I am a feminist....and this is hilarious.

[Jumplion]

Out of the ashes I cometh again.

Frankly, I don't really know what to say that won't get drowned out in this thread anyway, so I'll make it as brief as I can.

Many detractors of feminism don't understand basic concepts of feminism. If they did, they wouldn't be attacking Sarkeesian the way they have been doing for nigh on two years now. It's literally basic Feminism 101, and yet people treat her and her videos as if they are some grand scheme of some random lady trying to "take over games". Claiming that her videos are "attacking" games or "taken out of context" without actually thinking critically of what she's saying or even a basic understanding of the concepts that she brings up.

Not to mention the personal attacks, oh the personal attacks. Every single time there's some stupid controversy with a woman at the forefront it's almost impossible to actually talk about the subjects and topics surrounding that person without first addressing the incessant harassment that they receive. I guarantee if the purveyors of the controversy were male, we would not be seeing these types of reactions. Claims of "lying", "hypocrisy", "scamming" are made without a basic understanding of what Kickstarter is and furthermore reduce the conversation to ad homeniem instead of actually, you know, discussing the work that is actually being done.

Another problem with detractors of feminism is that they take things way too personally when discussing these issues. They claim as if feminist are saying "all men" rape or that "all men" are sexist pigs, then go "I don't see women as objects! I'm not sexist! You think everyone is sexist!"

Let me make something very clear; This is not about you. When a woman says "#yesallwomen experience sexism to some degree", you do not need to go "but what about men! #notallmen! You're saying all men do these things, you're not for equality! Reverse sexism! Men get raped to, you're being sexist against men!"

Now, look, men's issues are important, sure. But they are not the same issues. When someone brings up "but what about the men", it only serves to derail the topic and make it about you. It's not always about you.

No one has ever said that "video games cause you to be misogynistic". What they have said is "video games often contain elements of misogyny that can reinforce misogynistic behavior" because games are not made in a vacuum. By itself a woman wearing scantily clad clothing is fine. But in the larger cultural and societal context that games are made in, they can be seen as a problem. And no, a few examples of "strong female characters" do not nullify the rest of the issue.

For fuck's sake, if Jim Sterling can realize how he was being sexist to some degree back in the day and change his viewpoints, I can't see why more people can't do the same. It's not a hard thing to understand, people. Representation matters.

 

[Silvanus]

What? the pro women bias of feminists? Well firstly there is how they almost solely talk about women's issue. Which makes sense for a "Women First" movement but for one which claims to care about all and be about equality? Not so much.

If their concern is addressing existing injustices against women, then it makes sense just fine. Caring about an issue does not automatically mean the individual is dismissive or callous towards other issues.

Somebody may say a gay rights campaigner "almost solely" talks about gay issues. A charity worker "almost solely" talks about the issue they are working to ameliorate. Well, yes. Those are the issues they've dedicated themselves to improving; it would be absurd to require anybody who campaigns that they must give all other issues their attention before they may address one.

People hold an irrational double-standard.

 

[Silvanus]

The 77 cent per dollar argument is easy to debunk with basic common sense.
They've taken the sum total of money earned by men, compared it to the sum total of money earned by women and then said "women must be paid less than men for working the exact same jobs!"
The truth is that women tend to work less hours, raise children or choose to work in fields pay isn't as high.

You'll notice that I did not mention or advocate the 77% figure. The criticisms of that figure do not mean the entire pay gap simply doesn't exist.

Women earn less for the same work within the [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/upshot/the-pay-gap-is-because-of-gender-not-jobs.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0] same professions [http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/documents/research/Briefing_papers/bp_6_final.pdf], so the choice-of-field argument doesn't account for it all. Though women with children earn less than women without children, both earn less than men, so the childraising argument also doesn't account for it [http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/classes/econ321/orazem/anderson_motherhood-penalty.pdf].

And another CHS vid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpXhbdl1MKo

Nowhere in that video does she mention the university admissions process.

She also makes some veeeery questionable claims, such as boys being punished for playing at being superheroes, and how this is "criminalizing" male imagination. I'm pretty cynical after hearing that.

EDIT: Sorry about posting twice unnecessarily; I didn't intend to do it, but lost track of my replies.

 

[generals3]

If their concern is addressing existing injustices against women, then it makes sense just fine. Caring about an issue does not automatically mean the individual is dismissive or callous towards other issues.

Oh but I wouldn't be sure since "dismissive" pretty much describes the attitude of feminists towards men's issues. But here's the thing, feminists continuously claim that their concern is all the gender related problems. That they do care about us, that it's not only about women, that MRA's should be fighting on their side, etc. So clearly there is quite a gap between what they claim and what they do.

And the fact they don't mind and/or support pro women sexism pretty much settles it as evidence it's a women first group and nothing fancier.

 

[Jumplion]

Oh but I wouldn't be sure since "dismissive" pretty much describes the attitude of feminists towards men's issues. But here's the thing, feminists continuously claim that their concern is all the gender related problems. That they do care about us, that it's not only about women, that MRA's should be fighting on their side, etc. So clearly there is quite a gap between what they claim and what they do.

Several things regarding this;

1) Many feminist issues are inherently linked to mens issues, and assuaging these issues can inherently assuage issues that men face as well. For example, the concept of "rape culture" to can easily be linked towards male rape victims. When women are asked "what were you wearing?" or "she was asking for it", it implies that the (usually male) rapist could not help himself and builds up this idea that men are not "in control" of their urges or that women are their objects to do what they will without agency, which is something that forces men who do unfortunately end up on the receiving end of this crime to not come out for fear of being "weak" or a "pussy", or a "lucky sonuvabitch" for getting laid.

With the concept of "patriarchy", a societal and cultural system that enables men to take primary positions of power in their societies, it affects all genders in that regard. It is a system that insinuates what roles each gender should adhere to, and while many people will cite it as a problem for women primarily, any feminist scholar or generically educated feminist worth their salt will tell you that this is an issue of equal value for me. It's just not the same issue.

Something that primarily affects one gender does not mean that it doesn't affect the others.

2) Research concepts in third-wave feminism. The older waves were primarily focused on white, middle-class women whereas now it is bradened up to include women of color, trans issues, and homosexuality. There is a lot of overlap with feminism, egalitarianism, humanism, and others that it ends up encompassing much more than people realize.

3) The main problem with the MRA movement, I feel, is that it originated as a response to the supposed "hysterical feminists" rather than something built up as a response to men's issues. As this article points out [http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-uncomfortable-truths-behind-mens-rights-movement/], there are certainly issues for men that could be used by the MRA movement to tackle inequality in society. They just don't do it, instead focusing on issues like "Women get custody over their children more often!" and "Women don't have to go to war!" which would be real issues if they focused on the male aspect of those issues. Much of the MRA movement has been thinly veiled anti-feminism and anti-women rallying which is why most people don't take them seriously.

 

[Silvanus]

Oh but I wouldn't be sure since "dismissive" pretty much describes the attitude of feminists towards men's issues. But here's the thing, feminists continuously claim that their concern is all the gender related problems. That they do care about us, that it's not only about women, that MRA's should be fighting on their side, etc. So clearly there is quite a gap between what they claim and what they do.

And the fact they don't mind and/or support pro women sexism pretty much settles it as evidence it's a women first group and nothing fancier.

Well, that's still assuming this attitude is actually prevalent outside of a few tumblr blogs. Whenever I've requested evidence, it's usually been either uninfluential bloggers or fringe extremists from the sixties.

 

[Angelblaze]

If their concern is addressing existing injustices against women, then it makes sense just fine. Caring about an issue does not automatically mean the individual is dismissive or callous towards other issues.

Oh but I wouldn't be sure since "dismissive" pretty much describes the attitude of feminists towards men's issues. But here's the thing, feminists continuously claim that their concern is all the gender related problems. That they do care about us, that it's not only about women, that MRA's should be fighting on their side, etc. So clearly there is quite a gap between what they claim and what they do.

And the fact they don't mind and/or support pro women sexism pretty much settles it as evidence it's a women first group and nothing fancier.

I'd like to note that even Anita Hated-by-the-world-key-z-ann talked about how games insult/offend men by reducing the 'emotional' spectrum men are allowed to feel in games.

That and, well, hilarious over-generalization.

That and...you're a bit of a hypocrite considering that you say all feminists are dismissive and yet you repeatedly ignore Silva asking you for evidence.

But let's pretend you are right

All feminists are a hive-mind with the EXACT same beliefs and concepts. There is no such thing as individuality, differing opinions, 'first' or 'second' or 'third' wave feminism, etcetc....

And none of those people claiming to be feminists either over the internet/not face-to-face are trolls/people looking to argue. (If Zoe Quinn/Anita can fake an outburst against their movement, why can't a non-feminist fake an 'over-the-top'/'extremist' feminist?)

Every single individual feminist hates/dislikes/doesn't care for men or their issues, wants to assimiliate everyone into their cause, have everyone agree and be the sam--

Your MRA/Male dominated culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.

(Seriously speaking, citation plz.)

 

[jademunky]

Also, c'mon people! A 34 page pile-up over the alleged sexual misdeeds on an internet feminist? Really?

And that's why you are baffled. You missed like 2/3 of the issue. What people find most disturbing is how this case yet again showed the obvious agenda of many people in gaming "journalism". It's their reaction (or lack thereof) which pissed people off.

Oh, no I got that part too.

Several Points though:
-This was not a polite discussion on the issue of conflicts of interest between journalists and developers. This was a gigantic wankathon against a complete stranger who has been perceived to have slept her way to the top. (or slept her way to the middle anyway)

-This is all just rumour and innuendo. We do not know anything for sure yet. Also, people's private lives are not really any of our business. Particularly since the alleged relationship in question began after the journalist had submitted his work on her.

-If a male game developer had slept with a female journalist, and online magazines began to censor discussion of the issue on their forums, would we be getting 100-page threads on the issue? Or would it probably vanish fairly quickly?

-It is just garme jurnalizm. If the journalist in questions was writing on human trafficing, that would be one thing, but this is still just entertainment. Real quality games still rise to the top and mediocre crap might get a bit of a boost from puff-pieces written by crooked journalists, but still will quickly fade away after that.

 

[Mikeybb]

All feminists are a hive-mind with the EXACT same beliefs and concepts. There is no such thing as individuality, differing opinions, 'first' or 'second' or 'third' wave feminism, etcetc....

And none of those people claiming to be feminists either over the internet/not face-to-face are trolls/people looking to argue. (If Zoe Quinn/Anita can fake an outburst against their movement, why can't a non-feminist fake an 'over-the-top'/'extremist' feminist?)

Every single individual feminist hates/dislikes/doesn't care for men or their issues, wants to assimiliate everyone into their cause, have everyone agree and be the sam--

Your MRA/Male dominated culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.

I think it's almost human nature to generalize people in opposition to them.
Breaking them down into simple terms, rather than letting to complexity of a situation freeze your thinking when you're locked in an argument.
Every side does this.
Some people on every side revel in it.
It's alarmingly easy to catch yourself doing.
One thing I've been getting practicing in with these latest furors is spotting when I see myself doing it at least.
I'm under no illusions that it's still not going to happen on occasion despite this.

Perhaps it's connected to the monkey sphere (look it up if you've not heard of it, despite sounding a lot more awesome than it actually is, it's quite interesting.)


note:
I kept the last bit in because it made me chuckle.

 

[Arouet]

I love that everyone who complains about feminists can't stop telling me what I believe. If you don't want to listen to a word I have to say, then are you doing it just to hear yourself talk?

And don't ever call me a white knight. You may as well call me a n***** lover or a race traitor, while you're at it. Number one, it reveals exactly how stupid you are, and two, I'm just going to take it as a badge of honor. Number three, you actually think I give a damn if someone is screaming at me on the internet?

 

[F4TK]

You'll notice that I did not mention or advocate the 77% figure. The criticisms of that figure do not mean the entire pay gap simply doesn't exist.

Women earn less for the same work within the [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/upshot/the-pay-gap-is-because-of-gender-not-jobs.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0] same professions [http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/documents/research/Briefing_papers/bp_6_final.pdf], so the choice-of-field argument doesn't account for it all. Though women with children earn less than women without children, both earn less than men, so the childraising argument also doesn't account for it [http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/classes/econ321/orazem/anderson_motherhood-penalty.pdf].

Once again, hours worked, time off, jobs worked. The whole deal. Read your first article, it says this.

?The gender gap in pay would be considerably reduced and might vanish altogether if firms did not have an incentive to disproportionately reward individuals who labored long hours and worked particular hours,? she wrote in a paper published this month in The American Economic Review.

Occupations that most value long hours, face time at the office and being on call ? like business, law and surgery ? tend to have the widest pay gaps. That is because those employers pay people who spend longer hours at the office disproportionately more than they pay people who don?t, Dr. Goldin found. A lawyer who works 80 hours a week at a big corporate law firm is paid more than double one who works 40 hours a week as an in-house counsel at a small business.

If you take into account all relevant factors wage gap dissapears.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/02/24/childless-women-in-their-twenties-out-earn-men-so/

Relevant quote:

If you insist that the gender wage gap is a result of discrimination against women, here are a few other claims that must be equally true. By the same logic, young men are discriminated against in favor of young women. Women in their 20s without children out-earn men by as much as $1.08 to every dollar, according to some estimates. It must also be true that white men are discriminated against in favor of Asian-American men, who earn over 5 percent more than white men. To claim either of these as discrimination would be ridiculous, though, right? There are differences in job types, education levels, hours worked, and other factors that lead to these wage differentials. But these factors are just as responsible for the overall difference in wages between men and women.

Once you control for factors such as college major, time off of the labor force to raise children, and hours worked per week, the gender wage gap essentially disappears.

This wage gape for men and women in their 20s is down to a difference in education.

Nowhere in that video does she mention the university admissions process.

She also makes some veeeery questionable claims, such as boys being punished for playing at being superheroes, and how this is "criminalizing" male imagination. I'm pretty cynical after hearing that.

EDIT: Sorry about posting twice unnecessarily; I didn't intend to do it, but lost track of my replies.

I'm not sure why are you talking about the University admissions process? You brought that up as a complete tangent.
The problem is more women than men earning degrees. The causes are many.

but yes:
http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2013/05/preschool-bans-kids-from-playing-superheroes/
But that's only a part of the problem. The school system as it is has become "feminised" and has become prejudiced against masculine traits. Boys are being punished for being boys.
http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/06/stop-penalizing-boys-for-not-being-able-to-sit-still-at-school/276976/

This adversely affects their education.

 

[Silvanus]

Once again, hours worked, time off, jobs worked. The whole deal. Read your first article, it says this.

?The gender gap in pay would be considerably reduced and might vanish altogether if firms did not have an incentive to disproportionately reward individuals who labored long hours and worked particular hours,? she wrote in a paper published this month in The American Economic Review.

Occupations that most value long hours, face time at the office and being on call ? like business, law and surgery ? tend to have the widest pay gaps. That is because those employers pay people who spend longer hours at the office disproportionately more than they pay people who don?t, Dr. Goldin found. A lawyer who works 80 hours a week at a big corporate law firm is paid more than double one who works 40 hours a week as an in-house counsel at a small business.

If you take into account all relevant factors wage gap dissapears.

That would be an assumption. The average hourly rate of pay is lower, and it's also lower within the same professions, as was covered in links I already provided, so those factors probably do not cover the whole issue.

I also notice you've turned a statement of "might" from a single individual into a statement of certainty.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/02/24/childless-women-in-their-twenties-out-earn-men-so/

Relevant quote:

If you insist that the gender wage gap is a result of discrimination against women, here are a few other claims that must be equally true. By the same logic, young men are discriminated against in favor of young women. Women in their 20s without children out-earn men by as much as $1.08 to every dollar, according to some estimates. It must also be true that white men are discriminated against in favor of Asian-American men, who earn over 5 percent more than white men. To claim either of these as discrimination would be ridiculous, though, right? There are differences in job types, education levels, hours worked, and other factors that lead to these wage differentials. But these factors are just as responsible for the overall difference in wages between men and women.

Once you control for factors such as college major, time off of the labor force to raise children, and hours worked per week, the gender wage gap essentially disappears.

It's an interesting point, but I'm immediately sceptical of Forbes' take on this. Firstly, it seems to be a hobby-horse of theirs; they've published about seven articles on exactly the same thing, with the same rather unprofessional (and jokey) tone. Secondly, the reasoning above is rather specious-- drawing parallels with other statistical comparisons that aren't really analogous; stating that it "disappears" as a certainty, even though that is, of course, completely untested.

I'm not sure why are you talking about the University admissions process? You brought that up as a complete tangent.
The problem is more women than men earning degrees. The causes are many.

but yes:
http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2013/05/preschool-bans-kids-from-playing-superheroes/
But that's only a part of the problem. The school system as it is has become "feminised" and has become prejudiced against masculine traits. Boys are being punished for being boys.
http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/06/stop-penalizing-boys-for-not-being-able-to-sit-still-at-school/276976/

This adversely affects their education.

The first link is incredibly suspect. It uses the word "purportedly" in its opening sentence, and goes on to provide no evidence aside from the hearsay of a single Reddit user. Countless times have such storms-in-teacups been entirely fabricated in order to whip up rage.

The second link seems to be a genuinely interesting read; I'm glad you posted it.

Still, its use here is an example of using men's issues in order to discredit women's issues. You initially brought it up in order to criticise feminists for not bringing it up; as I said before, that's as rational as criticising a charity worker for failing to give equal attention to other issues which aren't the ones they're trying to ameliorate.

 

[GenuflectHonesty]

As a feminist myself, I'm disheartened by the negative reputation of feminism in the media. The word itself feels like a bad word in certain communities, with people preferring to call themselves different things that mean the same thing, like saying that they're an egalitarian instead of a feminists. Which is strange because feminists are supposed to be egalitarians by definition. Dropping feminism just because people feel that there are bad role models in the movement just feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater to me.

 

[Shadowstar38]

As a feminist myself, I'm disheartened by the negative reputation of feminism in the media. The word itself feels like a bad word in certain communities, with people preferring to call themselves different things that mean the same thing, like saying that they're an egalitarian instead of a feminists. Which is strange because feminists are supposed to be egalitarians by definition. Dropping feminism just because people feel that there are bad role models in the movement just feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater to me.

If you're part of a group that is working towards equality to everyone(including dealing with race and sexuality discrimination), then it's kind of weird for you to use a term whose prefix indicates it focuses on women's issues.

In fact, now that I think about it, I can't remember the last time a Feminist group did anything to help with a male issue. There's always a focus on women. So even their actions don't match up with the definition people are trying to push.

 

[GenuflectHonesty]

As a feminist myself, I'm disheartened by the negative reputation of feminism in the media. The word itself feels like a bad word in certain communities, with people preferring to call themselves different things that mean the same thing, like saying that they're an egalitarian instead of a feminists. Which is strange because feminists are supposed to be egalitarians by definition. Dropping feminism just because people feel that there are bad role models in the movement just feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater to me.

If you're part of a group that is working towards equality to everyone(including dealing with race and sexuality discrimination), then it's kind of weird for you to use a term whose prefix indicates it focuses on women's issues.

In fact, now that I think about it, I can't remember the last time a Feminist group did anything to help with a male issue. There's always a focus on women. So even their actions don't match up with the definition people are trying to push.

It's true that men are facing very real issues that are ignored because people feel that they're too "priviledged" to have problems, which is really unfortunate. What I mean when I say that feminism is egalitarian is that it hopes to raise women and make sure that they are exactly as equal as men.

 

[carnex]

As a feminist myself, I'm disheartened by the negative reputation of feminism in the media. The word itself feels like a bad word in certain communities, with people preferring to call themselves different things that mean the same thing, like saying that they're an egalitarian instead of a feminists. Which is strange because feminists are supposed to be egalitarians by definition. Dropping feminism just because people feel that there are bad role models in the movement just feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater to me.

As far as I have read your post you seem pretty reasonable and thought out person. That's why I always say that while i detest feminism as a movement for all it has done, i take every feminists as separate individual. People are people, movement is a movement.

It doesn't matter that participation in feminist movement is self proclaimed when actions are often just plain wrong and/or harmful. Add to that constant repetition of factoids that have nothing to do with reality and you can see why people have developed distaste for it.

Best example of how much people dislike feminism now is how much traction various egalitarian and men rights groups are getting.

 

[DrOswald]

I really, really thought that the analogy was going to be between people worrying about violence in real life caused by video games, versus people worrying about misogyny in real life caused by video games (I suppose it's more of a simple parallel than an analogy). Surely that one makes more sense? Whether you agree with it or not?

I was musing on Jack Thompson recently and I had an interesting thought:

Jack Thompson has two basic attack points against violent video games:

1. Violent video games are bad because they are disgusting in and of themselves. There is no reason for such a disgusting thing to exist.

2. Violent video games are bad because they influence those who play them toward violent behavior.

The game industry and gamer culture in general with one voice attacked him. I had 2 main points of defense to counter his two main points of attack, and I believe that most of the gaming community shared these two main points:

1. It is not up to Jack Thompson, some committee of law makers, or even a very large group of outraged individuals to decide what is and what is not acceptable art. Freedom of expression is too important to limit to the preference of any single group of people. I will fight to remove the suppression of speech, even expression I personally find disgusting.

2. The idea that violent video games make people more violent is unproven and highly suspect. The idea that gamers cannot separate the violent fantasy from reality is absurd. The idea that gamers will be ingrained with violent behaviors and therefore repeat them in the real world is equally absurd.

Fast forward 5 years or so and I find myself fighting the good fight against sexism in games.

I have 2 main points of attack:

1. Sexist video games are bad because they are disgusting in and of themselves. There is no reason for such a disgusting thing to exist.

2. Sexist video games are bad because they influence those who play them toward sexist behavior.

When the two sides stop slinging bile at each other long enough for a bit of a discussion to develop I notice that there are two main points on the other side:

1. It is not up to you, some committee of feminists, or even a very large group of outraged individuals to decide what is and what is not acceptable art. Freedom of expression is too important to limit to the preference of any single group of people. I will fight to remove the suppression of speech, even expression I personally find disgusting.

2. The idea that sexist video games make people more sexist is unproven and highly suspect. The idea that gamers cannot separate the sexist fantasy from reality is absurd. The idea that gamers will be ingrained with sexist behaviors and therefore repeat them in the real world is equally absurd.

And I had to ask myself some hard questions: When did I stop believing in those two points of defense? When did I start believing in the suppression of speech through social pressure? And when did I start believing that gamers were incapable of separating the fantasy from reality?

Because I most certainly do not believe in them, not if my actions over the last few years were sincere. I have fought and railed against works I find personally deplorable and have worked to remove them from existence. My primary justification has been that sexist games lead to real world sexist behavior.

What changed? An honest assessment of my own motivations reveals that the only difference is my position. This time I am the one disgusted. What is worse, I find myself flipping positions on those points depending on the argument at hand.

A game where you slaughter innocents by the hundreds? Freedom of Speech! People are not so easily influenced!

A game that is, essentially, rape porn? This is too disgusting to exist! This will lead to real world gender violence!

I don't know. Just something to think about.