If she were facing an actual review board, or someone of authority, then showing her process might be important. She doesn't owe jackshit to the random fuckwads on the internet calling her a whore for being critical of video games.
As far as I can understand her expectation is that she will be taken seriously and her position and opinion will be treated as valid by general public. But in order to be taken seriously one must defend it's work from critics.
Any work that claims that have valid and scientifically deduced conclusion must be able to withstand scrutiny. Any work that does not claim valid research and background work is not worth anyone's time.
That said, not all critics have valid complaints. Most of them are just laughable as far as I'm concerned. But, never the less, that does not discredit all of them. Valid critics are still valid and deserve to be answered or thesis is to be discarded until new evidence is found.
If she were facing an actual review board, or someone of authority, then showing her process might be important. She doesn't owe jackshit to the random fuckwads on the internet calling her a whore for being critical of video games.
Right. So whenever gamers ask for evidence that VG's cause violence it's perfectly ok for people not to provide it? And I find it quite telling of your stance that you put everyone who asks for evidence in the group of people who used insults such as "whore". I never called her anything alike but i'd still like evidence that the DiD trope reinforces toxic and paternalistic views of women in RL and that when a protagonist is asked to kill the female character because she was possessed it somehow affects violence against women in RL.
Until than those assertions are nothing more than pure speculation and since her issue with these tropes is based on these speculations I can safely say the tropes she addressed are not an issue. At least not in the way she presents it.
Oh, that's because no one of any worth isn't taking her seriously. If you want to be taken seriously by people whose approval you need to get scientific validity you have to follow certain steps. Step number one being to publish your work in peer reviewed journal. Than you are going to get attention of that type of community. People who do social research by the book and by scientific standards don't have time to entertain everyone's ideas, thus they have teams that sort works by validity prior to publishing those they deem worth of attention of academia.
She has chosen to publish hew work in public space. Her choice has certain consequences, one of which is that you will be publicly criticized by just about anyone, and another is that you won't be taken seriously by people who can give her work validity. It's entirely her decision and thus it's entirely her responsibility.
Lets say i claim to be a surgeon. And based on that, i will go on and campaign for all surgeon tools to be chagned to scissors, claiming that i have been a surgeon for a long time and know how the tools work. Then later you find out that im not actually a surgeon. But i would just call out "argumentum ad hominem" and continue claiming i am a surgeon and thus know better.
Lets say i claim to be a surgeon. And based on that, i will go on and campaign for all surgeon tools to be chagned to scissors, claiming that i have been a surgeon for a long time and know how the tools work. Then later you find out that im not actually a surgeon. But i would just call out "argumentum ad hominem" and continue claiming i am a surgeon and thus know better.
Let me start off by saying that was a really good point. I hadn't thought of it that way. That said, what she's arguing isn't that the representations are immediately affecting behavior, but that they're reinforcing negative stereotypes about women, which, after a prolonged period of time, can affect how women are viewed in society. If you only see one portrayal of something since youth, you're unlikely to argue the point, right? It's sociological theory, hard to find conclusive evidence one way or another, but it's a theory based on logical analysis.
The thing though is that I think the impact is overstated. Unless you never go out of your house and actually interact with women I doubt the impact of these tropes is anywhere near significant. Heck even having a woman contradicting the stereotypes inside your household should severely outweigh the image you may get from these games. Usually people don't really take games seriously and base their views on what they see in it. The only scenario i can think of in which this impact would be significant is if the individual has access to no other information. And I doubt there are many people who never interact with women out there and if they don't... will their views have any significant impact on society/people anyway?
She wasn't saying that she doesn't like video games and doesn't want to play them. She's saying in that video that she's frustrated by the amount of games aimed towards something about of the gun-shooty violence games. I am, indeed, tired of all the dude-violence in my games. And it can drive me to lethargy seeing the disparity that often exists.
I'd like to see more games like Touch Detective, which is neither starring mister macho man, nor is the game particularly violent. Then again the game didn't get that great of reviews, so maybe I shouldn't be using that specifically as an example(I love Touch Detective, though, no matter what anybody says). I don't care what anybody says, I tell you! Touch Detective is amazing!
Anyway, despite the fact I've been playing video games since I was 4 years old. I've also made similar statements. Like "I really want to be a fan of video games, but I'm tired of putting up with this". I don't like video games for video games sake, just like I don't like movies for the sake of just watching a movie. I like video games that I like and I like movies that I like. This whole "gamer" concept seems silly to me, anyway. Saying you're a gamer or not a gamer seems like saying you're not a musicer. Everybody likes music, movies and games.
But I also think that the OP does have a great point. What does it matter?
I've called her a hack since day 1, I still call her a hack.
The simple fact she couldn't be bothered to name even ONE strong female protag' when there are dozens and dozens of them was the first and most obvious clue. You do a 3 part series and can't even name drop something like Metroid (Samus) or Lara Croft's recent reboot (which removed much of her sexualization)??
I've called her a hack since day 1, I still call her a hack.
The simple fact she couldn't be bothered to name even ONE strong female protag' when there are dozens and dozens of them was the first and most obvious clue. You do a 3 part series and can't even name drop something like Metroid (Samus) or Lara Croft's recent reboot (which removed much of her sexualization)??
The only way to make her argument any less valid would be by conducting a study which suggest she's false. That's because right now her argument has a "speculation" validity. And the only thing with less validity is something proven false.
But what annoys me is that she and her supporters act is if her points are more than speculation.
Let me start off by saying that was a really good point. I hadn't thought of it that way. That said, what she's arguing isn't that the representations are immediately affecting behavior, but that they're reinforcing negative stereotypes about women, which, after a prolonged period of time, can affect how women are viewed in society. If you only see one portrayal of something since youth, you're unlikely to argue the point, right? It's sociological theory, hard to find conclusive evidence one way or another, but it's a theory based on logical analysis.
Problem is that she is not and indeed cannot make that argument. To be frank, it often doesn't even hold up if we confine our examination to a given franchise. Princess Peach is probably the clearest cut example of a character whose nature practically revolves around being a Damsel in Distress (to the point of even echoing the classic criteria of being locked away in a tower castle by a dragon-esque character). What does this say about the treatment of women in the franchise? Well given the advent of titles such as Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (which is one of the few titles without a minimalist plot to boot)...not that much. Your party includes Goombella, Flurrie, Vivian and Ms. Mowz, to say nothing of how Luigi is himself promptly put at the villains' mercy, showing both that women are capable in their own right and that manhood isn't a magical key to resistance, respectively. Princess Zelda? She gets captured quite a bit but at the same time she's usually instrumental in preventing Ganon[dorf] from achieving his goals. If we want to look at Ocarina of Time alone, we also see Zelda ninjaing around as Sheik for most of the game and also have the certified badasses that are the Gerudo. Lili in Psychonauts? 22nd kidnapping victim in that game, 13 of which were male. Doesn't exactly speak to gender issues.
What about Angel in Borderlands? Iffy at best. On the victim end of the scale, Roland needs to be rescued earlier in that same game[footnote]
and is killed immediately after Angel
[/footnote], and on the empowered end of the scale you have more empowered women throughout the supporting cast, to say noting of Maya as one of the protagonists. Bioshock? Tenenbaum's the one who saves you near the climax of the game, it's one of the few franchises that indiscriminately use both men and women for enemies, Sofia Lamb is the principle antagonist of the second game, the most powerful enemies in that game (Big Sisters) are universally women, and the 'damsel' you spend that whole game trying to rescue ends up rescuing you and spends the rest of the game probably becoming the most badass character in the franchise[footnote]Elizabeth is more powerful, yes, but she's less action-y[/footnote].
Perhaps Persona 4? Nope. You're rescuing men and women alike without concern for their gender and a good deal of them join your party, including the one who directly invokes the Damsel in Distress stereotypes in the manifestation of her own insecurities. Mass Effect? Suffice to say that the two women you rescue in the first game (Liara and Tali) become bona fide badasses in their own right and go on to become some of the most politically powerful characters in the galaxy (Shadow Broker and an Admiral of the Quarian Fleet). Outside of them, you have the all-female Asari as one of the most powerful races in the galaxy (politically, technologically and physically (by way of biotic combat)), men and women filling all sorts of roles among the background characters and of course there's no discernible difference between MaleShep and FemShep (outside of appearance and voice acting, of course).
Heck, Sonic 2006 probably has one of the best examples of a damsel in distress in recent memory, but given Blaze the Cat and Rogue the Bat's roles within the game[footnote]Her own separate issues notwithstanding >_>[/footnote] you'd be hard pressed to derive a gender statement from Elise's nature as a walking rescue mission.
...Point being that we do not only see a portrayal of women as weak and/or victims even if we assume the ONLY media a person consumes is video games, limit our scope, confine the scope to single franchises or single games in many cases, or even just those franchises that make use of the damsel in distress plot devices.
Paper Mario certainly isn't perfect in its gender representation. But is still leagues better than the mainline Mario franchise.
Of course, Anita Sarkeesian isn't talking about the Paper Mario franchise. And by no means does the awesomeness that is Paper Mario represent the Mario franchise as a whole.
As for the Legend of Zelda, Anita Sarkeesian already made a fantastic point for how, despite the fact that in Wind Waker, Zelda gets brief moments of empowerment. It is a cheap throwaway where she is disabled and unempowered for the vast majority of the game.
And nobody said that Persona 4 is an example of the damsel in distress or has poor gender representation.
To be fair she doesnt get much done anyway. She has done one episode, broken up into 3 segments in over 1.25 years
With the games she has played (or read about on a wiki) and footage she got elsewhere it really shouldn't have taken her that long, hell her clothing, hair, jewelry, and makeup are the same three the three videos meaning she shot them all at the same time and is releasing them slowly because... I have no idea.
Would be interesting to find out what is really taking her so long in making the videos people paid over a hundred grand for.
If I were to concede a point I have to admit the length in which her videos get released would be one of them. I understand that you got to tease to please (no pun intended) but this is ridiculous. Still waiting for her next video though just to she what has to say next and the glorious threads about it that will emerge in its wake.
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