others attempt to silence them by screaming about how they're just a bunch of neckbeard fedora-wearing misogynists.

You clearly are afraid of her influence in video game development and what that influence might cause to happen. Why? What is so dear to you with these depictions of women that you take such a righteous stand against Anita? If she wasn't going after something real, then nothing could be fixed and there would be nothing to be afraid of. That the nerve is being touched with you and others, that's interesting.

And in the interest of honesty, you yourself are not criticizing Anita. You are attacking:

Quote from: OreSama on August 30, 2014, 11:43:49 AM
She is disgusting, not because of what she discusses but because she is an entitled con artist.

By calling her disgusting or calling her a con artist, you abandoned civil discourse and went on the attack. Given you are attacking a woman with such passion, given you are attacking a woman who is trying to do something about violence against women, that can paint a certain picture for others. Not that I think what you claim to be your reasons aren't to your knowledge your actual reasons. But provided you are not just a troll, then there is still something deeper inside you haven't admitted to or you may well not know about that is motivating your intensity because:

Quote from: OreSama on August 30, 2014, 11:43:49 AM
If I am to be perfectly honest about how I feel about her, I despise her with every fiber of my being.

That level of hate doesn't jive with the preceived wronging. I'm also not particularly interested in your motivation myself, but I think you would benefit from knowing more about yourself because I've had my own battles with out of bounds anger. I've had my tirades. The opportunity for self analysis those became for me, well, a lot of good came out of it. So, you can carry on as you have been or seize the opportunity of this moment. The choice is there and the choice is yours.

Quote from: Jenna Marie on August 30, 2014, 10:18:07 AM
Anita has just been driven out of her home because a stalker threatened to rape her to death and kill her family.

Boohoo.  She received death threats from anonymous trolls online.  Big deal.  Someone once threatened to come to my home with his gang and beat me until I was dead.  That was years ago.  I'm still alive.  I'm still in my home.  In fact, nobody has showed up at my door except for magazine salesmen and members of the Church Of Latterday Saints.

If she has a CREDIBLE reason to believe that someone is going to kill her, the correct response is to go to the FBI.  After doing that, if she doesn't believe that the FBI can fully handle the situation, that is when you decide whether or not you need to move to a more secure location.  Moving out of your house because some anonymous troll on the internet threatened you seems like a publicity stunt, and not a realistic reaction.

QuoteAnd she gets constant messages about how she's an ugly bitch who deserves to be raped, plus MUCH worse stuff. Again, that's not an adult's response to someone who makes an argument they don't like.

Tons of people get called mean things online.  The correct response is to IGNORE them, because in 99+% of cases they are just trolls looking for attention.  Like I said, if she gets a credible threat, then the correct response is to go to the FBI.  Plenty of people have received death threats.  I've received death threats.  The more well-known you are, and the more public you are, the more likely you are to be targeted by trolls.

Quote from: VeryGnawty on September 01, 2014, 06:27:54 AM
If she has a CREDIBLE reason to believe that someone is going to kill her, the correct response is to go to the FBI.

According to Twitter "Authorities" have been notified. Still situations like this are complex. Going more broadly, I know a woman who was raped and who has distrust of both her perpetrator and the authorities. It seems to be easy to end up trusting no one and believing no one has your back.

Quote from: VeryGnawty on September 01, 2014, 06:27:54 AM
Tons of people get called mean things online.  The correct response is to IGNORE them, because in 99+% of cases they are just trolls looking for attention.

That may be the correct response for you and your life. How she feels she should react is how she feels she should react. Given that it's her life at risk, to me she seems to be the best suited to figure out how to protect it.

I fully support feminism, but Anita Sarkeesian doesn't receive/deserve my support, and here's why:

Quote from: VeryGnawty on January 23, 2014, 02:01:38 AM
Here are the facts:

1)  Many people have a problem with Anita not because the points she makes aren't valid, but because her points are buried by her gross dishonesty.

2)  It appears that Anita hasn't played many of the games that she critiques, even though all the money she raised for her "research" should allow her to do so fairly easily.

3)  Anita deliberately delivers one-sided arguments that present evidence for her conclusions while she omits male characters, sexism against men and male characters, and similar content that would reveal a fuller context to the problems of sexism in general (including sexism against women)

4)  Anita openly admits that she doesn't care about the context of the characters in the games that she critiques, and that she is only interested in how people might view such characters in a "larger cultural context"

5)  Nobody, Anita included, is going to achieve equality of genders by focusing only on one gender.  This goes for the MRA crowd, too....

I agree wholeheartedly with this.  It's true that she gets a lot of hate from misogynistic dip->-bleeped-<-s (and there's nothing quite as embarrassing as seeing members of my birth sex behaving in a petty and, frankly, unmanly manner), but she also gets a of harsh criticism from reasonable folk and feminists for the reasons you highlighted.

Didn't she criticise The Last Of Us?  Because we know that 14YOs can remain stoic in the face of terrifying situations where they are forced to brutally murder for their survival.  Riiiiiiight.  There are other examples but I don't have the time/motivation to fish them out, especially if that means going out of my way to get agitated.

She has no right to call herself a feminist.  She's a trolling ->-bleeped-<-.  She does raise some good points and the treatment from some of these guys is disgusting beyond measure, but still.

EDIT: and the MRA crowd is just downright horrible.  It's sad because there are legitimate groups and charities like The Good Men Foundation (http://goodmenproject.com/foundation/) who actually DO things for men whose rights are compromised.  And where this is nowhere near as widespread as it is for women, their rights are still important, as are the rights of everyone.  Looking at their site, they seem to have overlapping interests with feminists.  It's sad that their good actions are overshadowed by dip->-bleeped-<-s.

Quote from: OreSama on August 31, 2014, 06:12:13 AM
And of course, when people make legitimate criticisms of her, others attempt to silence them by screaming about how they're just a bunch of neckbeard fedora-wearing misogynists.

Newsflash: some of my female feminist friends are neckbeard fedora-wearing misogynists!

Quote from: Misato on September 01, 2014, 08:02:47 AM
According to Twitter "Authorities" have been notified. Still situations like this are complex. Going more broadly, I know a woman who was raped and who has distrust of both her perpetrator and the authorities. It seems to be easy to end up trusting no one and believing no one has your back.

That may be the correct response for you and your life. How she feels she should react is how she feels she should react. Given that it's her life at risk, to me she seems to be the best suited to figure out how to protect it.

I honestly don't believe she actually alerted the authorities.  If she had, one of the things they tell you to do is, "Do not respond to the person in question."

Anita is just the feminist version of Jack Thompson.

This article is well worth the read if you have the time:

http://nastythingssaidabout.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/the-terrible-misogyny-in-the-games-industry/

The point on Jack Thompson is well taken. I also get the very few gamers argument.

However...

None of the violent language is excusable, but context is everything. I used to be able to turn to my male friend and say, "Did I ever tell you how much you suck?" while whooping each other up in a Tekken sequel and it was taken as good natured raillery. I was in a meeting and one male co-worker turned to another who had just said he's not the best developer and said, "That's right so-and-so you are so NOT the best developer," again as good natured ribbing. I had to explain to a female colleague who saw the exchange that they were kidding around. If someone else said she wasn't good, even if she gave them the springboard, she would be devastated I have no doubt. Now, while it is entirely possible that a male would be devastated too, he wasn't raised in a society where he was told he wasn't good at math or science. Add to that, she would be being told "you're not the best" by someone that is perceived to be more powerful because of his gender. Some mix of things like that, changes the impact and it's because of those changes which is why we need feminism, and yes a focus on the guys side too without the advocacy for the status quo. They would be best complementing, not competing. And a focus for African Americans. Etc...

If we try to solve this problem at the people level, the details are at risk of getting missed. If we let those who feel the details in their day to day lives address those details, we have a stronger start at helping people as a whole. But the focus is necessary.

I'll admit, I found the post too long and didn't finish it. But the length is interesting and reminds me of the #NotAllMen hashtag: It's a distraction from the problem at hand. Even in that link, there are lines like, "Am I saying that Anita makes no valid points, or highlights no legitimate causes for concern? Not at all, there are a few games that go too far, and there are many ways we could improve things." but those are one offs that are practically lost in the defensive cry of #NotAllGamers.

I also find it interesting that the argument seems to be pro picking on things like Donald Trump's hair instead of forming well reasoned arguments about what may be disliked about what he's doing. There's a corollary to lamenting Anita's statement that she didn't identify as a gamer, like that somehow invalidates all her points and makes her unqualified to speak on the topic of Tropes Against Women in Video Games. Trump's hair, that clip of Anita and she saying she's not a gamer, they're logical fallacies^[1] and do not support arguments against these people.

I return to if there is nothing wrong with representations of women in video games, then there is nothing to worry about because nothing can change. Can't fix a problem that isn't there after all. If there is something there, it's worth looking into and those (if any find this) whose motivation is to keep those representations of women in games, this moment might well be an opportunity to do some soul searching. As for decrying people as a**holes, in places of this world there is freedom to do that all you want and freedom of speech is a good freedom. But namecalling or trying to change the subject to something other than how women are depicted in video games which is the topic that has been raised, when either of those are done it is easy to have your intent misinterpreted by others. Those others are still in the mindset of talking about depictions of violence against women after all so the accusations of
misogyny just don't surprise me given the side still talking about depictions of violence against women could miss the change and start thinking who changed topics is revealing themselves to be pro depictions of violence against women.

I think a lot of this comes down to where using violent language (E.g. namecalling, threats) lands a speaker when used and why it might not be the best method to make your point.

[1] Logic as solid as this :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwdba9C2G14

It is appalling to me that people in this community, a community which is prone to verbal and physical abuse, could be so dismissive of the vitriol she is subjected to.  No matter how unprofessional she is, she is still a frickin human being.  No human deserves constant online abuse with rape and death threats for any reason, let alone for making poor youtube videos.

Quote from: Lucid on September 02, 2014, 09:27:43 PM
Anita is just the feminist version of Jack Thompson.

The difference is that Anita has been getting a lot of attention from people for the flak, ridicule, trolling, and threats that she receives.  When Jack Thompson got death threats, nobody really cared.  If anything, Jack Thompson is the one who should have been decrying sexism.  He said blatantly foolish things, got death threats in response, and people laughed at him.  Anita Sarkeesian said blatantly foolish things, got death threats, and everyone is concerned.  So, it's clear that the sexism is actually against MEN since there's little significant difference between the kind of stuff Sarkeesian proclaims and the stuff that Jack Thompson would always say.  When people make mock games where you get to beat up Jack Thompson, it's just good fun.  When someone made a mock game where you beat up Anita Sarkeesian, it is violent sexism against women.

It's a double-standard.  I don't do double-standard.  I hold everyone to the same standard, which is why Sarkeesian will have to come up with better arguments if she wants me to take her seriously.  There is an issue with sexism in society, but raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to make one-sided biased videos is not the way to address it.

Quote from: VeryGnawty on September 05, 2014, 05:34:16 PM

It's a double-standard.  I don't do double-standard.  I hold everyone to the same standard, which is why Sarkeesian will have to come up with better arguments if she wants me to take her seriously.  There is an issue with sexism in society, but raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to make one-sided biased videos is not the way to address it.

I'm so glad to see that there are still people like you in the world.

Woooaahh..  someone just had to go and bring up the Anita Sarkeesian thing, didn't they?  Do I really want to dive into this can of worms? *thinks about it* ... meh, what the hell huh? I've got nothing better to do right now lol ;)

Ok firstly, I'm going to start out by saying I basically agree with everything Misato's saying above.  No sense in repeating what's already been said so I'll just leave it at that (just watch - I'm probably going to end up repeating half of it anyway because I'm derpy like that lol :P )

Secondly, I'd like to jump in and pick up on this:

Quote from: VeryGnawty on September 05, 2014, 05:34:16 PM
The difference is that Anita has been getting a lot of attention from people for the flak, ridicule, trolling, and threats that she receives.  When Jack Thompson got death threats, nobody really cared.  If anything, Jack Thompson is the one who should have been decrying sexism.  He said blatantly foolish things, got death threats in response, and people laughed at him.  Anita Sarkeesian said blatantly foolish things, got death threats, and everyone is concerned.  So, it's clear that the sexism is actually against MEN since there's little significant difference between the kind of stuff Sarkeesian proclaims and the stuff that Jack Thompson would always say.  When people make mock games where you get to beat up Jack Thompson, it's just good fun.  When someone made a mock game where you beat up Anita Sarkeesian, it is violent sexism against women.

It's a double-standard.  I don't do double-standard.  I hold everyone to the same standard, which is why Sarkeesian will have to come up with better arguments if she wants me to take her seriously.  There is an issue with sexism in society, but raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to make one-sided biased videos is not the way to address it.

So hang on a moment hun, you're saying because one person decided not to make a fuss when they were being abused, that everyone else should just "deal with it" when they suffer the same treatment?  By all means tell me if I'm putting words into your mouth here (because I don't want to do that, especially these kinds of words), but that's certainly how this post is reading to me.  And if that is what you're saying, then quite frankly I couldn't possibly disagree with you more!

Death and rape threats (etc) against *ANYONE* isn't cool, whatever way you cut it.  I agree with you that things should be equal across the board, but if I'm understanding your post correctly then I'd say you've gone in the exact opposite direction - women shouldn't shut up about it because "this stuff happens to men and no one kicks up a fuss", but rather it should be "let's kick up a fuss when this happens to men too".

Also, how "credible" these threats are is pretty much irrelevant.  At the end of the day, any threat to compromise your personal safety or the personal safety of those around you is just that: A THREAT

define: threat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threat)

Quote
A threat is an act of coercion wherein an act is proposed to elicit a negative response. It is a communicated intent to inflict harm or loss on another person. It can be a crime in many jurisdictions. Threat (intimidation) is widely seen in animals, particularly in a ritualized form, chiefly in order to avoid the unnecessary physical violence that can lead to physical damage or death of both conflicting parties.
Some of the more common types of threats forbidden by law are those made with an intent to obtain a pecuniary advantage or to compel a person to act against his or her will. In all states, it is an offense to threaten to (1) use a deadly weapon on another person; (2) injure another's person or property; or (3) injure another's reputation. [1]

The whole point is to "..communicate intent to inflict harm or loss on another person".  If someone threatens to murder or rape you, that's something to take seriously, even if it's on the internet.  You have no way of knowing if they have the capability to follow through with it, so until you know otherwise you can only assume that the threat is real.

As for your anecdote about being given a death threat that wasn't followed through - congrats, you've just fallen into confirmation bias yourself hun.  As a counter example - a guy and his friends threatened to beat me up once.  Moments later (when I continued to stand my ground and defy them), they did.  Cool story huh?  Not the only time it's happened either.  Want an example specifically regarding a death threat? Need I point any further than terrorists who threaten to blow ->-bleeped-<- up, and then do?  Or take a hostage, threaten to kill them if their demands aren't met, and then proceed to actually kill them when their demands aren't met?  (like, you know all these beheadings of western journalists that have been in the news the past week or so) ..You get the point.

Sometimes, threats are empty, it's true.  Sometimes, they're not, and your personal safety is really at risk.  Until we invent some technology to read people's minds and their actual intents, how do we know which ones are real and which ones are not?  And yes, many on the internet do like to say these things just to troll and get attention, but when you're getting a thousand of these threats every day, even if 99.9% of them are just trolls looking for attention, that's still one person every day who actually genuinely feels like that, which is a statistic that would terrify the crap out of any sane person.  And don't tell me Sarkeesian doesn't get that kinda volume of threat.  Just go to the comment section on pretty much any of her videos to see it's right up there, maybe even higher (and that's *just* the comments, never mind what she gets in PM, email, posts on all the internet forums etc out there..)

It's your opinion hun, and I respect that (kinda, sorta lol), but (assuming I've not completely misread what you're saying), I totally disagree with you.

Regardless: <3 *hugs and love to you* <3 :)

P.S. wow, this post got really huge really quickly lol :P