What are your thoughts on Feminist Gamers?

[MessiahDecoy123]

Rape is quite common in female American prisons.

But I concede the point that women are less violent than men.

Still, that hardly makes them harmless.

There's a world of difference between how women cause harm and how men cause harm.

Women hurt your feelings. Men will physically end you.

 

[Thundercrack85]

I am often amazed at the cognitive dissonance people have, so you're probably right about that.

 

[Thundercrack85]

There's a world of difference between how women cause harm and how men cause harm.

Women hurt your feelings. Men will physically end you.

Have had both, I will take a stabbing any day.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

Thundercracker, do you disagree that women are more nurturing and sensitive than most men.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Well, no. But that doesn't mean much.

 

[Two-Face=Badass]

This is getting way offtrack.

But let's be serious. Mario does not save the princess because he wants to be worthy of her. That is just in-game reasoning. Mario saves the princess because the developers are using a well-established trope of protagonising the male to rescue the deprotagonised female that goes back to the chivalric era, in which women were objectified into powerlessness. The developers kept on using that formula even as the reaction against having the women of that universe be largely damsels in distress grew, because it is an easy way to keep making money without being creative.

Whether women or men are more damaging or violent is utterly irreverent. This is about how women in videogames continually serve either sexual, objectified, or stereotypical roles, one of the many reasons why gaming is still considered by many to be lagging behind as an artform.

 

[Thundercrack85]

No more than any other popular art form I would argue though. Considering this is a forum focusing on comics and movies (and to a lesser extent television).

Film is probably the most sexist.

 

[Two-Face=Badass]

No more than any other popular art form I would argue though. Considering this is a forum focusing on comics and movies (and to a lesser extent television).

Film is probably the most sexist.

It is not so much the actual content, which is problematic in every medium and genre, but more so the reaction to the inevitable criticism. Films are criticised as sexist or racist or problematic all the times. So are books. So are television shows. And yet this is generally accepted even if that criticism is not agreed to. Even comics in recent years has become less hostile to analysis. But gamers are by far the most hostile to almost any and all political criticism, which is very sad.

 

[TheLastBlade]

This is getting way offtrack.

But let's be serious. Mario does not save the princess because he wants to be worthy of her. That is just in-game reasoning. Mario saves the princess because the developers are using a well-established trope of protagonising the male to rescue the deprotagonised female that goes back to the chivalric era, in which women were objectified into powerlessness. The developers kept on using that formula even as the reaction against having the women of that universe be largely damsels in distress grew, because it is an easy way to keep making money without being creative.

Whether women or men are more damaging or violent is utterly irreverent. This is about how women in videogames continually serve either sexual, objectified, or stereotypical roles, one of the many reasons why gaming is still considered by many to be lagging behind as an artform.

Again, what's so wrong about using the damsel in distress trope? Games like Mario use a very simplified form of storytelling that can't exactly be taken very seriously. And writing off in game reasoning is taking away any reason to save someone. People wouldn't care to save someone like Zelda without much reason to. If there were more serious story telling to saving someone in video games, then one should have a very relatable character to save.

I never considered video games an artform.... It's cool that some games can be LIKE art, but then there's very pretentious developers that pretend what they're doing is a work of art.

I think I figured out my disbelief: People, give examples of negative Damsels in Distress. I want to see where you're coming from and I want to see if this is indeed a big deal.

 

[Two-Face=Badass]

There is a good list here: http://www.giantbomb.com/damsel-in-distress/3015-100/

I don't agree with all of them, and certainly some are justified and have good character development and chemistry. But the problem, like what the Bechdel Test reveals, is its prevalence in sheer numbers.

 

[Thundercrack85]

The fact that it's a tired cliché should annoy you even if you're not in any way a feminist.

 

[TheLastBlade]

There is a good list here: http://www.giantbomb.com/damsel-in-distress/3015-100/

I don't agree with all of them, and certainly some are justified and have good character development and chemistry. But the problem, like what the Bechdel Test reveals, is its prevalence in sheer numbers.

There's that sex appeal page that I agree with

 

[TheLastBlade]

The fact that it's a tired cliché should annoy you even if you're not in any way a feminist.

I think I'm more annoyed at the prospect of saving Peach from the same villain.

I'm also surprised that there wasn't any Fighting games and Japanese games debate.... C'mon.... That Japanese gaming thing certainly has a lot of sex appeal and misogyny in H-Games.... C'mon...

C'mon.... I'd understand if people were to criticize harems in japanese media.... That's something that's overused and copy-and-pasted... C'mon.....

 

[Lord]

Not every Japanese game is like that though.

 

[TheLastBlade]

True..... But C'mon. If there's such a thing as misogyny in video games, then Japanese games are no exceptions. Have you seen games like Hyperdimension Neptunia?

 

[The End]

Angry Joe did say it best. This tirade against feminist gamers is almost as bad as the quest against fake fangirls. It's these type of actions that give the geek community bad stereotypes at times.

I agree with Angry Joe in terms of the trolling comments.

Anita Sarkeesian's videos, however, are full of fallacies and bad research, there is lots to criticize that would honestly take up many paragraphs of space to cover and I've never, ever seen her acknowledge any honest criticism.

 

[The End]

Guys and Ladies, don't bother arguing with him. It is clear by this point that he is either a troll, in which case we only feed him, or the very example of what feminists are rightly criticising, in which case there can be little done if TheLastBlade continues to resist any and all logical argument.

It's probably a phase with him...it'll pass by the time he's 15 or older

Maybe he'll actually have a girlfriend by then and be able to see things in a whole new perspective.

Good grief, didn't take long to find the hypocrisy up in here!

 

[The End]

DO we need actual studies? Female Frequency suddenly suffered this backlash because people aren't accostumed to discussing these things, most cases talk a little about the respectful cases too, but those are few and in between.

Yes.

When you're alluding, as Anita has alluded, at a connection between violence against women in video games, and violence against women in reality then yes you need studies to back that up.

 

[Lord]

Good grief, didn't take long to find the hypocrisy up in here!

 

[Paladin-Hoss]

seconded

 

[The End]

I know, sucks to be called out on that doesn't it?

 

[Paladin-Hoss]

Called out by an anonymous butt hurt angry gamer....

i don't know how i could ever recover from this...

 

[TheLastBlade]

You know for the past week, I realized that I'm wrong about a few things.....Maybe more. Feminist/Feminist gamers CAN have a point about most things wrong about the gaming industry and other sources of media. And the male demographics can be as bad as negative feminists. So yeah, been quite the journey..... Am I all for feminism? Not really.... I much prefer getting rights for everyone. I will say that if they fight for truly negative things in the world, fight on.

My opinions of the Gamer Girl Manifesto and Anita Sarkeesian has NOT changed, however. The Game Girl Manifesto has and always will be a terrible video to get girl gamers across. Anita Sarkeesian brings a few good points, but her info, studies, and examples have been terrible. I still cannot understand why people accept her taking footage of games that has more to it than being Damsels in Distress. And before people say it doesn't matter, IT DOES. It's falsely getting a point across and pointing the finger at things that wasn't about that in the first place.

 

[The End]

Either trolling is to be condemned or trolling is acceptable. You can't have it both ways. Instead of engaging in conversation you're engaging in trolling insults. You can't condemn trolling insults against Anita, and then use trolling insults on people that happen to have disagreements with Anita. It's hypocrisy.

Anyway,

I'm sifting through some of my old stuff (this is a subject I've talked about a long time ago) to illustrate some of the honest criticisms that can be had when viewing Anita's videos.

Some simple examples.

Anita uses terms like subject/object to point to dehumanizing connotations, I remember a girl gamer called InuitInua pointed out that Anita's use of this term made no sense as the term 'object' in philosophy has no dehumanizing connotations and 'subject/object dichotomy' had nothing to do with what Anita was talking about.

You can look for yourself how Anita uses the term subject/object dichotomy in 10 minutes in the first video she did. How Anita uses the term bears no resemblance to how the term 'subject/object dichotomy' is used in philosophy.

You can read here on the subject/object dichotomy in philosophy.

http://www.thegrandpatchwork.com/subjectobject.htm

She pulled her own definition out of thin air to lend a false credibility to her arguments.

Even setting that aside, that we would want to help people that lack agency doesn't mean we think less of them, it isn't necessarily dehumanizing at all.

One way to interpret the relationship between a hero and a damsel is that the hero simply cares, has empathy. I think that Anita mixes up her own subjective opinions for objective fact.

Ico is given as a negative example of the trope; yet in Ico, you cannot progress through the game 90% of the time without Yorda and *spoilers* SHE saves Ico's life at the end of the game. Can Yorda really be said to have no agency? When you listen to Anita's commentary without being able to see the box of the game or the game play footage, it bears little resemblance to the actual game, in fact I think many gamers wouldn't be able to guess that its Ico she's talking about at all.

Anita implies in her first video some sort of link between game violence and real life violence but doesn't back it up with any study or research. The core of her argument on this point really falls apart without scientific data that shows a causation. The sources she does list are easily interrogated - for example, in her 2nd video to back up her argument on 'normalization of violence' the source she uses doesn't even mention games - NOT ONCE does the source mention games, but it is centred around romance novels.

http://www.brown.uk.com/brownlibrary/WOOD.htm

She uses other people's Let's Play videos and doesn't give them credit.

Plenty of legitimate criticisms to be had of Anita's videos.

 

[TheLastBlade]

That's another thing I have a problem with Anita, not accepting criticism.