I need feminism because...

Morag

There have been some women speaking out both game creators and critiques about sexism and sexual objectification in games and in the gaming industry. No one is perfect, I don't agree with all the points these women have raised but as the indie games section of the industry is pretty small it turns out one of them had been in a sexual relationship with someone who wrote good reviews of stuff she worked on and certain parts of the internet went bananas, having found something to discredit her with.

Herself and two other women have had heaps of vile online abuse across several platforms and all have had death threat's which saw them have to leave their homes on police recommendation.

One of the women was due to give a talk at a University in the USA and had to cancel due to very specific threats to shoot her and others on campus.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/58521856-78/video-sarkeesian-feminist-lecture.html.csp

Yes the links, relationship and bias which goes on between creatives and journalists does need looking at but, that does in no way validate the vile torrents of abuse these women have been target with.

Morag

Links234 wrote: »

Integrity in journalism, apparently.

LOL

Delirium

Links234 wrote: »

Ok, serious answer.

1. Game developer Zoe Quinn makes a game
2. Ex-boyfriend claims she slept with a journalist from Kotaku for positive review of said game
2. Some people explode with rage over this, call it "GamerGate" and pretend it's actually something worth getting annoyed about

If it's about journalistic integrity, why aren't they targetting the journalist?

Not suggesting anyone deserves death threats etc. btw.

Links234

SW wrote: »

If it's about journalistic integrity, why aren't they targetting the journalist?

Not suggesting anyone deserves death threats etc. btw.

Exactly! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Those people are saying it's about ethics and integrity, but it's all really just a sad excuse for misogyny and hatred of women. If they gave one ounce of a **** about that, the ire would indeed be targetted towards jourlists themselves, instead of threatening to kill women and shoot up schools.

Wibbs

Morag wrote: »

LOL

LOL Morag? I had tea fly out my nose and the ears were a close run thing. :pac:

SW wrote: »

If it's about journalistic integrity, why aren't they targetting the journalist?

Exactly SW, nail on the bloody head. Having read in passing of this particular case(Z Quinn), it seems pretty damned clear there was all sorts of shenanigans going on all the way down the line. Yep it looks very strongly like she was pulling all sorts of BS with the real sniff of casting couch going both ways. It all got a little bit incestuous and tangled.

However and it's a bloody big however, she was being enabled all over the place, she was in no way a singular agent. There were more men involved in this. OK let's just say for the sake of argument that she shagged her game into the world and shagged the publicity and support with it. A shagger needs a shaggee. In this case apparently several shaggees/men. If the men involved had any issue with the "morality" of the whole thing, they could have said at any time "eh...no, your game is crap and a bit of attention from you won't change my opinion". It seems they failed at that hurdle. If the reported facts are close to true it's the men involved who are the sad bastards and the ones responsible for what followed.

Yet the ire has been reserved just for her. Especially the heavy duty stuff, including saddo keyboard warrior nonsense and lunatic threats of harm. That's well out of order and daft with it.

My personal angle on if and when I smell BS, is to see it and call it and if there are two or more people involved I'm not excluding anyone, much less specifically targeting someone on the basis of their gender, or whatever else is on your agenda. That's not close to looking for any truth behind the BS and anyone who does that has a horse running in a very different race and a clear bias against who they're including and/or excluding.

Basically if say ten people are involved in something that appears dubious and you only target one of the ten because of gender/race/religion/etc? Then GTFO. You're extracting the urine if you think that the "something" is the real issue in your head.

Shakespeare's Sister

Links234 wrote: »

misogyny and hatred of women.

Totally feels like it's on the rise online, including in unisex spaces where both genders are supposed to be welcome. Like, I completely get criticism of radical feminism and obviously of misandry, but you can see clearly that sometimes the above are used as a stick to beat all women with, and some of the blatant misogyny isn't hidden at all.
In the west, there are still concerns for women - we have it infinitely better than women elsewhere in the world, and in some contexts we are at more of an advantage than men are, but women's rights is still a concern at times here, and whether people like it or not, that's a large part of what feminism is. It's dismaying that some want the whole lot of it obliterated.

I find it utterly scary really. It's so soul-destroying to read this hatred and application of the behaviour of some women to all women, and what's even worse... it feels pointless to bother trying flagging it anymore... :-/

Links234

I think this is why I'm hesitent to be part of any kind of gamer community or anything, I don't particularly want to open myself up to that kind of hostility, and it's probably a good part of the reason why I've been predominantly been playing singleplayer games (I do seriously enjoy good story-driven games), though lately I've been playing Payday 2 a lot which is multiplayer, whereas I've been put off from other games before.

But also it's probably why I've been happy to dive headfirst into anime fandom
It's kind of interesting that you've got this even nerdier, even more niche type of fandom, yet they've no real problems taking on board criticism of anime. I mean, you know there's this #educateanime thing going on now, there is criticism of fanservice and depiction of women, but you don't see people threatening to kill anyone because of it. Maybe it's because anime generally has a bigger female fanbase, often has much better depictions of women, and there's plenty of articles out there written from a feminist point of view about how Ghibli movies are far better for young girls than Disney, etc. Not to say there aren't problems, because hell yeah there are, but it's interesting how anime fans seem to have a much more mature approach to criticism? Maybe it's because they're all too used to people going "Anime? WTF is that? Is that that cartoon porn!?" and having to explain things

plus with anime fandom, you'll have guys who'll pull **** like this: http://i.imgur.com/gLcdzen.jpg or this: http://instagram.com/p/uCiqNPCXBY/

eviltwin

I'm old enough to remember the hoo-ha when it was revealed that Samus Aran from some game was actually a woman. There were guys I knew who wouldn't play that game anymore because of it. I thought things had progressed a little since then, obviously we still have a way to go

Shakespeare's Sister

Shakespeare's Sister wrote: »

Totally feels like it's on the rise online, including in unisex spaces where both genders are supposed to be welcome.

'Welcome' is a word I'm not feeling in a lot of online spaces recently, and I'm just too tired of it all to even bother caring anymore. There are places online where my heart just sinks when I look at page after page of thinly veiled excuses to stick the knife in all women under the guise of concern for men.

There's so much hostility around that female contributors are almost certainly going to decline, nobody wants to go where they're thought so little of, if not treated with outright hostility and suspicion and on occasion, naked hatred.

Rosy Posy

Candie wrote: »

'Welcome' is a word I'm not feeling in a lot of online spaces recently, and I'm just too tired of it all to even bother caring anymore. There are places online where my heart just sinks when I look at page after page of thinly veiled excuses to stick the knife in all women under the guise of concern for men.

There's so much hostility around that female contributors are almost certainly going to decline, nobody wants to go where they're thought so little of, if not treated with outright hostility and suspicion and on occasion, naked hatred.

I feel the same. I see so many things online that I just sigh and pass by where as before I would have jumped in. I'm just too used to being shouted down and that's scary.

A really good read that is still relevant today is Susan Faludi's Backlash: the undeclared war against women. It covers a really broad range of topics but many of the points she makes can be applied to the internet. It's so dangerous to sit back and think that equality has been won and to classify feminists as shrieking shrews. I think that a lot of men are seriously threatened by the changing status quo and fear that they won't measure up on an equal playing field.

NI24

Rosy Posy wrote: »

I think that a lot of men are seriously threatened by the changing status quo and fear that they won't measure up on an equal playing field.

Oooooooh, this, this, and this x10. Some men will write off all women just because they don't have the upperhand in all facets of life (as men did in years gone by), but, usually, I have found this group of men to be specific to the internet. Or is it that men would never say these things aloud for fear of retribution? Guess we'll never know.

KomradeBishop

On GamerGate: Was reading up on that yesterday, and the whole thing kicked off over nothing as well, as the accusation that started it - Zoe Quinn sleeping with someone at Kotaku, for a favourable review - the person she slept with never wrote anything about her game, he wrote about a failed reality tv show she as in:
http://kotaku.com/in-recent-days-ive-been-asked-several-times-about-a-pos-1624707346

That Backlash book is interesting - I'm really suspicious as to what the motives would be behind these large backlashes against feminism/women in general, and why extremists are getting promoted on both sides, especially in the media.
'Cui bono' - who benefits? I'm sure many of the people involved are just bitter/deluded misogynists, but I find it hard to believe it's as simple as that, especially because there are some organizations with shady funding, promoting the manufacturing of dubious views/statistics to support each side, who definitely would not have misogyny as a motive - makes me cynical, doesn't smell right.

constance tench

Rosy Posy wrote: »

I feel the same. I see so many things online that I just sigh and pass by where as before I would have jumped in. I'm just too used to being shouted down and that's scary.

A really good read that is still relevant today is Susan Faludi's Backlash: the undeclared war against women. It covers a really broad range of topics but many of the points she makes can be applied to the internet. It's so dangerous to sit back and think that equality has been won and to classify feminists as shrieking shrews. I think that a lot of men are seriously threatened by the changing status quo and fear that they won't measure up on an equal playing field.

Are you sure that's the title of the book?

Delirium

constance tench wrote: »

Are you sure that's the title of the book?

According to her website the title is, Backlash: the undeclared war against American women

ancapailldorcha

I wish I'd not googled "Gamergate". Any serious gamer knows that games media is nowhere near trustworthy, even by journalistic "standards".

Rosy Posy

constance tench wrote: »

Are you sure that's the title of the book?

SW wrote: »

According to her website the title is, Backlash: the undeclared war against American women

This is the copy I have (my mam's!).

ancapailldorcha

Candie wrote: »

'Welcome' is a word I'm not feeling in a lot of online spaces recently, and I'm just too tired of it all to even bother caring anymore. There are places online where my heart just sinks when I look at page after page of thinly veiled excuses to stick the knife in all women under the guise of concern for men.

There's so much hostility around that female contributors are almost certainly going to decline, nobody wants to go where they're thought so little of, if not treated with outright hostility and suspicion and on occasion, naked hatred.

I've noticed that a lot of the Men's Rights stuff seems more concerned with attacking feminism that actually helping men which makes little sense to me.

That carry on with Anita Sarkeesian and similar nonsense almost makes me ashamed to be a gamer. What should have been a catalyst for change and diversity ended up as a tirade of misogyny.

IvyTheTerrible

I can't find a link in English to this story, but there was a politician in France who got convicted a couple of years ago for sexual harassment of someone working in his office.

He actually got the law changed (because supposedly the legislation was "too vague"), so now the harassment has to be more serious to result in prosecution, and even worse, his conviction has been overturned. And it's likely that other convictions under the old law will also be overturned as a result.

iwantmydinner

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I've noticed that a lot of the Men's Rights stuff seems more concerned with attacking feminism that actually helping men which makes little sense to me.

+1

Rosy Posy

Rosy Posy wrote: »

I feel the same. I see so many things online that I just sigh and pass by where as before I would have jumped in. I'm just too used to being shouted down and that's scary.

It's certainly the case that threads (in various online locations) about feminism wind up being dominated by posters aggressively asserting that women don't need it at all, and those who say they do are extremists actively involved in founding the First Feminist Reich. No middle ground. Extreme nutjobs are simply referred to as 'The Feminists', and the rape apologist founder of AVFM is lauded as a figurehead for mens rights.

The sad thing about being shouted down (or just refusing to engage and leave yourself open to the kind of evisceration I've seen happen to some posters), is that the die-hards wind up talking around in circles and normalising these attitudes to each other. And you see more and more joining in, even people you may had some regard for. It's insidious.

jaja321

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I've noticed that a lot of the Men's Rights stuff seems more concerned with attacking feminism that actually helping men which makes little sense to me.

Couldn't agree more. The lack of concern over gay men's rights highlights this I think.

ancapailldorcha

Candie wrote: »

It's certainly the case that threads (in various online locations) about feminism wind up being dominated by posters aggressively asserting that women don't need it at all, and those who say they do are extremists actively involved in founding the First Feminist Reich. No middle ground. Extreme nutjobs are simply referred to as 'The Feminists', and the rape apologist founder of AVFM is lauded as a figurehead for mens rights..

I think that this is a key flaw of approaching these problems from only one angle. Say we talk about fathers' rights. This creates the implication that women have it rosy when it comes to childcare. I'm not expert but I think I can safely assert that they don't. Same principle with the objectification of women in advertising and so on. Men are as well though to nowhere near the same degree. I peruse this and other TLL threads from time to time to try and build a more comprehensive understanding of gender issues from both sides of the fence.

KomradeBishop

Candie wrote: »

It's certainly the case that threads (in various online locations) about feminism wind up being dominated by posters aggressively asserting that women don't need it at all, and those who say they do are extremists actively involved in founding the First Feminist Reich. No middle ground. Extreme nutjobs are simply referred to as 'The Feminists', and the rape apologist founder of AVFM is lauded as a figurehead for mens rights.

The sad thing about being shouted down (or just refusing to engage and leave yourself open to the kind of evisceration I've seen happen to some posters), is that the die-hards wind up talking around in circles and normalising these attitudes to each other. And you see more and more joining in, even people you may had some regard for. It's insidious.

One criticism I'm finding it hard to counter though, is the one suggesting that feminists don't speak out against the extremists - I've been trying to find a good example to counter that generalization (since, with generalizations, you only need one exception, no matter how small, to disprove it), but it's actually hard to find such a good example.

I know it's easy to say that feminists shouldn't be required to do that, but there still need to be good examples of it happening, because it's a credible narrative for pouring doubt on feminism.

KomradeBishop

KomradeBishop wrote: »

One criticism I'm finding it hard to counter though, is the one suggesting that feminists don't speak out against the extremists - I've been trying to find a good example to counter that generalization (since, with generalizations, you only need one exception, no matter how small, to disprove it), but it's actually hard to find such a good example.

I know it's easy to say that feminists shouldn't be required to do that, but there still need to be good examples of it happening, because it's a credible narrative for pouring doubt on feminism.

Yet if I asked why MRAs don't speak against AVFM's rape apologist and misogynistic stances, they would ask me why they should defend themselves against someone elses attitudes, since they're not responsible for other people's hate speech and rape apologists have nothing to do with them.

I don't need to counter anything that I'm not a part of either, and I won't be made feel as though I have to form an opinion on attitudes that have nothing to do with me, and provide an audible counter for them. I'm not a mouthpiece for moderate feminists any more than the extremists are a mouthpiece for me.

I'll just continue my life, not hating anyone and getting along with men just fine in the comfortable belief that we're all equal and all want the best for each other for the most part.

ancapailldorcha

Candie wrote: »

Yet if I asked why MRAs don't speak against AVFM's rape apologist and misogynistic stances, they would ask me why they should defend themselves against someone elses attitudes, since they're not responsible for other people's hate speech and rape apologists have nothing to do with them.

I don't need to counter anything that I'm not a part of either, and I won't be made feel as though I have to form an opinion on attitudes that have nothing to do with me, and provide an audible counter for them. I'm not a mouthpiece for moderate feminists any more than the extremists are a mouthpiece for me.

I'll just continue my life, not hating anyone and getting along with men just fine in the comfortable belief that we're all equal and all want the best for each other for the most part.

The thing is that people like Una Mullaly and Jessica Valenti are given voices by popular newspapers. AVFM, on the other hand is a website most people don't know even exists so it's not quite a fair comparison.

Unfortunately, people tend to subconsciously assume that sole individuals represent whole groups. I knew one girl who held quite a few anti-male beliefs as her father had repeatedly and severely injured her mother on several occasions.

KomradeBishop

Candie wrote: »

Yet if I asked why MRAs don't speak against AVFM's rape apologist and misogynistic stances, they would ask me why they should defend themselves against someone elses attitudes, since they're not responsible for other people's hate speech and rape apologists have nothing to do with them.

I don't need to counter anything that I'm not a part of either, and I won't be made feel as though I have to form an opinion on attitudes that have nothing to do with me, and provide an audible counter for them. I'm not a mouthpiece for moderate feminists any more than the extremists are a mouthpiece for me.

I'll just continue my life, not hating anyone and getting along with men just fine in the comfortable belief that we're all equal and all want the best for each other for the most part.

I don't know enough about the mens rights movement, to know if they are self-critical or not really (same with feminist movement) - that would be the same accusation/generalization, but put the other way around.

Even though people aren't obliged to counter something they are not a part of, the problem is, is that it's a useful narrative for pouring doubt on feminism - which makes it hard to ignore.

Carlos Orange

KomradeBishop wrote: »

(since, with generalizations, you only need one exception, no matter how small, to disprove it)

I don't think that is true. Generalisations by their nature don't apply 100%. Saying it is cold in December isn't disproven by one warm day.

constance tench

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I've noticed that a lot of the Men's Rights stuff seems more concerned with attacking feminism that actually helping men which makes little sense to me.

It might have something to do with the denial by some feminists [over the years] that males can be victims of serious domestic assault.

Statistics need to be presented in an unbiased fashion, feminists who intentionally [or unintentionally] skew facts need to be called on it by other feminists without fear of retribution...this, I believe will set the movement back on track and return some of its credibility.

Another problem I see for the movement is that it has become so diluted
that there is not longer a clear definition of what feminism is:

1 Liberal
2 Anarchist
3 Socialist and Marxist
4 Radical
5 Cultural
6 Separatist and lesbian
7 Black and womanist
8 Chicana
9 Asian American
10 Native American
11 Multiracial
12 Postcolonial
13 Third-world
14 Standpoint
15 Libertarian
16 Post-structural
17 Postmodern
18 French
19 Environmental
20 Transfeminism

Could we have North-side/South-side feminism also?

KomradeBishop

psinno wrote: »

I don't think that is true. Generalisations by their nature don't apply 100%. Saying it is cold in December isn't disproven by one warm day.

I guess it depends on the type of generalization - for a sweeping generalization which tries to apply a principle to all of a group, it's true (that would be disproven) - but for a generalization which just tries to apply to the majority, it does not disprove the generalization, but it does remove the credibility of the generalization, and increases the burden of proof needed to back it.

ancapailldorcha

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

The thing is that people like Una Mullaly and Jessica Valenti are given voices by popular newspapers. AVFM, on the other hand is a website most people don't know even exists so it's not quite a fair comparison.

Unfortunately, people tend to subconsciously assume that sole individuals represent whole groups. I knew one girl who held quite a few anti-male beliefs as her father had repeatedly and severely injured her mother on several occasions.

The point is that whoever those people are (I'm not familiar with either), they don't speak for me so I refuse to be obligated to denounce them (and where would I do that that would be sufficiently public to silence those arguments?) any more than any man should feel obliged to conspicuously denounce an extremist woman-hating MRA who doesn't speak for him. I refuse to be made defensive by something alien to me.

If people subconsciously assume one nutjob speaks for an entire broad church and that anyone who isn't published in opposition to that nutjob is a tacit supporter, then they have pretty narrow minds.

With that, this thread is in danger of unintentionally becoming another round-and-round, and it's not what it's for. I'm not going to do here what I refuse to engage in elsewhere and justify myself in opposition to someone elses actions or words.