Anita Sarkeesian is the best feminist gaming critic on the English-speaking internet

[briankoontz]

What Samantha Allen, Emily Yakashiro, Portman Doe, Cecily Carver, Heidi McDonald, Helen Kennedy, Adrienne Shaw, Ien Ang, Janice Radway, Julie D'Acci, Liz Bird, Nina Kiel, and Carolyn Petit all have in common is that they are feminists who are worse feminist gaming critics than Anita Sarkeesian.

There is very little feminist gaming criticism anywhere on the internet. The vast majority of feminist media critique is focused on television and movies, and most of the distribution method for what little feminist critique of games exists goes through books and bypasses the internet. What passes for feminist gaming criticism on The Daily Dot, Daily Beast, Polygon, and Border House is mild compared to what Sarkeesian provides. Sarkeesian is often cited by other feminists in a positive light.

Sarkeesian is far from ideal, and if as I expect more feminist gaming critics rise over the next decade Sarkeesian won't remain the best for long, but she's found her niche and for now reigns.

As I've often lamented over the years, gaming criticism in general is in a sad state, so we shouldn't be surprised that feminist gaming criticism is likewise in it's infancy. To paraphrase a work of Christopher Nolan, Anita Sarkeesian is not the feminist we want, but she's the one we deserve.

 

[VanQ]

Your thread has about as much discussion value as Anita has value to the gaming community and industry.

Why do people keep making these threads and why do the mods allow it? There are still 4 active threads about this woman cluttering up Gaming Discussion. At least if you are not going to post about games, post it on Off Topic.

EDIT: Actually, I have an idea. Since Feminist discussion is so popular on this site, why don't we just get a separate board to discuss it in. Call it "Feminist Discussion" or something. We can contain it.

 

[IceForce]

Maybe lots of threads are made about it because lots of people want to talk about it?

Just because YOU don't see any discussion value here, doesn't mean that a discussion cannot be had.

This is no worse than the hundreds of "Recommend me an anime" threads that keep popping up all the time on this forum.
No one ever complains about those, or demands a separate anime section.

Now to address the topic:

What Samantha Allen, Emily Yakashiro, Portman Doe, Cecily Carver, Heidi McDonald, Helen Kennedy, Adrienne Shaw, Ien Ang, Janice Radway, Julie D'Acci, Liz Bird, Nina Kiel, and Carolyn Petit all have in common is that they are feminists who are worse feminist gaming critics than Anita Sarkeesian.

All the names you've listed here look like female names.

"Feminist" doesn't necessarily mean "woman". There are male feminists too.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I've said this before, but then again I've read this before as well: she offers as much insight as TvTropes, and is about half as fun.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Personally I think Anita is focusing on the wrong things. Her Women Vs. Tropes videos are always debatable, because they rely too much on observed feelings and imposed reactions - for example 'The Damsel in Distress trope happens too often in videogames and its overuse makes men think of women as inferior'. Both whether the frequency of the Damsel in Distress is too high, and whether viewing this trope changes our opinion of women in the real world, are debatable points, because there is no exact number of how much is too much for a trope, and there is no direct evidence that this specific trope has led to a change in attitude towards women.

If Anita were instead to focus on facts to expose sexism in the gaming industry - (actually producing solid statistics or focusing on insider development methods in the industry that are sexist) then it would be a much more useful, and much less ignorable series.

Possible subjects:
1. The fact that Naughty Dog had to ask for female playtesters to test The Last of Us because the testing companies only used males.
2. The fact that Naughty Dog had to fight to keep the female character in a prominent position in the box art because some departments didn't want a female on their cover - and the fact that Bioshock Infinite actually had to change theirs to remove their female.
3. The fact (with some sleuthing required for info and actual budget figures) that female protagonist led games are less likely to get as much funding or support, leading to worse games (case study possibly Remember Me and Mirror's Edge)

Those are just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are way more factual examples that can expose similar actual, undisputable gender bias in the videogame industry, but unfortunately Anita instead focuses on highlighting individual tropes that demonstrate how some females are badly represented in videogames.

 

[Erttheking]

Personally I think Anita is focusing on the wrong things. Her Women Vs. Tropes videos are always debatable, because they rely too much on observed feelings and imposed reactions - for example 'The Damsel in Distress trope happens too often in videogames and its overuse makes men think of women as inferior'. Both whether the frequency of the Damsel in Distress is too high, and whether viewing this trope changes our opinion of women in the real world, are debatable points, because there is no exact number of how much is too much for a trope, and there is no direct evidence that this specific trope has led to a change in attitude towards women.

If Anita were instead to focus on facts to expose sexism in the gaming industry - (actually producing solid statistics or focusing on insider development methods in the industry that are sexist) then it would be a much more useful, and much less ignorable series.

Possible subjects:
1. The fact that Naughty Dog had to ask for female playtesters to test The Last of Us because the testing companies only used males.
2. The fact that Naughty Dog had to fight to keep the female character in a prominent position in the box art because some departments didn't want a female on their cover - and the fact that Bioshock Infinite actually had to change theirs to remove their female.
3. The fact (with some sleuthing required for info and actual budget figures) that female protagonist led games are less likely to get as much funding or support, leading to worse games (case study possibly Remember Me and Mirror's Edge)

Those are just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are way more factual examples that can expose similar actual, undisputable gender bias in the videogame industry, but unfortunately Anita instead focuses on highlighting individual tropes that demonstrate how some females are badly represented in videogames.

True. I feel like that'd be much more interesting.

Then again we'd still get a few thousand people calling her a **** and saying that they hope she gets raped.

 

[communist gamer]

shes a bad journalist, she admitted to not liking games, and she is a con-artist. There is nothing good about her, she uses clips that are taken out of context and ignores the fact that all the things you do to a female you can also do to a male, she ignores the fact that most NPCs are just background or things for us to shoot at when we get bored (if such a possibility is given), for some reason she has a problem with stripers in a strip club being scarcely clad and with prostitutes being sexualized. She complains about lack of female characters in games such as call of duty while ignoring the fact that only 25% of people who play CoD are female, while completely ignoring the fact that in almost all RPGs you can play and gender and many of the times race. I can go on and on about her but the point is, she is a SJW not a feminist. Feminist are still needed in the world and tend to do a very good job of making male and female equal in the eyes of society, SJW were never needed in the world. I dont want a SJW generalist and game critic i want a feminist critic who knows her/his shit and wont complain that you can brake all the arms of a prostitute because you can just walk over two steps and do the exact same thing to a bloody milliner, and who wont scream how unjust games treat women because they will know that in most games where violence is used you mow down hundreds upon hundreds of men, and the main evil guy, surprise surprise, tends to be male not female. She is the equivalent of a DnD paladin who dose only two things "detect evil" and "smite evil" without thinking of the consequence of his action, and she is hurting her cause. A cause I would happily support, if not for what it has became because of people like her

 

[brtt150]

Anita provides some of the poorest feminist analysis of a medium out there. Her work is like a below average gender studies undergrad turning their term papers into video form. She's not dumb nor does she never bring up good points. But they are elementary points at best. There is no meat to them. Nothing that hasn't been said about film. She also falls prey to logical fallacy time and time again. Worst of all, she would never be able to begin rectifying flaws in her analysis because she is not interested in discussion. She's interested in my views are correct, screw everyone else. If this leads to better educated and more thoughtful feminists dissecting games then good because she certainly isn't impressive.

 

[Goliath100]

Why can't Jim Sterling be the "best feminist gaming critic on the English-speaking internet"?

Sarkeesian is often cited by other feminists in a positive light.

My number one criticism of Sarkeesian is that she presents her material in a way that only someone that already understand it can fully get her points? I'll also add that most noteworthy online feminist is famous (or infamous) for being a straw feminist that anti-feminist can beat on.

 

[LaoJim]

"Feminist" doesn't necessarily mean "woman". There are male feminists too.

And as a way of seconding this, I'd like to present Escapist's own Moviebob (ostensibly a movie critic) doing a better job of feminist video gaming criticism than Ms Sarkeesian, and also giving the impression he's played the game he's talking about.


Seriously, I've been watching the Feminist Frequency videos and while she raises some interesting points, the fact that she tends to look at tropes and thus tries to generalize the whole industry leads to some questionable statements.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

Another vote for Jim Sterling as "best feminist gaming critic on the English-speaking internet" here!
Hell, I'd say best Fem-LGBT (or how it's spelle..er initialized) critic. Best Equalist critic? I dunno, i got nuff'in.

On Topic:
I couldn't even get through one of her videos, she is that bad.
Though I don't get all the fuss this is causing.
If you think she is bad, maybe warn those you know and stop watching her.
For those who like her, I would think the old question of 'if her intentions are good, but actions bad', or vice-versa etc.

 

[Eddie the head]

Based on what little I've seen on most of these people that's like saying your'e the smartest person in Idaho. Yeah? So what?

Also by what metric? Is "bestness" a scale? Basically that's a snarky way of saying "how you figure?"

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

wow, if anita truthly is the best, then feminist gaming criticism must me a cesspool of incompetence, malice and fallacies


theres no other way to put it, she has stolen footage, she has forged evidence and used fallacies and faulty arguments in i think every single one of her videos, whatever shred of valid criticism her series had has been completely buried under a mountain of lies and sensationalism, the one redeeming factor of her videos is that she is so completely incompetent that she only produces a couple of them every year, i actually feel kind of sorry for her kickstarter backers

I've said this before, but then again I've read this before as well: she offers as much insight as TvTropes, and is about half as fun.

half? you are being incredibly generous

 

[NemotheElvenPanda]

Pointing out perceived flaws and problems in an industry you've never partaken or done research on in of itself from a very narrow, essentially self-confirmed perspective, does not and should not make you a highly regarded critic. Critics use evidence and examples objectively while bearing in mind that views aren't infallible or quantitative, provide multi-faceted explanations that appeal or at least nod to multiple positions on the topic to create a consensus, and provide possible solutions to whatever they're addressing all the while being open to critique and questioning. Anita doesn't do any of that. She's just someone who uses academic Feminist Theory 101 to confirm her own suspicions on certain tropes and traits by taking them out of their context because they fit what she's looking for beforehand. There are plenty more worthy and reliable people, many right here on the Escapist in both the staff and forums, who do the topic actual justice instead of being another member of the presumably straight, well-off, college-educated white women with a internet connection who takes their introductory social science courses beyond its intended confines in the classroom and clogs the internet with their feminist "studies" as if the term "feminist" somehow makes them accurate or correct, completely forgetting what studies and critiques are actually supposed to do. She's like one of those people who make videos on youtube claiming that Disney or some other children's company has a blatantly sexist or racist or some other -ist agenda in their media by cherry picking a few inconsequential details, almost like Da Vinci Code without being entertaining but just as laughable.

 

[Darks63]

Your thread has about as much discussion value as Anita has value to the gaming community and industry.

Why do people keep making these threads and why do the mods allow it? There are still 4 active threads about this woman cluttering up Gaming Discussion. At least if you are not going to post about games, post it on Off Topic.

EDIT: Actually, I have an idea. Since Feminist discussion is so popular on this site, why don't we just get a separate board to discuss it in. Call it "Feminist Discussion" or something. We can contain it.

They should all be moved to "Religion and Politics" as that's what they are about. Gaming is only in the periphery of these threads.

At first I was against this but on further thought Im on board with it. Too many of these threads are dropped in by Ops who after they start the fire they seem to speculate afterwards. In R&P with the reduced amount of traffic and Users these thread would likely wither on the vine with a mere 3 pages rather than the 20 page badge farming monsters they become in gaming and Off topic.

 

[Notshauna]

I wouldn't say she's the best even now, or even better than the best in class a decade ago, but she is the most public because, for better or for worse, all the hostility she received when attempting to make her campaign has made her in the forefront of feminism in video games, a living martyr as it were. We will see feminists that are gamers offering their opinions on the subject matter, and those with experience in other mediums too, Anita simply is the start of these issues becoming main stream.

 

[Zontar]

I can't tell if the OP is being serious or not. If it's serious, then it's a sad indication of where feminism in gaming is (that is to say, the best that the movement has is worthy of ridicule and being ignored out of hand). If it isn't serious, then it's a sad indication of where feminism in gaming is (because it's image is so bad something like this can't be known for sure if it is serious or a joke).

This is classic Poe's Law in effect.

Though I'm leaning towards the latter given how feminists would logically hold an opinion of her that's as negative as the gaming community due to the poisoning of the well she is committing coupled with perpetuating the image of feminists relying on strawmans, lies and deception. Funny thing is, she herself criticized one season of Buffy for having a strawman feminist in the cast, yet she herself is the best example of one I have ever come across. I honestly have a hard time believing she believes what she says and wouldn't be surprised if it was just a pay-check to her.