I peeked at the end of the video and her shirt was still on, so I didn't watch it.



I kid. I don't see what all the hubbub is about either. People disagreeing on the internet is nothing new...nor are abusive idiots in YouTube comment threads (it's the norm as far as I'm concerned)...nor is people over-donating on Kickstarter.

Stereotypes exist. Some of them are harmless and others can be damaging. No amount of lecturing people is going to make them go away, though. IMO it takes generations of positive role-models and living by example to make those kinds of changes. We need more people like http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/03/13/watch-dad-hacks-donkey-kong-so-daughter-can-save-mario/. Parents that set good examples for their kids can actually make positive changes. Lectures (regardless of good intentions) are more likely to just annoy people in my personal experience. I'm not trying to say anything negative about her video. I think it's fine, but if she was trying to educate people or change their minds I think she was a little misguided. There are much more productive ways to get her points across. To me she comes off as a little condescending. Maybe it's all the eye-rolling and incredulous facial expressions.

Yeah, really, I have no idea what she was expecting. It's like a man walking into a beauty salon, saying, "I love beauty products," and then proceeding to [censored] all over everything about the industry and to claim that the industry is misandrist. You're not exactly going to get a warm welcome. The more closely I think about this series of events, the more hilarious is that she didn't expect what she got (or did she).


Ugh, that's Atheism Plus, another stupid movement. Atheism isn't a political ideology. All it is, is a subscription to the idea that there is no god. SJAs and (some) feminists have realised these past few years that there are places they haven't shoehorned their agenda yet. I get along fine with normal feminists, but the women (and men) pulling this kind of safe-space, controlled-dialogue crap get short shrift from me. If you're not willing to engage with your critics, your idea holds no merit.


I would, but first you'd have to show me how terribly you've been set upon by all the Schmucker's-haters on the internet.


When you reply in the way you reply, I have to copy paste your text into the reply window. That keeps its formatting, which means text colour and such transfer, and I can't get rid of them, unless I open a .txt document, paste the contents of your post, paste them back into the reply window, and then reply to you. It's a hassle.


I've read plenty of comments on videos that have had perfectly acceptable discourse. Just because people keep asserting the contrary doesn't make it true. And if she's not willing to leave comments open on Youtube, she should at least provide some other venue where people can engage her. As it stands, she gets to say whatever she wants to say and not have to be held accountable for it- and that's in part what she's accusing the gaming industry of, eh?


This is the quote: "people disagreed vehemently with me". There is no "everybody" there.


She can do whatever she wants. She shouldn't be rewarded for doing it, however. Certainly not to the extent that she has been.

If the lady has any valuable arguments to make then they will be demonstrated throughout, what appears to be, a long series. Of course, the danger for the feminist movement is that she may well be exposed as rather vacuous and insincere in her anolysis. So if she fails to adequately address the topic she will be doing more harm than good as it will provide ammunition for equally insincere opponents.

My take on this is to watch the series, absorb the arguments and then see if they have merit; I hope the arguments do as there are issues of gender inequality in all aspects of life, and they're not always about inequalities suffered by women either.

Can't even even understand this ignorant justification. I've just become glad that she made near 25 times what she was asking for, whether I agree with her methods or not. At least we know they're many who don't see it as tolerable or expected of the video-game community.

EDIT: Btw, what's hilarious is the amount of men in charge of many beauty products...not the best example.



My hopes as well. Feminism is already becoming a diluted word. We don't need shaky points of view to add feul to the flame.

What?

I don't mean to criticise you specifically, and this is a somewhat tangential point to the main thrust of this thread, but:

I'm perplexed why, whenever the issue of negative female stereotypes is raised, it's almost inevitable that there are two reactions: (i) that there are negative male stereotypes; and (ii) that there are more serious gender inequalities suffered by women.

(i) Yes, there are. But gender inequality is not a symmetrical problem: males are clearly dominant---socially, politically, financially. Nor is gender inequality an especially unified problem: it would be a mistake to think that all gender inequalities (whether suffered by males or females) are symptoms of the very same cause. (ii) Yes, there are. But it's false that problems are worth being solved or dealt with only if there are not more serious problems. And it's not like it's always the case that the less serious problem can only be solved if the more serious problem is solved first.

I can understand someone having one of those two reactions if (i) someone said or implied that gender inequalities are exclusively suffered by women, or if (ii) someone overstated the consequences of, say, the use of negative female stereotypes in video games. But, so far as I can tell, the video in the OP does neither of these two things. So it just comes across as deflection to have one of those two reactions.

Man, I gotta start me a Kickstarter.

Oh I know very well what atheism is as I am agnostic atheist. Most people confuse atheism (lack of a belief in god[s]) with secularism (the principle of separation of government institutions, and the persons mandated to represent the State, from religious institutions and religious dignitaries) or more commonly known as separation of church and state.

Hmm, maybe justification wasn't the right word. Excuse? If not then I don't know what your post was even written for?

Please don't reply to this in-thread, as I don't want the thread to get too off course, but I'd like to point out that this is far from "clearly" the case, and will vary from place to place. For example, in the United States women own most of the wealth and are a larger voting bloc than men are.


I have no idea what you're trying to do here.

Um...you said "what else did she expect" as if it was to lessen the blame on the offenders some how. Not complicated....

EDIT: nevermind that last quote as this isn't a feminist debate on America.

How you make your argument is as important as what that argument is. Another anology: I don't go to a barbecue and tell the people assembled there that I love meat but what they're eating is likely the result of cruel farming practices. I could go to the barbecue, have a steak, and then tell them all about the process of getting the meat from a live animal and into their mouths, however, and they'd probably not only find it interesting but also have something to think about when they go home. Not only does she not really have anything interesting to add to what may well be a necessary discussion, but she's going about it all wrong. It's all just wrong.


I'm trying to avoid getting this thread locked. Let's not go off on tangents if we can avoid it.

I completely agree, but the two examples you offer are not my reactions to this piece. I think (hope) that you have simply misinterpreted my comment, and if that is the case I shall accept blame for not being clearer. While I do say that there are a host of equality issues and that they are not always about inequalities suffered by women, it was not my intention to rank inequality or offer contra-distinct examples in a contrary manner. As you say points i and ii are true, and that was really all I was pointing out and I chose to point them out merely to highlight what I considered to be a somewhat myopic perspective on gender inequality. I would prefer a more holistic approach from her work, and that may well happen.

So...yeah. anology is not working as the responses she received were irrational and in no way logical or expected. So I was correct in my assumption that you were excusing their actions. That's what I was saying so I hope that clarifies your "what?"

Rewatch the video. It doesn't say it in the title, no, but she says in the intro it's "creepy and sixist holiday songs." And her entire summary of the song is just so off that it's as if she were born yesterday and can't figure it out.
However, you're right in a sense. Re-watching it, I don't see the part where she says it implies all women are promiscuous, though I DISTINCTLY remember seeing or hearing that...There's even a user comment that implies it's heard the same that's been up-voted like crazy, and her reply doesn't exactly denounce his accusations either.



I think this dude sums up my problem with any Athiest movement pretty well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzSMC5rWvos

Yeah, Longknife keep fighting the good fight

Yeah, kind of what srk said. Let's be fair, here (this is the internet, so I know that's asking alot... ) This isn't a "gender equality world-wide" web series. She has a very specific focus in mind (kind of made obvious by the title "Tropes vs Women in Video Games.") So I don't think you can really expect much outside of the subject matter that was chosen.

This has been touched on previously in this thread: There are a lot of knee-jerk reactions to be found here, if we're being honest. More than a few people admitting to not watching more than a minute or two of the video and then still passing judgement. She does not, on evidence of one sole web video I've seen of hers, strike me as all that radical a feminist. Making a claim that there are a lot of damsels in early era videogames is about as safe a statement you can make about gender equality in videogames.

That's what I'm finding confusing about a lot of the reactions to this (and like I said in my previous post, I feel a lot of this is less about Ms. Sarkeesian, and is more the case that she's serving as a lightning rod for the issue as a whole.) She's not striking me as all that radical of a feminist. Sure, that part about the Star Fox Adventures (or whatever the name was) originally having been an entire other game with a female protagonist was stretching the point quite a bit (as I think that's more telling of how the game industry works, and I don't think it was a case of "we can't have this game with a female protagonist so let's put Star Fox in it. She also wasn't saying that, either, though.)

I have to say, while I wasn't overly impressed by her presentation or technical skills, I did agree with most of what she was saying. Like I said prior, I think it's mostly a matter of poor formatting. For what's proposed as a 13-part web series, she just kind of jumps right into things, when probably what she should be doing is establishing her point of view. If I knew what her background with games was, how sixism in games has affected her personally, what brought her to develop this series, and what her goals with the videos are, then I think it would have been a lot more effective. As it stands, it really is just a verbal essay. And most of that's obviously due to her being a young writer lacking in experience.

Okay, I'll just string random words together and you can take whatever you want to take from it. Tomato plate cactus. Paper golf literature television hook.


I don't disagree with any of this. Good points.


I do disagree with this. Her being young and lacking experience doesn't excuse the content. There are plenty of people her age and under that produce amazing, thought-provoking, captivating stuff. It's not a skill she's got, and that's fine, but then she probably isn't the right person to be tackling this subject.

The "good" fight?

I just think it's unfortunate that, "feminism" is that type of word that'll immediately be attacked by sixist males. And as I've said, from experience, I can't say I know a woman who doesn't claim to be a feminist. Manwhile, this girl wants to fit the bill as the face of feminism, but in say, 50% of her videos, I can spot a logical flaw or some point she doesn't address at all. Meanwhile all she's REALLY doing is regurgitating what she learned in college in essay form, not actually suggesting any solutions to the "issues" or even thoroughly explaining how they are issues. Actually, I recall one moment where she did suggest a solution (no way I could find the vid quickly, she's got a ton), but I remember being pretty puzzled when the entire video was basically her complaining about how women have the stereotype of being weak and frail, then her solution to it wasn't to take away that stereotype altogether, but rather to ADD MORE bad stereotypes to men, such as being impulsive and rash. At any rate, I typically thoroughly disagree with many of her points, arguments, and in rare cases, "fixes." (think another vid basically had her suggesting a movie should be re-written to be more gender equal and that'd make the movie "better")

If she's simply documentating how the damsel in distress trope exists....well wtf anyone can tell you that, it doesn't need it's own vid.


Let's be honest, her vids have (or did, iirc she regularly deletes comments she doesn't like) tons of negative sixist remarks simply because yeah, there are a lot of sixist people out there. However, her remedy is basically the equivalent to acknowledging the US is phobic of the word "socialist," and instead of slowly and gently showcasing and suggesting socialist policies the US can benefit from and has no reason to fear, she's supporting every possible socialist policy all at once while using some rather lackluster arguments here and there, caring solely about OBJECTIVELY if they fit the bill that was probably expected from her college classes, and NOT about if there's an alterior link and cause, such as with Star Fox replacing Krystal (just like Princess Peach replaced whoever in SMB 2) solely as a marketing ploy, not as sixism.

To me, she just doesn't seem like someone who's ever lived life outside of a classroom, and it often comes off as awkward when she makes a thesis statement that may have worked for some assignment given based on the criteria of the assignment, but does NOT work in a real life scenario because she fails to even address or acknowledge quite reasonable counter-arguments. The result is it's a quite narrow-minded statement about nothing that fails to be productive in any way. It's the equivalent to if some old man gave us a web series about how little food there was in the Great Depression; that's great and all, but we all kind of assumed that's how it was to begin with.

I'd simply advise the feminist community to replace her (which unfortunately is admittedly impossible given it's a private show) or for her to step down/re-think her presentation, is all I'm saying, cause as it is now I don't think she's helping her cause.

I agree with your comments too. The series certainly won't be dealing with inequality in a universal manner, but when she remarked on "All I want for Christmas is you" it was about a female objectifying a man so she has demonstrated the capacity to evaluate multiple sides of an argument. I hope she continues to do this. The danger that I see is that by focusing on female inequality exclusively she may miss points that are universal to the problem of gender inequality -- regardless of the gender. Gender inequality is often a symptom of other errors in thinking and can even come from an honest and unintentional source; in that regard I hope that she drills down to the root causes and not merely highlights the symptoms.

edit: P.s. I hope I'm fair, and I certainly try to be fair.

Didn't string anything together (well more than usual...after all this is language), but that's the only conclusion I got from what you said. Otherwise It just doesn't make sense :\

"Yeah, really, I have no idea what she was expecting."

So it's the norm to expect [censored]/death threats and horrific video-games of yourself getting beat up?

It's like a man walking into a beauty salon, saying, "I love beauty products," and then proceeding to [censored] all over everything about the industry and to claim that the industry is misandrist. You're not exactly going to get a warm welcome.

Besides the fact that this anology is horrible and men own or founded the most popular cosmetic lines, I don't see how she [censored] all over the industry simply because she declared it's not gender equal...like is done in nearly every other field....

"The more closely I think about this series of events, the more hilarious is that she didn't expect what she got (or did she)."

And all this equates to hilarity and that she should've expected that. And as we all know..."she should've expected it" is always going to be more in-line with the offender. Therefore that is an excuse and excuse means "to lessen the blame..."

Unless you want to continue to deny obvious implications...well then I guess I was [censored] wrong and I'll just go on with my life anyway...

You should probably know Katy Perry and Taylor Swift recently declared they aren't feminists...but they make music to empower women...

I guess maybe I did sound like I was excusing her execution. But everyone's got to start somewhere. I'll be honest, the video very much reminded me of english class essay writing and I probably wouldn't have watched it at all were it not for all the publicity it received beforehand. If I'm looking for thought-provoking editorials on women's issues in videogames then there's certainly more apt avenues for me to pursue.

But... we've all got to start somewhere. If I don't think she has the experience to validate a Kickstarter campaign, I can't really fault her ambition, nor the intentions of her donors. There have been women games journalists and industry insiders who have weighed in on the matter previously, and I'd rather be watching a series hosted by one of them, surely. I can fault her execution and debate her points, but I don't have a problem with her, if that makes sense.

Edit: And really, she probably has more of a future in PR than in front of a camera. If failed at making a video series that lived up to her intentions, she at least succeeded marvelously well in getting enough people to pay for her to do it...
That makes sense. I think she broke the episodes down too much. A longer video format that was able to explore a more holographic view of each subject would have been quite a bit more effective. For example, as I understand it the next two or three episodes will continue to explore the "damsels in distress" trope. Probably would have been better to either condense all that into one segment or expand the format to allow for a more holistic approach.

Generally in shows like this, you explore the history of the subject, it's contemporary situation, and address the issues and offer solutions all in one episode. (See: any documentary on the History or Science channels.) Her approach of breaking it all down with such granularity does her no favors, and simply serves to isolate the segments from each other.

I think the potential downside of Kickstarter (not to get too off-topic) is that sometimes it is useful to have a producer or an editor, who might have thought of things like this beforehand. I feel like as a class project, this (from what I've seen so far) is a successful attempt at scholarly research (and I'd be very surprised if this whole thing didn't stem from a shorter paper she'd written as class work at some point.) As editorial documentary, she's got some ways to go, however.

Edit: As it stands now, we're looking at another two to three videos before she even makes her "point" about the initial subject. Which, considering the controversy surrounding the fact of the video itself (because like I said - not terribly controversial a view put forward thus far,) certainly wasn't the best approach. That's asking for a lot of patience and indulgence from the audience - both things of which she started out rather short on to begin with.

You really haven't been around the internet. Men get this just as much as women, and crap like this happens for even more trivial matters.


Completely irrelevant!


Because all she does is complain about video games. Can you imagine someone saying, "I love music", and then only ever complaining about it? Could you stomach that person for long? No. She's going about getting her message across in completely the wrong way.


She got some bad words on the internet. Again, it happens to everyone. Yes, even the [censored] and abuse stuff.


Oh god. Not even going here. You invoked the gender equivalent of Godwin's law.

This is one of the things I wanted to point out is a misleading view of the situation. Yes, some of the causes of gender inequalities suffered by women are also causes of gender inequalities suffered by men. For instance, there is the general idea that some jobs or job-tasks are intrinsically gendered. This can be as pernicious an effect for a male wanting to be employed as a nurse as it can be for a female wanting to be employed as a surgeon. But even in these cases, it tends to be women that are worse off: jobs that are stereotypically male tend to be higher paying. Aside from that, there are also causes of gender inequalities that are qualitatively different for females---for instance, the possibility of maternity leave.

But the main point I want to make is that there isn't a lot of unity to the causes of gender inequality. Of course, in a sense, it all comes down to "traditional views about gender roles in work and at home". But this pithy description masks the underlying variation. We're talking about responsibilities for doing domestic tasks, parenting responsibilities, whether men or women have different "intellectual dispositions" (men being more anolytical and rational, women being more emotional), whether one gender is better suited to performing physically risky work, how socially acceptable it is for different genders to be ambitious in their career, and so on. A gender bias in one of these isn't necessarily connected to a gender bias in the other.

So while I'm not entirely sure what you mean by a "holistic approach", I think it suggests an approach that won't work because it's insensitive to how various the causes of gender discrimination can be.