This whole gamergate thing paints all male gamers as thugs. The people making the threats are psychopaths, and do not speak for all gamers. They see the video game as a sacred cow that is being attacked by feminists. So they make threats on the feminists instead of engaging them in polite debate. The problem is that sex sells in video games, the same for books, movies, tv shows, songs, etc. At times it can be sexist as well. But if you want to change the video game industry, you have to change the other industries as well.
You have to start somewhere. Does that mean that Gamers are just NIMBYs? "we see there must be a change, but do it somewhere else first"? "But it's about Ethics in Journalism!" (edit: yes I know you did not say this) Yeah fucking right. The Zoe Quinn "sex scandal", which on the scale of conflict of interest BARELY FUCKING REGISTERS, is just used as an excuse, a façade. I wonder how many Death threats that Brian Williams has received so far? And HE was the head of a nightly news broadcast, people like Anita Sarkeesian aren't even on the same PLANET, let alone in his LEAGUE. And the reason they continue to do so is because they are given tacit permission to represent you from the vast swaths of gamers who say nothing. Every time someone does not speak up against these radical people and continues to let the circlejerk happen you risk peoples lives. Real people. but #notallmen have the stones to put these people under the magnifying glass and show them for who they are - Damaged people looking for a reason why they feel hated, why they hate their life, themselves, so much. People who are so messed up and who feel so out of place in society that when their only escape is shown for the problematic fantasy world it is, their response is to turn to violence. But it's about Ethics in Journalism. Feminism has its problems. The sort of extreme people who run the Michigan Womyn's Festival and have a "womyn born womyn" policy (I.e. a trans-exclusion policy) are As bad as any of the people we're talking about right now. HOWEVER, and that is a big however, the basic core tenets of feminism are the sorts of things that would help the very people who are threatening women with death. If you have ever felt inferior because you don't fit into what our society defines is a "stereotypical man", Feminism is your shit, my friend. The whole Idea that if you are not this man: then you are not a man, relies on the idea that "femininity" or "Not manliness" is somehow superior. Feminism says "that's bullshit, manliness and not manliness are equal things". If you have ever looked at this and thought less of yourself, then Feminism is your Jam. because the implication that "nerdy people" are not just forever alone, but unworthy of love runs under the same implication that they are "lesser" just because they aren't "men". Feminism says You gotta step up and look out for the people whom society treats as lesser. That runs for minorities, that runs for people being oppressed for what they have on (or don't have on), and any other thing you can think of. Are feminists good at this? Not always, not yet - there's a lot of really shitty people who call themselves feminists. But I don't judge all christians on WBC or Muslims on ISIS. Feminists doesn't do too badly for a movement that was generally co-opted at an academic level by some really hateful people for a while (hence the whole "Womyn Born Womyn" thing, and a general exclusion of the PoC experience at an academic level). Feminism is like the Churchill quote on democracy, in that way - It's the most problematic ideology, except for all the other Ideologies we've had. I don't even give a shit if you don't call it feminism, because it's an "icky" word. Call it "egalitarianism" to impress your buds. Call it "I don't want to treat other people like shit, or be treated like shit anymore", because that's basically what it is.This whole gamergate thing paints all male gamers as thugs.
Female gamer here. I certainly haven't recently seen evidence to the contrary - At least, not when it comes to this issue. But if you want to change the video game industry, you have to change the other industries as well.
The people making the threats are psychopaths, and do not speak for all gamers. They see the video game as a sacred cow that is being attacked by feminists. So they make threats on the feminists instead of engaging them in polite debate.
Or it means that gamers do not consider gaming's "sexism" as anything that is particularly troublesome or bad, and would prefer to see change in the medium come about naturally rather than having people refuse to touch topics because they may be considered sexist. Gamers have been talking about how stupid games portrayal of women has been for years. Gamers have been talking about how shitty all the COD releases have been for years. The push-back didn't occur until people started trying to relate video games being sexist to the people who play games also being so, or that games cause people to become sexist. It's regular that people find the games that try to attract people by way of big breasts and laugh at them. The shit has been ridiculed for ages. Yet you feel inclined to bring it up? A) Brian Williams has never publicized or pushed any death threats to the public, never given a platform to them. I am pretty sure there have been death threats involved. People on the internet do this thing, where they be extreme for the sake of getting attention. Give them attention, and you will attract those people, give them a platform, and you will find no end to the ridicule and threats. The vast swath of gamers openly dislike, if not hate, anyone going out threatening or attacking people. Of course, when you conflate gamergate to people going out and harassing women, it becomes impossible to view anyone involved as capable of speaking against harassment. In reality, very few are for what you think they are for. Again, everyone speaks up against radical people, on both sides of the gamergate debate. How many people who do harass others have you spoken to? Are you a psychologist? Or is all this being pulled out of your ass and/or a recent journalist's ass? This has nothing to do with anything, the person you are responding to portrayed feminism in a fairly positive light, and only refered to it in a way that spoke of people being against it for false reasons. The point of the photo is making is not that nerds are "lesser" men that can't get a date. It's that nerds are people who, across time, learned to define themselves over the dislike they received from the general community. People who were accused of being unhygienic, who loved playing with childrens toys, etc. People who, despite this sterotype, cared enough about the childrens toys to keep on doing it. Imagine, ten years down the line, a bunch of people start calling themselves neck-beards and adopting watching anime, having obsessions over My Little Pony, and being all cool because of it. They aren't going to be neckbeards, the creepy fedora wearing guys who aren't good at interacting with women. Just as a cute preppy couple aren't nerds. Nerds are the people who spent their entire life in their basement playing with star treck models/comic books, and got laughed at for it. Of course, that is fairly bullshit, as the only thing that defines being a nerd is "obsession over some topic", so you could honestly call any person who does have such an obsession a nerd. The comic above, however, seems to refer to the (imagined) sorts of people who adopt the nerd identity because it's cool, because nerds make a lot of money and become businessmen who make facebook or microsoft. Decent human being say this. Not just feminism. Meanwhile, the gamers harassing others are the blame of gaming culture. Gamergate is the cause of those sending death threats. Of course, they aren't really comparable are they, because gamergate is clearly a movement all about harassment of women, it started that way, and it is still that way, because that's what gamergate is. Nobody dislikes feminsm as you say it is. Just as nobody dislikes gamergate as people say it is. In reality there is a middle ground, a large group of rational people with a decent point who are being shoved aside in order for people to gawk and point out the extremists. Feminism, by most people, and for most people, is a good idealogy that will result in a better world in the long run. Gamergate, or most people in it, are people who have legitamate concerns and legitimately want to see change in games journalism. Yes, feminism has the idiots that think women is a word that refers to women as something as an offshoot of men, so they use wymmin instead because most feminists will support any ideas that seem to be progressive towards creating better treatment for women. Yes, gamergate has the idiots who think they are going on a crusade of justice by threatening those who dared criticize games, and think they are in the right because there are other people online saying that they are bad people. Yes, it is absolutely possible to shit on either movement because of those people, and because the whole movement is about pushing down men/harassing women. To do either requires you put on blinders, bunker down in your ideaology, and see the world the way you want to see it. I don't think it's a coincidence so many gators (people in /r/kia hate the term, but I honestly love it) hold the view that feminism is a vile and bad thing, and that those who are feminist view gamers/gamergate as a vile and bad thing. It's a result of inability to see the broad picture, and both sides seem unwilling to see the broad picture of the other side.You have to start somewhere. Does that mean that Gamers are just NIMBYs? "we see there must be a change, but do it somewhere else first"?
"But it's about Ethics in Journalism!" (edit: yes I know you did not say this)
I wonder how many Death threats that Brian Williams has received so far?
And the reason they continue to do so is because they are given tacit permission to represent you from the vast swaths of gamers who say nothing.
Every time someone does not speak up against these radical people and continues to let the circlejerk happen you risk peoples lives. Real people.
People who are so messed up and who feel so out of place in society that when their only escape is shown for the problematic fantasy world it is, their response is to turn to violence.
then you are not a man, relies on the idea that "femininity" or "Not manliness" is somehow superior. Feminism says "that's bullshit, manliness and not manliness are equal things".
because the implication that "nerdy people" are not just forever alone, but unworthy of love runs under the same implication that they are "lesser" just because they aren't "men".
Feminism says You gotta step up and look out for the people whom society treats as lesser. That runs for minorities, that runs for people being oppressed for what they have on (or don't have on), and any other thing you can think of.
there's a lot of really shitty people who call themselves feminists. But I don't judge all christians on WBC or Muslims on ISIS.
Because neither This image: or this image: Aren't raising problematic expectations? Cartoonishness aside, these extreme caricatures are a serious problem when it comes to the defining of attractiveness in society. Both are completely unrealistic, and If you can't percieve that as "bad" then I have no idea what you percieve "bad" to be. You are right - in some ways. There has been increasing uproar about female costume, especially regarding fantasy Armour for women. However, the companies will keep on making them until gamers stop buying them - It's an economically viable strategy. It has been shown over and over and over again that people will still buy these games. You can say "well real gamers would never buy these games", but the fact is that all those millions of people who buy those games are gamers, even if they don't fit your personal definition. Gaming is not the small, nintendo helpline-calling group of upstarts it once was. Gaming, and gamers, are a Huge cultural and societal portion. With that growth comes the responsibility of dealing with the sexists, misogynists (and even misandrists) who co-opt your title. Hundreds of games are released every year. I would love to see a list of 20 even remotely popular games from the past ten years that pass the Bechdel Test. It's a simple test: There must be two female characters (some people insist they have to have names), and they must talk about something OTHER than a man. You would be shocked and/or appalled to know how few pieces of media fail this test You would be even more surprised how few would pass if you added "Not talking about children or marriage" to the criteria. Most "nerds" would be unsurprised (though the masses would be) to see how many comic books actually pass. Yet you feel inclined to bring it up? Yes, I do, because this is the smokescreen that is continually thrown up around this issue. People hated Zoe Quinn long before anyone found out she was sleeping around. I don't agree with everything women like Sarkeesian and Wu have to say, far from it, in fact, but I do feel that they shouldn't have to move house to avoid the prank-called SWAT teams, and they shouldn't have to cancel speaking engagements because of mass-murder threats. It's never been about how these women did their business. It has ALWAYS been about what they had to say. Pretty sure? As you asked me about the things that I said re: harassers, where did you get that critical information? I'm sure that NBC would like to know, and the FBI if they haven't been informed. And what would you have these women do? Go to the police? they've done that. Ignore them? tried it. Call their mothers? probably tried it. The inference, by the way, that calling the mothers of twenty-somethings men Is a feminist issue, because it implies a.) that their mother was the primary caretaker, and b.) that these people, not being "real men", need to be chastised by their mother like children. and regarding my sources for my "image" of these harassers Here's a great article about the "dominance by insult game". that one's about nerd being harassed, but people are doing that same thing online. Here's another good one, written in response to Scott Aaronsen. It's probably the most on-pointe article i could post to respond to your assertions, though there have been droves of articles written about harassers in psychological journals (unfortunately a lot of them predate our internet culture and make them a little hard to use). I disagree, not that the poster was portraying feminism "in a positive light", but that what I said doesn't have anything to do with what we're talking about. The pivotal problem, as outlined in Arthur Chu's article above, is that shy, nerdy guys attack feminists and feminism because they think it's the problem (even though it isn't). This is the problem with the idea of Privilege - It's hard to understand you have it when you don't have as much as other people. It's hard, also, to be the person saying "Yes, I understand you're under the poverty line, and have to fight for every single thing you have. Imagine having every single problem you have just outlined to me, and also being black, or also being a trans woman of Colour." No one wants to hear how it could be "so much worse" than it is, because suffering is not a penis measuring contest. However, you still have to acknowledge those things. My friend Eden is a clarinet major at my university. She comes from a relatively wealthy family, who bought her a (used) Lexus as the car for her to use to get back and forth to university. Eden also lives in a pretty nice suburb of Cleveland. Eden has also been pulled over and asked if she owns her car. She has shown the officer he license, registration and the title to the vehicle, and not been believed. She has had to wait outside her car while the police phoned her parents and the insurance company to make sure she is whom she says she is. Eden is Black. I've never asked my friend Theron ( a Steinway Artist) about his experiences, mostly because I don't want to hear about the best jazz pianist I've ever met gets routinely pulled over while going to his high-society Gigs. The point I'm making with this is that People with "not as much privilege" feel somehow attacked by both sides, because they have no concept of how much worse it could get if they had less privilege. ... you're going to have to clarify this whole section for me, because I feel like we're talking about the same thing. The "basement dweller etc" stereotype is a problem because it infers that people who are enthusiastic about MLP or whatever are somehow lesser in some way.
You mistake my point. of course not all gamers are "GamerGate". Most of them are great people. But just like I call out bullshit feminists, you have to call out the bullshit aspects of gamer culture. You've got hold up the mirror to yourselves and point out your problems. Gurney Halleck is not wrong in saying that the "well of GamerGate has not been poisoned". He is wrong, however, in inferring that it wasn't always poisoned in the first place. ------------------------- ... I don't know why I'm even writing this anymore. I'm at a point where everthing I'm writing is semantics and rebuttal, and I just don't even give enough fucks. bioemerl, I see your perspective on Gamergate, and even if I didn't know you from around hubski already I can see that you are the sort of person who wants positive change. What i'm trying to say is that gamergate is not going to get it. Even if its cause was fundamentally good (which is up for debate), it's got too many bad apples and too many co-opted sections to get itself anywhere other than the derision of the masses. I sometimes think similarly of feminism, but feminism's been around for a hell of a lot longer and keeps kicking, so maybe I'm wrong. have a good one.Or it means that gamers do not consider gaming's "sexism" as anything that is particularly troublesome or bad
Gamers have been talking about how stupid games portrayal of women has been for years. Gamers have been talking about how shitty all the COD releases have been for years.
"But it's about Ethics in Journalism!" (edit: yes I know you did not say this)
Brian Williams has never publicized or pushed any death threats to the public, never given a platform to them. I am pretty sure there have been death threats involved.
People on the internet do this thing, where they be extreme for the sake of getting attention. Give them attention, and you will attract those people, give them a platform, and you will find no end to the ridicule and threats.
This has nothing to do with anything, the person you are responding to portrayed feminism in a fairly positive light, and only refered to it in a way that spoke of people being against it for false reasons.
The point of the photo is making is not that nerds are "lesser" men that can't get a date. It's that nerds are people who [...] become businessmen who make facebook or microsoft.
Meanwhile, the gamers harassing others are the blame of gaming culture. Gamergate is the cause of those sending death threats.
Gamergate, or most people in it, are people who have legitamate concerns and legitimately want to see change in games journalism.
Nah man. I can see that you want it to be that way, and I want it to be that way, but it's not. You guys are like the Libertarians who Joined the Tea Party then found out it's really run by These dudes who don't exactly fit the dictionary definition of "libertarian", but more the "I want everyone to be free to do what I want" kind of libertarian. Y'all have your cannons pointed in the wrong direction. I've been to KotakuInAction. If those are the people you think are leading the charge of "journalistic change", man, you've got another thing coming.
Comics have been talking about their problems with the representation of women much longer than games have, don't need (or expect) nearly the audience games get, and there is still a lot of tension in trying to represent women as people without giving up the cheesecake. There is nothing like Comics Journal in its heyday, there are people who study games but they're not primarily talking to the gamer subculture. Also, Bechdel is a comics writer.
Feminism had a few coherent bodies of thought and a lot of history behind it before it became a thing on the Internet, and the Internet still spawns enough batshit that it's not surprising that people who haven't been exposed to it before only see the batshit. I'm not sure that objections to the quality of games journalism warrant the name, but social movements that start on the Internet are at a huge disadvantage in that unless they're very focused or esoteric enough that people who are really passionate about them are also well-informed, they start picking up nuts too soon and there's a good chance the nuts will take over.Most "nerds" would be unsurprised (though the masses would be) to see how many comic books actually pass [the Most "nerds" would be unsurprised (though the masses would be) to see how many comic books actually pass [the Bechdel Test] .
Even if its cause was fundamentally good (which is up for debate), it's got too many bad apples and too many co-opted sections to get itself anywhere other than the derision of the masses. I sometimes think similarly of feminism, but feminism's been around for a hell of a lot longer and keeps kicking, so maybe I'm wrong.
I knew that. for some reason I assumed she was dead. who knows why (probably some societal idea that we think no one important must be alive right now). 100% agree. There is a lot to be said for ethics in games journalism (and indeed ethics in journalism PERIOD right now, as I mentioned in my first post with Brian Wilson Williams), but not much to be said for its current advocates.Bechdel is a comics writer.
social movements that start on the Internet are at a huge disadvantage in that unless they're very focused or esoteric enough that people who are really passionate about them are also well-informed, they start picking up nuts too soon and there's a good chance the nuts will take over.
The images you show are characters in video games, not expectations of reality. Just as video games do not make people more prone to being violent, just as games do not normalize killing people, games do not make people think "everyone should look like that". They are an excapist fantasy, not a sitcom that attempts to depict what people think of as regular. Also, skinny women with large breasts are attractive. Large, built, muscled men are attractive. The issue is not that these games may define attractiveness, but that they could define what we expect people to be like. They do not. Most all of these games tend to also have fun mechanics and other things for which gamers buy them. Most games that attempt to purely get purchases based on sex do not sell. Companies using the "half naked girl" marketing approach are trying to appeal to the teenage audiances who tend to buy things like COD and such, a group of people I do not consider the average "gamers" as the public tends to view them. And has all this bullshit helped them at all? No, it's done the opposite. The police will tell you specifically to not publicize this stuff, because it attracts more attention. When most popular games are about war, which involves very few women, do not focus on discussion of any form, etc, then the Bechtel test really fails to capture the essence of games. Games are not TV shows. They are not movies. That test is flawed even for those things, and it's even worse for games. Games do not represent any form of normalcy, nobody plays games and allows them to shape how they view the average women they interact with. The only real issue that exists with games and gender representation is that many games are forced into having male protaganists simply because it means the largely male demographics are going to buy the games, and that this is a self-feeding loop. And nobody made a single mention of it before you decided to bring it up preemptively. Do you understand that most of the people having had SWAT called on them have been people in support of gamergate. Not those against it? So far as I am aware, at least, although where I get my info from is a bit biased. In that speech, Anita did not have to cancel because of threats. The police had already informed them they believed the threats held no backing, and the only reason things were canceled is because the state wasn't going to have police ensure nobody brought guns into the speech. I understand the caution, of course, but that threat was empty, it was hollow, it was meaningless. The only reason it holds weight is because they gave it that. Where is this coming from? Who called mothers of twenty-somethings men? Again, all your talk of privilege, of scot arranson, etc, is coming out of right field. I don't believe I made any mention of those things in my post, and I don't believe I said anything about nerds being oppressed in my post either. The issue with such images, the reason they exist, is not because they are not manly. It's the regular people being insulted in the image, not the nerd. It's the regular person being told "you are not a nerd" rather than the nerd being told "you don't get any dates". Except what I consider the bullshit aspects of gamer culture are very different than what others do. I do not for a moment believe that having kratos in games is going to make me feel insecure about myself as a man. I have not once felt that I have to be a big, strong, muscly, guy. Nor do I think that any woman should act or be like the female characters in video games. Now, to be fair, the games I play are minecraft, factorio, RTS games, etc, which are very inhuman and really have zero characters who really have any form of gender or personality at all. Perhaps if I commonly played all of those other (shit) games, I would speak differently. However, I doubt it. Nah, if you knew me on hubsi I imagine you would already have me muted and hushed. I can/could say the exact same phrase, but copy paste feminism right in there. There is a reason they call it "waves" with third wave, second wave, and first wave. Modern feminism is not the same groups or ideologies of the older sorts. Also games and gamer culture couldn't have been around a lot longer.However, the companies will keep on making them until gamers stop buying them - It's an economically viable strategy. It has been shown over and over and over again that people will still buy these games. You can say "well real gamers would never buy these games", but the fact is that all those millions of people who buy those games are gamers, even if they don't fit your personal definition.
And what would you have these women do? Go to the police? they've done that. Ignore them? tried it. Call their mothers? probably tried it.
Hundreds of games are released every year. I would love to see a list of 20 even remotely popular games from the past ten years that pass the Bechdel Test.
Yes, I do, because this is the smokescreen that is continually thrown up around this issue.
People hated Zoe Quinn long before anyone found out she was sleeping around. I don't agree with everything women like Sarkeesian and Wu have to say, far from it, in fact, but I do feel that they shouldn't have to move house to avoid the prank-called SWAT teams
and they shouldn't have to cancel speaking engagements because of mass-murder threats.
The inference, by the way, that calling the mothers of twenty-somethings men Is a feminist issue, because it implies a.) that their mother was the primary caretaker, and b.) that these people, not being "real men", need to be chastised by their mother like children.
... you're going to have to clarify this whole section for me, because I feel like we're talking about the same thing. The "basement dweller etc" stereotype is a problem because it infers that people who are enthusiastic about MLP or whatever are somehow lesser in some way.
Most of them are great people. But just like I call out bullshit feminists, you have to call out the bullshit aspects of gamer culture. You've got hold up the mirror to yourselves and point out your problems.
even if I didn't know you from around hubski already I can see that you are the sort of person who wants positive change
What i'm trying to say is that gamergate is not going to get it. Even if its cause was fundamentally good (which is up for debate), it's got too many bad apples and too many co-opted sections to get itself anywhere other than the derision of the masses.
but feminism's been around for a hell of a lot longer and keeps kicking,
Thanks to the magic of Photoshop, those "escapist fantasies" become what is professed to be reality. This hasn't always been the case, nor is it explicitly the case for anyone now. "Beauty" is more likely to be defined from a ratio than anything else. Hence why Kim Kardashian and Hayden Panettiere look nothing alike but are both considered attractive.
I pretty much did. The only people who I have muted and/or hushed are people who are blatantly advertising products. Other than that it is completely vacant. You assume a lot about me as a person, I think. As I said at the end of my post, I'm at a point where the cost/benefit analysis of time put into comments is just totally futile. I have way too many other things to do with my life. The amount of research to make sure I'm not falling all over myself, plus time writing, fact-checking, is not worth it. For instance, I found out while researching for this comment that people routinely assert that Marilyn Monroe was bigger than she is, though she still would probably be somewhere around a size 6 (though there is one dress she wore in a famous movie that is a Size 2. I did not need to know this information.The images you show are characters in video games, not expectations of reality.
Also, skinny women with large breasts are attractive. Large, built, muscled men are attractive.
I can/could say the exact same phrase, but copy paste feminism right in there.
Nah, if you knew me on hubsi I imagine you would already have me muted and hushed.
Photoshop is not video games, and video games do not depict people who exist in real life. If you want to blame magazines for cutting images of real life people down to size, you should do so, but video games do not depict reality.
So far as I am aware it has been fairly consistent over time. Things do vary slightly with different stupid fashion trends or things like the thigh gap trend, but attractiveness has always been rated in a similar metric to how we do so today. So far as I am aware, at least. Any exceptions are that, exceptions to the larger trend. This hasn't always been the case, nor is it explicitly the case for anyone now.
Eh, I assume that of the people who browse hubski in general. I've gotten to the point where it seems like people will mute for any and every reason. The only people who I have muted and/or hushed are people who are blatantly advertising products. Other than that it is completely vacant. You assume a lot about me as a person, I think.
I don't even know who that is, honestly, outside of "female movie star". For instance, I found out while researching for this comment that people routinely assert that Marilyn Monroe was bigger than she is, though she still would probably be somewhere around a size 6 (though there is one dress she wore in a famous movie that is a Size 2.
that's pretty much the important part. also the part about the Alleged affair with JFK, but that's more tangential than anything. Dawg, If you're getting muted that often you gotta look yourself in the mirror and be like "Am I the problem?"I don't even know who that is, honestly, outside of "female movie star".
Eh, I assume that of the people who browse hubski in general. I've gotten to the point where it seems like people will mute for any and every reason.
Kind of hard to tell when the muting tends to be for the singular reason of me saying things others disagree with. I already know why people mute me, I'm stubborn and will sit an argue in circles for three hours. I'm not willing to change that.Dawg, If you're getting muted that often you gotta look yourself in the mirror and be like "Am I the problem?"