Before I start, let me get some things straight: I’m a queer feminist. I think society is pretty damn sexist, and that video gaming is one area where it’s particularly obvious. I think the treatment of Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian and a bunch of other people these last few weeks is despicable. I think being angry and defensive when you’re being harassed for your gender or for how much sex you’ve had is a totally valid thing to be.
But I’m so sick and tired of how some people I otherwise respect and agree with keep responding to those who disagree with them.
This isn’t tone policing, this is asking you to stop using words and concepts that exclude people.
You can’t build an inclusive, friendly place on exclusionary, insulting language.
There’s a bunch of things that have been bothering me – not just in the recent “GamerGate” things, but in the “Women Against Feminism” debates before that, and a whole bunch of stuff before that too. So here’s a few things we need to stop doing if we want to build the inclusive society we claim to.
‘You just can’t get laid’ – ‘Hah, they’re all virgins’ – (See also: my earlier blog on this).
I’ve written about this in more detail at the link above, but basically: not having had sex is not a bad thing. It should not be used as an insult. A feminist calling someone misogynistic a virgin as an insult is upholding the societal standard of compulsory sexuality just as much (if not more, since people may think feminists have more ‘progressive’ views on sex!) as anyone else. Plenty of people don’t have sex – I’m asexual, and many asexual people don’t. Referring to a lack of sex as a negative thing just shows me that you don’t care about people like me in your supposedly inclusive end-state.
‘I’m sick of these lunatics’ – ‘These deranged people’ – ‘These people are crazy’
Seriously, just stop with this. Mental illness is stigmatised enough. People who are sexist (or racist, or homophobic) are not crazy, or mad, or deranged, or nutcases or any of these numerous phrases I’ve seen thrown around this week. Just because you disagree with someone, find their morals reprehensible, or because they’re harassing you does not mean that you should call them anything referring to mental illness. I mean, way to show those who are on your side that you just don’t care about excluding them, right?
On another note, this kind of discourse is actively harmful to reducing sexism (and racism, and homophobia, and so on). Treating people who hold these kind of opinions as separate – as the other, as an almost monster-type figure (and don’t even get me started on how equating mad to monster-like is terrible!) stops us discussing how normal these views are. And by normal, I don’t mean acceptable, I mean common. Almost everyone has at some point held views like this, no matter how inclusive you think you are now. I know I did. Teenage me used to think femininity meant weakness. I have relatives who still think the Jennifer Lawerance nude photo thing was a little bit her fault – despite also thinking the people sharing them are awful and sexist. If we start to view the people with these opinions as extremes, as the other, we stop being able to see it in our friends, family and co-workers. How can you challenge something that you can’t even recognise in yourself and others because you’ve othered it so much?
‘Pink curly handwriting hurts my brain’
So this one is from a response to the women against feminism campaign, but it’s relevant to other things. Stop devaluing femininity in your responses to people! What does it matter if someone writes their opinion down in a pink curly font? Stop assuming that women who wear make-up are somehow less feminist than you are – stop assuming that wearing dresses or actually conciously choosing for your own reasons, not those of society, to be a housewife makes you less valid as a woman. The whole point of feminism is choice. Other ways people are guilty of this are calling men who disagree with them ‘whiny girls’ or implying ‘I’m more of a man than you are’, or suggesting that complaining is a feminine trait. Just think about what you’re implying when you choose to devalue things like pink, or emphasise masculinity as something you have and then men you’re arguing don’t.
Also, don’t patronise women who differ in opinion from you. Let’s look at that some more, shall we?
‘Women against feminism are…’ – (See also: this twitter feed)
The response to the women against feminism campaign has almost always been one I can’t get behind. As the above account – which I’ve seen retweeted by many women I otherwise respect and agree with – shows, the response is to call women who disagree stupid, ill-informed or ridiculous. Even if we ignore the fact that there are good reasons some people might not agree with feminism or choose not to call themselves feminists – there’s a reason womanism is a thing, after all, this response is exclusionary and unhelpful.
Women who don’t necessarily agree with or identify as feminists aren’t stupid. Sometimes they might misunderstand what feminism is, sometimes they might be actively rejecting it because the feminism they’ve encountered is anti-femme, anti-trans or otherwise holds views they reject. My mother, for instance, avoided the term feminist because all she’d encountered of it were people telling her she was wrong for giving up a career for her children. She’s not stupid, or ridiculous. She had a valid complaint, and chose to avoid the movement. Since then, she’s seen that was just one face of feminism, and there are others she agrees with. How? Through showing her those, instead of insulting her choice. When did feminism become about insulting the intellect of women whose opinions differ? When did it become about being patronising, positioning ourselves as an authority and intellectual superior who is willing to graciously offer “a place at our table for you whenever you’re ready. You can even bring your pink pens.”
Another thing about the whole intellectual superiority thing? It’s incredibly elitist. Yes, maybe you’re up to date on the latest academic feminist theory, and you know all about the definitions of words like intersectionality, privilege and the nuances that you might find in discussions of sex-positivity. That doesn’t make you better than people who don’t. Not everyone has the time, money or even ability to entrench themselves in academia in the same way. That doesn’t make them less than you or make their opinions intrinsically less valid. There’s a huge difference between willful ignorance and a simple lack of knowledge about a subject. Being up to date on the latest theories isn’t everything. Intelligence comes in many different ways, and being aware of a hundred years of feminist history isn’t the only one.
And a couple more minor ones…
‘You’re just a fat, ugly neckbeard’
I really shouldn’t need to explain why emphasising looks as a response to people is bad, right? But in case I do: stop using fat as an insult. People far better at explaining it than I have discussed this. It’s the same with ugly. How can we say we want a world where people are judged on their looks or weight when we’re doing the exact same thing? There are far worse things in the world than being fat or ugly. People are cruel, spiteful or mean. Hell, people are arseholes, shitheads – there’s a whole world of profanity out there that’s insulting without relying on equating fat or ugliness with bad. (Note: I’m not commenting on whether I think insulting people is appropriate as that’s a whole other topic).
I’ve been gaming longer than you
For all we like to talk about how it doesn’t matter how new to being a geek someone is – how it doesn’t matter if they only got into Marvel originally because Iron Man was hot or how not knowing the backstory of all your favourite characters doesn’t invalidate you, we sure like to use it to defend ourselves. You can’t tell people not to call us fake geek girls, to say that knowledge/backstory/time in a fandom is irrelevant and then respond by saying ‘I’m a better geek than you’. Seriously. That just validates the whole damn idea of geekdom being something that you have to fulfil certain qualifications for!
There’s almost certainly more that I’ve missed because I’ve either not seen them or thought about them. If you’ve got something to add, please do add it below!
But we can’t get to our ideal end-state of a society that is inclusive and caring and safe for everyone by using language that excludes and divides like this. I know I’ve held opinions and used terms I now know better about. I probably still do. I’d like to get better at that, because I know it’s against my ultimate goal.
We need to be better than this.
Thanks for this post.
I’ll add a convoluted but common concept to the list, if you don’t mind:
There are a number of Twitter threads going on where someone will be throwing out accusations and hurtful slurs, and something happens that makes them realize that there’s an actual person on the other end and they stop. They backtrack from their remarks, or maybe they apologize, or maybe they delete their tweets and say something else. Then shortly after this, someone else will point it out with screenshots and tease or mock the person as being a coward that would never make such an argument outside the Internet, living in their mom’s basement, etc, etc. And it gets retweeted a hundred plus times by generally good people who seem to be flashing it around as some kind of “victory.”
Under no circumstance should we make someone feel bad for apologizing or trying to correct a mistake! They clearly realized they did something wrong. Let them move on without having to read about how pathetic their lives allegedly are. I don’t mean to suggest that what they said is any less hurtful or that they should be instantly forgiven, but it shouldn’t be treated as an opportunity to point and laugh at them. Here we are begging for more inclusion, and the first thing we do to people who have a moment of human empathy is tear them down as if it was a moment of weakness. We’re not going to make any progress this way.
As you said, we need to do better! I think more developers would feel comfortable joining the conversation if we were better about our choice of language.
This is good.
I think this is perhaps a problem that comes from placing an imagined and specific end result ahead of behaving in a way that is in line with one’s general moral framework. When you are in the middle of a severe level of harassment and intimidation it is very hard to avoid hardening your language and views on how to deal with people who treat you in this way. It is hard not to inflict a meticulously crafted and on point rebuttal that focuses on the things that make that person or group vulnerable in society.
Leaving aside the seemingly never-ending internet contingent of trouble makers who enjoy aggressive harassment as an end in of itself, I do figure that the business with Anita Sarkeesian and now Zoe Quinn (and many others in between and in the future) is driven in part though in no way excused by what Devin Faraci speaks of (http://badassdigest.com/2014/08/31/why-i-feel-bad-for-and-understand-the-angry-gamergate-gamers/). To be isolated in such a way that friends are next to impossible to gain or maintain, that romantic relationships are seemingly perpetually out of reach and given the severity of emotional and social problems perhaps even things financial independence, it is all too easy to become a bitter, self pitying and altogether unappealing human being.
I do think that there is a basic lack of understanding of the way the world is, in particular with a critic like Anita. For anyone who has any experience with the academic world, or has ever read any newspaper or publication of even minor standing, or hell existed in the modern world and engaged in discussions with other human beings, such light grilling of a long overdue subject — women’s depiction and participation in video games — would hardly surprise, let alone upset to the degree of necessitating such an aggressive, nasty response. I wrote about comic books for a time and I found many of the same problems there too. It is a group of people who have some minor level of control within a community that is seen to be out of step with the mainstream in a way that gives them a sense of worth. They aren’t prepared for or willing to engage on any level with topics that make them question the thing that has made them feel like a whole person. And you know, I don’t blame people for that, because I have many things that mean way, way more to me than whatever little rewards I can get from tearing them down.
I do blame people when they take their anger at being unable to be a part of the world and try to inflict that pain on others. I have been on the end of a long period of harassment and intimidation and all that bullshit, in real life to the degree where it made you fearful of almost everything in your life. But as you rightly suggest it does no good to attempt to deal with a group of people grasping for any social power at all — no matter how miserably fucked up and ultimately meaningless that power is – by reinforcing all manner of bullshit social norms that affect so many who don’t end up being such sadistic assholes. And I do believe that where people who are pushed out of society and isolated to such a severe degree that they believe implicitly or explicitly excusing threats of violence and rape as a natural result of a woman delivering rather soft criticism about something they love, they have as much to benefit from feminism and from the dismantling of unhelpful ideas about gender. I also believe that many people that have whipped up all this aggression or have been carried away by it can be reached.
To kinda build off the thing said here about Faracis article I completely understand the mindset that goes into these people. Having been a teenager who spent alot of his time on 4chan there is a certain pitiable quality to these people. Alot of them have depression and struggle with suicidal thoughts so much so that I had numerous experiences were I tried to talk people on 4chan out of committing suicide. These are people who have been left on the side by society alot of them unable to keep up with a social life in the world so much that some cut it off. I remember alot of times I would recommend they call a family member if they were suicidal and many of them would tell me that havent been in contact for years.
Alot of them find solace in media eschewing human interaction for media and they feel threatened by the wave of feminism that’s coming into games. They lash out from this in unhealthy ways. I remember one person basically describing how “women caused me to shun the real world and escape in media, know there coming after media if they ruin it I will probably kill myself”
I usually never read blogs or internet essays. But I kinda accidentally stubmled upon this essay, and I sense a really good atmosphere about your views (both OP and commenters). I’m not a gamer but the opinions presented here are constructive and positive and can surely be used outside the gaming community also. So, yeah, I just wanted to say that I really appreciate what you’ve written!
I don’t agree with the characterizations here of the criticisms against Anita and Zoe. Zoe generally isn’t being criticized for “how much” sex she had. The evidence put forth from her ex paints a picture of a very abusive relationship (it makes her look like a sociopath), and there are questions about her using personal relationships to boost her career (nepotism). Anita doesn’t do real “research”, she delivers a very simplistic, one-sided and stereotype-ridden opinion-based indictment of gaming culture; it’s more political propaganda than anything else. And there are other issues, such as accusations that she has stolen content, and misrepresented herself to the mainstream media. She seems to use her gender and the troll comments she receives on-line as a shield against reasonable criticism of her ideas. I don’t see how someone who capitalizes on sexism and cyber-bullying in this way can possibly be a force in fighting them; at this point it appears that positive social change would actually be bad for her career. That seems like a glaring problem for her brand of “activism”.
But besides all that, I do appreciate you calling out the ironic shame- and stereotype-based insults being used by some opponents of “gamergate”. It’s surreal to say the least, being accused of being a virgin who can’t get a girlfriend by strangers on-line; when in actually I am a gay adult. And all the “fat, neckbeard” stuff… just unbelievable. The idea that a man’s opinion is only worth something if he is attractive, thin, and has sex with women seems completely opposite of any reasonable form of feminism I’ve ever encountered. Unfortunately, this rhetoric is not uncommon at all, which is why a lot of us involved in “gamergate” are fed up with it. This kind of ridicule and abuse is not a fluke, it’s utterly *typical* whenever “social justice” is discussed on the Internet these days. It’s not just in gaming either. It’s incredibly illiberal and unhelpful and I’m not sure why young Millenials find it appealing, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to hurt whatever causes leftist kids think they’re fighting for nowadays.
Side note, I have lefty feminist friends who hate Christina Hoff Sommers, but right now, lots of gamers interested in gender equality but fed up with “SJW” rhetoric are flocking to her as the best, most reasonable face of feminism on the Internet. I can’t blame them. When I read commentary on conservative and libertarian sites that is more reasonable than what liberals on my own side are saying… well what should we expect?
Ryan,
I can understand and to some degree share your frustrations with Anita and Zoe being used as examples of what’s wrong with the gaming culture and it’s treatment or both female gamers and developers. It’s very easy to say ‘Yes, but…’ in both of their cases.
Here’s the thing though: Nothing they have done, or really could do, justifies the treatment they have received. Moreover the treatment they have received is not due to whatever they may or may not have done.
The attacks against both women are insidiously founded in reasonable issues. Games ‘Journalism’ is hugely problematic! It’s an issue that we as an industry need to address. I suspect however that Zoe’s ex didn’t do and say the things he said out of concern for journalistic integrity. And the reaction of the internet, and press at large, that followed are profoundly reprehensible, no matter what actions Zoe may or may not have taken.
As for Anita, well, she criticizes games I love and I find myself sputtering in frustration through half of her videos. I mean how can she think that Ico is sexist! It’s a deeply touching and empathetic story! …except that it IS in it’s way sexist and that makes things complicated and uncomfortable. As for her level of immersion into games, it has grown consistently as she has done this work for us. Does she embrace the controversy and publicity that arises from it, of course she does! Although I bet she wishes she didn’t have to. While I have nits to pick with some of the games she chooses to use as examples the sheer quantity and extremity of the examples she finds makes it clear that she has a point… even when it hurts to accept that games that you love are in some ways problematic. Seriously, look at her most recent ‘Women as Background Decoration’ (http://www.feministfrequency.com/2014/08/women-as-background-decoration-part-2/). Is she perfect or always right? No. Is she saying something important and paying a high price for it? Yes. Again, even if she were outright lying the treatment she has received would be absolutely unacceptable. As it stands, when she is doing this work FOR US, the way that even people not being hateful toward her have treated her is shameful.
So it can be easy to want to reject the ‘rhetoric’ of Social Justice Warriors, it’s not something I want to have to hear about… but you see it’s something I NEED to hear about, something our whole industry needs to hear about whether it likes it or not. so I’m happy to wear that label until things have changed.
The thing is that trolls are being set up as straw misogynists to sweep away concerns and objections of anyone and everyone who disagrees. Some of the best counters to Anita have been from women game vloggers, but any of the points they make are dismissed because someone somewhere anonymously posted mean and hateful things.
Most of what I’ve seen lately has been completely depersonalized, as far as Zoe Quinn is concerned. The focus has been less on her and what she herself did and more about the not-so-shocking revelation that journalists hold their audience in complete contempt. Anita has made it personal insofar as she’s used the narrative of hate and vitriol against her as a fundraising platform. Ironically, she’s raised hundreds of thousands of dollars by “damselling” herself and then releasing slapdash, lazily put-together content using other people’s uncredited work at a snail’s pace (5 videos in two years after raising 25 times her original goal). I DO think it’s important to realize that just because Sarkeesian’s videos are intellectually lazy does not mean it is okay to threaten her, and just because she cherry picks and jumps through a bunch of linguistic non-sense* doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be great to have more female developers and more female protagonists who aren’t oversexed.
*Why do the people who complain loudest about Patriarchy beg for money from Patrons using something called “Patreon”?
I think you’re willfully misinterpreting patreon there.
I completely disagree with you on Anita, though I wish actual criticisms of her (as there are some!) were able to be addressed. Unfortunately, I cannot blame her or the general coverage of it for not being able to, when it ends up with so many people being hateful in the end.
Also – she didn’t “damsel” herself. She talked about harassment. People chose to give her money. That’s how it works.
The patreon thing was a joke.
Given some of the stuff I’ve had people try to convince me of on twitter, it can be hard to tell, sorry 🙂
No problem!
“I wish actual criticisms of her (as there are some!) were able to be addressed”
They are.
Hateful things have been said against gamers by journalists, therefore you are no longer allowed to criticise gamers, or describe ways in which you think gaming could be improved.
Does that sound fair?
Because that is the position YOU are espousing for the tropes against women series.
It is juvenile, irrational and downright immoral.
You made some incredibly valid points in this essay, don’t fall back on fallacy to excuse people you agree with or shield them from valid criticism.
It is unworthy of anyone that cares about equality.
Sarkeesian and her puppet master (Macintosh) make a mockery of feminism and of progressive attitudes in gaming.
The fact they are widely endorsed and any criticism of them and their work suppressed should be shameful.
They are going to do more harm to the goals you hold so dearly than any number of opponents in the long run.
>>The thing is that trolls are being set up as straw misogynists to sweep away concerns and objections of anyone and everyone who disagrees.
You make it sound like we invented the trolls. They’re everywhere, they’re overwhelming the discourse, and if they’re making it difficult for you to be heard, maybe you should try holding THEM responsible. The thing is, to me you look like another troll. How shall I put this, without using exclusionary language? Your points are not as powerful as you seem to think they are. And when they come from a woman, it doesn’t make them any more persuasive.
>>Anita has made it personal insofar as she’s used the narrative of hate and vitriol against her as a fundraising platform. Ironically, she’s raised hundreds of thousands of dollars by “damselling” herself.
You’re doing it again. It’s intellectually lazy of you, and also dishonest, to blame Anita and her supporters for what the haters and trolls brought about. Whenever a woman is a high-profile feminist on the internet, and she is endlessly attacked for everything she does, when people dig up information on her and shoehorn it into libellous gossip, it’s an automatic setup for the usual bullshit about damsels, white knights, and professional victims.
Pssst… here’s the thing… “the damsel” is kicking your ass!
The “cherry picking” argument works if you assume she’s talking about games and not tropes, but that’s an incorrect assumption. Hence the title. What she’s saying is simply that these images are in there… and they are. She’s not picking shocking scenes from games and using them to argue that the games are bad, or that you shouldn’t play them, or they should be banned.
Direct quote:
“This series will include critical analysis of many beloved games and characters, but remember that it is both possible (and even necessary) to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of its more problematic or pernicious aspects.”
That’s pretty clear.
Actually there’s a very serious problem with Anita’s work that she never responds to and capitalizes on which I think should make most people far more skeptical of it.
She labels all of her videos as educational tools in the descriptions of the videos, and going back so far as her kickstarter campaign, seemingly intends to have them taught in schools. Importantly, it seems many of her fans think of her videos as having educational or academic merit, and use them to justify their faith in them.
Yet she never cites sources. The video games she uses, yes, but never the arguments she makes or the facts she purports. This is especially alarming when she makes claims about how sexism in media leads to direct sexism in real life which occurs in her most recent video – a claim that is in no way accurate according to any sort of research available. Were she subject to peer review at any actual academic institution, this is something that would immediately cause her to have to revise her work or her script, or it wouldn’t be allowable as an educational tool.
As an internet videographer acting independently, she is beholden to no such review, and thus the lack of citation doesn’t impede her work. Usually, when someone makes such bold claims about social issues with literally no evidence to back it up, people would immediately dismiss it as blatant rhetoric if not outright propaganda. But not with her. Why?
Back in the nineties others tried to say similar things about gaming, but in regard to violence. They said that violent video games made people more violent, despite the statistical evidence that violence in society was going down. They would point to games like Mortal Kombat, Carmaggedon, and DOOM and say “look! Look at all the violence! How can that NOT cause those who play that to become murderers, they’re being trained to kill!” Studies were done, and they found no causal link between the violence in games and the violence exhibited by the players.
But Anita Sarkeesian does the same thing, replaces violence with sexism and misogyny and everyone buys it. Why?
Oh and the “sheer weight” thing really has no foundation when the examples proffered edit out all context and remove the importance of choice in gaming.
She shows Nico Bellic in GTA IV punch a female NPC – she does not show the deep romantic relationship Nico has with Kate in the game, the many dates you can go on to truly get to know each other as you form a relationship. She doesn’t show that one of the stronger characters in the very same game is a female POC.
She shows a drunken cowboy stab a prostitute in Red Dead Redemption and says it’s there to be enjoyed by male players as they passively watch – she does not show that the intent is to get the player to shoot the aggressor, that there are many such missions in the game where you are shown people in desperate situations in order to spur you into heroic action. She doesn’t show that the lead character in the game, when approached by prostitutes declines them out of respect for his wife. She doesn’t show that Bonnie McFarlane, of the same game is not only one of the strongest characters emotionally, but is filled with nuance over the course of the game.
She shows all sorts of games that have casual violence towards women, but does not show that they also have far more casual violence against men. She doesn’t show the thousands of games that don’t have any violence at all, or the many that don’t even have men or women or gender at all.
She shows a lot of stuff, but when you counter that “weight” with the “weight” of the stuff that she doesn’t show, you find that the weight of the unseen is far heavier by such a margin that it would be ludicrous.
I’m not even saying that some games don’t have a misogynistic undertone. Some very much do. But the VAST majority do not. I find it very difficult to assume that there’s a reasonable argument to be made when she neither shows any science to back up her claims, nor is fair with the games she cuts the tiniest snippets from to make her case.
Were this an actual trial, her evidence would be laughed off as insubstantial. But because she’s not making an argument based out of logic, but instead, one that plays to her audience’s emotions and confirmation bias, people believe her.
I ask again: why?
Will leave others to reply to this now, however, you may want to read this study. I think you’ll find it interesting: http://my.psychologytoday.com/files/attachments/30298/dill-et-al-jesp-2008.pdf
No, we don’t need to hear SJW rhetoric. We don’t, in fact, need to be lectured to by hypocrites who have no idea what they’re talking about; and behave in egregiously unprofessional and immoral ways.
I also don’t need to listen to creationists yelling at me about how evolution is a lie; or flat earthers; or Teabaggers insisting President Obama is a foreign-born Muslim. It’s all nonsense coming from disreputable people. I will readily dismiss it, and also criticize it.
“I suspect however that Zoe’s ex didn’t do and say the things he said out of concern for journalistic integrity.”
No, it sounds like she abused him, and like any normal person who is abused in a relationship, he is now damaged by that abuse and lashed out, grasping for some kind of justice and fairness. Sounds completely human if you ask me.
I can’t seem to directly reply to your comment, Pixie, as I would hope to reply to the link to psychologytoday.com study. I assume because this reply feed is already at a limit, so replies only work up the ladder, so to speak.
But first, I really should say that I agree with the sentiment of your original article above. It’s always a good thing not to attack others (which is odd, I feel that shouldn’t even be necessary to say, but this is the internet).
Second, congratulations! You’re better than Anita Sarkeesian! By providing a link to a peer reviewed study, you’ve shown more academic honesty than she has in a single one of her videos. You should probably consider making some. You should also realize exactly why it’s so worrying then, that she does not.
Finally though, that study is a pretty terrible example:
The sample size is 181 people. Apparently all freshmen college students taking a psych course (something I remember all too well) with a roughly 65-35 ratio of women to men. This is such a small and unrepresentative sample size without sex or gender parity that any serious consideration of it is already greatly diminished.
Not only that, but they’re only shown images from games, not actually playing games themselves. Which, if the argument is to be made that it’s the PLAYING of games is what causes any form of sexism or acceptance of it, is simply not adequate.
Fundamentally this is also an error I feel Sarkeesian makes. She focuses on the images and dialogue that appear in games. She completely neglects the interactive nature of them, however.
There is simply a completely different psychological reaction between just looking at something you have no control over, and being given agency and the ability to interact with it. As I stated earlier, in many of the cases Sarkeesian has shown, by neglecting this agency the player has, she assumes the intent is to spectate on the sexism. When in fact, the intent is for the player to take agency and “correct” for the sexism – usually by killing the perpetrator of it.
Also, it should be noted that much of scholarship this study is based on (primarily earlier violence studies), such as Anderson and Dill 2000, has had very valid counterarguments against the methodology used –
http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/papers/2001-video-games/freedman.html
http://www.theory.org.uk/david/book7.htm
There are other issues too. The pictures of game characters are juxtaposed not against other game characters deemed a control group, but against photos of actual people. There’s the use of a passage by Naomi Wolf to test against, which is just . . . OK, that’s completely subjective and open to interpretation. How do you know that they aren’t just reacting to their feelings on the passage in its entirety? With such a small sample size, no amount of cross referencing can yield a tangible result.
I’m not going to get into the further details, but if this is the best credible evidence to suggest there’s a causal link between gaming and sexism – 181 people extrapolated out as all of society – then the entire premise is even more ill-founded than I thought.
That study goes further to confirm that Sarkeesian’s rhetoric is without merit than I ever could. Unless you have a better study, with a MUCH larger sample size, with a more applicable usage of the medium studied, I remain not only skeptical, but dismissive of the argument.
I really don’t know what relevance Zoe Quinn supposedly behaving badly in a private relationship has on anything to do with anything. Also, on the issue of reliable sources and seeking lack of bias in matters of importance I would kindly suggest that taking a bitter ex-lover’s word on things is generally not the best way to get to an objective picture of events.
On the issue of Anita capitalizing on the intimidation, abuse and threats sent her way — or in some of the more conspiracy minded corners of the gaming community, actively orchestrating it! — all I can say is that anyone who has experienced sustained and aggressive harassment on that level who does not soften their speech, apologize or compromise their speech is worthy of a few extra bucks. There are many, many easier ways to make some cash than to endure such bullshit.
That a particularly vacuous element of the anger against her was based on her making money for something people wanted to give her money for is the most baffling aspect to me. She asked for funding for something. People gave her funding. People who didn’t want to fund it and didn’t fund it get angry on behalf of someone or other that doesn’t exist. Quite a bit out of keeping with compensating creators financially that liberationism values anyway. The market wanted what she was selling. End of story.
That I think Anita’s criticism is soft and obvious is almost entirely irrelevant. Even *though* it is soft and obvious it is still apparently unbearably shocking for a considerable amount of people who play video games. This is a problem. This whole sorry mess is about making a space for views that are divergent and sometimes combative. This is not about altering an artist’s work, but about facilitating other artists with different ideas to engage at the level of more established and safer works. And if people who play games get so dang irritated and upset and outraged over Anita Sarkeesian, it is a miserable sign of the capacity of people who play video games — and who make up such a large number — to engage with different and challenging ideas.
It is entirely possible to avoid engaging with these kind of discussions, and it is and was certainly possible to simply ignore Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn. Considering how frequently it is said they prize their celebrity above all else, it seems rather odd that more folks didn’t just you know, not give them that pleasure especially seeing as so many apparently see through their “scam”.
I am of the belief that a questionable moral component in a created work does not invalidate it from being beautiful, worthy of appreciation or noteworthy. Allowing and encouraging more people to speak on these issues or others should not restrict the kinds of things we see in video games, but merely break up the homogeny and introduce more ideas and more things for artists and their audience to think on. It is possible to find a work, or criticism of a work irritating, upsetting, disturbing and completely wrong-headed and yet take it in your stride as a part of existing in a world of differing views. If video games can’t account for polemics, for social critique, for morally concerned artists — no matter how off point to the individual consuming them — it will be to their great detriment as an otherwise ascendent medium.
Ryan Long, this discussion seems to have made you upset. If you need to take a step back do, it’s not my intent to make anyone angry. I don’t want to see these comments degenerate into anger and name calling. I respect this original blog post and the thoughtful comments in agreement and disagreement. So I will try not to further the slide in that direction.
That said, let me clarify and expand on my previous reply. First off I think these issues are extremely complex and difficult. What I am saying here is not rhetoric, it’s not me trying to preach some kind of agenda. This is me legitimately struggling to understand the industry I love, the players it serves, and the state of our world. I want to make all of those things better and I honestly think that engaging in this dialogue is an important part of that.
I want to address some of your statements in your first post and replies and also to speak to some of SonofaGlitch’s points.
I feel both of your frustration with Anita when she points out some minor element of a game that I ‘know’ is a good game. It feels like she is accusing me of sexism for enjoying the game. Despite the fact that at the beginning of every video she says that it’s possible to appreciate and enjoy a game that has problematic elements, and that she loves some of the games she uses as examples… despite that I still feel accused. And that sucks. I try to recognize that that response is coming from me and not project the defensiveness and anger that it generates onto her, but it’s hard.
Also while I think her videos would be a lot stronger (or at least more palatable to me) if she took the time to asses each game example she used and point out positive things about it or at least recognize how big a part of the game the sexist element was; I understand that she has chosen to focus very narrowly on a particular problematic trope in each video. In order to fit as many examples of that trope and give as clear a picture as possible of how that trope is used across the industry she has chosen not to give the other side. I find that irritating at best. But, given that we all (well most of us) love games and could talk endlessly about the positive aspects of them I can understand why she has chosen to just give the disclaimer at the beginning. I disagree with her persuasive technique, but that doesn’t invalidate the examples she gives. When she says that punching a whore in Red Dead Redemption is an example of a particular sexist trope she is not saying that the game is bad, not saying that there are not other violent actions that do not embody that trope. All she is saying is that punching the whore was an example of that trope. It’s easy to justify any specific instance from that video, What she is trying to do by showing so many examples is show that the trope is widely used. Seeing that, I as a game developer think that whenever we think of using that trope we should be aware of how common it is and consider whether it’s the best way to achieve whatever effect we were going for.
With regards to Zoe’s ex you said:
“No, it sounds like she abused him, and like any normal person who is abused in a relationship, he is now damaged by that abuse and lashed out, grasping for some kind of justice and fairness. Sounds completely human if you ask me.”
I agree that that’s what it sounds like, though I don’t know the truth of what happened. I also don’t think that understandable and human equate with good or even acceptable. Regardless of how I would judge her actions or his, the fact that he was acting out of anger and hurt makes me question both his motives and actions. Also there are two issues there, first is the messy and public ending of a relationship. With regards to that I think that his actions were unacceptable and that presenting his attacks which were meant to get back at her for the pain she had caused him as an altruistic attempt to reform games journalism was underhanded and despicable. Secondly there are the issues of a lack of integrity in games journalism. I don’t want to touch the issue of Zoe’s integrity, but games journalism as a whole has a huge number of very problematic issues that are very difficult to address. We as an industry need to put concerted effort into improving that. However, the validity of that issue does not under any circumstance justify the harassment of Zoe.
SonofaGlitch, there are two things you said that I wanted to address.
First the presentation of Anita’s videos as educational. I agree that in general the presentation of opinion as fact by figures on the internet is a problem. I agree that siting sources is almost always good. I think Anita’s videos would be stronger if she at least provided a further reading section below the video where people could go to look at the sources for her statements. However, I also think that there is a difference between educational and academic. In an academic setting you absolutely must cite sources. However something in no way has to be a peer reviewed academic article in order to be educational. Statements don’t have to be cited to be true. Of course when I see a statement that I am not sure of and there are no sources I question it! Before I accept it I do research and see if it has any basis. Depending on where I found the statement the lack of sources may be the author being lazy or it may be reasonable.
Here’s an example. Say I gave someone aspirin for a headache for the first time and they asked me why they should take it and I told them it would help with the pain. That would be both true and educational. My failing to cite peer reviewed medical studies would not make it less true… of course it would also be reasonable for the person not to take the aspirin and to do some research to see if I was misinformed or lying!
As it turns out the things Anita is saying do have a lot of academic research behind them. I wish that she would point her viewers toward them. If you question what she says, well you should. But before dismissing it you should do the research, I think that if you legitimately do that you will find that the sound theory and peer reviewed research are there.
As to the argument that sexism in games can’t cause sexist behavior in the real world because we all know violence in games doesn’t cause violence in the real world… well on that subject I can speak more confidently. My academic background is in game design and sociology and this coming weekend I’m giving a talk about just that thing at the Boston Festival of Independent Games (bostonfig.com) at MIT. Here is the abstract for the talk:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TEIpEfHzUvj9LPnoszY2_5HEMGa0kRGOLfOR9YCb61E
My main premise is based on the idea of Social Capital, the theory of which is more than a hundred years old and has a vast amount of research behind it. Feel free to look it up. But to do my talk injustice and sum it up in a few sentences the idea is that we learn how to interact with the world from everything we do and that games are particularly good at teaching things. That’s fantastic because it means we can use games to empower people and teaching them all kinds of important things. But also that if that’s true then we have to acknowledge that if games can have a positive effect that they can also have a negative one. I don’t suggest that StreetFighter causes literal fighting in the streets, but I point out that the fighting game community has been seen to be very caustic in the last year or so. So, I don’t think that games ’cause’ violence or ’cause’ sexism, but they are part of our lives and they have some influence on those things. They are part of the much larger and more complex socioeconomic structure that is our world. They just happen to be one of my favorite parts and one where I can have some influence.
Oh, I also think that there absolutely needs to be more research into the effect games have on people! And as that research is done we all need to be ready to consider what it shows rather than just reject it if we don’t like it. The answer to bad research is better research not the rejection of the premise.
Chris, I didn’t see that you were replying to me in part due to the nature of these replies splitting up, but I have now.
Here’s the thing about “educational” versus “Academic” and why it’s problematic to simply accept that something is educational without citation.
Anti-Vaxers and 9/11 Truthers.
Despite the massive good that vaccines have done for humanity, a single poorly done study by Andrew Wakefield was heralded as having scientific merit by the Anti-Vax community, and it has led to it growing in size over the years –
http://www.healthline.com/health-news/children-anti-vaccination-movement-leads-to-disease-outbreaks-120312
– Wakefield was discredited by the scientific community, and barred from research in every way possible for the study, but this then become “evidence” that he’s being silenced within the community. The problem, as I’m sure you see, is that bad science can lead to incredibly hard to shake belief structures once released. It doesn’t matter how much a bad piece of research is pointed out as false, once the genie is out of the bottle, it sticks.
Then there are the truthers.
While experts and officials researched 9/11, a great number of non-experts chimed in, “because they just felt something in their gut” about the event. They then would perform all sorts of tests based on the assumption that 9/11 was an inside job from the start. Because they start with the assumption before they perform the test, they only get the results they want to see due to their confirmation bias.
They often presented their evidence in ways that were intended to “educate” their audiences, and in online formats too. Remember Loose Change?
That film is one of the biggest examples of the dangers of assuming an unaccredited source has any actual educational value. It’s pure propaganda that paints a picture of fear, and it’s considered very convincing by its proponents. It uses confirmation bias as a weapon to shift belief throughout.
I say this because I have yet to see any study performed by those in Gender Studies programs that doesn’t qualify as bad science when looked at objectively. There are a lot of theories that are postulated, but whenever it comes to testing, most tests suffer from either poor methodology, or from starting from their expected premise and creating tests that would inevitably give the result that would support the theory, rather than performing honest testing procedures and forming a theory later.
Almost all applications of Feminist Theory have this methodology – and yes, I did study this in college, so I’m not ill-informed on the subject, I’ve simply come to my own conclusion on this and have yet to see any reason to change it. It’s a core problem with Feminism when it comes to rationality, and there are a LOT of examples that lead to bad results due to bad science or statistics.
For example, the “1 in 5” study that says 1 in 5 women are sexually assaulted in their lifetimes (now 1 in 4) performed by the CDC and then RAINN, well, they directly contradict Crime statistics that continually report that rape and sexual assault are decreasing every year –
http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4801
– Why? Because their methodology is often poor, and very likely because of an intended engineered result to fit with a bias –
– Stuff like this causes a moral panic over something that doesn’t exist, causes the public to demand action from politicians that often cave to the assembled mob, and does little to accurately address the real problems. The actual rate of women who are sexually assaulted is closer to 1 in 40, which is still a huge problem! But if people go into dealing this problem thinking it’s far worse than it is, they’re far more likely to take more drastic and improper measures, and only lead to further problems down the line.
This is my issue with shitty science. It inevitability leads to harm.
That said, I get what you’re saying with your abstract, however I fail to see it’s relevance with at least half of all video games. Social capital is about how communities of people interact with each other, and in the context of video games that means the communities that develop around them. You proffer street fighter, a game heavily focused on competition between players. If follows naturally that any community that forms around such a game will attract competitive, if not aggressive people and reinforce such traits.
What that DOESN’T mean, is that the game itself is causing these people to develop these traits. It merely acts as an lighthouse to bring folks with them to it.
You can see this with a great many types of games. A game about building stuff, SimCity or Banished for example, tends to bring in people who are calmer and creative. A game about tactical coordination like XCOM or Total War tends to bring together folks who want to think about strategy and maneuver.
You’re looking to say that making games can mold people in particular ways, but everything you’re seeing can easily be explained in a way that doesn’t fit that premise. If games are more attractors than influencers, then your entire argument becomes invalid.
This is another criticism of Sarkeesian. She seems to think, like you seem to, that the games are molding opinion of the players. I would contend that they mostly just offer, at best, a glimpse at what is a currently prevailing attitude in society. They are more a mirror rather than a peddler of influence. You can look at games to say that there is a lot of sexism or violence in daily life perhaps, but saying that changing games would have any noticeable effect on those patterns seems particularly spurious. Not when family life, biology, personal cultural identification, wealth, upbringing, and social circles have much stronger effects on how a person develops.
I’ll leave with this, a counter theory:
Anthony D’ Amato has proposed (here’s the abstract) –
– an idea that one of the major reasons that rape has been declining is that the availability of pornography has been increasing exponentially over time. Now, he’s just a law professor, not a social scientist, and there is no real research that backs up this theory as of yet. Personally, I’d like to see studies done to see if there is any merit into this possible causality.
If there is, then regarding games I would contend that there is actually a great need to keep them, well, pretty damn awful and regressive. Because if games act as a way for actually nasty people to expel their negative energies – if they can expend them there rather than in reality – then they actually ARE acting as a force for social betterment. Not by influencing people to be better, but by acting as a dumping ground for terrible people to lose their aggression in. In fact, statistics have regularly showed a similar correlation between teen violence and the rise of violent videogames – that as gaming has grown, teens aren’t attacking people nearly as much.
I would much rather have some lunatic go play GTA to shoot police officers and punch women rather than actually do this in reality, and I don’t think getting a homophobe to play Gone Home is going to change their opinion much. While there is plenty of need for more expressive and progressive games to exist to appeal to the audiences attracted to that lighthouse, there’s also a need for the baser games to exist, if only to keep the bullies preoccupied.
Have attempted to make nested comments easier to follow 🙂
Excellent article! I agree 100%!!!
I think you nailed it T. You have expressed my thoughts and feelings on this subject. Thank you for sharing this.
Great article!
Dawnasong
Opps, I ment to say, “nailed it to a T.”
WordPress explodes from a well reasoned, nuanced post about feminism. Very refreshing.
I have no idea who Anita and Zoe are, and I do not play video games or come anywhere close to being a ‘gamer’. I’m a 50+ woman who really admires this post, admires your views on feminism, and feels grateful that you have expressed yourself in this way. This post is one which absolutely, in my humble opinion, deserved the recognition of being Freshly Pressed. Congratulations.
I completely agree. Can I add on to here to stop characterising everyone in the #GamerGate fiasco as white? That’s such a tiresome cliché, that black people (or other people of colour) are immediately excluded from niche, geeky interests. I shouldn’t have to say this to people who are purportedly *incredibly invested* in issue of social justice and equality, but black people can be as interested or as bored by any of the subjects as white people are. I’m fed up of my race being a shorthand for “cool” when I have no particular desire to adhere to whatveer thes people assume is “cool”.
Agreed – I wrote this before that issue came up as a major thing in this whole ‘debate’, but it’s definitely awful.
This is a terrific post, not just on comments in the gaming world, but comments in most online forums. It is a very difficult task to dismantle one’s own prejudices, but interacting online provides an opportunity for us to do just that. We see what ugly looks like and it’s not appearance-related.
I find myself veering towards stereotypes when angry and I’ve been working on seeing beyond the haze of emotion to really see the people on the other side. People are not labels. Labels are born of lazy shortcuts through complex human emotion. Thanks for this reminder.
Reblogged this on Perspectives of a Student Teacher and commented:
Insightful. We need to teach our children this in schools; possibly in PSHE or citizenship
This is great. Well done.
Thanks so much for this post! I’ve been trying to argue for a form of inclusion that doesn’t prescribe or other anyone who doesn’t agree for a little while now. The insults and upsets tend to focus on individual qualities rather than social structures, and I think turn people away from engaging with difficulties.
Very well expressed!
“You can’t build an inclusive, friendly place on exclusionary, insulting language.”
Ahhh, but is language the problem or is INTENT the problem? People use insulting language oftentimes as means to convey humor. If the intent is to bring humor and not hurt, then language should not be considered the problem. If the intent is to be hurtful, then clearly the other person is just being an asshole. But even then, we shouldn’t police language. Let the jerks be jerks. As Lao Tzu said “Care about what another person thinks and you become their prisoner.”
Have a great day!
That might be true if you could reliably know the intent of a person. But, you can’t… I can’t tell you how many times growing up I had other kids say things like “You’re such a fag!” then a beat later,”Just kiddin’ bro!” Were they? Maybe they were… I didn’t think so at the time surely. And regardless of their intent what they said was hurtful to me.
Letting go of the hate that others direct at you may be wise advice, but it does not excuse the hateful for their actions.
This is good and all but for someone asking people not to generalize, you’re doing a bit of generalization yourself, it seems.
In what way, may I ask?
It just seems that the frame of mind you assume most gamers have, in your mind, fits this article, when I’d beg to differ. I find that a lot of the criticisms are hurtful in this whole situation but given the situation it’s somewhat deserved and some people really need a little more. On both sides of the fence of this issue.
Sure, you’re right that you can’t build inclusion by singling people out but EVERYONE is being super defensive about this issue, I feel, which is only making it worse.
It’s so true that this is a difficult issue. Most of us as gamers, and particularly those of us who would take the time to read an article like this, at the least have our hearts in the right place! So it’s rough to feel lumped in with things that we know are a problem. It’s up to each of us to decide where we draw our lines. I know that a few years ago I was pretty comfortable with where my lines were… and when I ran into something that made me feel like maybe I had put them in the wrong place I got upset and defensive, I mean I was a good guy, I was trying to be an ally and yet I felt like I was being accused of sexism along with the rest of the industry. In a lot of ways I feel like many people advocating for awareness and change do a very poor job of stating their point in a way that will help people who would be on their side productively assess and revise their views. I understand many of the reasons why those advocates behave in the way they do… I just don’t always feel like it’s the most effective course.
I think this article does a pretty good job though in taking a tone that is accessible and productive, not that I would be qualified or allowed to police tone even if I wanted to! 😉
Ah, see now I find this interesting as I was aiming this less at gamers and more at the people purporting to be inclusive (those some people might call SJWs). So I didn’t have gamers in mind at all!
Ok. My bad. There’s a lot of gamer shaming going on right now so I’m a little sensitive, heh.
Really nice 🙂
Excellent post. Teachers can learn from this, can teach this. Argue, use evidence, defend, imagine, use the skills of rhetoric–but don’t attack. This post applies to any field in which people are arguing. The Internet makes it so easy to lob ad hominen attacks and stick with only those with whom you agree….
‘When did feminism become about insulting the intellect of women whose opinions differ? When did it become about being patronising, positioning ourselves as an authority and intellectual superior…’
Around 1981!
It’s fascinating how some people try to make the whole #GamerGate into some “4chan trolls slutshaming an angel” or “fat internet nerds attacking a feminist game developer” kinda deal, while the truth is the GG is an amalgamation of people who hate what gaming industry/journalism is becoming and the ones who are fed up with SJWs and chauvinistic white knights.
Seriously if the “Depression Quest” was made by a male or from someone who was of unspecified gender(with no ties to anyone in industry), at best it would have been totally ignored, at worst it would be including in lists like “The Top 10 Most Retarded Games of 2014” by the magazines who favorably covered it when it was developed by a “feminist female developer”.
If you are about equality -as feminists claim to be- you CAN NOT favor any group over another.Why? Because “positive discrimination” is still discrimination. You can not fix a wrong by doing more wrong! Only thing one can accomplish with this mentality is a infinite feedback of hate.
This is the thing I abhor about the modern “feminism”. Especially in the West, purpose of it has gone far beyond making women equal to men. Now its “Making men pay for all the oppression he has done in the last 6 millennia”. Well guess what? It wasn’t ME who oppressed women 100 years ago. Why do I need to be shamed for it? Or even why would I need to pay for it?
Isn’t puting a “women quota” on any kind of job is as sexist as putting a “male quota”?
….
Let’s be honest here. The “Depression Quest” was by anyone but the highest level hipsters’ standards ;a piece of crap. It shouldn’t even be greenlit let alone covered by 2 of the industries biggest magazines. There are still debates about whether it could be considered a “Game” ffs… Let’s assume allegations of Zoe fucking Editors are all wrong and ask the editors of those magazines why would they even bother to mention that non-game let alone praise it. Their only possible answer is something along the lines of: “We wanted to support an underrepresented female game developer”….
Am I the only one who sees/cares how sexist this kind of approach truly is? Am I the only one who thinks if a game is shit, it shouldn’t be promoted by any gaming magazine no matter what the developers Gender/Race/Political Views/Who his/her fuck-budies are?
Am I the only one who is dead tired of being called names and silenced by Feminazis and SJWs whenever I try to respectfully criticize a Book a painting that happened to done by women?
Seriously I used to write reviews on books I read on amazon and goodreads. After a while I noticed something strange. When I said negative things on books written by male authors I mostly got upvotes. But whenever I dare to criticize something done by a female I get drowned in a sea of downvotes. I thought maybe issue was me. Maybe I was being unintentionally sexist to female authors?
Nope. Since I’m not a native English speaker; I oftentimes can’t guess the authors gender by their names. Guess what? I developed a failproof way to detect female writers. If the readers are intolerant of criticism, I -know- the author I read was female. I tried this method on more then 10 books It never failed me. Try it. You will see the same thing… Oh btw… Pen the reviews under a good, strong male name…
Anyway. I’ve rambled a lot and this post probably won’t even get approved… At least I unloaded what was festering inside me for years…. If you want equal opportunity for any gender/sexual orientation/religion/race I’m 100% behind you. But if anyone demands even one single advantage over any other group, I’m dead against them. No matter how oppressed they were in the past.
Cheers,
Can
well said, thank you!
I’m a bit late replying to this article (I read it this morning), but it’s excellent. I violated one of the rules you laid out about ten minutes before I read the article. I described a behavior as “nutcase” in a tweet.
I’m going to spend a bit of time focussing my language on the actual problems presented by anonymous interntet harassment campaigns. They are generally conducted in the service of some status quo (in the most notable recent case, to protect conventional AAA games from social criticism). The mental health of the participants has no bearing on the morality of the behavior.
Great article.
That being said I personally think criticism like this should have come sooner instead of when it is dying down.
Check the post date – September 2014 😉