lol, let's agree to disagree Oof because your obviously conflicted as you continue to say you aren't making an excuse (which is what we are arguing btw) and then argue (?) you are.

Also you really need to relook at what Godwin's Law is...but that's another story.

Yeah, she needs an editor and producer (or perhaps better ones) as the intial video lays no foundations at all and, as you say, leaps straight into the subject matter without priming the audience. I hope her series re-arcs itself quickly otherwise it could become fuel to the fire. I got the impression that the video was produced in haste to meet funding promises and consequently lacked any sense of direction.

You're misunderstanding me or I'm not getting my point across, but I have not once in this thread excused the reactions. I'm explaining them. There's a difference. But yeah, let's drop it.


Godwin's law: the referencing of Hitler/Nazis/Holocaust when it's not appropriate. The anology you're trying to make is way off, so I'm not going to address it. Let's please drop this, too. [censored] is a hot potato that I don't want to go near, even via anology.

That's a thought provoking reply. Thanks. By holistic (probably a poor choice of words as I'm referring to its modern use and not its definition) I mean to first view the problem in the round to find where commonalities exist and then to pinpoint differences and expand on why those differences are important. If the common causes can be exposed I feel it would better aid the potentially numerous perspectives by providing a common language and basis. Again, I completely agree with what you're saying so if I'm doing a poor job of communicating my thoughts I apologise for that -- although in my defence this isn't a subject I usually engage with on-line so perhaps you can aid me when I err?

! You bastard! How dare you say that about my mother!



EDIT: In other news, men make who make video games for men... make video games for men! Shocking! To be fair, it is completely impossible to for women to make video games that cater to their tastes, so I can see how this is an untenable situation.

I'm going to reserve judgement for now. People are instantly assuming the worst with both the content and the money, which isn't fair to her. Wait till the whole series comes out.

It does make it worse. Hear me out. With non-gendered attacks, although still bad, it's an attack on a single person. Once you start bringing gender (or ethnicity or sixual orientation) into the attack, you're crossing a line because you're implying that that person is incompetent because women are incompetent. It's kinda like how a racially-motivated attack is much worse than just a regular one.


Within reason. Geologists shouldn't have to spend time sparring with flat-earth theorists. There's no point arguing with someone who doesn't even operate within the same paradigm. In this specific case, I'd say people who think there's no sixism in the video game industry should just be wholly ignored in discussion.

It makes no difference to the victim of the harm what the cause of it was. The only reason people treat racism/sixism/whatever like it's some kind of special crime is because it broadens the cases under which people are [censored]s. If you get rid of racism/sixism/whatever, you get rid of extra causes of social strife. But the negative actions it engenders aren't any worse or better than those same actions originating in someone just being an indiscriminate, equal-opportunity [censored]. I think it's important to separate social impact from personal impact.


It's pretty clear that something like gender studies isn't a science. Anything that can be interpreted in so many different ways should be open to debate even from outliers. When you exclude those people from the debate, you're deliberately missing out on a more wholesome understanding of whatever it is you're trying to understand.

To further elabourate on my previous knee jerk response earlier. I skip watched the video post-reply, as I couldn't stomach the poor execution to further a biased middle school report, I also disagree with her childish disabling of comments. Yes, I know some of you out there will go, 'But Martyr, this is a logical choice. It prevents 'Lol what a feminazi [censored]' response.' and while, yes this may be an inevitability (As we all know, the 'GIFT Theory' is a common issue on the Youtube), but it also denies people the privilege to post a fair counter-arguement beyond a response video which will be ignored and little likely watched. Ultimately, her video series will be a series of knee-jerk reaction one sided viewpoint videos without offering the audience a chance to voice a counterpoint without any hope of a response from her. Ultimately, I find it a one sided endevour to force her point down the viewers throat, only letting the casual viewer see her point, whilst having no fair counter arguement to offer View B to her View A.

I agree, I watched the entire video and my reaction was "and? what's your point?" I feel the first video would have been much more effective as an overview of her purpose in this series and what was to come, possibly glossing over the points she planned on making, as it stands she just seems to ramble on and on for 23 minutes about something I'm pretty sure the majority of the gaming community is well aware of with no real point.

Wait, so are you saying that racists/sixists/homophobes etc. are actually not [censored]s, it's just bleeding heart whiners who are the ones creating social strife?

Correct me if I've misunderstood your post.

They're no less or more [censored]s than other human beings, they just have more of an opportunity to be one because they're typically more misguided/misinformed.

I can see where you're coming from. I can't say I blame her, however. I wouldn't even have heard about this woman were it not for the publicity that came from the hostile reaction to her Kickstarter proposal, after all. And there's certainly something to be said for her success in leveraging those hostile reactions to her benefit (which, hey, way to make lemonade out of lemons...)

I can only base this off of one (admittedly ineffectual) video so far, of course - but what I find interesting about the discussion revolving around this is that there are more controversial discussions about her video thus far than is actually in the content of her video. At this point, the only point of view she's shoved down anyone's throat is that well, "rescue the princess" was pretty much the go-to plotline for early era videogames. Which kind of is a male power fantasy, after all.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is a lot of the reaction I'm seeing is almost as if this were a video demonizing all videogames as evil and sixist, where in reality all Ms Sarkeesian has said by now is that early videogames were pretty male-dominant. (Which, I mean, kind of true, really...) She doesn't even strike me as all that judgmental at this point, to be honest. In short, I'm finding the reaction curiously disproportionate to the actual content of the video.

I do find some of her illustrative points to be rather a stretch, however. Not counting Princess Peach as a playable character in Super Mario Bros 2 because it began life as another unrelated game I think is purposefully ignoring the finished product. Ditto with her Star Fox example - she focuses rather a lot on games as they were in development while glossing over the end result (which is what really matters, after all.)

And of course, this is not an ideally formatted series already. Having to wait another two episodes before (presumably) providing any balance to the equation isn't the optimal way to present an editorial. Talking about woman characters largely relegated to the role of possessions in videogames and then not getting around to Samus Aran until episode three unnecessarily biases the video on a case-by-case basis (though it's hard to say now how it would all look after the series is finished and it's possible to view it as a whole.)

(Though... bringing up one positive female role model in early videogames is kind of like mentioning your one black friend. )

If you've watched her other videos, it's pretty easy to see where she's headed. If she avoids that course, I'll be very surprised and quite happy, but none of her videos thus far give me any reason to think she'll treat the topic with some measure of balance and fairness. She's interested in hammering her points/agenda home, and that's all.


Again, it's her other videos. Seeing as the new one follows exactly the same format and covers exactly the same area of discourse, it's not unreasonable to expect her to continue in the same vein as her "free", pre-Kickstarter videos. She's poisoned the well for herself, and she made no effort in her first Kickstarter video to rectify that problem, as you point out.


This is her MO. She has a biased view, and she intends to tell you about it.

You raise a fair point, and you're right, we can't necessarily make presumptions without PROOF what she'll do. But my worry is, in my minds eye, it is relatively obvious where she's heading with this. I mean, my disgust isn't that she made 150k, it's that she made 150k and this video is nothing but dross, barely a fraction of the budget. It's true that there is a definite 'male power' in a lot of video games, but I just think it's not so much sixism, just a social norm stemmed in tradition. (In most media itself, men are portrayed as heroes, have been since time immemorial. There are women too obviously, but more than not are male.) My problem is, a lot of times when a female protagonist is offered as the main lead, you see males turn into blundering monkeys (Worse than we are IRL). Almost as if it was some 'I'll show THEM how it feels not being the main hero' or something.

I don't know if I'm explaining my point simply to you, it's kind of this weird ball of different thoughts and opinions all chained together. But I do agree with you in a lot of ways.

Edit: Oh, and rereading your post, another gripe was, as you said, stretching the truth. Her example was like 3-5 games with females (Peach and such), but then she's like 'Oh, and females have been heroes, look at X, but we'll ignore that, because those kind of defeat the point of my opinion'.

Yeah, I keep forgetting that she does already have a body of work out there, from which it's possible to guess at the trajectory of this series. And if I'm making assumptions without full knowledge, then I'm guilty of the same sort of knee-jerk reactions.

My other question, however, is it is necessary to always provide a balanced and unbiased view of a topic when editorializing (which is, after all, nothing more than an organized explanation of an informed opinion?) Anyone who follows Yahtzee's video reviews, for example, understand that he's coming to the subject with his own bias. His popularity can be attributed much to the fact that he's not being fair in his reviews.

Though of course, I can't help but keep coming back to this video's failure as an editorial. Because while Yahtzee is rather open about his bias and where he's coming from, it would appear that Ms Sarkeesian hasn't worked to laid down that foundation.

Really, I'd imagine that the best-case scenario with this whole fiasco is that maybe it could inspire someone better suited to the task to take the reigns. A thorough documentary featuring interviews with women gamers and industry insiders (as well as men,) as well as a critical and researched look at the problematic themes, societal effects, and underlying causes (both within and without the videogame industry) could be rather interesting and informative.

The response to her since she started he kickstarter has done more than any one person ever could to prove her point perfectly.

Or it could prove a lot of people seeing her fallacy and stupidity. True, some sixist could just go 'SHES A WOMAN WTF SO LAME!' but I'm sure just as many people hate it because they knew just what kind of mediocre dribble she'd produce.

Do you really fail to see why that's bad? You are trying to excuse the disempowerment of females because "Its tradition, bro.".


How did people know just what kind of "mediocre dribble she'd produce", exactly?

Let me blow your mind: something can be sixist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, or otherwise hateful without saying things like "SHES A WOMAN WTF SO LAME!".

Double Post.

That's definitely something I'd watch and be interested in, I'd love to see the actual opinions of insiders, male and female about this kind of thing.

I'm not saying 'It's just tradition, svck it up.' I'm saying it's just something that happens. It's like saying any movie with a male hero is automatically equated to sixism. Crap happens. Is any movie with dying children suddenly worth offense because it shows children can die? Is any movie with female lead suddenly sixist towards males? Gender of a hero means nothing, theme of the work is what counts.


Because any content involving sixism never ends well, being for or against it. It always at some point devolves into being a bias work why either women should know their place or women should stand atop mens skulls for being oppressed to long. I prefer a fair and neutral point, not one tipping to one side or the other.

Aw, how cute. I'm being talked down to because I don't share your view.

I keep wondering whether people are being too hard on her, but then I consider the following:
1. she presents herself as some kind of expert on portrayal of women in media, and more broadly on feminism, when she's not either of these things
2. she's influencing the industry, probably not for the better if I've surmised her brand of feminism properly
3. she's exploited people
4. she makes middling videos with lazy/trite content

And then I don't think I or the other people criticising her are out of line. Am I assuming at this point that she's going to mess this video series up? Yeah, but the time for proving herself has come and passed with TED talks and DICE conferences, where she could have done more than tick off stuff she learned in Women's and Media Studies.


He's very obviously not being serious, and he's not being serious about a silly topic- video game reviews. She's tackling what she herself says is a serious topic, and by all accounts she wants to take an earnest look at it. One would think that would require an honest examination, and she's fumbling it not only in execution but in basic approach. If you're going to talk about something like gender, it would behoove you to offer something more than your own view, especially if you're presenting your anolysis as some kind of academic exercise. Her videos are The Anita Show with Anita's Thoughts on Anita's View of the World- except, she's not presenting it as that. She's presenting it as The State of the VG Industry Show.


Not only has she not worked to lay that foundation, she's actively worked to lay a very different foundation. She's being dishonest (edit: or she's hilariously ignorant).


That would be great. I'd donate to that project.

http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=341

Not really gonna get involved in the back and forth but can you not use at least that blue? I had my face about an inch from the screen so I could read it

"You don't want a training bra, little girl. You want all men to be dead. Come with us to the moon."

They make a convincing argument, I gotta hand it to them.


Lemme take a stab at this.

I don't think Colonel Martyr or anyone is saying they're condoning the "disempowerment of females." I think what they're saying is more that the disempowerment of females has been the norm for 2000 years and THEREFORE it's kind of hard to just start doing away with it because it touches into EVERYTHING in society. For example, even if by some magical work, all of humanity decided that from tomorrow onward, there will be no sixism in media and we'll see both genders ALWAYS portrayed equally.....well we still have Shakespeare. And Oscar Wilde. And 200 years of exclusively male presidents. Newer generations? Yes, they'll definitely notice those things, and yes, it'll STILL have an effect on their views of both genders.
Likewise, I gotta be blunt and repeat myself: I've met waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more submissive women than I have dominant ones, and I sincerely doubt most men are submissive. We could sit here and have a debate about nature vs. nuture, but I think when it's as simple as sixual desires, a more carnal need, then it's rather telling. Just my personal opinion.
And finally, I can tell you that from my experience with women from eastern european countries, I've met tons who're of the opinion that society, households etc all function better when we embrace gender roles instead of trying to demonize those stereotypes. Who are we to say they're wrong? I mean, I take the stance of respecting other cultures and all of their little social norms, and the fact of the matter is that some cultures DO have social norms where they embrace gender roles. And no, I'm not talking Saudi Arabia and freaking treating women like property and forcing them to wear 14 layers of sheets and cover everything except their eyes; I'm talking Russia, the Ukraine and other such countries, where to be quite blunt, women tend to dress in a way that would be labeled downright "[censored]ty" (censored ftl. Uhhhh, "courtesan", as a synonym? ) by US standards, embracing their sixuality fully and playing the role of the temptress that seeks a man to "serve" (in the sense that she supports him, not in the sense that she has no will of her own or is his damned property. Difficult to explain, but I once knew some russian women who insisted they were more comfortable with the idea of living in a household where their husband was "the boss"). Sure enough, the men are the opposite, usually favoring lifting weights, strategy games such as chess, and more stereotypically "masculine" activities. Again, who are we to sit here and label them wrong?



Therefore, it's very, VERY easy to sit there and say "genders are portrayed differently."
I think the common complaint within this thread is that she's basically saying "hey guys, the sky is blue."

No [censored]? We all know that. What we're MORE interested in hearing is why it's a problem and how it harms us if the sky remains blue, and if it truly is a big issue, then what can we do to change the color of the sky? Simply sitting there and repeating how blue the sky is? That's the most useless waste of a show ever, and it's a miracle people forked over $150k for it.

People are simply saying they'd like to hear a more PRODUCTIVE show on the matter, not one that points out stuff we already know without offering any reasonable suggestions to change it.