Post by grumpyoldgamer on Mar 16, 2013 8:07:10 GMT -5
There was a bit of a controversy some time ago surrounding Anita Sarkeesian and her Kickstarter project. In short, she began a Kickstarter campaign to fund a series of short videos that would examine gender tropes in video games. The result was a sexual harassment campaign against her and her project by misogynist morons. Every possible venues were exploited: attempts were made to hack her Twitter and Google accounts, negative comments were posted on her YouTube and Facebook pages, altered images of her were posted online, etc. An internet game - Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian - was even created, where users could hit her image until the screen turned red.
In response, supporters donated over 150,000$ to her project. The first video - Damsel in Distress (part 1) - was posted on her Blog (Feminist Frequency) just a few days ago.
Cliff Bleszinski - former top dog at Epic Games and one of the guy behind the Gears of War franchise - posted an editorial on Kotaku last week on the subject. It's not so much about Anita Sarkeesian herself as about the (im)maturity of video gamers and of the industry itself. It's a good read. One passage particularly hit home for me. To quote:
"(...) the takeaway that she said to me (...) is that we're not supposed to be this crowd.
We're the gamers, the dorks. We're the ones who were on our computers during prom. We're the ones that were in the back of the lunch room who were playing D&D instead of tossing a football around on the quad. We were supposed to be the open, friendly ones, the ones who welcomed all into our wonderful geeky circle.
We're not supposed to be a mob that's storming the gates with our pitchforks and torches.
We're not the bullies. And that's what happened to Anita."
The whole thing - the kickstarter controversy and Cliff's editorial - really has me thinking and I'm not sure what to make of it. My own wife is definitely one of those "empowered women": strong and confident, a fitness girl who can bench press more than most guys. But while she's a bit of a gamer too, she doesn't do the internet specifically because of this crowd: the friendly and harmless geeks who turn into hardcore haters once they are online.
I don't know how well the Tropes vs Women project will succeed, but I certainly hope it does well. I'm not a fan of hardcore feminism, but there is something to be learned from what we are seeing here: from the desire for things to change, from those willing to be make this change happen and from those rejecting it.
Anyway, just thought I'd share.
In response, supporters donated over 150,000$ to her project. The first video - Damsel in Distress (part 1) - was posted on her Blog (Feminist Frequency) just a few days ago.
Cliff Bleszinski - former top dog at Epic Games and one of the guy behind the Gears of War franchise - posted an editorial on Kotaku last week on the subject. It's not so much about Anita Sarkeesian herself as about the (im)maturity of video gamers and of the industry itself. It's a good read. One passage particularly hit home for me. To quote:
"(...) the takeaway that she said to me (...) is that we're not supposed to be this crowd.
We're the gamers, the dorks. We're the ones who were on our computers during prom. We're the ones that were in the back of the lunch room who were playing D&D instead of tossing a football around on the quad. We were supposed to be the open, friendly ones, the ones who welcomed all into our wonderful geeky circle.
We're not supposed to be a mob that's storming the gates with our pitchforks and torches.
We're not the bullies. And that's what happened to Anita."
The whole thing - the kickstarter controversy and Cliff's editorial - really has me thinking and I'm not sure what to make of it. My own wife is definitely one of those "empowered women": strong and confident, a fitness girl who can bench press more than most guys. But while she's a bit of a gamer too, she doesn't do the internet specifically because of this crowd: the friendly and harmless geeks who turn into hardcore haters once they are online.
I don't know how well the Tropes vs Women project will succeed, but I certainly hope it does well. I'm not a fan of hardcore feminism, but there is something to be learned from what we are seeing here: from the desire for things to change, from those willing to be make this change happen and from those rejecting it.
Anyway, just thought I'd share.