Poll: Wow...... Just wow......

[Something Amyss]

My first thought?

Oh look, another slanted attack at a so-called "slanted" argument. How novel.

 

[Something Amyss]

I see that Poe's Law [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PoesLaw] is still in effect here.

Go on about your business.

This doesn't really fit Poe's Law, because people can't tell the difference even THOUGH the article clearly delineates it.

Upon further examination: Effective sarcasm is apparent to it's audience, that's why it's sarcastic and not just dishonest.

I honestly don't know how much more apparent one can get than literally explaining it. At that point, it loses its primary qualities as sarcasm, but that became a huge thing in the 90s and is still considered "witty" by the same people who thought it was cool then.

 

[TAGM]

It has EVERYTHING to do with it.

Suppose this. I say to you, "Your mother died today". Technically, she did, but thanks to out modern technology, she was able to be revived by emergency responders and is recovering in the hospital in stable condition. Are you really going to say that if I told you "your mother died today" and only "your mother died today", with none of the other information, that I was being honest with you?

Yes. Because my mother did die today. That is a completely valid statement, especially if your point was to convey to me that my mother died today.

Way to miss the point like a champion. The important thing isn't the validity of what the person said in this particular circumstance, it's what they left out.
See, if I say to you, "Your mother died today," and only "your mother died today," then one of the most logical conclusions to be drawn from that is that your mother continued to be dead. That's a conclusion a large majority of people would draw, and when a large amount of people would draw a conclusion from what you say that's incorrect, the best idea isn't to just call them idiots and walk on, it's to clarify your point.
And I think that's what a large majority of people would like the "front-line" feminists like Anita Sarkeesian and Adria Richards to do - clarify points, explain where criticisms of them have missed their point. But it seems that, with alarming regularity, these people are ready to just lump any constructive criticism in with the trolls and hatred and throw it away, and ignore any of it that manages to seep through the cracks of their censorship.

There's a lot to be said for Anita Sarkeesian in particular, honestly, but the worst facet of what she does - to me - is that any positive explanation of why she did what she did - because a lot of it seemed to be pushing into fraud and lying, but could theoretically have other reasons besides - Has to come from her fans, or even from me, instead of, you know, her. That suggests that she either doesn't care about other people's counterpoints - which raises the question of why I should show her the same respect that she refuses to show others - or that there actually IS something shifty going on here - which suggests motives besides truth, and at least somewhat discredits her point.

 

[triggrhappy94]

EDIT:
I decided I don't want to participate in this thread.
If the article's honest then it makes a terrible argument with some bad points.
If it's sarcastic then it's trivializing an otherwise important issue in gaming.

Now, if you'll excuse me

 

[likalaruku]

I didn't play it, so my opinion has no value or base.

 

[BishopofAges]

Read article: check

First thoughts without any other response read: "wait... there were female enemies all over, they just wore the same-ish getup as the men, if anything that proves that it was closer to equality. For every "(blank) needed a man to succeed." that is not true, they needed the main character to succeed, the article itself even said that the story would be about the same if Booker was a woman so why oh why does this not invalidate those other two reasons.

edit: Just read some responses, and people seem pretty much on different pages so I'll have to agree with this post:

Spoiler

EDIT:
I decided I don't want to participate in this thread.
If the article's honest then it makes a terrible argument with some bad points.
If it's sarcastic then it's trivializing an otherwise important issue in gaming.

Now, if you'll excuse me

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

I admit I stopped reading half way through the first paragraph, but I did catch that bit at the end. I guess my eyes are just bored or I'm too used to Fox: "I'm not a racist/sexist/homophobe buuuuuuut..."

Already saw people on /v/ trying to take this seriously.

DIRECTLY FROM THE ARTICLE:

"You can twist many things in life to prove your points, and amazingly, without much thought, I?ve been able to pull out 5 points that may prove that Bioshock Infinite is another sexist game."

Final line: "Do I actually believe Bioshock Infintie is sexist? Hell no. Are the points extreme? That?s par for the course in these arguments."

He's pointing out how easily you can come up with arguments that everything in the world is sexist.

Maybe I'm just anal about this sort of thing but it still bothered me when the first point said there were no female enemies. That's just going to enrage "feminists" who didn't even play the game. If you're going to pretend to give them ammunition, at least don't encourage an outright myth.

That's the thing... that's how he twists the point... he says something along the lines of 'come to think of it, I can't remember there being any female enemies in the game'! So he doesn't actually say there arn't... just that he didn't remember them... that's the first rule of point manipulation, taking out the accountability so that people not reading it subjectively are steered to the wrong conclusions!
I love how he contridicts himself then in the next line too! After saying Elizabeth isn't allowed to fight, and then that she kills another character... classic!

I liked the article... points out that people only read what they want to read, and will only take the points they want to too!

 

[Xukog]

Wow... for a second there I thought this was a real Anita article. It sure looks like what I would expect from the person who tried to paint Bastion of all things as sexist for amazingly stupid reasons.

Wait what? Why would she think Bastion is sexist? I am honestly curious.

 

[sumanoskae]

I see that Poe's Law [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PoesLaw] is still in effect here.

Go on about your business.

This doesn't really fit Poe's Law, because people can't tell the difference even THOUGH the article clearly delineates it.

Upon further examination: Effective sarcasm is apparent to it's audience, that's why it's sarcastic and not just dishonest.

I honestly don't know how much more apparent one can get than literally explaining it. At that point, it loses its primary qualities as sarcasm, but that became a huge thing in the 90s and is still considered "witty" by the same people who thought it was cool then.

But that's just it, it has to be EXPLAINED; the sarcasm doesn't speak for itself. I wouldn't have known the writer was being sarcastic if it wasn't overtly stated.

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

Well I consider it impressive that someone can basically state that their creation is satire but still state it so ineffectively and confusingly and still write the creation so terribly that the reader is left confused about it's nature.

I mean none of the points he makes are amusing or absurd in any way. They're just wrong, but in a way that makes them seem like actual arguments, as in I've seen these arguments used several times. That's not sarcasm. That's just shitty satire.

Is he trying to make a point about the truth being twisted in favour of supporting your own view?
If he is I either haven't seen enough argument about why games are sexist or he's just doing a shitty job of it.

 

[Charli]

That was a pretty shit attempt at satire. The author would've been better off describing the game as another example of the damsel in distress trope and running with that.

The only problem I had with Bioshock Infinates 'sexism' was the fact that Elizabeth was booted off the front cover by Booker's muscly torso chewing up the scenery. This was both their game.

Other than that yes, this was kinda shitty writing, I want my 4 mins back!

 

[Genocidicles]

Which, when you think about it is quite strange for the setting; a heavily-Christian, extremely racist society would probably not allow females to become police or soldiers or anyone in a fighting role. Hell, one of the first audio-diaries you get (forgot what their in-game name was) is a little girl speaking about how her mother says she can't be a scientist.

It sort of makes sense though.

Spoiler

Comstock wants Elizabeth to rule in his place when he's dead, so chances are he'd encourage female equality

On topic:

IT'S A JOKE ARTICLE PEOPLE! READ THE FIRST AND/OR LAST SENTENCES!

 

[knight steel]

This is not the best attempt at satire I have seen and could use work-Now then here's my view on sexism in general,this applies mostly to real world sexism but can also work for video games.

Spoiler: My views

Sexism
What has caused sexism-this is a question we ask ourselves many times as a culture-a community-and as a society-is it the government fault?-Religion?-Ignorance?-Biology?- The truth is that it?s a mixture of all of these together.
You see each human is fundamentally different from each other, more so when it comes to gender for while we might feel uncomfortable admitting it there are many differences between the sexes as a result of the way we are born Mean are on average born stronger-Women are born with the ability to give birth ect ect
These things in and of themselves are not bad however society has twisted them so-for you see society has reflected and magnified these differences integrating them into our very being and culture to the point of harm were exemptions are not allowed and the original differences have become blown out of proportions.
This has resulted in us forgetting one very important thing-that in the end regardless of our sex we are still both Human with the same basic needs-wants-and feelings-and as we forget this -inequality towards those of the opposite sex were born and sexism was created.
Fortunately over time this has been slowly exposed with people banding together to change and confront it-however in the attempt to change a problem has arisen-a different form of sexism in and of itself has formed-the idea and belief that sexism only occurs to women/that sexism towards men is not as important.
Perhaps this is due to the more obvious nature of sexism against women-or perhaps sexism towards women comes across as more damaging but sexism towards Men does exist and can be just as harmful and as damaging to not just men but to women as well.
This sexism towards men is not new either-but in fact just as old as sexism towards women has been and continues to this day-examples include: women and children first in crisis situation, the degradation and mocking towards a man not being ?manly enough?, women receiving less jail time for committing the same crime?s as their male counterpart?s.
And yet many people deny this and the mere act of mentioning sexism against men is enough for you to be shouted at and silenced. So why is this case?-the cause mostly stems from a fear that recognizing sexism against men will undermine the recognition of sexism against women undoing the efforts that they have made in the field.
Is this fear well founded-yes and no-some people will use sexism against men to silence women, however these are but a few and do not represent those genuinely interested in men right?s and should not be used in turn to completely silence those who are genuine.
So how can we fix this-simple-we work together both men right?s activist?s and feminist?s, instead of fighting each other over which sexism exists/is worse and competing which only weaken both sides and encourages sexism we must instead join-no more sexism against women-no more sexism against men-there is just sexism the unequal treatment based on gender that effect?s us all. Instead of women right/men rights movement there should just be a human rights movement?s which combines and target?s the problems of both genders equally.

 

[maninahat]

Basically, its a badly written satirical article that hopes to mock the arguments of those dang-blasted feminists. It fails in concept because most people would be too annoyed to read all the way through, and thus the reader is likely to fail to realise that this is a piece of satire in the first place. Thus it employs a fairly devious trick to create a false impression that an ignorant, idiotic feminist is really making this argument, which helps discredit feminism in general. The writer is probably aware that people would stop reading before the end, but chose to save a "lol, just kidding" line until the last sentence anyway.

In other words, it's a misleading, shit slinging article that says "lol, this is what feminists talk like!" without bothering to substantiate it.

 

[Subscriptism]

Regarding the creationist comparison, the thing is most of the time when you explain a science to someone, you can give them the basics at least and the majority will accept it.

No, they won't. See: Evolution. Or the nature of homosexuality. Or a half dozen other controversial topics.

With feminism however, you explain this even in simple terms and a not insignificant amount of people will not buy it. You know why? Because the supposed consequences do not fit the action. That is the issue I and most people who agree with me have, it's that you get outlandish claims about oppression and misogyny but we see this disconnect between the things that are routinely slandered by feminists existing and the supposed consequence of women being stomped on by society. Don't get on about privilege either please (I assume that's your counter-point), the whole concept assumes that men have no empathy or don't observe how other people interact. I find this deeply insulting.

This entire rest of your text is based on misinterpretation and just plain ignorance of feminist theory. Not really sure what more to say here.

First part, I was talking about the general populace. Not scramble brained retards.

Secondly, that's not a response and you know it. It's not that we don't "understand" it. We just don't buy it. You equate acceptance and understanding to define dissenters as ignorant fools so you don't have to accept the fact that it's possible that there is legitimate criticism to be levelled at it and justification beyond ignorance to not agree with it. How many times have you heard fundies claim that you just don't "understand" the [insert holy book X here]? I've heard that more times that I can remember and it has just as much merit as you saying it.

 

[Drizzitdude]

I don't care if it was a joke article making crap arguements. It still annoys me such a thing exists and people will skim it thinking its legit

 

[zehydra]

Feminism teaches its students to find problems where none exist.

 

[lacktheknack]

I don't care if it was a joke article making crap arguements. It still annoys me such a thing exists and people will skim it thinking its legit

Here's hoping you never read Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal".

Some people took that one seriously as well, and it was HILARIOUS.

 

[Legion]

Feminism teaches its students to find problems where none exist.

I think it'd be more accurate to say "Certain feminists teach people to find problems where none exist". Feminism as an ideal is purely about equality, but some people use it to push their own biases.

A little like how Christianity (as well as Islam and most other religions) teaches love, forgiveness and acceptance, yet some people use it to push their own bigotry on others. If you go by the Bible's depiction of Jesus, he'd be ashamed of a hell of a lot of people who call themselves Christian. But that doesn't stop them.

The people you describe are in the minority by a long shot. It's just unfortunate that those kinds of people are always very vocal with their opinions. They are also often the kind to throw up the "I am a feminist" line as if it automatically means they cannot be sexist or zealous in their beliefs. Which gives feminism as a whole a bad name.