It is rather sad that people think Feminism is silly.
I dunno, I think that name has been irreparably damaged by overly enthusiastic crusades and people like Anita. But this very thread is proof that we haven't quite gotten rid of sexism yet. We should leave that title to the extremists and come up with a new name. It doesn't really make sense to call it feminism if it's about equality for both genders anyway.
Guest_TheDarkKnightReturns_*
Why is there so much hostility towards the very concept of feminism and games?
Because feminism as we know it isn't an egalitarian ideology contrary to popular propaganda?
That makes me more disgusted to be associated with other gamers than indignant about a person "crying" about rape and death threats.
Being a gamer does not mean you support those things, and when people just automatically assume it does I get pissed off.
Being atheist doesn't mean you don't believe in morality
Being Christian doesn't mean you support child molestation
Being a gamer doesn't mean you support rape and murder
We try to connect one label with other ones in order to give it more weight. Even if the majority of people in one group are decent people, we all end up getting sorted into one label which someone is going to feel offended and disgusted by.
1.What makes video games ecempt? Why can't there be a discussion about how video games depict women?
2.Extra credits did an episode that referenced a game which was a racists wet dream, the whole point of the game was to go around killing black people. Should video games be exempt from discussions of racism? Should games be allowed to further racist belief?
3.Why is sexism perfectly acceptable in a video game but not in the real world?
Because I honestly don't see it.
Take one of these Japanese games I played a while ago for example: Neptunia Rebirth 1
In the game I can only play as females and every male character is either a perv, evil or a mook that is waiting to get killed. So does that mean I should start my own series on how I think everyone who plays a game like that is going to want to kill men and how killing men is nothing more than a power trip for women?
1. There can be a discussion but the thing is, there a lot of video games. Not every video game is supposed to cater to everyone. And look there are already developers who make their games more inclusive (BW).
2. First of all I want to say that I don't know who Extra Credits is. That being said, it's a video game isn't it? If someone plays a video game killing black people I don't see a problem. As long as they don't do it in real life. And when a video game crosses the line it will simply not be made.
3. Because video games are fiction? Like I said before, there are a lot of video games. And there are a lot more important real life problems in this world than feminism in video games.
Why? Are we somehow responsible for the actions of all degenerates within said community?
Unfortunately, it's easy to group people together like that if they play games.
Once you call it a community, then yeah. Even if it's a very loose one.
I'm not even sure I want to use that word myself, but whatever. As I stated in another thread, once you're loosely associated with someone like that, it's a bit like having an idiotic uncle. You don't want them to make you look stupid (unless you happen to be just as stupid yourself).
Like so (which is how the whole #notyourshield tag got started).
It's just a very overall sticky poop flinging situation where any and all neutral discussions are getting overwhelmed and are difficult to find. Some say you don't need to look at the context as to why the situations she's criticizing don't need to be looked at, whereas I think the context is pretty important, and shouldn't be skimped over. Not that I don't agree that a lot of these tropes are becoming old, but it's going to also be a learning experience for writers and developers to try and write something new-ish or not as overused.
This is basically what Anita's argument turns into:
"Agree with me or you support rape, violence and murder"
Except I didn't say agree with Anita. I didn't even imply people need to agree with her. I am talking about the behaviour towards her.
You cut out the enitre meat of my post which was specifically talking about death threats and rapre threats to anita.
The fact the most people don't care is yet another point for Anita's position. Gamers should care when ANY Gamer make a threat of rape of violence. That goes out sidethe realm of a "troll." Threats of violence, rape amd murder should make the community angry. The community should care, it doesn't matter if you agree with her or not you should care when she is threaten.
Or do you think it is perfectly acceptable for people to be threaten with rape, violence and murder?
Why is it acceptable for people to threaten Anita with rape and violence? Asking this question is NOT saying agree with her or you support rape of murder. It is aying why is it okay for so many in the gamer community to ignore this kind of behaviour just because the target is someone with an opinion you disagree with?
Why is it acceptable for people to threaten Anita with rape and violence? Asking this question is NOT saying agree with her or you support rape of murder. It is aying why is it okay for so many in the gamer community to ignore this kind of behaviour just because the target is someone with an opinion you disagree with?
What would you have us do then? We don't even know who these people are that did those things.
I dunno, I think that name has been irreparably damaged by overly enthusiastic crusades and people like Anita. But this very thread is proof that we haven't quite gotten rid of sexism yet. We should leave that title to the extremists and come up with a new name. It doesn't really make sense to call it feminism if it's about equality for both genders anyway.
There's already quite a few people who try to do that. Can't seem to agree on a name though so you end up with almost as many branches as there are with feminism, equalism seems to broad of a term for some people as well.
Course these also those who don't want to abandon the term to radicals at all.
Guest_Puddi III_*
Being a gamer does not mean you support those things, and when people just automatically assume it does I get pissed off.
Being atheist doesn't mean you don't believe in morality
Being Christian doesn't mean you support child molestation
Being a gamer doesn't mean you support rape and murder
We try to connect one label with other ones in order to give it more weight. Even if the majority of people in one group are decent people, we all end up getting sorted into one label which someone is going to feel offended and disgusted by.
And being a Tea Partier doesn't mean you think Obama isn't an American citizen and all that other horseshit. But how virulent that strain of thought is within the group still taints it and the people associated with it despite individuals like yourself who protest their innocence to such labeling.
I am loathe to consider myself a gamer even as someone who plays games. Gamer culture is still if not misogynistic, at the very least petty and infantile. (but it's misogynistic too, don't worry) You're right, developers get death threats for making bad endings to video games too. That's ****** stupid too. That doesn't somehow 'normalize' the death threats against women.
If one day I happened to go insane and agree with a Tea Party position, I sure as hell wouldn't call myself a Tea Partier either. I would be someone who went insane and got it in my head that the government can run like it's the 19th century in the 21st century.
And being a Tea Partier doesn't mean you think Obama isn't an American citizen and all that other horseshit. But how virulent that strain of thought is within the group still taints it and the people associated with it despite individuals like yourself who protest their innocence to such labeling.
I am loathe to consider myself a gamer even as someone who plays games. Gamer culture is still if not misogynistic, at the very least petty and infantile. (but it's misogynistic too, don't worry) You're right, developers get death threats for making bad endings to video games too. That's ****** stupid too. That doesn't somehow 'normalize' the death threats against women.
If one day I happened to go insane and agree with a Tea Party position, I sure as hell wouldn't call myself a Tea Partier either. I would be someone who went insane and got it in my head that the government can run like it's the 19th century in the 21st century.
Find me any label and I'll tell you why you should be ashamed to be called that because of how it can connect to other negative labels.
Gamer = people who play games. Plain and simple.
What your saying is an issue with labels in general. Where people start connecting other labels with ones it does not belong due to personal views.
She examines the plot devices and patterns most often associated with female characters. She never says the examination of plot devices and patterns most often not associated with female characters is a goal or priority.
She believes the status quo is up to crap and shows us why. And frankly I’m inclined to believe her for the most part. Confirmation bias is a cop-out. She not denying the existence of strong women in games, or well produced representations, what she is doing is exclusively detailing the negative. That is her goal. Tropes Versus Women, analyse those words, specifically the middle one. Just because she doesn’t praise the good it does not mean she is ignorant of it. A bit of research and you’ll discover the opposite is true. She often references Mirror’s Edge and Portal in a positive light.
Is confirmation bias really a cop-out? That seems a perfectly accurate summation of what is being described.
This isn't because I think that women in games are treated completely fine (I don't necessarily think that), but if we're going to talk about how women are "most often" seen in games, by ignoring the opposite scenario, we ignore the possibility that Anita is employing anecdotal evidence.
As a counter-example, say I wanted to make a video showing how men are most often depicted in games. Say I found maybe a hundred depictions of gay men and subsequently claim that men in games are typically depicted as homosexual. But by ignoring the plethora of obviously straight male characters in gaming, I can falsely create the impression that most characters are x when they are really y. Again, that's not to say women have an overall great portrayal in games, but ignoring counter-examples in such a fashion would demonstrate confirmation bias.
It's not a question of how many negative portrayals of women exist in gaming, but how many negative portrayals exist vs. positive portrayals that becomes important.
Regarding her focus on tropes, I think it's dangerous to completely ignore context. I could take Kill Bill and show only the scenes of the bride getting her ass kicked by Bud or shot by Bill and claim it demonstrates violence against women, but in doing so I'd be ignoring maybe the other 98% of the movie which depicts the Bride kicking ass, both men and women.
Guest_Puddi III_*
Find me any label and I'll tell you why you should be ashamed to be called that because of how it can connect to other negative labels.
Oversimplified. The shame is in proportion to the virulence of the belief, the degree of permissiveness toward those harboring it, and many other factors that shape the overall perception of that label. Right now, gamers are not looking so good.
No, atheists have nothing to be ashamed of. (unless they associate too much with tumblr/youtube 'celebrity' atheists, then they get obnoxious)
Christians, that's not really a thing outside of the priesthood, for which the pope himself has had to account for the perceived pervasiveness of that sickness. But normal Christians, no.
Tea Partiers, **** yeah they should be ashamed, they're a goddamn joke.
It depends on the label.
Except I didn't say agree with Anita. I didn't even imply people need to agree with her. I am talking about the behaviour towards her.
You cut out the enitre meat of my post which was specifically talking about death threats and rapre threats to anita.
Why is it acceptable for people to threaten Anita with rape and violence? Asking this question is NOT saying agree with her or you support rape of murder. It is aying why is it okay for so many in the gamer community to ignore this kind of behaviour just because the target is someone with an opinion you disagree with?
It's Not acceptable. And that has NOTHIGN to do with being a gamer. Those things are wrong on their own regardless of the gamer label.
Except I didn't say agree with Anita. I didn't even imply people need to agree with her. I am talking about the behaviour towards her.
Is confirmation bias really a cop-out? That seems a perfectly accurate summation of what is being described.
This isn't because I think that women in games are treated completely fine (I don't necessarily think that), but if we're going to talk about how women are "most often" seen in games, by ignoring the opposite scenario, we ignore the possibility that Anita is employing anecdotal evidence.
Oversimplified. The shame is in proportion to the virulence of the belief, the degree of permissiveness toward those harboring it, and many other factors that shape the overall perception of that label. Right now, gamers are not looking so good.
No, atheists have nothing to be ashamed of. (unless they associate too much with tumblr/youtube 'celebrity' atheists, then they get obnoxious)
Christians, that's not really a thing outside of the priesthood, for which the pope himself has had to account for the perceived pervasiveness of that sickness. But normal Christians, no.
Tea Partiers, **** yeah they should be ashamed, they're a goddamn joke.
It depends on the label.
So society's perception of that label is what determines it then? Because it was not that long ago that I remember people freaking out about how atheists were attacking the christian ways of life.
If I didn't believe in god during WW2 does that mean I supported what Stalin did? Would I have had to have been ashamed of the label atheist back then?
Is anyone actually doing the work for that? All I've seen in response to the anecdotal evidence is different anecdotes. (Well, hysterical whining too, but you gotta expect some of that.)
Probably not. I don't really think anyone wants to take the time/effort for such an account. 
But in the reverse sense, that's also true. All of Anita's evidence isn't suddenly nullified by me (or anyone) saying "Well, look at all the positive portrayals of Morrigan and Anora in DA:O". It's just a question of where most of the weight lies.
Is confirmation bias really a cop-out? That seems a perfectly accurate summation of what is being described.
This isn't because I think that women in games are treated completely fine (I don't necessarily think that), but if we're going to talk about how women are "most often" seen in games, by ignoring the opposite scenario, we ignore the possibility that Anita is employing anecdotal evidence.
As a counter-example, say I wanted to make a video showing how men are most often depicted in games. Say I found maybe a hundred depictions of gay men and subsequently claim that men in games are typically depicted as homosexual. But by ignoring the plethora of obviously straight male characters in gaming, I can falsely create the impression that most characters are x when they are really y. Again, that's not to say women have an overall great portrayal in games, but ignoring counter-examples in such a fashion would demonstrate confirmation bias.
It's not a question of how many negative portrayals of women exist in gaming, but how many negative portrayals exist vs. positive portrayals that becomes important.
Regarding her focus on tropes, I think it's dangerous to completely ignore context. I could take Kill Bill and show only the scenes of the bride getting her ass kicked by Bud or shot by Bill and claim it demonstrates violence against women, but in doing so I'd be ignoring maybe the other 98% of the movie which depicts the Bride kicking ass, both men and women.
Could you possibly find 100 examples of gay men in video games? I think that would be exceedingly difficult.
And that's the point: the fact that she can find so many examples to illustrate her points means that maybe she has a solid argument. You might disagree with that argument, you might have many examples that illustrate the opposite, but 100 examples is sure a lot.
What would you have us do then? We don't even know who these people are that did those things.
Even if the person was someone I cared about what could I do about it?
Bah. Most of Anitas complaints are just nitpicking or seeing problems where there isn't any.
She speaks as if all of those tropes are bad or wrong.
Bad guy kicks a woman as a way to establish his badness? How is that different from bad guy kicking a puppy or another man?
Women as a background character? How is that different from men as a background character?
Bah.
And all that noise about "trivializing" stuff from mentioning/showing it or using it as a piece to build narrative.
These tropes are bad. They are bad because they represent the common way that women are portrayed in media. The problem with this response - and what Anita herself fails to convey in her videos - is that these stories are told in a broader social context where women are generally always used in this way.
In the abstract, ignoring absolutely every single piece of context surrounding our media, the contingent fact that the villain assaults a woman instead of a puppy doesn't have any substantive societal meaning.
Except that these games aren't created in a vacuum. They're created as part of a sophisticated entertainment culture that almost always reduces women to these rules. Victim, background, motivation for the male hero.
As for why always reducing women to these things is bad, well, there's a great deal of scholarship on that - both theoretical and empirical.
See, this is the kind of thing that rustles my jimmies. No matter what you do the radical feminist will something to complain about.
So, showing rape as something that only the most henious humans do is wrong? It's trivilizing rape?
What kind of message does she want?
There is no winning. There is no satisfiyng people like that.
Trivializing rape doesn't mean condoning rape. It literally means "make (something) seem less important, significant, or complex than it really is", which is an issue with the CE origin. We don't focus on how the assault affects Shianni. In fact, we don't see any of its brutality, we don't see her dealing with the fallout and the game don't even focus on her experience beyond the impact that it has on the protagonist. It treats Shianni's assault the way it would treat her having been kicknapped and punched, and that trivializes rape, because it just reduces it to a footnote in the game.
No gamer in the gamer culture has any obligation or responsibility for trolls or degenerates.
Gamer culture absolutely has a responsibility for allowing frothing at the mouth lunatics a safe haven without excluding them entirely. Just like you have a responsibility to exclude racists.
^ That's EVERYBODYS responsibility. Not just gamers
In my opinion if we all came together and began asking for better writing in games I think all lot of problems would take care of themselves. Most of the legitimate stuff Anita comments on is generally caused by hack writing not any malicious intent.
I agree, except she dogs on games that aren't even about the writing and everything to her is some cooked-up trope, which undermines a serious critique. You can't just call it a trope and move on, as if that alone condemns the writing.
^ That's EVERYBODYS responsibility to prevent and discourage that mentality. Not just gamers.
That's simplifying it. My 90 year old grandfather doesn't play games. Sure, it's incumbent on him not to tolerate death threats against women, but he's not about to take a stand on an issue he doesn't even know exists. If I mentioned gamergate he'd probably think I got confused about watergate.
But gamers know it exists. That's the difference.
Gamergate is bad.
Guest_Puddi III_*
So society's perception of that label is what determines it then? Because it was not that long ago that I remember people freaking out about how atheists were attacking the christian ways of life.
If I didn't believe in god during WW2 does that mean I supported what Stalin did? Would I have had to have been ashamed of the label atheist back then?
When society's perception can be justified, yes. Neither of those cases qualify. You kinda glossed over the part where I said the beliefs are actually held in the 'gamer' community and made excuses for and allowed to fester. That's not just society's perception.
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