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Made in de
Decrepit Dakkanaut





HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
 Manchu wrote:
HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
because there's immense pressure to "not find it an issue."
I think the same can be said about any serious consideration of video games so in this instance there is a compound pressure.

That's possible. I've certainly seen non-feminist critiques of video games, even very well thought-out and presented, get attacked furiously. In those cases, I suspect a lot of it comes down to some people having difficulty separating criticism of the things they like from themselves.


This, pretty much. Mostly stuff like violence in video games, I also remember some uproar when people complained about Resident Evil...4? 5? having black zombies. Black zombies in a game that takes place in Africa was considered to be racist...some uproar.

Oh, let's not forget about the ending controversy in the case of ME3. Oh boy. Everyone who said that he liked the endings was shot down.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/03/28 19:55:24


   
Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

 Sigvatr wrote:
You don't get flamed because you're a woman, you get flamed because you're an enemy in a competitive gaming enviroment.
Online gaming is pretty onerous by all accounts. But I don't think it's gender-blind by any stretch of the imagination. Besides, we aren't really talking about online gaming. We're talking about a woman talking about how female charatcers are portrayed in video games. To wit, no one has yet made a beat 'em up of Jean-Maxime Moris, despite his recent comments about the industry and female characters regarding Remember Me -- despite the obvious fact that this is part of the game's publicity (i.e., he has just as much a profit motive as Anita Sarkeesian).

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/03/28 19:57:16


   
Made in us
Secret Force Behind the Rise of the Tau




USA

That was RE5. But that was a small group not necessarily of gamers or inside the industry saying something insanely stupid and gamers pointing out the stupidity. Same thing happened when Fox did that news report on sex in Mass Effect, with an expert witness who hadn't even seen any material relating to the game and who cited sources that had nothing to do with video games or Mass Effect (EDIT: Or even sex).

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/03/28 19:59:00


   
Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
people having difficulty separating criticism of the things they like from themselves.
This is why I think Sarkeesian's initial point in her vid -- that problematic things can be enjoyable -- is so important. It seems to me that many people in her audience missed that, for whatever reason.

   
Made in au
Tough Tyrant Guard







 Sigvatr wrote:
HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
 Manchu wrote:
HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
because there's immense pressure to "not find it an issue."
I think the same can be said about any serious consideration of video games so in this instance there is a compound pressure.

That's possible. I've certainly seen non-feminist critiques of video games, even very well thought-out and presented, get attacked furiously. In those cases, I suspect a lot of it comes down to some people having difficulty separating criticism of the things they like from themselves.


This, pretty much. Mostly stuff like violence in video games, I also remember some uproar when people complained about Resident Evil...4? 5? having black zombies. Black zombies in a game that takes place in Africa was considered to be racist...some uproar.

I don't want to turn the thread into a discussion of black zombies, but having played the game I think you are oversimplifying it. A white dude stomping on the head of a black dude and crushing it like a watermelon is not really a neutral image. There is other imagery in the game as well that, even not being an expert in race relations, attempts to evoke historical racist imagery.
 LordofHats wrote:
But that was a small group...

It was N'gai Croal, a gaming journalist.
 LordofHats wrote:
HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
I'll bring up one reason some women "don't find it an issue": because there's immense pressure to "not find it an issue."


Actually I'd disagree (EDIT: Actually no, I agree, I just want to clarify what I think the pressure is). I'd think most women don't find it an issue because culturally, they are indoctrinated like most us into the ideal of what a woman is. They don't see a problem with it because our culture says there isn't one. Group think at work.

I wouldn't describe that as group think, but a lot of these influences are pretty subtle. I bring up the pressure to not find it an issue because you can see it in most places you see these discussions - like in this thread, for instance.

There are a lot of people who seem very invested in sexism not existing and who are prepared to try to shout down any dissenting voice.
 Manchu wrote:
HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
people having difficulty separating criticism of the things they like from themselves.
This is why I think Sarkeesian's initial point in her vid -- that problematic things can be enjoyable -- is so important. It seems to me that many people in her audience missed that, for whatever reason.

It's really important that people understand it.

It seems to be an enduring problem around sexism, racism, whatever, in our culture. The thing is, everyone is exposed to sexist and racist ideas to some extent and it's difficult to impossible to not be affected by them to a degree. Having those influences doesn't make you a horrible sexist pariah who should be shunned; it just makes you a person in our culture. There's no class separation here - we're all sexist. There's no attempt to judge or mark or condemn anyone. There are attempts to examine people's actions and how they fit into the big picture.

"Context is all-important" seems to be my theme, here, so: it's important to be able to place criticism into the correct context, not as a condemnation, but as examining a thing to see how it fits into our culture and might be problematic there.
   
Made in us
Secret Force Behind the Rise of the Tau




USA

HiveFleetPlastic wrote:

It was N'gai Croal, a gaming journalist.


He started it yes, but the story got propagated by mainstream media. It wasn't even initially picked up on by gamers until it got mentioned on CNN (or maybe it was MSNBC). Newsweek isn't really something people read to catch up on games news.


 LordofHats wrote:

I wouldn't describe that as group think, but a lot of these influences are pretty subtle. I bring up the pressure to not find it an issue because you can see it in most places you see these discussions - like in this thread, for instance.


It's not just about an overt pressure though. I use the term group think because I find pressure to vague a term to describe what is happening. A lot of people don't care because they don't think there is a problem. Take the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The push for equality just collapsed in its wake, because people by and large assumed the war was over. Sure there was still a lot of push but by and large even though we still see a lot of racism, people don't think of it as a problem. Likewise, women were given equality under the law, so people at large assume the war is over and that anyone still fighting the fight is a misandrist (and it isn't helped that the crazy ones get a lot of the press).

When the idea gets brought up that sexism is still a big problem the thought of the group is "nah you're just crazy, no one is that sexist anymore" and everyone else (especially men probably) not being that invested in the first place just nod their heads. They give it no thought. Women I think is more problematic, but I think in much the same way they think the war is over. Many women could get being the fight for political rights, but I think they have a harder time getting invested in the fight for cultural equality cause they still see women in a traditional role in many respects and never question that.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/03/28 20:30:13


   
Made in de
Decrepit Dakkanaut





 Manchu wrote:
Online gaming is pretty onerous by all accounts. But I don't think it's gender-blind by any stretch of the imagination. Besides, we aren't really talking about online gaming. We're talking about a woman talking about how female charatcers are portrayed in video games. To wit, no one has yet made a beat 'em up of Jean-Maxime Moris, despite his recent comments about the industry and female characters regarding Remember Me -- despite the obvious fact that this is part of the game's publicity (i.e., he has just as much a profit motive as Anita Sarkeesian).


I was specifically referring to the video with the interview she gave; the video was on the last page.

   
Made in us
Hangin' with Gork & Mork






And then there was this...

Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
 
   
Made in us
Blood Angel Captain Wracked with Visions








Pssst..... see page 35, near the bottom

 
   
Made in us
Hangin' with Gork & Mork






 Dreadclaw69 wrote:


Pssst..... see page 35, near the bottom


NEVER!

Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
 
   
Made in us
Blood Angel Captain Wracked with Visions






Sorry, its not often I get ahead of the curve

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/03/28 21:09:26


 
   
Made in us
Consigned to the Grim Darkness





USA

 Sigvatr wrote:
You don't get flamed because you're a woman
Scientific research says otherwise. Women are three times more likely to be flamed than men-- simply for having a female voice.

The study has been linked to and mentioned numerous times. "Communication in multiplayer gaming: Examining player responses to gender cues" by Jeffrey H. Kuznekoff and Lindsey M. Rose.

Findings were summarized as such:
Findings indicate that, on average, the female voice received three times as many negative comments as the male voice or no voice.

And the study also included bits like this:
On several occasions the female condition was exposed to derogatory gendered language. For example, in one particular game nearly every utterance made by the female condition was met with a negative response by a particular gamer. When the female condition said ‘hi everybody’, the other gamer responded with ‘shut up you whore’ followed a few seconds later with ‘she is a [racial slur] lover’. When the female condition said, ‘alright team let’s do this’, the other gamer replied, ‘feth you, you stupid slut.’

This is no surprise to female gamers, mind you.

This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2013/03/28 21:59:26


The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
 
   
Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

About that, I've been thinking, was that necessarily a sexist comment from the start?

So -- even Megan Marie says she is aware that the interviewer's question was a reference to Triumph the Insult Comic's Star Wars convention interview bit.

Was Triumph's bit sexist? To put a sharper point on it, was Triumph's bit sexist in a way that is hurtful and offensive to a reasonable person?

If not, then what about this interviewer's comment was different so as to make it hurtfully sexist?

If there is no meaningful difference, then sexism came in later. Megan Marie called the guy out for being unprofessional. By her account, he then called her an oversensitive feminist. That, as far as we know, is when things became explicitly about sexism.

The reason I bring this up is because the interviewer's comment is called, in the article posted by Ahtman, "inexcusable behavior." That strikes me as overblown. What should be said is that the way the cosplayers were dressed or the fact that they were women, things like that don't excuse his "behavior."

("Behavior" in this context is an extremely loaded term, of course.)

Calling the behavior, at least as far as the initial question itself, "inexcusable" is too much. One possibility is that the guy screwed up a Triumph reference joke.

In that same article, one of the cosplayers in question says she has cosplayed in far more revealing outfits in the past without garnering any similar comments.

But here's how it went down this time:
“I’m pretty sure my initial reaction was one of those stunned chuckles, but I think I was too caught off guard to be angry or upset at the moment,” she said. “It wasn’t until later when the shock wore off and analyzing what happened that I realized how messed up the whole thing was. I’ve been victimized before and none of the times have I ever reacted immediately. I don’t know if it’s the way I’m programmed to just smile and accept or if it’s just a fear of making a scene.”
In the moment, she was not upset or angry. Later on, she realized his behavior was "messed up."

She says that she was not angry at the time because of some kind of social programming/pressure, which I believe exists as a matter of gender and beyond. (In American middle-class culture, people are expected to minimize embarrassing situations.) Could there not also be some pressure/programming, perhaps generated by subsequent controversy (there at the scene and later on in interviews like this one), to assign greater significance to what happened than she felt at the time?

I think something like this applies to what happened between Megan Marie and the interviewer. She did not hear the interviewer's question but instead saw an uncomfortable look on the cosplayers' faces. That put her on the attack (she "moved in ... forced smile on [her] face, so to give him the benefit of the doubt"). That is the moment of escalation right there.

Notice that, by her own account, Megan Marie did not say anything about sexism or chauvinism. She merely said the interviewer's comment was unprofessional. The interviewer apparently understood this to mean that she was calling him out for sexism -- his defense was to call her an oversensitive feminist.

There's a lot of pressure/programming here to identify certain interactions as politically charged along the lines of gender. You put even a little energy into this system and the people involved really polarize.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2013/03/28 22:02:04


   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Mesopotamia. The Kingdom Where we Secretly Reign.

Manchu wrote:Are you saying Anita Sarkeesian is an extremist?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Monster Rain wrote:
But with that said, why do you specifically think that some women don't find this an issue?
I suspect it has more to do with case-by-case circumstances than any global issue. But to the extent that there is a global issue, I think it has to do with most people -- even people who enjoy playing video games -- not thinking that video games are very important in a cultural sense.


What about gamers who happen to be female, then? They are culturally affected. What makes the ones who realize the problem (granting for the sake of argument that there is one) different from those who do not?

HiveFleetPlastic wrote:Yes, Beyond Good and Evil was a lovely game.

~

I'll bring up one reason some women "don't find it an issue": because there's immense pressure to "not find it an issue."


See, to me, this is a deliciously ironic generalization about the timidity of women.

Drink deeply and lustily from the foamy draught of evil.
W: 1.756 Quadrillion L: 0 D: 2
Haters gon' hate. 
   
Made in us
Consigned to the Grim Darkness





USA

I don't disagree. Even at the very mention of feminist topics, many people hunker down and get defensive-- no matter how moderate or friendly the person bringing it up tries to be. Sometimes, one doesn't have to bring it up at all, but just be PRESENT.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/03/28 22:03:45


The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
 
   
Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

 Monster Rain wrote:
What makes the ones who realize the problem (granting for the sake of argument that there is one) different from those who do not?
I don't think there is any global cause or at least none that I know about.
 Monster Rain wrote:
HiveFleetPlastic wrote:there's immense pressure to "not find it an issue."
See, to me, this is a deliciously ironic generalization about the timidity of women.
That's pretty blatant mischaracterization. The pressure at issue exerts upon men and women.
 Melissia wrote:
Sometimes, one doesn't have to bring it up at all, but just be PRESENT.
That's exactly what (I think) happened initially at Pax East.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2013/03/28 22:12:22


   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Mesopotamia. The Kingdom Where we Secretly Reign.

 Manchu wrote:
 Monster Rain wrote:
What makes the ones who realize the problem (granting for the sake of argument that there is one) different from those who do not?
I don't think there is any global cause or at least none that I know about.


Okay, let's take a different angle, then. Two women, both gamers, have been presented with the same set of facts (the subject of this thread). One sees it as a bellwether of institutionalized misogyny, and one doesn't consider it a big deal because these are fictional, cartoonish entertainment outlets with no greater implication since she doesn't consider Peach or Zelda to be a proxy for all womankind. Who is right?

 Manchu wrote:
 Monster Rain wrote:
HiveFleetPlastic wrote:there's immense pressure to "not find it an issue."
See, to me, this is a deliciously ironic generalization about the timidity of women.
That's pretty blatant mischaracterization. The pressure at issue exerts upon men and women.




From whom does the pressure originate, then? If we're all the victims of it?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/03/28 22:17:22


Drink deeply and lustily from the foamy draught of evil.
W: 1.756 Quadrillion L: 0 D: 2
Haters gon' hate. 
   
Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

I wish you would just make your arguments rather than asking questions that assume points you need to (attempt to) prove.

The question of origin is not really important. The fact is that it exists. Why do you think it matters what the origin is?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/03/28 22:12:04


   
Made in au
Tough Tyrant Guard







 Monster Rain wrote:

HiveFleetPlastic wrote:I'll bring up one reason some women "don't find it an issue": because there's immense pressure to "not find it an issue."

See, to me, this is a deliciously ironic generalization about the timidity of women.

Were you intending to call me "timid" there? That line was based on personal experience. I limit how much I engage in these discussions because they are emotionally draining to participate in. The one in this thread, despite some pretty dubious posts, is extremely level-headed and respectful compared to many. I know I'm not alone in this because it is a very commonly-expressed sentiment.

Surprisingly enough, being relentlessly attacked by what's easy to perceive as a never-ending horde of anonymous people is stressful, and that's what commonly happens in discussions of these issues. Not an attempt at reasoned discussion or discourse, but relentless attack in an effort to silence the one speaking up, and suggesting that it doesn't affect anyone or give us a reluctance to speak up is disingenuous in the extreme.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Mesopotamia. The Kingdom Where we Secretly Reign.

 Manchu wrote:
I wish you would just make your arguments rather than asking questions that assume points you need to (attempt to) prove.


I ask questions to ensure that I am making correct interpretations of what you are saying. Also, I'm detecting strong double standards, leaps of logic, and cognitive dissonance in this thread and I consider you to be reasonable, so you are more or less my barometer on the topic. Of course, now that I've told you that it won't work anymore.


 Manchu wrote:
The question of origin is not really important. The fact is that it exists. Why do you think it matters what the origin is?


Because, simply, if we know the origin we can understand and potentially change the issue. Or at least know where the essence of the problem lies.

HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
 Monster Rain wrote:

HiveFleetPlastic wrote:I'll bring up one reason some women "don't find it an issue": because there's immense pressure to "not find it an issue."

See, to me, this is a deliciously ironic generalization about the timidity of women.

Were you intending to call me "timid" there?


Not at all, fellow Dakkanaut.

It seemed to me that you were implying that the reason there isn't potentially more outrage on this issue is due to women caving to social pressure, which to me equates to timidity on their part.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2013/03/28 22:26:27


Drink deeply and lustily from the foamy draught of evil.
W: 1.756 Quadrillion L: 0 D: 2
Haters gon' hate. 
   
Made in au
Tough Tyrant Guard







It seemed to me that you were implying that the reason there isn't potentially more outrage on this issue is due to women caving to social pressure, which to me equates to timidity on their part.

If that's your take on the issue then I'd suggest you are so far removed from the realities of the situation that you would be better off reading more about it rather than commenting. People not speaking up when presented with an issue of sexism or harassment because they know how these things go down (it's not usually in a happy way for the person making the complaint) is commonplace. It's nothing to do with timidity.
   
Made in us
Consigned to the Grim Darkness





USA

HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
It seemed to me that you were implying that the reason there isn't potentially more outrage on this issue is due to women caving to social pressure, which to me equates to timidity on their part.

If that's your take on the issue then I'd suggest you are so far removed from the realities of the situation that you would be better off reading more about it rather than commenting. People not speaking up when presented with an issue of sexism or harassment because they know how these things go down (it's not usually in a happy way for the person making the complaint) is commonplace. It's nothing to do with timidity.


Correct.

See here:

Spoiler:
 Melissia wrote:
I've censored it the best I can, but here it is.

On Blogging, Threats, and Silence

Content note: This post includes excerpts of threats and abusive language.

I got my first rape threat as a blogger when I was on Blogspot, so new that I still had the default theme up and hadn’t even added anything to the sidebar. I can’t even remember the pseudonym I was using then, and I probably had about 10 hits on a good day, seven of which were me compulsively loading the page just to make sure it still existed, and the other two of which were probably my friends. I wrote a post about some local political issue or another, expressing my misgivings, and a reader kindly took time out of his day to email me.

‘You stupid [C-Bomb],’ he said, ‘all you need is a good [Expletive]ing and then you’d be less uptight.’

I stared at it for a couple of minutes, too shocked to move. There it was on my screen, not going away. Someone really had thought it was appropriate not just to write this email to a complete stranger, a totally unknown person, but to send it. I deleted it, and spent another few minutes staring at the blank hole in my inbox where it had been before shaking it off and moving on.

It was harder with the next one, and the next, and the next, but by the time I’d clocked around 20 threats, and was up to around 30 readers, I’d learned the art of triage. The quick skim to find out if there was any actually personal threatening information, like identifying details, or if it was just your garden variety threat with no teeth behind it. I kept them all in a little file in case I needed them later, and forwarded the worst to the police department, not in the belief they would actually do anything, but in the hopes that information would be there, somewhere, in case it was needed someday.

‘I hope you get raped to death with a gorsebush,’ one email memorably began. I gave the letter writer some style points for creativity, but quickly deducted them when I noted he’d sent it from his work email, at a progressive organisation. I helpfully forwarded it to his supervisor, since I thought she might be interested to know what he was doing on company time. ‘Thanks,’ she wrote back, and I didn’t hear anything more about it. Several months later I attended a gala event the organisation was participating in and watched him sitting there on stage, confident and smug.

I thanked my stars that he had no idea who I was, that he didn’t know that the ‘stupid, fat bitch’ he’d emailed was sitting there in the audience, calmly staring back at him. Later, I wondered why I didn’t just turn around and walk out the minute I saw him. I certainly stopped donating and supporting, and I happily told people why.

He’s still there, and people tell me I’m not the only one who has received alarmingly graphic communiques from him for speaking my mind. His was the first of many emails so meticulously detailed that it felt like the uncomfortable realisation of a fantasy, and it only got worse when I changed platforms, to TypePad and then WordPress, accumulating more and more readers along the way, being more and more outspoken, being more and more open about who I was, finally writing under my own name, a calculated decision that exposes me to considerable risk, every day, a decision I cannot come back from. It is not a decision I regret, but it did bring home a new risk for me, that I had made it a lot easier for those electronic threats to become a reality.

I was careful in all the ways they tell you to be, to make it difficult to find my house, for example, and most of the rape threats, and the death threats, the casual verbal abuse from people who disagreed with my stances on subjects like rape being bad and abortion being a personal matter, weren’t really that threatening in that they didn’t pose a personal danger to me, and I was rarely concerned for my safety. That wasn’t the point, though, which is what I told a friend when she got her first rape threat and called me, sobbing. I wished she’d been spared that particular blogging rite of passage, but unfortunately she hadn’t been.

‘They want you to shut up,’ I explained. ‘That’s the point of a rape threat. They want to silence you. They want you to shrink down very small inside a box where you think they can’t find you.’

And it works. I see it happening all the time; blogs go dark, or disappear entirely, or stop covering certain subjects. People hop pseudonyms and addresses, trusting that regular readers can find and follow them, trying to stay one step ahead. Very few people openly discuss it because they feel like it’s feeding the trolls, giving them the attention they want. Some prominent bloggers and members of the tech community have been bold enough; Kathy Sierra, for example, spoke out about the threats that made her afraid to leave her own home. She’s not the only blogger who’s been presented not just with vicious, hateful verbal abuse, but very real evidence that people want to physically hurt her, a double-edged silencing tactic, a sustained campaign of terrorism that is, often, highly effective.

It took a few years to reach this point, but I finally have, the point where I do have concerns about my physical safety, and have had to reevaluate certain aspects of my life and work. I’ve gotten those emails that send a long chill down my spine and create a surging feeling of rage, mixed with helplessness. People have sent me my social security number, information about my family members, identifying details that make it very clear they know exactly how to find me. They have politely provided details of exactly what they’d like to do to me and my family, they send me creepy things in the mail.

‘I’m glad your stupid cat died,’ someone wrote me last October. ‘You’re next, [female dog],’ and followed up with my street address.

‘I’m in the process of moving,’ I told the officer who responded, ‘but it concerns me and I wanted you to know.’

I spent the remaining week almost entirely at the new house, working on the house during the day and slinking home late at night, leaving the lights off to make it look like I wasn’t home, leaving my distinctive and highly identifiable car parked at a distant location. My neighbours left their porch light on for me, illuminating the backyard in a wash of harsh, white light. I’d spent years seething about how it kept me up at night, but those nights, I was grateful for it, reading my book under the covers in the dim glow of a flashlight.

‘You must be worried about fans finding you,’ my landlords say, and I want to laugh it off, the idea that I have ‘fans’ who would be dedicated enough to come this far to find me.

‘It’s not the fans I worry about,’ I say, darkly.

It’s a good week, these days, if I only get 15-20 emails from people telling me how much they think I should die, or how much they hope I get raped, or how much they hope my cat dies or I lose my job or fall in a hole or get shot by police or any number of things people seem to think it’s urgently important to tell me in their quest to get me to shut up. We are not talking about disagreements, about calls for intersectionality, about differing approaches, about political variance, about lively debate and discussion that sometimes turns acrimonious and damaging. We are talking about sustained campaigns of hate from people who believe that we are inhuman and should be silenced; the misogynists, the ‘men’s rights activists,’ the anti-reproductive rights movement, the extreme conservatives, the fundamentalists. The haters.

Joss Whedon fans in particular seem to be especially creative, although Glee fans are running a close second; Glee fans tend to be more fond of sending me photoshopped pictures of myself covered in what I think is supposed to be cum, although it looks more like mashed potatoes, or possibly whipped cream. Joss fans prefer to say it in text, intimately, lingering over the details. And of course there’s the usual abuse from people who think that people like me are not human beings, and thus feel it’s entirely reasonable, even necessary, to assault us, the people who write about topics like reproductive justice, domestic violence, intersections between race and class and disability and gender and the social structures that contribute to continued oppression.

I don’t talk about it very often because I don’t really know what to say. I get rape and death threats. I get emails calling me witch, r#tard, all the other epithets you can think of and then some. I get abusive phone calls, and sometimes have to unplug my landline for a few days. So do a lot of other bloggers. It never really stops, unless you stop, which means that every day you need to make a conscious decision. Do I keep doing this? Do I keep going? Or is this the day where I throw in the towel and decide it’s not worth it anymore?

Like a lot of bloggers in the same position, I have tried to balance a desire to not remain silent with the need for increasing caution; not, for example, making information about where I stay when on trips available, making it clear that the only place people will find me is at public events in locations where there’s a security presence, being careful about pictures I post of my house and neighbourhood to make it harder to find, making sure close friends have contact information for me and my neighbours in case of emergencies. Thinking carefully about the kinds of events I want to attend. Things that are second nature to me seem to disturb other people, but I’ve learned the hard way that this is what I need to do to be safe.

But I’m still not going to shut up, and not just because I am bullheaded and don’t take kindly to being told to be silent or die. I don’t shut up for all the people who were forced to shut up, for the ghosts who drift through the Internet, for the people too terrified to leave their homes at all, let alone try to coordinate safety concerns to attend events, for the people who ask friends to open and sort their email because they can’t handle the daily vitriol. I don’t shut up for all the people who have been silenced, who did throw in the towel because they just couldn’t take it anymore. Not because they were weak or not committed to the cause, but because they, and their families, were in danger.

When it became evident that I wasn’t going to shut up, that I wasn’t going to let threats from hateful donkey-caves dictate what I chose to cover and not cover, the campaigns shifted; I still got rape and death threats, but then came the websites dedicated to hate and speculation, the harassing phone calls. Then came the commenters sowing insidious trails at sites that linked me or discussed my work, the emails to friends and colleagues, the attempts to discredit me.

And, of course, the attacks on my readers. One of the reasons I was forced to close comments on my personal site was because people would stalk my readers to their own sites and harass them, and we had similar problems at FWD/Forward, and I see them here at Tiger Beatdown as well. Puzzled and upset readers sometimes forward the email they’re sent after they comment, or talk about something in a post, or attempt to participate in discussions; anti-abortion activists, for example, sending them hate screeds for being open about their abortions in what they thought was a safe space. Hateful people pick on people they assume are small and helpless, simply for voicing their opinions, or being present in a space, or being associated with the target of their hatred.

Then came the hackings, the repeated attempts to silence me in the crudest way possible.

This is something else people don’t talk about, very often; the fact of the matter is that if you run a feminist or social justice site, you will be hacked. Probably on multiple occasions, especially if you start to grow a large audience. Some of these hackings are just your usual cases of vandalism, people testing servers to see if they can do it, not with any specific malice directed at you. Others are more deliberate, more calculated, and they come with taunting and abuse.

Many feminist sites stay on services like Blogspot because of the higher security they may offer; people who host their own sites do so in awareness that if they aren’t very knowledgeable about technology, they need someone who is for when they get hacked, and it’s not if, but when. Readers often don’t notice because it flashes by, or it causes problems with the backend, the site management, not the front end. Sometimes they do, when hackers inject malicious code that changes the appearance of the front page, or attempts to load malware on the computers of visitors, or just takes the site down altogether, sometimes with a message making it clear that it’s personal.

Then your readers start screaming at you because the site isn’t working, and when you wade through your inbox it’s an even split between taunting messages from the hacker and readers demanding to know why the front page looks funny, yelling at you if you were asleep when it happened and didn’t have time to post an update somewhere to let people know what was going on for several hours.

You wake up every day wondering if your server is still up, and how much cleanup you may need to do to keep the site operational. That’s the reality. You wake up wondering what will be in your inbox, your moderation queue, your Twitter stream, and sometimes you lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering if you really want to keep doing this. The reality is that when people recognise you in public spaces and shout your name, you tense; is this person going to harm you? You spend the first five minutes of your interaction fighting the flight instinct, not paying attention to a single word the person is saying. When someone emails to ask to meet you when you’re traveling, your first reaction is not ‘oh, it would be lovely to meet readers, yes, please, let’s hook up at that dark shady bar in a city I don’t know.’

It’s concerted, focused, and deliberate, the effort to silence people, especially women, but not always, as I can attest, and particularly feminists, though again, not always, as I can attest, online. The readers, the consumers, the fans, may not always notice it because people are silent about it. Because this is the strategy that has been adopted, to not feed the trolls, to grin and bear it, to shut up, to put your best foot forward and rise above it. To open your email, take note of the morning’s contents, and then quickly shuttle them to the appropriate files for future reference or forwarding to the authorities. To check on the server, fix what needs fixing, and move on with your day. To skim the comments to see what needs to be deleted, to know that when you write a post like this one, you will have to delete a lot of heinous and ugly comments, because you want to protect your readers from the sheer, naked, hate that people carry for you. To weigh, carefully, the decision to approve a comment not because there’s a problem with the content, but because you worry that the reader may be stalked by someone who will tell her that she should die for having an opinion. And when it happens to people for the first time, they think they are alone, because they don’t realise how widespread and insidious it is.

All of the bloggers at Tiger Beatdown have received threats, not just in email but in comments, on Twitter, and in other media, and the site itself has been subject to hacking attempts as well. It’s grinding and relentless and we’re told collectively, as a community, to stay silent about it, but I’m not sure that’s the right answer, to remain silent in the face of silencing campaigns designed and calculated to drive us from not just the Internet, but public spaces in general. To compress us into small boxes somewhere and leave us there, to underscore that our kind are not wanted here, there, or anywhere.
*GAG GAG GLUCK* You have discovered the only vocables worth hearing from Sady’s [Expletive]-stuffed maw…die tr*nny whore…[slut walk] is a parade for people who suffer from Histrionic Personality Disorder aka Attention Whores…I know where you live, r#tard…why don’t you do the world a favour and jump off a bridge…Feminazi…


A small sampling of the kinds of things that show up in our inboxes, in comment threads, on attack websites, in things sent to our readers.

Rape threats happen. Death threats happen. People threaten friends, families, jobs, household pets. Stalkers go to considerable lengths to collect and exploit information. People who are open about this, who do talk about threats and stalking and danger, and they are out there, are punished for it. They get more abuse, they’re told that they’re making it all up, that it’s all in their heads, that they are exaggerating, entirely new hate sites spring up to speculate about them and talk about their ‘desperate ploys for attention.’ That’s what I have to look forward to for writing this piece, for laying out some of the costs of social participation for you, for openly discussing the thing which dare not speak its name, the brash, open hostility reserved for people who do not shut up.

This is a reality, and it doesn’t go away if we don’t talk about it.

This was written by s.e. smith. Posted on Tuesday, October 11, 2011, at 3:21 pm

The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
 
   
Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

 Monster Rain wrote:
 Manchu wrote:
The question of origin is not really important. The fact is that it exists. Why do you think it matters what the origin is?
Because, simply, if we know the origin we can understand and potentially change the issue. Or at least know where the essence of the problem lies.
As near as I can tell, figuring out the origins of the phenomenon is at most step 2. Step 1 is acknowledging that it exists in the first place. When you make step 1 conditional on accepting step 2, it's impossible to believe you are actually interested in step 2 at all. Getting back to step 2 itself, I think the origin is extremely difficult to trace because the phenomenon is so pervasive. To use an admittedly shaky analogy, we don't need to know why there is a universe to do ecology.
 Monster Rain wrote:
due to women caving to social pressure, which to me equates to timidity on their part.
Using language like "caving in" and "timid" is pretty overwrought and it comes off as dismissive. If someone reasonably believes speaking out will lead to being disproportionately attacked, then not speaking up is not really a matter of "caving" or being "timid." It's a smart short term strategy that has unfortunate long term consequences, such as leading people (seemingly like yourself) to believe that not speaking out is either a justification of the issue that could be spoken out about or an indication that the issue doesn't exist at all.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2013/03/28 22:46:38


   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Mesopotamia. The Kingdom Where we Secretly Reign.

HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
It seemed to me that you were implying that the reason there isn't potentially more outrage on this issue is due to women caving to social pressure, which to me equates to timidity on their part.

If that's your take on the issue then I'd suggest you are so far removed from the realities of the situation that you would be better off reading more about it rather than commenting. People not speaking up when presented with an issue of sexism or harassment because they know how these things go down (it's not usually in a happy way for the person making the complaint) is commonplace. It's nothing to do with timidity.


So, hypothetically ( not really) when a woman says she doesn't think that Videogame tropes are oppressive to women she is doing so out of a response to social pressure?

Everyone thinks it, basically, but are afraid to say so?

Drink deeply and lustily from the foamy draught of evil.
W: 1.756 Quadrillion L: 0 D: 2
Haters gon' hate. 
   
Made in us
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Solahma






RVA

 Monster Rain wrote:
So, hypothetically ( not really) when a woman says she doesn't think that Videogame tropes are oppressive to women she is doing so out of a response to social pressure?
No, the point is that social pressure can contribute because it does exist.

   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka







Ok uh... Yeah... That quoted post from Melissa just scared the daylights out of me.

Dunno what 'tiger beatdown' is though...
   
Made in us
Consigned to the Grim Darkness





USA

 Compel wrote:
Ok uh... Yeah... That quoted post from Melissa just scared the daylights out of me.

Dunno what 'tiger beatdown' is though...
From their editor's (self-effacing) "About Us" page:

Sady Doyle started Tiger Beatdown in September 2008, because she was bored, and also for some reason no-one wanted to publish her various long-winded ramblings on gender. Since then, she has conned various sectors of the Internet into publishing all sorts of various long-winded ramblings on gender, and has also gotten them into newspapers and/or magazines! And then some magazines hired her, specifically the Rookie and the In These Times. Her name is right near Kurt Vonnegut’s, on the In These Times masthead, which means his vengeful ghost has an 89% chance of visiting her if her column is bad. His vengeful ghost would be elderly and charming! And really into Mark Twain! So good luck to her on that!
It's a feminist blogroll, which usually has a good sense of humor as well.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2013/03/28 23:01:48


The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
 
   
Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

 Monster Rain wrote:
One sees it as a bellwether of institutionalized misogyny, and one doesn't consider it a big deal because these are fictional, cartoonish entertainment outlets with no greater implication since she doesn't consider Peach or Zelda to be a proxy for all womankind. Who is right?
As usual, I will have to construct your argument out of the points your question assumes. A woman who does not consider Peach or Zelda to be a proxy for all womankind is being, to my mind, pretty reasonable. But that is not the substance of the feminist critique. Therefore, to the extent that she has not understood the critique, your hypothetical female gamer's hypothetical conclusion is not especially relevant to the subject at hand.

Let's set up a different hypothetical: what if there is a woman who does not believe that female characters have been overwhelmingly portrayed in video games as non-agents/objects. I would say she is objectively incorrect. How about another one: what if a woman said that female characters in video games have indeed been overwhelmingly portrayed as non-agents/objects but this has not limited the role that female characters tend to have in video games. From everything I know about the subject, I'd still say she's wrong.

In short, because this is what I have to assume that you are getting at, I don't believe that being a woman specially enables a woman to be right on these issues.

   
Made in us
Krazed Killa Kan






http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/video/2013/mar/28/bioshock-infinite-irrational-games-elizabeth-video

Bioshock Infinite: Irrational Games on the women that inspired Elizabeth - video

Fang, son of Great Fang, the traitor we seek, The laws of the brethren say this: That only the king sees the crown of the gods, And he, the usurper, must die.
Mother earth is pregnant for the third time, for y'all have knocked her up. I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe, but I was not offended. For I knew I had to rise above it all, or drown in my own gak. 
   
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Consigned to the Grim Darkness





USA

Sadly, Bioshock: Infinite, while a good step in the right direction, is still from my understanding kind of perpetuating the problem. She is the "emotional center" of the game, but not the person whose decisions are important to the game-- that's Mr. Gundude's part to play.

Thus, the male lead does stuff, while the female lead sort if sits there and feels stuff.

Also, before anyone bitches, keep in mind, that despite this criticism I still believe that it will likely be one of the best games released in the past few years and plan on getting it as soon as I overhaul my aging processor (which hopefully will be pretty soon). Seriously, learn to understand that one can enjoy something while still criticizing it.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/03/28 23:29:45


The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
 
   
 
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