something something Anita Sarkeesian

Started by Raestro August 12th, 2016 3:00 AM
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Raestro

Female
Seen September 16th, 2018
Posted September 16th, 2018
154 posts
6.9 Years
There are more important things to focus on in life, more difficult problems to solve, and hence their efforts would probably be better spent elsewhere. This basic reasoning was tied to other concerns too- of them that by using the name of feminism to probe into insignificant issues, Sarkeesian and co. were diverting attention away from more important instances of sexism which do legitimately deserve our attention.
My only disagreement with your post. While Anita is a feminist, feminism is a fairly large movement overall compared to others, so there are thousands upon thousands of activists out there. She is a critic and can choose to criticise more "obscure" portions of our media because it also deserves our attention. You can't say "the government is a problem we need to fix" Yeah cool I agree but then think focusing on a single government issue is too menial compared to the big picture. There is No way we can just tackle something large and do away with it, we make change by changing little things at first. People do not like change to begin with, so it has to start small, it has to start somewhere, if feminists are out there picking away at the smaller "less important" issues people will get more accustomed to the change before it becomes a larger thing. It's how it is for LGBT people, hell even after getting marriage equality MANY people are pushing back, even Trump.

She criticised books and tv shows before ever touching games and I never heard an outcry that it was a waste of time, mostly because fans of those mediums are less outraged, those mediums are far more established in society and thus more mature, while video games is still a really new thing being accepted into normal society and isn't a "man child in the basement" or a "child's toy" kind of thing anymore, but the fans are still super sensitive about criticism because of how it was stigmatized, funny enough they want games recognized as art and yet, don't want it to be critiqued as such, you can't have it both ways. Video games are evolving and becoming more accepted into society which is great, it's fantastic, people aren't really scared to admit they play games anymore (till you got Gamergate trying to decide who is a "real gamer" like the label is an identity) TV and movies still have sexism, racism and other issues but it is getting better and people aren't crying about it nearly as much as they do about video games and any little remark.

We are influenced by the things we consume, be it books, tv, music, pictures, ads and yes even video games (see Anita's source link for the Objectification Spillover Effect), it's just how our brains work, fairly basic psychology. So tackling these things is only going to help ease society into a more accepting one. Every feminist can't just solely focus on large issues, of which people tend to complain that they're not focusing on third world feminism issues, which is weird cause like what do you want them to do? The western world is already seen as a police state and you want us to start forcing our values on other countries? That's simply not how this works and in fact, many women over there do not want feminism, those that do need to start a movement themselves but we can't do it for them, women in America had to start feminism and change in America by themselves. They can do it too.

The cool thing about people is, we can focus on many issues at once :)

And more on topic, no I don't think we're "too soft" if there even is such a thing. "dads would take their sons fishing" and? How is that somehow tougher than talking about your feelings? Men are often told to not show emotions, emotions make us human, to ignore that is to ignore your humanity, I think it's much stronger of you to be able to talk about how you feel, I have problems showing my emotions and I'm not even a man, so I can imagine with the added stigma of trying to stay tough. Men often develop depression and attempt suicide because of bottling things up and then MRA's want to complain about it without understanding the cause which is, men need to be able to vent, to let their emotions show, to cry once in awhile or ask for help, it doesn't make you weak or "less of a man" it makes you human, like everyone else. There ARE shelters out there for men, resources for them and help but most won't seek it out, most men who are victims of rape won't come forward because of the stigma, hell most rapists don't even see jail time so that's an overall issue.

Society is changing, it won't always be the same, to try and keep the exact same values is to live in the past, you can't stop change, you can try to fight it all you want but you'll die off eventually and be replaced with a more progressive thinking generation. All of us will. It's like saying "we used to build our own houses from sticks and stones and now we're too weak and have them prebuilt for us!" it makes no sense. With the creation of the internet, more people are talking, communicating, sharing news MUCH MUCH faster than ever before so you only think it wasn't like this before, but I guarantee you it was, It just wasn't as known.

As an end note, the people I see "triggered" are usually the people complaining about left/liberals, I've never seen a feminist or anyone else use "triggered" in a serious manner such as "I'm triggered" I've only seen that from people making fun of it, which is kinda hilarious in its own right because they hate trigger warnings except are just fine with NSFW warnings, ratings on games and movies, spoiler warnings, photosensitivity warnings etc. They hate safe spaces but in places like The_Donald on Reddit, they actively ban anyone who doesn't agree with them or makes Trump look bad, I mean technically it's their subreddit, they can do as they please, but don't turn around and then complain about echochambers or safe spaces.

Hands

I was saying Boo-urns

Age 32
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Seen December 15th, 2022
Posted November 23rd, 2022
1,863 posts
6.8 Years
She criticised books and tv shows before ever touching games and I never heard an outcry that it was a waste of time, mostly because fans of those mediums are less outraged
I think its more because Anita deliberately misrepresents content, steals from other Youtubers, lies a lot and essentially used a legitimate platform to financially benefit herself at the expense of people who genuinely care about the issues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afgtd8ZsXzI

Anita has constantly claimed to have loved games as a kid, which was a very clear lie. She preyed on the experiences of women worldwide who had always loved games and had/still do feel marginalised and objectified by the industry.

Anita's base platform is legitimate, its her and her content that is not.
Male
Seen June 21st, 2018
Posted March 18th, 2018
322 posts
11.4 Years
I think its more because Anita deliberately misrepresents content, steals from other Youtubers, lies a lot and essentially used a legitimate platform to financially benefit herself at the expense of people who genuinely care about the issues.

Anita's base platform is legitimate, its her and her content that is not.
Yeah, that's the biggest issue with her content- she's not particularly informed about most games she covers and in doing so grabs mainstream low hanging fruit (i.e princess peach being captured by bowser so often) this leads to her being very wrong, very often and cherrypicking issues where there usually are very few (To use princess peach again, ignoring how the character blossomed into a powerful woman of her own right in things like her own game[s], smash bros and most modern story filled mario games) instead of going after root causes or bigger issues.

I would classify her as more of a commercial shark looking for a quick buck/fame more than someone who genuinely cares about what she's doing or someone who's doing something to address genuine issues.

To bring this back to the actual topic- her predatory style of doing things gaining popularity as it has could be construed as """too soft""" but is just another example of extremism scapegoating within this kind of "liberalism/progressiveness = soft" debate

Raestro

Female
Seen September 16th, 2018
Posted September 16th, 2018
154 posts
6.9 Years
I think its more because Anita deliberately misrepresents content, steals from other Youtubers, lies a lot and essentially used a legitimate platform to financially benefit herself at the expense of people who genuinely care about the issues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afgtd8ZsXzI

Anita has constantly claimed to have loved games as a kid, which was a very clear lie. She preyed on the experiences of women worldwide who had always loved games and had/still do feel marginalised and objectified by the industry.

Anita's base platform is legitimate, its her and her content that is not.
Actually most of that is wrong and severely exaggerated. "Steals from youtubers" is really stretching it. Considering that gameplay content such as LP's are a grey area in terms of copyright. She is a critic as I said and can use footage in her videos if they're for educational purposes under fair use. The company that owns the game has far more of a claim than a Lets Player ever has (at least currently) so could she have given credit? Absolutely it's just good youtube etiquette, is she required too and does this make her a thief? Absolutely NOT. It's an exaggeration to make her appear untrustworthy and ruin her image rather than focusing on her arguments. Character assassination essentially.

I'd like if you elaborated on what some of her lies would be?

Hmm "used a legitimate platform to financially benefit herself at the expense of people who genuinely care about the issues." You mean kickstarter? Cause none of her backers seem to have issues with her, just those who already don't like her and wouldn't support her anyway. Regardless she posts her annual financial reports if you'd like to see the most recent she really has nothing to hide, she's a registered non-profit as says on her site (and you can look up the actual registration if you so wish)

Feminist Frequency is a 501(c)3 non profit! All our videos are available to everyone for free without any pesky advertising.
Which further proves my point that her videos she's not even profiting from "stolen footage"

Anita HAS always played games. I've kept up with her since she came about pretty much, before this GamerGate shenanigans started. However Anita grew up playing Nintendo games (fancy that) and come on, we all know Nintendo is mostly a family friendly gaming company, she was never into Halo or bloody shooters, in that clip she was talking about vidding, she was explaining (as you can hear her say she doesn't like "shooting people and ripping off their heads, it's gross") that she doesn't like pretty much most of gaming because of the violence. Here is the full video her part you want is about 10:20 but it's cool to watch the whole thing.

The context is that Anita is presenting a remix video she made for video games but stating she's not actually part of that vidding fandom. It's more apparent in the full quote (and the context of the talk) where Anita stops herself and rephrases to the more infamous short version: "So it's not exactly a fandom- I'm not a fan of video games." It's obvious Sarkeesian doesn't hate video games as she further states: "And also video games, like, I would love to play video games but I don't want to go around shooting people and ripping off their heads and it's just gross. So- hence this is my response to that. I really struggled with this because one of the issues I found in video games is that when there are women present they're overly sexualized and they act just like the men. Tomb Raider is a great example of that where they've very busty and they're shooting up and being just as violent. There are no other forms of conflict resolution in most of these games."

Yeah there are a LOT of video games out there so someone who pretty much stuck to Nintendo is regardless going to have to learn a lot about the different games and genres. Hell we're ALL still learning about games. That doesn't mean she never was a gamer and isn't a gamer now, people take breaks or stop liking games so much. Here is an image from her childhood of her playing a SNES and I doubt she can time travel just to make this up, and here is her game collection now

She also plays many other games, like board, tabletop and arcade games, something that a lot of other "gamers" don't do. Also in 2010 she attended the first ever Canadian Video Game Awards, strange thing for someone to do who isn't a fan of games, she noticed many sexist trends and spoke about it in her blog post, 2 years later she launched her kickstarter, and people think she did it all for money? When we clearly have and example of speaking out against sexist way back in 2010. People might not like her for one dumb reason or another but she definitely believes what she says and in every video, she links to a transcript and sources, no one ever checks her video description though cause they always say she has no sources, they just never looked.

If people just argued her points instead of trying to defame her (cause they have no legit points) then maybe we'd get somewhere, but they don't.

Yeah, that's the biggest issue with her content- she's not particularly informed about most games she covers and in doing so grabs mainstream low hanging fruit (i.e princess peach being captured by bowser so often) this leads to her being very wrong, very often and cherrypicking issues where there usually are very few (To use princess peach again, ignoring how the character blossomed into a powerful woman of her own right in things like her own game[s], smash bros and most modern story filled mario games) instead of going after root causes or bigger issues.

I would classify her as more of a commercial shark looking for a quick buck/fame more than someone who genuinely cares about what she's doing or someone who's doing something to address genuine issues.
I urge you as well to read what I wrote. Also on the issue of her "cherrypicking" she's talking about tropes, context does not justify the trope so cherrypicking is perfectly fine
Male
Seen June 21st, 2018
Posted March 18th, 2018
322 posts
11.4 Years
Trying to spoiler this tangent to not clog up the thread

Spoiler:
Actually most of that is wrong and severely exaggerated. "Steals from youtubers" is really stretching it. Considering that gameplay content such as LP's are a grey area in terms of copyright. She is a critic as I said and can use footage in her videos if they're for educational purposes under fair use. The company that owns the game has far more of a claim than a Lets Player ever has (at least currently) so could she have given credit? Absolutely it's just good youtube etiquette, is she required too and does this make her a thief? Absolutely NOT. It's an exaggeration to make her appear untrustworthy and ruin her image rather than focusing on her arguments. Character assassination essentially.
Youtube lets play is hardly a grey area under current guidelines but alright, "stolen" video content is probably an exaggeration because it is transformative in that she uses it as a backdrop for her videos but even then, not asking permission before yanking footage from people isn't a particularly endearing thing to do and pretty poor reflection of herself.
Aside from that she's stolen artwork more than once (Once or more as thumbnail art for her videos and she stole a peice of artwork to use in her kickstarter logo) which is legitimate theft of real property and sort of compounds on the negative image made by the footage usage.

I don't particularly understand why you're so up in arms though, this isn't an argument against her on any merits with a basis on sexism as you see a lot, these are legitimate gripes against her actions

I'd like if you elaborated on what some of her lies would be?

I urge you as well to read what I wrote. Also on the issue of her "cherrypicking" she's talking about tropes, context does not justify the trope so cherrypicking is perfectly fine
Lies is harsh but she does use a lot of information that's... false? As in, one famous thing she's sad is a long anecdote about how you're capable of killing a stripper in a hitman game and using her corpse as a distraction for police to get into an area. The thing about that being that it's just a combination of behaviors in a sandbox game- the game does not give you the direct option of doing that, rather it's a result of: corpses (regardless of who's corpse) distract police officer npcs, there are stipper NPCs on the map, you are capable of killing any NPC you encounter, one option to complete a mission is to enter the location guarded by the police with/without killing npcs?

It's the same as if you were to kill a female npc in skyrim and throw the corpse off a cliff? It's possible to do that in the game as a result of a long string of cause and effect without that being entirely intended and purely as a result of player choice to go off an do something they could do to any character using any string of actions.

Context ABSOLUTELY does matter with tropes, tropes are a familiar set of circumstances in any given media and the context around them (especially when things are subverted) matters a lot about that particular piece of representation. Every possible personality for a character and event/action in a narrative is a separate trope. A video game about a princess rescuing herself after being captured and a video game about saving a princess who's been captured both use the same trope and share many other tropes about princess saving but are VASTLY different in context and meaning,

Hmm "used a legitimate platform to financially benefit herself at the expense of people who genuinely care about the issues." You mean kickstarter? Cause none of her backers seem to have issues with her, just those who already don't like her and wouldn't support her anyway. Regardless she posts her annual financial reports if you'd like to see the most recent she really has nothing to hide, she's a registered non-profit as says on her site (and you can look up the actual registration if you so wish)
She earned a significant amount more than she expected and underdelivered by a large amount of time on her promised videos with as far as i'm aware not all of them still out yet 3(+?) years on due to expanding her scope, which in itself isn't a huge problem as that sort of thing happens all the time but it's still a little iffy that she's expanded her vision for 10-20 minute short videos on tropes in video games into hour-y long productions now and the idea they don't contain any kind of padding/suffer from the tripling in length seems a little far fetched. As for finances, $69 925 (~50%) of the kickstarter money she obtained has gone into salary for her and her team with presumably any more money obtained in the meantime being split the same way. She has DEFINITELY profited from her kickstarter though if it's to an undue extent vs the effort she puts into her videos or not isn't really for me to decide.


Anita HAS always played games. I've kept up with her since she came about pretty much, before this GamerGate shenanigans started. However Anita grew up playing Nintendo games (fancy that) and come on, we all know Nintendo is mostly a family friendly gaming company, she was never into Halo or bloody shooters, in that clip she was talking about vidding, she was explaining (as you can hear her say she doesn't like "shooting people and ripping off their heads, it's gross") that she doesn't like pretty much most of gaming because of the violence. Here is the full video her part you want is about 10:20 but it's cool to watch the whole thing.
A lot of things she tends to cover does fall under that umbrella of games she claims she hasn't played and doesn't enjoy, though? To be fair that sort of thing is most indulgent in more casual sexism and the issues from that but to claim that just because she's played nintendo as a child means she plays all the games she has claimed she detests and uses other people's footage for to make her points is not particularly honest? That is an overblown issue though as it's not something hard to see someone in her position overcoming, even though a lot of criticisms levelled at games under that umbrella tends to look like they're based entirely on synopsis that she/her writers have read.

Tomb Raider is a great example of that where they've very busty and they're shooting up and being just as violent. There are no other forms of conflict resolution in most of these games."
I wanted to take this part out in particular because it's.. weird? Tomb raider was busty, in fact the female protagonist night on invented the concept of large breasts in video games, but as far as i'm aware they're actually examples of good representations of women, Lara Croft is more or less a female indiana jones who is a very capable and powerful female character who is, usually, not at all sexualized. The large controversy surrounding some sexist-ish comments from a developer about the reboot series serves this point enough not to elaborate on.

And i mean, really, there are examples of non-violent conflict resolution within that specific series if you looked it up but is it really necessary to? The point being made is that a shooter about tomb raiding starring a capable woman who's trying to steal/nab macguffins she wants should have some form of gameplay non-violence feature, it seems really... weird?

she noticed many sexist trends and spoke about it in her blog post, 2 years later she launched her kickstarter, and people think she did it all for money? When we clearly have and example of speaking out against sexist way back in 2010. People might not like her for one dumb reason or another but she definitely believes what she says and in every video, she links to a transcript and sources, no one ever checks her video description though cause they always say she has no sources, they just never looked.
She is a "notable feminist" and was before she began her kickstarter (as far as im aware that's why her kickstarter was so successful- because she was already a public person). Maybe she does believe what she's saying- that doesn't really excuse it being wrong or laser focused on things without context or being too caught up in really basic low hanging fruit (Semi-reguarly non)issues rather than trying to tackle legitimate actual problems within the video game industry and the mindset behind those issues.

How often princess peach gets saved from bowser (ignoring the context behind that complicated relationship, the times she saves herself and all her relevance in plotlines outside of the intial kidnapping in a lot of games) isn't really something that is that relevant in the face of, say, encouraging games with good female leads or pointing out common flaws in female characters (Or even the common mistakes people make when trying to create empowered women as characters and end up making them just as bad or bland as a busty personality less sidekick or demonizing femininity while trying to artificially pump up a female character as relevant and good representation)

[QUOTE=Raestro;9364607]If people just argued her points instead of trying to defame her (cause they have no legit points) then maybe we'd get somewhere, but they don't.

I feel as though in this thread that's all people have tried to do with this little tangent but you are right that she has vocal opposition that's firmly dudebro whining that she's a woman making a show pointing out sexism in video games rather than discussion on why she seems to be barking up the wrong tree too much with what she talks about

Raestro

Female
Seen September 16th, 2018
Posted September 16th, 2018
154 posts
6.9 Years
It's unfortunate that the convo has to be so long, just makes it easier to get convoluted :/

Spoiler:

Aside from that she's stolen artwork more than once (Once or more as thumbnail art for her videos and she stole a peice of artwork to use in her kickstarter logo) which is legitimate theft of real property and sort of compounds on the negative image made by the footage usage.
I know what you're talking about as far as her kickstarter logo and she made a post about it, she found it on a forum IIRC without a signature or credit, she believed it to be official art because it was that good, although she could have continued to use it under fair use, she changed it as a sign of good will. The author though, I find it funny how offended she was at not being credited and yet she made "fan art" of a copyrighted character. Again though, no "legitimate theft" let alone of "real property" as the character did not belong to the author. This is the first time I'm hearing that she stole thumbnail art though? Her thumbnails are custom

I don't particularly understand why you're so up in arms though, this isn't an argument against her on any merits with a basis on sexism as you see a lot, these are legitimate gripes against her actions
I'm not "up in arms" I'm just trying to dismiss some myths and false information being spread, these gripes while from your perspective might seem legit, are actually false.


Lies is harsh but she does use a lot of information that's... false? As in, one famous thing she's sad is a long anecdote about how you're capable of killing a stripper in a hitman game and using her corpse as a distraction for police to get into an area. The thing about that being that it's just a combination of behaviors in a sandbox game- the game does not give you the direct option of doing that, rather it's a result of: corpses (regardless of who's corpse) distract police officer npcs, there are stipper NPCs on the map, you are capable of killing any NPC you encounter, one option to complete a mission is to enter the location guarded by the police with/without killing npcs?
She clarifies this http://videos.theconference.se/anita-sarkeesian-hate-and-heroism 10:40

It's the same as if you were to kill a female npc in skyrim and throw the corpse off a cliff? It's possible to do that in the game as a result of a long string of cause and effect without that being entirely intended and purely as a result of player choice to go off an do something they could do to any character using any string of actions.
NPC's in Skyrim are clothed unless you remove their clothes in which you can do the same with men and women in skyrim, in Hitman, only the women are in lingerie, obviously cause it's a strip club but only because that's what the devs wanted, the devs created this entire situation. That's the issue. And let's not even go into the Hitman bonus WoW challenge where you can snipe certain items and then get a stripper to dance in front of a window before shooting her.

Context ABSOLUTELY does matter with tropes, tropes are a familiar set of circumstances in any given media and the context around them (especially when things are subverted) matters a lot about that particular piece of representation. Every possible personality for a character and event/action in a narrative is a separate trope. A video game about a princess rescuing herself after being captured and a video game about saving a princess who's been captured both use the same trope and share many other tropes about princess saving but are VASTLY different in context and meaning,
These are tropes - they're fragments of a whole. By definition they don't make up the entirety of a work of art by themselves, but are instead definable cultural touchstones which artists, writers, developers etc, can use when creating a fictional reality. In other words, Anita Sarkeesian only presents sections of games as sexist because she's only talking about the sexist bits of games, and how, of the tropes developers choose to put in their games when designing for female characters, they frequently fall back on sexist ones. Seriously, she couldn't be clearer about this - in the introduction to the very first video she says: "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." and indeed she says that at the start of every video but it just doesn't get through to some people I guess.

Countless unconscious and conscious compromises get made as a game is developed - just like a film - and it's easy to miss that, sometimes, the sum effect of those decisions can be that Assassin's Creed 2 ends up with a sequence where sex workers get their throats slit as a way of marking checkpoints. Pointing out how messed up this is isn't tangential to experiencing games as art, it's necessary.

She earned a significant amount more than she expected and underdelivered by a large amount of time on her promised videos with as far as i'm aware not all of them still out yet 3(+?) years on due to expanding her scope, which in itself isn't a huge problem as that sort of thing happens all the time but it's still a little iffy that she's expanded her vision for 10-20 minute short videos on tropes in video games into hour-y long productions now and the idea they don't contain any kind of padding/suffer from the tripling in length seems a little far fetched. As for finances, $69 925 (~50%) of the kickstarter money she obtained has gone into salary for her and her team with presumably any more money obtained in the meantime being split the same way. She has DEFINITELY profited from her kickstarter though if it's to an undue extent vs the effort she puts into her videos or not isn't really for me to decide.
Her project was overfunded, overfunded projects face longer delays http://www.gottabemobile.com/2012/07/17/only-25-of-kickstarter-projects-ship-on-time/ also upon seeing this, she changed the format of the videos, instead of short ones covering a few topics, she's taking the time to make longer ones with more research and slightly different subjects, this was all posted on her kickstarted page in the updates but guess I'm the only one that reads that stuff. Also she never expected to get as large as she is now, she's doing public talks and going to events which I'm sure takes up more of her time from doing videos but the backers aren't complaining so why are others who don't even have an investment? On the opposite side people like Sargon and Thunderf00t make a killing off their patreons for making videos ranting about her, Thunderf00t was losing subs actually till he made an Anita video and almost single handedly revived his channel (you can check the dates and stats if you don't believe me) and since then he can't shut up about her.

A lot of things she tends to cover does fall under that umbrella of games she claims she hasn't played and doesn't enjoy, though? To be fair that sort of thing is most indulgent in more casual sexism and the issues from that but to claim that just because she's played nintendo as a child means she plays all the games she has claimed she detests and uses other people's footage for to make her points is not particularly honest? That is an overblown issue though as it's not something hard to see someone in her position overcoming, even though a lot of criticisms levelled at games under that umbrella tends to look like they're based entirely on synopsis that she/her writers have read.
That clip was from 2010, she didn't start her kickstarter till 2012, she has had time to change and expand her views, this is a normal thing people do, she didn't play all the games she detests, well not back then. She grew up with Nintendo and then once she decided she wanted to do sexism in video games, she got more into gaming as a whole.

I wanted to take this part out in particular because it's.. weird? Tomb raider was busty, in fact the female protagonist night on invented the concept of large breasts in video games, but as far as i'm aware they're actually examples of good representations of women, Lara Croft is more or less a female indiana jones who is a very capable and powerful female character who is, usually, not at all sexualized. The large controversy surrounding some sexist-ish comments from a developer about the reboot series serves this point enough not to elaborate on. And i mean, really, there are examples of non-violent conflict resolution within that specific series if you looked it up but is it really necessary to? The point being made is that a shooter about tomb raiding starring a capable woman who's trying to steal/nab macguffins she wants should have some form of gameplay non-violence feature, it seems really... weird?
Tomb Raider was made for male gamers, not to appeal to female gamers, she is not a very good example of a "powerful/capable woman" most men would see that, but the point is basically that, a guy with breasts, a female indiana jones, made to appeal to male gamers. Her reboot was fantastic imo, made her much more relatable as a person and not just all guns and breasts. She's what would be called a mary sue. http://herocomplex.latimes.com/games/tomb-raider-lara-croft-now-battling-video-game-stereotypes/#/0

She is a "notable feminist" and was before she began her kickstarter (as far as im aware that's why her kickstarter was so successful- because she was already a public person). Maybe she does believe what she's saying- that doesn't really excuse it being wrong or laser focused on things without context or being too caught up in really basic low hanging fruit (Semi-reguarly non)issues rather than trying to tackle legitimate actual problems within the video game industry and the mindset behind those issues.
Except that IS what she's trying to do and no, she became a "notable feminist" because of the backlash of hate which garnered her attention, more people became aware of her as people started ranting, they found her and she got overfunded that way, so yeah all the people that hate her so much and rant about her, it's their fault she's at where she is ironically.

How often princess peach gets saved from bowser (ignoring the context behind that complicated relationship, the times she saves herself and all her relevance in plotlines outside of the intial kidnapping in a lot of games) isn't really something that is that relevant in the face of, say, encouraging games with good female leads or pointing out common flaws in female characters (Or even the common mistakes people make when trying to create empowered women as characters and end up making them just as bad or bland as a busty personality less sidekick or demonizing femininity while trying to artificially pump up a female character as relevant and good representation)
She makes positive female figures in games videos. Peach is an object to save, you can replace her with treasure, all it is is a reason for the protag to go through the game. Peach in spin off games is hardly a good counter-argument to her damsel trope.

I feel as though in this thread that's all people have tried to do with this little tangent but you are right that she has vocal opposition that's firmly dudebro whining that she's a woman making a show pointing out sexism in video games rather than discussion on why she seems to be barking up the wrong tree too much with what she talks about
Just want to point out how crazy it is that people misunderstand her, either on purpose or unintentionally so much so that she has had to remove all humor from her more recent videos because people mistake it for ignorance or take it out of context. I understand her completely, I'm not sure why it's so difficult for others, like I feel these people just hold gaming far too close to their personal selves and I'm more laid back when it comes to criticism of something I like, if it's valid, sure go for it, if I don't understand the criticism (even if I think I do) I try to further understand and get a better view of it, if it's just blatantly false like these myths, I feel the need to point them out in a constructive manner.
Age 26
he/him/his
Seen February 17th, 2021
Posted December 1st, 2020
82 posts
6.9 Years
I'm not sure what the original argument was (it seems like this whole thread is a reply to some other argument), but I'd like to chime in with my own opinion as someone who is probably about as left wing as it can get.

Anita Sarkeesian is an idiot.

She takes the noble goals of feminism and butchers them, using the label of "sexist" and slapping it on things that aren't even close to sexist. She misrepresents video games to push an agenda that is incredibly misguided. I understand and agree that there is sexism in gaming culture (just watch what happens when a woman goes on Xbox live), but blaming video games themselves and pointing out things as sexism (when they aren't sexist) is simply not the way of going about things. One of the best examples of this is when she blasted Hitman for being sexist for forcing you to kill hookers, even though the game actively docks you points for doing so (not to mention the whole point of the game is to leave bystanders alive and pursue your target, thus the name "Hitman").

She has also said extremely offensive things such as implying that classrooms should segregate students by gender and race, things which go against the entire ideology of the left.

She is not a mainstream feminist and the more people treat her as one, the more feminism is besmirched by her and people like her. She is more in line with what Kyle Kulinski calls "McFeminism". She reminds me of the idiots who claim that the only reason that Bernie supporters like myself hated Hillary Clinton for being corrupt, too in favor of wars, and overall too right wing, is that she is a woman.

The idea that somehow she is a representative of feminism is one that I dearly wish hadn't picked up among many feminists. Her papers are peppered full of radical feminist rhetoric, and the idea that now, when women in America are still in many ways treated as being lesser to men, one of the biggest feminist issues is perceived as the way women are represented in video games, is a very troubling one. It is one that creates a dichotomy where sexism is called on things that are often not really sexist, and thus when sexism is called on real sexism nobody listens. It's like the boy who cried wolf. That so many feminists can champion Anita when there is so much work to be done on the fronts of wages, public perception, and racial issues is quite sad and it does nothing but hurts the movement.

It's also garbage like that which Anita spews that I feel has led to some of the false narratives of "Bernie bros" that the media pushed during the Democratic primary, which further to not only trivialize the concept of sexism, but also alienate true progressives and leftists from the feminist movement. When this "McFeminism" attacks Bernie supporters, which is about as progressive a group as possible, it does nothing but lose support for the cause.

Shamol

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

Age 31
Male
Texas
Seen November 7th, 2021
Posted November 28th, 2016
185 posts
9.8 Years
To clarify, this whole discussion is premised on a comment I made on another thread. My point was this: The content of the complaints of Sarkeesian and co. are valid. Sexual objectification and online harassment are indeed issues we need to work to decrease. Here's the relevant section from my comment referenced in Raestro's first post in this thread:

I mean I doubt many people would think online harassment is something we should celebrate, or even ignore. While few would think there needs to be legal action involved (except in cases of libel, slander or defamation), they do need to be socially stigmatized. No society should promote harassment for the sake of it. Same goes with sexual objectification- its effects are tangible and have been reported (link); it's tied to body image perceptions, and women do suffer from negative body image more so than men (link, other link); and to top it all off- media and advertising have been instrumental in manipulating especially women's body image for their own purpose (link).
With that premise set in place, my qualm was that while sexual objectification and online harassment are things we should work to reduce, putting this much effort to rid these evils from the occasional video game or comment section, and that too in the name of feminism, is a case of misplaced priority. There are more important problems social activists- including feminists- should spend their time solving. Raestro's point is directed against this later concern that I have.

The rest of the thread seems to have become involved with the merits of Sarkeesian and co's entire movement in general.

[EDIT: Nice to see another Kyle Kulinski fan!]
"Perseverence in science needs to be tempered by flexibility."

-Haig Kazazian, in Mobile DNA: Finding Treasures in Junk

CoffeeDrink

GET WHILE THE GETTIN'S GOOD

Male
Lootin' Your Poké's
Seen December 4th, 2016
Posted December 4th, 2016
1,250 posts
9.7 Years
I think once you complain to the UN, an organization set up to battle starvation, wars, droughts, civil unrest, bankruptcy, provide clothing, food, and water relief, disaster relief and numerous other issues and say "harassment on the internet is a big issue" you lose any and all credibility. Not only is she damning an entire medium, she represents us, the United States. She went to the UN under the guise of promoting a "safe space" but winds up Damaging our image in the minds of the rest of the world.

"Hm. Well, if the Americans are well off enough to complain about the Internet, then I suppose they are in tip top shape."

She is a disgrace as a woman, and I am ashamed she's an American.